Jack Smith movie reviews:            Date 12-11-2000

The Family Man

There is a new movie, it’s not really out yet, it a sneak preview this last weekend. And it’s going to be coming out, I believe, next week. The name of the movie [uh] is “The Family Man”. [Uh] It has Nicholas Cage in the lead role [uh] it has [um] (What’s the little girl that played in that? She was in [um] … It’s … yea, it’s … Tia, I got the first one, somebody else get the last one. The wife of the guy that plays on “X-Files” David Duchovny [um] no, not quite, it’s close [anyway]) Anyway, the story is a lot, I think just about every sentence in that movie has a double intender if you understand what’s going on in the commercial world. [uh] The story is quite simple, at the start of the movie it’s thirteen years back in history, the year 1987 and Nicholas Cage and his college sweetheart [are] are saying farewells at the Kennedy airport in New York. And Nicholas Cage is heading to [to uh] England for one years training in what he graduated from college basically in [in uh] high-tech Wall Street finance technology And he’s going over to England because he’s got a job opportunity to train at Barclays’ bank. And he’s decided he’s gonna go do that. His girlfriend has also just graduated from college and she suggests that she’s going on to a college in the United States here, to become an attorney. And she is kind of pleading with Nicholas Cage, “Please don’t go to Europe, You should really consider us, and have your faith in us. And I feel that if you go to Europe, I have this gut feeling that we’ll break up.” And Nicholas Cage goes, “Nah, nah, nah, We’re so much in love the year apart won’t hurt us at all, it’ll go fast, I’ve got my training, you’ve got your college to go to.” So he decides that he’s going to Europe no matter what his girlfriend said, wishes her farewell, and away he goes.

The movie then opens up thirteen years later. Thirteen is the number of rebellion, but it’s also the number of change and chance. And so thirteen years have now passed, and we see that Nicholas Cage is one of the very high executives in an exclusive Wall Street company, which deals with, bringing corporations together in mergers and acquisitions. And spinning things off and reselling them in an arbiter etcetera. And he’s like not, the owner of the corporation but he’s like the pet that (‘s) absolutely so far up there the corporation can’t do without him.

We find that it’s Christmas Eve, and we find that it’s approximately 8:30 in the evening and they’re holding a board meeting. And just about everybody that’s in the board meeting is lamenting and complaining that it’s Christmas Eve and they’re not home with their family, and they should be. Except for Nicholas Cage, who’s saying, “Well, that’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re in this, is because when everybody else is just goofing around with mere family and stuff, we’re here setting up the big deal.” And it is true, that they were working on a huge multi-billion dollar merger that had to take place before the end of the year, and it necessitated working on Christmas Eve even at 8:30. And he informed everybody that they would all be back to work Christmas day at two in the afternoon to finish up the preparations. Because he had to make a flight to the potential client out in Aspen and he needed their background, assistance and help before he could make that flight. So he finally excuses everybody to go, and the owner of the company comes in and he’s just proud as can be [at] at Nicholas Cage because of his capacity to think of nothing but the welfare of the corporation. And Nicholas Cage’s private secretary is there too. And she is so cool but she’s got her tongue in her cheek most all of the time, what she says she doesn’t believe, but she’s a faithful secretary. And she informs Nicholas Cage that he had a telephone call from this woman, Kate. And that she left her number and that he should call her back. Well, Nicholas Cage is thinking, Kate, whoa that’s gotta be my ex girlfriend, the one I ran out on thirteen years ago. So he asks the owner of the company, “What do you think, you think I should give her a call.” And the owner of the company says, “No, old girlfriends and tax returns are the same, ya just keep their memories in a drawer for three years and then ya get rid of them.” So he goes, “Yea I don’t want to stir up old memories.” So he decides not to call her. So he’s walking home on Christmas Eve, that night, and he happens to stop by a convenience store, he wants to pick up a jug of eggnog. And while he’s in the convenience store this street urchin comes in. Actually he’s well in his twenties, he acts like a bum, he’s dressed not very well, and he goes up to the clerk of the convenience store and he’s got what he claims to be a lottery ticket which is a winner for two hundred and thirty two dollars. But the clerk behind the counter is telling him to get the heck out a’ here, that he counterfeited the ticket and he wants nothing to do with it. And the street bum is trying to tell him, “How do you know I counterfeited the ticket you haven’t even looked at the ticket. You’re looking at me, look at the ticket man.” And he says, “Get the hell out of here or I’m calling 911 and the cops.” The street bum draws a revolver, points it at the guy behind the counter and says, “Look man, you’re gonna look at this ticket or I’m gonna waste you.” Well, Nicholas Cage decides, this is Christmas Eve, I’m a negotiator, I put deals together, I’m gonna go up there and I’m going to save the day for everybody. I’m gonna put a deal together. So he approaches the street bum, and he says, “Hey look man.” He said, “I’m a business man.” He says, “I’ll buy your ticket out from ya so you won’t have ta negotiate with this lunatic behind the counter.” The street bum points the gun at him and says, “Wallstreet, you wanna die today?” of which Cage says, “No I don’t wanna die today.” He says, “This is a straight business deal, listen to me, take it or leave it. I’ll give you two hundred dollars for that ticket.” And the street bum said, “Well what’s in it for you?” And he said, “Well, I’ll take it down to some other place and I’ll redeem it for two hundred and thirty eight, like you said, and I’ll make thirty eight bucks. What do you say? Take it or leave it.” So the guy looks at him and says, “OK it’s a deal.” So Nicholas Cage hands him the two hundred, the guy hands him the lottery ticket, he puts his gun away, they say goodbye to the idiot behind the counter and they walk out of the store together. On the way out of the store Nicholas Cage seems to think he’s on a roll so he says to the street bum, he says, “You know, you could be very successful if you put your life together and stopped screwing around.” So the street bum looks at him and says, “Well I don’t see as you’re doing all that hot yourself.” Nicholas Cage goes like, “What?” He says, ”I have everything I need.” The guy looks at him and says, “Just remember that, you brought it on yourself.” Nicholas Cage said, “I brought what on myself?” And the street bum just says, “Just remember, you brought it on yourself.” And he disappears.

Well Nicholas Cage goes home, he’s got a penthouse apartment in New York, extravagant. When he gets home it’s late, he knows he’s gotta get up early in the morning, go down to the office, prepare for his business trip, to meet this client for a multi-billion dollar idea. So he goes in and lays down on his bed. And he’s looking face up, it’s dark but the window is open and there are some lights coming in from the streets of New York. And as he lays there, you’re looking down on him like you’re on the ceiling and the camera pans into his face. And in the darkness, you would swear that he’s wearing a mask and that the side of his face, toward the window, has features, an the side of his face away from the window is dark. It looks like he is a character of two personalities. As he lays there, the light outside starts slowly changing and getting brighter. You’ve got a close up look of his face, and his eyes are closed, he’s been sleeping. And you realize that it’s opening up to the day, the next day. And all of a sudden this alarm clock goes off, next to him, this woman’s hand reaches over the top of him and slaps the alarm clock to make it go off. She looks at Nicholas Cage and says, “Coffee, I need strong coffee, go make me coffee.” And as he’s kind of coming to, going like, Where in the world am I? And what’s going on? He hears the [sign] sound of kids voices going, “Daddy, daddy.” And he bolts out of bed and he says, “Where am I? This isn’t my house, this isn’t my family.” The woman next to him was his college sweetheart. But he’s totally confused. Everybody is talking to him, like; you’ve been here for years, this is normal. And it’s like, excuse me, what life am I just woke up into, this isn’t mine. He runs downstairs, the doorbell rings, he answers it, and an older couple greets him. And he has no clue who these people are. And so he runs outside and he’s puzzled, he runs back in and he says, “Who’s got my car and how did I get here?” And they’re goin’, “Well, you slept here, what do you mean, you live here.” And he’s going, “Let me borrow your car.” And the woman says, “Oh, give him the keys for the Cadillac.” And the old man says, “I’m not gonna give him the keys for the Cadilliac, he’s got his SUV in the driveway, let him take that.” So he hands Nicholas Cage the keys for the car in the driveway. Nicholas drives, he finds out he woke up in New Jersey. He drives back into the city, parks the car out in front of his building, where his penthouse suite is, tries to get in the building, and they don’t know him and they throw him out. And tell him if he tries to continue to do this, they’re gonna call the cops and have him arrested. He thinks they’re playing a joke on him. So he goes to the building where he works, and talks to the guard that he always talks to and the guard that he talks to doesn’t know him. He says, “If you don’t get lost, the building’s closed, we’re gonna have you arrested.”

I think everybody has probably gone through The Christmas Story, with Scrooge, who was exposed to the Christmas past, the Christmas present, and the Christmas future. This is kind of like a story that comes to Nicholas Cage, in a modern setting. When he leaves the building where he worked, and goes out to get in his car. All of a sudden, he hears this voice coming from this automobile that’s parked next to the SUV. And it happens to be the bum that he had met the night before, the one who had the gun. And low and behold, the bum is driving Nicholas Cage’s Ferrari and he’s dressed up to beat the band. And Nicholas Cage is looking in the window goin, “Hey man, where’d you get my car? And what’s goin on?” And the guy says, “Get in, and I will explain what’s happening to you.” He gets in the car and the driver explains that when he said, “I have it all. I don’t need anything else.” He brought it on himself. That he’s been exposed to a glimpse of what his life might have been had he made different choices in his life. Well needless to say, Nicholas Cage doesn’t want to get out of his Ferrari, and doesn’t want to go back. And his first question is, “How much will it cost me to get my old life back?” Notice how I told you just about every sentence has a double entender in this movie? Now the old life that Nicholas Cage wanted to get back, obviously was the life in which he was operating in commerce, to the max. And all he thought about was commerce. And it was public commerce, for public corporations. Nicholas Cage had no private existence. All he had was a public life and this movie, The Family Man, shows you the distinction between the public existence and the private existence in a really neat story. It turns out that Nicholas, of necessity, has to go back to the home and the family in New Jerwsey. And he gets back there, and he’s there for a couple of days, over the holiday. And the day after Christmas it turns out that, his college sweetheart, in this life that he‘s been exposed to in a glimpse. Had indeed gone back to college and had gotten her degree in law. What she chose to do when she graduated, is she was practicing law but she was doing it pro-bono. She was basically, contributing her time to help legal clients out. Getting paid just about zilch money, the only time she got paid was by a trust or a foundation to do her job, pro bono for all these other clients. So she was barely squeaking by financially, but she wasn’t upset, she was quite happy in what she was doing. It really upset Nicholas Cage when he found out that his wife was working pro bono because she knew how brilliant she was. Then he said, “Well, what do I do?” and he found out that he was a tire salesman. And that really upset him too because they had zero money coming in, and they had two kids. They had a little girl who was about, oh, four, five, or six and they had a son who was about six months old. And the first day after Christmas, when they got up, his wife said, “This is your day, you get the kids ready, the girl for school, the little boy to take him down to daycare, and then you go to work.” So the wife was gone, and he had to change the baby, and he didn’t much like the poopy diaper. He particularly didn’t like it at all when the little boy “pissed” on him, because he wasn’t ready, with no diaper. And his little daughter is sitting there, watching Daddy and the little baby. And she finally looks at Nicholas Cage and said, ”You’re not my real Father, are you?” And he looks back at her and he goes, “No I’m not.” She comes over and kinda looks him straight in the eye, and said,” They did a good job, you look just like my Daddy.” And he said, “Yes.” And she went back and sat down and she said, “You aren’t going to kidnap my baby brother and me and give us over to the aliens, are you?” And he said, “No, I’m not.” And she said, “good.” And she kinda led him through his days for the next couple of days. But again you’ve got this concept of giving ‘em to the aliens, i.e. filing the birth certificates. Every thing in this movie is carefully double intendered. There are no accidents in this movie. It’s absolutely an incredible teaching tool for anybody that has the level of understanding, of the commercial regime, that you people have. It’s absolutely a pleasure to watch this movie to see what Hollywood is doing to play with you. And it’s giving you some hints, but it’s playing with your mind. The whole movie is like a riddle, “Is anybody gonna get it?” Do you have anything else to add that you want, to the people, Jay? On what you saw?

[Jay] OK, Um, I also observed there were a couple interesting things, you know we’re not gonna let em know what happens at the end. But um, if you also think of it, the man, being in commerce, went off to London to further, [unidentified voice] right, yea the woman stayed at home, to become a wife. Of course you know, that suits the woman’s talents more, talking, trying to make nice warm fuzzies, and have nice outcomes. OK, uh, now the thing is, uh, her during the part where she was the wife and he was the husband. She kept saying, “I believe in us, U.S.”, OK? [Unidentified voice] Right, OK and I thought it was interesting that, when they were replaying this, “second chance”. Here was commerce and the legal system coming together to form a different union than what they had done when they had gone off separately. Alight, and it was an environment to protect the children.

[Part unintelligible then Jack] When he went into the convenience store, I don’t know if you noticed it, but the address on the street of the convenience store was 400. Which deals with 40 times 10, 40 is probation, his probationary period is ending. Times 10, 10 is [the] at law, so you see a [a] probationary period about to begin during the time when he’s introduced into this glimpse and this new chance at life. At one time, when he’s in his marriage role, and he stays in his marriage role for about twenty-one days. Did you catch that? It was three weeks. And during that period of time, the family goes shopping. And while they’re shopping, he’s kinda going along with it, pushing the baby stroller and everything. And they’ve bought groceries, they’ve [brought] bought kids clothes and all kinds of happy jazz. And then they’re gonna go out and look at something else and he kinda gets a little inpatient and he goes, “Why don’t we just go to every store at the mall then?” And so his wife kind of says, eh, you know, he’s gotten to the limit. She says, “Why don’t you stay here and just hang out in the men’s department, and we’ll come back when we’re done.” So he hangs out in the men’s [comp] department, of this department store and he’s got some really, really nice looking men’s suits and things there. And he kind of misses his life of “dress up” on Wall Street. And having missed that, [he’s] he’s constantly wearing an NYU sweatshirt. YU? Or New York University, he is at the University of Real Studies now, that’s going to basically offset the training that he got in England. And it’s New York not, Old York. Plus he lives in Jerwsey instead of New York anyway. So at the time that he’s there looking at the suit, he’s trying it on and the salesman is, you know, pumping him up, “Oh, you look great.” And when his family comes back and sees him in the suit. His wife just thinks, “Oh my God, you look like a million dollars. You oughta get it, What’s the price?” And they look at the price, and the price is 24 hundred dollars. Well 24 is priesthood and the priest is the one who does the sacrifice. And she says, “24 hundred dollars! We can’t afford that.” And then he starts in, yelling and screaming, “Yea that’s right, we can buy everything. But, when it comes to Dad we can’t get anything.” And finally in [in] kind of frustration, [she] says, “You want it? Get it, I don’t care.” And he goes, “No, no.” He’s gonna be the sacrificial man, he isn’t gonna get it. So, “No, no we’re not taking it.” But, even the numbers on everything they’re doing, absolutely incredible. It’s an excellent movie, it’s a [it’s a] romantic movie, it’s a comedy, it’s a mystery. I think both uh, men and women are gonna definitely love it, the acting is great. [Jay] It’s a good “chick flick” too. [Jack] Good “chick flick.” [Jay] They [‘ll] understand the underlying, [Jack] The commercial underlying activity, but it is great, Hollywood knows how to do it right. OK END TAPE 1

Remember how I described what was happening with Nicholas Cage when he went into the convenience store? The kid was trying to publicly redeem his certificate. Nicholas Cage turned a public negotiation, that was going wild and weird, into a private situation which defused the whole scenario. Now understand, when Nicholas Cage, stepped into a public negotiation that had nothing to do with him, what was he doing? He’s taking on the role of the fiduciary, and he could have gotten killed. He was trespassing in a public arena. However, what he ended up doing, is he ended up acting in the capacity of a sacrificer or a sacrificial priest to convert the public commerce, private, and diffused it. And because he gave, the street urchin, something, he got something back. But, when he tried to preach to the street urchin, then the street urchin, said, “There’s a quid pro quo, if you want to preach to me, let me preach to you. I’ve observed that you are lacking something too.” And so we’re spun off into basically, “We’re gonna give you a glimpse.” What is a glimpse? It’s an offer. What are you gonna do with the offer? Reject it or accept it. Everything about “The Family Man” is commercial intercourse, in everything that’s going on. And they teach you what’s happening at a very high level. Back and forth between public - private, private – public. It’s really neat what they’re doing.

As transcribed by: Majic