In other news, I ignored all the warnings and omens and actually watched Disaster Movie the other night. When can I have my sight back? I've taken to watching a lot of bad movies recently--always enjoyed them since I grew up on MST3k--and I thought I was prepared. I thought I could handle any bad movie. I thought I could have fun with it.
I was wrong. Very very wrong.
Like, there's bad movies and then there's bad movies. Like, you and a friend are looking at some movies on IMDB's bottom 100 for something to watch (we all do that...right?) and your friend will point one out and laugh, "Oh God! That movie's so bad!! Hahaha!". That is one kind of bad movie. The "good" kind of bad. I refuse to use the phrase "so bad it's good" because those movies are still bad, they're just hilarious, too, but not by any intention or effort to be hilarious. But this is the kind of movie that I imagine falls under that annoying cliche; the kind you or your friend point out and laugh "It's so bad!"/
Then there's the other kind of bad movie. Unwatchable wrecks on ice. The kind your friend points to and says with deadly seriousness "That movie is just terrible.". No giggles. No recountings or re-enactments. Just a shudder and declaration "terrible".
Disaster Movie ought to define this kind of "bad". It wasn't funny. It wasn't really watchable--I felt almost sickened at points. I couldn't even add MST3k-esque commentary--my running line was nothing more than an incredulous "really!?". It's almost as if its utter dearth of tastelessness & competence were verging on artistic. Like, it's almost like they took "badness" as a medium, and then refined it with all manner of increasingly, pathetically tasteless embellishments to make it to such a hideously unwatchable blob of FAIL. But, then, that would imply some competence on the filmmakers' part.
It's the kind of movie that leaves you wondering if any of the actors--and some of them seemed surprisingly capable as actors, really--could have actually read the script before shooting each scene, nevermind before signing on to the project as a whole. I can't imagine anyone sober actually agreeing to be in this movie. I can't imagine this movie actually being made. It defies all sensibilities. Someone somewhere should have said something, tried somehow to keep it from getting passed even the earliest stages of scripting (come to think of it--was there ever even actually a script? or was it more just a series of ideas and things thrown together with rough, forced improv?)
I'm not sure exactly what was bad about it. Nor whose fault it must be. One area of pain is that everything--every fucking scene, every pathetic failure of a "joke"--drags on much much longer than should be even conceivably possible. It's like the script writer drafted a bunch of different ways any particular joke could go with the intention of whittling it down to an actually funny one or two bits, but then got drunk/died. Then the director, possibly an indecisive badger, decided to film every goddamn one with every goddamn possible permutation or alternative angle or delivery intending to see what worked and what didn't, but then got drunk/died. And then the editor just up and used it all because no one was left to tell him otherwise/he hated all things living and decent in the world.
Like, I almost laughed at the Amy Winehouse/saber tooth tiger. Don't even know why. It just seemed marginally amusing. And then she goes through her bit, pulls out a monster handle of hard liquor, chugs it all, and then it should have ended with an "Ahhhhhh, that was good stuff, luv. Cheers!" or something. But it didn't. She proceeds to burp. For, like, 5 solid fucking minutes.
Or like when Hannah Montana gets hit by that meteor. And won't fucking stay dead.
Or how the main character keeps screaming like a girl (it was barely funny the first time, assholes. Stop it now.)
It's like you stumbled upon a clump of mumbling potheads obsessively watching adult swim, MTV, E!, and I don't know... and gave them a couple mil' and said "make a movie! have fun with it!" and they somehow actually did.
Ugh--I'm ranting, and it hasn't gone anywhere useful for at least a good paragraph or two. I'm gonna stop.
I love bad movies. Picking them apart has taught me a lot about story telling and good writing. Besides that they can be just so goddamn funny, especially when you add amusing commentary to point out everything that's bad or absurd or whatever. Beyond that I can't really say why I love them so much. And much the same I can't say in what exact ways and how Disaster Movie fails to...to.... I don't even know. My hatred for this bad movie goes beyond my comprehension in so many ways--but I think, ultimately, I'm as much baffled as offended by its existence.
I was wrong. Very very wrong.
Like, there's bad movies and then there's bad movies. Like, you and a friend are looking at some movies on IMDB's bottom 100 for something to watch (we all do that...right?) and your friend will point one out and laugh, "Oh God! That movie's so bad!! Hahaha!". That is one kind of bad movie. The "good" kind of bad. I refuse to use the phrase "so bad it's good" because those movies are still bad, they're just hilarious, too, but not by any intention or effort to be hilarious. But this is the kind of movie that I imagine falls under that annoying cliche; the kind you or your friend point out and laugh "It's so bad!"/
Then there's the other kind of bad movie. Unwatchable wrecks on ice. The kind your friend points to and says with deadly seriousness "That movie is just terrible.". No giggles. No recountings or re-enactments. Just a shudder and declaration "terrible".
Disaster Movie ought to define this kind of "bad". It wasn't funny. It wasn't really watchable--I felt almost sickened at points. I couldn't even add MST3k-esque commentary--my running line was nothing more than an incredulous "really!?". It's almost as if its utter dearth of tastelessness & competence were verging on artistic. Like, it's almost like they took "badness" as a medium, and then refined it with all manner of increasingly, pathetically tasteless embellishments to make it to such a hideously unwatchable blob of FAIL. But, then, that would imply some competence on the filmmakers' part.
It's the kind of movie that leaves you wondering if any of the actors--and some of them seemed surprisingly capable as actors, really--could have actually read the script before shooting each scene, nevermind before signing on to the project as a whole. I can't imagine anyone sober actually agreeing to be in this movie. I can't imagine this movie actually being made. It defies all sensibilities. Someone somewhere should have said something, tried somehow to keep it from getting passed even the earliest stages of scripting (come to think of it--was there ever even actually a script? or was it more just a series of ideas and things thrown together with rough, forced improv?)
I'm not sure exactly what was bad about it. Nor whose fault it must be. One area of pain is that everything--every fucking scene, every pathetic failure of a "joke"--drags on much much longer than should be even conceivably possible. It's like the script writer drafted a bunch of different ways any particular joke could go with the intention of whittling it down to an actually funny one or two bits, but then got drunk/died. Then the director, possibly an indecisive badger, decided to film every goddamn one with every goddamn possible permutation or alternative angle or delivery intending to see what worked and what didn't, but then got drunk/died. And then the editor just up and used it all because no one was left to tell him otherwise/he hated all things living and decent in the world.
Like, I almost laughed at the Amy Winehouse/saber tooth tiger. Don't even know why. It just seemed marginally amusing. And then she goes through her bit, pulls out a monster handle of hard liquor, chugs it all, and then it should have ended with an "Ahhhhhh, that was good stuff, luv. Cheers!" or something. But it didn't. She proceeds to burp. For, like, 5 solid fucking minutes.
Or like when Hannah Montana gets hit by that meteor. And won't fucking stay dead.
Or how the main character keeps screaming like a girl (it was barely funny the first time, assholes. Stop it now.)
It's like you stumbled upon a clump of mumbling potheads obsessively watching adult swim, MTV, E!, and I don't know... and gave them a couple mil' and said "make a movie! have fun with it!" and they somehow actually did.
Ugh--I'm ranting, and it hasn't gone anywhere useful for at least a good paragraph or two. I'm gonna stop.
I love bad movies. Picking them apart has taught me a lot about story telling and good writing. Besides that they can be just so goddamn funny, especially when you add amusing commentary to point out everything that's bad or absurd or whatever. Beyond that I can't really say why I love them so much. And much the same I can't say in what exact ways and how Disaster Movie fails to...to.... I don't even know. My hatred for this bad movie goes beyond my comprehension in so many ways--but I think, ultimately, I'm as much baffled as offended by its existence.
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