Jason’s Life

My officemate’s wife recently signed up for a Holleywood Video - Movie Video Pass. The idea behind the plan is that you pay a monthly fee and then can rent up to X movies at a time for one monthly cost (very similar to online video rentals places such as “Netflix”:http://www.netflix.com). What’s interesting about this sort of setup is that you suddenly don’t have to worry about picking an “iffy” movie since it’s not going to cost you anything extra. Of course taking this sort of risk will eventually end with you watching a very horrible movie, but, as it turns out that’s actually not such a bad thing. In fact this can be downright fun and as a result it has become almost a weekly get together now. I’m going to spend the rest of this blog explaining why these not-so-rare movies are an enjoyment, what makes a movie “bad”, and few easy steps on you too can pick out a bad movie.

The great thing about bad movies is that they don’t suck you in. Instead they seem to invite socializing amongst the people watching. Since the plot is so painfully unidirectional, you really don’t have to worry about not following along. The other advantage of course if the Mystery Science Theater aspect (which is slowly becoming a podcasting hit). While you shouldn’t expect anyone in your group to be the next Chris Rock, I’m sure there will be at least a few times your snorting beer or milk out your nose :-p.

So how do you spot a good bad movie? It’s not as easy as you might think but here’s a few tips to get you started. Check the box to see if there’s any reviews, from anything. If you don’t see any thumbs up or rave reviews, the movie has passed the first test. The second check is to see if the plot can be explained in one sentence, or even better, just a few words. Next you have to check for any actors or actresses that you might recognize, if you recognize them, put the movie back. The very last and most important thing is the title; If the title sounds like it could be the name of the pornographic movie, then you have a winner! Here’s a few examples: “Deep Impact”, “The Thing From Below”, “Megaladon” (add a g to the end of that last one ). It’s also recommended that you try for something action orientated, otherwise you’ll find yourself quickly getting bored (which is why we had to abort on “Paranoia”).

Lastly, I’m going to briefly cover what you can expect from a very bad movie. First and for most, the movie will almost always contain a heroin with a very large bust and one or two men that spend more time in the gym than anywhere else. Typically you will find that almost everyone in a bad movie dies (so don’t get too attached to the characters). Often the bad guy in the movie will turn out to be an alien, having to do with space, or a long lost predator that was suddenly rediscovered.

So I think that about covers it, I strongly urge you all to have your very own “Bad Movie Night” and I encourage everyone to reply with some really good bad movies, because they can actually be harder to find than you might expect.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2005 at 1:03 am and is filed under Parties, Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.