Film Review: Best Worst Movie

The 1990 film Troll 2 is considered by many as the worst movie of all time and the child star of the film, Michael Stephenson, takes a look at how the film went so wrong and eventually turned so right earning a cult following in his new documentary Best Worst Movie. The film, which is really bad, isn’t the worst of all time but it certainly is incomprehensibly strange and unintentionally funny as proven in one of its trademark scenes in which goblins turn a woman into a plant and then eat her as a man screams “Oh My God!” (the clip has seen more than 2 million hits on You Tube).

The documentary on the other hand is fascinating as it tells the story of the legions of fans who have come to celebrate the film and catches up with the cast, most of whom have all but forgotten the film, and exposes them to a new world of niche celebrity. The cast and crew are a varied lot but overflowing with personality and always interesting, especially George Hardy, the charismatic dentist who played the father in the film and Claudio Fragasso, the passionate Italian director that still cannot bear with his film being called bad. The documentary does a great job of illuminating the humanity in each of the former cast members as they deal with their lives in retrospect and the sudden fame that the resurgence of the film brings them. The documentary wins over a crowd for much the same reason that the film became celebrated, its sincerity.

From: shortandsweetnyc

Can You Walk Straight?

A Mystery: Why Can't We Walk Straight? from NPR on Vimeo.

Here's a really interesting animated short video from NPR about studies finding that humans have an inability to walk straight.

Ebert and the Idiot with a tripod

I love this short collection a great shots that Queens resident Jamie Stuart put together during our most recent snowstorm, it's amazing how it effects me like a narrative film does with the precise editing and terrific cinematography. Now I feel guilty for staying in for 2 days and watching Netflix.

Roger Ebert helped get the short piece a good deal of attention and even went as far as suggesting that it should get a Oscar nod for Short Live-Action Film. Speaking of Ebert, if you haven't had a chance to check out his top ten list of documentaries for 2010 I included it below, some terrific films (2 of which I also included on my top ten list) and a number of them are on Netflix.

Roger Ebert's Top 10 Doc of 2010