Above, Nicolas Cage describes his acting discipline, "nouveau shamanic," which involves "put[ting] on Afro-Caribbean paint" and "sew[ing] in bits of Egyptian artifacts that are thousands of years old into my costume and gather[ing] some onyx or tourmeline or something that was meant to have vibrations." Yesterday, he told Moviefone:

"[Winning Oscars] isn't important to me," he admitted. "In fact, I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way. I think that it's ... right now, what I'm excited about is trying to create a [pauses] kind of a cultural understanding through my muse that is part of the zeitgeist that isn't motivated by vanity or magazine covers or awards. It's more, not countercultural, but counter-critical. I would like to find a way to embrace what Led Zeppelin did, in filmmaking."

I have no idea what Season of the Witch or Ghost Rider 2 can tell us about ourselves, yet, but I imagine that's my failing, not Cage's, and I wholeheartedly endorse "counter-critical" as a life stance.