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On the wave of the NC-17 "controversy" and acclaim for Keitel's performance, Bad Lieutenant took in about $2 million during its run in theaters. I was going to resist calling it a cult classic, but considering that it seems fairly to have faded into memory (title aside), perhaps it truly is. POCNO, scripted by long-time television writer William Finkelstein (many episodes of L.A. Law and cop shows such as NYPD Blue and Brooklyn South) shares a producer with the first film, a similar title and nothing else. However, just to make things more convoluted, it does give additional screenplay credit to the four writers (including Ferrara) of the first film. This may be the first case in Hollywood history where a title that could conceivably be accused of trading in on a previous "hit" actually isn't and it might have been smarter to call it something catchier and shorter. That's my take, anyway. Check out the end of Ebert's review for a more bemused fantasy of how they came up with the title.

Observation #2: "The" missing article. As an English graduate, I get perturbed by misuses of your and you're and riled up by misappropriate theirs and theres, but I save my deepest simmering rage for tacking on or dropping off "the." Every time I see Clint Eastwood's 1992 Oscar winner referred to as "The Unforgiven"; David Fincher's 2002 thriller name checked as "The Panic Room" or Spike Lee's masterpiece from that same year decked out as "The 25th Hour" (and it is one of the best of this decade, run do not walk to your Netflix account), a little part of my soul dies. I was all set to give David Mumpower and Kim Hollis a good going over for adding a "The" to the title in our holiday preview until I actually saw the damn thing. Why does the poster not have a "the" (or a hyphen for that matter) in the title? Is the title that flashes on screen truly the "correct" one? Why did this film, with near unanimous critical acclaim not screen for Portland critics and open unannounced two weeks ago? Once again, I have no answers. Moving right along (with apologies to my boss for ever doubting you).

Observation #3: Slap a beard on me and call me crazy. Both during and immediately after POCNO, I felt dazed. Perhaps it was such a feeling as Joaquin Phoenix had after crashing his car on the Pacific Coast Highway several years ago, only to hear the disembodied voice of Herzog telling him to remain calm. No free-floating hallucination, Herzog happened to be in the car directly behind Phoenix and also helped assist him out of the wreck and kept him from dazedly attempting to light a cigarette while still in the overturned vehicle.

Herzog has made a more notable name for himself this past decade with documentaries such as Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Grizzly Man and Encounters at the End of the World - all portraits of real-life figures in the throes of obsessions of some sort or another - but POCNO alludes to both his more recent dip into mainstream (or slightly more commercial) filmmaking with 2008's Rescue Dawn and his own checkered history with leading man Klaus Kinski, his collaborator numerous times in the 1970s and 1980s. It's hard not to draw the line from Kinski (as the mad conquistador in Aguirre, The Wrath of God) bug-eyed and howling on the raft surrounded by monkeys to Cage as drug-, sex- and gambling-addicted cop Terence McDonagh expounding with joy about his "lucky crack pipe." I remember the Nic Cage of my youth eating a live cockroach (Vampire's Kiss), starring in a bizarro z-grade sexual potboiler with Judge Reinhold (Zandalee) or wearing "a panty on his head" (you know which one). It's been a rough ride post-Leaving Las Vegas through 15 years of Bruckheimer productions and comic book adaptations to get back to unfettered, uncut, unhinged Cage. Truth be told, his over-the-top seems just a shade more mellow in his (and my) older age. At times, Cage seemed almost as if he was holding back . . . something? Or is that my jaded, seen-it-pose? Try as I might, though, I can't imagine any other current actor unhooking an old lady from her oxygen tank and pointing a gun at her temple to frighten her and convincingly selling it AND remaining likable.

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