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Feb. 29th, 2012 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficThis weekend I watched two movies about movies. I had a very meta movie weekend.
One was the documentary The Best Worst Movie, which the Netflix algorithm assured me (correctly) that I would like. The little summary says it is about how a bad movie gets made. That is not what it's about. It's about fandom.
The filmmaker of Best Worst Movie was the child star in Troll 2. As he puts it, when he got cast as the lead, he was sure all his dreams of fame were about to come true. Then he watched the VHS tape of the movie he got for Christmas (because it was never released in theaters), and watched all his dreams burn.
Troll 2 is a terrible movie. It has 0% on the rotten tomatometer. Plan 9 from Outer Space has 66%. Troll 2 is about...vegetarian goblins or something. There are no trolls in it. And from the clips shown, it is universally poorly acted. So, unsurprisingly, when it came out, it quickly vanished from sight, and everyone involved moved on with their lives.
The doc mostly follows the guy who played the father in the movie, who is now a dentist in a small town in Alabama. That movie was his one attempt to realize his dream while at dentistry school. It would be entirely forgotten, except that in the early days of HBO, they played Troll 2 a lot. I'm guessing because it was cheap (or free).
But anyway, this terrible, terrible movie started getting seen. And it started getting a cult following. And it started being shown in hip indie theaters like the Alamo Draft House, and people had Troll 2 parties and cosplayed as the Troll 2 goblins (ie, people in burlap bags) and made Troll 2 video games and got Troll 2 tattoos.
So this movie is about what happens when average joe dentist finds out that he has a huge fan following.
The movie is short on analysis, and drags in places, but is really fascinating for looking unflinchingly at how complicated and uncomfortable fan/star interactions can get.
At first, the dentist is a little bowled over and reluctant. Then he starts to enjoy going to these things and saying his line ("You don't piss on hospitality!") to raucous applause. Then he starts seeking out fan gatherings. Then he goes to a con in England where nobody shows up for the Troll 2 panel. Then he goes to a horror con, where again, nobody cares. And suddenly he's gone from reluctantly revisiting this thing he was ashamed of to actively hawking it to passersby who don't give a shit. He's cornering people and saying the line to them. He's synopsising the movie to them (which, even with great movies, is almost always boring to listen to). And when overwhelmed with their indifference, he starts to feel really uncomfortable and out of place, and starts talking about how pathetic the other celebrities that are there are, for still basking in something they did twenty years ago when they haven't done anything since. Then he realizes that's what he's doing. Then he starts insulting the con attendees and calling them freaks (and dude! The guy's right behind you! He can hear you!), and finally packs it in and goes home, seemingly learning his lesson.
But when asked at the end if he would star in Troll 3, he says absolutely yes.
It's fascinating. Not just the dynamics of a cult fandom, but in this case, a cult fandom for a bad film. Where many of the people involved never did another film. It's clear that what the audience wants from them is stories about how fucked-up the filming was and acknowledgment that they all know it's a piece of crap. Basically, I think the fans want Wil Wheaton--someone who is a geek himself, and is completely aware of how hated his character was and has come to terms with it. The fans want someone who looks at the film and sees a catastrophe, the way they do.
But what the people on stage want? Completely different. In the movie, they reunite pretty much the entire cast (including extras) and the director and screenwriter. There are some of the guys who were like, "They told us it was low budget, but that can be a lot of things, then we show up and they're duct-taping burlap bags on us, and we're like--oh. Low budget."
There are some that have legitimate mental issues. One of the actors was apparently in a psych ward at the time and was checking himself out to film. As he says, that wasn't me acting. That is a legitimately disturbed person.
The actress who played the mother was the most uncomfortable to watch. She looks about five minutes from death and talks about how she still acts. Well not acts acts, but she's always watching TV and learning from the choices actors make, so she's still acting. And then she compares Troll 2 unironically to Casablanca. And they ask her to come to a screening and she says what she wants is to disappear and for no one to know who she is. And the dentist leaves the house clearly skeeved out by the whole thing.
Then there's the director. Who, unlike the actors, still thinks it was a good film. He accuses the actors of lying when they talk about production problems, like the fact that no one could understand the director or the crew (who were all Italian), or when they say they were horrified and depressed when they saw the finished film. He reacts to an audience question asking why there were no trolls in a film titled Troll 2 by saying that the questioner has no idea what he's talking about.
It's just really uncomfortable, all around, and demonstrates one of the reasons why I don't like interacting with stars or creators. Because I enjoy a movie or TV show or book in the way I enjoy it, which may not at all be the way in which it was intended. And butting up against the creative intensions, especially with something like this, where both the director and the audience think its genius--but the audience thinks it's genius for getting every single thing wrong--leads nowhere good.
I also thinks there's a certain nature to cult fandom in particular--that part of the appeal of a cult film is the feeling that only a few people "get it," and you're one of those people. It's as much about creating an outsider identity as it is the specific media. I think about the times I've seen Bruce Campbell, and how he is an expert at handling his own cult fandom (though the main difference there is Evil Dead is loved for being good), and then you look at this poor dentist who has no idea what to do with any of it. And who would never, in a million years, be part of such a cult fandom. He'd never "get it." So it's very weird for him to be there at all.
I also watched Swimming with Sharks, which is a cult movie in Hollywood. It's a pretty much autobiographical story of a producer's assistant at a film company mostly noteworthy for Kevin Spacey chewing scenery. It's also the reason why Benicio Del Toro was in Usual Suspects--he has a five-minute scene in this, on the strength of which Kevin Spacey recommended him to Bryan Singer.
Honestly, though, the behind-the-scenes documentary was more interesting than the film. The film was shot in 18 days. On day one, they forgot to bring film. On day two, the transportation coordinator was run down by one of his own trucks (broke his leg, otherwise fine). On day three, the art truck caught fire. On day four--was the 1994 North Shore earthquake, which destroyed most of their locations.
Kevin Spacey describes filming in the week after the earthquake, when they were still feeling aftershocks. He was tied to a chair in a house with a glass roof, and apparently was convinced he was going to die. There was someone just off camera with an exacto knife to cut him loose if the building started to come down.
In the doc, you also get the saga of how this neophyte screenwriter/director's producing partners completely screwed the distrobution deal in a way that pretty much mirrors the content of the film. It still got huge buzz in Hollywood, though, since it was about Hollywood, and has been a sleeper hit ever since.
So, an entirely different kind of cult film. That I bet doesn't have half so uneasy an interaction between the fans and the creators. (Though they did interview the screenwriter's boss, who Kevin Spacey's character is based on, who said that when he first read the script he was both really angry and reluctantly proud.)
One was the documentary The Best Worst Movie, which the Netflix algorithm assured me (correctly) that I would like. The little summary says it is about how a bad movie gets made. That is not what it's about. It's about fandom.
The filmmaker of Best Worst Movie was the child star in Troll 2. As he puts it, when he got cast as the lead, he was sure all his dreams of fame were about to come true. Then he watched the VHS tape of the movie he got for Christmas (because it was never released in theaters), and watched all his dreams burn.
Troll 2 is a terrible movie. It has 0% on the rotten tomatometer. Plan 9 from Outer Space has 66%. Troll 2 is about...vegetarian goblins or something. There are no trolls in it. And from the clips shown, it is universally poorly acted. So, unsurprisingly, when it came out, it quickly vanished from sight, and everyone involved moved on with their lives.
The doc mostly follows the guy who played the father in the movie, who is now a dentist in a small town in Alabama. That movie was his one attempt to realize his dream while at dentistry school. It would be entirely forgotten, except that in the early days of HBO, they played Troll 2 a lot. I'm guessing because it was cheap (or free).
But anyway, this terrible, terrible movie started getting seen. And it started getting a cult following. And it started being shown in hip indie theaters like the Alamo Draft House, and people had Troll 2 parties and cosplayed as the Troll 2 goblins (ie, people in burlap bags) and made Troll 2 video games and got Troll 2 tattoos.
So this movie is about what happens when average joe dentist finds out that he has a huge fan following.
The movie is short on analysis, and drags in places, but is really fascinating for looking unflinchingly at how complicated and uncomfortable fan/star interactions can get.
At first, the dentist is a little bowled over and reluctant. Then he starts to enjoy going to these things and saying his line ("You don't piss on hospitality!") to raucous applause. Then he starts seeking out fan gatherings. Then he goes to a con in England where nobody shows up for the Troll 2 panel. Then he goes to a horror con, where again, nobody cares. And suddenly he's gone from reluctantly revisiting this thing he was ashamed of to actively hawking it to passersby who don't give a shit. He's cornering people and saying the line to them. He's synopsising the movie to them (which, even with great movies, is almost always boring to listen to). And when overwhelmed with their indifference, he starts to feel really uncomfortable and out of place, and starts talking about how pathetic the other celebrities that are there are, for still basking in something they did twenty years ago when they haven't done anything since. Then he realizes that's what he's doing. Then he starts insulting the con attendees and calling them freaks (and dude! The guy's right behind you! He can hear you!), and finally packs it in and goes home, seemingly learning his lesson.
But when asked at the end if he would star in Troll 3, he says absolutely yes.
It's fascinating. Not just the dynamics of a cult fandom, but in this case, a cult fandom for a bad film. Where many of the people involved never did another film. It's clear that what the audience wants from them is stories about how fucked-up the filming was and acknowledgment that they all know it's a piece of crap. Basically, I think the fans want Wil Wheaton--someone who is a geek himself, and is completely aware of how hated his character was and has come to terms with it. The fans want someone who looks at the film and sees a catastrophe, the way they do.
But what the people on stage want? Completely different. In the movie, they reunite pretty much the entire cast (including extras) and the director and screenwriter. There are some of the guys who were like, "They told us it was low budget, but that can be a lot of things, then we show up and they're duct-taping burlap bags on us, and we're like--oh. Low budget."
There are some that have legitimate mental issues. One of the actors was apparently in a psych ward at the time and was checking himself out to film. As he says, that wasn't me acting. That is a legitimately disturbed person.
The actress who played the mother was the most uncomfortable to watch. She looks about five minutes from death and talks about how she still acts. Well not acts acts, but she's always watching TV and learning from the choices actors make, so she's still acting. And then she compares Troll 2 unironically to Casablanca. And they ask her to come to a screening and she says what she wants is to disappear and for no one to know who she is. And the dentist leaves the house clearly skeeved out by the whole thing.
Then there's the director. Who, unlike the actors, still thinks it was a good film. He accuses the actors of lying when they talk about production problems, like the fact that no one could understand the director or the crew (who were all Italian), or when they say they were horrified and depressed when they saw the finished film. He reacts to an audience question asking why there were no trolls in a film titled Troll 2 by saying that the questioner has no idea what he's talking about.
It's just really uncomfortable, all around, and demonstrates one of the reasons why I don't like interacting with stars or creators. Because I enjoy a movie or TV show or book in the way I enjoy it, which may not at all be the way in which it was intended. And butting up against the creative intensions, especially with something like this, where both the director and the audience think its genius--but the audience thinks it's genius for getting every single thing wrong--leads nowhere good.
I also thinks there's a certain nature to cult fandom in particular--that part of the appeal of a cult film is the feeling that only a few people "get it," and you're one of those people. It's as much about creating an outsider identity as it is the specific media. I think about the times I've seen Bruce Campbell, and how he is an expert at handling his own cult fandom (though the main difference there is Evil Dead is loved for being good), and then you look at this poor dentist who has no idea what to do with any of it. And who would never, in a million years, be part of such a cult fandom. He'd never "get it." So it's very weird for him to be there at all.
I also watched Swimming with Sharks, which is a cult movie in Hollywood. It's a pretty much autobiographical story of a producer's assistant at a film company mostly noteworthy for Kevin Spacey chewing scenery. It's also the reason why Benicio Del Toro was in Usual Suspects--he has a five-minute scene in this, on the strength of which Kevin Spacey recommended him to Bryan Singer.
Honestly, though, the behind-the-scenes documentary was more interesting than the film. The film was shot in 18 days. On day one, they forgot to bring film. On day two, the transportation coordinator was run down by one of his own trucks (broke his leg, otherwise fine). On day three, the art truck caught fire. On day four--was the 1994 North Shore earthquake, which destroyed most of their locations.
Kevin Spacey describes filming in the week after the earthquake, when they were still feeling aftershocks. He was tied to a chair in a house with a glass roof, and apparently was convinced he was going to die. There was someone just off camera with an exacto knife to cut him loose if the building started to come down.
In the doc, you also get the saga of how this neophyte screenwriter/director's producing partners completely screwed the distrobution deal in a way that pretty much mirrors the content of the film. It still got huge buzz in Hollywood, though, since it was about Hollywood, and has been a sleeper hit ever since.
So, an entirely different kind of cult film. That I bet doesn't have half so uneasy an interaction between the fans and the creators. (Though they did interview the screenwriter's boss, who Kevin Spacey's character is based on, who said that when he first read the script he was both really angry and reluctantly proud.)
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 07:38 pm (UTC)(I was such a weird high-schooler.)
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 08:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 02:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 02:43 pm (UTC)I've heard in an interview with his book agent that he actually really hates it when people ask him to quote Evil Dead. But he never lets that show when interacting with fans. He manages to create a meta interaction where he can tell them he hates it when they ask him to quote himself, but he quotes it anyway. He performs the part of a jaded cult star rather than earnestly being one. So fans get their expectations met when interacting with him without all the discomfort of criticizing someone's oevre to their face--because you're never dealing with Bruce Campbell, you're dealing with "Bruce Campbell." (He's even published RPF starring himself.)
So you look at that--someone who knows what this beast of cult fandom is and knows how to interact with it in a mutually beneficial way. Then you look at these shmucks from Troll 2 who don't know the first thing about fandom and so have no idea how to meet fan expectations, leading to lots of awkward all around.
no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 08:19 pm (UTC)