James goes by @equaloppdork on twitter!
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A funny thing happened to me, last week. I was sitting at
home, looking at twitter instead of doing something productive, when I see my
buddy bobfreelander putting out the call to various podcasting and blogging
luminaries about doing a “Top 5 or 10 Bad Movies I Love” list. Despite knowing
the quality of the people Mr. Pupkin was soliciting, I felt an uncontrollable
urge to volunteer my “writing skills”. Here's a hint; I don't have writing
skills. Still, I volunteered, as it sounded like quite a fun endeavor and I do
in fact love awful movies, so I figured I could hash something together that
would not look utterly embarrassing if it were to be posted alongside some of
the other, far more illustrious writers that have thus far contributed. Without
further self-deprecation, my Top 5 Bad Movies That I Love.
5 – Maniac Cop 2 – 1990 – William Lustig
Hold the phone, buddy. You're starting with the sequel
instead of the original film in the series? Yea, I am. You see, I love all three Maniac Cop films with a
fiery passion, but each one is a different level of dumb. The first film was
your basic costumed slasher film based around the premise of a bad cop
seemingly coming back from the dead to kill people with impunity, whether
they'd done anything wrong or not. In that film, Matt Cordell was Jason Vorhees
with a badge and a wicked night stick/sword. Maniac Cop 2 took that premise and
flipped it on it's ear. It defied us to believe that Cordell was actually a
good cop that had been set up by the mayor, turning Maniac Cop 2 into what is
essentially a revenge film....sorta. It makes no damn sense, but I just love
that Cohen and Lustig didn't take the easy route for the sequel. God knows I
would have still tuned in for “crazy zombie cop beheads woman for jaywalking”,
but “crazy zombie cop wants revenge for being wrongfully imprisoned even though
he mercilessly killed a dozen or so random innocent people in the last film”
was so much more enjoyable. I could have also gone with Maniac Cop 3 aka
Cordell Takes a Zombie Bride, but that movie isn't near as fun for some reason.
4 – Demolition Man – 1993 - Marco Brambilla
I once told someone that I thought the writing and world
building in Demolition Man was brilliant and they looked at me like I had just
told them turds fly out of my nose when I cough. It's true, though (not the
turds thing..eww), I think the world in Demolition Man is leagues better than
the actual movie it is in. The fact that all restaurants are Taco Bell, the
self-driving cannoli cars or how about that deal where they have no paper money
but any time you swear, you get a paper ticket? Genius. I love the idea of a
world somehow magically free of violent crime filled with cops that aren't
“trained to deal with this kind of violence”. Just the idea that you could
achieve a docile, peaceful population without the use of jack booted nazi cops
is so endearingly Hollywood. I adore the way these people communicate, too. “Be
well”? “Fellow greetings”? It's
like the whole of the San Angeles population were chain smoking pot heads who
had done one too many Grateful Dead album marathon sessions. Simon Phoenix
summarized it best, though. “The world has become a
pussy-whipped, Brady Bunch version of itself, run by a bunch of robed sissies.”
I'd actually love to see a better writer take the ideas set forth in Demolition
Man and run with it, just to see where they'd take it. I envision a world where
Taco Bell starts serving delicious rat burgers to people in self-driving GTOs.
3 – R.O.T.O.R. - 1988 - Cullen
Blaine
Long before The Room became a
household name, there was another craptacular example of inempt film making
just waiting in the wings for someone to discover it. Don't feel bad, though.
Prior to the fine folks at ShowShow covering it, I had never heard of
R.O.T.O.R., either. After hearing them gush over it, I just had to track this
amazing scrap of Texas trash down...on Netflix Instant Watch. Take all the best parts of Robocop,
Terminator and Short Circuit, throw them out the window so that all you have is
the worst parts, add in some new parts that are even worse than said bad parts
and then, maybe, you'll come close to understanding just how terrible this
movie is. The movie opens with our main character being arrested for murder and
then the rest of the film is supposed us seeing everything that led up to the
moment where the cops found him standing over a dead body. So that means when
we are enduring scenes of things like him having lunch with his girlfriend or
having sex with his girlfriend or drinking coffee with his horse, that means
these are all things he is telling the cops. Even though his whole story should
be “Built a robot that went on a killing spree so I found it and destroyed it”,
he felt the need to fill them in on every single detail of his life. The only
thing that could have made it better is if in the middle of one of the myriad
situations that have nothing to do with the story of the killer robot, the
movie had suddenly cut back to the interrogation room in time for the cops to
tell him to get the fucking point.
2 – People Under The Stairs – 1991
– Wes Craven
Fuck Nightmare, Hills Have Eyes
and Last House on the Left. People Under The Stairs is hands down my favorite
Wes Craven film. I have a framed poster for it in my living room. I don't know
why, but I saw this crap in the theater and just fell in love with the insanity
of it. If you've somehow missed it, PUTS is the story of a kid from the ghetto
that decides to help a couple of small time crooks break into the home of the
slum lords trying to kick them out of their shitty rat hole apartment. Little
does he know that the slum lords are a brother/sister team of the Arkansas
variety that like snatching babies, eating intruders and storing their unwanted
children in the cellar. Why they kept the naughty kids around instead of, well,
eating them is beyond me. Just when I thought the movie couldn't get any
weirder, Daddy comes racing down the hallway in a gimp suit. I do believe that
was the point where I had to ask what the hell I'd gotten myself into. People
Under The Stairs is fun because it strikes the perfect balance of zany and
creepy. At no point is it really a scary film, but there definitely some ugh
moments that make your skin crawl, a little. It also has one of the best kid
actors I've ever seen in a horror film. He's resourceful without being
MacGuyver and he's spunky without being an asshole. In fact, I think it's
saying something that in a movie that already has a pretty respectable cast,
Brandon Adams is the best reason to watch People Under The Stairs.
1 – Shakes the Clown – 1991 –
Bobcat Goldthwait
“You Binky? Well, fuck you, party
clown!” Where do I even begin? Bobcat Goldthwait made a noir thriller set in a
world where being a clown is a 24 hour a day lifestyle choice, mimes and clowns
engage in gang wars in the park and rodeo clowns don't consort with party
clowns because party clowns are giant pussies. Seriously, man, what the holy
hell was he smoking when he came up with this crap? I remember seeing a trailer
or catching part of this on cable once just as Shakes is telling the off the
dad that presumably hired him before going into his kid's birthday party. “If
you EVER talk to me, again, I will twist your head into a fucking balloon
animal.” I was pretty much on board from there and have probably seen this
movie a couple dozen times over the years. Nothing brightens up my day faster
than reciting the speech Shakes gives to the little kid at the party, word for
word, from memory. I am also quite fond of Binky's “you hate me” speech, as
well. “You all loathe me. Think I'm not funny. Think my balloon animals SUCK!”
Wrapped around all this is a story of Shakes being framed for beating his boss
to death with a god damn juggling pin and subplot about a competition to be the
new host of a Saturday morning kids cartoon show. Apparently, introducing
Scooby Doo to a live audience of pre-schoolers is the pinnacle of success for a
party clown. It also seems to turn you into a dog fucker, based on certain
accounts in this gritty clown crime drama comedy. Just don't let Shakes see you
in an invisible box, because he will fuck your shit up.
2 comments:
It was cool to be a part of this. I've been having fun reading through all the lists people sent in. Thanks, Rupe.
Thanks again for contributing James!
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