MovieChat Forums > Space Cop (2016) Discussion > Being purposely bad for the sake of avoi...

Being purposely bad for the sake of avoiding criticism...

posted 9 years ago by !!!deleted!!! (49761343)
10 replies | jump to latest

When I first heard about Space Cop, I was intrigued. Then I saw the trailer and went, "Nope."

The reason is that it was obvious from the trailer that RLM tried very hard to make this movie over the top amateurish so they could deflect criticism by saying in so many words, "Hey, you can't say it's bad. That's the whole point. We were trying to do the type of terrible Z-grade movies we make fun of!"

This is one of the worst crutches a filmmaker can rely on, to purposely do something over the top bad as a preemptive strike against criticism. A shame, too, that RLM went that route and didn't at least try to attempt a legitimate parody in the vein of, say, Naked Gun or Fatal Instinct, because the concept is pretty funny.

---
Emojis=💩 Emoticons=

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] !!!deleted!!! (49761343) 9 years ago

So far, RLM has pretty much accepted all the criticisms and havent tried to fight it or defend themselves. Which is a sign that they know they fumbled the ball on this one.

That's all well and good, but I'm still disappointed in the fact that they weren't courageous enough to do a straight comedy, as opposed to copping out and doing a deliberately bad movie.

---
Emojis=💩 Emoticons=

[–] jimanchower 9 years ago

That excuse does get old. I've said it several times. They constantly attack (like they did Len Kazarinski's movies) other micro budget movies as being "incompetent" but their own films aren't any better. SC had decent production values but stuff like Gorilla Interrupted or Feeding Fenzy are just as cheap and bad in parts as any of the movies they rip apart.

I really wish they would just once make a movie without the built in excuses. They act like know it alls but they make crappy movies and then go "hey, it's just schlock", meanwhile they're charging $25 bucks for it.

Like I said in another post, I love their reviews and online shows. They have a sense of humor that's right in line with mine. I buy their DVDs mainly to support them for their online stuff which I watch for free. I watch their movies in the same way I watch the amateur "films" me and my friends made. But RLM's "films" are awful when viewed just as films.

I completely understand how hard it is to make a film. I've made several shorts and just wrangling everyone for a small shoot is difficult as hell. I understand they don't have much of a budget and that they didn't have much choice when it came to actors because they're in Milwaukee.

But if they're going to tear apart other films with snarky comments and lecture about how scripts should be done, scenes shot, movies paced, etc, their own films should be better. A lot of SC was just flat and boring. It reminded me of watching The Phantom Menace. I invited a friend over to watch the movie when it arrived and for much of the movie we weren't laughing, we were just watching in awkward silence or talking about things other than the movie.

For a comedy like SC if there are no laughs the movie failed and SC had looooong stretches where I didn't laugh. It had some good parts too, I liked Patton Oswalt's scene with Rich Evans, but even that had some clunkers like the whole "whaaatsup" joke. I get that the "joke" was that old pop culture junk like that became so uncool that it came right around to being cool again....but it wasn't funny.

Mike and Jay were talking about how disappointing it has gotten that every Tarantino film predictably ends in a shootout in one of their reviews and That's the way I feel about their films at this point. It's getting harder and harder to take their criticism of other films seriously when their own films are so bad and I just wish they'd play it straight for once and not really on the "eh, it's just schlock" excuse.

Basically IMO you can't really be snarky and condescending to other films if your own "films" are terrible too.

[–] fliphop 9 years ago

they have said all of that stuff themselves.

and they did not use 'its just shlock' excuse. they made the film they wanted to make.

[–] jimanchower 9 years ago

They constantly say "it's just schlock" or its "schlock" when talking about their movies. They say this when talking about these movies shortcomings.

They use it as a built in excuse for the poor quality, "eh, it's schlock". And when they made SC they made a film, but in many cases it wasn't the film they wanted to make.

If you've listened to the commentary they mention several examples of when they had to compromise quality, like saying they couldn't find actors because they're in Milwaukee or the stripper scene when none of the dancers or people who said they would be there showed for the actual shoot, etc.

just saying if they want to act like film experts and lecture others on how it should be done....they should do it themselves. When they review movies, they don't just review them as traditional reviewers, like Roger Ebert etc. they do it in a very snarky way, they literally lecture other filmmakers on how movies should be put together, what they did wrong, how clueless they are (see RLM's Plinkett reviews for hours and hours of Mike doing this), etc etc etc.

So....if they're such experts on how it should be done...they know how to write a script, pace a movie, direct actors, etc etc etc etc.....why have they made on "schlock"? And "schlock" is their word, not mine.

I'm a fan, but don't tell me they don't use "it's just schlock" as an excuse.

[–] BB-15 9 years ago

by jimanchower;

"just saying if they want to act like film experts and lecture others on how it should be done....they should do it themselves."

Film / music critics; the most entertaining or knowledgeable ones, are almost always not going to be top notch film makers or musicians.

A good review is a different art form from what is being criticized.
That may seem unfair but it's just how it is.
- Take Roger Ebert, the most well known movie critic of his generation. As a film maker? He wrote the script for "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"; a mediocre exploitation film. No Academy Award nominations. No great film making career.

With RLM they will never make a Blood Simple or Memento.
They are not that good and they know it.
One of their heroes is Ed Wood (They have seen Plan 9 about 50 times).
Mike and Jay would hope to be at least cult film classic movie makers but there are even doubts about that.

What's left is their job which pays the bills; being film critic entertainers.
And they are one of the best at that.

Imo at least, BB ;-)

it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈

[–] fliphop 9 years ago

let me be more clear. i am going to run the danger here of completely misinterpreting what they do... but on the other hand i have watched almost everything RLM ever produced. so i am going to go out on a limb and try to explain why this is not "bad on purpose to avoid criticism".

They love schlock. They love watching schlock. They *beep* on Len Kabasinski films for all of their problems, their weird green screens, etc. Then they invite Len Kabasinski to come on their show, then they interview Len Kabasinski and Jack says "We enjoy your movies." Then they put Len Kabasinski in their movie. And now they are working on another movie with him.

Space Cop is not designed to be bad to avoid criticism. It is designed to be an entertaining work for people to enjoy, and also to express the ideas of it's creators. But only certain people are probably going to enjoy it. And those people are probably going to overlook alot of the flaws in it, just as RLM overlooks flaws in a lot of the films they watch to say "I liked it" or "I liked the part where..." or "I loved the effect when...". They have a poster of XTRO in their film watching room. Not Aliens, not Indiana Jones, not Big Trouble in Little China. XTRO. Not that they don't like those big films, but they also like XTRO. They also don't think XTRO is perfect, or maybe even good, they just enjoy certain aspects of it.

And as with the films they enjoy watching, but that maybe other people do not enjoy watching, Space Cop is going to appeal to a certain audience, but maybe not other audiences. Specifically audiences that can overlook flaws to find something they love in the heart of it.

To explain by analogy... it might be kind of like lo fidelity independent musical artists. For example a lot of old indie rock, punk, etc, by many traditional definitions of music quality, was utterly awful. Production values were often bad, with unclear audio on the recordings. The musicians were not necessarily grandmasters of their craft. However alot of obscure lo fi music, including punk rock, is enjoyed by millions of people, sometimes decades after it was originally released. The fact that the audio production values might be sub-par does not matter to the fans... because they are connecting to the music for other reasons besides audio production values. The lyrics, the characters, the feelings expressed, the stories told, etc. And the music was not made bad on purpose to avoid criticism. The music was made to express ideas, and for people to enjoy that expression.

[–] Final_Hitokiri 9 years ago

That's all well and good, but I'm still disappointed in the fact that they weren't courageous enough to do a straight comedy, as opposed to copping out and doing a deliberately bad movie.

One could say that they... space copped out!

[–] marxmith 9 years ago

I came to this realization when I started listening to them talk about it on their Previously Recorded twitch streams. Whenever the discussion of Spacecop came up, they would talk about how it was going to be horrible, and they made it sound like working on it was a chore. I can see why, when you've invested so much of your time and effort into what amounts to be a joke, you'll loose your passion to work on it. Kudos for the time and effort that went into it. It has its moments, but a lot of it felt like filler to get up to feature length.

[–] BB-15 9 years ago

Maybe fatigue got in the way of their vision.
To me looking at the outtakes on the Blu-Ray, there was a lot of funny material that RLM left out. Maybe they became too cautious to try and make a "good" film instead of going full on for Samurai Cop cheese / camp.

I liked Space Cop but it just needed more jokes to get better. And the comedy was filmed; RLM just didn't put it all in the movie.
And that might be because they just got too tired doing it and lost their nerve.

BB ;-)

it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈