Perhaps It’s Time to Submit to the Charms of “Worst Movie EVER!”
Here's a little bit of our moviegoing philosophy that might seem easy to understand, but apparently isn't: We don't like bad movies. Going to the movies is one of our favorite human activities, and it's something we take seriously, or as seriously as you take sitting in a chair for two hours while stuffing processed food that will ultimately kill us into our mouths as fast as possible. It's a noble pastime.
Thus, we've never understood the point of spending valuable time watching movies that we already know are bad. This would seem to be obvious, yes? We love movies, and we really love good ones; we do not think we are blowing your minds. And yet, friends, intelligent friends, respected critics, are always telling how much "fun" it is to see "The Room" 20 times, or "Troll 2" or "Birdemic," stuff like that. We will confess that we don't get it. We are not the type that snorts disdainfully at dumb moments in movies; smug detachment and implied, back-patting superiority over the people who worked hard to make the movie we're watching, it's not our bag. As we say right there in the tagline: "We still walk into every movie hoping it'll be the best one we've ever seen." If that hope is extinguished, what's the point?
ALL THAT NOW SAID: We will confess a slowly growing affection for "Worst Movie EVER!" a self-styled junk film aiming at those very people. The film famously made only $11 in its opening weekend, and they even interviewed the lady who went to see it. Movieline's S.T. Van Airsdale has been bemusedly documenting all this, and yesterday, he had a fun chat with director/writer/star Glenn Berggoetz about what the film's up to these days. Berggoetz, a huckster in the grand tradition of movie hucksters, is having a lot of fun:
"I've been utterly amazed at how people have responded to the film and the trailer," the Denver-based Berggoetz wrote in an e-mail. "If you go through the comments on YouTube, you might be amazed (I know I was) at how pissed off some people are at the film. And I received an e-mail from a guy who said he's also an independent filmmaker, and he's pissed at me because he has talent and has been overlooked, but I have no talent, and I'm getting a lot of attention.
Yeah, well, movies ... [mimes slugging whiskey] ... tough racket. Berggoetz then shares with Van Airsdale a voicemail he allegedly received with explicit death threats. Well, "funny" death threats.
We do not believe this voicemail to be real -- are directors commonly running their cellphone numbers in the closing credits? -- but who cares? We are never going to see this movie, but we can appreciate a guy hustling this hard to make a buck. It's hard out there.
Irate Viewer Leaves Death Threat For Director of Worst Movie EVER! [Movieline]
