Here it is Oscars Day. A perfect day for an Ode to Bad Movies.
Yes, the bad movies ... those that make people walk out of the theater. Movies with plots so thin, they ought to be starring on weight-loss product commercials or sashaying down a New York runway. Movies with dialogue wooden enough it could be used to build a convenience store. Movies with special effects so bad that the Mr. Bill clay-figurine character from the old Saturday Night Live shows looks down his nose at them. Cinematography that looks like drunken iPhone 3 shooting. Movie tropes that are so often trod, they make ya want to go explore a haunted house, outrun a fireball or slow-clap in your frustration.
After all, it's the bad movies that help make us see the good in good movies. There'd be no appreciation for the Oscars without the Golden Raspberry, or "Razzie" Awards, whose winners were announced Saturday.
I harbor my own personal list of favorite, all-time bad movies. Topping off this list? A no-brainer: Plan 9 From Outer Space, the 1959 movie by Ed Wood, who some might argue had no brain. The cinematic sin commissions of this movie piled up so high as to earn it world renown as the worst movie ever made. It's also been described as "so bad it's good."
Second worst: 1964's The Creeping Terror, whose monster's bad-carpet-with-coils-on-top costume design alone put it in that category -- never mind the bad plot and the actors who can be seen forcing themselves into the monster's "mouth." How did such a slow monster manage to capture and eat so many people? You know what? Never mind. Let's go to my third favorite Worst Movie of All Time: Sharknado, which rode its blatant badness into a number of increasingly campy sequels featuring cameos by some legitimately famous folk. My personal list goes on to envelop some early Jean-Claude Van Damme movies, a few Blaxploitation flicks (Dolemite and Avenging Disco Godfather, anyone?) and that warm holiday work Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Bad movies make the best comedies of all, because their comedy is usually unintentional. They make us either feel better about ourselves because, bad as things might have gotten for us, we haven't been so desperate for money or fame as to humiliate ourselves as publicly as the actors in these movies.
Granted, bad movies can be kind of sad when we see those that feature onetime A-listers who took dignity-killing roles in their old age. Why on earth? One person on Quora.com, answering the question "Why do old, reputable actors act in bad movies?" waxed eloquent: "Acting is a job and very few working actors (like any professional artist) can afford to turn down jobs that pay the rent. Even fewer have consistent-enough careers that they can afford to turn down roles for more than a short time."
Or maybe they needed to feel that they were still relevant somehow. Hard to believe it was just the promise of extra chump change that motivated Joan Crawford to star in Trog, the 1970 science fiction horror movie that has her playing a doctor who tends to a living troglodyte. Or Ray Milland, who played a dying scientist whose head ended up sharing a body with Rosey Grier's convict character in the 1972 movie The Thing With Two Heads. There's the gosh, gosh-awful 1987 fantasy movie, Gor, which we recently encountered on one of the free-TV channels and which had us wondering how Jack Palance ever lived down his role in this stinker. And Gene Kelly in Xanadu; 'nuff said.
In the world of moviemaking, the stinkers can become beloved cult favorites. And there just may be more people who have seen From Hell It Came, a 1957 masterpiece about a monster tree stump, than Citizen Kane, said to be the best movie ever made. There have been complaints that many Oscar movie winners are not popularly known of, let alone seen.
Speaking of which, I've looked at the 2018 list of Razzie Award winners, the list of nominated 2019 Razzie nominees, and have decided I need to check out Holmes & Watson (nominated for 2019 worst picture), Robin Hood (nominated for 2019 worst remake, ripoff or sequel) and the 2018 worst picture winner ... The Emoji Movie.
Because it's all about getting a laugh or two and, at the same time, maintaining that appreciation for such warm-and-fuzzy best movies as All About Eve and Slumdog Millionaire.
And the email goes to ...
Style on 02/24/2019