9. Nicolas Cage - The Wicker Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1GadTfGFvU Neil LaBute's 2006 remake of the 70's horror classic The Wicker Man was unanimously panned by critics upon release, though most of them did foreground one curious element - Nicolas Cage's ridiculous performance. Taking on the Edward Woodward role, Cage saunters around an island looking for a missing girl, and going by his shouty, wildly over-the-top performance, there are basically two schools of thought - a) Nicolas Cage is a terrible actor or b) Nicolas Cage is one of the greatest over-actors in movie history. Cage has talked about the film at length and claims that he knew he was making a silly bit of fluff, and so decided to just have fun with it. Given that Cage spends half the film running around in a bear suit, hitting women, accosting children and so on, it's not that hard to believe. Just take the most famous scene of the film, in which Cage maniacally shouts "Not the bees! The bees! Arghghgh!" as hundreds of bees are funnelled into his mask. If we remember how good Cage can be when he wants to (Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation), this has to be on purpose.
Shaun Munro
Contributor
Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.
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