Episode 109 - FACE OFF: LIVE!

[Blast Hardcheese 636]

In the questions section of the show someone remarked that they would like to see a black actor and a white actor switch faces. Already been done in the great film Suture starring Dennis Haysbert as a man who has a white half-brother and after an attempt to kill him with a car bomb fails the hospital assumes he is actually his white brother and gives him the surgery to restore that face. Great movie even though it may sound silly as hell.

 

Thank you!

 

I was trying to remember the name of this early 90's indie, but I couldn't for the life of me. At some point, I even described the movie poster (a striking image of one man in a huge shower pointing a shotgun at another man with a gun who's about to pull back the shower curtain) to a film buff friend of mine, and he was stumped.

 

Anyway, I know what I'm watching tonight.

[MacPohanka 0]

HI HDTGM

 

I’m pretty sure this movie is just about having sex with your family members and getting over your son’s death by putting yourself in his killer’s shoes.

 

This final edition to the Nic Cage 96’-97’ trilogy is a classic. The Rock, Con-Air and Face/Off should probably just be reviewed as one movie all climaxing with Cage flying through the air out of an explosion but it would take too long to list the cameos.

 

Face/Off is maybe the least rewatchable of these though because although it is awesome and hilarious in retrospect it is probably the most cringe worthy.

 

worst titular line ever.

 

“I’d like to take his face… off. Excuse me, I’d like to use the wee wee little boy’s room.”

 

also

What the fuck did they do with Margret Cho’s lines? She delivers like one horrible joke that she clearly has nothing to do with and then is relegated to Artie Long style exposition the rest of the movie.

 

also

sooo much maniacal laughing

 

The final fight/chase is basically john woo's wicker man- “The doves! The doves!”

 

Never knew how easy it was to shoot all the cops on a boat and then have your enemy use that boat as an explosive ramp.

 

In true Nic Cage spirit, we have to ask what if both characters were played by Nic Cage?

 

or what if John Travolta and Nic Cage had switched roles so we would hear John Travolta say “I could eat a peach for hours” over and over?

Would the movie be any different? Probably not.

 

Love this movie. You guys need to do the Rock.

Con Air is the best.

 

Thanks dudes

 

Mac Pohanka

[wakefresh 689]

We know that Castor can eat a peach for hours, so...yeah.

 

Yeah, I get the feeling that Sean Archer is more of a banana man.

[wakefresh 689]

Face/Off Omission:

 

I was surprised that the discussion of Face/Off did not include a mention of the trailer played in the preceding mini-episode, since that trailer appears to be for a completely different movie!

 

The audio for the trailer consists of John Travolta as Sean Archer explaining his tireless pursuit of "the most dangerous and brilliant criminal mind" he's ever known, leading up to this set up for the movie: "and now after all this time, I've finally figured out a way to trap him: I will become him."

 

Sounds compelling enough, but that is NOT the movie we all just watched! Archer doesn't become Troy to trap him -- by the time Archer becomes Troy, they've already caught him (in fact, he's in custody and in a coma and they use his actual friggin' face -- how are you gonna trap a guy AFTER you steal his face?!). No, Archer becomes Castor Troy in order to get his brother Pollux to reveal the location of a bomb.

 

You could argue that maybe Archer is talking about Pollux Troy in the trailer, but c'mon, the film makes it clear he's obsessed with Castor, not Pollux.

 

So what happened here? How did we get from the plot in the trailer to the plot in the film? WTF, mate?!

 

The trailer was improvised as well.

[wakefresh 689]

Alternate pairing:

 

Tom Selleck, Burt Reynolds

 

I like this movie, but instead of faces, they switch mustaches.

[wakefresh 689]

Love this movie! Saw both this and Con-Air at the big multiplex downtown for free (my friend's girlfriend sneaked us in) and the crowd was raucous as hell.

 

Another bad movie podcast, We Hate Movies, did this recently as well, and their conclusion is one I share -- this family should have just disbanded after all of this. Joan Allen sells the house and moves to Jamaica. The daughter -- after almost being raped by Masterson and hit on by her father -- would go live by the docks with other goths, doing goth stuff. John Travolta leaves the kid in custody of Protective Services and starts drinking heavily, which leads him to quit the FBI and go work for Ving Rhames as a hitman...and you know where I'm going with this. He ends up riding with his Bible-quoting friend talking about French cheeseburgers.

[DanLitzinger 1]

I think we can blame June's unawareness of the face switching premise squarely on Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Claire. Here is a transcript excerpt from HDTGM episode #34 "Pluto Nash"

 

 

JUNE: You saw two Eddie Murphys and what did you think at that point? When Murph on Murph—the Murph on Murph fight broke out.

 

PAUL: You thought it was a thinner, Nuttier Professor.

 

JESSICA: I thought that Rex Carter had somehow become—gotten into the brain of the Eddie Murphy, so that he—the whole time he was looking to kill himself.

 

JASON: His own--As himself or as Rex Carter?

 

JESSICA: No, he—I don’t know! I thought Rex became Eddie Murphy.

 

JUNE: Basically what I’m understanding is at some point in that last scene, you thought Bad Eddie Murphy was going to like unzip himself and be Alec Baldwin.

 

JESSICA: Yes, yes, yes. I thought he was living with inside of him.

 

LENNON: Like Face/Off.

 

JUNE: “Living with inside of him!”

 

So there you have it, June was clearly misled a few years back.

 

If you use this for the minsode, please mention that I love Chelsea Steiner with all my heart! Thanks for all the free entertainment,

 

Dan Litzinger

[JeremiahBenjamin 2]

Two alternate versions of Face-Off I sincerely want to see: 1, Christopher Walken vs. Willem Dafoe, and 2, Anthony Hopkins vs. Jack Nicholson.

[OoofMaGOOF 348]

Soooooo...are minisodes happening on Mondays now?

 

I appreciate the show Paul and Co but dammit if today isn't particularly a day that I could use some HDTGM to get me through...

[McSmashington 521]

Randall Park brought the heat on this one!

 

It's great hearing a guest who obviously gets the shows vibe.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

Randall Park brought the heat on this one!

 

It's great hearing a guest who obviously gets the shows vibe.

 

Agreed. Ever since I saw Paul crop up on Fresh Off the Boat, I was hoping we might get an episode with Randall Park. His theory of the movie as a Scientology allegory was one of the best parts of the episode.

[Maximilian 99]

I am flabbergasted that it hasn't been brought up that once Nic Cage becomes John Travolta he destroys organized crime, disarms the bomb, and is named Time Man of Year all in a week!!!!

[JackChristensen 177]

It's all about that face, bout that face; no penis.

[Ian_Hiles 0]

I remember seeing this - was it nearly 20 years ago?

 

I agree with everything you said about it - the good, the bad, the insane - but thought you were disingenuous with your "I... want to... take hish... fash... off" clip. The kicker is the response: "No more drugs for that guy!", which sums up the acting approach.

 

Loved the episode: kept me in hysterics and nostalgia.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

I am flabbergasted that it hasn't been brought up that once Nic Cage becomes John Travolta he destroys organized crime, disarms the bomb, and is named Time Man of Year all in a week!!!!

I forgot about that! In a crazy way though, it made sense, because all of a sudden Troy now had the resources to knock out his enemies and/or competition in the terrorism trade, so of course he'd do it in one fell swoop.

[TheJenna 0]

How did no one notice that when Cage as Travolta reads the diary that he immediately opens to the page dated SEPTEMBER 11 ... and the movie is about a terrorist for hire ... just sayin

[AmandaWirtz 3]

In my senior year of high school I took a film class and our final exam was on Face/Off. That's right. I watched this film in an educational capacity and had to take a TEST on it. #howdidthatcirriculumgetmade

[Maximilian 99]

 

I forgot about that! In a crazy way though, it made sense, because all of a sudden Troy now had the resources to knock out his enemies and/or competition in the terrorism trade, so of course he'd do it in one fell swoop.

 

The Time Man of the Year thing is a bit much... considering that they don't announce it till December.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

The Time Man of the Year thing is a bit much... considering that they don't announce it till December.

And December isn't part of allergy season!

[FisterRoboto 7499]

And December isn't part of allergy season!

 

It is where I live. Stupid Cedar Fever...

[Cockney Mackem 514]

I want to mount a 1-man show focused on the 12 hours Nic Cage spent between filming Con Air and Face/Off.

 

In it, Nic travels to the world of the dead and teams up with Aleister Crowley to rescue Butterscotch, the Jack Russel Terrier who taught him the craft of acting.

 

I believe the first scene Cage shot after coming back from Con Air was the prison fight. You see him morph from Stoic Nic Cage back to Batshit Mental Nic Cage as he first puts a shit eating looney grin on his face

[rapta 1]

Bit late to the party on this one but I think I know why Nic Cage has a moustache in the epilogue to Face/Off. I'm watching John Woo's The Killer right now, and Chow Yun Fat's hitman wears a fake moustache when carrying out a hit...maybe John Woo just really likes the image of a moustachioed bloke with a sniper rifle? Or maybe it's just the only disguise he can think of.

[RebeccaRandall 5]

Ahoy hoy, not to flog a dead horse or anything but I just spent the last two months listening to HDTGM from scratch, and am now all caught up. Usually I just listen to the podcast and don't bother watching the movies, but Con Air and Face/Off I just had to see. And wow, this was something else.

Just a little observation I made, that no one else brought up, but I loved the almost arbitrary use of a harpoon gun to kill Travolta as Caster Troy. Cage as Sean Archer finally scored his "white whale" that he'd been chasing for so many years on his revenge journey.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

Ahoy hoy, not to flog a dead horse or anything but I just spent the last two months listening to HDTGM from scratch, and am now all caught up. Usually I just listen to the podcast and don't bother watching the movies, but Con Air and Face/Off I just had to see. And wow, this was something else.

Just a little observation I made, that no one else brought up, but I loved the almost arbitrary use of a harpoon gun to kill Travolta as Caster Troy. Cage as Sean Archer finally scored his "white whale" that he'd been chasing for so many years on his revenge journey.

Good catch! I hadn't thought of that, but I may have pointed out (or maybe not) that like a lot of John Woo movies, there is a CRAZY amount of carnage, other people killed, and an unreal amount of collateral damage, but it basically comes down to a knife fight or something, a one-on-one confrontation where the bad guy doesn't die in one of the millions of explosions.

[RebeccaRandall 5]

Good catch! I hadn't thought of that, but I may have pointed out (or maybe not) that like a lot of John Woo movies, there is a CRAZY amount of carnage, other people killed, and an unreal amount of collateral damage, but it basically comes down to a knife fight or something, a one-on-one confrontation where the bad guy doesn't die in one of the millions of explosions.

 

You probably did say it, admittedly it was my first John Woo film (edit: second, actually, I didn't realise Paycheck was his but I barely remember that movie anyway).