Ed Wood Deserves A Posthumous Oscar®
Voltronicus
thespian, should be considered for a posthumous Oscar® for his
memorable body of work.
Tom Sutpen
*****
I couldn't agree more; and while you may, perhaps, intend it
ironically, I do not.
Bad as he was, inept and bereft of creative judgement as he was,
Edward Wood had a greater committment to filmmaking than at least 50%
of American directors more successful (and usually more talented) than
he. For a medium as unruly and choked on its own adrenaline as cinema,
Wood makes for a useful conscience.
Give that old cross-dressing lush an Oscar!
Tom Sutpen
Voltronicus
> On Oct 10, 7:19 pm, Voltronicus <fwdi...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Edward D. Wood Jr., the great film writer, director, editor and master
> > thespian, should be considered for a posthumous Oscar® for his
> > memorable body of work.
>
> *****
> I couldn't agree more; and while you may, perhaps, intend it
> ironically, I do not.
I was serious.
Ed was dedicated to his art, made enjoyable pictures on ludicrously
low budgets and will be remembered long after most of his
contemporaries are forgotten.
I'd prefer to watch a Wood opus over any of that French new wave
crapola or dreck like "The Fountainhead".
"Pull the string!"
Tom Sutpen
> > I couldn't agree more; and while you may, perhaps, intend it
> > ironically, I do not.
>
> I was serious.
> Ed was dedicated to his art, made enjoyable pictures on ludicrously
> low budgets and will be remembered long after most of his
> contemporaries are forgotten.
> I'd prefer to watch a Wood opus over any of that French new wave
> crapola
*****
Don't let's go crazy. I mean, the 'Nouvelle vague' may have been, on
the whole, far less revolutionary than its amen corner would have
generations believe, but just about all of it was better than Wood's
creations (I say 'just about' because there may be an obscure film in
that cycle that failed miserably at what it intended), and much of it
was more watchable.
or dreck like "The Fountainhead".
*****
I'm of two minds on 'The Fountainhead'. In one sense it *is* a piece
of dreck, and needlessly so. Too much of the novel's swift, well-
constructed narrative was jettisoned to make way for its woeful
speechifyin' (which, whatever your position on Ayn Rand's philosphy,
weighs down the film irretrievably. Since Rand adapted her own novel,
and did so with the intervention of no other screenwriter (big mistake
on Warner's part), she carries the full load of responsibility for
this (additionally, has an actor ever looked less comfortable onscreen
than Gary Cooper did in this picture?).
On the other hand . . . there's something really irresistable about
King Vidor's direction. It's manic and fanciful and deleriously
earnest by intervals; leaving little doubt who the real 'auteur' of
'Duel in the Sun' had been. In fact for sheer hysteria, he hadn't
directed anything quite like certain sequences of 'The Fountainhead'
since he'd made 'Hallelujah' two decades before. 'The Fountainhead' is
a novel, like all things written by Ayn Rand, that celebrates reason
and logic, forcefully condemning unhinged passion and the elevation of
kitsch. And what did Warner Bros. do? They handed it over to a
director who, on certain days, just decided to run wild with the
thing. He was both the best, and the worst, director who could have
been assigned that project in 1949.
Tom Sutpen
Derek Janssen
Every generation has its own Cult-Symbolic Bad Film, to do the lame
standard "An artist and his vision" routine upon:
Wasn't until '80 that even the Medveds had heard of "Plan 9", and before
then, we all supposed to cult-gush over "Robot monsters" in gorilla
suits...And reaching further back, John Wayne in Mongol epics before that.
Now, thanks to MST3K (which never bothered with Plan 9, since it
would've been too much of a borscht-belt cliche' to heckle, and never
went past Wood's "delinquent" canon), Wood's since been upstaged by
"Manos: the Hands of Fate", and Masters Who Would Not Be Pleased...
And who knows whether even *that* will be upstaged, if Uwe Boll doesn't
keep pimping his "worst director" reputation for a cheap gag.
Ed Wood, though?....Soooo 1993. About the year of the Burton movie, and
there it peaked.
Derek Janssen (Joke Archaeologist, and Gag-Evolution theorist)
eja...@verizon.net
Voltronicus
> Every generation has its own Cult-Symbolic Bad Film, to do the lame
> standard "An artist and his vision" routine upon:
And, I suppose, every newsgroup has its own supercilious putz who
tries to cover his own sense of inferiority by sneering at the posts
of his betters.
nick
disappointments when you see them. They're as bad as everyone says
but they're not tremendously interesting or watchable. There are
better *bad* filmmakers out there. He deserves a lot of credit for
trying but that doesn't mean we have to force ourselves to sit through
his films.
I always thought Scorsese should do a sequel to Burton's movie--
covering the later years when Ed Wood was a washed up drunken violent
tempered racist hitting absolute rock bottom working in porn.
Heynony
re: The Fountainhead
> has an actor ever looked less comfortable onscreen
> than Gary Cooper did in this picture?
I show it every few years or so; I have a fondness for it. As an
adolescent I was drawn to the philobabble, and worshipped Patricia Neal
as an erotic icon. Truth be known I can't keep people seated for it,
they wander in and out. But that final shot of Cooper at the end,
quivering in his boots, is premo ROFL.
Derek Janssen
[Note to self: Must remember to look up "supercilious" sometime.] :)
Derek Janssen (is that anything like being a "disingenuous filmmaker"?)
eja...@verizon.net
Tom Sutpen
> > Bad as he was, inept and bereft of creative judgement as he was,
> > Edward Wood had a greater committment to filmmaking than at least 50%
> > of American directors more successful (and usually more talented) than
> > he. For a medium as unruly and choked on its own adrenaline as cinema,
> > Wood makes for a useful conscience.
>
> Every generation has its own Cult-Symbolic Bad Film, to do the lame
> standard "An artist and his vision" routine upon:
*****
Excuse me. Quit projecting for five seconds and don't assume that
everyone's critical reservoir is half an inch deep. At least admit the
possibility that someone (namely me) can take this view and hold it
out of conviction; that I may be serious about this, and not merely
feeding some depraved counter-cultural impulse (I have no time for
that 'Bad Movies We Love' nonsense; never have).
> Wasn't until '80 that even the Medveds had heard of "Plan 9", and before
> then, we all supposed to cult-gush over "Robot monsters" in gorilla
> suits...And reaching further back, John Wayne in Mongol epics before that.
*****
Oh, yeah. Wayne appeared in lots of those, didn't he.
Two words: Know your friggin' history.
> Now, thanks to MST3K (which never bothered with Plan 9, since it
> would've been too much of a borscht-belt cliche' to heckle, and never
> went past Wood's "delinquent" canon), Wood's since been upstaged by
> "Manos: the Hands of Fate", and Masters Who Would Not Be Pleased...
> And who knows whether even *that* will be upstaged, if Uwe Boll doesn't
> keep pimping his "worst director" reputation for a cheap gag.
*****
But you're assuming I think Edward Wood *was* the worst director of
his time, and I don't.
> Ed Wood, though?....Soooo 1993. About the year of the Burton movie, and
> there it peaked.
*****
I was saying this long before Tim Burton's film (which I have serious
problems with, by the way) arrived on the scene . . . but really,
there's no point arguing this issue (or any other) with someone who's
just looking to indulge his own vanity (on Usenet, of all things). I
like and respect you, Derek (seriously), but you've gotta lose the
'Most Jaded Kid in the Class' routine; or at least deploy it with a
bit more discrimination.
Tom Sutpen
Derek Janssen
>
>>Wasn't until '80 that even the Medveds had heard of "Plan 9", and before
>>then, we all supposed to cult-gush over "Robot monsters" in gorilla
>>suits...And reaching further back, John Wayne in Mongol epics before that.
>
> *****
> Oh, yeah. Wayne appeared in lots of those, didn't he.
> Two words: Know your friggin' history.
(Uh, believe I was referring to the Medveds franchise-stuffing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049092/
down our throats as their "wackiest" signature piece, during their
pre-Turkeys "50 Worst" phase.
And which officially became Lame Pop-Culture Canon after everyone
connected Wayne's death with it a few years later.
>>Now, thanks to MST3K (which never bothered with Plan 9, since it
>>would've been too much of a borscht-belt cliche' to heckle, and never
>>went past Wood's "delinquent" canon), Wood's since been upstaged by
>>"Manos: the Hands of Fate", and Masters Who Would Not Be Pleased...
>>And who knows whether even *that* will be upstaged, if Uwe Boll doesn't
>>keep pimping his "worst director" reputation for a cheap gag.
>
> *****
> But you're assuming I think Edward Wood *was* the worst director of
> his time, and I don't.
Wasn't saying *you*, was just accusing Volt, Usenet's Most Generic
Poster, of pulling some dusty old gag out of the trunk that was
>>....Soooo 1993. About the year of the Burton movie, and
>>there it peaked.
>
> I like and respect you, Derek (seriously), but you've gotta lose the
> 'Most Jaded Kid in the Class' routine; or at least deploy it with a
> bit more discrimination.
Not jaded, just wanted to get the "Manos" reference in there as a note
of contemporary cold-water, to emphasize how much things can change in
ten or fifteen years if one's jokes are still on auto-pilot--
Nowadays, for the fanboy kids to geek-reference Torgo is the equivalent
of what a Tor Johnson gag was in the 90's.
Derek Janssen (and then you got the Sci-Fi Channel MST3K fanboys doing
Joe Don Baker jokes all over the place...)
eja...@verizon.net
Jason Gaylor
before Ed Wood. Terence Fisher and Mario Bava come to mind. Jason
Voltronicus
> Tom Sutpen wrote:
>
> >>Wasn't until '80 that even the Medveds had heard of "Plan 9", and before
> >>then, we all supposed to cult-gush over "Robot monsters" in gorilla
> >>suits...And reaching further back, John Wayne in Mongol epics before that.
>
> > *****
> > Oh, yeah. Wayne appeared in lots of those, didn't he.
> > Two words: Know your friggin' history.
>
You really are a putz.
Undecided
> Give that old cross-dressing lush an Oscar!
In a biog of the master I read, an objective source said, "Look, Ed
Wood is a [expletive] director. You give him a million dollars, he'll
still make [expletive] movies. Why? 'Cause he's a [expletive]
director."
But man could he churn 'em out. Thirty one scenes a day, without a
retake. Could Rodin do that?
-Undecided
Undecided
the early silents, with the actress in raccoon makeup doing deep-
breathing exercises and bending at the waist in utter horror. The
other is action, constant action, like in the forties serials, the
early version of video games. Two mindless approaches.
My kids could sit through Radar Men From the Moon. Not Plan 9. Just
affected nonsense.
Sorry, but I'm not really
- Undecided
Tom Sutpen
> I always thought Scorsese should do a sequel to Burton's movie--
> covering the later years when Ed Wood was a washed up drunken violent
> tempered racist hitting absolute rock bottom working in porn.
*****
Burton's film was a somewhat backhanded insult to Wood that probably
looked a lot like a celebration in contrast to the many full-on
beatings he's taken over the decades. I still don't see, for instince,
how it honors Wood to invent a triumphal premiere for 'Plan 9' that
never happened . . . while working into the scene a direct copy of a
shot from 'Citizen Kane'. It might be good for irony addicts, but it
yanks the viewer away from the reality of what made Wood a compelling
figure.
I'm at a loss when it comes to who might do a good job with Wood's
last years (assuming a film so drenched in despair could ever be
made). Scorsese left such foul states of being behind after 'Taxi
Driver', and while Darren Aronofsky managed to stay with four
characters as they circled the drain in his film of Selby's 'Requiem
for a Dream', I think that film's expert CGI tomfoollery might have a
weird, unintended effect in a story about the director of 'Plan 9 from
Outer Space'.
Tom Sutpen
Tom Sutpen
> Not jaded, just wanted to get the "Manos" reference in there as a note
> of contemporary cold-water, to emphasize how much things can change in
> ten or fifteen years if one's jokes are still on auto-pilot--
> Nowadays, for the fanboy kids to geek-reference Torgo is the equivalent
> of what a Tor Johnson gag was in the 90's.
*****
Fair enough. Sorry to go off on you like that. I really don't want
anything to do with that whole sniggering Medved Bad Movie
fetishization crapola; and I thought you were automatically assuming
that's where I was coming from. Add a few drinks to the mix and . . .
well, you saw the results.
My apologies (he said, with appropriate humility)
> Derek Janssen (and then you got the Sci-Fi Channel MST3K fanboys doing
> Joe Don Baker jokes all over the place...)
*****
I got off the MST3K bus around the time they thought 'This Island
Earth' was suitable for tarnishing. I says to myself, I says, 'Why do
I wanna waste time with this when these people can't tell a good movie
from a bad one?'
Tom Sutpen
Derek Janssen
>
>>Not jaded, just wanted to get the "Manos" reference in there as a note
>>of contemporary cold-water, to emphasize how much things can change in
>>ten or fifteen years if one's jokes are still on auto-pilot--
>>Nowadays, for the fanboy kids to geek-reference Torgo is the equivalent
>>of what a Tor Johnson gag was in the 90's.
>
> Earth' was suitable for tarnishing. I says to myself, I says, 'Why do
> I wanna waste time with this when these people can't tell a good movie
> from a bad one?'
That was Universal's decision more than theirs--
Had to be something out of the vault for the lawyers, had to be
widescreen for the theaters, and had to be something 50's Flying-Saucer
Iconic, for the paying crowd.
Which is a good way of seguing into why I came off so snarky:
Half of the pop-cultural fixation of "Plan 9", at the beginning, really
seemed to come out of the 80's Boomer culture, and their needing a
scapegoat to symbolize the Wacky 50's Drive-In Movies an earlier
generation went to--
And Ed's pie tins, Vampira zombies and cardboard tombstones seemed to
symbolize what every whitebread Boomer fan Thought a 50's Flying Saucer
Movie Looked Like, whether or not they'd ever actually seen one before
in their lives. (Which is pretty much the same reason we all gushed
over "Robot Monster", particuarly the scene of Robot Gorillas Carrying
Off the Girl.)
Wherever there was some 80's "tribute" to 50's sci-fi, we'd always see a
minimum of "All you of earth are stupid!", some "This Island Earth"
footage, and the Harryhausen saucers crashing into the Washington
Monument--If they were particularly being jerks about it, they'd often
throw in Robby the Robot, too, as if all four were supposed to be the
same movie, and to them, it probably was.
Basically, "Plan 9", and accompanying Wood-mania, is the bad film for
people who believe that "Mars Attacks!" actually *looks* like a 50's
film...If Wood hadn't actually made it, somebody else would've had to
make it up out of cheap retro-gags, like "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra".
("Manos", OTOH, caught the MST3K generation's attention by taking Bad
Movie Chic off the pop-marketed cutesy-poseur shelves, and took it back
to its cheap-drive-in folk roots...
There are some down-the-rabbit-hole films you can ONLY watch with MST3K,
and for the uninitiated out there, that's meant as a warning.)
Derek Janssen ("Wild World of Batwoman"'s heckling is also a helpful
case study in why *real* bad movies aren't pretty 0_0'' )
eja...@verizon.net
Voltronicus
Invid Fan
<f607d1af-1f2b-480c...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
Tom Sutpen <toms...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I got off the MST3K bus around the time they thought 'This Island
> Earth' was suitable for tarnishing. I says to myself, I says, 'Why do
> I wanna waste time with this when these people can't tell a good movie
> from a bad one?'
>
There's nothing wrong with mocking a good movie, especially if you
don't take films too seriously. They're doing Rifftrax now of stuff I
really like, and I find them hilarious :)
--
Chris Mack *quote under construction*
'Invid Fan'
Tom Sutpen
> > I got off the MST3K bus around the time they thought 'This Island
> > Earth' was suitable for tarnishing. I says to myself, I says, 'Why do
> > I wanna waste time with this when these people can't tell a good movie
> > from a bad one?'
>
> There's nothing wrong with mocking a good movie, especially if you
> don't take films too seriously. They're doing Rifftrax now of stuff I
> really like, and I find them hilarious :)
*****
I'm holding out for the Rifftrax on 'Ordet', or Ozu's 'Tokyo Story'
myself.
Tom 'Is nothing sacred? Don't answer that!' Sutpen
Derek Janssen
>>
>>There's nothing wrong with mocking a good movie, especially if you
>>don't take films too seriously. They're doing Rifftrax now of stuff I
>>really like, and I find them hilarious :)
>
>
> *****
> I'm holding out for the Rifftrax on 'Ordet', or Ozu's 'Tokyo Story'
> myself.
But you won't get it, since Mike Nelson took the entire MST3K concept
(which he didn't own) over to Rifftrax, and tunnel-visioned it into
hecklings of "Transformers", LOTR, 300, Matrix Trilogy, "Phantom
Menace", and other movies which would, like, make really geeky loser
fans cry...
Derek Janssen ('cause, like, they all go to conventions in funny ears,
and argue over Iron Man comics, 'n stuff)
eja...@verizon.net
Invid Fan
<eja...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
> Tom Sutpen wrote:
> >>
> >>There's nothing wrong with mocking a good movie, especially if you
> >>don't take films too seriously. They're doing Rifftrax now of stuff I
> >>really like, and I find them hilarious :)
> >
> >
> > *****
> > I'm holding out for the Rifftrax on 'Ordet', or Ozu's 'Tokyo Story'
> > myself.
>
> But you won't get it, since Mike Nelson took the entire MST3K concept
> (which he didn't own) over to Rifftrax, and tunnel-visioned it into
> hecklings of "Transformers", LOTR, 300, Matrix Trilogy, "Phantom
> Menace", and other movies which would, like, make really geeky loser
> fans cry...
>
As well as Memento, Saw, Sixth Sense, Oceans 11, etc.
Anim8rFSK
<f607d1af-1f2b-480c...@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
Tom Sutpen <toms...@gmail.com> wrote:
And cut the funniest line in TIE - "this is our cat Neutron; we call him
that because he's so positive"
--
Third root canal - averted.
Hip Hip Hurrah!
Avoid normal situations.
[..]
> I'm holding out for the Rifftrax on Ozu's 'Tokyo Story'
"Was the cameraman on this one a midget?"
--
alt.flame Special Forces
"The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near
future, in spite of many rumors to that effect." -- Harper's Weekly, 8/02/1902
Avoid normal situations.
> On Oct 11, 12:12�am, Derek Janssen <ejan...@nospam.verizon.net> wrote:
[..]
> Wood's movies, with the exception of maybe Glen or Glenda, are
> disappointments when you see them. They're as bad as everyone says
> but they're not tremendously interesting or watchable. There are
> better *bad* filmmakers out there. He deserves a lot of credit for
> trying but that doesn't mean we have to force ourselves to sit through
> his films.
I respectfully disagree. _Glen or Glenda?_ is kind of interesting as one
of the worst-made films in history (only picture I can remember seeing where
the looping was so bad you could hear this <POP> at the beginnings and endings
of lines), and _Necromania_ is just plain bad pornography, but _Plan 9 from
Outer Space_ and _Night of the Ghouls_ are so hysterical (literally), inept,
and laughably cheap for their ambitions that they're beautiful to behold.
No other movies are quite like them. A pair for the time capsules.