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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"I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME HERE!"

After the jump, I’ve got the new trailer for Justice, starring Nic Cage, January Jones, and Guy Pearce, from Roger Donaldson, director of Dante’s Peak, Species, and (the underrated) Bank Job. In it, Nic Cage plays a regular, every day dude with a freakishly smooth and large forehead, until ONE day, (*RECORD SCRATCH*), someone assaults his wife, January Jones, probably because she said something bitchy like always. That’s when Guy Pearce shows up and he’s all like, “Yo, Cage-o, you want us to find this dude and beat his ass, or what? You just gotta do me a favor some time in the future.” And Nic Cage is like, “Sure, homes, that sounds pretty good or whatever.” But then, wouldn’t you know it, Nic gets MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR. Because… uh… Guy Pearce wants him… to be in their vigilante gang, or something? But Nic Cage doesn’t want to, for some reason? I dunno, it looks pretty weird. To be honest, I sort of shut down after I made that Photoshop.

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This trailer for Ghost Rider 2: Voodoo Glow Skull came out a couple days ago and somehow slipped by. But fear not, for that shall be REMEDIED IMMEDIATELY! Now, I know, the idea of making a second Ghost Rider film would be considered nearly universally idiotic by anyone not directly involved in the production, but teaming directors Neveldine and Taylor (the apples of Armond White’s eye) with Nic Cage is an idea so batsh*t it just might work. At the very least, it’s a train wreck I’d like to witness. And besides, it’s called Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Get it? He’s a spirit, and he’s out for vengeance! It works on so many levels!

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DANCE OFF!

Joel Schumacher, the man who put nipples on the bat suit, is back, coming off a film which rated 4% on Rottentomatoes and earned less than a million dollars (and before that was The Number 23, which rated 8%).  But he’s got a surefire plan to resurrect his career: NIC CAGE! In Trespass, whose trailer is below, Cage and Nicole Kidman play a rich couple whose house gets invaded by robbers like in Panic Room, but then some other stuff happens to make it different probably. And then Nic Cage is all, “If it’s money you’re after, I can tell you that I have none. What I do have is a big weird forehead and grating voice that make me a nightmare for people like you, people with eyes and ears.”

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Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance opens February 2012, and Sony has just released the first batch of publicity stills. I feel like if you polled a diverse cross section of adults on whether making a sequel to Ghost Rider is a terrible idea, that would be about as close as you could come to a perfect consensus. And yet, with Crank‘s Neveldine and Taylor behind the cameras and Nic Cage back as the lead, there could be a perfect storm of pure batsh*ttery brewing that connoisseurs of ridiculosity like myself would be loathe to miss. Certainly, at the least, it’s an early favorite for Armond White’s favorite movie of 2012. You may recall that he once said of Neveldine and Taylor: “Neveldine-Taylor stand so lonely on the culture’s edge that their au courant ingenuity seems absolutely avant-garde when compared to standard box-office formula.” Personally I find his fin de siecle Manichean verisimilitude somewhat disquieting, but I can’t say I disagree.

Co-director Brian Taylor offered a reminder of their star’s collaborative approach: “Nic trusts us. He was actually one of the guys we wanted for Crank, but we was out of our price range. Now we’ve got him and he’s absolutely fearless. You invite him to go there, he’ll go there. He just needs to be invited – like a vampire.” [From Empire's set visit]

They wanted Nic Cage, and ended up with Jason Statham as a consolation prize. I… I’m having a hard time processing that. I may have to go lie down for a few minutes.

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