Nathan Rabin's Happy Cast

We finally start to play the real hits over on Travolta/Cage this week, as The Flop House’s Dan McCoy joins us to talk about two great films in our respective subjects’ careers: the Brian De Palma thriller Blow Out and Francis Ford Coppola’s romantic fantasy Peggy Sue Got Married! In Blow Out, we get to see Travolta shuck his overwrought pretty-boy character studies to play the dogged lead of a tight-knit Hitchcockian thriller. It’s a great showcase for what Travolta can do when he’s not tasked with dancing or smirking; he’s haunted and intense as a sound designer who happens upon a political assassination and tries to unravel the mystery surrounding it. De Palma’s never been more stylish, and Travolta’s unique brand of nose-to-the-ground competence porn is beautifully suited to it. And then there’s Peggy Sue Got Married, a charming little movie about the road not taken starring Kathleen Turner as a middle-aged woman suddenly transported back to her high school life with the knowledge of the disappointing lif