boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (11/01/85)
I haven't really been contributing to the Totally Bad Movies discussion. I
was commenting on some of the movies here and there, but I refrained from
nominating anything myself. Then I found myself just passing by any message
with "Totally Bad Movies" <or ...Good... or ...Funny..., though I may post
something for the Scary discussion> in the subject header. The reason I have
been doing this is because it's just too subjective a topic (only the funny
movie discussion is worse in this respect --- nothing is more subjective
than one's sense of humor).
But there's one aspect that deserves mention. Occasionally, someone will
post a message nominating some film as a "Totally Bad Movie", with a remark
that it was sooooo bad that they walked out (or turned the tv off) after X
minutes (where X=<20). I can believe that someone might think that a movie
that I found enjoyable was awful (even grossly awful), but try as I might,
I cannot believe that anyone could only see 10-15 minutes of a movie and
then claim that it's *totally* bad. How on Earth can you claim that a film
has no redeeming features if you --- for all practical purposes --- haven't
even seen it? For example, if you gave up on Q after 15 minutes, you have
missed what one can arguably call the best performance by Michael Moriarty
in his career to date. Granted, the movie was awful, but Moriarty's perform-
ance redeemed it.
I can accept it if one were to say "This movie isn't good enough to make it
worth my while to invest the time in watching it", but to call it *totally
bad*???
--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA)
UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...}
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ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.ARPAbch@mcnc.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (11/03/85)
I'm in agreement with those on the net who claim that there really isn't
such a thing as a totally bad movie -- at least not that you've seen in
theatres. (I've seen things in private screenings that make "Glen or Glenda"
look like fine art -- I mean at least you know what "Glen or Glenda" is
trying to be about.)
If someone thought it worth the expense to distribute, then it can't be
totally bad.
--
Byron C. Howes
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