I owe a lot of my interests in offbeat movies to two people. One, obviously, is Roger Ebert; the other is Danny Peary. The latter's Cult Movies books (which could really use a three-in-one reprint) talked lovingly but also sensibly about movies like Liquid Sky, Seconds, The Terminator and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! The last on that list opened with some words about "honesty" in filmmaking that may well have shaped my understanding of what people generally call trash cinema — movies that we know are not good for us, but we eat them up anyway.
Peary's argument, which is a little long to quote here, went something like this: Being honest about a trashy movie isn't much of a defense when you're using it as a dodge to avoid genuine criticism about a film. Alexandre Aja's Piranha 3D is currently basking in that kind of attention: sure, it's not great, but it makes no attempt to be anything other than a splatter film with poke-your-eye-out effects. Just as, to quote an example from my own catalog, Doomsday is not a great movie or even a particularly good one, but an awesome ride.
I go back and forth about this approach, because it can be problematic. The other day I watched an Australian flick named The Horseman, a grimy small-budget production that tried to merge art-house road-picture connections-between-the-generations filmmaking with a blood-spattered torture/revenge picture. The protagonist goes after the men who allegedly killed his daughter during the making of a porn movie. One of the tortures he metes out involves fishhooks and the one part of the male anatomy you would least want a fishhook to come near. This wasn't a "guilty pleasure" movie; it was too closely observed (and way too intimately, horribly violent) to qualify. That made it all the easier to criticize for falling short — far easier to attack than Piranha, for instance, a movie which allegedly seeks to do nothing but bring the goods. Most of the Angel Guts movies were pretty reprehensible, even if they were well-made and packed a wallop — there was a line, and they existed mainly on the other side of it.
Movies, and entertainments generally, all exist on different planes. They have to: they're created for different audiences, with different intentions, and with different outcomes. The movies we call guilty pleasures are going to be that much easier for us to defend because we enjoyed them, and not because there's some magical abstract quality about them. I find it easier to mount a defense for a movie I enjoyed, but at this point I know full well that's why. It's not because I have better taste than someone who attacks the same film.
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Good points all around in this. I do want to see Aja's PIRANHA 3D because it, as you said, makes no apologies or excuses for what it is--killer fish, cornball dialogue, and lots of T&A. Also, I loved the original Joe Dante film (which also made no excuses for what it was--a Roger Corman produced JAWS rip-off).
DOOMSDAY also made no apologies for what it was--an action-packed E-ticket ride that's all about the guns and explosions (and of course, Rhona Mitra....mmmmmm).
I've used this argument when I tell people I liked THE CORE; yes, it is not the best SF film ever made and it has flaws out the wazoo, but I had FUN watching it. I got caught up in the events of the film. It was an exciting ride that was, well, worth watching. It might not have been high art, but it kept my attention on the screen and was a great thrill ride.
I usually try to point out to people that not every film can be CASABLANCA or CHINATOWN. Ever since motion pictures started being made, there has always been a market for films that are there to take you on a ride, to make you forget about the real world for a couple of hours. I would rather have a variety of films that range from high art to pop art.
Today though, you do have people who feel that not only is their taste in films better than everybody else, but that if you enjoy a film they don't like then you are, well, an idiot. They usually toss around words like "the least common denominator". What's sad is that they don't realize that just because people like (or dislike) a certain film does not make them lesser human beings; they saw something in the film that they enjoyed.
There are a few films that I find are guilty pleasures that I will always watch when they come on television. Sometimes, it's okay to have a hamburger and fries once in a while, as long as it's not every day of the week!
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What I enjoyed most about "Doomsday" was the way the cast -- even Malcolm McDowell -- played the whole thing absolutely straight and taut-lipped through the whole thing, and gave it a gravity that it might not have had from an American cast. (Maybe that's just the Anglophile in me speaking.) And yes, Rhona Mitra, who was IIRC the original choice for a live-action Lara Croft since she was the model for the original digital version. They missed a great opportunity there.
The whole thing about "not every film can be 'Casablanca'" is valid, but only up to the point where people use it as a defense for shoddy craftsmanship. That's where I break rank: when it's used to excuse obviously inferior work as a matter of taste ... or when it's used to make the appreciation of trash somehow morally superior to other things. I doubt you could convince me "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is a better movie than "Koyaanisqatsi" because the fan base for the former is less pretentious or more affectionate about the film's flaws. That and I have to side with Danny Peary, again, when he said that there were so many genuinely good movies that don't get seen enough that appreciating trash for trash's sake is kind of self-limiting.
I don't mind turning my brain off, though. I just prefer to do it for its own sake, and not as some kind of pose. And I'm definitely not about to give anyone else grief for just wanting burgers 'n fries, as it were!
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Regarding DOOMSDAY...Yeah, I did notice that--there was no "wink wink" in terms of the performances; it was all played straight and serious.
And you're right--"not every film can be CASABLANCA" will fall flat if the film in question is such a piece of s#*@--shoddy craftsmanship cannot be excused. If the effort put into making the film was half-hearted or serious lacking, it cannot be excused.
However, there are films where there is clearly a great deal of effort put into all areas, and yet the films fail at the box office.
What Peary said about genuinely good films not getting seen enough...sad but true. On the upside, though, discovering these films can certainly restore one's faith in cinema, or certainly enhance the love of cinema.
And since we're talking burgers and fries...now I've got a hankering for Big Mac. I'm off! 8-)
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