Ray Pride

Nestled at the butt end of Navy Pier in its Grand Ballroom on Saturday night, unnoted by the seething throngs threatening to capsize this immense mall, the Chicago International Film Festival is tossing its summer gala, a mid-career salute to Nicolas Cage.

It took the star of "Con Air" twenty years to get here; it takes more than twenty minutes to navigate through Taste of Pier, a Daley daydream come true. Pricey banquet tables are spaced around the room in front of the story-high screen that offers video greetings from distant co-workers, close-ups of Cage and clips. Recent CIFF honoree Bill Kurtis intones press-clipping anecdotes about Cage's career. Speedboats chop the slate dusk waters in impossible profusion while Nic drives fast; Nic yells; Nic says "fuck!"

Chicago Tribune reviewer Michael Wilmington mounts the stage, clutching a water bottle, dropping names of assignment editors for long-since-published profiles in Los Angeles-based publications. He cites a higher authority to challenge another critic's low esteem for Cage's looks: his mother. "You know," he says Mrs. Wilmington told Cage, "'In ten years, you'll be the biggest thing in Hollywood.' My mother couldn't make it tonight, she's got a bad cold, but she was right. John Simon was wrong!"

The auditorium pops with flashes like a field filled with fireflies when a ten-foot-high Cher offers her best wishes. Roger Ebert, on tape, is dressed all in black, and his white hair makes him look more Yohji Yamamoto-chic than even lounge lizard John Malkovich, who purrs a non-anecdote on tape. Ebert says that Cage's "Leaving Las Vegas" character, "hungover beyond belief" makes it "one of the best movies I've ever seen." Ebert extends the expected sort of tribute by calling the star of "Family Man" "one of our great actors, one of our most valuable actors."

Cage's uncle Francis Coppola sends a tape as well, one that's badly underexposed, his face occluded like Kurtz's in "Apocalypse Now" if only Brando had worn Hawaiian shirts. Taking the stage, Cage shrugs at his twenty-two years in the biz, saying, "I still don't really know what it is that I do," aside from the gift of getting "paid for lying" while looking for "truth." "If you think of ten million years from now, I don't know what movies will mean to the animals that exist then," the star of "Gone in 60 Seconds" ventures.

Soon, the Pier's regularly scheduled Saturday fireworks erupt. "I love fireworks. I convinced him they're in his honor," jokes festival boss Michael Kutza at the bar. So are they going to spell out "Nic"? "Clint," he says, laughing, dropping the name of the previous honoree. "I convinced him last year!"

(2003-07-23)

Also by Ray Pride

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(2003-07-16)

Tip of the Week
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Short Runs
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Tip of the Week
(2003-07-02)

Short Runs
(2003-07-02)

A bigger splash
(2003-07-02)

Short Runs
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(2003-06-25)

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