Err, wouldn’t he buy her jewels to make her happy?
Fenris, I salute you. “Jimmy Stewart,” indeed!
And while I’m at it, I also salute the guy who mentioned Diane Arbus as a casting director…
-Ben
Fenris: I’m not defending this movie, or saying it was in any way enjoyable. But I could summarize the plot after one viewing, and there weren’t any times where I was just staring at the screen thinking “Okay, what the fuck am I looking at?” Unlike Manos, or Red Zone Cuba, where the plot is so disjointed and non-sensical that it is impossible to get any sort of grasp on the alleged narrative.
And, as you pointed out, at least one person (John LaRoquette) involved can actually be entertaining under the proper circumstances. Can you imagine any film that would make looking at Coleman Francis enjoyable?
So, on a suckiness scale, 0.0 being, say, Casablanca, and 10.0 being any movie starring Richard Gere, I’d say that Second Sight ranks about 9.8. Your average MST3K movie rates somewhere around 35-40. By all reports, Freddy got Fingered registers completely off the scale.
http://avclub.theonion.com/reviews/cinema/cinema_f/freddygotfingered01.html
I think The Onion A.V. Club put it well:
And SPOOFE, that reviewer you lambast did provide a critique, in that he claimed that a conventional critique was rather beside the point (thus saying all that he feels he can about the movie).
As for worst movie ever, I’ve got to insist on Very Bad Things. It’s not that it’s incompetently made (though it mostly is), but it’s the only movie that I am a worse human being for having seen. I’ll spare you guys my standard rant; it will suffice to say that I had a particularly strong visceral reaction to the film. I was depressed for days after having seen it. Fortunately, all that depression has been channeled into hatred for the twisted fucks who brought that movie into the world. Fuck.
VarlosZ, I tink we need to make a distinction here: there are movies that are bad, which have poor acting, ridiculous plots, and spastic camerawork. These are movies that, at the most, make you regret the seven bucks/ninety minutes you just wasted, but are swiftly forgotton, or even fondly remembered, in a “Can you beleive how bad that was” kind of way. Much like most of the movies mentioned here so far.
Then there are the…other kind of movies. The ones that make you faintly nauseous when you think of them. The ones that stick in the back of the your mind like a tumor. The ones that make you question your faith in humanity (assuming you have any to begin with; I know what you too-hip film buffs are like) These aren’t bad films, these are evil films. I don’t mean darkly ironic, or uncomfortably controversial. I mean Screaming Vortex of Abaddon. They’re very rare. I’ve only seen one myself, a hideous little movie from 1994 called Last Supper. This satanic little piece of celuloid simply defies description. I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes trying to come up with funny ways to insult this movie, but if I do that, I have to actually think about it, and remember scenes…and dialogue…and…and…tomatoes <shudder>. Nope, I can’t go through that again.
What of Craig Kilborn? Or have we even yet discovered, as a civilization, a system of mathematics sophisticated enough to quantify his smarmy-smug-smirkiness?
Mathematician dopers! I smell a grant!
I disagree. I read the whole article as the reviewer refusing to commit to one side or the other on the “Good/Bad” scale, and coming off as “holier-than-thou” as a result.
I really couldn’t say whether he has a “holier-than-thou” attitude (or even whether that matters) since I happen to agree with him. To review Freddy Got Fingered merely by saying that it’s a horrible, disgusting film is pointless. That assertion makes certain assumptions about what makes a film good or bad (“a movie should have a plot, a movie should be enjoyable” etc.) that ensure that the conclusion (“FGF is a bad movie”) is true; nobody even remotely familiar with Green’s work and the concept behind FGF could expect a “good” film by normal standards. Since the makers of the picture had no intention of commiting a “good” film to the screen, however, to say only that the film sucks is frankly uninteresting.
Ideally, I think a reviewer should at least consider a film like FGF on its own terms and in a larger context. Of course, if you’re not looking for that, the reviewer in question does mention that he found the film to be unenjoyable and unfunny. If that’s what you’re after, there it is (you just have to sift through everythin else to find it). Of course, if that’s what after, you’re probably reading Entertainment Weekly (and speaking of “holier than thou,” how about that pretentious, know-nothing fuckwit Owen Gleiberman?).
Nimune, I think your distinction has merit, but I’m sticking with my horse. This is admittedly arbitrary, but I consider “irrevocably changes the viewer for the worse” to qualify a movie as “bad.”
So basically, Freddy Got Fingered is a good movie, if we drastically redefine good to mean something different than what it usually does.
Personally, I think the review in question would have a point if the movie actually succeeded at what it was trying to do. Rather than trying to lambast other critics and impress us with his knowledge of French cinema from the turn of the century, the reviewer should have simply said that if you like Tom Green, and can stand two hours of him trying to put the grossest thing he can think of on the screen without any regard for plot or character development, there’s a chance you could like this movie.
Looking at the reviews on the IMDB, there are plenty of Tom Green fans that hated this movie.
As for Second Sight, I saw that in the theaters when it came out, and was amused. Granted, I was 11 at the time, but that’s more redeeming qualities than Freddy Got Fingered. Look, in order to be in the running for the title of Worst Movie Ever, the movie has to have no redeeming qualities. That means nothing that was made funny on MST3K. And you need to be more objective than a movie that has actors that you despise.
Well, if being funny on MST3k takes a movie out of the running, then “Wild Wild World of Batwoman” is still a contender (I’ve seen every MST, except for some of the KTMA episodes and “Wild…Batwoman” is the only episode that I didn’t finish watching.
Regarding “Second Sight”, it wasn’t “actors that I despise”, it was “a rare combination of actors who’s individual ‘personas’ are bad but when combined form a noxious, poisonous misama of evil”. For me, “Second Sight” had NO redeeming values. The best thing I can say about it is “there wasn’t a sequel” YMMV
Fenris
Oh, I don’t think that anyone has said that FGF was actually good on any terms, its own included . . . least of all me. I just agree that if a reviewer is going to devote his whole piece to the notion that Tom Green made a shitty movie by all objective standards, he might as well have stayed home.
Well that wouldn’t be very interesting. Besides, that’s so obvious (and oft-repeated) I’d venture to say that it’s understood (are Tom Green fans going to see or not see the movie based on the review in the Times?).
Y’know, it’s kind of fun watching people argue about my review. Initially, I had intended to post a long defense, replete with quotes from French critics in 1896 as well as further citations of anarchic humor. (Example: If you’re going to say that the incidents of Freddy Got Fingered “don’t have anything to do with anything,” then explain to me, please, what the long vending-cart interlude in the Marx Brothers classic Duck Soup has to do with the plot.) I have, however, since changed my mind, and will instead make just three points.
One. “Good” or “bad,” as has been pointed out, is irrelevant; they are imaginary and false labels. I believe there’s only one objective means of judging a film, and my role as critic is to apply that standard. I describe the movie’s objectives, and discuss whether or not it achieves those objectives. Battlefield Earth fails. Freddy Got Fingered succeeds. That doesn’t mean you or anyone else has to enjoy it, and as I said in my review, I’m confident the overwhelming majority of audience members will respond strongly in the opposite direction. But to overlook the movie’s purpose is disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst. I try not to be an ignorant critic.
Two. Speaking of ignorance, I didn’t discuss the turn-of-the-century French play (not film) Ubu Roi in order to look smart. As I emphatically pointed out in my review, I think a familiarity with the artistic landscape is a necessary qualification for critics, and I’m distressed that so many movie reviewers are so ignorant about the milestones of the performing arts. I said it in my review, and I’ll say it again here: I’m not holding myself up as a genius for remembering it; rather, I assert that most of our so-called critics are undeserving of the label because of their cultural illiteracy, and therefore they fail to meet their basic obligations as critics.
Three. I did, after writing the review, find another reference to Ubu Roi. It’s in the New York Goddamn Times, which is where we expect (and hope) to see literate, well-informed criticism. It’s disappointing that no other reviewers made the connection, but I’m doubly confident now that my observation was right on the money.
I stand by my review.
In that case, I humbly nominate Caligula for the consideration of the Academy.
Well, this is where I disagree. I think the movie tried to present Tom Green’s character as deserving sympathy, and the father as bad. I also think it intended to be funny. It’s hard to figure out just what the filmmakers were thinking, but I don’t think they succeeded at it. It looks to me as if their other intentions got buried under the attempt to shock and disturb people. At that it succeeds, but I think that’s the only thing it succeeds at, and that it was not the only goal that its makers had in mind.
Your review seems to me to give the film too much credit, in order to make your point. I certainly agree with you about what criticism entails to a certain degree, but I don’t think that this movie was a good example, as it did fail to succeed at its objectives, in my opinion at least.
OK, I was rather flippant there (though I believe I called it “theater”, meaning play, not movie). But you did seem to dwell overlong on somewhat pedantic discussion of it as a piece of art, ignoring the viewer’s goals in paying money to see it. And being told if I’m going to be entertained by a movie is what I look to movie critics for. Knowing this is a subjective matter, I often read criticisms of movies I’ve seen to judge how accurate a particular critic is to my taste.
I think movie critiques should be simply:
"I liked this movie, here’s why:
or
I did not enjoy this movie, here’s why:
If you are anything like me, then perhaps you’d agree with my conclusions, consider this review a heads-up."
Discussing objectives and whether the film achieved them is so much pretentious nonsense, really, especially since it is always going to be one person’s view.
I may not know art, but I know what I like.
Good for you. Others do not share your ignorance of art, and thus are not being pretentious when they discuss it.
Cervaise, you’re not passing judgement on a movie as judge, jury, and executioner, fer cryin’ out loud… a critic, by definition, is supposed to give his/her own opinion about the topic receiving critique! Otherwise, there’s not much point, is there?
People read critiques to see what other people think… they DON’T read critiques only to be told to “See the movie for yourself and make your own decision.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 