The Boy in Blue (1986)

This week on Nicolas Uncaged we watched The Boy in Blue, a movie that finally answers the age-old question, "What the fuck is sculling and why in the hell would anyone want to make a movie about it?"

Well, the latter part of that question I'm afraid I don't have an answer to. As for the former, apparently sculling is just rowboating. I think they just call it sculling because it sounds way more bad-ass than rowing. Like, "Yo! I'm fuckin' sculling over here, you wimpy sonuvabitch! Now get outta my way before I crack your cracker ass with a goddamn oar!" as opposed to some nerdy white guy being all like, "Honey, have you seen my Ralph Lauren loafers? Hunter and I wanted to have a few highballs out on the Schuylkill this afternoon."

What rowboating has to do with that Rambo-looking Nicolas Cage in the movie poster above is beyond me. They were probably just trying to lure some ladies into the theater by teasing some male nipple action. Ladies love male nipple action.

So The Boy in Blue is a pretty straightforward biopic about real life sculler Ned Hanlan, who, in the mid 1870s, was the bad boy of Canada's professional rowing circuit. Yeah, there's a bad boy of professional rowing. There's a boy boy of everything, apparently:

See?

This was Nicolas Cage's first legitimate starring role where he didn't have to share all of his screen time with that dweeby Matthew Modine motherfucker. As far as his performance goes, there has definitely been an evolution in Cage's acting style between Valley Girl a few years back and this. He seems more comfortable on the screen. He seems to command the role, if that makes any sense. He has a way of making the characters he plays become him, as opposed to him melding into the character and The Boy in Blue is really the first glimpse we get at Mr. Cage finally spreading his acting wings.

In the film, he plays the titular 'boy in blue' Ned Hanlan and he was in every single scene of the movie. That is, except for this one:

Oh, sorry. That was something else. Here's an actual clip from the movie:

Oh! Faked you out again! Psych!

So listen, Dear Readers, I'm not going to mince words here. I found this The Boy in Blue movie to be boring as shit. Not actual shit, mind you, which can be somewhat interesting depending on its size and where its located. This movie was as boring as conceptual shit. In fact, the most exciting part of the whole movie was the trailer I just posted above with the raspy narrator and Flash Gordon-style music. I imagine if the real Ned Hanlan were as bad-ass as they say he was, I bet he'd watch this movie and be all like, "What the hell, man? This movie is as boring as conceptual shit." In fact, if he were to walk into the room while I was in the middle of watching the film, I suspect the conversation would've gone a little something like this:

NED

Um, hey, what's going on?

ME

Aaagggh! Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my apartment?!?

NED

Relax, dude. It's me. Ned Hanlan.

ME

Ned Hanlan? Like the guy in the movie I'm watching?

NED

Um...what the hell is a movie?

ME

You don't know what a movie is?

NED

Bitch, I was born in 1855. How about you stop being such a dick about it and enlighten me.

ME

[pointing to the TV]

Okay, well, there it is...

NED

What the - what kind of witchcraft are you practicing in here, boy?

ME

They don't have TVs where you're from?

NED

Dude, do you think I'd be wasting my goddamn days rowboating around Canada if I had literally anything else to do?

ME

That's a good point. According to the movie, though, you're one of the best scullers to ever live. That's gotta feel pretty good.

NED

[sarcastic]

Yeah. Yippee! I'm the best out of like...9 people. And what is this you're saying? They made a movie about my life?

ME

Hey, I'm just as surprised as you are.

NED

Do you have a problem with my chosen profession? Huh?

ME

No. Of course not. I do have a problem when my journey through the filmography of Nicolas Cage takes a left turn into the steaming pile of horsepoop that is this film.

NED
Who is this Nicolas Cage character you speak of?

ME
Oh man. Ned, he's this totally awesome actor. He's all crazy and animated and shit. He brings a certain...color to the characters he plays. Makes 'em seem both real and hyper-real at the same time, ya know? But then, just when you think you got this guy's style down - he does the old switcheroo on you and he plays a subtle and nuanced character, really digging into what makes a character human. And then - switcharoo again! He's the motherfuckin' GHOST RIDER!

NED
Ghost Rider?

ME
Yeah, fool. Nic Cage is pretty much the shit. I even run a blog on the internet called Nicolas Uncaged where I write these silly, nonsensical, pseudophilosphical posts about his movies.

NED
I don't know what a blog is, nor do I know what the internet is.

ME
The internet is a network of computers that share common information across the entire world and a blog is a page on the internet where a person, such as myself, can post articles about whatever subject they choose. Mine is about Nicolas Cage. And, here's the ironic part, I'm actually writing the blog RIGHT NOW!

NED
How are you writing on it right now? You're sitting in a room talking to me.

ME
No we're not. We're only talking in my imagination. What's actually happening is I'm sitting on my couch on a Friday at 11:08pm and I'm just sorta pulling this entire article out of my ass. I decided to do this meta-reality thing where I reference both you, myself and the blog as if we are all just characters in a blog about a blog...or something like that. It's all very confusing. I just thought it would be funny if I had a conversation with the "real" Ned Hanlan - you - who is actually not the real Ned Hanlan, but rather just my own imagination.

NED
Wow, dude. You really like the sound of your own voice, don't you?

ME
Nice try, man, but you can't rip on me because I'm the one who decides what you say and if I make fun of myself it's self-deprecating and clever and down-to-Earth and shit.

NED
This has all been fun, buddy, but you're wrong about me. I am real. I'm standing right here in front of you.

ME
How can you be real? Huh? The real Ned Hanlan died over 100 years ago. He's dead and buried.

NED
Not quite. I'm undead. And...unburied, I suppose. I'm what you would call a zombie. A flesh-eater. An unholy cannibal brought back to life with Santeria and black magic and stuff like that. I was a sculler back when I was alive and now I'm a monster come here to pop your skull open and scoop out those delicious brains.

ME
Nah. That's stupid.

NED
Excuse me? What's stupid?

ME
The whole zombie-angle-Shyamalan-twist-at-the-end here. It's a stupid way to end this bit.

NED
Huh. Well how do you think it should end? This whole conversation is running a little long. I'm going to assume most people stopped reading waaaaaaaay before they got here. And now you've kinda written yourself into a corner.

ME
I really did, didn't I?

NED
Yeah. So what then? How do we close out the article?

ME
I don't know. You wanna get a bite to eat or something? There's a great 24-hour diner just down the street.

NED
Nice! Do you think they have disco fries there?

ME
Duh.

NED
Sweet, dude. I love me some disco fries.

1 Cagehead out of 5.

Birdy (1984)

Birdy.

A movie about birds. And war. And friendship. And insanity. And...I suppose I don't rightly know. Just watch the trailer:

Okay, so basically it's a movie about Matthew Modine running around flapping his arms like an asshole while a dramatic 80's movie score plays in the background.

But fuck Matthew Modine, right? This is Nicolas Uncaged. Not Matthew Unmodined.

So far we’ve seen Nicolas Cage play a fry cook, a juvenile delinquent, a juvenile delinquent, a juvenile delinquent, and a grown-up delinquent. In Birdy, Mr. Cage FINALLY steps out of his comfort zone and begins to stretch his acting muscle.

Oh wait, he's a juvenile delinquent again.

Hey, at least he’s finally got top billing this time around...

OH WHAT THE FUCK, MODINE? GET YOUR SKINNY ASS OUTTA HERE.

Okay, so this movie came out a while ago and I don’t think it was all that popular back then, and even if it was popular it has long since faded into pop-culture oblivion, meaning that I’m going to assume that you, Person Reading This Post Right Now, have never seen it. That’s too bad, really, because I have a lot of funny stuff I’m planning on talking about here and a lot of it is going to hinge on pivotal plot points in the film and you're not going to have any idea what's going on. And since I'm only planning on making this post around 1000 words, I’m not going to be able to waste the time and space it would take to recap this shit proper. That's all I did that the last post for The Cotton Club and it was boring as fuck for me. I ain't doing it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, who gives a shit about me, right? This blog has Nicolas Cage’s name written all over it. Who cares what I'm thinking? But guess what, Hypothetical Reader? Cage is probably in Hollywood somewhere doing a line of coke off a hookers poop ring and he has no idea this blog even exists. I’m the one sitting here on my couch watching all these movies and spending all this time writing about it. I could be writing other things. Or doing coke off a hooker’s poop ring. So excuse me if I don’t feel like using this forum to rehash the plot of something you can easily look up yourself on Rotten Tomatoes.

See that picture. See how angry I am? I've got a threatening balled fist and everything.

Huh? What’d you just say? YOU’RE LEAVING?!?

Look, I wasn’t yelling at you, I was yelling with you. 

WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT’S NOT A THING?!

Fine, fine. If I do a quick synopsis, will you stay and read the rest of my post?

Good

fucker

So in this movie, Cage and Modine play Al and Birdy. They're best friends who live in Philadelphia and Cage is all smooth with the ladies and shit like he is in every movie, but Modine is this nerdy fuck who’s totally in love with birds. I’m not even speaking figuratively. The dude is actually sexually attracted to birds.

Uh-oh. I think I’m getting a strange feeling for birds too.

Look, I'm not judging the guy for his choice of lifestyle. Modine wants to strip butt-naked and french kiss a canary in a bedroom in his parent's house, that's nobody's business but his and the birds. Is this not America? Doesn't he deserve the same right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness that's afforded to everyone else? #legalizebirdmarriage2013

So Al and Birdy get into shenanigans around town, most of it involving birds or bird-related stuff, bird hunting, dressing up like birds, climbing telephone poles, crapping on people, etc. Birdy builds these wing out of garbage and tries to fly and it looks like it’s going to work for a second, but he ends up landing face fist in this puddle of dirty junkyard water. It was a pretty cool scene, even though it was one of those magical moments that can only happen in a movie. In real life, you’d be all like “enjoy your dysentery, bitch.”

Eventually, Birdy and Al get shipped off to Viet-goddamn-Nam. They undergo the horrors of war and shit. They survive, but not without scars. Cage has a bandage covering his whole face except his eyes and part of his cheek, which I think was supposed to imply he has a horrible facial disfigurement under there, but I suspect that they didn’t actually carve up the actor’s face. Birdy’s scars are of the psychological variety and now the dude is locked up in an insane asylum and he actually thinks he’s a bird. This really begs the question though, what makes a bird a bird? Is it the wings and feathers and biology and shit, or is it, ya know, thinking you’re a bird? More importantly than that, what does that mean for our quest to legalize bird marriage? #legalizebirdmarriage2013

Here's a video of Nicolas Cage's best speech from the film:

Um...yeah. War is hell. I believe what this movie is really saying is that if you go to war, you’re probably going to become a bird. Hey, speaking of bird’s and hell and stuff like that, did you guys know that Snuffleupagus was Big Birds imaginary friend? No shit. Big Bird was the only one who saw him for years and years. Then, in the 17^th season of the show, Big Bird decided that he wanted the adults and Elmo and stuff to see Snuffleupagus too so he arranged to have them meet. And, they did. The people in the “real” world met Big Bird’s imaginary friend. Big Bird literally willed this fucked-up wooly mammoth into existence. That's a pretty profound! It's stuff like that that makes me wonder: What is self? Can I be a dream of someone else? And if I am, does that preclude me from actually existing? All of this in a preschoolers television show.

Big Bird meets Snuffy for the very first time.

Not to get off topic, but after watching that Sesame Street clip above, I'm pretty sure that Snuffleupagus is on heroin. And he talks just like Ronald Regan. Shit, man, he's kinda freaking me out. Like, if I were to bring a being into existence, it certainly wouldn't be this Regan-voiced elephant junkie creature. If I were creating monsters, it'd probably be a chick made out of 8000 boobs. And she'd be all super horny and be ready for sex, like, on demand. And I wouldn't let that little wienerhead Elmo anywhere near her because she'd be all like "Awwwwww" every time he comes around and I'd be standing there with my boner in my hand thinking "Look lady, I didn't just spontaneously will you into consciousness so you could dote on this lispy red muppet." Then Elmo would make a sad face and I'd think he was cute too and I'd feel bad for badmouthing him.

So let's get back to Nic Cage, shall we?

When I heard the title Birdy, I pictured something a little more akin to this:

I'm not going to lie, if there were a movie where Nicolas Cage had a falcon instead of hair, I'd probably give at least 2 months worth of pay to see it. Birdy 2. This time, Nic Cage is Birdy and he has a bird for hair and they go on many adventures together. Sort of like Bill & Ted meet Big Trouble in Little China. Except with more bird hair.

All in all, this was quite an enjoyable movie. Probably the best one I've seen since Nicolas Uncaged began. If you get a chance to see it, I suggest you do. If you don't get a chance to see it, consider donating a few dollars to help our cause anyway:

#legalizebirdmarriage2013

 

4 Cageheads out of 5.