Legendary Awfulness: Edward D. Wood, Jr.

There are those in cinema who are remembered and celebrated because of their genius: Hitchcock, Kurosawa, Truffaut, Fellini, Wilder, and so on. But only one filmmaker is remembered and celebrated for his lack of talent: Edward D. Wood, Jr., the mind behind such “classics” as Plan 9 From Outer Space, Glen or Glenda and Bride of the Monster. He was the Orson Welles of bad movies, writer, director, producer and actor, but if Welles is one end of the spectrum, then Wood is the other.

Movies I Dragged My Mother To

Kids are strange, particularly when it comes to movies. Anyone who has spent any amount of time around a child will tell you that they can watch the same movies over and over and over again, and never get tired of them.

We, the current generation of film geeks, were also guilty of this as children. As a young child, every time we went to the video store (itself a novelty in 1985), we had to rent The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. As much as my family hoped I would, I never got tired of heffalumps, blustery days, or Tigger getting stuck in a tree. Remember, this was before buying a video was an option (my generation still remembers commercials advertising movies that were now “affordably priced to own,” which meant about $19.99).

Ah, Pooh Bear.

We (Heart) Bad Movies

It doesn’t happen in any other art form. You don’t see a group of people getting together and having a blast listening to bad music. People don’t line up outside museums to point and laugh at some awful painting. But we do it with films.

A few years ago at a friend’s stag party, we were refused entrance at a strip club because a member of our group was underage. So, what did we do? We bought a lot of beer, went to someone’s apartment and watched Masters of the Universe.

A good time was had by all.

Maybe it’s our rebellious nature. Anyone can extol the virtues of Citizen Kane or The Godfather. But, it takes a special person to love something like Robot Monster or The Brute Man.

It can’t be just any bad movie, either. A film featuring beautiful women, wooden acting and a thoroughly unconvincing rubber monster will inspire love and enjoyment in the hearts of a bad movie lover, while an over-blown and under-thought mega-blockbuster like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will make us ill.