Wild at Heart

Perhaps you're wondering how the work of David Lynch qualifies as the Craptacular... 

After all, Blue Velvet is amongst the finest films made by anyone, ever, classic or modern, American or foreign, indie or studio. No argument there. Eraserhead is a work of divine madness, Mulholland Drive is a haunting piece of cinema that turns on itself like a Mobius strip, Twin Peaks was the precursor of today's dark, narrative-heavy television series. Of course, there is some genuine crap in the output (Lost Highway). But Wild at Heart is Lynch's best attempt at drive-in cheese, whether he (or the jury that gave it the Palme d'Or at Cannes) knows it or not. 

And it has Nicholas Cage. The role of Sailor Ripley helped focus Cage's ass-kicking, snakeskin-wearing, pseudo-Elvis persona... for good or for ill. (Gotta love how he tells everyone that his beloved snakeskin jacket is "a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.") I believe we can also add Wild at Heart to the (very) long list of films Quentin Tarantino has cribbed from.

So, the film opens with flames, guitars and action-movie punching sounds. We go straight to Nicholas Cage beating some guy to death in the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. (It says it's somewhere in the Carolinas, but i've drank at the Biltmore and stayed at the Biltmore and i know it's the goddamn Biltmore.) Since he could have stopped at the beating part and left off the "to death" and it was in front of about 100 people, he goes to prison. This distresses his girlfriend, Lula, played by Laura Dern. But it delights her mother, Marietta Fortune, played by Dern's mother Diane Ladd -- not as much as it would have delighted her if Sailor had been the loser in that battle (as was her intent), but it brings a fuschia-glossed smile to her pancaked face nonetheless.

Wild at Heart then flashes forward 22 months and 18 days when Sailor is released into the waiting arms -- and bitchin convertible -- of Lula. The two fuck and talk, the first of many rounds of fucking and talking in this film. They go to a bar where they flail around to some speed metal until Sailor stops the band to sing the Elvis ballad, "Love Me" to Lula. Then it's back to the hotel for more fucking and talking, during which the two decide to break Sailor's parole and point that convertible west.

However, Lula's mama is still pissed and figures she'll take another crack at getting Sailor whacked, sending her boyfriend Harry Dean Stanton to take care of the killin'. Like a job you send Harry Dean Stanton to do is gonna get done. The man has played many, many roles but damned few of them were fellows you'd describe as "go-getters"...

Let us also point out here that Diane Ladd has a remarkable series of wigs and pseduo-Dynasty prom dresses to aid in her demented overacting. But, of course, it's probably hard to figure out what is "too much" when you're acting in a David Lynch film.

Yeah. So that's basically your setup. Crazy young lovers on a road trip pursued by a series of weird, inexplicable villains. Like all Lynch films, Wild at Heart has plenty of odd supporting character turns. The most incredible is, of course, Crispin Glover as Cousin Dell. His narrative technically adds nothing to the story and is simply another of Lula's post-coital tales but, oh, is it bizarre. Cockroaches in underpants.'Nuff said.

Really, i kind of feel like it was stuck in when they realized Wild at Heart just wasn't weird enough. So, they cut out the torture-snuff scene and added Crispin Hellion Glover. I can tell you which one disturbs me more...

Then we have a phantasmagorcial scene of a roadside nighttime car crash with Sherilyn Fenn as a crash victim. The barrage of bad news, ugly accidents and evil mojo that our idealistic young lovers run up against is a recurring motif in this film.Another recurring motif is The Wizard of Oz, which feels a little forced, especially when we have Diane Ladd in full Wicked Witch of the West drag flying alongside Sailor and Lula's Eldorado. Be subtle, Mr. Lynch: Use the flying monkeys.

More plot-crucial, there's Willem Dafoe -- and some really ghastly prosthetic teeth -- providing another of his unhinged turns as Bobby Peru, a creep whom Sailor and Lula hang out with when they decide to strand themselves in Big Tuna, Texas.

Yep, that's a face you can trust. A face that you would have no problem with taking advice from, a face you would get drunk with, a face you would allow to fondle the mother of your child. The face of a man whose hare-brained, low-return criminal schemes you would certainly want to involve yourself in.

Is Wild at Heart a crucial entry in the David Lynch canon? Not really (although it is essential to understanding the evolution of Nicholas Cage). It's got plot holes you could run a fleet of semis through and still have room for a freight train. It's got way too much hotel-room soliloquy not not enough of the not-quite-our-planet otherworldly weirdness that characterizes Lynch's best work.

 It's oddly by-the-wayside in his filmogrpahy now, given the tumultuous reception it received at release -- though that perhaps had more to do with  Lynch's Twin Peaks-era cultural high-tide than the quality of Wild at Heart itself. But it's an entirely watchable film and perhaps the less-overtly Lynchian quality has something to do with that.

Drive Angry

Ah, Nicholas Cage. Like the moon, chocolate melting for a ganache or an overly dramatic teenage girl, you have many phases. The cute guy in Valley Girl. The promising performer of The Cotton Club. The comedian of Raising Arizona. The leading man of Moonstruck. The edgy hero of Wild at Heart. The gifted actor of Leaving Las Vegas... then came The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous and a seemingly weekly appearance in some of the worst motion pictures in recent history.

But there is a shining light amongst the low moments of this man's career: Drive Angry. Drive Angry is the best piece of Grindhouse schlock in years. Really, if you eliminate Robert Rodriguez's work in the genre (Planet Terror, Machete), no one has made such an inspired piece of crap in some time. Yes, it's better than Hobo With a Shotgun.

Okay, not a lot better, but better.

Cage plays Milton, a dead ex-con. Dead, as in not alive, and not alive as in, in Hell. Hell looks kind of like Gary, Indiana or maybe someplace with a lot of fracking ("The fire isn't the worst part. It's the video feed."), and Nicholas Cage busts out in a Buick Riviera.  We then cut to a small town in Colorado (its own kind of Hell) where three greasy, cussing rednecks in a rusted out pickup truck are being pursued by Nicholas Cage and his Buick Riviera. Just over two minutes in, we've got our first car chase, our first car crash, several shotgun deaths and a big explosion.

Undead Nicholas Cage has returned to a world of V-8 engines, tawdry motor courts and dingy dive bars where absolutely everyone is white trash. He meets a waitress, played by Amber Heard (somewhat reminiscent of gorgeous, tough 70's exploitation goddess Cheri Caffaro, whose Ginger movies i will get to eventually) who has a bitchin' '69 Dodge Charger and who takes no fucking bullshit off of anyone. No-Bullshit Waitress quits her job and joins up with Nicholas Cage on his quest to Drive Angry because... well, just because. Because do we really want more exposition here? Fuck no!

That's the dude who wrote this movie. No, really, it is.

We also meet The Accountant (William Fichtner, in one of those standout B-movie supporting roles that makes you long for a sequel dedicated just to this character), who has come from Hell to fetch Nicholas Cage back -- balancing the books and all that, apparently. He's got a sharp suit, an icy line of patter ("I won't see you until you're 73. You... I'll see in three months."), a mild taste for necessary sadism and a knack for impersonating an FBI agent at just the right time.

Courtesy of a flashback, we also learn that Nicholas Cage's daughter joined a Satanic cult, then quit the Satanic cult, then bit the head Satanist's dick off. The head Satanist looks like a cheap Tom Jones impersonator and talks like Foghorn Leghorn. It is no wonder that, as The Accountant later explains to us, Satan himself ("He's a quiet man -- thoughtful and well-read.") finds these Satanists quite distasteful indeed. I'm not sure what anyone would hook up with these people: They're mean, stupid, unattractive, drive shitty cars and their climactic Satan-summoning orgy looks more like a small-time Woodstock held in a junkyard -- lousy music, ugly naked people, domestic beer, no toilets....

Waitresses continue to hit on Nicholas Cage. (However, things between Nicholas Cage and No-Bullshit Waitress remain platonic, if not downright paternal.) This despite the fact that he looks like old unwashed David Carradine at the end of a five-day bender and fucks not only with all his clothes on, but his sunglasses as well. However, when a half-dozen armed thugs bust into the sleazy motel room, he can kill them all without pulling his prong out of the waitress du soir or dropping his bottle of Jack Daniels. It all happens in slow motion while the Raveonettes play!

I like Drive Angry because, as Toki says about the coked-up clown, it makes me laughs. Fucked-up shit happens that makes one chuckle, be it casual impalement on a broken baseball bat, a thug accidentally putting his machete through his own head or exploding cars number fourteen through twenty-two. Go, go Grindhouse!

The Satanists lure Nicholas Cage with a fake church service and then take off in their... Winnebago. Yes, the Satanists drive a Winnebago! Yes, there's a Charger/Winnebago car chase. Some more ass-kicking and shotgunning. Topless chicks with 45's. A sweet red Chevelle with racing stripes. And a melting skull and what i think is a black hole. And dialogue like:
"I am going to kill you. And then I am going to defile your corpse."
"But between now and then, I'm gonna fuck you up."

Can Nicholas Cage make it through the police roadblock? Roadblocks? Can Nicholas Cage pry a bullet out of his own eye socket? Will Nicholas Cage rescue his grandbaby from the Satanists? Will Nicholas Cage defeat Tom Jones Foghorn Leghorn Satanist and, as he so ardently hopes, "drink a beer out of his skull?"

Drive Angry is nothing is not a good fucking time at the movies. And, really, isn't that enough? My old sensei Bob Christgau used to point out that just having fun is one of the most sublime human experiences. Or something like that... But what do we have to look forward to next from Mr. Cage? Another ex-con out for vengeance flick. Not one but two movies where he needs to find his kidnapped daughter. A movie where he tracks a serial killer with the help of the girl from High School Musical. The voice of a prehistoric crocodile in a Dreamworks animation. A musical with Jack Black and Steve Carrell. At this rate, Drive Angry is gonna be the best work he does this decade.