i don't know why in the hell this is in the wapo

but i'm going to take the opportunity to say i DO NOT like nicholas cage in any way shape or form. i think he is a talentless HACK HAMBONE

(raising arizona is my least favorite coen brothers movie by the way). he borders on REPULSIVE to me (sort of like an "acting" U2)

Missing the Man Who Made Nicolas Cage a Star

By John Anderson

Special to The Washington Post

Hollywood must specialize in Faustian bargains. There's simply too much evidence walking around to deduce otherwise. Consider the once-interesting Brendan Fraser, who now plays second banana to the special effects in "Mummy" movies. Or Scarlett Johansson, mousy and introspective in "Lost in Translation," now brassy, blowsy and bleach blond. Once upon a time, Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar. Once upon a time, Chevy Chase was funny.

And then there's Nicolas Cage.

Let us ask ourselves something: Why is Nicolas Cage a movie star? And why do we care?

The answer, in part, is that Cage -- whose latest, "Knowing," opened Friday -- won an Oscar in 1996 for playing a suicidal alcoholic in "Leaving Las Vegas," a gritty, brutal, honest movie, wonderfully acted (by both Cage and Elisabeth Shue) and which confirmed what a lot of people had long believed: that Cage was the most interesting actor in American movies............