For the love of trash

Art is so weird. First, everyone always screams how it's subjective, and dividing it into good and bad is missing the point. Eye of the beholder and all that. And when on occasion the hivemind agrees that something is universally bad (or good, but that's not what this post is about), there's always a bunch of weirdos who like it because it is bad.

And bad cinema is the best example of this.

So what makes a movie bad? Well, the usual stuff, right? Bad writing, bad acting, cheap production, you get the idea.

But what makes a bad movie good? That's harder to answer, and it comes back to the whole eye of the beholder stuff. It's individual, and I can only speak for myself.

I have only two criteria:

1. It has to be funny. Intentionally or not, it doesn't matter. But the whole purpose of trash cinema is to laugh, otherwise it's a waste of time.

2. It needs to have a heart. This is harder to quantify, but you know how some films, regardless of budget or anything else just feel vacuous and hollow? If you've ever watched a Michael Bay film you know what I'm talking about. "Yes, but those are huge Hollywood money grabs", you may say. True, but even small indie films can have just as black of a heart.

That is the reason I don't find The Room, perhaps the best known example of "so bad it's good" cinema, that enjoyable. It's funny, sure, but there's something deranged about it that just never sat right with me. Or an even worse example is Neil Breen. It's literally just a creepy insecure middleaged dude with a bad hairpiece making films in which he is manly and heroic. It's impossible to descibe if you haven't seen them, but it makes Tommy Wisseau seem like a poet in comparison. There's no love in it, no joy, just ego. I don't like films like that.

So now that we've got the theory out of the way, here are four very bad movies I've enjoyed very much and would recommend to you too.

Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

No, you didn't miss a Marvel movie, or I guess you kind of did. This absolute gem came out in 1998, before the whole superhero thing really took off, and it's a cheapo production that stars David Hasselhoff in the title role. This has it all, and if you watch one film from this list, please make it this one. I think someone showed Schwarzenegger's Commando to David Hasselhoff and said "just do this". The attempt is hilarious.

The plot reminds me of stuff we used to come up with as kids when playing with GI Joes. The preposterous Bond-like gadgets, the one liners, the ridicilous villains, it's all there. The whole thing is like watching a cute but not very bright puppy trying to navigate a simple obstacle. It's hard to not like.

Oh, what's that? The whole thing is on Youtube? You don't say?

The Ice Pirates

The Ice Pirates is like if someone wanted to make a Han Solo movie, but couldn't be bothered to write a script and they just winged it all on the fly. There's no plot as such, it just stumbles from one episodic set-piece to the next, each more ludicrous than the last. The jokes range from poopy-poopy to the final sequence which I don't want to spoil for you, but it feels like an outtake from Monthy Python's Meaning of Life in how absurdist and poignant it is at the same time.

Of the films on this list, this one is surely the weirdist.

Flesh Gordon

No, not the one with the Queen music. And also no, that's not a typo. Flesh Gordon is a sexploitation flick that came (heh) a good six years before much better known 1980 Flash Gordon film. I swear I'm serious when I say I like this version better.

None of the films on this list are particularly mature in terms of jokes and script, but this one has to be the most infantile, easily. The whole thing looks like it was written by a bunch of horny boys trying to get as much innuendo and naked women into a single film, and for the most part being quite successfull at it. Suprisingly the stop motion animation is not half bad, and it actually does the original material enough justice that you can't call it just a softcore knockoff. This is a legit parody. With boobs and dick-shaped rockets!

Hercules in New York

Most of us of a certain age probably feel like we've seen every Schwarzenegger movie under the sun. They are simply unavoidable, and about half of them are actually pretty good. But "most of us" have never even heard of Hercules in New York, the acting debut of "Arnold Strong". And yes, the plot is pretty much what it says on the tin, Arnold plays Hercules, who is banished from Olympus, ends up in New York and hilarity ensues.

The highlight of the film, as you can guess is young Arnold's acting. "Wooden" is not a good description, he was wooden in Conan and Terminator. Here he is so stiff you could stick a sail in his ass and use him for windsurfing.

But the real kicker comes from the audio track, or rather tracks. You see, originally the film was released with all of Arnold's lines dubbed by someone who could, you know, speak English. Then, when the film was re-released on DVD decades later, someone had the epic idea to include both the dubbed track and the original one where you can hear young Arnold wrestling with English like it's the cretan bull. And it's hard to choose which one is better. The terribe English that sounds like somebody doing a very bad "get to tha choppa" Ahnold impersonation, or the generic American voice that just sounds so bizarre coming out of him.