Travolta/Cage #23: Phenomenon/Leaving Las Vegas (with Jason Webber)

This week on the pod, we start to crystallize the essence of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage’s mid-90s careers with two decidedly different films about characters engaged in holy martyrdom! Jason Webber, author of Purple Bananas: How Prince Saved Me and Other Selections from the Soundtrack 2 My Life and Juggalo publicist extraordinaire, hops on board for a two-part bender of Phenomenon and Leaving Las Vegas.

In Leaving Las Vegas, Cage pours himself into the role of a low-functioning alcoholic publicists who decides to drink himself to death in Sin City, with the help of a sex worker (Elisabeth Shue) who loves him without wanting to change him. It’s a heartbreaking film that won Cage his Oscar, thus ensuring that yes, we do have to take him seriously as An Actor.

On the other hand, Travolta indulges a different sort of Christ complex in Jon Turteltaub’s Phenomenon, a schmaltzy bit of Capraesque Americana where he plays a thoroughly-average car mechanic who suddenly gets photographic memory and telekinesis thanks to a mysterious light in the sky. Is it aliens? Is it a toomah? Will being a holy-anointed supergenius give him an ounce of additional game with the hot single mom (Kyra Sedgwick) he wants to woo? The answers will whelm you!

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