I tried to tell you guys that Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is awesome, but don’t take my word for it, I’m just a guy in a windowless van filled with cats.  Take it from Werner Herzog, he’s, uh… a crazy German guy… who got shot in the belly and laughed about it.  Dang, I may have to rewrite this.

Amped up, antic and crackling with chemical intensity, Nic Cage’s performance moved movie critic Roger Ebert to observe: “Cage is as good as anyone since Klaus Kinski at portraying a man whose head is exploding.”
Cage’s tweaker technique was so realistic, it caused the movie’s director, Werner Herzog — who worked with Kinski on five films — to call into question what the Oscar winner was really putting up his nose.

Was it ants?  Please say it was ants.

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The minute I told friends I loved Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, they asked, “You mean because it’s good or because it’s a train wreck?”

The truth is, I don’t really know.  Imagine The Wire as written by Shane Black.  It rides the line between brilliant and brilliantly terrible so well, all I know is that I loved every minute of it and I couldn’t turn away*.  Like rock n’ roll, there’s something about a movie being almost bad that makes it infinitely better.

Now, before I get to my wholehearted recommendation, (and a wholehearted recommendation is what this is, in case you wanted to save yourself the trouble of reading the rest), I feel I should first clarify that if the crowd at the screening I attended is at all representative, a lot of people will not like this movie.  But I believe I can provide a handy guide to the type of person who will or won’t.  I illustrate by way of a story:  Last week for Halloween, I dressed in a giant penguin suit with a fake mustache, an outfit I thought was pretty self-explanatory.  And yet, a significant number of people came up to me throughout the night to ask, “What are you supposed to be?”

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I’m not usually one to get excited about comic book movies because they usually suck, but Kick-Ass sounds, well, kick ass.  First of all, when Matt Vaughn wanted to make it his way — hyperviolent like the source — the studios passed.  So instead of letting them cut its balls off, he secured independent financing and made it himself.  Oh and hey, did I mention it also features Nic Cage doing an Adam West impression and stunts by this guy?  The trailer doesn’t give us much, but from what I know of the project it sounds like if Superbad, Kill Bill, and Nic Cage had a butt baby, and that’s one butt baby I’d give a quaalude and invite over for a photography session.

[hat tip, crotch grab to FilmSchoolRejects for the video]

A few weeks ago it was reported that Nic Cage was suing his former business manager for $20 mil.  Then there were stories going around about how he was broke and owed money to the IRS, which is funny because he made $40 million last year.  Celebrities are always suing their business managers.  Guys you pay to take care of your money are almost never worth what you pay them, but usually it’s because the celebrity grew up without any concept of money and the guy who takes care of it keeps them from ever having to think about it until it’s finally gone and they get blamed.  On that note, here are some highlights from the Daily Beast article about all the ridiculous crap Nic Cage bought:

• At least two yachts and a gulfstream jet.
• Two private islands in the Bahamas.
• Paid $500,000 for a Lamborghini confiscated from the Shah of Iran which was worth $250 - 300,000
• “A dinosaur skull that Cage purchased in 2007 for $276,000 in a heated auction with Leonardo DiCaprio.”
• “In June 2004, he owned 18 motorcycles and 30 cars, a member of his entourage says. And that was on the low end: At another point, two sources say, the car total was around 50. At one point, Cage was snapping up cars at a rate of about “one per month.”  [Ed. Note: not really that much if you're pulling $40 mil a year.]
• “Cage’s pet collection, which in addition to a handful of purebred dogs [tré lavish!], included rare birds and a host of lizards, snakes, and other creepy crawlies.”  Also: an octopus.
• Two actual castles, one in Bath, England, and another in Etzelwang (hehe), Germany
• “He also had two albino King Cobras (Moby and Sheba), this person says, as well as ‘an antidote serum on the wall, so that if you got bit by a snake you could save yourself.’”

Well sure.  If you own venomous snakes, not having the antidote serum on the wall is just irresponsible.  No one wants to end up like my cousin Charlie.  Yeah, so here’s the best quote of the article:

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Earlier this week I brought you the distressing news that Werner Herzog and Nic Cage’s Bad Lieutenant (trailer here, with naughty language) wouldn’t receive much of a theatrical release.  Luckily, like my ejaculations, those fears have proved premature.  From ThePlaylist:

We got in touch with the film’s publicists who kindly forwarded us the current rollout plan, and it looks something like this:

November 20th — NY, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, DC, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal
November 25th — Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix
December 4th and/or 11th — New Orleans, Austin, Atlanta, Houston, Ottawa

As this is a platform release, success in those markets will help push it out to more cities and theaters across the country, possibly even surpassing (though we doubt it) the 35-city plan that has been hinted to us from our sources in the know. So, if you are in one of the aforementioned cities, do us all a favor and buy a ticket.

Phew.  After Cage fought so hard for Werner Herzog’s singing iguanas (note: I am not making any of this up), I don’t know what I’d do if i couldn’t see this on the big screen. Probably kill myself.  Upon hearing the news, Nic Cage breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his brow.  It takes a handkerchief the size to two city blocks!