Some cinematic turkeys are so bad they achieve a kind of trascendence. Last Christmas, for one | Kathryn Bromwich
You can’t simply set out to create a so-bad-it’s-good classic. But this year’s thinly veiled Taylor Swift biopic, Christmas in the Spotlight, could be a contenderAs a lifelong enthusiast of the “so-bad-it’s-good” sub-strand of cinema, I approach every Christmas with a mix of excitement and trepidation. If at one end of the spectrum we have magical Christmas films (It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Jingle All the Way), passing through the slurry of mediocre, sentimental seasonal cash-ins, what I hope to find at the other extreme is something so truly awful it achieves a peculiar kind of transcendence.Some recent contenders were Last Christmas (a January resolution to eat more vegetables masquerading as a Christmas film; weird Brexit subplot; insufficient George Michael) and Cats (genuinely creepy, but giving way to a confusing, cumulative high as the film progresses, so that by the time Judi Dench says “a cat is not a dog” you have reached a sort of collective hysteria). Continue reading...
You can’t simply set out to create a so-bad-it’s-good classic. But this year’s thinly veiled Taylor Swift biopic, Christmas in the Spotlight, could be a contender
As a lifelong enthusiast of the “so-bad-it’s-good” sub-strand of cinema, I approach every Christmas with a mix of excitement and trepidation. If at one end of the spectrum we have magical Christmas films (It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Jingle All the Way), passing through the slurry of mediocre, sentimental seasonal cash-ins, what I hope to find at the other extreme is something so truly awful it achieves a peculiar kind of transcendence.
Some recent contenders were Last Christmas (a January resolution to eat more vegetables masquerading as a Christmas film; weird Brexit subplot; insufficient George Michael) and Cats (genuinely creepy, but giving way to a confusing, cumulative high as the film progresses, so that by the time Judi Dench says “a cat is not a dog” you have reached a sort of collective hysteria). Continue reading...
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