Cast & Credits

Directed by Robin Hardy. Screenplay by Anthony Shaffer. MPAA: Rated R. Runtime: 88 min.

For my money, Nicolas Cage's perfect role was as the intellectually challenged repeat offender in The Coen Brothers' anarchic comedy 'Raising Arizona'. He's one of those male leads who never convinces me as a tough guy - the more macho he tries to be, the more ridiculous he looks.

A case in point is 'The Wicker Man' , a misguided remake of the 1973 cult classic, where he is woefully miscast as a hard nosed Californian cop investigating the disappearance of a child in a closed, female dominated community.

His default option recourse to police weaponry and disturbing habit of thumping women are so ludicrously over the top that the scenes become unintentionally hilarious. As one Youtube viewer commented: "I hadn't realized how empty my life had been til I'd seen a woman sucker-punched by a dude in a bear outfit".

Cage delivers lines like "You have permission to stand out the fucking way!" and the funniest moment comes when he forces a woman on a country road to dismount from her bicycle. He points his gun at her as if confronting a rabid terrorist rather than an unarmed school teacher before ordering her to "Step away from the bike!" This line is so crass that it has been adopted as the slogan for the Wicker Man online hatelisting group which invites participants to register their loathing for the remake.

You can see this memorable scene, along with others in this excellent YouTube montage:

In the movie, Cage has an allergy to bee stings and a neurotic obsessive disorder which means that he cannot be separated from his jacket and tie for long periods. When he emerges from near death by drowning in an underground well (still looking remarkably un-wet!) his first action is to put his jacket back on to restore his clean shaven well turned out demeanor. He blunders about the island like an SAS cop in a convent ("I don't get this place!")

In the original movie the Island based community used the pretext of celebrating the goddess of fertility to bonk en masse in the fields and you also got the chance to marvel at Britt Ekland's naked booty dance. In the remake, a chaste kiss between Cage and his ex is the extent of the carnal excitement.

Another glaring difference is in the use of music. Paul Giovanni's original score evoked both the bawdy sense of revelry and the traditional Celtic rituals at the heart of this alternative island culture. In the updated version the maypole stands unused and in the procession scene the primitive instruments being played are drowned out by the bland orchestrated soundtrack.

This celebration of paganism is also eliminated in the remake, a measure of how mainstream cinema nowadays mostly filters out any controversial references to religion. Christopher Lee's charismatic performance as Lord Summersisle in the original made the power he held as a occultist master of ceremonies highly believable. For the remake this role is taken by Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summersisle, a mother goddess is a more benign figure - more quaintly eccentric than demonically crazed.

In short, the movie is a bona fide turkey which pales in comparison to Robin Hardy's still remarkable 1973 version which remains one of the UK's most unique and uncompromising pieces of cinema.

On Saturday night Fiona and I went to see SWEENEY TODD THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET with our friends Ali and David, and naturally I pumped them for suggestions for the blog here. This is Ali's excellent proposal for a moment of cinema that warms the cockles and releases endorphins (which are stored in your cockles and released by heat).

THE WICKER MAN is still one of the few Scottish films that Scottish people like. Because it's actually unusual, intelligent and entertaining, I suppose (there's no accounting for taste). Those in charge of promoting Scottish cinema have, in their wisdom, chosen to concentrate on making dull, depressing and anti-cinematic films, so it's no wonder that Robin Hardy, director of this little classic, has struggled to find funding for a WICKER MAN follow-up.

Of course, THE WICKER MAN is an English production set and filmed here, rather than an indigenous film. As such, it's part of a small group of foreign portrayals of Scotland that Scots actually like. WHISKY GALORE and LOCAL HERO have Scottish or part-Scottish directors. The success of BRAVEHEART here testifies to our healthy population of patriotic idiots.

A lot of people have been inspired by this film over the years. Jonathan Ross credits Britt Ekland's performance for "helping me through those difficult teenage years." Ewen McGregor can be seen watching it in SHALLOW GRAVE, and chortling, the way all Scots instinctively do when a policeman is immolated. For those of us in the film industry, it's a monument to the principle that the words Scottish and Cinema CAN go together.

Ali is a brilliant costume designer:

She's dressed WICKER MAN star Christopher Lee in GREYFRIAR'S BOBBY, and was recently chatting to Robin Hardy about COWBOYS FOR CHRIST, his follow-up to TWM. She found him fun and extremely energetic -- which he'll need to be.

But her reason for picking this moment is the perfect encapsulation of the Cinema Euphoria Credo -- it makes her happy.