Nicolas Cage has fascinated audiences since his breakthrough debut in the 1983 film Valley Girl; here, pop culture critic Phipps looks to give new context to Cage's filmography in an industry that has alternately embraced and ridiculed his work. Emerging from the shadow of his famous Coppola lineage, Cage won an Academy Award in 1996 for his role in Leaving Las Vegas and continued to chart his own path to cult film infamy with movies like Con Air, Face/Off, and National Treasure. Phipps also uses Cage's career as a lens through which to view the film industry--for instance, in the mid-'90s, as indie films were surging in the wake of Pulp Fiction, Cage chose to star in the relatively low-budget Leaving Las Vegas. In recent years, Cage's bizarre personality and the gossip about his personal life have often eclipsed his acting choices, but Phipps provides a convincing assessment of his career. The narrative meanders at times, yet the book proves to be a surprisingly intriguing read, written in an accessible, magazine-like style. VERDICT Fans and detractors alike will find films to revisit and new things to ponder about Cage's protean career.--Claire Sewell

Film critic Phipps debuts with an entertaining odyssey through actor Nicolas Cage's rise to fame and his restless quest to create himself. Born Nicolas Coppola in 1964, Cage used television to escape life with a mother who was in and out of mental institutions. This led to an acting career that began in high school, and, later, the chance to flex his "dramatic chops" in the 1981 TV pilot The Best of Times. Eager to gain his own notoriety (outside that of his uncle, Francis Ford Coppola), he began going by "Nic Cage" in 1985. In exploring Cage's films from the 1980s to the 2010s, Phipps offers an entrancing look at the actor's transformation, starting with Cage's first hit, Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), which showcased the polarizing style of Method acting that became his trademark. Driven by "a need to reinvent himself," he oscillated from playing characters who "glow with virtue" (in films such as 1992's Honeymoon in Vegas), to playing bad guys (as in 1997's Face/Off), and flirted with hokier roles (notably in the National Treasure franchise). Even in underlining Cage's chameleonlike genius, Phipps doesn't gloss over the actor's missteps, including starring in 2011's Trespass, a box-office flop that marked the beginning of "some of his least creative performances." Cage's legions of devotees are in for a wild ride. (Oct.)

Following the actor through the ups and downs in recent movie history. In his first book, film journalist Phipps notes that many moviegoers have a love-hate relationship with the "intense, sincere, a little unreadable" actor Nicolas Kim Coppola (b. 1964). After a brief bio--the actor shed his uncle Francis Ford Coppola's name early on--the author juxtaposes insightful analyses of Cage's films with helpful film history about a fickle industry searching for the next fad or copying the latest hit. Teen-pleasing films were hot when Cage secured a small role in Valley Girl, then a better one in his uncle's Rumble Fish. Committed to fashioning a mythology around himself, Cage's fierce, expressionistic performance in Birdy arrived as filmmakers were in the process of defining film for the 1980s. Cage's "memorably vulnerable creation" in Peggy Sue Got Married was his first "undeniable hit." Mainstream movie comedies were in transition when Cage merged the absurd and heartfelt in Raising Arizona (he almost didn't get the part). Moonstruck, thanks to co-star Cher's support, was his first real mainstream film. That film, writes Phipps, "conferred on Cage the status of a sex symbol, and he didn't know what to do with it." Riding the wave of strange, independent films released in the 1990s, he created solid performances in Wild at Heart and the dark Leaving Las Vegas, which won Cage a Golden Globe and an Oscar. Then came the ubiquitous action films, including The Rock and Face/Off. Now an accomplished movie star, he demonstrated new confidence in The Thin Red Line and Adaptation. Among Cage's recent misses lurk some genuine hits: the underrated Matchstick Men and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, as well as the inventive, animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, for which Cage provided his voice. "Simply by persevering," Phipps writes, "he's seen it all, and his movies capture the face of a changing industry." Cage fans will relish this refreshing, extensive assessment of the mercurial, prolific actor. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.