Here's an idea.
You can't make a movie that's so bad it's good on purpose.
"The Room," "Plan 9 from Outer Space," and "Troll 2"
are all movies which, though they transgress
some of the most basic movie-making tenets [SCREAMS]
are regardless able to stand as monuments of motion picture
entertainment.
Most often, films like these are what
they are because they are working
against their own limitations.
Budget, talent, time, know-how-- whatever it is,
there is a lack of it.
But it's more than made up for in gumption.
But they are so rare, such the obnoxious misshapen unicorn
of the film industry, that one has
to wonder, given their popularity and cult status,
why aren't they made constantly?
I think maybe they can't be.
In the hierarchy of bad movies, I
think it goes something like this.
At the topmost, rarest spot is the revered good-bad film,
followed by, and sometimes overlapping with, the B movie.
Classically, a B movie is a low-budget commercial release.
Originally, they were the second feature in a double bill
and thus the B movie.
But since then, B has come to signify
most low-budget genre films, especially sci-fi,
like the kind of stuff you see on MST3K.
But because something is cheaply made, B or bad by industry
standards does not automatically place it
in the good-bad pantheon with "Troll 2."
They're eating her.
Oh, my God!
All good-bad movies might be B movies,
but not all B movies are good-bad masterpieces.
And many more films, arguably an infinite number,
are just plain bad.
Student films, art house nonsense, and recent Adam
Sandler films go in the lowest slot on the bad movie
hierarchy, just below films like "Kung Pao-- Enter the Fist,"
"MacGruber," and even big budget mishaps
like "Batman and Robin."
These might be guilty pleasures, but they're also
a kind of performance of the transgression
of cinematic convention.
They're a dime a dozen.
And they usually lack any kind of cult status.
Oh, poor George Clooney.
He could be my Batman any day.
And actually, speaking of slick silver creatures,
I haven't mentioned "Sharknado" yet for a reason.
We're going to deal with that monstrosity in a minute.
Anyway, I think we can all agree that "Dude, Where's My Car?"
is a much different, "so bad it's good"
movie experience from, say, "Birdemic."
[SQUAWKING BIRDS]
It's in comparison with these other kinds of bad
that we might be able to locate the Maltese Falcon-esque truth
of low budget, good-bad movies, which by the way,
Nick Ruff let me know are called "nanar" in French.
So I'm going to say that from now on, because it's rad
and also much easier than saying "good-bad movie"
over and over again.
First and most importantly, nanar
have to be earnest, meaning it is probably
going to be a better nanar if the people making it
don't know that they are making and do not
mean to make a nanar.
It's easy to view such an arrangement
as being a little sad.
And given the time and cash involved, maybe even
a little tragic.
This is my tragic face.
Everybody betrayed me.
I fed up with this world.
But I think that's another important aspect.
Nanar do need to be at least a little tragic.
No one has ever watched "The Room"
and not thought to themselves, what
are these people-- how did this even-- oh, boy--
but, like, in a good way.
This intense experience of schadenfreude is so enjoyable,
we even do it in huge groups.
"The Room" and "Troll 2" specifically go on tour,
are celebrated with documentaries,
and are shown at midnight screenings around the world.
"The Room" even has its own particular set of audience
participation pageantry.
We couldn't find any white spoons, so sorry.
The social aspect of nanar is really key.
I think, if we're being honest, they are not so much movies
to be watched as they are movies to be known about,
to be shared, and to share in the complete disbelief of.
Watching is not the primary experience of nanar.
Celebrating is.
This is a beautiful party.
You invited all my friends.
And so now, we're finally prepared to talk
about "Sharknado."
I enjoyed "Sharknado" as much as everybody else,
including the people who enjoyed it,
even though they didn't see it.
Because according to some sources,
"Sharknado" did better on Twitter
than it did on television.
In other words, "Sharknado" nailed the social aspect.
People were so on board with "Sharknado"
that they skipped watching and went right to celebrating,
which is not bad-- no judgment zone--
but I think might be indication number one that "Sharknado"
belongs not in the good-bad movie canon
and that you not nanar on purpose.
For all the excitement, "Sharknado"
lacks the gut-churning characteristics
of movies that are perfectly and earnestly far from perfect.
[SCREAMS]
Asylum, the company which made "Sharknado,"
produces 10 to 15 movies a year and has produced 300 movies
to date.
Oh, my God.
That's a volcano.
Amongst them are such hits as "Plane Versus Volcano,"
"The Coed and the Zombie Stoner,"
and "Asian Schoolgirls."
They know exactly what they're doing.
And they very successfully do it.
What's missing, though, is the grand narcissism
needed to conceive of, make, and then distribute something that
is not a success, or is only a success
by the way of its spectacular failures.
It's missing Ed Wood's inability to think or spend
within a budget, Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi's
willingness to write a script in a language
they didn't speak, and then refuse the help of the cast
when they offered to fix it.
[SPEAKING ITALIAN]
To make nanar on purpose, one necessarily
lacks Tommy Wyso's bizarre "Portrait
of the American Man," James Nguyen's
jumbled ecological moralizing, and his just merely
unforgivable sound editing.
Here is a menu.
Thank you.
I'll be right back with you.
Nanar are just as much about the film
as it is about the making of the film,
and the lore surrounding it.
They show us how films are made by being
terrible at hiding the scenes and all the moving parts.
All the conventionally bad aspects on their own,
or even all together, would probably
make something not nanar, but rather just unwatchable.
But when packaged with a charm that is often
the byproduct of a creator's narcissism
and a community willing to gather to celebrate it,
these characteristics turn from transgressions into triumphs.
And in doing so, announce some of the childishness
of playing make-believe in front of a camera and lights.
"Sharknado" lacks all this.
But in truth, it is a terrible movie that people love,
and Asylum did it on purpose.
So maybe the nanar isn't some obnoxious, mythical unicorn
as it is shark-propelled by the unrelenting force of nature.
And by force of nature, I mean Hollywood production
[INAUDIBLE].
What do you guys think?
Can you make a movie that is so bad it's good on purpose?
Let us know in the comments.
And if you want to subscribe, just click on the football.
So it seems like maybe I should do
impressions of the people I'm quoting more often.
Let's see what you guys had to say about
"How I Met Your Mother" and its finale.
Foxymanshorts7 brings up Milton Babbitt's
"Who Cares If You Listen," which I haven't read
since college and on rereading it,
realized why I have such a love-hate relationship
with Milton Babbitt.
It's so good and also infuriating.
We'll put a link in the doobly doo.
You should read it and check it out.
And then they also point out, along with shaun11,
that there was an alternate ending shot and edited that
will be included on the DVD, which is-- I don't know if that
is infuriating or heartening.
I think it's infuriating.
Lesliefoundhergrail writes a really great comment
about how you can justify many, if not all, of the decisions
the creators made in the ending, but that it doesn't necessarily
mean because they are justifiable it is enjoyable.
And this actually is pretty close to how
I feel about the ending.
I think I would have been much more accepting
of it if it was not just felt like it was crammed together
into a final three minutes, when we
spent almost an entire season on one weekend.
It's just confusing, just confusing.
I'm confused.
TheSkizzfan seems to suggest that the thing that
is of the utmost importance is maybe
the intentions of the artist, and that as long
as they were doing something that they felt was right,
that is what is most important.
And this also makes me think that-- I mean,
maybe the mark of the finale, maybe the reason it's good
is because we're having this conversation.
And I think that is a success.
Will Castros sort of extends this point in a comment
that you should read all of.
Links to this one and the others in the doobly doo, but kind of
seems to suggest that art will just always organize
a preexisting audience, and that finding that audience
is easier today than it ever has been.
And so again, it's important to consider the audience but also
very important to do the thing that you
feel is right for the art you're making.
Mary Wilton and a bunch of other people
talked about how they enjoyed the finale, just not
the last part of it that kind of felt a little bit like an about
face.
And this makes me think about how
invested we become in these characters
and how we want things for them.
We want things to work out for them.
We want their lives to be a certain way.
And when it doesn't turn out that way, it's almost personal.
So, you know, the power of fiction, right?
Gohokekitty writes a really great comment
about the structure of endings and how
even though they enjoyed the finale,
it felt formally like it was a little dishonest or weird
or rushed.
And this really makes me think about what we expect formally
from the way stories are told using a television,
and that maybe, along with trying
to tell the unexpected story, the creators
of "How I Met Your Mother" were also
trying to tell it in an unexpected format.
And maybe that created some sort of jarring effect
for a huge portion of the audience.
Charlie B defends the "How I Met Your Mother" finale
on the grounds that just because Ted and Robin were not good
for each other in the past doesn't mean that they aren't
good for each other now, and that maybe the entire thing,
the whole finale is just to shift perspective
from what we've been thinking the show was for.
Maybe the show itself is about how Ted would just always
eventually end up with Robin.
Because it would seem as though that is the point of the story
he's been telling his kids for a very long time.
Maybe time to go back to season one, episode one.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these vegetarian goblins.
We have an IRC, a Facebook, and Subreddit links
in the doobly doo.
We also got nominated for some Webbys,
so if you wanted to vote for us for those,
we would not complain.
And the tweet of the week comes from samelou
who points us towards an awesome piece about "Adventure
Time," by Maria Bustillos.
Check it out.
And for this week's record swap, we
will be replacing "Band of Horses"
with Laurie Anderson's "Big Science."
So goodbye "Band of Horses" and welcome Laurie Anderson.