Johnny: You are tearing me apart, Lisa!
When you think of "it's so bad, it's good",
you probably think of some movie with laughably horrible acting and writing.
A movie that's so bad,
it becomes really fun to watch.
You watch it and make fun of it with your friends because such a bad movie takes itself so seriously.
"So bad, it's good" movies go as far back as the B movies of the 40s and 50s.
The concept has always been the same.
They're guilty pleasure movies
where you enjoy the movie because of its excessive use of:
movie tropes, poor over-the-top acting, and terrible camerawork,
and it makes sense
It's not hard to see the similar laughability of Robot Monster in 1953 and Sharknado (2013).
The problem is that analysis of "so bad, it's good" usually stops there,
but I think you can go much deeper than that
I want to talk about what's at the core of this phenomenon,
and make the case that the techniques of "so bad, it's good" are present in tons of critically acclaimed movies,
and almost all the time, It's done on purpose.
So let me explain.
Erin: Michael.
Michael: Walk with me.
"So bad, it's good" movies are an extreme version of the idea that
audiences enjoy theatrical and over-the-top movies that still take themselves seriously,
This concept is called "camp."
And it's another tool at the disposal of a filmmaker.
When you think of campy movies you may think they're always made unintentionally.
Like Tommy Wiseau trying to film a serious movie and accidentally creating the ultimate camp classic.
But that's actually not the case.
Directors constantly pretend to take their dumb movie seriously to create a whole new level of entertainment.
Anthony Ferrante: But if everybody is earnest and serious and treating it like it's, you know, a regular earthquake,
or it's you know an alien invasion or whatever it is,
then, then that sincerity kind of translates, and then you can go even further with your villain, which is the Sharknado.
You can do crazy stuff.
Kimberly Q: And that makes it even more funny.
Camp isn't necessarily a genre of movies.
Some movies can have elements of camp without exclusively considering themselves "so bad, it's good."
Maybe the perfect balance of camp and sincerity is the Princess Bride (1987).
The movie is actually smartly written and well executed
while also having a ton of campy and corny moments
Montoya: You seem a decent fellow. . . I hate to kill you.
Man in Black: You seem a decent fellow. . . I hate to die.
The swordfight blurs the line between cartoonish and serious.
The stakes are high and the scene is expertly choreographed
but they also do random flips.
Camp makes the Princess Bride fun to watch without making it a movie people make fun of.
It's over the top
but never too much so and it always treats itself seriously.
Camp can actually sometimes save a movie.
Johnny Depp's performance turns the Pirates of the Caribbean from a derivative action flick
to a charming and hilarious franchise.
And it's because of his campy, exaggerated, but grounded performance.
Norrington: You are without a doubt, the worst pirate I've ever heard of.
Sparrow: But you have heard of me.
Wes Anderson is a champion of camp.
His set pieces are famously symmetrical to the point of impossibility.
The camera constantly spins from one character to another.
He loves using outdated cartoonish special effects
And he awkwardly cuts conversations at the end of each sentence.
Sam: Why do you consider me your enemy?
Redford: Because your girlfriend stabbed me in the back with lefty scissors.
Sam: She's my life now.
Redford: Congratulations.
Anderson creates charming and critically acclaimed films despite breaking countless film conventions.
Campy film techniques give movies that extra flair that makes them fun and devastatingly rewatchable.
Campy filmmakers strike the balance between the impossible and the realistic.
So that movies have elements of camp while also having just a hint of seriousness
So they don't seem like they're trying too hard.
Anderson: For me, you know, Rafe is playing a real person and making him a real person and
Even though the context is this sort of invented country in this
invented version of history and and so on I sort of feel like we just try to make it as realistic as it can be
Given given what it is exaggerated and campy filmmaking happens all the time so this
Becomes this
And this
Becomes this
Quentin Tarantino loves camp.
If you have a villain, make it a school girl and give her a flail as a weapon.
His love for the theatrical and exaggerated shows in the fact that in all of his movies characters pretend to be somebody they're not.
Winnfield: Come on, let's get into character.
The result is hilariously over-the-top, but serious moments of poor or flashy acting.
Landa: Arrivederci.
Raine: A-reev-a-durchey.
Camp is also extremely common in dialogue; so many movies have characters say things nobody says in real life...
Rollo: This is one doodle that can't be undid homeskillet.
...but that doesn't make the dialogue bad.
Well sometimes it does...
Johnny: I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bullshit. I did not hit her. I did not!
Oh, hi Mark!
...but it's also a way to make movies fun.
Aaron Sorkin is one of the best screenwriters in cinema, and he loves campy dialogue.
In many scenes he favors exaggerated dialogue over what someone would actually say.
Summers: Ann.
Ann: Yes sir?
Summers: Punch me in the face. Go ahead.
Aaron Sorkin's famous "walk and talk" style from West Wing feels extremely theatrical and contrived
It's been reused to the point that it's been parodied in just about every TV sitcom.
He even parodies it himself.
Sorkin: Walk with me
I'm Aaron Sorkin.
His snappy dialogue also gets reused to an amazing degree.
This is you and me talking Dana. I'm not other people
I'm not other people.
I'm not other people!
Don't talk to me like I'm other people.
But it's not bad writing.
It actually takes a very talented writer to create a style that's so easy to parody, but remains fascinating to watch.
He's not technically original, but he still keeps it fresh.
We can feel his classic style, but we don't loathe it. We embrace it. To a crazy amount actually.
It's almost worshipped to the point where they make actors recreate Sorkin style on talk shows
Camp is letting movies be movies and it's a concept we feel everywhere.
Basically whenever a movie does something over-the-top that would never happen in real life, but the movie still executes it sincerely
Impressive clergyman: "Mawwiage..."
And "The Room" fits quite nicely into these concepts of Exaggerated and entertaining filmmaking.
What makes the movie stand out is that it's one of the few campy movies that took itself completely seriously
without having any idea just how over-the-top it was.
It's still camp, but it's so unique because of how blissfully unaware it is.
Johnny: Hi doggy.
Clerk: You're my favorite customer.
Johnny: Thanks a lot! Bye!
And this brings me to the most important component of camp:
Camp defies binary thinking in the movies because it's both bad and good.
It objectively breaks many of the principles of filmmaking:
Unrealistic acting, cheesy dialogue, and extreme filming techniques are almost always frowned upon, but the crazy thing is camp is not bad.
Sometimes it's actually extremely entertaining, perhaps the most entertaining kind of films that exist.
Because many directors can be serious and many directors can be funny
But not many can be so serious it's funny
I embrace camp because movies shouldn't always play it straight if they don't want to.
On the contrary, camp lets movies be what they were meant to be: Entertaining.
So the next time you watch a movie don't just consider whether it's good or bad
Consider if you like it for its guilty pleasures. Consider that it's so bad, but that's not a bad thing
It's actually a great thing. It's so good that it's bad.
Lisa: Do you want me to order a pizza?
Johnny: Whatever. I don't care.
Lisa: I already ordered a pizza.
Johnny: You think about everything.
Thanks for watching
Outro: Here it is, a groove slightly transformed!
Just a bit of a break from the norm.
Just a little something to break the monotony of all that hard... [video end]