Last week, I introduced you all to the best so-bad-it’s-good movie you’ve never seen. The above video is a compilation of my favorite parts, and here is my full review I promised:
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Author: Greg DeLiso
My Streets: The Best ‘So Bad It’s Good’ Movie You’ve Never Seen
My Streets (2009)
When I was sixteen, I made an extremely bad feature-length film called The Velvet Autumn. It’s two hours and thirty minutes, and it makes absolutely no sense.
The reason it doesn’t make any sense is because at that time in my life, I was obsessed with the visual construction of a movie, and I didn’t yet understand that you don’t just construct images, you construct them in a way that expresses a story. I was consciously working off of the Raging Bull hypothesis—that you create the images first, and your story will come later. Scorsese did a better job at this than me, although he had access to much better materials and had way more experience. But in any event, The Velvet Autumn, and Raging Bull alike, are proof positive that the hypothesis is incorrect—you gotta have the story first.
Continue reading My Streets: The Best ‘So Bad It’s Good’ Movie You’ve Never Seen
Special Effects: Why They Look Right When They Look Right
The late, great Ray Harryhausen. (1920-2013)
When I was a little kid my grandpa showed me King Kong, the 1933 one. King Kong doesn’t look real, but it looks good, because it looks right. Looking ‘right’ is the key.
Special effects are perhaps film’s biggest point of separation from the other arts. In literature, if you want a monster in your story, you just describe it. But a movie has to convince you what you’re looking at is real, even when you’re looking at the most not real things humans can dream up. This takes a perfect synthesis of human imagination, technology, and innovation.
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Remakes: Everyone’s Favorite Complaint
With the remake of Carrie out, it’s that time again for everyone to make their favorite complaint: “Oh god, another remake! It’s like they’re raping my childhood!”
If you’re going to put forth that Hollywood is in need some new ideas, I’ll listen. But it’s not as though this is a new thing. Movies have always mostly been sequels, remakes, or adaptations. Pick any random year since the dawn of cinema and I guarantee you’ll find as many as you do today.
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Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: An Almost Perfect Movie
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
Directed by Stephen Herek
Written by Chris Matheson & Ed Solomon
90 min.
Very mild spoilers.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure is almost perfect. It’s very original, the characters are cleverly constructed, there are some cool visuals, the ride is a lot of fun, and there’s even a few touching moments. But it’s missing a certain fundamental piece of storytelling, the absence of which prevents it from being transcendent. Instead, it’s merely a bonafide classic (which is still pretty damned good).
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