They’re One-Name Movie Stars the Somerville Theatre’s

 “They’re one-name movie stars,” explains the Somerville Theatre’s creative director Ian Judge. “Cage. Travolta. So many of their roles are iconic… so many career highs and lows.” But we’re sticking with the highs right now for “Face/Off: Travolta/Cage,” a 10-week, 19-film series of double features currently running at the recently refurbished, 108-year-old movie palace in Davis Square. Every Tuesday night during the months of March and April, a film starring John Travolta is followed by one starring Nicolas Cage, culminating on May 3 with “Face/Off,” director John Woo’s delirious 1997 action extravaganza in which the actors literally wear each other’s faces for most of the running time, doing spot-on impersonations of one another in a madcap, meta-movie hall of mirrors and balletic gunplay. Fun fact: “Face/Off” was the first time I ever went to see a movie and then went back to watch it again the very next day.

According to Judge, the mashup of these mercurial movie stars was a natural way to jumpstart the theater’s repertory film program after a long lockdown and our bleak omicron winter. He first told me of his idea last summer when the theater was shuttered for renovations, over a perhaps unnecessary number of beers across the street at The Burren. We discussed at length how Travolta and Cage have made more bad movies than most stars of their stature, and the stink of those bombs can sometimes cloud their indelible contributions to film history. Indeed, the lineup Judge has put together for this series contains one cultural phenomenon after another. Films like “Saturday Night Fever,” “Moonstruck,” “Grease,” “Valley Girl,” “Raising Arizona” and “Pulp Fiction” have become part of our shared pop consciousness — they’re movies you feel like you’ve seen even if you haven’t. It’s also impossible to imagine any other actors playing these roles.

Early last year, I found myself talking to a director who was desperately trying to land Travolta for his next project, a risky drama about a drug dealer who does some very bad things. He told me “I want John because audiences will follow him anywhere. When he’s in the right role, he connects with you the way very few others can.” This struck me as understanding Travolta’s appeal in a way even the actor himself seems to have trouble with sometimes. Of course, John Travolta has always been cool — my generation grew up surrounded by posters and pinups of him in the white disco suit, the greaser getup or the cowboy shirt and Stetson — but he was also always accessible, vulnerable and even kind of a goofball.

Travolta was a sex symbol, but not in the aloof, standoffish manner of say, Richard Gere (who with "Days of Heaven," “American Gigolo,” “An Officer and a Gentleman” and “Pretty Woman” made an entire career out of movies Travolta turned down) but in a clumsier, more endearing fashion. The tension and excitement were in how his uncouth characters, so often lacking in basic table manners, could suddenly move with such exquisite grace, suggesting the possibility perhaps that he could be housebroken. We put up with the misogynist macho posturing of his Tony Manero in “Saturday Night Fever” or the redneck wifebeater in “Urban Cowboy” because Travolta lets us see the frightened little boy behind the masculine fragility. A PG-rated version of the same conflict plays out in “Grease,” with Danny Zuko learning how to not act like the dude all his dumb friends want him to be.

I don’t think many movie icons have failed onscreen so consistently or magnificently as Travolta, tragically so in Brian De Palma’s “Blow Out.” The actor’s first role as an actual adult with a job is a classic De Palma patsy, thinking he has everything figured out before face-planting in the heartbreaking finale. His blundering is played to much more amusing effects in “Pulp Fiction,” where Travolta’s big superstar comeback came playing an impossibly charming, drug addict hitman who does not do a single thing right for the entire movie. He accidentally almost kills the boss’ wife, mistakenly shoots someone in the face, then gets killed himself because he was reading on the toilet during a stakeout. But man, can he dance.

Does any actor fall in love as ardently as Nicolas Cage? His eyes seem to liquify when gazing upon his intended, his whole body swooning with rapturous abandon. He’s a performer who makes big choices, putting it politely. It’s this commitment, the sheer sincerity, that I’m afraid has made Cage a figure of mockery for a self-protecting, ironic era when everything is reduced to memes. Sometimes it seems like Nicolas Cage came here from outer space — having interviewed him, I’d say it’s a 50/50 possibility — and yet the massive chances he takes and wild, full-bore physicality are always thrilling to watch, even in movies unworthy of his gifts. Financial troubles and a rough stretch of paycheck roles did a number on his popular and critical standing, but Cage has been on a career upswing as of late, headlining cult hits like “Mandy” and receiving warmly deserved kudos for his heartfelt performance in last summer’s kidnapped-pet drama, “Pig.”

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