Kiss of Death - Where’s the 4K?

I still have some physical media I want to review, and I’m about to be swamped with screener nonsense, but I wanted to get one in just for me. 8MM is currently on Tubi. I’ve already written a way too long article on that underrated Cage classic, but every time I come across 8MM, it makes me think of Kiss of Death. I hoped the addition of 8MM meant Kiss of Death would be somewhere, too. Nope. Kiss of Death remains stranded on DVD, with no streaming options (ever, that I’m aware of) and no upcoming 4K (where are you when we need you, Arrow?). Aside from what looks like a bootleg blu-ray from Spain, this ‘90s crime thriller seems to be truly forgotten (although Bill Simmons remembers, as he has personally begged Tubi to add the film so they can cover it on The Rewatchables podcast). With no streaming options, I dug out my sturdy flipper disc DVD and watched Kiss of Death for probably the twentieth time. Here are some thoughts.

The ‘90s were a great time for crime thrillers. We didn’t know how good we had it back then. Every few months some ugly crime drama with a ridiculous cast would do kind of okay at the box office and, more importantly, show up in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. These things were a dime a dozen, but if Nic Cage was involved, it could be special. 

Kiss of Death is more of a David Caruso film, unfortunately. It’s an adaptation of an old noir film that keeps the general premise of a criminal seeking revenge for his wife’s death, but overall this is its own film. Caruso is doing his disinterested thing which led to the joke in 40-Year-Old Virgin (“Be like David Caruso in Jade.”), and it’s fine, but everyone around him is so much more interesting. 

There’s Michael Rapaport taking dirtbag to unprecedented levels. Phillip Baker Hall as a mob boss on oxygen. Stanley Tucci as a piece of shit DA. Samuel L. Jackson as a detective with a Bond villain ailment after getting shot in the face. Helen Hunt as Caruso’s tragic wife; tragic in that she has to have multiple scenes with Rapaport. Ving Rhames as a coked-up fed. Not to mention Kathryn Erbe, Anthony Heald, Anne Meara, Kevin Corrigan, Hope Davis, and an uncredited Paul Calderon and Jay O. Sanders. Even the dude who played Mr. Big in Wayne’s World pops up in a scene. It’s fucking great. 

That exhausting list of excellent side characters is worth a watch alone, but this is Cage’s film. He plays Little Junior, the boss’s son. He’s obsessed with working out even though he’s horrible asthmatic (and can’t stand the taste of metal, which is a thing, I guess?). In early scenes he throws a dude out of semi directly onto his head, he bench-presses his stripper girlfriend, and he jumps rope (the jump rope scene isn’t all that cool, but it’s part of the exercise shit, so I felt obligated to include it). In other words, don’t fuck with Little Junior. 

This all might sound like the makings of a classic Cage batshit performance, but he’s surprisingly subdued, and the movie is better for it. He still has his explosive moments, like when he beats Rapaport to death while “Jump Around” plays, but those moments are more impactful because of his low energy in other moments. Also, Cage is more intimidating when he’s quiet. The screaming is great, but it becomes comedic. I prefer this Cage, issuing calm threats in a New York(?) accent. 

To be clear, though, this is still a Nic Cage performance. For any other actor, half the shit he does in this movie would be their most memorable performance. There are still plenty of wacky moments. My favorite is when his father dies, and it cuts to him at their strip club, jumping up and down and growling and yelling. When a patron asks what his problem is, Cage yells that his father is dead and beats the shit out of the guy. 

Beyond that, I just love the mood of Kiss of Death. Almost everyone is such a piece of shit in this. The cops are just as bad as the criminals, and that’s not some kind of theme or something; it’s just the way the world is. Something I appreciated during this re-watch was how fast everything movies. There isn’t a wasted minute in this film, and the story doesn’t suffer for it. 

Kiss of Death isn’t amazing, but it’s good enough to get out of DVD hell. I would settle just for someone to get the streaming rights, so it’s easier to watch and hopefully in HD. But I really want Arrow or Kino Lorber to give it the treatment it deserves. The only behind-the-scenes thing I could find was a French TV show that had short interviews with director Barbet Schroeder, Caruso, and Cage. Cage did provide an interesting detail about a stunt gone wrong, but aside from that, it’s not too in depth. Surely, some of these guys would be available to share some stories now. 

Hopefully I’m writing about the new 4K of this film some day. But for now, I’ll just take care of my ancient DVD, since it’s the only way to watch Kiss of Death for now.

Random Thoughts 

Cage throwing the drunk out of the semi is brutal and it's done in a wide shot to show it's a real stunt performer. Wild.

I did find one interview from some French show at the time with Cage, and he talks about that scene. Apparently, the guy really did get hurt, and was knocked unconscious from the throw. Cage continued the scene, thinking the blood on the guy’s head was fake, but it was real. As soon as the scene was over, they had to rush the actor to the hospital. I was thinking as I watched it this time, “How did they fake that?” Turns out they didn’t. 

How the hell was that stunt supposed to go, though?

Rapaport: “You know what you're problem is? You're a liberal!” 

So he’s always been this way.

But for those of us that find Rapaport unbearable in real life and on screen, there's a great scene later on.

Rapaport has always been hateable on screen, but this might be his apex of shitheadedness.

Caruso meets with the DA to start naming names, and he's wearing a collared shirt half buttoned up. I guess I can see why they would actually take him to the DA in plain clothes rather than go to him in prison, but did Caruso insist on barely buttoning up? I bet yes.

Anytime Cage is in the background of a scene, he’s doing some kind of exercise. I love this fucking movie.

Cage brings outfits and music to beat Rapaport to death. You have to appreciate the prop work. 

And the audacity to wear all-white to beat someone to death. Even with the Gorton's fisherman slicker, it's a bold choice.

I always thought Samuel L. Jackson's gut punches were odd. He reaches back like crazy.

Caruso doesn't steal a car because the owner left their dog in the car. What kind of fucking psycho leaves their dog locked in a car every night? This was back in the ‘90s, just buy the Club, you dildo.

Little Junior has never heard the phrase “Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger”? Too busy working out to hear clichés?

I don’t know why, but I think often about Cage having to use plastic utensils because the taste of metal makes him gag. Such a weird trait, and hilarious that he decides to share this with Caruso as a sign of trust.

“I couldn't get plastic forks in jail. I had to eat everything with my fingers.”

This turns into a horror movie for a second when they find the daughter with B.A.D. written on her forward. She does this slow turn to camera and they ADR “I wanna be with my mommy.” 

It seems like strip clubs were more prominent in ‘90s movies. 

Kind of hilarious that Cage beats the shit out of Caruso while have an asthma attack.

His fucking inhaler has “B.A.D.” bedazzled on it. God damn, I want more behind the scenes info on this movie. Where are you with this one, Arrow?

And he still gets to keep the stolen car from Little Junior? Sure, why not?

Raising Arizona - "We're Set to Pop Here, Honey."

I’m starting something new with my friend Ben Malcomson this month. On his podcast, Chapters, Ben wanted to start having a movie night once a month or so. He asked me to pick the first movie to discuss, and I went with Raising Arizona. As with the other podcasts I’ve done in the past with Ben and his brother Robie, I’ve written an article as part of my preparation for the show. I’m not sure how much crossover there will be with this and that, so be sure to check out the podcast along with reading my article. And while you’re at it, go ahead and subscribe to Ben’s YouTube channel for the show (I linked to it above, but I’ll also include a link here). That way, you get reminders of all the episodes he does (most of his shows consist of a guest he knows discussing life in general or specific topics like the loss of a loved one). Ben’s podcast is wide-ranging, and you get to hear real stories from real people. And if you subscribe, you’ll also see every time I do a movie episode with him. 

Stupid Smart

Raising Arizona has always stuck with me because of how silly and smart it is at the same time. When I was a kid and watched it, I loved it for the goofy characters, action, accents, and dialogue; it was like a live action cartoon. 

When I watch the film as an adult, I now appreciate all the work the Coen brothers put into the script to make it goofy and profound at the same time. It takes a bit of genius to make something stupid on the surface and brilliant underneath the comedy. They created such an amazing and unique world in their cinematic Arizona that the film can be enjoyed two ways: brain on or off.

My preferred method for watching Raising Arizona is with my brain off. That way, I can just enjoy Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter going all in with their accents and quirks. An unleashed Cage is always great (though according to some interviews, the Coens had to keep reeling him in), but Holly Hunter gets better every time I watch it. Her bursts of emotion throughout the film (“I love him so much!” and “You son of a bitch!”) are among the funniest moments in the movie.

Then there are the side characters. John Goodman and William Forsythe are the standouts. But Sam McMurray and Frances McDormand are close seconds. And Trey Wilson has some great moments as Nathan Arizona nee Huffheinz. 

Raising Arizona is at its best when you can just sit back and watch all these actors embrace the silliness of the world. But when you turn your brain on, you realize you’re dealing with an actually deep and dark story.

This is a film about a couple that cannot conceive who, in a moment of desperation, decide to kidnap a baby. A bounty hunter called the “lone biker of the apocalypse” shows up to find the baby (for the highest bidder). Hi’s ex-con friends steal the baby and take it with them to a bank robbery, eventually forgetting the child on the roof of the getaway car. And on and on. It takes a very smart script to turn something so dark into a goofy live action cartoon.

Immature Maturity

Focusing on the seriousness of the story of Raising Arizona made me realize just how much this movie is about the two main characters overcoming their immaturity to be able to start a family. It’s a funny film because immature people are funny at times, but that also distracts the viewer from how unfit they are to be parents.

Hi is obviously too immature for a family life. He seems to just be going along with everything to keep Ed happy. When he attempts to steal a baby the first time, it turns into a prolonged skit. It’s funny, but when he reports back to Ed, Hi describes it as “horrifying.” The babies and Glen and Dot’s kids are presented to Hi as complete chaos that he cannot handle. Not to mention he flat out admits he can’t handle it to Glen, and while in prison he tries to argue that being a criminal is a substitute for family life. Speaking of prison, the abduction of the child prompts the “birth” of Gale and Evelle into the situation, further confirming Hi’s inability to live a “normal” life. And then there’s the whole thing of unleashing the lone biker of the apocalypse, but I’ll come back to that in a minute.

Hi is the clearly immature character of the film, but Ed is no more prepared than Hi; she just wants a responsible life more, that doesn’t make her ready for such a life. First off, she married Hi. I’m all about giving people second (or third or fourth or fifth, etc.) chances, but Ed has to know that marrying such a “repeat offender” is a risky bet. And it’s her idea to kidnap a baby. Ed’s no more ready for taking care of the baby than Hi is. Sure, she feeds him a bottle and sings to him a few times, but when Dot shows up asking fairly basic questions about the baby’s shots and future, she’s as clueless as Hi. And she’s partly responsible for unleashing the biker.

The lone biker of the apocalypse is mainly Hi’s demon, since they share a tattoo and Hi envisions unleashing him. But Ed’s decision to steal a baby is the primary factor in unleashing him. There’s also a scene in which Hi seems surprised that Ed can see him, too. I know that the biker actually exists, otherwise the scene between him and Nathan Arizona is impossible. But the world of Raising Arizona is not the real world (just look at how unpopulated the world is during the action sequences, and generally amplified every person seems to be), and I would argue that they literally unleashed the biker into the world with their shared inability to be responsible parents.

Once Hi and Ed defeat the biker, they come to their senses and return the baby. And, taking Nathan’s advice, decide to take a night to decide whether or not they should split up. Based on Hi’s dream, they stay together and end up producing a great family and life together. This is only possible once they’ve both conquered their immaturity. By destroying the biker and Hi making a clear break with Gale and Evelle, they have proven that their past is behind them, and they’re ready to move on and start a family together. 

This is why I love Raising Arizona so much. It’s such a fun, goofy take on the age-old theme of being ready to have kids. As a parent myself, watching this film now adds another level of enjoyment as I realize that, while funny, this film is more about a couple growing past their selfishness so that they can fully commit to taking care of a child.

Why Do I Own This?

I own nearly every Coen Brothers film. They are two of my favorite filmmakers of all time, so of course I own one of their best films.

Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes

I love nearly every word of dialogue in this film, but writing them does not do it justice. The accents and performances add so much to each line.

I love how Hi pronounces "pennant."

"I tried to stand up and fly straight, but it wasn't easy with that sumbitch Reagan in the White House."

"You ate sand?"

"One day, I decided to make my own crawdad. I threw it in the pot, but without the water. It was just like making popcorn."

"You're not just telling us what we want to hear?"

"No, sir. No way."

"Because we just want to hear the truth."

"Well, then I guess I am telling you what you want to hear."

"Boy, didn't we just tell you not to do that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay, then."

"Howdy, Kurt."

Okay, this section is pretty much just going to be every quote in the movie…

"There's this spherical object resting in the highway...and it's not a piece of the car!"

I think The Departed ripped off the beginning of this movie by putting the credits so far into the film.

The sequence with the babies would work just as well as a silent movie.

Something I never noticed until I had kids was how ridiculously huge babies are in movies. These kids are supposed to just home from the hospital, and they're crawling around and everything. I suppose some time may have passed, but the movie makes it seem like Cage kidnaps the kid the day after he reads about them coming home.

Holly Hunter's hysterical "I love him so much" and Cage's response still crack me up.

Who better than John Goodman and William Forsythe to play two metaphorical babies being born in the mud?

"I thought you said your folks was DEAD, H.I."

"We thought Junior should see their final resting place."

"They were jammies. They had Yodas and shit on 'em!"

Nathan Arizona's talk about "leads" reminds me of the cop talking about the Dude's stolen car in The Big Lebowski.

"Awful good cereal flakes, Ms. McDunnough."

"We went to adopt on account that something went wrong with my semen."

"Say, that reminds me."

If you weren't convinced this movie was a live action cartoon already, then you get the bonkers chase sequence out of nowhere, which includes a cop leaning out of a car shooting erratically in a neighborhood.

"Son, you got a panty on your head."

They're argument after Cage robs the convenience store is fucking fantastic. Hunter's line reading of "things have got to chaaaaaaange!" and Cage blaming his criminal nature on coming from a long line of frontiersmen and outdoor types.

"Nathan Junior accepts me for who I am, and I think you better had, too."

"You're young, and you got your health. What do you want with a job?"

Glen has a "Caution: I drive naked" sticker on his car.

Cage scraping his knuckles on the popcorn ceiling during the fight is great.

I'll take this trailer fight over the one in Kill Bill Vol. 2 any day.

The store clerk in this movie is amazing.

"Unless round is funny."

"Well, which is it, young feller? You want I should freeze or drop to the ground?"

The ending reminds me of No Country. It’s a description of a dream (though this one is shown) followed by a mundane line, in this case: “I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.”

There’s a YouTube video about Hi’s tattoo signifying that he’s part of a white supremacist prison gang called the Woodpeckers. I don’t buy it, mainly because the woodpecker he has tattooed on his arm is the logo called Mr. Horsepower for Clay Smith Cams. The video argues that Hi doesn’t seem to care too much about cars because his own car is so plain. But trust me, there are plenty of poor ass dudes driving shitboxes that are still into cars. I just think retroactively outing characters as racists is the new thing to do (kind of like in the 1990s when it was cool to look back through history and claim every significant figure was secretly gay). The dude in the video makes a decent argument, but I can’t imagine that the Coen brothers had such an intention with the tattoo. I think it was just something they thought a guy like Hi would have, and it worked as a visual signifier that Leonard Smalls (who has the same tattoo) was the human representation of Hi’s unreadiness for “adult” life.

Wild at Heart - "This Whole World's Wild at Heart and Weird on Top."

Wild at Heart, David Lynch’s surreal (what Lynch isn’t surreal except for the aptly titled Straight Story?) Bonnie and Clyde meets Wizard of Oz mash up, is one of my favorite Lynch films. I dig the simplicity of the plot (Sailor [Nicolas Cage] and Lula [Laura Dern] attempt to be together despite jail stints and Lula’s psychotic mother plotting against them with assassins and whatnot). But more than anything, I enjoy the constant movement necessary for a road movie because Lynch never has time to slow down and wallow in the weirdness, and neither does the audience. You’re forced to just go with it, and if you can embrace that, which I did, then it ends being Lynch’s most enjoyable (not necessarily best) film. I bought Wild at Heart a while back and never got around to watching it. After revisiting Lost Highway a few weeks ago, I figured it was time to watch this crazy movie again. Here are my thoughts.  

The Film That Fixed, or Broke, Nicolas Cage

I’ve written more than enough about Nicolas Cage over the years, and at this point it’s become a bit of a cliché to celebrate the craziness of the eccentric actor. Everyone gets it: Cage is crazy, great, terrible, etc. Obviously, I’m a fan, and I do think of him as endlessly entertaining, even when he swings and misses. But when he swings and connects, it’s something very special. Wild at Heart is one of those connections.

At first, I was just going to focus on how David Lynch and Cage are perfect for each other because they’re both so weird, but that’s a bit too obvious. I don’t think I’d be breaking new ground by claiming these two dudes are on the strange side. So I wasn’t going to write about Cage’s performance much at all aside from pointing out a few moments I particularly enjoyed. Then I came across this bit of IMDb trivia: Nic Cage states that Wild at Heart helped him get away from method acting. David Lynch's spontaneous re-writes and the film's odd characters helped him be more playful with acting.

If that bit of trivia is true (for the sake of this article, I’m going to say it is, but I have not come across this fact anywhere else and, actually, the behind-the-scenes stuff I saw brought up how he stayed in character on set, but oh well...), then Wild at Heart is the film that broke, or fixed, Cage. Cage’s method acting had already produced a few great performances (Raising Arizona and Vampire’s Kiss are my favorites leading up to Wild at Heart), but it wasn’t until this movie that you start to see roles in which it seems like Cage is willing to change things up with the characters he portrays. That’s not to say that he didn’t bring something to the parts he played, he obviously did, especially with Vampire’s Kiss. But with Wild at Heart, he was allowed to deviate from the character on the page. 

The best example of this is the inclusion of the snakeskin jacket Cage wears. He asked Lynch if he could wear it in the film, and then it became this recurring element in the movie. It’s not a coincidence that Cage’s line associated with the jacket concerns “individuality” and “personal freedom.” By wearing the jacket in this film, Cage was freed to start altering his roles in the future, for better or worse. 

Certainly part of the reason Cage was/is allowed to do whatever he wants at times is because of his undulating star power. But I think the bigger part is that directors see the value in letting Cage have a bit of freedom. Because of this freedom, we not only get exaggerated moments in big films (his moment dressed as a priest in Face/Off comes to mind), but we also get performances like Deadfall, which feel like complete Cage creations. 

Cage’s performance in Deadfall is why his change after Wild at Heart could be seen as both breaking and fixing him. For me, it fixed him and allowed for his greatest, most entertaining work. For others, his eccentric performances might come across as distracting, over-the-top disasters that ruin the movie. I feel sorry for anyone who feels the latter. I’m glad Cage put on that literal and figurative snakeskin jacket, and I hope he never takes it off. 

Embracing the Oddness

This is only the second time I have seen Wild at Heart, and I had forgotten how darkly funny and wacky this movie was. I found myself simply enjoying the film, which is odd for me, as I tend to try to decipher David Lynch movies.

Normally, the Random Thoughts section for any movie, but especially a David Lynch movie, would be the longest section. But when I got to the end of Wild at Heart, I realized I didn’t stop very often to make note of what was happening while I was watching. I couldn’t believe I had so few random thoughts about this batshit crazy Wizard of Oz sexual fever dream. I think the all out assault of weird shit throughout the film was too much for me to stop and dwell on any of it. I mean, we’re talking about a movie in which a contract killer manager(?) takes a phone call while sitting on the toilet, drinking tea, and watching a nearly naked woman dance for him. When that’s going on in what should be a simple scene, I just can’t stop to try to decipher any of it because by the time I start to have a thought, something else even wackier happens. And that’s why I love this movie. It’s Lynch unhinged just doing whatever the fuck he wants, and I enjoy the film by just embracing the oddness of it rather than allowing myself to be distracted by it.

It’s one of the only weird Lynch movies that I can just turn my brain off and enjoy. I don’t feel the need to “figure” it out. I think it’s his most simply entertaining film, even with it being one of the weirdest at the same time. Even with all the Wizard of Oz stuff, I didn’t feel the need to try to assign each character to their Oz counterpart. It’s just a movie that is heavily influenced by that film to the point that it’s kind of a new, weirder and more adult version of that film.

The fact that this is a kind of version of Wizard of Oz means that the film has to be constantly moving. There’s not much time for Lynch to dwell on anything, no matter how strange and interesting it might be. Wild at Heart comes at you fast, and the two hour run time feels like an hour at most. Because of this, it wasn’t until it was over that I had time to gather my thoughts and consider some of the crazy shit going on in this movie. I wanted to list some of my favorite weird moments:

• Harry Dean Stanton watching a nature show and growling and shit.
• The mom covering herself in lipstick.
• The constant heavy metal riff segue.
• “Fucking field, let’s dance!”
• Willem Dafoe’s fucking teeth.
• Laura Dern just puking on the floor and leaving it.
• Crispin Glover as Cousin Dell...there’s too much going on it that sequence to narrow it down but here goes: dressing as Santa in the middle of the year, living in fear of aliens wearing black rubber gloves, making a hundred sandwiches, putting cockroaches in his underwear and...on his anus, and then disappearing.
• There are plenty of references to Wizard of Oz throughout (with characters even talking about the movie multiple times), but things get truly crazy when Glenda the Good Witch shows up at the end to teach Sailor to embrace love.

And those are just what come to mind right now. I feel like I could make a list like this after each viewing, and it would be totally different. Wild at Heart is the fucked up movie that keeps on giving.

Why Do I Own This?

I buy any David Lynch movie that even remotely interests me because I know I’ll need to see it multiple times to truly appreciate it. I need to watch this one a few more times in the future.

Random Thoughts

Laura Dern always impresses me in her Lynch films. She just seems so at home in her roles, which is incredibly impressive when comparing this role to her part in Blue Velvet. She is convincing as both an innocent all-American small town girl and as an over-sexed Dorothy. I’m glad she finally won an Oscar for Marriage Story, but she deserved one at least thirty years ago.

A good triple feature would be this movie with Raising Arizona and Natural Born Killers. Of course, I’d need a lobotomy after watching all three of those in one day, but the experience would be worth it.

That is quite a beating to start a film. It definitely sets the tone for this fucked up story.

"My snakeskin jacket! Thanks, baby! Did I ever tell you that this here jacket represents a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom?" 

I feel like Cage has said this in his everyday life as well.

...and according to IMDb trivia the jacket was actually Cage's and he asked if he could wear it in the movie.

"Sounds like old Dell was more than just a little bit confused, Peanut."

"Lordy, what was that all about?" I think that could be the tagline for almost every Lynch movie.

Bobby Peru is the skeeziest character Willem Dafoe has ever played, and that's fucking saying something.

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