The most important role in any movie isn’t the star that is
in it. A star might be the selling
point. They are the face of the movie
that the producers use to get butts in theater seats or eyes on television
screens. But the actor is usually just a
tool for telling the story. They are
used to play the character. The most
important part of a movie is actually the director, who makes sure that
everything comes together. They make
sure that everyone else brings the scene to life. They take what was on paper and translate it
into something that can be recorded for later viewing.
There are times, however, when directors feel that keeping a
movie afloat might not be enough for them.
They want an even bigger part in making the movie, and take on another
role. It might be editor, writer, or
some other technical role. Many times
they go in front of the screen. Some
directors choose to direct their own performances. They give themselves roles in the movie so
that they can be both behind the camera and in front of it.
The Sunday “Bad” Movies has featured many movies where the
director was one of the performers in their work. Not all of the instances were as big as the
others. Sometimes there were multiple
directors on the movie, and other times the acting role was a simple
cameo. For the sake of what will be
covered, those examples will be left out.
The only movies that will be covered will include the director having a
significant role in the film. Let’s
begin with this week’s movie.
Vulgar
Kevin Smith’s film universe, also known as the View
Askewniverse, grew when his friend Bryan Johnson directed Vulgar. IMDb says that it came out in 2000, but
looking at the release dates, it was really released in 2002. It was Johnson’s first and, to date, only
directorial effort. Will Carlson (Brian
O’Halloran) was a clown who worked children’s birthday parties. He wasn’t making as much money as he had
hoped and tried to think of a new way to boost his income. He came up with the idea of being a joke
stripper for bachelor parties, coming in before the stripper as a
cross-dressing clown. This got him into
hot water when his first customers gang raped him. The rest of the movie was about Will dealing
with what had happened to him.
The story of Vulgar
was promising, dealing with what a victim goes through after experiencing a
violent act. The way that Will dealt
with things felt realistic, though having not experienced anything like that, I
wouldn’t know for sure. He was angry at
the world and didn’t care about himself anymore. He was trying to come to terms with the fact
that there are people in the world doing terrible things like this. That was all good. The execution of getting that from the page
to the screen was where Vulgar fell
apart. The performances were
underwhelming in most cases. The
cinematography, though decently enough framed, didn’t give off any look to make
the movie appear to be more than shot on video.
I don’t know if it was shot on video, but it had that feel. The direction seemed unable to nail down a
specific tone to the movie, trying to be darkly comedic and horrific, but not
blending the two.
The direction and acting came together with Bryan
Johnson. Not only was he directing a
movie for the first time, but he gave himself a decent sized role as Will’s
friend Syd Gilbert. Syd was the voice of
reason. He told Will that the bachelor
party idea was bad. He was there for
Will after the rape. He tried to keep
Will from going off the rails. Johnson
himself was a passable actor. He wasn’t
terrible in the movie. The problem was
that it was his first directed project and it may have been too much for him to
do a good job in either role. He didn’t
have the experience to both direct and star, which brought everything down a
notch.
The Room
How could this one not come up? Everyone knows the story of how The Room got made by now. Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau were two actor
friends who moved to Los Angeles together.
Greg found some small success while nobody would hire Tommy. He decided to make his own future by writing
a script. That script ended up being The Room.
Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) was a man in love with his fiancée
Lisa (Juliette Danielle). She began
cheating on Johnny with his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero). Johnny found out and decided to confront his
fiancée and best friend. In the end, he
was torn up and went into a fit of rage, not dissimilar to one that was
featured in Vulgar.
There’s a reason that nobody wanted to hire Tommy
Wiseau. He directed a terrible movie and
gave a terrible performance in it. There
were no redeeming qualities to any of the work that he put in. This one might not have been a case where it
was too much work for him to be both the director and, in this case, the lead actor. Wiseau couldn’t do either of them. The movie that came out of it was a disaster,
hence the book and movie about the making of it being called The Disaster Artist. It was easy to see that he wanted to make
something great. His heart was on the
screen. He opened himself up to
audiences. But he’s not good. He’s just not good.
The Single Moms
Club
Tyler Perry is a fairly well known director. His work finds an audience that most
mainstream movies don’t target. He’s got
a solid following for his Atlanta based work, which has led to some great
success. Most notably, his Madea series of films, which see him
star as the Madea character, have lasted longer than the time it takes many
studios to reboot their franchises. The Spider-Man franchise has been rebooted
twice since the first Madea movie was
released. That’s how well his movies do.
The Single Moms Club
wasn’t a part of the Madea
franchise. Tyler Perry still gave
himself a role within the movie, though.
He played the prospective romantic interest of one of the mothers. Out of all of the movies being covered, this
one might be the best performance. He
doesn’t take away from the movie, nor does he add anything. He’s there, as any actor would be in that
role. The experience that Tyler Perry
has after doing so many films has given him enough skill to know what he has to
do in his own movie. He has not become
an exceptional director, but he knows how to perform. He has become a better performer than
director at this point.
Poultrygeist: Night
of the Chicken Dead
Lloyd Kaufman has shown up in a lot of Troma movies. In many cases, he was a talking head
introducing a movie that they picked up.
In the case of Poultrygeist,
he was one of the characters in the movie.
He was an important character, helping to shape the story of Arby (Jason
Yachanin).
Arby was in love with Wendy (Kate Graham). She broke up with him, so he got a job at
American Chicken Bunker. Everything was
going okay, aside from the protest against slaughtering animals that was happening
outside, until the chicken being served came back to life and began attacking
the patrons. Everyone’s lives were in
danger from the zombified chicken. There
were songs, scares, and sexual acts. It
was a Troma movie.
Lloyd Kaufman has never been a good actor. He has shown up in a lot of stuff (including Guardians of the Galaxy), but none of it
has been for his talent. The reason he
has been cast in so many movies is because he’s Lloyd Kaufman. He’s a patron of low budget, typically horror
movies. He helped the careers of many
filmmakers and they repay the favour by letting him have a small role in the
other stuff they work on. The one redeeming
quality of any of his performances is that Lloyd Kaufman is always having
fun. He was having fun in Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead,
which made it easier to overlook his poor acting. It’s like most bad movies. If it isn’t going to be well done, at least
make it fun.
Dead Before Dawn 3D
April Mullen directed the first stereoscopic 3D movie that
was a completely Canadian production.
That movie was a horror movie about a group of friends who fought off
zombie demons while succumbing one by one to the virus. It was called Dead Before Dawn 3D, and she also played one of the college aged
friends trying to survive the outbreak.
The problem that most people have with the movie falls upon
its script. The problems aren’t about
the direction or the acting, which are both fairly solid. April Mullen learned how to be both the
overseer of a movie and one of the performers through her career up to the
release of the movie and it showed. It
might not be the greatest movie to ever be put to screen, but it’s a fun enough
horror comedy that was weakened by the writing.
Fateful Findings
and Double Down
Closing out the list of actor/directors is this double
feature from the mind of Neil Breen. The
guy isn’t really good at any of the aspects that go into making a movie, but
has somehow managed to carve out a career for himself. He’s like Tommy Wiseau, though much less
entertaining. Instead of putting his
heart into the script, he tries to come up with deep thoughts and ideas that
get lost somewhere along the way.
Breen directed both Fateful
Findings and Double Down. They’re two vastly different movies. Fateful
Findings was about an author using his hacking skills to reveal the secrets
of the government and the world’s corporations.
Double Down was about a hacker
going up against the government. Okay,
maybe they’re more similar than I remember.
In each movie, the character ended up believing he had supernatural
powers.
Neil Breen cannot act.
Neil Breen cannot direct. Neil
Breen cannot write. This is apparent in
both of the movies. He runs, screams,
and gives unintelligible voiceover. The
worst part of it all is that no emotion comes through the screen. There were attempts to make things sad or
suspenseful, but they fell flat in both the direction and the performance. Neil Breen might be the most unsuited to any
of the things that he wanted to do.
There have been many movies featured in the Sunday “Bad”
Movies that had directors wanting to perform in their own work. About half of the time, that seems to work
out fine. The other half, it falls
completely flat and the movies are worse for it. Perhaps the directors can’t handle the two
jobs. Sometimes they’re just terrible
actors and it takes people out of the movies.
Other times, they’re bad at both jobs and shouldn’t be doing
either. Whatever the case, it
happens. Movies have directors taking on
acting roles.
Vulgar was a movie
that at least felt promising. The
execution might not have been great, but there was the potential within Bryan
Johnson’s work to improve and make something better. That never happened. It has been fifteen years, and he has not
directed another movie since. It would
have been nice to see him blossom into a solid director, churning out movies
like Vulgar, but better. More experienced. That would have been something.
The directors that seem to be best at directing their own
performances tend to be directors that come from an acting background. Ben Affleck and Clint Eastwood are two that
come to mind. Knowing how to perform can
help when performing in something that they direct. But they need to be able to do both
jobs. The acting is important when
trying to sell the movie. The directing
is more important because it keeps everything together. If they can’t do both, they have nothing.
I’m not ending this post on nothing. I’m ending it on these notes:
- Vulgar was suggested by @FranchiseFred, who also suggested Officer Downe.
- A few movies were mentioned in this post. They were The Room, The Single Moms Club, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, Dead Before Dawn 3D, Fateful Findings, and Double Down.
- Ethan Suplee had an important role in Vulgar. He was previously in Rise of the Zombies, which was covered for the sixteenth week of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.
- The lead actor in Vulgar was Brian O’Halloran, who had a small part in The Happening, the movie that was covered in week 185.
- Finally, Scott Mosier had a bit role in Vulgar. He had a small role in the week 209 movie, Free Birds.
- Have you seen Vulgar? What do you think of acting and directing in the same movie? Let me know in the comments.
- You can find me on Twitter if you want to talk bad movies or suggest something for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. The comments are a good place to do that as well.
- Sometimes when I’m watching bad movies, I share clips through my snapchat (jurassicgriffin). Add me if you’re interested.
- Next week is a big week for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. It’s one of those franchise weeks. I will be checking out the first three spin-off movies to the Air Bud series. That’s right. Air Buddies, Snow Buddies, and Space Buddies will be coming up next week for the Sunday “Bad” Movies. Come back then to see what I have to say about that trio.
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