Travolta/Cage Ep. 16 - Amos & Andrew/Eyes of an Angel (with Craig Lindsey)

It’s buddy week this week, as the stars of our podcast pair up with unlikely partners in some early ‘90s curios of varying levels of quality! First up is Amos & Andrew, E. Max Frye’s well-intentioned but dubiously-funny racial satire about a well-to-do Black intellectual (Samuel L. Jackson) who finds himself the victim of racial violence in his own home, and the down-on-his-luck criminal (Nicolas Cage) who ends up teaming up with him to pull one over on the cops. It certainly hits differently in 2020, and even if the laughs don’t really work, it’s at least refreshing to see a movie in 1991 that actually admits that ACAB.

Then there’s Eyes of an Angel, aka The Tender, a deeply obscure direct-to-video weeper, in which Travolta plays a down-and-out ex-alcoholic single dad wrapped up in crime, dogfighting, and the care of an impossibly cherubic daughter. It’s a bad dog movie, it’s a worse Chicago movie, and it’s barely available except in ten-minute-long chunks on Youtube. Fun!

Luckily, we’ve paired up with film critic Craig Lindsey (@unclecrizzle) to join us on this herky-jerky journey through abject poverty and ‘90s race relations. And we also take some time near the end of the show to pay homage to the late, great Kelly Preston and her impact on Travotla’s life. Take a listen!

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