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:

Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry for the multiple Friday Free for All posts, folks, but I just couldn’t let this one go.

For the September issue of play magazine, Ignition entertainment managed to get gorgeous Wii side-scroller Muramasa [Editor's note: ??] top billing on the front cover. Bottom billing, too. This amazing, dare we say sensual cover was drawn by Vanillaware’s George Kamitani, and yes, it’s a tip of the…hat to Hokusai’s sexy/creepy classic “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife“. Only this time with swords. [via Kotaku]

I call it tasteful yet understated, the kind of artwork a man could really airbrush on the side of his rape van.  But I’m probably biased, my favorite Transformer was always Octopus Thong.

[PS - as posted in the comments section by Renton, here's the more, er, direct version]

Tobey Maguire (who looks pretty much like what I expect a guy named "Tobey" to look like) is on to produce and possibly star in a motion picture adaptation of Robotech, whose rights were recently acquired by WB.  

A sprawling sci-fi epic, "Robotech" takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off three successive waves of alien invasions. The first invasion concerns a battle with a race of giant warriors who seek to retrieve their flagship's energy source known as "protoculture," and the planet's survival ends up in the hands of two young pilots.

Yeah, okay.  Ever noticed how Japanese anime characters always have enormous eyeballs?  I think it's like Japanese artists' fantasy of what it must be like to not be Japanese.  As if non-Asians all stand around with our gigantic eyes going, "OH MY GOD, I CAN SEE EVERYTHING. THERE, BEHIND THAT BUILDING – IT'S A SCHOOL GIRL BEING MOLESTED BY AN OCTOPUS.  QUICK EVERYONE! TO THE ROBOT CAVE!"

At least, that's what it's like in my fantasy of what's going on in the head of a Japanese animator.