There’s something rather amazing about Nicolas Cage films. It’s not that he can’t act – although, seriously, we’re not sure that he can – it’s more that you simply don’t know whether you’re going to spend the last few moments of the credits shouting furiously at the screen and simulating over-the-top air rabbit punches, or hugging everyone else in the cinema, because you’ve just shared a moment together. A wonderful wonderful moment. A moment that could end in sex.

High points in his career include: Con Air, Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, The Rock, Vampire’s Kiss, and Adaptation. Whilst crippling, “let’s brick up this picture house!”, low points can be found after watching Snake Eyes, World Trade Centre, Ghost Rider, or, especially, The Wicker Man – a film which must surely rank as the worst remake of all time. There isn’t another actor on the planet capable of such a movie-going lottery. He’s either excellent, or shit. There is nothing in between.

Well, the good news filtering through the grapevine is that he’s magnificent in the upcoming remake of Bad Lieutenant – which, remember, was a 1992 film, starring Harvey Keitel, about a really bad lieutenant. He was a horrible lieutenant in fact. They should really have called it Horrible Lieutenant.

Anyway, with this great news singing in our ears, we thought we’d celebrate a cluster of remakes that were definitely better than the originals…

Ocean’s Eleven

The first outing for this movie featured all of the big stars of 1960 – Sinatra, Martin, Davis Jnr, some other people. And, for the most part, it’s shockingly bad. Hence, it came as no real surprise that Clooney and his goons did a much better job of it in 2001, even with Don Cheadle on board, doing everything he could to bollocks the whole thing up with a preposterous “British” accent. On the downside, every sequel since has been steadily worse than the one before, which probably means that Oceans Sixteen will actually cause an outbreak of hysterical cinema suicides. Stop now.

Scarface

It’s actually a close call, this. The first one – made in 1932, about a mobster called Tony Camonte – is a gripping tale of a man rising up the criminal ladder. It’s pretty good. But, Pacino totally blows the thing out of the water in the Florida-based 1983 remake, in which he plays Tony Montana – a street smart Cuban, who shouts obscenities throughout the film, then shoots people up whilst magnificently high on cocaine. It’s Pacino’s tour du force, and it basically introduced the world to his brand new acting technique, which we like to call “shouting”.

Twelve Monkeys

Bruce Willis isn’t a million miles away from Cage in his ability to pick horrendous films, but one that was anything but rubbish was Twelve Monkeys, which found ex-Python freak Terry Gilliam on extremely weird form as the director. It’s a strange tale of time travel, world wars, freaky visions, mad scientists, and not really any monkeys whatsoever. Interestingly, it adapted much of the plot from a 1962, short French film called La Jetée, which featured only still images, a pretentious voice over, and was probably much enjoyed only by pipe smoking women who liked to wear gentlemen’s trousers. In that case, a man travels through time, meets a beautiful woman, then realises that his childhood memory of watching a man get shot was actually him witnessing his own death as an adult. Sounds very familiar, that.

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There is nothing worse than being sober in a room full of drunk people.

OK, so there are a few things worse – like cancer, famine and finding out your dad wants to be a woman. Anyway, the points is, drunk people in real life are soooooo annoying. Almost as annoying as people who put to many ‘o’s in ’so’ just to emphasise the point they are making.

But they are never that annoying when you are drunk. For some reason, you are immune to the annoying stuff they blather on about. See kids, drinking is good for you.

But put drunks in a movie and suddenly you start to see the joke; suddenly cease to be annoying and become quit charming and very funny.

Either this is because actors and scriptwriters suck at making people sound authentically pissed, or it’s because you know at no time of the evening are they going to seek you out to go and slobber “I love you, man” in your ear.

But which movie drunks were the best? Hecklerspray plumbs the depths. Cheers!

22. Gwen Cummings (Sandra Bullock)

From: 28 Days

21. Dong (Gedde Watanabe)

From: Sixteen Candles

Just brilliant.

20. Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon)

From: Days of Wine and Roses

Some say it’s the ‘last great film about alcoholism’, which is both wrong and a slightly odd award to win. But it is certainly up there, with Jack Lemmon in top form.

19. Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole)

From: My Favourite Year

Best line: After stumbling into the wrong restroom, a lady tells him: “This is for ladies only!”

To which Alan Swann, unzipping his fly, replies: “So is *this*, ma’am, but every now and then I have to run a little water through it.”

18. Elwood P. Dowd (Jimmy Stewart)

From: Harvey

Warning: Getting drunk can make you see huge rabbits. OK, we want what he’s drinking.

17. Coach Buttermaker (Walter Matthau)

From: Bad News Bears

Walter Matthau is perfect as the alcoholic coach of a little league team. He drinks and drives and even gives his young charges beer to get them to do his chores.

16. Gary (Anthony Michael Hall)

From: Weird Science

OK, so he is not strictly a drunk, but the scene in which he gets out his face is the best scene in the movie.

15. Captain Jack Sparrow  (Johnny Depp)

From: Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy

Johnny Depp does a very good job of impersonating the legend that is Keith Richards, a man whose body should be donated to science to help create a race of super-humans that can withstand years of alcohol and narcotic abuse.

14. Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke)

From: Barfly

OK, we admit, Mickey Rourke pretending to be a complete a pisshead is hardly a stretch, but it’s a good performance nevertheless.

13. Willie (Billy Bob Thornton)

From: Bad Santa

Now this is the kind of Santa we can all believe in.

12. Shooter (Dennis Hopper)

From: Hoosiers

Dennis Hopper plays himself – the town drunk who cleans up his act.

11. Don Birnam (Ray Milland)

From: The Lost Weekend

The Lost Weekend – we can all relate to that. A superb movie about the best pastime ever – getting out of your face.

10. Ted Striker (Robert Hays)

From: Airplane

His drinking problem is so serious, he can’t even get the liquid in his mouth!

9. Hancock (Will Smith)

From: Hancock

The first half of the movie, when he’s drunk, is really good. But it soon descends into a hideous hangover.

8. Miles (Paul Giamatti)

From: Sideways

A movie about getting drunk, just brilliant. Our favourite bit? The one where he is so desperate to get drunk he drinks the spit bucket.

7. Arthur (Dudley Moore)

From: Arthur

Dudley Moore’s second best performance – behind Santa Claus: The Movie

6. Wong Fei-hung (Jackie Chan)

From: The Legend of Drunken Master

Jackie Chan’s finest hour – and a bit.

5. Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage)

From: Leaving Las Vegas

Nic Cage proves he can actually act in a movie about going to Vegas to die or something. Wish he would drink himself to death.

4. Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer)

From: Tombstone

Brilliant movie, but Val Kilmer – once again stretching his pretending credentials by playing a pissed-up gunslinger –is the star of the show. His best bit: “I have two guns, one for each of ya,” while seeing double.

3. Withnail (Richard E Grant)

From: Withnail & I

Teetotaller Richard E Grant justifies his existence on this planet by giving one of the finest comedic performances of all time.

2. Frank The Tank (Will Ferrell)

From: Old School

The naked street run – it will forever live long in the memory.

1. Bluto (John Belushi)

From: National Lampoon’s Animal House

A true legend.

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But we are sure there are plenty of nuts out there who do, so here it is, for your viewing displeasure.

So what’s it about? Well, apparently Cage’s son finds a piece of paper in a time capsule with lots of numbers on it. But these aren’t your average numbers. These numbers relate to every global disaster over the last 50 years.

Bit macabre, but not particularly interesting, is it? But wait! What if we told you that the list was put in the buried time capsule 50 years ago! So the little girl who wrote the list effectively predicted not only the date of the disaster, but the amount of people who died in it – years before it even happened. That’s why it’s called Knowing, you see. He ‘knows’ there is going to be a disaster because he read it on the piece of paper. Genius.

Wow! Still not interested? Nah, neither are we. Why? Well, it’s got Nicolas Cage and his ridiculous hair in it, which instantly annoys us. In fact, it has wondering if the date he decided to take up acting was on that bloody list.

Anyway, despite our reservations, it does have some good bits in the trailer, including a nice shot of a derailed subway ploughing through some passengers. Unfortunately, we suspect Cage was not among them. Anyway, the trailer does give away some vital plot details, with some girl accusing the ‘Wispa’ people of being responsible.

Cadbury’s should sue.

But 50 Cent is tired of only starring in awful, third-rate movies that only idiots like. So he’s decided to branch out and start producing awful, third-rate movies that only idiots like as well. Think that’s as bad as it gets? Don’t – because 50 Cent’s first movie is going to star Nicolas Cage.

Kanye West, if you’re reading this, please start producing movies too. That way they can be more successful than 50 Cent’s and he can retire from that as well. Thanks.

Although he’s primarily known for being a rapper, 50 Cent has also carved out a nifty side-career as a Hollywood star with a highly enviable slate of movies to his name. For instance, there was Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, the semi-autobiographical movie where 50 Cent unfortunately ended up getting rich.

And how many other rappers have co-starred in movies that have almost killed the careers of both Robert De Niro and Al Pacino? No, 50 Cent has got plenty to be proud of.

But ever since Kanye West sold more records than him and forced his retirement from music, 50 Cent has been at a bit of a loss of things to do. Sure, he’s tried his hand at other activities – like printing books, spending more time with his amusingly-named children and suing fast-food outlets for the hell of it – but none of these have filled the aching gap in his soul left by music.

So 50 Cent is now having a crack at something else – producing movies. It’s basically the same as being a rapper – you get to drive a big car, get shitfaced on drugs, surround yourself with booby models and have underground Eight Mile-style produce-offs with other aspiring – except you can hang around with Nicolas Cage without worrying that he’ll ask to pop a guest verse on your next single.

Which is exactly what 50 Cent has done, come to think of it. BBC News reports:

The rapper-turned-actor unveiled his plans for Cheetah Vision at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, said his new company had already bought eight scripts. He told Reuters the first to be produced would be The Dance, starring himself and Nicolas Cage. Jackson said: “He (Cage) plays the founder of a boxing program, and I play a fighter who goes to state prison.”

Wow, The Dance, huh? Nicolas Cage, huh? Why, that sounds awfully like The Dance, the 50 Cent/ Nicolas Cage movie that we wrote about almost three years ago. 50 Cent must have seen something really special in that movie, to offer to produce it himself after it was kept in development hell for so long.

And we’d agree with him, too. It might not be easy for 50 Cent to get by in an industry he has no real experience of but, with a bit of time and a whole lot of effort, he might just make The Dance the worst Nicolas Cage movie ever. Here’s hoping.

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Anyway, We’re only telling you this because Nicolas Cage’s new film Bangkok Dangerous is number one at the US weekend box office this week, taking in a mighty seven million dollars. Look, that figure might be 22 times less than The Dark Knight took on its opening weekend, but did The Dark Knight feature a skinny man in a funny wig shooting people in a boat? No, no it didn’t. Point proved.

Bangkok Dangerous‘ weekend box office success makes us think that all Asian movies would do well if they were remade starring Nicolas Cage. Imagine Nicolas Cage eating a live octopus in an Old Boy remake. Or Nicolas Cage kicking over cities in a Godzilla remake. Or a remake of The Ring where Nicolas Cage crawls out of a TV and scares Nicolas Cage to death and Nicolas Cage has to investigate it. Yes!

Bangkok Dangerous is the top movie at the weekend box office – and it’s not particularly surprising, given moviegoers’ love for horrible wigs, violent assassinations, generic action thrills and Nicolas Cage patronising the Asians. Maybe if Babylon AD had got Vin Diesel to overpronounce the word ‘holiday’ to a confused elderly man from South-East Asia, that would topped the weekend box office too. Here’s the US weekend box office top five:

1 – Bangkok Dangerous (Another reason why Bangkok Dangerous succeeded was because of the ‘location description’ formula of its title. Bangkok really is dangerous, you see. It’s not a formula that would work in this country, though – would you go and watch Sutton Coldfield Underwhelming? Of course you wouldn’t. Not even if it had Nicolas Cage with a girl’s haircut in it) $7,800,000

2 - Tropic Thunder (Thank goodness Tropic Thunder’s still doing the weekend box office business, because otherwise Steve Coogan would have only had Hamlet 2 to rely on, and that died a death. Oh Steve Coogan, whyever did you stop making geographical action movies with Jackie Chan?) $7,500,000

3 - The House Bunny (Wow, that’s three for three gormless comedies so far in the weekend box office. America must really love to laugh at the momen… what? Bangkok Dangerous isn’t a comedy? Really? That’s a serious haircut, then? Crikey) $5,900,000

4 – The Dark Knight (Since casting rumours for The Dark Knight’s sequel have now officially gone berserk, let’s throw this one in here – in the next movie, Nicolas Cage is actually going to be playing Batman. And Alfred. And The Penguin. And Catwoman. Blimey, this cough medicine really is quite strong, you know) $5,715,000

5 - Traitor (We could be wrong, but Traitor sounds like it’s basically the flashback story of Sayid from Lost, except without the sneaking suspicion that the invention of Google Earth has rendered the whole fucking thing completely pointless) $4,660,00

Read more:

Weekend Box office – Box Office Mojo

PLOT - Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of Leaving Las Vegas where, rather than drinking himself to death, Nicolas Cage goes to Thailand determined to say the words “holiday” and “banking” to the locals in such a patronisingly oversimplistic way that they get offended and shoot him.

CHARACTERS – Nicolas Cage. Just Nicolas Cage. Playing Nicolas Cage. Other characters might appear from time to time, but only so that Nicolas Cage can either a) punch them, kick them, explode them, riddle them with machinegun fire or make them go “Ugh!” in a bathroom really quickly, or b) tenderly touch their hands if they’re a woman.

THEME – Nicolas Cage’s four rules – ‘don’t ask questions’, ‘there is no right and wrong’, ‘don’t take an interest in people outside of work’ and ‘know when to get out’ – seem to be the theme of Bangkok Dangerous. However, he actually has five rules – the final one is ‘Always wipe your bum from front to back so you don’t end up with shitty balls’. Oh, and another theme is unquestionably crap hair – but that’s a motif that runs through Nicolas Cage’s entire canon.

Fed up with a passage in her autobiography claiming that he's not only a drink-driver but a brazen chihuahua-thief, Nicolas Cage has decided to sue Kathleen Turner for everything she's got – which at the last count totalled three boxes of Serial Mom VHS tapes, some elastic-waisted jeans and half a packet of Lockets.

Still, Kathleen Turner should count herself lucky that Nicolas Cage is only suing her – it's only common decency that's stopping him from jumping into his old bear suit and smacking her right in the face.

Thanks to Ghost Rider and National Treasure 2 topping the box office, it's fair to say that Nicolas Cage is at the top of his game. That's strange in itself, especially given that the latter mainly involves Cage saying a lot of words he clearly doesn't understand and wishing he could just roll around the floor screaming "Not the bees! NOT THE BEES!" at the top of his voice again.

Anyway, as a bona fide star, Nicolas Cage needs to protect his reputation. Admittedly his reputation is that of a terrible actor who names his son after Superman and goes all boogley-eyed when confronted with triplets, but that's his reputation and he needs to defend it my any means he can.

And that means that when chainsaw-voiced actresses who used to be pretty but now look kind of old and dumpy saw that Nicolas Cage possibly stole a small dog 22 years ago, he'll sue them to high heaven. A shame, because that's pretty much what Kathleen Turner claims in her autobiography Send Yourself Roses.

Discussing when she worked with Nicolas Cage on the 1986 Francis Ford Coppola movie Peggy Sue Got Married, Kathleen Turner wrote:

"Everything Francis (Ford Coppola) wanted him (Cage) to do, he went against to show that he wasn't under his uncle's wing. Which was ridiculous. Oh, that stupid voice of his and the fake teeth! Honestly, I cringe to think about it. He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for drunk driving and, I think, once for stealing a dog. He'd come across a Chihuahua he liked and stuck it in his jacket."

And, as far as Nicolas Cage is concerned, none of that happened, and so he's launched libel proceedings against Kathleen Turner in London's High Court. Why London? It could be because Nicolas Cage has a house in England and it's closer, or it could be because British libel laws are weighted flatly in favour of the plaintiff and it would have been much harder for him to win a similar case in America.

Either way, it's so rare for celebrities to sue each other that this could be one to keep an eye on. After all, imagine if Steve Guttenburg sued Ally Sheedy for something that happened during the production of Short Circuit. That's the magnitude of we're talking about here, people.

Read more:

Nicolas Cage To Sue Turner Over 'False' Book Claims – FemaleFirst