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Nicolas Cage recently sat down with Eric Kohn of IndieWire to discuss his new film, Mandy, and his distaste for being meme-fied.
Mandy hit theaters earlier this month on September 14th. It has since been "certified fresh" by Rotten Tomatoes with a score of 93%.
It is set in 1983 and follows the story of Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and his girlfriend, Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough).
The pair live in a secluded cabin and lead a peaceful and happy life until the leader of a cult sets his sights upon Mandy.
The cult leader and his followers terrorize the couple and take Mandy away from Red, causing Red to spiral into madness.
Watch the trailer here.
Certain stills from the trailer show Cage looking particularly angry, or full of rage. Get it?
These images, along with images of his past films, have inspired a meme trend called "Cage Rage".
But these memes are invoking a sense of rage within Cage. He told IndieWire more about his thoughts on the Memes.
"The issue is, with the advent of the internet, doing these mashups, where they pull these choice moments without the context of the whole film around it to support it, has created this meme-ification, if you will. It's been branded 'Cage Rage,' and it's frustrating."
He continued by bringing up Mandy's director, Panos Cosmatos.
"I'm sure it's frustrating for Panos, who has made what I consider a very lyrical, internal, and poetic work of art, to have this 'Cage Rage' thing slammed all over his movie. It's one thing for me, because I'd like to think I could continue to work with Panos, but the internet has kind of done the movie a disservice."
Nicolas Cage also feels as though his newest film isn't getting the respect it deserves because of the memes.
"I think that the movie haven't been given perhaps a fair viewing by virtue of the fact that the internet has mashed them up with these moments that have been cherry-picked, that aren't really in the context of the character or how the character got there."
Some people sympathize with Cage's frustrations.
Others can't stop and won't stop.
Mandy is available VOD through YouTube, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.