#TrashyTuesdayMovie

Pick Your Poison: Upcoming Trashy Movie Writing Schools

PETERMBALL Writing Advice - Craft & Process , , ,

Trashy Tuesdy Movie Banner

Every now and then, my flatemate and I argue about whose responsible for the ongoing #TrashyTuesdayMovie phenomenon. I say the blame is entirely his, since he’s the one who maintains the schedule and the associated wiki and generally makes sure that we have copies of the movie. He blames me on account of the fact that I continue to show up and tweet every week, and I keep talking it up among people I know. Also, that people I know keep adding fucking films to the list.

I think, with the creation of a banner graphic to accompany this post, I have officially lost the argument. Not that it’s a great banner, nor even likely to be the final version, but I was having a slow evening and felt the need to crack open photoshop.

Tonight we’re going to kick off the first of Six goddamn Josh Kirby films, which I gather are actually one long film that’s been broken up into arcs. We both blame Jason Fischer for this, since we didn’t even know Josh Kirby existed until he foisted Quest of the Delta Knights on us, which led to some furious IMDB searching in order to keep ourselves from nodding off while watching the film. The lead of Delta Knights went on to make Josh Kirby. So did a young Charisma Carpenter.

That wasn’t what sold us on the series. We were totally lured in by the titles: Josh Kirby: Planet of the Dino-Knights; Josh Kirby: The Human Pets; Josh Kirby: Trapped in Toyworld. We fell for this ’cause we’re suckers. And ’cause the titles are fucking awesome.

If you’d care to join us, we’ll be kicking off the twitter-slaught from 7:30 Brisbane time. If you hit the #TrashyTuesdayMovie tag, you should be able to find whoever has gathered for this week’s hi-jinx.

That’s not what I’m posting about.

I’m posting ’cause I need your help.

Y’see, I kinda had fun writing up the #TrashyTuesdayWritingSchool post for Robot Jox last week, and it seems that a bunch of people enjoyed it enough to share the link around. So I’m thinking I’ll write a couple more of them – I’m not sure how many yet, but I figure I can keep going until I get bored or start repeating myself.

But there’s no fucking way I’m writing a series of posts about the Josh Kirby series until we’re done watching it, lest the posts consist primarily of me writing don’t sell me a movie that is not a finished goddamn movie.

So I need you to cast an eye over the other #TrashyTuesdayMovies we’ve watched and pick a handful you’d like to see written up. You can go spend some quality time on the wiki where we archive the tweets if you want to get a feel for what we thought when we watched them/figure out what will cause me the most pain, but realistically you can probably make some solid choices using the following list (sorted by theme and date we watched the movie):

Pre-‘theme’ Films

Conan (2011 version) (17 Apr 2012)
Hawk the Slayer (24 Apr 2012)
Wing Commander (1 May 2012)
Suckerpunch (8 May 2012)

Red films

Red Sonja (15 May 2012)
RED (22 May 2012)
Red Dawn (29 May 2012)

Horror Game Adaptations

Doom (5 Jun 2012)
Resident Evil (12 Jun 2012)
House of the Dead (19 Jun 2012)

Fighting Game Adaptations

DOA (26 Jun 2012)
Tekken (3 Jul 2012)
Double Dragon (10 Jul 2012)

Cyberpunks

Hackers (17 Jul 2012)
Johnny Mnemonic (24 Jul 2012)
Strange Days (31 Jul 2012)

Fantasy ‘Epics’

Beastmaster (7 Aug 2012)
Krull (14 Aug 2012)
Kull the Conqueror (21 Aug 2012)

Queen Soundtracks

Flash Gordon (28 Aug 2012)
Highlander (4 Sep 2012)

Special Challenge Week

Quest for the Delta Knights (11 Sep 2012)

Star Films

Battle Beyond the Stars (18 Sep 2012)
The Last Starfighter (25 Sep 2012)
Starcrash (2 Oct 2012)

Your Kung Fu is Weak

American Ninja (16 Oct 2012)
Gymkata (23 Oct 2012)
The One (30 Oct 2012)

Population Control

Zardoz (6 Nov 2012)
Hell Comes to Frogtown (13 Nov 2012)
Logan’s Run (20 Nov 2012)

Wrestlers!

They Live (27 Nov 2012)
Santa’s Slay (4 Dec 2012)
Ready to Rumble (11 Dec 2012)

Merry Brucemas

The Fifth Element (18 Dec 2012)
Die Hard (with bonus Die Hard 2 action) (25 Dec 2012)
Hudson Hawk (1 Jan 2013)

Not So Super

Justice League of America (1997) (8 Jan 2013)
Generation X (15 Jan 2013)
Fantastic Four (22 Jan 2013

They Came to Earth

Beastmaster 2 (29 Jan 2013)
Masters of the Universe (5 Feb 2013)
Super Mario Bros (12 Feb 2013)

Super-Cars

Speed Racer (19 Feb 2013)
Death Race 2000 (26 Feb 2013)
Black Moon Rising (5 Mar 2013)

Ophidiophobia Goes AWOL

Boa vs Python (12 Mar 2013)
MegaPython vs Gatoroid (19 Mar 2013) 

I’m the ophidiaphobe in question here, so both these films are off the menu. Sorry, but watching these will fuck me up in ways it’s better not to talk about in public.

Undead and Undressed

Return of the Living Dead (26 Mar 2013)
Zombie Strippers (2 Apr 2013)
Zombie Lake (9 Apr 2013)

Slacker SF

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (16 Apr 2013)
Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (23 Apr 2013)
Repo Man (30 Apr 2013)

Future Sports

Salute of the Jugger (7 May 2013)
Rollerball (2002) (14 May 2013)
Robot Jox (21 May 2013) Excluded on the grounds that it’s already written up

And that’s the list of options. Pick you poison, if you’re so inclined, and I’ll see if I can dredge some writing lessons worth learning from your trashy movies of choice. And to get around the first comment my flatmate is going to make, “All of them” is a perfectly valid choice (albeit one that will likely leave you disappointed).

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , ,

So every Tuesday I get together with my flatmate and a random assortment of other people to live-tweet a trashy movie with (usually) some kind of SF-nal flavouring. We’ve been doing it for over a year now and, due to some weeks off on account of work, finally clocked up our fifty-third film when we tweeted our way through Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

Turns out this was a particularly fine choice of film, for all there are folks who wail when you label Bill and Ted as “trashy.” For starters, it turned out Kathleen Jennings had never seen this particular stain of late-eighties awesomeness, so we lured her along for the screening. For another thing, it’s one of those films that ’caused a whole bunch of the #TrashyTuesdayMovie regulars to fire up their DVD players and join in, which makes this the second time one of our movie hash-tags has done the trending thing.

Apparently, when #WyldStallyns trends, it results in a whole lot of people being very happy to see #WyldStallyns trending, even if they aren’t entirely sure why. Then there’s a lot of film quotes, and fond memories of the film. It makes me happy to think that all of these people went and rewatched Bill and Ted at some point this week (as opposed to the weeks when we watch, say, Zombie Lake, and I fear for the folks who find themselves curious as to the kind of film that can make me wish death upon an entire cast. FOR ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT WATCH ZOMBIE LAKE).

My Flatmate rarely joins in with the tweeting, but being the kind of guy who has a curatorial bent he regularly maintains the results of the twitter stream over on a Trashy Tuesday Movie wiki. Mostly he achieves this by doing some arcane cut-and-paste of my twitter stream that I can’t quite follow, but it does mean we end up with things like this week’s stream preserved for posterity:

  • About an hour ’til tonight’s #TrashyTuesdayMovie. Join us as we follow Bill and Ted’s most excellent adventure through time #WyldStallyns
  • Its kinda scary how excited I am for this. #WyldStallyns #PartyOn pic.twitter.com/KUGsO13Cre
  • Full house this evening – @tanaudel and @PrimeSarahBlue have joined us for the #TrashyTuesdayMovie #WyldStallyns
  • I choose to start the movie…now #WyldStallyns
  • There is no more eighties beginning to a movie that to unleash Big Pig on the audience #WyldStallyns
  • It scares me that this is the film Keanu made *after* Dangerous Liaisons #WyldStallyns
  • I’m going to spend this film alternating between wishing Alex Winter would get a longer shirt and envying his abs #WyldStallyns
  • Man, when was the last time you heard teen slackers wishing they could get Eddie Van Halen on guitar #WyldStallyns #SoEightiesDude
  • Thanks to great leaders such as Genghis Kahn, Joan of Arc, and Socratic Method… #WyldStallyns
  • “Your final report really must be something special” Flatmate: I smell a whacky adventure coming on #WyldStallyns
  • [@tanaudel] So not used to Keanu not brooding #WyldStallyns
  • I still find myself wishing I had a copy of this movie’s soundtrack #WyldStallyns
  • Oh, George Carlin, you are too damn good for this movie #WyldStallyns
  • Digging the crazy special effects #WyldStallyns #SoDamnEighties
  • The fact that we’re in the future and don’t say goodbye with “Be Excellent to Each Other” disappoints me #WyldStallyns
  • “That’s Captain Ahab, dude.” Obviously they’re not failing English Lit #WyldStallyns
  • Aaah, the 80s where the threat of military school lived strong #WyldStallyns
  • I’m resisting the urge to answer every “Greetings, my excellent friends” with “Party On, Dude,” but only just #WyldStallyns
  • “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.” #WyldStallyns
  • Man, it took me so damn long to get the “69 Dudes” joke #WyldStallyns #IWasInnocentOnce
  • It’s sad that this was once a film with state of the art effects #WyldStallyns
  • Aparently Stephen Herek, who directed Bill & Ted, was also responsible for the ’93 Three Musketeers film, That explains a lot #WyldStallyns
  • Now wondering how this would’ve worked with the abolition of phone boxes & advent of smartphones #WyldStallyns
  • Man, when was the last time you had *multiple* Van Halen references in a film? #WyldStallyns
  • When given access to all space and time, the obvious answer is “go some place they won’t card you when buying beer” #WyldStallyns
  • It’s like the writers had, like, met teenagers, dude #WyldStallyns
  • It’s always the cowboys who bring a gun to a wedgie fight #WyldStallyns
  • “The only true wisdom consists of knowing that you know nothing.” “That’s us, dude.” “Oh yeah!” #WyldStallyns
  • How did it take me *twenty damn years* to buy this film on DVD? #WyldStallyns #SoFrickenGood
  • Socrates and Billy the Kid. Together, they acclimate to the 20th century and fight crime #WyldStallyns
  • “It’s a history report, not a babe report.” “Bill…those are historical babes” That’s why Ted’s the ladies man #WyldStallyns
  • I told @tanaudel she was the wrong age to be watching this for the 1st time. Judging by the giggling, I may have been wrong #WyldStallyns
  • One day, at a funeral, someone is going to bust out “Most non-triumphant. Don’t be dead, dude” in the speeches. #WyldStallyns
  • Man, how did we discount the possibility of using #MedievalDickweed as our hash tag this evening #WyldStallyns
  • Somehow, guys, I don’t think armor works like that #WyldStallyns
  • When they remake this film – and they will – it’ll be ruined by a series of really, really overt drug references #WyldStallyns
  • Other tags we could have used: #DukeOfTed #WyldStallyns
  • Also, #RoyalUglyDudes! #WyldStallyns
  • Is it deus ex machina when it’s not the end of the film, and one of the machina is Billy the Kid? #WyldStallyns
  • I think we’d all be more tolerant of call center operators if they busted out “Party on, dude” more often #WyldStallyns
  • Wondered why no-one has done the futuristic air-guitar scene as a flash mob. @PrimeSarahBlue accepted the challenge #WyldStallyns
  • Flatmate: That Napolean, you can’t take him anywhere. He wants all the ice cream. He wants all of Europe #WyldStallyns
  • That Socrates, such a show pony #WyldStallyns
  • My all-time favourite thing about this film? Joan of Arc is played by a member of the Go-Gos #WyldStallyns
  • Flatmate: The one thing you didn’t know about Jane Wiedlin (Joan of Arc)? She’s a dominatrix. Me: This film gets more awesome. #WyldStallyns
  • The guy who plays Napolean is kinda awesome #WyldStallyns
  • They may not pass history, but they can repair future-tech with chewing gum. What more do you want from your education? #WyldStallyns
  • The great brilliance of George Carlin is his ability to deliver straight lines that make Star Trek seems scientifically sound #WyldStallyns
  • [@StaceySarasvati] For some reason I always end up on twitter on Tuesday nights watching @Petermball watching bad movies.
  • I would buy the Joan of Arc work-out #WyldStallyns
  • Flatmate: Socrates is a pimp #WyldStallyns
  • Poor Ziggy. He just can’t compete with the pimping sandals #WyldStallyns
  • It will probably cause @kapowe to murder me, but I regard this as Al Leong’s finest film role #WyldStallyns
  • I really kinda pity the cop stuck questioning Freud #WyldStallyns
  • SAN DIMAS HIGH-SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES! #WyldStallyns #HadToGoThere
  • “Our historical figures are all locked up and my dad won’t let ’em out.” #WyldStallyns
  • [@tanaudel] Ted’s basically a Wheel of Time heroine – sniff, toss hair, stamp #WyldStallyns
  • [@tanaudel] Time travel in advance. Smart. #WyldStallyns
  • One of the great disappointments in life is that there’s no hot riff when I do air-guitar #WyldStallyns #MovieSetsFalseExpectations
  • [?@TheBaronCB] There are moments in this movie where the effects of time travel are more complicated than Inception #WyldStallyns
  • It’s a very different experience watching this film with @PrimeSarahBlue. She gets the metal jokes the rest of us don’t #WyldStallyns
  • I posit this film is the platonic ideal of all future Keanu “Whoa’s” #WyldStallyns
  • So I’m curious – where did they get Gengis Khan’s weapon? #WyldStallyns
  • [@tanaudel] I think it’s been established it is impossible to have a plot hole in this film #WyldStallyns
  • [@alexadsett] Just a minor Oedipal complex #WyldStallyns
  • Four score and…seven minutes ago… #WyldStallyns
  • You have to give it to them – they celebrate their history report with some epic high-fiveing #WyldStallyns
  • Ted in a Hawaiian shirt just seems odd #WyldStallyns
  • Noooooo! It’s almost over #WyldStallyns
  • [@tanaudel] Oh! 80s prom dresses! My eyes!!! #WyldStallyns
  • All we’ve got left is one last moment of Rufus awesomeness and some flying V guitars #WyldStallyns
  • And that’s the #TrashyTuesdayMovie for this week. It was most excellent #WyldStallyns
  • Next week, we continue our series of Slacker SF films with Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. #TrashyTuesdayMovie
  • It always weirds me out whe the #TrashyTuesdayMovie hashtags start trending in Australia.

Why post about this now? Well, for one thing, we’re watching Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey on the 23rd. We’ll kick the movie off at 7:30 pm, Brisbane Time, and we’re always happy for people to come join us. Bogus Journey isn’t quite the slacker masterpiece of the first film, but it has…well, Death, for starters, and that makes up for a variety of ills.

For another thing, a year of Trashy Cinema has been pretty educational from a writing point of view. There’s been plenty of films that made me think, oh, god no, please never let me do that in a story, but just as many that are examples of how to do tricky things with a seemingly impossible premise and make them workable. Not always good, but good is an aesthetic construct anyway, and I tend to find that a lot of films that are thought of as “good” traditionally leave me cold (shakes fist at 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Because I like to share, some of the stuff I’ve picked up from these films is going to find its way here. Not immediately – right now my day-job devours free time like Galactus snacking on a convenient, nearby planet and I am focused on keeping my writing projects moving forward – but I figure they’ll be rolled out around June when things start to calm down.

This is what I’ve done this Sunday eve

PETERMBALL Journal , , , ,

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When I got back from the Gold Coast, it was time to take a walk.

When I got back from my walk, it was beer o’clock.

When I went to the bottle-shop, they had Mango Beer.

And really, that’s all you need to know to figure out how I reached this point of the evening.

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So here is one of those things that I discovered this weekend: when you read something aloud to my father, particularly if it’s non-fiction, the text isn’t really a text so much as the beginning of a conversation.

We discovered this on Friday night, when my mum was going through the copy of the second Women of Letters anthology I got her for Christmas (This, in and of itself, is something worth writing about, ’cause I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to buy books for my mum and it’s only occasionally that I get it right outside of the cook-book genre). My mum started reading letters aloud, just ’cause, and my dad would start interjecting comments aimed, largely, at the writer of the piece.

It was interesting to watch, ‘specially when my mum pointed out the difference the kindle has made in my dad’s reading habits. He’s always been more engaged with text than most readers I’ve seen – throughout my childhood he was the kind of guy who marked words and recorded them in their own book, and he’s owned some pretty kick-ass dictionaries – but it seems the kind of meta-textual linkages that you can get in an ebook have started to seep over into his print reading as well (he just asks mum to look things up on the iPad instead of tapping a kindle link).

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So here’s the other thing I learned this weekend: the question do you have a woman in your life at the moment is destined to irritate me. ‘Specially if it comes up early in a conversation with someone I haven’t seen in a while.

I mean, seriously, cultural conventions be damned: cut that shit out. People are not defined by their relationship status and, on the whole, whether or not I’m single is probably the least interesting thing I can imagine talking about.

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I watch a lot of terrible movies. I watch them weekly, in fact, and you can usually see the results on twitter (via the #TrashyTuesdayMovie tag) or on the archive my flatmate’s been making in a thread over at RPGnet (although I gather that’s going to end soon).

And yet, there’s still something extraordinary about watching a truly, truly terrible movie. One that’s clinging on to the idea of relevance by one, maybe two, redeeming features. We did that earlier this evening when we sat down to watch Josh Kirby: Planet of the Dino-Knights, which does things to exposition that every writer should see, internalize, and learn to never do themselves.

Worse yet, it’s only kind of half a film. Or, if my suspicions are correct, one-sixth of a film.

It’s gloriously, gloriously terrible. The cinematic equivalent of Space Train, for those who have borrowed said book off me or heard me rant about it’s glorious awfulness.

I truly cannot wait to see how much worse it gets over the next five installments.