The Year in Film 2003
Crap. We've all seen it. We all recognize it, but we never really talk about it. I know folks who can cite 27 reasons why they'll see When Harry Met Sally over and over again, but when asked for an opinion of Waterworld, will simply offer: "It sucked". That won't stand.
Look, how do you know a film is good if you can't identify the elements of a bad one? It's more than just practical application. Bad film, like fingerprints, is as unique as good film. It's a bell curve. It shouldn't be, of course. It's much easier to make a bad film (as any who has ever operated a camcorder can attest), just as it's far easier to miss a train, flunk a test or throw an incomplete pass than the opposite. Theater film releases, however, are different. Some people waste dozens to hundreds of dollars on crap daily. Some people waste their time like it was water. But to make a movie, even a "small budget" one, requires thousands of dollars and hundreds of man-hours. Most anything that gets released in a theater will require millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours.
Nobody wastes millions of dollars on purpose. Well, almost nobody.
Hence, the bell curve. Because of the money involved, filmmakers rarely take chances. A terrible film making it to release is not altogether as common as we think. And still, we can't seem to discuss exactly why Swept Away should never have been made. Consider: your best friend (who is secretly a closeted Adam Sandler fan) gives you good word of mouth on Anger Management. You say, "Gee, critics didn't like it much, but why would my friend lie? It does have Sandler and Jack Nicholson and that lovely Marisa Tomei. Critics are probably wrong. How bad could it be?" You decide to go with your spouse. If you're like me, that requires a baby-sitter and at least a $25 investment in tickets, parking and refreshments to boot (not to mention the time involved, if you're somebody who values his time) And then Management happens and you end up trying to convince yourself for two weeks that the film was good to justify your expense. Pathetic.
It's time to get a discussion flowing.
Now, I'm no expert. I will never claim to be. But I have developed a series of questions for discussion purposes about bad film. This list is not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be. It's just a starting point.
Definitions of a bad movie:
- Would you rather have stared at a blank screen for the movie's running time? (Classic criterion)
- If you're the kind of person who walks out on movies, did you walk out/turn off the one in question?
- If you're not the kind who walks out, how often did you look at your watch/consider walking out anyway?
- Was there any scene in the film that made you want to see more of the film?
- Could the movie have been aided by any random element or distraction? (i.e. was it perfectly bad? So bad that use of a cell phone or penlight could have improved the picture?)
- What kind of bad was it? Boring bad, offensive bad, repulsive-bad, insulting-to-your-intelligence-bad, failed-to-deliver bad, or simply what-the-Hell-is-this-bad… or something else?
- Could you, who presumably do not get paid to write movies, have written something better?