Bad Movies: Are You Watching Them Wrong? (Part Two)

Greetings, Special Interests…kateers? There’s gotta be a better name. Anywhoo, last time I was discussing some alternate ways to approach “bad” movies, beyond simply dismissing or laughing at them (if you missed it, you can find that first part here). But I had too much to say on the topic, so I split it in two! Here’s the second part, listing a few other ways to watch!

→ As meditation ←

I once trekked to the theater to see something called “Das Buch Der Blutigen Geschichten Trilogy” (that’s the proper name, though you usually find it, if it’s found at all, under the title of its first part: “The Bloody Curse”). It’s a triptych by German teenager Michael Kalhert, who  – over the course of four years – used a Super-8 camera to create a painstaking stop-motion world populated entirely by old Kenner Star Wars action figures aimlessly lurching through a cardboard castle. The music was all stolen snippets from other film scores, and the story was told via silent film intertitles. The plot was something about murder and mayhem (if you want to see Kenner Star Wars toys dismembered and bleeding, have I got a picture for you), but honestly, I lost the thread about 30 seconds in. 

If the thought of paying to see a 74-minute German movie with no actors and no spoken dialogue but plenty of toys scooting around via rudimentary animation sounds like the kinds of madness that only someone with an insufferable mix of highbrow and trash tastes would ever indulge in, then congratulations, yes, you get me, and I apologize. I know I’m ridiculous. Even more insufferable? I loved it.

But not as a movie. As meditation. 

As a movie, it’s a real snooze. Hard to follow, yet achingly slow. Full of actors whose plastic faces betray only the emotion they were molded to show (usually “none”). Impressive in ambition but repetitive in execution. And yet… 

Something about the swirling mess of familiar elements recontextualized for this molasses-slow story, with characters who were literally plastic lumps sent me straight into a trance. I pondered art. I pondered the inside of my own brain. I let go of rational thought. I saw through time.

Then I nodded off and had a nice nap. But before that, I swear I was one with everything.

→ Shooting the moon ←

There’s a scene in “The Mansion Family” episode of The Simpsons (S11, episode 12), where a doctor diagnoses Mr. Burns with “Three Stooges Syndrome.” The gist is that even though Burns has literally every disease known to man, he hasn’t died because they’re all “in perfect balance,” a premise that the doctor illustrates by taking a handful of tiny stuffed germs and a tiny model door, and showing how the germs get jammed up trying to all enter at the same time. 

It’s a charmingly nutzo vision of medicine, from legendary writer John Schwartzwelder, and, while the human body doesn't work like that, I believe some bad movies actually do. 

Here’s another way to think of it – the card game Hearts has a play called “shooting the moon.” Normally the object is to get rid of that suit (every heart taken in a trick is a point against you) but if you collect all of them, you “shoot the moon” and you get rewarded while your opponents get screwed. Movies can work on an oddly similar curve. Just one or two flaws? A film can be happily classified as good, full stop. Each new flaw thereafter? You’re spiraling down. But make EVERY DECISION WRONG? Suddenly it’s bizarro world, and the movie’s amazing again.

I felt like this while watching Cats. It shouldn’t have made the leap from stage to screen. It shouldn’t have added a plot to the Broadway version’s plotlessness. Having added a plot, it certainly should have committed to adding a full plot, rather than a couple of weird feints at one – just enough to trick you that it might eventually turn into a normal movie, which it most certainly will not. It shouldn’t have made the cats CGI. It very definitely shouldn’t have made them semi-photorealistic CGI cat-human-hybrids. Having made them photorealistic CGI cat people, it shouldn’t have effects-juiced them so much that they move in defiance of both cat and human physics. It certainly shouldn’t have made one of those CGI cat people James Corden. Also the cats probably shouldn’t have kept changing relative sizes whilst standing next to a series of common items, especially since we, as viewers, have seen cats before and know how big “one cat” is – while meanwhile, “cat-size” is the one size they definitively cannot seem to master. 

You get the picture. I’m sure there were good, defensible reasons for most of these decisions (well… maybe not James Corden), but that doesn’t change the fact that they were all, one after another, made wrong. 

When I saw Cats in the theater, shortly before coronavirus ate the world, I spent the first 15 minutes slack-jawed, like an audience member in The Producers watching “Springtime for Hitler.” Then the dam burst, and I started laughing hysterically… and the laughing didn’t stop until the last frame faded (or long after, if you count me singing “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” that night in bed, bursting out in fresh giggle fits). That initial screening of Cats gave me so much joy that I still occasionally get paranoid that COVID-19 was the heavens punishing us for my pure moment of transcendence. 

You did good, Cats. You shot the moon.

→ McCoy’s Law ←

There’s an internet dictum called “Poe’s Law,” which states that any parody of extreme views is indistinguishable from a sincerely held expression of that view, unless there’s some indicator of the author's intent. 

For example: if I went to any internet comment section, and posted “OMG DR. FAUCI WANTS US TO INJECT MICROCHIPS SO HUNTER BIDEN CAN ASSESS IF OUR ORGANS ARE HEALTHY ENOUGH TO SELL TO NORTH KOREA TO FUND MANDATORY GAY STUFF,” it would be impossible to tell whether I was joking or serious, because there are enough jackasses who genuinely believe things far dumber. Maybe you’d get my ironic intention if I followed that post with “winky face, winky face, tongue out face, eggplant,” but even then you might just think that my fingers have horny tourettes.

Anyway, I’d like to posit a similar law, hereafter known as McCoy’s Law, which is as follows: “If you ignore intent, a bad movie can be indistinguishable from a brilliant comedy with the same premise.” 

Take the Vanilla Ice vehicle Cool as Ice (referenced in the previous installment of this newsletter). Now I, of course, don’t have to tell you what Cool as Ice is about, because it was the highest-grossing film of 1991, winning Best Picture and Best Actor, and launching Robert Van Winkle to his current standing as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (winky face, winky face, tongue out face, eggplant). But for the unwashed masses without culture, it’s about a dude who looks, acts, and sounds just like 90’s recording artist Vanilla Ice, whose appeal at the time boiled down to “a WHITE GUY who RAPS? Martha, come take a look at this!” 

The plot: Mr. Ice and his musician pals are on their way to a gig when one of their motorcycles breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Thanks to a pair of inept small town mechanics, they’re forced to stick around for a while, and V.I.-not-Warshawski spends his time attempting to woo a pretty townie, shocking the roadhouse locals with this new “hip” hop, and helping rescue the townie’s brother, after the movie takes a sharp left turn into a kidnapping storyline initiated by her dad’s former life as a cop who informed on corrupt cops. 

The great part about Cool as Ice is that everyone reacts to Vanilla Ice exactly how they would in real life – as if an alien just arrived in town. This includes the love interest, Kathy, who first treats him as the douchebag player he is, and only softens once she realizes she’s dating an even bigger douchebag, since at least Ice is good with kids, and she’s gotta date someone (so many movies like this only work if you presume this universe contains only two eligible men, and the option to abstain is off the table). 

I’m worried you may not get the full picture of Vanilla’s character, so here’s an illustrative line: Mr. Ice informs his friends of his intent to court Kathy with, “I'm gonna go across the street and, uh, schling a schlong.” 

Schlarming stuff. 

Later, the big exchange that’s supposed to let the audience glimpse the wounded heart beneath his bravado goes as follows:

Johnny: “What's it like?”

Kathy: “What do you mean 'what's it like?'”

Johnny: “You know. Having parents and all that stuff... a brother... all that stuff, yo.”

The degree to which Vanilla Ice comes off as a goofball narcissist lunkhead cannot be overstated, and he’s only slightly redeemed by his naive sweetness. Meanwhile, Kathy’s parents play their scenes opposite him with the exact mix of rote civility and barely concealed distress that I, myself, would likely exhibit if Robert Van Winkle rolled up in real life wanting to court my (nonexistent) kid. 

But that’s the key thing: because the movie’s “straight men” are playing it so straight, and because Vanilla Ice is working his own inherent Vanilla Iciness to the hilt, this movie is ultimately indistinguishable from an intentional comedy about a vapid fish-out-of-water narcissist caught up in romance and intrigue. And that comedy’s a good one! Picture something like Zoolander. Only funnier. And I say that as someone who likes Zoolander! But Ben Stiller’s comic approximation of a feckless goofball can’t measure up to the actual feckless goofballery Ice effortlessly radiates, from beneath his high top fade.

McCoy’s Law in practice.

None of this should be all that surprising. Masterpieces and transcendently bad movies have a few things in common. Both take you somewhere unexpected, whether via startling originality, or ignorance of standard dramaturgy. And both can shock you out of complacency and make you see the world in new ways, whether via artfulness or incompetence. Either way, the emotional response they elicit is valid, so I’m suggesting that once in a while… why not just forget you’re watching a “bad” movie? If it works equally well as a good one, then let yourself flip that switch. 

I realize this is hard. There’s something in our natural reaction to art that makes people want to hew strictly to the author's intent, and if the work plays differently than that intent, we deem it a failure. Maybe it’s human nature. Folks desperately want others to see and understand them, so they feel wrong, deep inside, if they appreciate the art while willfully ignoring how the artist hopes we see and understand it. Meanwhile I’m out here advocating for some Roland Barthes “Death of the Author” shit, just to praise a movie from a dude who once rapped “Gonna rock and roll this place, with the power of the ninja turtle bass.”

I hear you. It’s a hard sell.

Cool as Ice is really funny though.

→ As genuinely good movies ←

Consider The Country Bears (2002, dir. Peter Hastings)..

You would have every reason on earth to think that The Country Bears was bad. For one, it was based on a not-particularly-popular Disneyland attraction, and released a whole year before the first Pirates of the Caribbean proved that theme parks could provide viable source material. And, even so, Pirates had… you know… pirates, whereas The Country Bears is about hillbilly bears who have a jug band, which is a less inherently promising basis for drama. What’s more, if you’ve ever heard anything about The Country Bears in the two decades since its release, it was probably the conventional wisdom telling you that The Country Bears is bad.

But, to paraphrase The Royal Tenenbaums: what this newsletter presupposes is… maybe it isn’t?

The Country Bears makes one big cognitive dissonance-inspiring choice, and it’s what makes the film delightful. What choice? The movie is supes casual about the fact it’s full of bears. 

Maybe that’s why it confused people. An example: one scene occurs at a human party, except bears are attending, and no special mention or acknowledgement is made that these are bears lined up at the buffet. No screaming or running (understandable, since these are lovable Disney bears), but also no one saying, “How are you enjoying the buffet, my new friend, who is a bear? More salmon? And, while I have you – how do you spell Berenstain? I’ve heard conflicting reports, and it’s causing me to doubt the nature of reality.”

It’s almost perverse how little the movie seems to care about bears. Any material acknowledging that our main characters are bears makes up like 2% of the movie. Instead, this is simply a world where most people are not bears, yet some people are bears. Imposing, animatronic bears, with the voices of some of our finest character actors. 

Most movies in this vein would be filled with hack gags, like bears saying “Would I like some honey? Do I shit in the woods?!” and grousing about how pick-a-nick basket theft is a harmful bear stereotype (beareotype). Whereas this movie is just about a country rock band that happens to be made up of bears. This choice had me laughing like mad for most of the runtime, and I say – as a man who has now seen The Country Bears multiple times  – I no longer believe I was laughing because it’s a “bad movie.” I think the movie absolutely made the more interesting choice.

If you’re dubious, perhaps the production team’s resumes can sway you. The screenwriter, Mark Perez, went on to write the excellent comedy Game Night. It features a miraculous cast, in both bear and non-bear roles – Haley Joel Osment, M.C. Gainey, Toby Huss, Alex Rocco, Dietrich Bader, James Gammon, Brad Garrett, and Stephen Root – none of them phoning it in. And I haven’t even mentioned Christopher Walken, doing A+ Christopher Walkening as the villain. He commits like hell to scenes ranging from musical armpit farting to repeatedly dropping a giant weight on a model of the Bears’ beloved Country Bear Hall.

And that's not all! The score was composed by Christopher Young, of films such as Hellraiser, Rounders, Wonder Boys, and Drag Me to Hell and the original songs come courtesy of musicians like Brian Setzer, John Hiatt, Krystal Harris, Bela Fleck, and Elton John! Also, Don Henley and Bonnie Raitt drop by to sing! This movie took the assignment seriously! The musical numbers are genuinely great! Did you know that about The Country Bears? Did you?!?

The world believed The Country Bears was bad because there were a bunch of country bears in it. May God have mercy on our souls.

→ As good, old-fashioned, stoned viewing ←

If all that other stuff I said sounded too high-minded for you, consider this. Bad movies are basically the best thing to watch blazed. Have you read about this? Did you see this? Wild stuff. Give it a look.

For earlier posts, check out the archive. In my other life, I’m a podcaster. Listen to my show The Flop House, here. In my other other life, I’m an Emmy-winning comedy writer, currently unstaffed. If you’re looking to hire, get in touch! And if you love the newsletter, you can always consider tipping me, by enrolling in the paid tier!