Nicolas Uncaged

Heaped with praise and panegyrics as one of the finest screen actors of his generation, pilloried and parodied as an anything-for-a-paycheck hambone with a weakness for weird wigs and prostheses, Nicolas Cage is a one-man sideshow, a mixture of Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Lon Chaney, and a stick of TNT who takes back “serious thespian” prestige whenever he wants to, dives into grindhouse material and Academy Award hopefuls with the same mad enthusiasm, and never seems to be having anything less than a total blast in front of the camera. From blockbusters to broody neo-noirs, from dining on cockroaches to hunting for foraging pigs, a tribute to the inimitable and impossible to pin down Nic, a prodigious and untamed talent whose kabuki mannerisms, off-the-wall accent work, and go-for-broke brio have been delighting discerning moviegoers for almost 40 years.