Nullary Sources

Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central, in his review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter:

I used to think there were movies that were so bad they were good—I’m coming around to the idea that those movies are just good and that these movies are just bad.

I agree. So-bad-it’s-good is totally bullshit.

We do need to mince words a bit here — but trust me when I say it’s not my fault. A film (or anything really) can be poorly crafted and still be enjoyable. Too often we wonder if a work of art is “good” — i.e. holding it up to some sort of platonic ideal. Or maybe we’re trying to gauge the reaction of our peers — some sorta tribal monkey thing.

Whatever the reason, my feeling is this: if you enjoyed the movie, it was good. To be frank, if you were having a good time, the movie was probably doing more right than you realized. Take Shotgun (1989). This movie has some ponderous, no, truly awful dialogue. And yet I still had an absolute blast watching it. The action sequences were actually pretty good; the plot, while bizarre, held my interest; I even laughed with the movie in one or two places, rather than at it.

But more than that, I was picking up what Shotgun was putting down. I felt like it was saying something I wanted to hear at least. There’s a lot of complicated shit going on in Shotgun about sex and kink and power. I have no idea whether or not the creators of Shotgun intended any of that, but that’s really beside the point — the point being that I had a good time watching the movie and had a good time talking about it afterwards with my buddy Vincent. What more could one possibly ask from a movie?

Of course, none of what I’m saying is new or novel. Play us off, Duke Ellington:

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.