Cage Heat: Nicolas Cage at Midnight

Friday, April 23 - Saturday, July 10, 2010

A late-night tribute to a national treasure and one of the most versatile and eclectic actors of his generation, we’re proud to offer this survey of the career of the always unpredictable and never boring Academy Award-winning Nicolas Cage, featuring some of the most adventurous work from contemporary cinema’s finest filmmakers.

“I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther. I want to be Bob Denver on acid playing the accordion.” – Nicolas Cage

“IFC Center’s midnight-movie hot streak continues… From the theater that brought you midnight-movie tributes to Paul Verhoeven and the too-brief Cameron-Bigelow union comes another tribute to a contemporary multiplex icon whom smartypants cinephiles love with an irony that transcends irony (I think)… fasten your seatbelts for “Cage Heat”… Rockin’ good news.” – The L Magazine

“Gifted and prodigal like his hero, Elvis, Cage blows through prestige as fast as paychecks… Cage is Artist and Hack, and he still gives more pleasure from one of his startling horselaughs or kabuki outbursts than most actors do at their most resourceful. Cage doesn’t chastely wait around for distinguished parts. If his filmography is ungainly, his pace has left no time for the dry rot of self-importance and spurious dignity to set in. He remains that most critically distrusted of adjectives: fun… it’s [his] willingness to tempt absurdity that lets him sometimes be sublime. From an old interview: ‘The worst thing is to be boring or mediocre…  At least you can talk about it if it’s bad.’ (Another choice one: ‘If I do fight, I fight to kill. My motto had always been: maximum violence immediately.’)…

“Despite the cultivated Coppola heritage — Uncle Francis directed, recently deceased father August taught, mother choreographed — Cage is allergic to putting on airs. Embracing ‘mainstream’ movies (that is, movies that the plebes have some interest in going to see), he has never mouthed the ‘one for them, one for me’ excuse. He actually seems to like this stuff. Biography Hollywood’s Wild Talent reveals that Mom, during spats, would claim Nic was the illegitimate son of Robert Mitchum — not true, but apt, given his slumming, the poetic eyes, and the rockabilly purr that is his most (only?) convincing accent.” – Village Voice

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