# Who is the Ed Wood of contemporary films? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 1, 2016, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681 "2016-03-01T20:56:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/41 "2016-03-02T04:42:06Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > Martin Scorsese (except for “Goodfellas”). :dubious: Scorcese’s films have 80 Academy Award nominations and 20 wins. You have a rather idiosyncratic definition of bad films. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/42 "2016-03-02T07:29:29Z")
> [@neofishboy](#): > > Nowhere near as prolific as Wood, but Tommy Wiseau. Yes! The perfect Ed-Wood-for-today. So he only made a couple of films, but the billboard was up for like five years–that has to count for something. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/43 "2016-03-02T09:46:40Z")
I think do be a contender you really need: [ul] [li] Profound enthusiasm for their work.[/li][li] A belief they’re making **unironically good** work, irrespective of the first point.[/li][li] Horrible plots and character writing[/li][li] Technical incompetence[/li][/ul] The first discards people like Uwe Boll or Asylum because their films are built through cynicism (except perhaps Sharknado which is deliberately fun-bad and thus fails the second point). IMO, Michael Bay fails the fourth point, as does M Night Shyamalan. Professional critics who hate Bay’s movies in a holistic sense tend to admit he has a good eye for cinematography. Like, yeah, they’re dumb, but they’re generally well shot, with good effects, and the actors tend to give actual performances. The editing is coherent and generally not filled with immediately obvious problems. It’s the same with Shyamalan to a lesser degree. He’s not super great, but he possesses a level of technical competence and the acting generally doesn’t feel like cardboard or overly stilted, maybe The Last Airbender notwithstanding. Even then the effects were fairly nice. I think Wiseau is the only one mentioned here that really holds up. Not quite as prolific, but he seems to be both sincere and utterly incompetent in almost every respect. I’m sure you could find some prolific Youtubers doing similar things, but if we’re looking for “legitimate” filmmakers, I think he’s the closest we have. ---
**Author:** ![Shearer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/57b2e6/32.png) [@Shearer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shearer)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/44 "2016-03-02T11:13:45Z")
No one in mainstream cinema. The Ed Wood’s moved on to home video and these days probably the internet. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/45 "2016-03-02T15:39:01Z")
Search YouTube. The Ed Wood of today is there, probably everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/46 "2016-03-02T16:38:59Z")
Ooh, I have one: last Saturday my 11 year old son took his digital camera to the park with some of his friends and made a “music video.” It was positively Wood-esque. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/47 "2016-03-02T16:48:05Z")
The difference is that today’s Ed Woods are shooting films with their buddies on their iPhones. You need so much less infrastructure to make a “movie” that nobody can rise or sink to Ed Wood’s level, because the movie making technology has changed so much, and the movie business has changed so much. There’s no market for cheap movies to show in regional chains anymore. Yeah, there are literally thousands of cheap movies you can watch from the back catalog of Netflix or whatever, but there’s no more “we have to watch this because there’s absolutely nothing else to watch”. Nobody is going to sit through today’s “Plan 9 from Outer Space” and complain about how incompetent it is, because with a click of the remote control they can watch something different. And so cheap incompetent movies don’t have the same meaning today that they did back in the day. Back then you paid your dollar to sit in the theater and you expected to see something worth watching, but you’ve already paid so you might as well sit and watch to see how bad it gets. Today you’d just hit the menu button on your remote and watch something else. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/48 "2016-03-02T17:49:44Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > I wouldn’t put Shamaylon on the list. He’s made some pretty bad films, but he’s made some pretty great ones, and I think _Signs_ is somewhere in the middle. He’s the rare director that every movie he makes is the worst movie he has ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/49 "2016-03-02T18:13:32Z")
Uwe Boll has been mentioned several times already and let me add to that count. The only way he would not qualify as the modern Ed Wood is that he may actually be worse. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/50 "2016-03-02T18:56:44Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The difference is that today’s Ed Woods are shooting films with their buddies on their iPhones. You need so much less infrastructure to make a “movie” that nobody can rise or sink to Ed Wood’s level, because the movie making technology has changed so much, and the movie business has changed so much. I’d argue it’s probably one the people filming movies on modern DSLR cameras who stands the most chance of being the present-day Ed Wood. (most of them made since about 2007 or so can film fairly lengthy stretches of full HD video, and have relatively high quality lenses) If they’re doing that, then they’re deliberately trying to make “real” films, as opposed to being the modern-day equivalent of an amateur doofus futzing around with a Super-8 camera or VHS camcorder. I’m not sure if Uwe Boll is really trying to make “good” films though; his tax shelter commentary leads me to believe that this is more of a lucrative career for him than a way to exercise his artistic muscles, withered and spastic as they may be. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/51 "2016-03-02T18:57:56Z")
Or the fact that he’s deliberately making flops as a tax dodge, not enthusiastically throwing all his non-existent talents into the films that he thinks are masterpieces, like Wood or Wiseau (the only person named in this thread who actually does fit the profile of Wood). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/52 "2016-03-02T19:00:09Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The problem with that comparison is that “Sharknado” is supposed to be terrible. The entire movie, shot for shot, is a joke. It’s supposed to be cheap and shitty and silly, and we’re all supposed to laugh at it. > > Ed Wood _was legitimately trying._ I know that lots of people feel Sharknado was good in that way, but I just don’t see it. It’s so bad, it’d even ruin a good drinking game. Sharknado aside, not all of The Asylum’s work reads like an intent to be so bad it’s good. Either they’re failing at making a serious movie or they’re failing at making a joke and either way, they and Ed Wood deserve each other. 🙂 (And, yes, I admit to seeing way more of their stuff than I should admit to. Between NetFlix, SyFy and my willingness to give anything science fiction/horror a shot… I’ve seen at least twenty minutes of most of their movies.) ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/53 "2016-03-02T19:28:07Z")
I’ve enjoyed some Terence Malick films, mainly _The New World_, but some are just glacially paced and deadly dull. I’m a huge Abraham Lincoln buff and when I saw that he’d made a movie about Lincoln’s childhood (_The Better Angels_-2014) I saw it on pay-per-view thinking “impossible to go wrong paying $3.99 for a movie about Abe Lincoln”. Wrong. Just bloody impossible to watch- every arthouse cliche you can think of such as the long closeups on inanimate objects and constant sound of running water and no character development. It was like eavesdropping on an incredibly dull conversation in Walnut Grove, and Lincoln’s childhood was anything but dull. He’s one of those directors that I wonder “How does he keep getting money when he doesn’t earn for his investors?” ---
**Author:** ![MentalGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/439d5e/32.png) [@MentalGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MentalGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/54 "2016-03-02T19:58:00Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > I think do be a contender you really need: > > [ul] > [li] Profound enthusiasm for their work.[/li][li] A belief they’re making **unironically good** work, irrespective of the first point.[/li][li] Horrible plots and character writing[/li][li] Technical incompetence[/li][/ul] I have not seen _Troll 2_, but based on the documentary _Best Worst Movie_, I would say Claudio Fragasso qualifies under all these criteria. ---
**Author:** ![Lobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@Lobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobot)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/55 "2016-03-02T23:55:46Z")
> [@neofishboy](#): > > Nowhere near as prolific as Wood, but Tommy Wiseau. This is my nomination as well. ---
**Author:** ![neofishboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/neofishboy/32/444_2.png) [@neofishboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neofishboy)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/56 "2016-03-03T00:12:12Z")
> [@MentalGuy](#): > > I have not seen _Troll 2_, but based on the documentary _Best Worst Movie_, I would say Claudio Fragasso qualifies under all these criteria. _Troll 2_ was so bad that I initially thought it had to have been on purpose. But no, he seems legitimately angry in that documentary that people don’t take it seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/57 "2016-03-03T08:41:42Z")
> [@MentalGuy](#): > > I have not seen _Troll 2_, but based on the documentary _Best Worst Movie_, I would say Claudio Fragasso qualifies under all these criteria. Fragasso’s only part of the chain that led to that movie being terrible. Rosella Drudi (his wife, who wrote the film for an extremely petty reason) and Joe D’Amato (who produced it, and insisted it be done on no budget) deserve at least as much credit. And they fail at being Wood, IMO, if only because Wood would never sink so low as to declare one of his films a sequel to an unrelated film (which Fragasso and D’Amato’s films have done repeatedly). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/58 "2016-03-03T13:00:16Z")
Ed Wood never had a smidgen of talent or commercial success. He died a complete unknown . Practically nobody saw any of his movies during his lifetime. Moreover, his movies were sloppily edited and had pathetic production values. Now you may think that Roland Emmerich’s movies are silly, and I may agree, but all of his movies have been competently made and some have been VERY successful. Same with Shyamalan and even Boll. I’m sure there ARE low-budget auteurs out there making comically bad movies, but they’re as unknown now as Ed Wood was in the Fifties. ---
**Author:** ![tullsterx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tullsterx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tullsterx)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/59 "2016-03-03T16:20:08Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Uwe Boll This guy. No way Shyamalan is. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2016, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681/60 "2016-03-04T10:53:11Z")
I know he only made **that** one movie, but… Maybe we could spare a thought for Hal Warren, fertilizer salesman and writer, producer, director and protagonist of the horrendous and stinking awesomeness that is _Manos, the Hands of Fate_? (As a native Spanish speaker, the title by itself makes me giggle). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-ed-wood-of-contemporary-films/747681.md?page=4)