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The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

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Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#121

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

kchoudhu wrote: post #115
seabee wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems messier than politics in a democracy of 300MM people or 70MM...

You refer (I assume) to the UK and the US? One invented modern parliamentary democracy, and the other is a global superpower. Both have been at the business of democracy for 200+ years, and have never had to deal with the problem set Bangladesh is facing today. Snark serves no one well.

>>> Politics in a democracy of 180MM people is really, really messy.

>> It seems messier than politics in a democracy of 300MM people or 70MM...

> Snark serves no one well.

FWIW I didn't see it as snark. You seemed to imply the size of the democracy mattered. His/her response was a couple counter-factuals. Then you seemed to acknowledge it's not the size, it's the age of the democracy (which is a great point).

In any case I found the rest of your original post really helpful context, explaining why a "life" sentence probably won't turn out to be that. Thanks!

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#122

Post by robocat »

sp332 wrote: post #113
CamperBob2 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent, the market already penalizes avant-garde art created for its own sake. I'm just not sure how critics should respond. If the critics bubble effusively about how great Blue and 4'33 are, what exactly are we supposed to do with that criticism, as either artists or patrons? To me, works like these are symptoms of art forms that are well on their way to exhausting their own possibilities. What next? Green…

4'33 was like an MVP. (It wasn't exactly the first of its kind.) Artists had dealt with room noise before, but usually as a distraction instead of realizing that it's part of the experience of a piece. As an artist, you could be more aware of the room noise as part of the performance of your work instead of getting in the way of it. As a patron, you could consciously choose a place that has noise to enhance your expe…

Or do the opposite and listen to it in an anechoic chamber - which apparently is psychologi ally difficult to handle:

http://www.ted.com/conversations/14056/why_is_absolute_silen...

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#123

Post by edraferi »

drysart wrote: post #78
leephillips wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was really insightful. It's the same in any arena: if I try to think of a "bad" novel, my mind won't even go to the acres of paperback romances or teen vampire stories: I'll think of books published in hard cover and mentioned as being in the running for the Booker prize, that happen to be trite, inept, and derivative.

In order for it to be meaningful that something is "bad", it has to have had intentions of being "good". Anyone can intentionally make a bad movie that's worse than a stinker like Battlefield Earth. That's nothing worth recognizing because the difference between the actual quality and the intended quality, the ΔQ, is so tiny. "The worst movie ever" designation should go to the film that has the highest ΔQ.

hmm this means we need a measure of intended quality. Perhaps budget would be a good place to start? More invested = higher expectations. of course this might be thrown off by high-minded indie flicks and hugely expensive summer sequels, so perhaps include a polynomial term to capture the outliers.

really, profitability is the best "general goodness" measure ever created.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#124

Post by vacri »

ronaldx wrote: post #12
gjjhjjjhhh wrote: post #4

Who would pay attention to ratings from a single unreliable source. For me the best place are meta sites that gather from many related sizes.

I prefer the IMdB's ratings system over, say, meta-site Rotten Tomatoes. At Rotten Tomatoes they rated Seth Rogen-vehicle "Neighbors" as 100%, last I checked. Meaning only: no reviewer at that point had said it was awful. And yet, I saw it and it was awful. At IMdB, I can see that it rates as 7.6/10.0, and also that teenager voters loved it (9.0/10.0), where older viewers hated it (5.0/10.0). Far more useful informat…

If we're talking single data points, The Shawshank Redemption is a good movie, but it's not the best of all time (as rated by IMDB), and I've rarely heard people talk about it in any context. Pretty much all the other members of the top 20 get attention in the public mindspace, frequently referred to outside of conversations on film.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#125

Post by dolphenstein »

leephillips wrote: post #52
brie22 wrote: post #43

538 is using the wrong metrics. For a movie to be truly, truly, sublimely bad, that badness needs to be recognized - people in some cases will want to watch it for its incredible badness. This means that there are going to be a disproportionate number of both 1 and 10 votes. And the winner based on this is - The Room. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368226/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

That is fascinating. I've never seen The Room , but I sure want to now. It's fascinating because of some similarities to the truly worst movie in history, The Tango Lesson [0]: each movie has one person as writer, director, and star, and (apparently) focuses self-indulgently on the abortive romantic entanglements of the author, who is utterly unaware that nobody else could possibly care. The Tango Lesson falls throug…

After you've watched The Room, read "The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made". It is a fascinating tale! (And is being turned into a movie of it's own starring James Franco)

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#126

Post by trystero »

drysart wrote: post #78
leephillips wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was really insightful. It's the same in any arena: if I try to think of a "bad" novel, my mind won't even go to the acres of paperback romances or teen vampire stories: I'll think of books published in hard cover and mentioned as being in the running for the Booker prize, that happen to be trite, inept, and derivative.

In order for it to be meaningful that something is "bad", it has to have had intentions of being "good". Anyone can intentionally make a bad movie that's worse than a stinker like Battlefield Earth. That's nothing worth recognizing because the difference between the actual quality and the intended quality, the ΔQ, is so tiny. "The worst movie ever" designation should go to the film that has the highest ΔQ.

Exactly. And that's why none of the films made by The Asylum* are eligible to the "so bad it's good" category. They never had any ambition of being good in the first place, so why bother?

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Asylum

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#127

Post by dubfan »

pawn wrote: post #114
dubfan wrote: post #94

The opposite effect, a bad movie being rated highly, also occurs. One example of this is with the film "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1520498 ). This film was panned by critics on release and was a complete flop at the box office. Its IMDB rating languished until sometime last year when it began to rise. Around the same time, a bunch of poorly-worded unequivocally positive…

It could be the same sorts of people that write raving reviews for the 3 wolf moon shirt on Amazon.

Unlikely, the positive reviews aren't humorous and this film is basically unknown except to people like me who are obsessed with marketing flops.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#128

Post by thwarted »

gabemart wrote: post #69
brie22 wrote: post #43

538 is using the wrong metrics. For a movie to be truly, truly, sublimely bad, that badness needs to be recognized - people in some cases will want to watch it for its incredible badness. This means that there are going to be a disproportionate number of both 1 and 10 votes. And the winner based on this is - The Room. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368226/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

A clear conversation is difficult in the absence of a clear, canonical definition of "bad". It would be very easy for me to get a few friends together and make a 90 minutes improvised movie filmed on my phone. That would be an absolutely terrible movie, but it wouldn't be a very satisfying answer to the question "What's the worst movie?" because it would be seen by very few people and it would be made with no ambitio…

A triumph only equaled by its monumental failure.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#129

Post by dwd »

joosters wrote: post #88
brie22 wrote: post #43

538 is using the wrong metrics. For a movie to be truly, truly, sublimely bad, that badness needs to be recognized - people in some cases will want to watch it for its incredible badness. This means that there are going to be a disproportionate number of both 1 and 10 votes. And the winner based on this is - The Room. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368226/ratings?ref_=tt_ov_rt

As an aficionado of bad movies, I agree that there is more to a bad movie than just low review scores. Entertaining bad movies need a certain something to them. The worst kind of movie is a dull and boring one. The 'best' bad movies are hard to quantify. I certainly can't think of any 'good' bad movies that planned or aimed to be regarded as bad. As another commenter said, you need the creators to believe that they w…

Try a movie like Bad Taste which for years I recommended as it's so bad it's good: "I'm a Derek and Dereks don't run". You can imagine my surprise years later when they announced the director for LotR.

I would be interested to see how its rating has changed over time.

Re: The Story Behind the Worst Movie on IMDb

#130

Post by fuzionmonkey »

Troll 2 used to be the worst-rated movie on IMDb until it became a cult favorite and garnered tons of 5-star ratings.

If you're interested, there's a really interesting documentary about Troll 2 called Best Worst Movie, which covers the film's production and cult following. After watching the documentary, Troll 2 becomes an enjoyable movie because you know all the crazy backstories to the actors and scenes.

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