Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

I love this movie. I tend not to re-watch things unless a friend wants to watch it with me or if the kids are watching Moana for the 257th time. There are a few exceptions I make though. Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-verse is one. I could watch that on repeat indefinitely. I, Robot is my favorite movie of all time. I don’t care who knows it. I watched it. I left the theater. I was ready to pay good money to see it again right then and there.

Trapped in Paradise is not necessarily in the list of movies I purposefully watch over and over again but when it pops up on TV or falls in my lap, especially around Christmas time, I gotta watch it.

First of all it’s a Christmas movie. Then you have Dana Carvey and Jon Luvitz. How can you top that!?! Oh there’s only one way to top that. You know what I’m going to say!

You top that duo by making it a trio with

NICK!!!

EFFIIIIIIIIING!!!

CAGE!!!

And he’s not just making a nice little Christmas movie, which, by the way, it is. It’s a great Christmas movie about forgiveness and all the good feelings. But it features Nicolas Cage in his full Nick Caginess!!! All the best Nick Cage maneuvers are in this movie including:

The Pause and Escalate:

Get your LITTllle… KEISTerrrrrr… INTO THE CAR!!

The mocking baby talk:

Oh yeahhhh? You like daaaaat? Does it make feel geewwwwwwd? GET IN THE CAR!

And the quintessential long pause and gentle fake out:

………………you know that’s nice, lovely, it’s great, WOULD YOU GIVE ME THAT! GET IN THE CAR!

Of course Dana and Jon are the perfect sounding boards for these brilliant acting techniques. The two of them are so befuddled by Cage’s harsh and mocking admonitions they hardly know what to do with themselves which is just hilarious.

It might take a special kind of family to sit down and watch this for their annual Christmas movie however because of one factor. Florence Stanley, who plays the trio’s Ma, becomes utterly profane toward the end. It doesn’t bother me so much but it might bother your great great grandma who only plays Uno because regular cards are for sleazeballs, loose women, and great great grandpa.

Keep an eye out for actor Richard Jenkins who you probably won’t remember from anything but you will swear is Ted’s dad from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the psychologist from Terminator 2: Judgement Day, only to find out both of those parts were each played by two completely different actors (Hal Landon Jr. and Earl Boen respectively) who just happen to look like Richard Jenkins. You’ll then wonder why there are so many actors who look like that. The answer? Male pattern baldness.