Out Today: ‘Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career’

And we're giving away a handful of signed copies to new subscribers.

UPDATE: Sorry! We gave our allotment away. But we might have more later!

Hey! Have you ever considered becoming a paid subscriber to The Reveal? Would a signed book be the enticement you need? I’ve tried not to overwhelm this newsletter with promotion, so I hope you’ll indulge me a bit on publication day. In case you missed the ads appearing regularly at the bottom of The Reveal, I wrote a book called Age of Cage: Four Decades of Hollywood Through One Singular Career. It’s not a biography, though it has biographical elements. It’s more a career history that doubles as a lens to look at the changes in filmmaking over the last four decades. (If you want a sample of what it’s like, The Ringer has an excerpt covering Cage’s action star years.)

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If anything, it’s a stealth autobiography. It would be too much to say that Cage is responsible for my interest in movies, but early hits like Raising Arizona and Moonstruck definitely coincided with the dawning of my serious interest in film. And it was a screening of Mandy at Chicago’s Music Box Theatre that set off a lightbulb: here’s an actor I’ve watched grow and change through ups and downs for almost forty years giving it his all in a demanding, artistically challenging film of the sort he’d never made before. What would it be like to trace that journey from its origins through the present? (One other detail: shortly before the shuttering of The Dissolve I’d started watching Cage movies for one of our massive Career View columns. So call this unfinished business.)

All of which is a long wind-up to a giveaway. We’re giving away copies of Age of Cage to the first ten readers to subscribe at the annual level. Will I sign them? Yes I will. And for the first reader to subscribe at the founder level I’ll go one better: You’ll receive an autographed copy and I’ll draw a picture inspired by the Cage movie of your choice. That’s a priceless, one-of-a-kind collectible. (It’s not, but it is yours if you want it.) We’ll update this column when we’ve reached the limit.

One more thing: if you’re in Chicago, I’m hosting a screening of a Nicolas Cage double feature of Matchstick Men and Face/Off at the Music Box tonight. Here’s a link. Please come if you can!

Scott and I will be back tomorrow with a discussion of The Godfather: Part III (that’s for paid subscribers only) and again on Thursday with reviews of the latest movies (including Morbius).

Pre-order here or at the bookstore of your choice