Not Quite So. Less Than, In Fact. OK, The Exact Opposite.
I think maybe the worst movie ever is Perfect starring Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta from 1985.

Sure, I get a little bit of joy from the irony of the title, but other than that, it has almost nothing to offer at all.

Before I go any further, let me just say that I know there are movies that are far, far worse from a technical standpoint. But to be the worst movie ever really requires something more than mere failure or the lack of a budget. Something about it has to be transcendently offensive on both a high-art and basic human experience levels. I mean really stomach turning like sun-dried tomatoes or guacamole or David Schwimmer.

Many people when asked will say the worst movie ever was Plan 9 From Outer Space by the late Ed Wood, but really, that's just piling on. That movie never had anything going for it. It was made by an incompetent with no budget. It is what it is and it is so honestly. Don't get me wrong, it's still unwatchable, but what else could anyone expect?

Also, to be fair, I've never seen all of Perfect in one sitting. I see parts of it on HBO 7 from time to time in the breaks between the nightly soft-core Skinemax featurettes. I can say with confidence, though, that I have seen more than enough of it to judge.

It's most egregious crime is that it's a fad movie that either a) doesn't realize it's a fad movie or b) and this I think is more likely--is actively trying to make a fad movie that "says something".

Trying to outgrow it's concept is offensive to really good fad movies. The BMX fad movie Rad was really really terrible, but man if you loves your BMX, it gave you exactly what you were looking for. It had a lead character named "Cru" with a Chachi haircut and Adrian Balboa in a rare non-Rocky non-Godfather appearance. It was designed to suck.

Or consider the ultimate examples, break dancing fad movies Breakin' and it's notable, acclaimed sequel Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Turbo and Ozone (shout out to Shabba Doo!) use break dancing to save the community center (probably... it's been a while). Also there was a white girl. I still can't for the life of me figure out why, but there she was. Full diet of poppin' and lockin', although the dialogue might have been a little... um... light.

The point is these films knew their places. Their awful, criminal places in the ranks of all-time film greatness.

Perfect is about the aerobicizing, leg-warmer-and-leotard-with-headband-wearing gym craze of the early-mid 1980s that made Jane Fonda extremely wealthy thus denying the world the Barbarella sequel it still so desperately needs.

First rate production values with (what was then) an A-list cast. For a fad movie. Add to that totured dialogue filled with endless self-contradictory pseudo-philosophizing about the dramatic and lasting cultural imporance of rich fat ladies all doing jumping jacks at the same time to pop music. And most of these words spoken by John Travolta, whose fame on any level as an actor has and always will perplex me to no end.

It tries to take the shallowest of baby boomer fad-lettes and pretend it has deep social and historical resonance. At one point, Travolta talks alot about Emerson and parallels the fitness fad with spiritual revival movements of previous centuries. Never mind that what they're actually discussing is the absolute triumph of corporate mass media (JLC's club is a corporate chain) mixed with no small part of advertising-induced and supported body shame and image construction that no amount of gym-going could ever satisfy or assuage for a wide majority of the population.

Yes, I think I remember Emerson saying: "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. But three more reps on the ThighMaster and you could probably squeeze your fat ass into a fly pair of Jordache."*

Also there was some kind of political corruption scandal thing in the plot somewhere, but if I keep talking about this movie my soul will die for lack of nourishment.

Trying to be even handed, I'll think of something that was positive. Er... oh yeah! It featured Jamie Lee Curtis, who is crazy crazy hot. I know it's sexist and probably more enlightening of me rather than the awful, awful movie. But there is some cosmic justice to the fact that she is married to ordinary-looking genius comedy hermit Christopher Guest.

Not really a positive in terms of the movie, but it does let us know there is goodness and light, however small the spark, in a black, hopeless universe that produces movies like this one.


This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.1


Pops


*= my eternal apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson and all his descendents for that last line.

- posted by Pops @ 8:43 AM