The Daily - The Good, the Bad and the Good-Bad (Movie)

0:01Hey everyone, it's Rachel. I wanted to let you know that our colleagues over at Popcast, which is the time's pop culture chat show featuring music critic John Caramanica and reporter Joe Coscarelli, they have a brand new look. And now they're going to be coming out weekly in both video and audio. Popcast features conversations with some of the biggest names in pop culture, like Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo and Hathaway Lou Combs and so many others.

0:27You can subscribe to Popcast on their YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, you can watch or listen or both on the New York Times app. If you aren't already a subscriber, you can download the New York Times app and get your first month free. And if you already subscribe, we thank you. Okay, here's today's show. From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams and this is The Daily on Sunday. No magic.

0:58is stronger than sisterhood. The film Practical Magic 2 opened in theaters this week. Here's the thing about magic. It won't be silenced. If you weren't familiar with Practical Magic 1, it came out in 1998. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman play sisters dealing with a pretty inconvenient generational curse that kills any man they fall in love with. It was the curse, wasn't it? He died because I loved him so much.

1:28Also, by the way, they're witches. In Practical Magic 2, we learn that Sandra Bullock's character has passed the curse onto her daughters, who are also witches. We're witches in a curses room. I will never trust you again. The release of Practical Magic 2 has prompted a lot of conversation here at The Daily about a particular kind of movie. Not a good movie, not a bad movie, but movies that are good bad.

1:58Because for a lot of movie lovers the movies that we love the most They're not necessarily the movies we think are the best What to you is like a movie that you really love even though you know that it is bad? Looney Tunes back in action And if you start asking people about their favorite good bad movies, you'll find they have a lot to say on the subject. Like, listen, 2003, Joe Dante made this movie because he hated Space Jam. It's like, I'm going to make a proper Luigi's movie, and that's like Steve Martin. Like, a lot to say. And it's like a subtle critique of capitalism where it's like... You kind of can't stop them. And then transport them back into people to buy the stuff. And it's like, oh, yeah, it's like... I would say something about Mary. I love that movie, but it's not in the, uh, what's that dumb clause that everybody goes into.

2:46The Criterion. But a Knight's Tale. And they do the dance to Golden Years by David Bowie. It's kind of like very going back to my childhood as like a young straight man, but Jack S2. I mean, I like love high school musicals. They live. Twilight. Any classic Adam Sandler movie like Water Boy? It's the Spice World. I'm so glad that Spice World made it to Ukraine. Spice World, dude.

3:16These good-bad movies occupy a special place in our hearts, despite the fact that they're probably not going to win any Oscars. And so today, we are going to talk about good-bad movies and about what makes a bad movie so eminently watchable. I'm joined in my good-bad movie deep dive by my colleague Maya Salam, who, for the last year, has been writing a column about good-bad movies for the times. And later in this episode, I will gather a couple other of my esteemed colleagues, Taffy Brodesser Ackner and Gilbert Cruz, to tell me about their must-see good bad movies. It's Sunday, September 13th. Maya Salam, welcome to the Sunday Daily. Thank you so much, Rachel. I'm thrilled to be here. So, Maya, you have been working on this project, which seems very fun, about good bad movies. You have been naming good bad movies. You've been dissecting them. You've been trying to figure out

4:11The specific ingredients that make a good bad movie so beloved. And I want to talk about all of those ingredients, but first, let's define what we are talking about. What do we mean when we say good bad movie?

4:24Well, first let me say that everyone has their own rubric, their own parameters, their own boxes that need to be checked for a good bad movie. So there's the way that I define it for the series, but there are no wrong answers, really. And for me, it's a movie that has at least one element, but usually more, that are completely over the top, are completely absurd, and the movie must be, above all else, highly watchable, highly rewatchable.

4:52And while it may not be great cinema, so to speak, they are movies that are infectious, are beloved, that people return to again and again and often have a lot of feelings and memories tied up with them. Let's talk about an example of a good-bad movie. You have written about all different sorts of good-bad movies. Let's pick one, Maya. Which one should we talk about today? Let's pick Volcano. Volcano. Excellent. Volcano is...

5:20A 1997 disaster action movie starring Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Haish. With an assist from Don Cheadle and a young Gabby Hoffman. But really it's Tommy Lee Jones doing what he does best in the 90s, which is screaming directions under pressure.

5:49two support units while leading a team. He's basically trying to save the city of Los Angeles from a volcano that is about to erupt. So, okay, I know this movie. For the uninitiated, for people that did not have the pleasure of seeing this film, tell us a little bit more about why it might qualify as a good bed movie.

6:17Some of the things that make Volcano a good-bad movie are the fact that the main cast, while other people are catching fire, exploding, melting before our eyes, the main cast barely breaks the sweat. Even though they are the closest to the lava, Anne Haish and Tommy Lee Jones are more or less just fine, even when they're hanging just mere feet above a lava flow. It's things like this that are good-bad gold, honestly.

6:46Okay, so it's very watchable. It's highly unrealistic. What makes it bad? What makes up the bad part of the good bad of volcano? Yeah, I usually try to kind of identify one element in all these movies that really is bad. And in volcano, that is the fact that they try to tie in this metaphor of racial tension in Los Angeles in the 1990s, make the volcano a metaphor for that. There's a mention of Rodney King. There's a child who is at the end while everyone is covered in ash realizes that he's, you know, colorblind because everyone's the same color. Extremely cringy. Woof. Definitely not necessary to the plot. So basically this film decided it had to be about more than just a volcano erupting in Los Angeles and in your estimation did not pull that off particularly well. Exactly that. The elephant in the room here I feel like is also the fact that, you know, who gets to define what is good. If a movie is broadly popular.

7:43Does that not mean that it's good? Is it only good if it wins an Oscar? Is it only good if the... I mean, this is like an argument as old as time a little bit. So it's sort of interesting to think about who gets to define what even makes a movie good to begin with. I think what I love about these choices and getting to kind of elevate these movies is because when we talk about a lot of movies that are obviously wonderful cinema great films you know they get a lot of attention and as they should and then you know we give a lot of attention to movies that flop epically but there's this really rich middle and this series kind of does service to that middle because

8:24Whether these movies were blockbusters, and some of them were, and whether they were complete flops in every sense of the word, they've managed to remain relevant. And a lot of them have universal name recognition. So even if you've never watched them, you're aware of it. They really worked their way into the pop culture zeitgeist. And also, people still want to talk about them, right? I have to confess to you, when we were even discussing your series here on The Daily, inevitably, every single discussion we had turned into producers, editors, hosts, everybody wanted to talk about their favorite movie that might not necessarily be considered good, but that they loved. I wonder what you make of that, that reaction that you're serious has instilled. I love that question, and I love that this has done that. You know, we're living in a time where there's really no monoculture, so there is something really nostalgic and satisfying about...

9:18getting to have sort of these water cooler conversations that were common once upon a time how often these days do we talk to somebody and they ask have you seen the show have you seen this film and not only haven't you seen it you maybe have never even heard of it you know especially even me and people in our desk who live and breathe television and film encounter that and that really is a sign of how our pop culture consumption has fragmented but i think with these good bad movies I think what they are is the opportunity to banter, the opportunity to have these debates, low stakes debates because these movies are low stakes. And it is fun to get the opportunity to do that. And it's also fun to say, why don't you fight me on it a little bit? Why don't we have this push and pull for something that doesn't really matter all that much?

10:13Okay, I really want to lean into that idea that we should all be having sort of low stakes fights with other people that somehow that is edifying to our souls. So after the break, that's exactly what we're going to do. We've grabbed a couple more of our esteemed colleagues, both culture writers. We've asked each of them to pick their most beloved Good Bad movie of all time, and we'll have some good, bad, low stakes debate about it. Let's do that. That sounds so fun. Okay, we are back. Maya, welcome back. I have assembled.

10:53All of you here today for a low stakes debate. We have Maya Salam. Ready to fight playfully. I've also got Gilbert Cruz, the Times' new canon editor, which means that Gilbert is in charge of thinking about great books, great TV shows, great movies, also former books and culture editor. Great show. Thanks for having me. And we have Taffy Brodessar-Akner, a novelist and a writer for The Times Magazine. Taffy, thank you for being here. It's great to be here. Thank you for having me. How's everybody feeling today?

11:22Good bad? Great. I'm confused by you calling it low stakes. I agree. This is pretty high stakes. Okay, okay. Maya, you're the one that came up with the low stakes debate idea. Do you want to explain? What I mean about that is what makes a lot of these good bad movies fun is that they are meant to be watched and to be bantered about, to have funny comments, to watch not so quietly. Taffy, does that satisfy your question? I guess so.

11:50Reasonable people can disagree. I think the thing with taffy is it's impossible for her to ever talk about movies in a low stakes way Even if she's talking about a good bad movie a good movie a bad movie Well, that is slightly terrifying because okay, okay Gilbert and taffy you are both movie lovers Are you good bad movie lovers? Are they part of your diet? Is this is this a topic that you have thought about before taffy? Let's start with you. I mean, I feel I have been fighting my whole life to say that if it's good, it's good. And it doesn't matter what its provenance or its vintage is. And it doesn't matter. I don't care where a movie went to school. I care that it made me feel something and that it's memorable and that it sort of changes my metabolism and that it locks me in. You don't care that a movie had a good pedigree. Yeah. Gober, would you agree with that?

12:49Not really. I think there are good things in this world. I think there are bad things in this world. I think there are good movies and there are bad movies. The way in which those two things come together in the good-bad movie is it's something, I think, to Maya's points that you find yourself drawn to again and again, even as you're able to identify parts of it that are bad, whether it's the script or...

13:16The cinematography or the music or various performances can be genuinely bad in my opinion. However, those are balanced out by other parts of the movie that are so compelling to you that you find yourself, whether because of nostalgia reasons or what have you watching something over and over again. There are many movies that I love and I love them because I think they're genuinely good. However, some of the movies we're going to talk about today Are in a different category. I think it's okay for them to be in a different category You guys are making the distinction this sort of Distinction as old as Hollywood itself between a movie that is good because we can appreciate that it is good on paper It is cinematically good It is it is you can see the craft and a movie that is good because you like it Are we allowed to call movies good just because they are enjoyable and perhaps even popular? I say yes, but it seems like Gilbert says no I think taffy if I said to you what is the difference between Michael Clayton?

14:12One of your favorite movies, which is a good movie, capital G, good movie. And one or two of the movies that you're going to talk about in a few minutes, I think you would put them in different categories, perhaps. You know what, that's a very good question. When we started talking about this, I was thinking again about the provenance of even the discussion. And I wondered how everybody else shows their movies, since in the vast canon, lowercase c.

14:41of movies, to me, this was a crushing assignment. You're raising a good point, which is we should talk about the criteria that you guys are using to define good, bad, and Maya, since this is your project, you want to, let's run your theory of the case by Gilbert and Taffy and see what they think. Okay, and there are no wrong answers to this question, in my opinion. We'll tell you if that's true. We'll see about that. And I do think this conversation about the philosophy of what good means.

15:10what bad means and what good-bad means. This is really the point, the conversation that's happening right now. So while they are called good-bad, and the way that we break it down is what makes this movie good? It's actual redeemable qualities. What makes it bad? It's irredeemable qualities. And what makes it good-bad? Which is the silly, the fun, the completely over-the-top.

15:36You know, maybe it's the corny special effects, the cringy puns, the overacting. It gets to a point where they all loop back into virtues and make the movie what it is. Gilbert, canon editor, what do you think? I, you know, I agree more with Maya than I disagree. I mean, I recently was on vacation and we threw on Point Break because the end of The film was filmed near where we were vacationing in Oregon. And I love that movie. I've seen it many times. It has some of the best action scenes that were filmed in the 90s. And then you have Keanu Reeves's line deliveries that are not good. You cannot look at Keanu Reeves saying, I am FBI agent. And feel like that was the right take.

16:30Like, surely there were a couple more takes. Yet, the movie is eminently rewatchable, quite amazing in certain parts, even though there are these elements that you can identify as just not great. I can watch a great movie, a Chinatown of There Will Be Blood, and say, actually, no notes. I don't see a lot that I would quibble with. Go with God. But you can always find something in a good bad movie that you can make fun of.

16:57And when you're watching it in the group, everyone laughs at the same time because it's so dumb. Exactly that. I think there is something to be teased out about for each individual person how much their idea of a good bad movie is attached to nostalgia in some way. I encountered this when I was younger, when I was a teenager, what have you. I've seen it many, many, many times, whether because...

17:21For those of a certain age, it was on cable, or I had played the DVD over and over again in college. There's a way in which familiarity sort of breeds that affection for a film. I think a lot of people, when they think of their favorite Good Ben movie, there's a good chance that it might be something that they watched.

17:38I don't know as a teenager on their first date at the summer that they spent where they met their first love like something that just reminds you of a period of your of time that maybe is frozen in amber in your mind along with the feeling and that to me is a key ingredient when a lot of people try to think of like what their favorite good bad movie is is how it makes them feel or how they remember it making them feel. That's how I feel that when I was telling my family why I was watching this movie.

18:06I didn't tell them why I was watching the movie. I told them that when I was 17 and had a driver's license, the first thing I did, the first time I drove alone was I went to the UA in Sheepshead Bay because they were playing this movie. And I was, maybe there were three other people in the theater and I...

18:33couldn't believe it. I loved it. And you can't take that away. When I was just watching it again this morning, I was in Sheepshead Bay again. I think as funny as this, despite all the playful headbutting, we do agree at the end of the day. We do pretty much agree. You're such a peacemaker, Maya.

18:53Okay, and on that lovely and civilized note, let's take another quick break. When we come back, we are going to talk about the good-bad movies that each of you brought here today for our low stakes, maybe to some high stakes debate. We'll be right back. Now, I want to hear everybody's pick for their favorite good-bad movie. Maya, this is your project, so why don't you go first? It is actually quite difficult to pick my favorite good-bad movie. I decided that I'm gonna go with Reese too.

19:40Michelle Pfeiffer chomping on a piece of gum in so many different ways and probably the gum deserved an end credit, to be honest. Here she is, down. We're gonna be late. Let's go. Okay, okay, so give us a brief synopsis of grease two for those of us who might have only seen grease one. Yeah, so in grease two had, first of all, twice the budget of grease one. What?

20:06It came out in 1982, about four years after the original, which was a blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon, critical darling. Grease 2 comes out, released the same day as ET. So you can never see how that probably went for Grease 2. But it has become truly a camp classic. Michelle Fiverr's first lead role, and she is the disenchanted leader of the Pink Ladies. She meets this...

20:43Babe and a half on a motorcycle Maxwell Caulfield also giving us little Superman is half dork half superhero You're a really smart guy, you know that you must think I am some kind of dummy, huh? Actually, I think you're kind of terrific But there is musical numbers you couldn't believe it's extremely raunchy so many sexual innuendos and Just shape the lives of millions. I promise you Okay, this just sounds like a good, good movie to me. I know. What are we doing here? Why don't we drill down? What makes this movie specifically a good, bad movie to you, Maya? Trust me, this is not just a good movie. I need to watch it. It is the corniest, the cheesiest. Is there like a specific scene or a line that really kind of encapsulates the good, bad quality of Grease 2? What's the final score? Final score happens later tonight.

21:42Truly the most rebellious thing that these kids in Greece to do is go bowling. That's so quaint. And they are so excited about this bowling alley. So this is a big number not only do you have the entire main cast the bowling alley is filled with quote-unquote teenagers who all look like they're about 40. This is an earworm. They may be as full of earworms, but they are so corny and cheesy and horny. I didn't understand how horny this movie was. It is so horny that somehow they make bowling the olympically unsexiest sport sexy. They certainly try. Bowling contains multitudes. There are a lot of puns.

22:43With the pins, okay? Yeah. It is over the top in every conceivable way, which is, again, good, bad, gold. But also imagine that you're trying to make grease too. That's already so iconic. Like, it's possible you just freeze and you're like, you can't do it. And so it's very true.

23:14I have sympathy. I have sympathy. And I think it's earnestness, but I think it's also like desperation. Can I just tell you this before we go to taffy? I assume it's next. The weekend it came out, the movies that were also out this weekend in the movie theater were E.T., Star Trek II, Rocky III, and Poltergeist. Grease two had no chance. No chance. Gilbert, let's go to you next. I want to know about your favorite Good, bad movie. What did you bring us here to chew on today? Boy, I really was on the knife's edge here. Not sure which of the two movies that I watched last night when I definitely should have been doing real work. I was going to talk about here. The first movie I watched, which is not the movie I'm going to talk about, is 1995's Kongo, which I look forward to doing an entire separate podcast. Rachel with you about. Yep, great. So that's why Solomon's diamonds were never found. The myth of the killer eight is true. I can't believe it.

24:15But the actual movie is 1995's Hackers. Hackers is a film about a group of teenagers who are living in New York and they are hackers. They are trying to break into mainframes and mess around with the phone company. Man, there's too many garbage files. I need more time.

24:43And in doing all this they get on the wrong side of a corporation who sort of sicks the law on them. So that's the plot of the film, but that's not why I love this movie. Gilbert, why do you love this movie? It is, and this is a word that is overused.

25:07So I'm sorry I'm using it, but it is the definition to me of like a vibes forward movie. I call this the greatest zooks out, featuring artists like I got some Hendrix on there, some Joplin, Mama Cass, Belushi, all great artists that are fixated on their own vomit. The vibes come at you very frontally, and the movie ends up being about the costumes.

25:33It ends up being about the music. It ends up being about all of the rollerblading scenes. It just ends up being about all of the things that make the feel of the movie, as opposed to the actual detail, like the plot details of the movie. That's a nice score for a girl. I cannot adequately describe, maybe Maya can, the way the kids dress in this movie. The cyberpunk fashion really holds up. I feel like you can see it on a runway now. Or Burning Man. There's neon. Or Burning Man. Absolutely. There's all shades of lame and all metallics. The fits are good. I mean, the actual fit. They fit well. They are so cool and feel like kind of the future even now. I don't know. There's a, you know, all these movies are often time capsules, but

26:33None are really time capsule like hackers. It is like Siri show me 1995 like just all the components of it. Just build it. There is a scene When Matthew Lillard Whose performance in this film I think is number one for me I could just watch his scenes and be happy if there's a YouTube Supercut that exists of just his stuff in this film and he's sitting in Washington Square Park watching some old guys play chess And something beeps and he looks down and says, beeper. Yo, I'm blowing up. It's Kate, Grand Central. Let's hit it. And then he starts to rollerblade up towards Grand Central Station while a song by the prodigy plays. And it is at this moment when I just, you know, I leave my body as they say, and I am in good, bad nirvana. There's a lot of stuff that is so dumb.

27:40The way that we thought about, quote, hacking and the way we thought about presenting computers on film was visualizations of like math equations and you see a person just typing frantically at a computer and then flashes of electricity are going before their eyes. It was this way in which we didn't really understand Yet what the internet was going to be and therefore did not know how to represent it and therefore could only represent it in the dumbest looking way possible. I call it flying through cyberspace visuals. Definitely there's so much swooping through like towers of code. Are you saying that that's not how computers work? Rachel it's definitely how computers work. I don't know why I suggested otherwise. But when this when hackers came out

28:34Do you remember was it considered instantly good bad or was it considered instantly bad bad? I think it was considered bad at the time and one of the things that maybe we haven't discussed is how it's possible that there needs to be some distance for something to reach this state of film that we are generally talking about here that a lot of times something can come out And those pesky cake-geepers, the critics can say something is bad, and yet given a little time or a little distance, it grows a fandom, it grows a cult, or people just understand, actually, this is just a good time, and I can just have a good time with it. Or you look back and realize that it had something that you took for granted in the moment. Like, Hackers now stands as a sort of museum piece to show my teenage children and say,

29:26This is what we thought computers would do. This is like, this is what we thought it was gonna, sorry. This is what we thought it was gonna be like. This is the end, my friend. Thank you for calling. Hack the planet! Hack the planet! Okay, last but not least, Taffy, you are up. Okay, here were the contenders. Okay. Armageddon. Limitless? I see everything, Carl. Conair.

30:00Bring it on. And the answer was, is everyone ready? I'm ready. I went with face off. Face off decides that if it commits to the bit enough, you will go with it. This is so crazy. And yet.

30:30It doesn't take itself seriously exactly. It's more that it takes itself as legitimate. But you were... In a coma? Nothing like having your face cut off to disturb your sleep. Read the newspaper. Tell us what it's about. Tell us what it's about. I will tell you what face-off is in as much as I can because it's a little confusing. Archer, an FBI agent who's very uptight and played by John Travolta, We open up. He's on a carousel and a sniper played by Nicholas Cage shoots him but it goes right through John Travolta and hits his son his son dies Archer the FBI agent years later. He has a chance at getting back the assassin Castor Troy Wait, we still got no sign of Castor Pollock says I'm fly without big brother now. Come on a thing to know

31:35is that he's just a 90s-era bad guy. You don't even need to explain that much. This only solution years later is for Nicolas Cage to have his face removed. and put onto John Travolta's face, which of course has been preemptively removed. And they switch faces. Face off. They actually do that in the movie. That word, that name caught his face. The outside exactly like Troy's. Then we fit his face on top, not a replica of the real thing.

32:21Then we simply connect the muscles to your ducts and... No, listen, guys. They're science. They're science. The procedure's completely reversible. You think that I want to do this? I know I'm not being coherent, but if I promise the listener I'm being 20 times more coherent than the movie. That's what I do. Well, if you can't, the bomb will blow and Castor Troy will win. There is so much slow motion in this movie. There are so many...

32:51operatic sequences, including opera sequences. There is, it is shot like a music video in the style of the action that plays out on a monitor during karaoke. This is not a good bad movie. This is a great bad movie. Face-off is, is just wackadoo. It's, you know, it stars one of the prime movers in the good-bad movie space, Nicholas Cage, you know, giving quite a balls-to-the-wall performance. It is, and it's directed by John Woo, who's sort of like a genuinely good director, who somehow has still made some incredibly good-bad movies, you know? I agree with Taffy. I don't always agree with Taffy. I make it a point to disagree with her as much as possible, but I think in this case, she's right. You know, the thing I remember most about Face Off...

33:53I was 10 years old when it came out, and I just remember I was so upset. It was rated R, and I was not allowed to see it. Oh my god. It was run home and was today. Rachel, have you seen it since? No, I haven't. And I really wanted to walk away from this episode with at least one good bad movie that I must watch tonight. That might have to be it. Guys, do we all agree that this is what Rachel has to watch? Nice try. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize Gilbert was going to gatekeep again.

34:23I think it's face-off because I think that face-off, even more than hackers, is a time capsule of not just what the 90s looked like and not just what our point of view was, but what we are missing now, which is bonkers movies. This came out within days of Con Air, which was another candidate for this episode. Guys, we used to make movies. We used to make movies hoping we could make...

34:52something for everyone. And it's sort of like a tragedy that we don't anymore. And that's why you should watch Face-Off. I've made my case. Okay. She rests, ladies and gentlemen. She rests her case. I rest my case. I have to definitely gonna say Face-Off is the one for you to watch tonight. I will warn you that the word...

35:11Peach is used as a sexual euphemism, not once, not twice, by three times, might make this cage. And also it has multiple endings. You've reached a climax, you think this movie is ended, wow, what a big shootout scene, but it isn't at the end. There are at least three endings that any one of them would have made a fine ending, but we get all three. Two faces, three endings, who can ask for anything more? Gilbert, if you don't think I should watch Face Off, what do you think I should watch?

35:40No, I just said that to be contrary, because I'm annoying. Because you're the canon editor? We're just going to keep saying that. Taffy. Taffy is correct. Face off. And I'm going to go watch that tonight. So thank you, all three of you, Gilbert Cruz, Taffy Burdester-Akner, and Maya Salam for doing this with me today. I speak for all of us when I say it was our privilege, except for Gilbert, who speaks for himself, and for everyone else. Thank you, Rachel.

36:13Listeners, I did watch it. I watched faceoff. I watched as much of it as I could stomach. My visual take is that it is just bad. We hope you enjoyed this conversation, but maybe you think we are wrong about these movies. Maybe you think Face-Off is a good, good movie. Well, arguing is half the fun. And you can argue with us in the comments of this episode. Tell us your favorite good-bad movie. You can find us at nytimes.com slash The Daily. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Tina Antolini, and Lena Richards. It was edited by Wendy Dorre and engineered by Rowan Nemisto. Production assistance from Dahlia Haddad.

37:17It features original music by Dan Powell and Marion Lazano. That's it for the Sunday Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.