Having a background of watching numerous bad movies can help
to highlight the problems that many of them share. Major problems become obvious to spot when
watching bad movies. Minor problems
become more apparent as more bad movies are watched. It becomes much easier to describe the
qualities that helped to make a movie lesser than it could have been. Watching bad movies is a way to practice
spotting the issue areas, and finding ways to possibly improve them. That is what critics, analysts, and writers
are supposed to do. It is all about
improving the art.
My history of watching bad movies is just like that. I take what I see and point it out in an
effort to find a way to avoid it or turn it into a positive. Bad movies have many bad qualities. I’m not going to lie about that, since it is
true. They also have good qualities that
can be praised, in order to show the filmmaker, or other filmmakers, what their
strengths are. They can take the advice
and focus their movies more around these strengths, or use the positive to work
on the negative aspects and strengthen them.
These qualities that can be found in movies come in many
forms. The acting in a movie is one
element. I always think back to Jack and Jill when I am trying to
remember some of the best performances in bad movies. Though the movie as a whole was bad, Al
Pacino stood out as great while he was portraying himself on screen. I believe that in the post for that movie, I
had given an alternate plot that I think would have improved the movie and
allowed Pacino’s performance to stay intact.
That’s because he was the most promising aspect of the film and was
something that could have been a good starting point to strengthen all of the
surrounding qualities.
This week, I want to take a look at a different aspect of a
movie that can make or break the overall product. That aspect is the tone of the movie. More specifically, I want to take a look at
movies (using Top Dog, this week’s
movie, as an example) that try to fit adult themes and childish humor together
in ways that sometimes work and other times do not. The clash of demographical ages sometimes
makes a movie feel like it is fighting itself for what it wants to be. Does it want to be an action movie for adults
or does it want to be a kid friendly movie?
It can feel like the filmmaker had no idea and just made the movie
anyway.
When I think of movies that combine adult themes with
childish humor, I usually think of action movies in the 1990s. Whereas the 1980s saw the rise of Sylvester
Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris as staples of action movie
cinema, the 1990s saw some of the guys try to make movies that were more family
friendly. Arnold Schwarzenegger branched
out into comedies with movies like Twins,
Junior, and my personal favourite of
the bunch, Kindergarten Cop. Kindergarten
Cop had the adult themes of Schwarzenegger trying to stop a crazed criminal
from kidnapping his child and possibly murdering innocent people. The character tried to stop it from happening
by becoming a school teacher for kindergarteners. So you end up with some Arnold action and
childlike humor blended together in a way that mostly works. Perhaps it is because the humor, though from
children, isn’t directed solely at children.
The humor works for adults in the same way as the show Kids Say the Darndest Things did. It is just kids saying cute things that only
kids would say, and Arnold reacting. It
makes it easier two blend the two differing tones.
Top Dog is a movie
that doesn’t blend quite as well. The
action is once again an adult theme.
It’s about Neo-Nazis who want to cause mayhem and destruction amid a
racial equality celebration. That is
something that children aren’t likely to fully comprehend. The action is adult, and the overall story of
the movie is adult. But all of the humor
is playing directly to children. The dog
trying to steal red scarves, the dog sliding from side to side in the back seat
of the car before holding the seatbelt out to someone in the front seat, Chuck
Norris having a very messy room and needing to drag the phone to his bed by the
cord. All of these jokes are simple
things meant to interest kids in the action movie. It sure worked for me when I was
younger. I adored the movie. Now I am able to see that the movie has a
major problem in these two clashing tones.
Like many movies that try to capture both a child and adult
audience, Top Dog does not know what
it wants to be. These two different
tones that are in the storytelling struggle with each other to make a movie
that doesn’t really have its own voice.
It doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Half of Top Dog wants to be an
80s style action movie starring Chuck Norris as a badass police officer. The other half of the movie wants to be a
children’s comedy about a grouchy tough cop who must team up with a lovable,
badass police dog. There is never a good
middle ground found that can bring these two halves together. It always feels like two separate movies
trying to tell the same story, and it never fully works because of that.
Tone is a big thing that movies have to deal with. The tone is the one thing that needs to
remain constant or at least coherent throughout a movie. Inconsistent tone or tones that clash with
one another take the audience out of the experience. People are smart enough to recognize when a
movie feels off in tone, though they may not be able to figure out what it is
about the tone that doesn’t sit right.
This is one instance where I can tell the differing tones of the movie
that don’t quite fit together. I might
not be the best person when it comes to noticing all of the finer details of
movies, but tone is one that tends to stand out to me.
With my personal history of watching bad movies, I’ve been
able to notice things that aren’t as easy to notice in better films. When a movie is of better written quality,
the tone doesn’t stand out as much because it is consistent. There are not as many noticeable aspects of
the movie because you are too absorbed in what is happening. The disjointedness of a movie’s tone can help
you to notice how much tone means to a movie.
And that’s what makes bad movies useful to watch. They let you know what good filmmakers do
well. They let you in on what makes a
good movie a good movie. I can’t help
but love bad movies for that. They’ve
highlighted a lot of film aspects to me, as they do for many people. We should all be grateful that bad movies
exist.
Of course I have some notes for this week’s post:
- I mentioned the film Jack and Jill, as well as the post I wrote for it.
- Clyde Kusatsu was in Top Dog. He was in one of the earliest Sunday “Bad” Movies, A Nanny for Christmas.
- Have you seen Top Dog? What did you think of it? Have you noticed any movies where there were two tones that didn’t blend well? You can talk about this post and related topics in the comments.
- If you have a movie that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can suggest it in the comments. Or you could find me on Twitter. There’s also an email account: sundaybadmovies@gmail.com
- Next week’s movie is Steel. Why did I choose Steel? Next week is the release of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, so I thought I would watch a superhero movie. Yes, it’s DC while the Avengers are Marvel. I don’t care. I’ll see you next week.
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