Here at Hamster Giggle, our love to Nicolas Cage, master of acting, knows no bounds. That’s why THIS ARTICLE at io9 is pure gold.

An excerpt:

“And I was talking about things like art synthesis and Picasso and you can do with acting what he did, or with music, and Miles came out and he got it, you know, he was looking at me, he gave me this, like – he nodded and he winked at me. Miles Davis, you know. And we were sharing the trumpet. And ever since then, because he accepted whatever my philosophy was, I believe that I wanted to approach acting as jazz. And so he became like a surrealist father of sorts, along with Walt Disney. And I thought, “Okay. Well, this time, I’m going to just let anything come out, whatever it may be. Like Bad Lieutenant, you know. But sometimes, it’s really thought out and constructed and carefully thought out, like Adaptation. So I always like to mix it up.”

God bless you, Nicky. God bless.

I give you  – Jewish Hassidim singing Lady Gaga at a wedding. This is why Pop Culture is so fucking AWESOME.

For the love of God, do not ever EVER see the 2009 film adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. With all due respect to Colin Firth (his BCC Darcy will never, ever be trumped) this movie was complete and utter trash. Forget about the horrific CGI. I am even willing to forgive the “poetic license” in straying form the original plot, and the sadly incompitent Ben Barnes (pictured) whose attempt at taking on the mammoth role of Dorian himself is a pathetic flop. But the production of this film reduced one of the greatest works of literature into a grossly oversimplified trashy piece of garbage to be filed away under Classics which should NEVER be adapted to film. Cutting Henry’s brilliant lines is one thing, but lets admit it. The entire thing was cut, cropped, and skewed into an offensive array of kinky sex scenes, and excruciating acting; a poorly wrapped package completely devoid of substance.

Shame on you film crew. Oscar Wilde deserves better. Hell, humanity deserves better.

Oh, and read this Oatmeal post on the deadliest of them all – the *shudder* semi-colon! (Don’t click here unless you have balls of steal)

PartyGorilla

Look alive, people. You’re staring at perfection.

No actor alive possesses the versatility or sheer acting acumen that Nicolas Cage has on a bad day. The heavenly hosts themselves are brought weeping to their knees watching one of Cage’s cinematographic gems. Since he first strode onto the screen and won our hearts, Mr. Cage has played part after part, bringing his own unique brand of magic to it. Choosing the top 5 Cagetastic performances is a nigh-impossible task, and merely attempting to do so is probably damning my soul to eternity in the deepest fiery pits of hell. Luckily for me, I’ll be in good company, because the first mind-shatteringly awesome Nic Cage performance is:

Ghost Rider

In this Movie Cage Plays: A misunderstood demon who’s really just out to help people.

Why It Will Make You Sign a Deal with the Devil: In an era where super-hero movies are a dime a dozen, Nic Cage decided to do something different. Sure, the big super-hero movies, Spider-Man, X-Men and David Hasslehoff’s Nick Fury, they all had fancy effects, millions of dollars of advertising campaigns and a fun and enjoyable story. Ghost Rider on the other hand blazed (heh) new ground with wafer-thin characters, acted horribly by Cage and co-star Eva Mendez. You see, Ghost Rider is a soul tortured in hell, he serves Mephistopheles himself. How else would Cage conveyed this feeling to the audience? Sitting through Ghost Rider is a truly hellish experience, one only augmented and grandified through Cage’s shallow delivery and emotionless acting. This provides for an engrossing experience, which makes you feel, nay, know what it’s like to suffer the torments of eons in the sulphur pits of Lucifer’s domain.

National Treasure & National Treasure: Book of Secrets

In these Movies Cage Plays: A misunderstood historian who’s really just out to help people.

Why It Will Make You Want to Break Into the Library of Congress: Honestly, I feel bad for sticking these two together, as each is a masterpiece in its own right. The intense riddles which are totally not like The Da Vinci Code, the clever traps which are in no way like Indiana Jones or the American History which is no way fabricated for plot purposes – this movie has something for everyone. And look at that tag-line – from the Producers of Pirates of the Caribbean! That’s the one with Jack Sparrow! It made MILLIONS! These are the same people! Almost! Everyone loved Pirates of the Caribbean, it had a zombie monkey! How could you not love this movie, which marginally has something in common with one of the most successful new franchises of the 21st century. If that’s not enough proof for you, they’re making a National Treasure 3. They don’t make sequels to horrible movies.

Gone in Sixty Seconds

In This Movie Cage Plays: A misunderstood car thief who’s really just out to help people.

Why It Will Make You Play GTA For a Good Couple of Hours Before You Get Stuck on This One Missions with a Motorcycle, and If You Could Just Get The Damnable Thing to Turn Half a Second Earlier, You’d Catch that Dude So You Could Crowbar His Face, Get the Drug Money and Get Back to that Other Guy so He’d Give You the Really Fast Car and then You’ll finally be Able to Outrun those Gods-Damned, DAMMIT TURN YOU IDIOT! What was I talking about?

Con Mother-Fracking Air

In This Movie Cage Plays: A misunderstood criminal who’s really just out to help people.

Why It Will Make You Fill Your Next Flight with Criminals: This is Con Air. Con. Air. The entire decade of the 90′s could be described in this movie. This was everything that made the 90′s what they are – a shirtless Nicolas Cage, with long, billowing locks holding a stuffed rabbit. How anyone can not be in love with this movie is beyond me. I mean, it’s a plane, taken over by criminals. Hard criminals. They kill people, and stuff. One of them is called “The Virus”. Not “The Unicorn”, not “The Fluffy Hamster”. “The Virus”, that’s tough. It really is a coming-of-age movie, really. Everyone should watch this and then learn how to be a man, and take down a plane full of criminals.

Face/Off

In This Movie Cage Plays: John Travolta

Why It Will Make You Staple Your Enemy’s Face to Yours: Did you know that Castor (the character played by Nicolas Cage and then played by Nicolas Cage playing John Travolta as played by Nicolas Cage) and his brother Pollux were really the name of the founders of Rome? Yes, the Rome. The one with the Pope. This movie is that clever. I won’t spell out everything else, I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it (boy, are you in for a treat), but there’s all sorts of crazy shit like that throughout the entire movie. The jail they’re kept in – it’s called Erehwon. That’s Nowhere backwards!! Get it?!

So there you have it, these are my own opinion, and it was really hard to choose, because there’s just so much quality acting out there. I’ll leave you with this little beauty, straight from Japan. And you know, if the Japanese like Nicolas Cage, he has to be cool, because those dudes are not weird at all.

So let’s get this Avatar business done with: 3 hours of 8-feet tall Smurfs spouting cliches in a lush, beautifully rendered 3D landscape. Here’s a picture:

Thank You, Google Image Search. You make comedy easy.

Now, onto business. I was checking out some of my usual sites, one of which is Penny Arcade. A glorious web-comic and one of the first who started the “two-gamer buddies” trend of web comics. Check out if you haven’t heard of it.

Anywho, through them I stumbled onto a Kotaku post detailing this lovely gem:

This is the cover for a “novelization” of the upcoming Dante’s Inferno video game. For those unfamiliar, here is the trailer for the game.

As you can see, they took some creative liberties. So, one would expect the novelization to be similarly… creative. A novelization of said game, I would assume, would be a gory affair, filled with choppy prose, used as an excuse to get from one bloody battle to the next.

Here’re the opening few lines:

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straight-forward pathway had been lost.

Upward I looked, and I beheld its shoulders,
Vested already with that planet’s rays
Which leadeth others right by every road.”

It goes on for a bit…

Yes. That is The Divine Comedy. The one written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century.

My initial reaction, of course, was “oh my fucking god, they cannot be serious”. Then, however, I started thinking.

Thousands of hack-and-slash gamers, a good majority of which probably never opened a book published earlier than this century (well, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt – last two centuries), will now purchase a book of poetry written over 700 years ago.

I can imagine their surprise, opening the book, expecting gore and blood, instead finding poetry. I guess a good majority of them will throw the book aside, pick up a controller and move on to Bayonetta. If just a few, however, hell – if even one reads through it, well, then we’ve done a wonderful thing. This could be the second renaissance right here.

Maybe that’s pushing it, but it’s a clever marketing push, one that, let’s be honest, probably won’t work. But it might mean there is still a little bit of hope left for the human race.

Now where’s that controller?

Your King beseeches your ears, or any other auditory organ you may possess.

We are at war. The Duke of Persimmon’s troops are marching over the fields of Hope and Dreams as we speak. The gellatenous huts of the Gummy Men are raised to a liquid goo. We shall take this vile offense to our nature no longer. Stand strong, men. We shall thwart this quest to overthrow our nation with courage.

You march off, today, to make our last stand, at Unicorn Glade. Aided by the Faerie armies of Frost Magistrate, you shall stand tall against these… these mutations and defend the fruity kingdom until our enemies are crushed to juice – with no pulp!

They would enslave us. Send your wives and daughters to the deep dungeons of the Carrot Prince. Unless you defend them. I will not ask you to give your life to the fight, because that would mean we will perish. That will not be the case. Not today. Tomorrow our children will celebrate our liberation. The golden days shall return, the day of the fruit salad draws near and each of you will get the first spoonful of its sweet nectar!

So, to arms! To arms! For the kingdom!

- The Apricot King.

P.S. The battle of Unicorn Glade was won by the Apricot troops. The Duke of Persimmon was captured and juiced. He was delicious. The Gummy Men, unfortunately, suffered a mass genocide. Only their pet bears remain.

I will further the scope slightly and encompass the whole decade, as this has been a distinct decade in terms of movies. The OOs (or my preferred name for the decade, the Naughties) can undoubtedly be called the Decade of the Geek. From fantasy to science fiction to comic books hitting the mainstream – it seemed you could not look anywhere without being bombarded by some sort of once-geeky niche. Lord of the Rings introduced us all to the world of Middle Earth, the Super-Hero reigned supreme with movie after movie (some better than others), and legions of screaming girls were introduced to beauty that is Sparkling Vampires. Men made do with Sookie Stackhouse and the last gasping breaths of Buffy. Science Fiction also had its fair share of success (and failures) with Star Trek being rebooted, two Transformers movies and a plethora of sci-fi comic adaptations.

The key word in the above paragraph would seem to be “adaptation”. This decade will forever go down as the decade originality died. With only a few exceptions (Quentin Tarantion’s Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards lead the charge on successful original films), most movies released over the past decade were adaptations or reboots. As I already mentioned, comic books were the main field from which movies drew inspiration, what with the visual effects technology finally able to do the cape & tights crowd justice. Literary works were also adapted, such as Lord of the Rings, Twilight and the recent Sherlock Holmes. Television also made an appearance on its large-screened cousin, with film adaptations for the Simpsons, Firefly and Sex and the City popping up.

Lastly, this decade had 23 film appearance by Nicholas Cage. That’s 5 more than the last. I leave it up to you to decide whether or not that is a good thing.

Thankfully, this didn't happen...

As a farewell to a decade filled with cinematic ups and downs, I leave you with this, a tribute to the films of 2000-2009: