Nicolas Cage the Tortured Artist in “Zandalee”

We just recorded a Shouts From the Back Row podcast about the rise and fall of Nicolas Cage, but even when his career was in great shape, he was still capable of delivering hilariously bad performances in hilariously bad films. Back in 1991, he starred in a little-known erotic drama called Zandalee, playing an artist who as an affair with the title character, who happens to be the wife of his best friend (played by Judge Reinhold). This eventually causes Cage to have an epic meltdown where he pours black paint all over himself. Zandalee really has to be seen to be believed and is just filled with laugh-out-loud moments, from its astonishingly awful dialogue (“When I go in the kitchen to make toast, I smell your skin”) to the moment where Cage and Reinhold fight over Zandalee by… uh, slow-dancing to Cajun music.