The thing that makes Nic Cage awesome is the same thing that makes 85 percent of his movies terrible: he’s crazy. He was making $40 million a year and managed to blow it all buying snake venom and dinosaur skulls. He he named his child after Superman, and he says he took a part in Drive Angry because he’d always wanted to have his eye shot out with a gun. That was the reason. Perhaps no quote more perfectly sums up the genius and the major character flaw (which are one and the same) at the heart of Nic Cage’s personality like this quote from a recent interview in Empire magazine, presented here without comment:

philblakeman says: Is there any character you’d like to revisit? Do you ever wonder what happened next to Stanley Goodspeed or Cameron Poe?
I would like to hook up with one of the great Japanese filmmakers, like the master that made Ringu, and I would like to take The Wicker Man to Japan, except this time he’s a ghost.

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This is just glorious. Thanks, Pauly. [via]

MORNING LINKS
10 Television Series that Outstayed their Welcome |Warming Glow|

Kate Upton Did Something Fun With Kids |With Leather|

Hustle Blood: Big Boi’s 20 Best Guest Appearances |Smoking Section|

Stephen Colbert May Join The Race For The Republican Presidential Nomination |UPROXX|

SHUT. DOWN. EVERYTHING. Abobo’s Big Adventure Has Officially Begun |Gamma Squad|

DROP EVERYTHING! The new Bill Murray/Wes Anderson has a trailer. |Film Drunk|

Joe King pitches movies for Down Syndrome actors, and we create Manswers segments. |Frotcast|

The 10 Boldest Comedians Of Our Time |Buzzfeed|

12 lesser-known presidential candidates. |MentalFloss|

Epic Surf Video: Biggest Teahupoo Ever, Shot On the Phantom Camera In Stunning HD |Brobible|

Ranking Steven Spielberg’s movies from worst to best. |Nerve|

Meet Charley Boorman, English adventurer. |Shave|

Every musical “guest” that ever appeared on South Park. |ScreenJunkies|

Katy Perry’s dad apologizes for hating Jews. |TheSuperficial|

Woman paid $50 grand to clone her dog. |Videogum|

Questions and comments the woman with two vaginas gets a lot. |HolyTaco|

C-Span gets crank called. |TheDailyWhat|

A supercut of heads blowing up. |GorillaMask|

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I’m pretty proud to have Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature on my college diploma, but if only I’d gone to junior high in Serbia, I could’ve had Nic Cage’s face on my biology book. Yep, that’s Nic Cage and Holly Hunter from Raising Arizona, appearing here on the cover of a 1998 eighth-grade biology textbook from Serbia. Ironic that they chose a fertile, rose background, when we all know Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where HI’s seed could find no purchase.

Following its recent emergence, the book’s graphic designer told website belgraded.com that the cover was an ‘honest mistake’.
She said that the publication was pulled from print, however several copies were still distributed. [DailyMail]

I’m guessing they just wanted a picture of a happy family, and a 1987 Nic Cage, with his shaggy hair and porn ‘stache and 80s clothes, fit the “average Serbian man in 1998″ bill all too well. They probably didn’t realize he wasn’t a father at all, but an ex-con who stole the baby from a furniture magnate. That was probably the opposite of the intended purpose. But Nic Cage still could’ve taught them a thing or two about biology, especially if it involved snake venom or dinosaur skulls, which I assume is like sixty percent of Serbian biology, at least.

-thanks to the Reverend Skeleton for the tip.

FilmDrunkard Daniel sent in this shot from the Texas State Fair outside Dallas. This ride was covered with fine airbrushings of hot women, biker dudes, future cities, skyscapes, and OF COURSE, Nic Cage as Cameron Poe from Con Air.

MORNING LINKS
Meme Watch: Aaron Rodgers Photobombing Throughout History |With Leather|

The Best Of Ellen Muthaf*ckin’ Barkin’s Muthf*ckin’ Tweets So Muthaf*ckin’ Far |UPROXX|

What if we replaced the star-studded cast of New Year’s Eve with Terrence Howard in different hats? |Film Drunk|

‘Breaking Bad’ Wrap Parties Are Awesome |Warming Glow|

Star Wars Taxidermy Sadly Just Photoshop |Gamma Squad|

10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Movie Swingers |Buzzfeed|

From Elton John to The Pixies: 21 Great Movie Music Cues |Moviefone|

So Gaddafi is dead, it looks like. Which is… good? Let’s not pretend any of us know sh*t about Libya. |TDW|

ScarJo is banging JGL, supposedly. Haha, I’m so lame. |TheSuperficial|

A duet with Siri. |DogandPonyShowWebsite|

The bunched-panty squad is after Ricky Gervais again, this time for saying “mong.” |Videogum|

31 unbelievable high school mascots. |MentalFloss|

Here’s Wayne Newton going Joe Namath on Michele Bachmann in case you’re in the mood for nausea. |Yahoo|

Five TV Shows that Started Great, Went Bad and Then Were Great Again |The Smoking Jacket|

The 12 Crappiest Movies of Carla Gugino’s Career |Pajiba|

George Carlin Answered A 14 Year-Old’s Letter |NextRound|

Seven frivolous Hollywood lawsuits. |ScreenJunkies|

5 obscure sports that will help you in a zombie apocalypse. |HolyTaco|

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Variety today reports that Kevin Kline has been added to the cast of Charlie Kaufman’s Frank or Francis, alongside Steve Carell, Jack Black, and Nic Cage. That’s great, because I’ve been waiting for Kevin Kline’s return to the comedic brilliance of A Fish Called Wanda since 1988. But, and perhaps more importantly, it gives us an opportunity to examine Kaufman’s latest, and what it’s about. The folks at ThePlaylist have had a chance to read the script, and holy Meryl Streep’s tits does it ever sound nutty.  Here’s the overview:

“Frank or Francis,” in our estimation, feels like a deliciously good and contemptuous (though self-aware) screed/send-up of the film industry, not only, the graffiti-with-punctuation bloggers, but the entire machine: fatuous filmmakers, vapid PR people, self-absorbed writers, blowhard actors, and last but not least it serves up a jiujitsu-like takedown on the ego-driven, vacuous meat-parade that is the Academy Awards. No stone is left unturned nor is there much of any kind of hero in the story as everyone is as equally moronic and narcissistic as the other. Still, as Kaufman denotes, it also says a lot of things about society, culture, human nature (and race) and human behavior—albeit some of it in his patently strange and sometimes baffling way.

Yay, jiu-jitsu and meat parades are my favorite things! Anyway, the main arc tells three parallel stories, of…

• Frank Arder (Steve Carell, presumably), a pretentious auteur whose film You, in which he plays all the characters, some in blackface, gets nominated for 29 Academy Awards.
• Francis (Jack Black), a “self-important, arrogant film blog commenter”, and…
• Alan Modell (Nic Cage), “a comedian with a faltering career who is known for his wildly popular, immensely moronic ‘Fat Dad’ roles.”

And then it gets even better (and waaay weirder) in some of the details. These might be spoilers, but you probably won’t understand them anyway (*covers soy chai with latest issue of The Atlantic*):

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