What is it about this guy that makes him look so goofy?

Love him or hate him, it’s safe to say that Nic Cage is a decidedly uneven actor, or at least that the movies he’s in are all over the map. The same filmography that has critically acclaimed character pieces like Adaptation and Leaving Las Vegas also has disposable mindless fare like Ghost Rider and National Treasure II: Book of Gratuitous Sequels.

Critics have been debating the relative merits of Cage for years, but the recent discovery of the “Nic Cage as Everyone” blog, which gleefully toes the line between tribute and mockery, has stirred the fires of Cage-troversy once again.

Words cannot describe how strange this is.

So are Nic Cage movies crap, or what? When we say his movies are all over the place, just how all over the place are they?

Thankfully, we have our friends IMDB, Excel, and Standard Deviation* to answer that question for us. That’s right, it’s time to analyze the Quanta of Cage.

First, our methodology: let’s take the movies of Nicolas Cage (everything that he’s starred in, excluding animated movies and anything released in 2009), analyze those movies’ IMDB ratings, and compare them to other leading men from his era.

It’s not perfect, but it’s what we’ve got. So let’s crunch some numbers, shall we?

*Standard disclaimer applies: I Am Not A Statistician (IANAS). If I made any mistakes, feel free to give me the “Well, actually” in the comments.

You're GODDAMNED RIGHT I ordered the Code Red, and it was delicious!

Galloway (Demi Moore): This past February you received a cautionary memo from the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, warning that the practice of enlisted men disciplining their own wasn’t to be condoned by officers.

Jessep (Jack Nicholson): Well, I submit to you that whoever wrote that memo has never faced the working end of a Soviet-made Cuban AK-47 assault rifle.

This is A Few Good Men in a nutshell. Colonel Jessep feels that the rules do not apply to him, because of the extraordinary danger his soldiers face.

But do you want the truth? Can you HANDLE the truth?

As far as I can tell, no Cuban soldier has attacked an American soldier in more than 50 years. In fact, Guantanamo Naval Base is considered so safe that families are allowed to live there. According to the Navy’s website, Gitmo has a child development center, a youth center, two schools, a Sunday school, a Boy Scout camp, and a Girl Scout camp. It’s probably a much safer place to raise a kid than my neighborhood.

Matthew Wrather leads a panel consisting of Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and eventually Matthew Belinkie to overthink:

• Listener Feedback
• One Man’s Pun (see Venn Diagram)
• The Tenets of National Socialism
• Various Attempts to Kill Hitler (one by Tom Cruise, one by the Highlander)
• Anglo-American Relations

Disclaimer: We are all ANTI-Nazi. Nazis are bad.

As always, email us at podcast AT overthinkingit DOT com with your comments, or call 20-EAT-LOG-01 (that’s (203) 285-6401) to leave a voicemail.

[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.libsyn.com/media/mwrather/otip026.mp3]

Download Episode 26 (MP3)

[Venn Diagram by Mark Lee]

I didn’t know about Eugene Mirman before he came through New Haven a couple years ago. His show alternated live bits with videos he had made. One of these, Eugene Mirman: Secret Agent, contained the memorable threat: “I’m gonna kick you so hard in the dick, you’ll cum fear.”

He now has made a parody of the blogfamous Tom Cruise Video.

Eugene Mirman: Scientologist [23/6 via Defamer]