io9
If you have ever willingly or unwillingly sought out science fiction in the movie theater, you know what dangers await. Sure, you may find yourself blown away by a 28 Days Later, but you might just as easily find yourself rolling your eyes through a Jumper or Transformers. But even if you do find yourself having to watch Hayden Christensen in front of a green screen, there is hope. Here to deliver the good news about surviving bad scifi movies is Sherilyn Connelly, who has for years been a ringleader of the weekly Bad Movie Night at San Francisco's Dark Room. She worked with her Bad Movie Night colleagues* to come up with a few ways you can turn a horrible movie experience into one the whole theater will enjoy.
First, some basics.
A few signs of a bad movie
- Sunglasses in the poster. If human adults are wearing them, it's bad. If babies or animals are wearing them, it's worse. If adults are looking over the top of the sunglasses, it's horrendous. If a baby or animal is looking over the top, it's a sign of the apocalypse.
- If someone falls into a swimming pool.
- If there's a hot-air ballon. (Quoth Roger Ebert: "Good movies rarely contain a hot-air balloon.")
- If Hayden Christensen is involved.
- If it's too awful before the opening credits end.
- If it takes place in Venice Beach. Very few good movies were shot there.
- If the product placement's written in the script: for example, when the Transformers talk about Nokia phones.
- It has the following credits: "Directed by Richard Benjamin,"or "Jamie Kennedy is..." or "Based on the screenplay by Gore Vidal"
If your movie is beginning to look bad, there is only one thing you can do to stop the madness. You must loudly and insistently comment on it, sharing your feelings with your fellow oppressed audience members. Improvising is encouraged, but here are a few basic guidelines.
How to Make Fun of a Bad Movie
- A human or any other animal skull shown with its jaw open should always be singing opera.
- Bizarre camera angles should be mentioned and explained. For instance, a camera shot from the ground looking up may be the "Amy Winehouse cam."
- If a movie is playing on a teevee screen (it's often something like "Casablanca," or "It's a Wonderful Life" for xmas movies), remember to state the cardinal rule: "Never reference a good movie inside your bad one."
- Identify all actors who even remotely or insultingly look like the popular celebrities the film could never afford. Bonus points if it's a relative like Don Swayze or Joe Estevez.
- When a character spouts exposition, be sure to think them.
- The more recent a death, the funnier the joke. Heath Ledger jokes are currently hilarious. If someone makes a joke about, say, the Kennedy or Lincoln assassinations, chide them: "Too soon!" 9/11 jokes, however, will never go out of style.
- Always answer rhetorical questions. The characters wouldn't have asked if they didn't want you, the audience, to respond.
- When a scene is really insistently horrible, make a lucid comment about the color of the room or the billboard in the background.
- When the movie makes the entire audience squirm simultaneously in silence, it never hurts to announce, "This film hates me."
- Any shot of sand or a desert is worth at least one "The worm is the spice! The spice is the worm!" Except during Dune.
- Don't be afraid to make the obvious joke; most often it is the joke everyone wanted to make but were to drunk to form the words.
- Boobs instantly make any movie the "BEST MOVIE EVER!" Temporarily.
- The brother is always the Nth to die. The brother is always the Nth to do ANYTHING. ("Why is the brother always the third to get on the plane during pre-boarding? This movie is so racist!")
- When the picture lacks detail for whatever reason—and especially if it's intentional—holler at the tech to "Focus!"
- Inside jokes are encouraged. If you make a joke that only one other person gets, it's even better if that one other person isn't in the room.
- Also, explaining a joke at length makes it funner, especially if the audience didn't laugh in the first place.
- If preshow entertainment is required, your best bet is The ABC of Sex Education for Trainables. This is especially helpful for so called "erotic" movies like Cyberella.
- If a woman is running: "Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing Boing." Why? Sheena!
- Tears are not tears. They are face pee.
- If you refer to someone as the lost Baldwin brother, name him Gummo Baldwin.
- Whenever Shatner speaks Esperanto, everyone has to take a drink.
* Mike Spiegelman, Phil Darnowsky, Geekboy, Mikl-Em, Maura Spilia, Jim Fourniadis, Alexia Staniotes and Rhiannon Charisse
SPECIAL NOTE: io9 does not advise that you try this in a theater full of people who have not consented to hear you yell things. If you choose to try this technique with a non-consenting audience, we do not take responsibility for you getting punched or having pop dumped on your head.
Comments
*snrk*
Gummo Baldwin.
Face Pee. Thats all kinds of fantastic.
"If a baby or animal is looking over the top, it's a sign of the apocalypse"
HAHA
The whole thing is pretty funny
Your Poster rules are way off.
[www.impawards.com]
It also helps if you show up at the movie theater with your two robot buddies.
Actually, judging from the first list, the Transformers movie gets off pretty easy. Only one strike against, I believe. (Two, if you count one of the Autobots landing in/around a swimming pool, upon his initial descent to Earth.)
So I should avoid the movie who's poster shows Hayden looking over his sunglasses as he falls from a hot air balloon into someone's swimming pool in Venice Beach while desperately calling for help on his new iPhone?
"if someone falls in a pool" - Uh so last night's episode of Terminator really gets screwed then?
In all seriousness, I somehow really enjoyed Transformers. I guess I just decided if you were making a movie about ROBOTS FROM OUTERSPACE THAT TRANSFORM INTO AUTOMOBILES AND HELICOPTERS AND A GIANT LAZER GUN you can't really expect Altman.
@PVIII: Thank you. I've been having that debate with several people who complained about Transformers. It often goes... "I hate Michael Bay, and Transformers had no real plot or character development."
to which I reply..
"Um yeah did you also notice that its based on an Action figure and is about robots fighting. And to quote Mr. Bay, Everything was AWESOME!"
Hmmmm, what about Unbreakable? I quite liked that movie and that has a swimming pool seen.
Maybe the fact that he was pushed into the pool gets that one off on a technicality?
@steven522: Isn't that, like, ALL his movies?
This "list" is all kinds of fail.
The writers for Riff Trax/Cinematic Titanic should feel quite secure.
"If Hayden Christensen is involved."
QFMFT
Thank you. I thought my heckling skillz were up to par but now have have so much to aim for. One thing though, how exactly does one think someone for spouting exposition? Do heads explode?
I AM going to the Special Hell.
@Garrison Dean: They Live is definitely an exception to that particular rule, and it also passes because the sunglasses are crucial to the plot and aren't just intended to show that the character has "attitude." i.e. Get Shorty, What's the Worst That Could Happen?, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (god help us), and Kangaroo Jack (there is no god).
I loves me some MST3K/Rifftrax/Film Crew/Cinematic Titanic, but if someone just felt the need to "loudly and insistently comment...sharing your feelings with your fellow oppressed audience members" when I was in the theater, there would be trouble.
Unsolicited riffing: not cool.
@Chryss: Heh. If only we had Tom and Crow at our side, but we do the best we can. (And I fully admit the influence of MST3K, one of my favorite shows.)
In Hayden's defense, Shattered Glass really was quite good.@Garrison Dean: Yeah, Michael Bay makes military porn like no other (up there with Ridley Scott). At least you can give him that. Awesome pool!
How bout we just don't expect every Sci-Fi movie to change the world? Because that would be fantastic to me. I'd hear less bitching about OMG THAT MOVIE WAS HORRIBLE! There was no character development, etc ,etc bitch, piss, moan. Get some fucking popcorn and enjoy shit getting blown up, or get out of the theater.
That being said though, getting drunk is a great way to make any movie enjoyable. I went to the Episode 1 premiere and some guy won some prize and he was noticeably tanked. I bet he thought EP1 was fantastic...
Also going to any video game movie and shouting the cheat codes is an excellent idea, especially infinite ammo when they are reloading, invincibility when they are hurt and noclip because flying through walls is fucking awesome.
I wanted to go see the Doom movie just to yell IDDQD, IDKFA, and IDCLIP(?)
Ah yes. Just what the "go to a movie to loudly discuss anything that pops into my fat fucking head" crowd needs - a list of ways to be an even more annoying asshole. Kudos.
@Sherilyn Connelly: Are you implying that Rowdy Roddy Piper doesn't have 'tude?! I will fight a woman Sherilyn... Now PUT ON THE GLASSES!!!
@jonathan29: This only works if you have a consensual agreement with the crowd. Do not attempt in a crowded theater of strangers! We take no responsibility if you are crushed by angry fans.
You forgot the cardinal rule "If roller skates figure prominently, it will be a suckathon of epic proportions (See Solarbabies and Prayer for the Roller Boys")
@Garrison Dean: NO! *bam!* (eight minutes later...)
I get that this post was done in jest, but anything that encourages people to talk out loud during movies boils my blood. That shit ain't funny!
Can't we leave the snark at Gawker?
I'm getting hammered and going to see Never Back Down in a few weeks.
+ Watch video
best. plan. ever.
@Garrison Dean: ohhhhh i get it now, transformers didn't just have an irredeemable director it also had an irredeemable premise...
the problem with transformers was never that it had no real plot or character development it was that the titular characters were extras in their own god damn movie.
@tetracycloide: heh heh... you said tit.
@Log1c: What are you talking about? The Doom movie was awesome.
Sunglasses in the poster. If human adults are wearing them, it's bad.
So... the Terminator movies?
great -
now my face is peeing!
kudos.
@Annalee Newitz: I just watched it on USA or whatever and loved how they threw away all the things that made Doom awesome! Regardless, I still wanted to go to the movie and shout the cheat codes!
I remember the poster that was up in my local movie theatre for the first Matrix movie was basically three people standing around looking "cool" in sunglasses. I saw that (knowing nothing about the movie) and thought it would suck. I avoided the movie for a year or so, until someone insisted I rent the video. Not too sucky.
You forgot the inclusion of Michael Ironside in "A few signs of a bad movie"
@Garrison Dean: To be fair, those toys have been used to make very interesting storylines in various comic book incarnations. For anyone familiar with the decent storylines, the movie was a bet of a letdown. Not that I can say the comics were anywhere near Shakespeare themselves...
Wait, to be honest, anyone familiar with decent storylines, dialogue, and film making could tell you that the movie was pretty horrid.
@Gospel X: Yes, but it had explosions and fighting robots.
If I want story, dialogue and film making, I'll go see No Country for Old Men, which was great, but alas, only one explosion and no robots fighting. If I want the best possible blow'em'ups I go to Michael Bay.
But thats my last word on that. My constant fighting with fellow film nerds all last summer has left me tired and beaten, I can't get dragged into another discussion on why I loved "Transformers" and my thesis on how I enjoy movies based on what they tell me they're gonna give me vs. what I get. I yield.
@Garrison Dean: Eh, I guess I also come off strong when it comes to that particular film. Personally, I think a person should be accepted for the merits of enjoying what others (those in the space of a conversation, at least) might consider a bad film. I grew up on Star Wars, Godzilla, Transformers, and VOLTRON. No accounting for my taste, that's for sure. My DVD collection includes Fritz the Cat.
There's just something about Bay's Transformers that left me venomous. I've disliked movies before. I've disliked WORSE movies. But I guess this movie is the first one to hit my annoying fanboy nerve. (I refuse to call myself a Transformers "purist", since there's no way that would make any sense.)
@ndokiman: Speaking of Michael Ironside - he was supposed to be in some tv show called 'Ice Planet' but I never heard about it again. Anyway you guys at io9 could look into it?
You also forgot the "directed by Uwe Boll" rule...but then again, if you saw the words "Uwe Boll", you probably wouldn't have even gone anywhere near the theater.
@PVIII: Actually, my beef with the Transformers movie was that it had no charm. The original cartoon often had terrible writing and relatively low-quality animation, but at least it was enjoyable and charming. Bay's film was an okay popcorn flick, but it mostly fell flat. Particularly the humor, such as it was. And frankly, the cartoon did have better characters.
@edosan: The makers of MST3K have actually said many times that they don't endorse people going to movie theaters and shouting at the movies. Kevin Murphy, the man most will know as Tom Servo, would absolutely destroy you for it, in fact.
@Gospel X: Well, if you won't call yourself a Transformers purist, then I'll do it myself: I'm a Transformers purist. I'm not ashamed. I love the franchise. :)
@Sharpless: I just have problems saying "purist" when there's no real continuity for the franchise. Maybe recognition of such makes me a purist?
@Sharpless: I guess I'm probably different then most fanboys in that I actually kinda like Shia Lebouf and find him pretty funny - most of the first half actually cracked me up (the part in sam's room/ the music with the car). I guess when the Transformers introduced themselves and John Turturro showed up I started to lose interest. Since I went in with such low expectations I really enjoyed myself. It's hard to say that the movie wasn't entertaining though. I found for the most part that newcomers to Transformers (me included) liked the movie more than die-hards, and I think if you made it more akin to the cartoon it would've bombed at the box office.
If there's a hot-air ballon. (Quoth Roger Ebert: "Good movies rarely contain a hot-air balloon.")
Hmmmm...guess he doesn't much like Wizard of Oz or Mysterious Island.
You alll missed one thing...ANY movie tht Sci Fi shows on Satruday nights..should be avoided..
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