So good it's bad

Above: Film commentator Michael Adams getting made-up on the set of George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead.

You know that feeling, when you walk out of the cinema having seen a truly awful film? The spreading numbness, disbelief and finally the realisation you will never get those hours of your life back. Yes, Trasformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen left a lasting impression on many of us. But imagine subjecting yourself to that experience over and over again, for an entire year. Film commentator Michael Adams did and lived to tell the tale.

At the start of a New Year, Adams made a resolution to find the worst movie ever made by vowing to watch at least one terrible film per day, for 365 days. He documented his quest in the book Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies, released earlier this year.

The book follows his success watching 406 bad movies in12 months, while balancing his job as Reviews Editor for Empire magazine, online columns at Movieline, Rotten Tomatoes and The Wrap, co-host of SBS’s The Movie Show and his personal life. Having read the book, it is a must-have for all movie lovers and aspiring film geeks. Instead of just watching and reviewing the films, he hunts down the makers and stars and grills them on their cinematic disasters. He also throws in a few break-outs such as of bad movie vocabulary, the worst movie titles ever and bad movies that should have been made. It’s interactive, insightful, fun and a downright enjoyable read.

I interviewed Adams about the book, bad movies and Boll (the Uwe kind) earlier this week. I’ve got to say, his responses were hilarious and have entertained myself and colleagues for days. Enjoy.

Movie Mazzupial: You intertwine your personal narrative into the book. When there was so much else happening in your life, was it hard to stay inspired and sit down to dozens of truly awful movies?
MA: Sometimes it was really tough. You know, up with a 18-month old child at 5.30am, working 9 to 5.30, cooking dinner and chatting with the missus over wine until 8.30 or later. And then some godawful piece of junk, like Burt Reynolds in Cop And A Half, John Carradine in Horror Of The Blood Monsters or Madonna in, well, anything beckons. It was hard to force myself to press play, but once I did I was usually fascinated by the awfulness that unfolded. Other times, though, it’d be like this strange little refuge. There was more than one time when I escaped the frustrations of normal life by watching something terrible and came out the other side smiling.

MM: Is there a particular bad movie that you feel isn’t actually that bad, just misunderstood?
MA: Ishtar has a reputation for being bad but it’s actually rather good fun. The bad rap comes more from it being a box-office failure. I like The Postman, starring Kevin Costner, which makes me the only person outside of his mum that does. But how can you not like a post-apocalypse in which Tom Petty plays himself? There are plenty of bad movies that are good, if you can accept “entertaining” as one definition of good. I laughed more in The Room, Tommy Wiseau’s god awful melodrama, than in most major Hollywood comedies of the past 10 years. The laughs weren’t intended but who’s arguing the toss when you’ve got tears streaming down your face, your sides are aching and you look around the cinema and there are 250 other people in the same condition?

MM: Bad movies seem to have a cult following in and of themselves (the Woodites, Bayhem and so forth), what is it that makes them appealing?
MA: As I say, entertainment can take many forms. The thing with good-bad movies is how much fun they are. That can come from the gap between ambition and execution. Ed Wood wanted to make a huge and important alien invasion epic in Plan 9 From Outer Space. He just didn’t have the talent or resources. But what emerged still works as an entertaining experience. Bad movies are also a great shared experience. People pass commentary, crack jokes, laugh with and at the likes of The Giant Claw, Showgirls or Battlefield Earth. It’s an interactive experience. Also, sometimes, there are some really interesting angles that no-budget filmmakers take because it’s the only way they can get their movie noticed. If you made a martial arts film in the Philippines in the 1980s, it had little chance of being seen anywhere outside of that country. But if you cast a 2’9” midget named Weng Weng as your lead, then you have a film for the ages – and one that couldn’t have come out of Hollywood. Same goes for haunted house movies – they’re a dime a dozen. But having heard the title Death Bed: The Bed That Eats you get the originality of the concept immediately. Yes, it’s stupid, but it’s also unforgettable.

Below: Ta-da! The finished product: Michael Adams as a zombie on the set of George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead.

MM: Instead of simply listing and criticising the bad movies, you have sought out the makers behind the films as well. Who was the most interesting to talk to?
MA: Jesse Woodrow was pretty amazing. He was this coked-out model-actor and friend to Paris Hilton and co-star in the movie The Hillz before he became a radical born-again Christian with an apocalypse predicting radio show in Texas. So, he’s telling me about partying with Paris and Leif Garrett and how they were all so wasted and then in the next breath he’s telling me the world’s about to end. Insightful on a lot of levels. And weird. I do love Uwe Boll. He’s the German director who’s hated by internet movie fans for movies like BloodRayne and Alone In The Dark. He actually punched out five critics in a boxing ring because he though their reviews were unfair. But he admitted to me his movies weren’t very good.

MM: As a movie buff yourself, what was it like to get such a glowing foreword to the book by none other than George A. Romero?
MA: I met George in Melbourne in 2008 and we got on really well. He had me over to Toronto to be a zombie in his latest film, Survival Of The Dead, which is out later this year. I was terrible in it – I can’t even fall down convincingly. So it was really nice of him to write that very sweet intro. And it means a lot to fans of his to see his stamp of bloody approval.

MM: What do you think were the worst movies of last year?
MA: Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen deserved every Razzie it won. G-Force sucked – an insult to kids, I thought. The Taking Of Pelham 123 again demonstrated John Travolta’s abiding commitment to crappy cinema. Marley & Me was a dog in every sense. Race To Witch Mountain was as brutal as being slammed around the ring by The Rock. Terminator Salvation appeared to have been made by people who’d never seen any of the original films. Bruno was a massive disappointment after the brilliance of Borat. There’s never a shortage of sludge being pumped out of the Hollywood pipeline.

MM: Who do you think is today’s Ed Wood?
MA: Uwe Boll’s pretty close. He’s not the worst filmmaker working today – that honour would have to go to Ulli Lommel, his German compatriot – but Boll’s movies get publicity for their badness. That said, he works independently, outside of the studio system, and on budgets much smaller than Hollywood hacks. If you put him next to Michael Bay, for instance, and look at the money spent, Boll doesn’t scrub up that terribly.

MM: What stinkers do you think we have to look forward to for the rest of 2010?
MA: Oh, man. It’s hard to tell because sometimes trailers lie. Hot Tub Time Machine, for instance, has terrible trailers but it’s a really funny movie. But watching Miley Cyrus in musical teen death-rom-com The Last Song should prove a treat. Sex And The City 2 looks like it might inspire me to drive the heel of my Christian Louboutin stilettos through my eyeball. Clash of The Titans could go either way – who got paid for that tagline, “Titans Will Clash”? And, excuse me, but did the Australian public beg for Wog Boy 2? I must’ve missed that petition.

MM: Finally, what is the next project for you? A good movie book perhaps?
MA: Ah, it’s top secret, I’m afraid. Okay, I’ll tell you.
I’m doing an experiment in which I show a certain types of movies to Siamese Fighting Fish and then stage death matches. So, will Betty, my current champion, raised on a diet of only Meryl Streep cinema, be able to defeat Jimmy, who has spent the past week watching nothing but John Wayne westerns? Read the book to find out! Title suggestions welcome, too.
Hi-freakin-larious. Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies (above) is currently available in bookstores and online HERE.