I drove my “new” used car to Alamo Drafthouse at south Lamar and was still gloomy about the scratch on the car which happened a few days ago. Not really in a good mood anyway. But I didn’t realize that I was about to see the most hilarious documentary I’ve ever seen.
“Best Worst Movie”--- a documentary by Michael Paul Stephenson. It was about a 1990 horror movie “Troll 2”. Back in the summer of 1989, Italian director Claudio Fragrasso went to a small town in Utah and recruited George Hardy and a group of actors to make a ultra-low budget horror film. But it never went on the big screen and was considered to be the worst film ever made. It received only 1 rating on IMDB and the comments out there were full of criticism and sarcastism.
However, after nearly 20 years later Troll 2 become super popular all the sudden. This is excerpted from the description about the movie : “A corn-on-the-cob sex scene, pudgy-potato-sack clad midgets, and a peculiar plot about evil vegetarian goblins attempting to transform a young boy’s family into edible plants is unintentionally hilarious, yet strangely captivating and highly entertaining.”
I guess that when you see a bad movie like that which is really beyond any kinds of bad movies, it sort of standout and became an unique one itself. I laughed so hard from the start to the end because it was so hilarious and also very positive. Or you can say it is a documentary about some people who know what they are doing and show some insistence even though the whole world against them.
This documentary started with a dentist’s normal life, George Hardy. He lives in a small town Alexander in Alabama and is a dentist. He is a mid 40’s guy and very positive, outgoing and considerate. Everyone in the town likes him, including his ex-wife. He’s so like a nice guy living next door but a few of them know that Dr. Hardy was once a main actor in a film nearly 20 years ago. The first part of this doc is made of intense contrasts but very intriguing.
Michael( the director of this doc piece) found him and other actors. The actors were all surprised that the film became so popular now that people had to take a long line just to get tickets. Those who were in the film now are dentist, producers and other occupations. I’m not gonna write about the whole story line because it’s worth watching, not saying.
Although this documentary piece is 96 minutes, it was a little bit fast-paced. You can imagine there must be a lot of things that are not included but very interesting as well. Tons of interview shots and cuts from “Troll 2” are two main elements in this doc. Along with fans of the movie and the actors’ personal life, they made this doc more closer to us.
There’s another interesting thing about this documentary. Dr. Hardy was the main character but also who led the len to explore about the film. He started to actively to invite other actors and actress to join the reborn of this bad movie. It’s like he wanted to make this piece more completely and inspiring. I have to say that when your main character become so actively in the subject matter you’re working on, it’s really lucky and things would goes faster and better.
The director was really good at capturing people’s facial expression and reaction, something I would call “decisive moment”. Sometimes there are values available not in the talk but in the reaction who hear them. For example, Dr.Hardy asked his daughter to post the flyer about the screening of Troll 2, but she kind of showed an unwilling reaction but an understanding of her Dad’s passion.
Also, the director used a unique way of telling story that not only makes people laugh but also revealed a sharp contrast. It is a movie that actors were too shamed to put on their resume, whereas the Italian director Claudio Fragrasso insisted he was making a good movie. This movie is famous for its lack of logic and full of cliche elements that make it so hilarious to entertain people. Ironically, you can tell from the Claudio Fragrasso's reaction that he was not that happy as other actors because he didn't think that the moive is about the entertainment but more about human being. When he said that he found out the audience laugh at something that shouldn't be that funny, I felt sad for him. “Best Worst Movie is story of one of cinema’s greatest tragedies… or triumph’s –Troll 2. The result is a hilarious and tender off-beat journey and a genuine homage to lovers of bad movies and the people that create them.”
At the end of the documentary, it went back to Dr. Hardy’s normal life again that was about making breakfast and going to the clinic. But things in his mind has been changed. He had already made the promise if there’s gonna be Troll 3 , he would definitely in.
I saw this doc last night. I'm wondering, I-Hwa, what you thought about a few areas: the pacing, the issue of representation, and how it addressed the subtext of irony.
ReplyDeleteFor me, it had a stretch about 2/3 of the way through that was really slow. At a certain point, I felt they had established the fan subculture and everyone said the same thing- I wasn't getting anything new from anyone. Then the end felt a bit hurried, so the pacing felt uneven. Also, because of the repetition, it seemed like there was room to explore other issues that we never got around to exploring, like the differences between American and European sensibilities when it comes to an ironic read on films. I'll write more about this in a minute.
Let me say that I was highly entertained by this doc. But there were a few points where I felt massive guilt for laughing so much, and then at other moments, I stopped laughing altogether because I felt like the handling of subjects was devolving into exploitation. Specifically, I felt this way with the actress that played the mother (and her very elderly mother), the storekeeper who had a history of mental illness, and the grandfather, who just seemed to have a lonely life. In all of these cases, there just were too many laughs at the expense of these people to make me feel comfortable. When you're documenting people with serious mental illness, there's just a line that shouldn't be crossed, imho, and they crossed it. A lot. Laughs galore at the expense of the guy who was furloughed from the mental hospital to be in the movie. It just seemed cheap.
Finally, the main idea that was so fascinating to me about this documentary was never really broached. When the Italian director enters the scene, it's clear that he just doesn't get the fan subculture. He doesn't see the movie the way they do. He doesn't get the irony. And while the doc plays this for its literal tension, as the director interrupts q&a sessions, etc, there's never any substantive discussion of this kind of polysemy: that films have the incredible ability to mean different things to different people. There's an ironic read here that the fans are doing-- how did that happen? There's zero conjecture, not about postmodernism, about an American/Italian divide, nothing. I just wanted the doc to explore this idea, to think critically about what's really going on here in terms of spectatorship. I felt it deserved that-- and as I mentioned before, there was enough repetition that there was a place for it.
I didn't intend to write my own response to the doc, but here I have. So, anyone else see this yet? What do you think? It's at Alamo S Lamar this week.