How I learned to love the bombs
Nick Reilly
Issue date: 2/4/10 Section: Entertainment
The Hollywood bomb, it pops up with every new crop of films. From the minor flop like this season's "9," not necessarily a bad movie, but by no means a hit, to the embarrassment of the never-coulda-been adventure movie "The Battle for Terra." Don't know what that is? Exactly.
There were a few bombs in the past decade that had their day as a sort of cultural touchstone for bad cinema, though they might find their stock rise as cult fare as time goes on. Perhaps some movies just didn't have the opportunity to live up to their potential. Maybe they just really, really sucked. However, today's bomb is often tomorrow's ironic camp-fest.
Before we go on, let us establish a basis of criteria for what is and is not a bomb. A bomb is a movie that fell well below expectations at the box office. A movie that unexpectedly tanked. For instance, I'm sure that anyone hearing the titles "Son of The Mask" or "Basic Instinct 2" would not have had to see the movie to feel pretty confident in saying they didn't light the world on fire. Whereas a movie like "Speed Racer," which at various times had such illustrious names attached to it as Johnny Depp, Gus Van Sant and J.J. Abrams, could have been a hit but just wasn't.
However, there are many different categories of bombs, and rather than smugly dropping random movie references in a snide manner for the remainder of the article, I will now illustrate the various categories using the 90's ample supply of striper movies as my canvas.
First of all, there is "Showgirls." A bomb, yes, but so over the top funny, with its it's soap opera acting and faux-grandiose eloquence, it tries to be significant and fails so miserably and hilariously you just can't look away. A prime candidate for cult status.
Then there is "Striptease." This movie was a failure because it tried to be funny or campy and came of as just plain lame. Not even a slew of bored Gen-Xers could generate any ironic gravitas for this turkey. Read the book instead.
There were a few bombs in the past decade that had their day as a sort of cultural touchstone for bad cinema, though they might find their stock rise as cult fare as time goes on. Perhaps some movies just didn't have the opportunity to live up to their potential. Maybe they just really, really sucked. However, today's bomb is often tomorrow's ironic camp-fest.
Before we go on, let us establish a basis of criteria for what is and is not a bomb. A bomb is a movie that fell well below expectations at the box office. A movie that unexpectedly tanked. For instance, I'm sure that anyone hearing the titles "Son of The Mask" or "Basic Instinct 2" would not have had to see the movie to feel pretty confident in saying they didn't light the world on fire. Whereas a movie like "Speed Racer," which at various times had such illustrious names attached to it as Johnny Depp, Gus Van Sant and J.J. Abrams, could have been a hit but just wasn't.
However, there are many different categories of bombs, and rather than smugly dropping random movie references in a snide manner for the remainder of the article, I will now illustrate the various categories using the 90's ample supply of striper movies as my canvas.
First of all, there is "Showgirls." A bomb, yes, but so over the top funny, with its it's soap opera acting and faux-grandiose eloquence, it tries to be significant and fails so miserably and hilariously you just can't look away. A prime candidate for cult status.
Then there is "Striptease." This movie was a failure because it tried to be funny or campy and came of as just plain lame. Not even a slew of bored Gen-Xers could generate any ironic gravitas for this turkey. Read the book instead.
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