Movies are a wondrous thing, aren't they? They can inspire, anger, delight, or depress people. Merely a sequence of very fast moving still images that look awfully similar to the image directly before it, movies have dazzled a-many. But what i'm really going to be talking about are bad movies, and not just movies like The Strange Brew, movies that are actually kind of funny and quasi-watchable. I'm referring to the worst of the worst that are unwatchable in anyway, despite proper film techniques and budget. Obviously the worst movies ever made are ones that aren't lit well or the acting is so sloppy or other such bad that it doesn't even register as a movie. But i'm talking about movies that are completely visible, cost a lot of money to make, and lost a lot of money to show.

    In this rant i'll be referring to a lot of bad movies in particular. You've probably heard me talk about some of them, but i'm not going to tell you about which ones they are yet, because I don't want to ruin the fun :P LOLLLERRERZ!!!111!!11!!!one one.

    The main reason bad movies extremely irritate me is that for a movie to become a movie, very many amounts of people have to think that the idea of the movie is good. I am going to discuss the entire process of making a movie, and in between I shall pour steaming hot feces on these bad movies i was referring to earlier. But feces would actually make the movie better, wouldn't it?

    Step one in creating the movie is of course, the idea, the script, called screenwriting. This is where the trailer for Blades of Glory lost me. Right when I saw Will Ferrell and Jon Heder figure skating together I had a time paradox. I wondered exactly where I was when that script was handed from the screenwriter to the film industry rep and the screenwriter actually said "Hi, this script is a good idea and totally not flaming idiotic crap." with a straight face, so i could go back in time and kick the screenwriter's teeth in. With a chainsaw. That's on fire. Just as a side note, Jon Heder, in case you don't know, is best known for his lead role in the popular movie Napoleon Dynamite. And just a hint for you Jon, stop making movies. Napoleon Dynamite should have been your last movie. I mean come on, Benchwarmers? What is wrong with you? That was like the worst idea since Gigli, and I'm afraid that I am actually kinda leaning towards Gigli on this one. At least there are people that were in Gigli that can get laid. And that's the only good thing i'll ever say about Gigli because i'd lean toward Gigli and then lean and fall the other way right onto a bed of spikes. Covered in acid. That are on fire.

    So once a script is written, it has to be pitched. I have personally pitched an idea to a studio, and I can personally tell you, pitching a good idea is really tough. This step is what lost me on Kangaroo Jack, the horrible horribleness of putting a jacket with $50,000 in it on a kangaroo and chase it around for 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure in the real world if I pitched the Kangaroo Jack screenplay to real life humans, about 14 seconds into the pitch I'd have knife filled acid covered sticks of dynamite thrown at me by everyone. And yes, they'd be on fire too. The people, not... the... nevermind.

    Then budgeting occurs. This is where a production company belts out all the cash and designates set costs, actor's pay, lighting costs, film equipment costs, etc. I just want to state right now that way too much money is spent on movies. Actors whine about not being paid enough to pretend to be someone else who may or may not be real. But obviously, it's not real. Waah waah waah, whiners. I pretend to be people all the time, like how i pretend to be a 5 year old boy when i'm IMing Michael Jackson. But I find that the best actors are people that aren't pretending. I mean how could you get better than Keanu Reeves playing Ted in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? Keanu Reeves is an airhead anyway. And what better directing is "just be yourself." It's easier on everyone. And easy is good for dumb people. Which is the target audience of movies like this.

    Then there's casting, which is where I'll bring up my little favorite of these horrible, horrible movies, Gigli. Well, again. So what more can I say about the worst movie of 2003? There's just so many times you can beat a dead horse that's on fire. I'm not saying the casting was bad because they did a bad job acting. Don't get me wrong though, the acting was horrible. Well, from what I saw from the trailer, of course. I'm referring to the extreme misfortune of having to be in this movie. I'm talking about something like casting John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Just to have your name tied to Gigli is like being tied to a shark. That is made up of billions of tiny sharks. That's on... well, you know.

    Then it's rehearsing, set building, and location scouting. Since this is the boring part I have nothing funny about, I'm gonna talk about something that's been bothering me for a long time now, which is The Hills Have Eyes. The Hills Have Eyes is the movie from 1977 about the family of miners that would eat and kill people that pass by. This was a horrible, horrible carcinogenic movie. It gave me cancer. And when I heard it was being remade, I hated myself just enough to go see it AGAIN. Some of you reading have seen it with me. The fact that it's a remake automatically made it -infinity in terms of movie quality. So of course, it's an insanely idiotic piece of movie. I'm surprise the atoms that made up the film didn't go on strike. You'd have to be a nuclear mutant to like this movie. Which, oddly enough, I think is the target audience too. I can only imagine what this sequel, an ORIGINAL idea, is gonna be like. I'm sure my face will peel itself off of my head just from watching it. It'll be that bad.

    So anyway, next is the actual production, the filming. The proverbial "fun stuff". This is the most expensive part of the filmmaking, which for some reason is one word. Film making. The space bar will be phased out by 2010. Iftheearthisaroundthatlong. Trust me. That's the last revelation before the second coming.

"And thy space bar shalt cometh forth and dissipate in the winds"

Yea, I really had nothing to talk about with actual production.

MOVING ON!!!


    Post-production is next, where i could potentially get a job, editing, special effects, etc. This stuff is really great and can easily be messed up. I mean come on, Ben Affleck still shows up in movies. He's like that microphone you see coming from the top of the screen. Modern film techniques have gotten better at editing Ben Affleck out of movies, which may explain why I haven't seen him in any movies in a while. Maybe if someday someone will just edit Paris Hilton, Trace Adkins and William Hung out of real life, they should get an oscar for best editing. I'd forge an oscar out of real gold myself to give to him. On fire. What?

    Finally your heap of turd movie is finished and released. The distribution process, where trailers are made, commercials, posters, where the actual movie is released in cinemas where it crashes horribly on it's opening weekend, and other such destructive delusions of actual quality work. So let's tally up the actual people that have to like your crappy, crappy, movie idea shall we?


1-3 = script writers
1-4 = film industry reps/executivess
1-7 = main cast members
15  = director, executive producer, key grip, key grasp, best boy, Best Buy, etc.
20  = editor, visual effects teams, Photoshop masters, 3D guys



Wow. That's like 38 - 44 stupid people in charge of entertaining you when they have no idea what you like or what your interests are. Sounds like a pretty shady deal to me. This is one of those bad times where money is in fact, evil. "Blood" money that allows movies like The Hills Have Eyes of Blades of Glory to continue to exist and poison our culture and existence.

Finally as a homework assignment, I want all of you to think about this.

Blades of Glory was the best they could do.
 

Imaging the horrors of scripts that weren't as good as Blades of Glory.

I'm scared. And you should be too.