08/02/2021
Film critic Phipps debuts with an entertaining odyssey through actor Nicolas Cage’s rise to fame and his restless quest to create himself. Born Nicolas Coppola in 1964, Cage used television to escape life with a mother who was in and out of mental institutions. This led to an acting career that began in high school, and, later, the chance to flex his “dramatic chops” in the 1981 TV pilot The Best of Times. Eager to gain his own notoriety (outside that of his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola), he began going by “Nic Cage” in 1985. In exploring Cage’s films from the 1980s to the 2010s, Phipps offers an entrancing look at the actor’s transformation, starting with Cage’s first hit, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), which showcased the polarizing style of Method acting that became his trademark. Driven by “a need to reinvent himself,” he oscillated from playing characters who “glow with virtue” (in films such as 1992’s Honeymoon in Vegas), to playing bad guys (as in 1997’s Face/Off), and flirted with hokier roles (notably in the National Treasure franchise). Even in underlining Cage’s chameleonlike genius, Phipps doesn’t gloss over the actor’s missteps, including starring in 2011’s Trespass, a box-office flop that marked the beginning of “some of his least creative performances.” Cage’s legions of devotees are in for a wild ride. (Oct.)
02/01/2022
Nicolas Cage has fascinated audiences since his breakthrough debut in the 1983 film Valley Girl; here, pop culture critic Phipps looks to give new context to Cage's filmography in an industry that has alternately embraced and ridiculed his work. Emerging from the shadow of his famous Coppola lineage, Cage won an Academy Award in 1996 for his role in Leaving Las Vegas and continued to chart his own path to cult film infamy with movies like Con Air, Face/Off, and National Treasure. Phipps also uses Cage's career as a lens through which to view the film industry—for instance, in the mid-'90s, as indie films were surging in the wake of Pulp Fiction, Cage chose to star in the relatively low-budget Leaving Las Vegas. In recent years, Cage's bizarre personality and the gossip about his personal life have often eclipsed his acting choices, but Phipps provides a convincing assessment of his career. The narrative meanders at times, yet the book proves to be a surprisingly intriguing read, written in an accessible, magazine-like style. VERDICT Fans and detractors alike will find films to revisit and new things to ponder about Cage's protean career.—Claire Sewell
2021-10-30
Following the actor through the ups and downs in recent movie history.
In his first book, film journalist Phipps notes that many moviegoers have a love-hate relationship with the “intense, sincere, a little unreadable” actor Nicolas Kim Coppola (b. 1964). After a brief bio—the actor shed his uncle Francis Ford Coppola’s name early on—the author juxtaposes insightful analyses of Cage’s films with helpful film history about a fickle industry searching for the next fad or copying the latest hit. Teen-pleasing films were hot when Cage secured a small role in Valley Girl, then a better one in his uncle’s Rumble Fish. Committed to fashioning a mythology around himself, Cage’s fierce, expressionistic performance in Birdyarrived as filmmakers were in the process of defining film for the 1980s. Cage’s “memorably vulnerable creation” in Peggy Sue Got Marriedwas his first “undeniable hit.” Mainstream movie comedies were in transition when Cage merged the absurd and heartfelt in Raising Arizona(he almost didn’t get the part). Moonstruck, thanks to co-star Cher’s support, was his first real mainstream film. That film, writes Phipps, “conferred on Cage the status of a sex symbol, and he didn’t know what to do with it.” Riding the wave of strange, independent films released in the 1990s, he created solid performances in Wild at Heartand the dark Leaving Las Vegas, which won Cage a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Then came the ubiquitous action films, including The Rockand Face/Off. Now an accomplished movie star, he demonstrated new confidence in The Thin Red Lineand Adaptation. Among Cage’s recent misses lurk some genuine hits: the underrated Matchstick Menand Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, as well as the inventive, animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, for which Cage provided his voice. “Simply by persevering,” Phipps writes, “he’s seen it all, and his movies capture the face of a changing industry.”
Cage fans will relish this refreshing, extensive assessment of the mercurial, prolific actor.
No matter which flavor of Cage is your favorite — the action star, the gonzo experimenter, the soulful romantic — Age of Cage has something to offer.”
—Gawker
“Film critic Phipps draws a portrait of enigmatic and surprising actor Nicolas Cage with this deep dive into his rich filmography spanning four decades.”
—USA Today
“Using the actor’s winding career as a touchpoint to explore Hollywood’s shifting landscape and written with a passion to match its subject, [Age of Cage] is sure to delight longtime fans and rubberneckers alike.”
—Chicago Review of Books
“Hollywood's most-loved eccentric is celebrated in pop culture journalist Keith Phipps's lively career retrospective. Grab some KFC and champagne and curl up on the couch for a deep dive into some classic Cage Rage.”
—Yahoo! Entertainment
“Age of Cage is taking its subject seriously…something even [Cage’s] movies can’t always claim. Where Cage is a bottomless font of style, Age of Cage responds in kind with clever restraint. A must-read for fellow fans of the gothic, expressionistic, Nouveau Shamanic, leather-and-jewelry, poetry-and-philosophy oddball that is our beloved Cage.”
—Paste Magazine
“There’s something stalwart, commendable, even comforting about Cage’s presence, something that reaches past entertainment toward tangled questions of talent and excess… In Age of Cage, [Phipps] eschews biography for filmography, setting the actor against the vicissitudes of an uncaring Hollywood to reveal much about both.”
—Harper’s
“Keith Phipps traces the eclectic filmography of the one and only Nicolas Kim Coppola, a.k.a. Nicolas Cage. Age of Cage pairs a history of the film industry at large with analyses of Cage’s most well-known films, highlighting the actor’s many phases.”
—A.V. Club
“In the wildly entertaining Age of Cage, Keith Phipps paints an addictive, anecdote-rich portrait of Hollywood's most eccentric and singular leading man—an actor for whom the only predictable thing is his unpredictability. Through the cracked prism of Nicolas Cage, the author shows us not only what makes Tinseltown's last big-screen iconoclast tick, but also the ways that the movie business has changed (for better and worse) over Cage's unique four-decade career. From Valley Girl to Raising Arizona, Wild at Heart to National Treasure, Phipps proves there’s a Method behind his subject’s infamous madness.”
—Chris Nashawaty, author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story
“If Nicolas Cage didn’t go over the top, how would we know where the top was? Age of Cage is the entertaining story of the actor's journey to the summit—and beyond.”
—Gavin Edwards, New York Times bestselling author of The Tao of Bill Murray
“Age of Cage is a sharply perceptive and definitive examination of Nicolas Cage, the greatest living actor among those who can seem like the worst. Keith Phipps is not only alert to the contradictions of this fascinating movie star. He makes sense of them. In illuminating his oddball career and singularly eccentric artistic style, he evokes a fertile cultural era. An entertaining, essential cultural history.”
—Jason Zinoman, New York Times bestselling author of Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night and Shock Value
“Age of Cage might be the closest we will get to understanding the singular beauty of each of Nic Cage’s always electric performances. Phipps pieces together how those performances were approached and created from an actor who is normally tight lipped. You are holding the Rosetta Stone for Cage. Enjoy it.”
—Paul Scheer, actor, writer and host of the How Did This Get Made? and Unspooled podcasts
“[Age of Cage] juxtaposes insightful analyses of Cage’s films with helpful film history about a fickle industry searching for the next fad or copying the latest hit...fans will relish this refreshing, extensive assessment of the mercurial, prolific actor.”
—Kirkus
“An entrancing look at the actor’s transformation. Even in underlining Cage’s chameleon-like genius, Phipps doesn’t gloss over the actor’s missteps...Cage’s legions of devotees are in for a wild ride.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Age of Cage is a perfect synergy of author and actor. Age of Cage doesn’t just chronicle the career of the Oscar-winning star but uses his trajectory as a mirror for the entire film world. No one has been as chameleonic as Cage…he’s done it all. And Keith Phipps has covered most of it. Age of Cage captures his deep knowledge of film history and sharp wit in every page.”
—RogerEbert.com
“[Age of Cage] proves to be a surprisingly intriguing read, written in an accessible, magazine-like style. Fans and detractors alike will find films to revisit and new things to ponder about Cage’s protean career.”
—Library Journal
“[Age of Cage is] a terrifically entertaining book, and a really insightful one; you won’t look at a bug-eyed Nic Cage freakout the same way ever again.”
— ScreenCrush
Sellon-Wright has a warm yet authoritative voice as he performs this examination of the Coppola clan, of which Cage is a member, though he shed his famous surname relatively early on.
Keith Sellon-Wright skillfully narrates Phipps’s fawning pastiche of previously accessible material on the unique and eccentric showman who is Nicholas Cage. Sellon-Wright has a warm yet authoritative voice as he performs this examination of the Coppola clan, of which Cage is a member, though he shed his famous surname relatively early on. Detailed on-screen and off-screen antics surrounding his films occupy the principal part of the audiobook. Attributions of newspaper, magazine, and other media-sourced quotations are provided throughout. Sellon-Wright’s narration provides Cage’s fans and detractors ample encouragement to view and re-view Cage’s film collaborations. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Keith Sellon-Wright skillfully narrates Phipps’s fawning pastiche of previously accessible material on the unique and eccentric showman who is Nicholas Cage. Sellon-Wright has a warm yet authoritative voice as he performs this examination of the Coppola clan, of which Cage is a member, though he shed his famous surname relatively early on. Detailed on-screen and off-screen antics surrounding his films occupy the principal part of the audiobook. Attributions of newspaper, magazine, and other media-sourced quotations are provided throughout. Sellon-Wright’s narration provides Cage’s fans and detractors ample encouragement to view and re-view Cage’s film collaborations. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
