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Edwin Davies: It seems that the first half of Nicolas Cage's career was written by Charlie Kaufman, but the second half has been written by Donald Kaufman. Hopefully the artful, intelligent side of him will one day reassert itself and leave the pandering hack side behind. It's looking increasingly less likely, though.

Jim Van Nest: I agree that Cage should take the advice of all of my cohorts here, but before you do, Nic...could you do one more National Treasure? My kids would REALLY appreciate it. Thanks buddy!

Michael Lynderey: I think he should combine his love (?) for making B-movies with the top writers and directors who know how to make good ones. The Rock and Con Air, two of my favorites, come immediately to mind. And of course, I was also a big fan of Knowing. So, really, I don't have anything against the man, and I look forward to Drive Angry.

Kim Hollis: Despite the way I phrased the question, I've actually come to enjoy and like bad movie Nic Cage. I harbor no illusions that he's doing anything to raise these movies to another level (and I don't think he does either), but there's something that entertains the hell out of me to see him chew scenery. I think it was Bad Lieutenant (not a bad movie, but certainly an odd one) that put him over the top for me.

Reagen Sulewski: Making all these crappy movies won't bring back your goddamned honey!

David Mumpower: Cage represents everything that is wrong with the Hollywood star system. Here are some of the clunkers on his resume in the 2000s: Windtalkers (financial disaster that ruined John Woo's career), Gone in Sixty Seconds (made money in spite of its quality), Matchstick Men, Weather Man, Lord of War, The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Next, Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and now Season of the Witch. You will find people who defend some of these projects. I quite like Next, as an example. If you ask the average person who has seen all of those movies if they like at least half of them, the answer will be a firm NO! A lot of the reason for that is Cage's willingness to sleep walk through roles in exchange for financial compensation. We have so many starving actors out there waiting for their Hurt Locker while we simultaneously have this guy clogging up the system with his unwillingness to turn anything down. John Travolta and Bruce Willis both exhibited this trait as well. I would maintain that the only interesting acting choice he's made in the past five years is The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. He gives off the vibe, particularly lately, that he's stopped caring about his chosen vocation. He's still taking the money, though. He's a real life Krusty the Clown.

Country Strong sounds like the tagline for a rugged truck

Kim Hollis: Country Strong earned $7.3 million in 1,422 locations this weekend. What do you think of this result?

Josh Spiegel: Considering how purely unbelievable it is to me that Gwyneth Paltrow could ever be seen as a country music star, I guess this number's not too bad, but when you consider how well some of the Oscar bait from 2010 is performing (Black Swan only dropping 6 percent and True Grit being number one this weekend) while Country Strong - which was thought of as an outside shot for Best Actress a while ago - makes a mediocre figure, it's nothing to write home about.

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