Friday, November 7, 2014

A Movie Paradox?

This just occurred to me in class the other day.  There are several types of movies.  There are excellent movies and there are real stinkers.  Within the class of bad movies there are some that are so bad that you just have to see them because they are so bad.  But there are also bad movies that are not so bad, that you see once and would never recommend seeing to anyone else.

I have tried to think of examples for these bad movies but I rarely watch bad movies since I only watch movies that have been recommended to me from people I trust or that I've read reviews about.  The first 3 Star Wars movies were pretty bad, but not so bad that I'd want to see them again or would recommend them for their badness.  The Fast and the Furious was about as stupid of a movie as I've ever seen but it's not so bad that I'd recommend it for its badness.  One website I came across had Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins in the "so bad it's good" category but that movie is not even bad!!  In fact, I've seen it at least twice!

But does it make any sense to talk about movies that are so bad that they are good?  How could a movie be so bad that it's better than a not so bad movie?  Impossible!  There are no movies that are so bad that they are good!  (Yes, i realize I'm riding roughshod over the intrinsic/extrinsic good distinction but it's just a blog post).

So why do we say this?  I suppose that it's because the movie is so bad that it's funny.  But then if it's funny it's not so bad.

No comments:

Post a Comment