Monday, October 10, 2011

Review: Best Worst Movie (2009), Michael Stephenson



This review is critically analysing Michael Stephenson's documentary called "Best Worst Movie". It is very ironic, warm and funny show about people who made "The Troll 2" movie. This submission is based on Roger Ebert's, Sam Adams's and Peter Hartlaub's reviews.

Figure1

This documentary straight from the beginning catches us with it's sweetness. Soft music, bright colours and the main figure of documentary George Hardy (A man who played a father in "Troll 2") are all so terribly sweet that you get instantly softer by watching this. There are many small details that makes people laugh in it, but probably not as much as in the "Troll 2" and differently then there they were meant to look funny. Sam Adam describes "Troll 2": "Bad movies don’t just waste your time. They suck the life out of you, minute by minute, each cynically conceived, poorly executed shot nudging you closer to death, frame by frame. But there’s a select class of movies so sublimely, ecstatically dreadful that the standard criteria no longer apply." (Sam Adams, Entertainment salon, May 14, 2010) Michael Stephenson (A man who played the son's role in "Troll 2" and creator of this documentary) and most of the people that he managed to gather had so many good and funny memories about this movie and it proves this saying that I heard somewhere: "The art is good as long as it gives impression and gets stuck in your mind". It was pretty much easy to understand the the director of "Troll 2" Claudio Fragasso was using the same principals and beliefs about his movie, but it kind of made him blind. He even repeated the same phrase that we heard in Ed wood when George Hardy was remaking on of the scenes and said that something doesn't make sense: "It doesn't matter, nobody will notice this, the whole image is important!".  There were so many similarities with Ed Wood and this director that it is even hard to tell. Blindness, sincerity and eternal love for their movies is something that actually makes them special. Anyway all people who were acting there seemed almost the same personalities as they were in the movie, everything just looked so natural and beautiful. This explosion of worst movie ever phenomena brigs these questions that Roger Ebert used: "There's something irresistible about the movies. If you've been the star of a famous one, that means something, doesn't it? Even if it's the worst? How many people get even that far?" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, July 28, 2010). You can call this "a bad movie", but it just depends from your point of view and like always what you expect from it.

Figure2

All in all this documentary and "Troll two" is a really nice and entertaining combination for a Saturday evening. Peter Hartlaub says that: "Anyone can make a bad movie. But it takes a unique set of circumstances to make a movie so horrible that people are celebrating its badness two decades later." (Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle,  June 4, 2010). It is funny and adorable, what else would you want?

Illustrations:

Figure 1:
http://www.theman-cave.com/2011/04/best-worst-movie-2009.html

Figure 2:
http://www.c2ak.com/site_v2/index.php?np=54&page=48

Bibliography:

Roger Ebert:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100728/REVIEWS/100729987/1023

Sam Adams:
http://entertainment.salon.com/2010/05/14/best_worst_movie/

Peter Hartlaub:

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