Would you be IN a bad movie?

I think I saw that one— “Defending Your Life”

After you die a bunch of judges sit around and watch scenes from your life and heckle. And there’s an all-you-can-eat buffet and then you get a free bus ride. Meryl Streep is in it, I think.

It does look like it would be hard to chow down with all the prosthetics. The whole thing looks pretty ambitious for a student film.

I saw that ring—I don’t know why the whole ring over the glove thing never caught on. Ahead of its time.

1 Like

That sounds very riff-able!

Not really; they were meant to be humorous, and actually were, and riffing comedic work is difficult.

I will say this: me and a friend tried our hand at writing a B-movie script (I still have significant chunks of it floating around) and as a MSTie, it was extraordinarily difficult to not write lines designed to elicit riffing. Some scenes and lines were clearly riffing opportunities, but they weren’t designed to be. They just turned out that way naturally by sticking to the genre.

We wanted an honest B, not a wanna-B. :smiley:

3 Likes

This is the quote of the day!

I bet it wasn’t fun at the time, but it’s one of those experiences that makes for great stories later in life.

You’d expect one of the other adults would have been like, “Um, you need to settle down there Jack Tripper…”

Threes Company Reaction GIF by MOODMAN

1 Like

You had me right up to the part about Streep. I’m out.

1 Like

It’s hard for me to imagine this without seeing Sweet Dee and Danny DeVito slithering around in gore on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’d like to think I’d be game for making an appearance in a really cheesy movie.

1 Like

Are you making me an offer? Because I could clear some time in my schedule.

1 Like

I was an extra in Unbreakable, dressed in school colors for the football game during a gruesome Philly summer. Hours and hours of standing and walking in front of the stadium at Penn. I still got a kick out of it, so I’d do it again for a bad movie where maybe I have an axe in my face.

2 Likes

Wait, you mean I’m not in a horrible workplace comedy?!?! I’m calling my agent.

4 Likes

Understood. It’s pretty Hallmark channel sappy. Rip Torn is in it too—does that help at all?

meryl streep spaghetti GIF

LOL What size clearly-visible-zipper monster suit do you wear?

1 Like

Sounds like a blast! (Not a Laserblast, though)

Do you force guests in your home to watch that scene in “your” movie? I totally would.

1 Like

I’m but one of many ready for some football. You can barely see me moving past Willis and MF Jackson. You can see me in the audience of an episode of the short-lived Dana Carvey Show, though. I play the head wound!

1 Like

It hasn’t yet. That is, I avoided it when it came out, and I avoided it 2 years ago when it showed up as a revival. But maybe next time, I’ll think “Rip…”! Or maybe I’ll think, “Well, of Rip Torn movies I haven’t seen, there’s still The Legend of Awesomest Maximus…”

1 Like

Regarding the the incomplete script I mentioned above, if we ever made it to production I was to play the older scientist, who ultimately gets eaten by a dinosaur so the rest of the characters can escape past it. I can only hope I would have caused indigestion. :laughing:

1 Like

I admit, there are a few movies I’ve seen simply because I lived during the time when there weren’t many other options.

You got however many channels and sometimes you just had to settle for the lesser of evils.

1 Like

Excellent death scene. If your character has to die, might as well go big!

It’s a pretty standard B-movie thing. The heroic lead scientist has to escape, along with the female scientist. A little forced perspective, an extreme closeup and an off-screen scream over a shot of everyone else running away and Bob’s your uncle.

I had a great deal of fun coming up with babble that sounded scientific on first blush and fell apart if you actually thought about it for more than two seconds. I used the Smithee Awards categories as a guide to make sure I was hitting the appropriate tropes. The trick was to avoid writing anything that read like a deliberate attempt to get a nomination in any of them. :smiley:

1 Like