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3) Nick Cage Unleashes the Fury
The Scene: In the 2006 remake of The Wicker Man, Nicolas Cage plays Edward Malus, an American police officer who comes to an island of neo-pagans to try to find his ex-fiancee's missing daughter. During his investigation, he comes to find out that the town blames the girl for their recent dip in honey production (probably not the best product to hinge your economy on outside the Hundred Acre Wood by the way), and plan on sacrificing her in an effort to restore things to balance. Obviously, Nick Cage is not cool with this, so he starts punching women in an effort to save the missing girl, as this scene so elegantly demonstrates.
Why It's Funny: Okay, I'll admit it, putting Rage Cage in an article like this feels a little unfair, if only because every director in the world knows how ridiculous he is by now, so if they're deciding to hire him anyway I'm not sure we can really consider it unintentional humor. Still, I'd be doing myself and the world at large a great disservice if I chose not to include this scene, for the simple reason that it's the best thing I've ever seen. I mean, seriously, watch the video above and explain to me how I'm NOT going to use that clip. Nick Cage falcon-punching the shit out of some unsuspecting, pagan sister-lady? Yes, please!
Now, as for the scene itself, I have to admit I think it's some of Cage's finest work. Think about it. Think about all we know about Nick Cage and his movie career--the freak outs, the rage, the screaming. You don't see any of that here. And that's the beauty of it! By remaining relatively calm throughout the scene before finally expelling his rage in a single, earth-shattering haymaker, Cage goes against the grain to create a moment of true artistic perfection. Everything about it just works, from the sweater-clad Neanderthal smugly goading our fallen hero, to his stoic, smoldering descent down the stairs, to the scintillating southpaw smash itself, which puts Sister Beech down so hard even Chris Tucker's character from Friday would have trouble conveying what happened to her. It's pure comedy gold, and it only works if Cage is able to reign himself in for these precious twenty seconds, which he does.
Beyond that, the clip has spawned a couple of hilarious altered versions on YouTube, with audio of everything from the aforementioned Falcon Punch to Bioware's hit game Mass Effect included. Even the clip I chose to use above (the most unaltered one I could find) appears to have its audio slightly out of sync to simulate the effect of Cage's time-bending blow. Either that or his punch was actually powerful enough to disturb the fabric of space and time, which, after watching the rest of the movie and finding the clip below, isn't entirely out of the question.
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