This week Alex and Wesley have a long discussion about the last 10 years of Nicolas Cage. They weren’t all bad. In fact, this stretch includes one of the best performance by him — or anyone, for that matter — in the last decade. But mostly, it’s a lot of Nic Cage apocalypse movies of the month. For a certain kind of gonzo movie-star acting, he can’t be beat.

Grantland is spending the year obsessed with 1994. The podcast will get around to that. First: a stop in 1989, a great year for great staying-power albums (Paul’s Boutique, Three Feet High & Rising, The Sensual World, Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814, Let Love Rule, Full Moon Fever, Disintegration, Pretty Hate Machine, Doolittle, Mother’s Milk, Cosmic Thing, Bleach, and the Batman soundtrack, which is better than its detractors would have you believe). There were also As Nasty As They Wanna Be, Electric Youth, and Loc’d After Dark.

Anyway, Alex and Wesley discuss Madonna’s Like a Prayer, which also turns 25 (it was released in late March 1989). It’s not the best album from that year’s class. It’s not even her best album. But it remains very good. What’s striking about it now is how it idiosyncratically answers only the call of Madonna. It’s not chasing a sound, just a therapeutic idea of confession, which comes through in most of the album’s 11 songs. Wesley really remembers what it smells like. It’s definitely patchouli.

Also: Wesley pretty much agrees to start watching Game of Thrones — from the beginning.

Listen to the podcast here.

Here are links to topics discussed on this week’s show:

Nicolas Cage:
“Irrational Treasure,” Grantland, April 11, 2014
Drive Angry, Boston Globe, February 25, 2011
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans, Boston Globe, November 25, 2009
Clip from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012), directed by Brian Taylor and Mark Neveldine
Clip from Trespass (2012), directed by Joel Schumacher
Clip from Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans (2009), directed by Werner Herzog
Clip from World Trade Center (2006), directed by Oliver Stone
Clip from The Weather Man (2005), directed by Gore Verbinski

Like a Prayer
“Like a Prayer,” Madonna, directed by Mary Lambert
“Express Yourself,” Madonna, directed by David Fincher
“Cherish,” Madonna, directed by Herb Ritts
“Oh Father,” Madonna, directed by David Fincher

Grantland’s Game of Thrones coverage

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqrINikd0ZQ

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