film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

travolta-is-nic-cage.png

Trailers You Missed: Nic Cage's John Travolta Mask Is Slipping

By Tori Preston | Film | October 18, 2018 |

By Tori Preston | Film | October 18, 2018 |


travolta-is-nic-cage.png

We interrupt our regularly scheduled weekly trailer dump to share with you a theory — nay, an EPIPHANY — which has shaken Pajiba HQ to its core. It all started when we watched the trailer for the upcoming film Speed Kills, which will be on VOD and Digital HD on November 16, 2018. Take a look:

This is the official synopsis, by the way — because never has a single logline piqued my interest SO HARD:

John Travolta stars as a speedboat racing champion and multimillionaire whose secret life as a drug trafficker lands him in a deadly crossfire between the DEA and the Mob.

Our earth-shattering discovery stemmed from a simple observation: “Gee, John Travolta’s face looks like a rubber mask.” Which it does! Look at it! So, let’s assume that’s true. Let’s set our baseline at “John Travolta is wearing a John Travolta mask in Speed Kills” and go from there. Well, where would he get the mask? After considering various sources, the Overlords concluded that there must be a Sea Org yacht floating somewhere in the Pacific with a crack team of scientists and artists on board, blackmailed tasked with manufacturing and constantly improving a steady stream of “lifelike” Travolta masks. And clearly, they got the idea from the classic 1997 film Face/Off, in which John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swapped faces.

*RECORD SCRATCH* Wait, what if that Travolta mask has been in play since 1997?

WAIT, WHAT IF NIC CAGE HAS BEEN THE ONE WEARING IT EVER SINCE?

Do we have proof? No. But think about it. Nic Cage is an unpredictable performer, yet a consummate professional — a man who throws himself into roles with selfless abandon. And, as well all know, Face/Off is undoubtedly the greatest film of either Cage’s or Travolta’s careers. So, let’s say for the sake of argument that Cage never actually stopped pretending to be John Travolta. He continued tinkering and fine-tuning his “pretending to be John Travolta” performance until he perfected it. And the only way to prove his mastery is to convince the world that he IS John Travolta. Now, that doesn’t mean he ceased to be Nic Cage. It just means that, since 1997, anytime you’ve seen Nic Cage OR John Travolta on screen, you’ve been watching Nic Cage. The world contains twice the amount of Cage you expected, and you never knew. Travolta himself is probably living inside a volcano somewhere, and the Sea Org yacht checks in with him periodically to refresh their mask designs.

Hell, let’s take it a step further: half the time you’ve seen Nic Cage on screen, it’s been Nic Cage WEARING THE OLD NIC CAGE MASK HIMSELF. It’s like Face/Off never ended! Nic Cage is trapped behind a cage of Travolta, or of Cage, and we never knew.

And look, I know this sounds silly. It IS silly. But I also know that 2018 has been a methane explosion of a year, and frankly? A world with twice the amount of Nic Cage in it sounds like a world I’d rather live in. So just let me have this. This is the truth that I’m living for.

Besides — it explains why “John Travolta” agreed to play a drug-trafficking, speedboat-racing multimillionaire in Speed Kills. Look at that face and tell me that’s not Nic Cage settling into his role.

So uh, trailers. Right. Well, there ARE a few new trailers we should probably talk about:

The Kid Who Would Be King — In Theaters January 25, 2019
Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish makes his directorial follow-up with a story about a kid (Andy Serkis’s son!) who finds Excalibur, and then has to fight the evil Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) after teaching all his classmates how to LARP or something. But hey! Patrick Stewart plays Merlin, which means that Merlin and Gandalf being BFFs is canon.


The Curse of La Llorona — In Theaters April 19, 2019
The legendary Weeping Woman is on the hunt for kids in 1970s Los Angeles. And while it looks like the local Hispanic community knows what’s up, star Linda Cardellini is a little out of her depth. On the plus side, the trailer really made me appreciate the convenience of electric car windows.


All The Creatures Were Stirring — On DVD, VOD & Digital HD December 4, 2018
Constance Wu stars in what appears to be a holiday horror anthology: different tales of evil doings, all centered on the merriest time of year. With maybe a dash of “A Christmas Carol” thrown in there somewhere. The trailer doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on, though I’ll admit that office holiday party was a little too realistic for comfort…


A Dog’s Way Home — In Theaters January 11, 2019
This trailer gives the whole movie away. And yet, despite that fact, TK is already plotting which reviewer he’s gonna saddle with this assignment. If it’s me, I promise to write the entire review as fan fiction dedicated to Bad CGI Mountain Lion.


And finally, there’s a new trailer for Bravos’s upcoming limited series, Dirty John, which gives a much better sense of just how f*cked up this story is to anyone who hasn’t already read the article series or listened to the podcast. To me, it just explains why Connie Britton still hasn’t returned to 9-1-1: it’s because she’s getting manipulated by Very Bad Man, Eric Bana!




Header Image Source: Saban Films