[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Since it started in the '80s, Criterion has become synonymous with the best in filmmaking, showcasing movies from all eras and from around the world. This March the folks at Criterion are switching things up and spotlighting something different, the worst in filmmaking. Got to keep it fresh. Although for these movies, it might be rotten.

The Criterion Channel's new collection, The Razzie Goes to… celebrates the Golden Raspberry. It's another film institution founded in the 1980s, which annually gives out awards like Worst Picture and Worst Actor to the most deserving or undeserving in cinema. Many of its dishonorees have become cult favorites like Xanadu and Showgirls, two of the films included in the March collection. Joining me now to talk about their selections is Clyde Folley, video editor of The Criterion Channel and frequent flyer here on All Of It. Clyde, welcome back.

Clyde Folley: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be back.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, today we celebrate the best in bad filmmaking and we want you to tell us what is your favorite worst film of all time? Do you love it in spite of its flaws or because of them? Maybe you think its flaws aren't flaws at all. We're here for it. Call us, text us, 212-433-9692. That's 212-433-WNYC. Shout out your favorite worst movie. All right, Clyde, first question, why do the Razzies belong on The Criterion Channel?

Clyde Folley: That's a good question. I find myself asking the question, why am I the guy they send to talk about the Razzies, an award for the worst films? This series highlights some of the most disreputable films we've ever put on The Criterion Channel. Some I love very much, some worthy of critical reappraisal, some have had critical reappraisal. Why do it? I don't know. I think the immediate answer is counterprogramming. We've been talking about the Oscars for how long? We needed such a break from talking about award season contenders, so that's why I'm here to talk about the likes of the Razzies films.

Kousha Navidar: Well, let's start in reverse alphabetical order with Xanadu, the 1980 roller disco epic, scored by ELO, starring Gene Kelly in one of his final film roles. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this movie was so bad it launched the Razzies. Why is this an essential movie in Razzies’ history and what do you love about it?

Clyde Folley: Well, first of all, I'm going to be honest that this was a new film to me. I hadn’t watched this film until last week when I was asked to come on the show, and I thought, "Well, I need to get my bearings on this series." It's a film with a pretty notorious reputation. It was pretty loathed upon release and has had some degree of reassessment. I got to tell you, I watched this thing and I was fully expecting to hate it, and I did not. I found some very strange pleasures within this film, not the least of which are the songs of ELO.

I think it's worth discussing. I want to take a moment here and say it's perhaps helpful to not think of everything in terms of absolutes. I'll be the first person to admit that there is a large part of my brain that never stopped being the teenager who thinks something sucks or it rules. I think that there's a function for that, but it's not always the most useful thing. Now, in terms of a film like Xanadu, there's some clunkiness in this movie. There's some shaky acting. There is also incredible music and--

Kousha Navidar: We actually just got a text saying, "The Film Xanadu is the worst movie with the best music soundtrack." Sorry to interrupt you but you're speaking to the people.

Clyde Folley: No, it's worth discussing here. It's one of those things where there are inspired moments. It also has optical effects by some of the best optical effects artists to ever do it. There is stuff in there that makes it-- It's not always helpful to say that this is just a terrible film, we don't need to discuss this. I think we need to look at the complexities and the nuances and say within something that is bad, there are also great things.

Kousha Navidar: Art is meant to be absorbed, right? And so--

Clyde Folley: Art is meant to be absorbed. Art is also meant to be messy and complicated.

Kousha Navidar: Well, let's listen to some of that beautiful messiness. Here is a clip from Xanadu.

[MUSIC - Olivia Newton-John: Xanadu]

Kousha Navidar: It's worth pointing out that everyone in the studio started dancing immediately as this song came on. Some of these films won Best Picture, some won in other categories. Clyde, when you and your team were curating the list, what rules were you making for yourself and what did you prioritize?

Clyde Folley: Well, this is where, full disclosure, I did not program this series. I was just sent out here as the representative for the company on this one. I would like to give a shout out to Aliza Ma, the channel programmer who does so much good work for the channel and our many other colleagues who do so much, Kim Hendrickson, Curtis Tsui, Hillary Weston, Peter Becker. There is a lot of firepower behind The Criterion Channel.

It was one of those things where I'm looking at this series and I'm trying to make sense of this lineup. If I had to take a guess as to what the idea behind programming, I think that there are films here that are worth reappraisal, that have been reappraised. There are films that were absolutely battered by audiences and critics upon release. Those films are certainly worth discussing. I also think this includes some of the most infamous films that have ever received Razzie awards. I believe the collection is a combination of those things.

Kousha Navidar: We've gotten a lot of calls coming in. Let's start hearing from some folks. We've got Acacia in Greenpoint. Hi, Acacia. Am I pronouncing that correctly?

Acacia: Yes, that's right. I wanted to call. I love bad movies. I especially have a fondness for like '80s, '90s science horror movies, like ReAnimator/They live. One of my all-time favorites is Frankenhooker. I had recently watched Poor Things, and I was like, "Wait a second, this is Frankenhooker." I rewatched Frankenhooker and I was like, "That's crazy. How come no one's talking about this?" I think that is a really great classic, hilarious movie to watch, and especially if people liked Poor Things, check out Frankenhooker.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you, Acacia. Thank you so much for calling. Clyde, you wanted to say something?

Clyde Folley: Oh, no. I'm so glad you pointed this out. My group text threads last Halloween were popping off on this very subject. I'm glad that this film was being recognized. Perhaps we can get an honorary Oscar for Frankenhooker in the next Academy Awards. I don't know.

Kousha Navidar: We got a bunch more calls. Let's bring them in back to back. We're going to go to Anna from Brooklyn next. Hi, Anna. Welcome to the show.

Anna: Hi. Thank you so much. I love this topic. Two of my favorite terrible movies are both sequels from similar era as Xanadu. The first is Grease 2, which maybe is Michelle Pfeiffer's first movie. I'm not sure about that, but some great singing montages in a terrible way. The second is Staying Alive, which is the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, where John Travolta's character gets a part in this Broadway play about Satan and Finola Hughes, who was Anna Devane on General Hospital, also kind of like a Gen X reference maybe is in it.

In a great scene, he walks from the Upper West Side from her apartment to, I guess, Bensonhurst where he's supposed to live. They show it as if it only takes like two hours and I'm like, "Oh my God, that is a 20-mile walk."

Kousha Navidar: Anna, thank you so much for that call. Let's go to John from Hell's Kitchen. John, what's your favorite worst movie?

John: I think The Criterion Collection should do a box set of Barbarella and Zardoz. Which Barbarella pretty much is like the gay camp movie for the female male gays and then Zardoz would be the gay camp movie for the male gays, because you get Sean Connery walking around in a loincloth through the whole movie and it's so outrageously funny and sexy. They make the perfect companion pieces.

Kousha Navidar: John, thank you so much. Clyde, it looked like you wanted to say something to those listeners.

Clyde Folley: Oh, well, yes. I love Zardoz. Zardoz is- -a fantastic film. Also, very into Staying Alive. The funny thing about bringing up Grease 2, which is also a movie I have affection for, is that it was directed by Pat Birch, who is a talented choreographer and also the mother of Peter Becker, the president of The Criterion Collection. This is all a very small world.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, it's layers and layers. Another movie that I think our listeners would really love to talk about Showgirls. The Criterion Channel synopsis describes Showgirls as both a delirious star-is-born satire and a terrifying vision of capitalism's corruption of the soul. Tell me how you really feel. Let's take a listen to one of its most famous scenes about doggy chow.

Nomi Malone: I don't know what all this stuff is.

Cristal Connors: I'll order for you.

Nomi Malone: Don't they have brown rice and vegetables?

Cristal Connors: Do you like brown rice and vegetables?

Nomi Malone: Yeah.

Cristal Connors: You do?

Nomi Malone: Sort of.

Cristal Connors: Really?

Nomi Malone: It's worse than dog food.

Cristal Connors: [laughs]

Nomi Malone: It is.

Cristal Connors: I've had dog food.

Nomi Malone: You have?

Cristal Connors: Mm-hmm. Long time ago. Doggy Chow. I used to love Doggy Chow.

Nomi Malone: I used to love Doggy Chow, too.

Kousha Navidar: Tell me about why you picked this film for the collection.

Clyde Folley: Just give me two hours. I'm just going to go back and rewatch Showgirls right now. I think Showgirls is a prime example of a film that was eviscerated upon release. You could not get away from the hatred that was being spewed towards Showgirls. Now, here in the comfort of 2024, the pendulum has completely swung the other way, and it is acknowledged widely for the masterpiece that it is.

I think that there was a lot of confusion about what this movie-- First of all, this is-- maximalist filmmaking doesn't even begin to describe Showgirls. I think that there was this sense that it was unintentionally funny, which I think this consistently happens to Paul Verhoeven, the filmmaker who made it, is that his movies are misunderstood upon release or confused for the things that they're satirizing. Then with the passage of time, people just fully begin to understand what they're doing.

Kousha Navidar: Speaking of Director Paul Verhoeven there, he was the first recipient to actually attend the Razzies. Here was his acceptance speech.

Paul Verhoeven: The worst thing happened to me today. I got seven of the worst awards. I'm very happy because it was much better, much more fun than reading the reviews in September. Thank you so much.

[laughter]

[applause]

Kousha Navidar: Do you think that this movie had an impact on movies that came after it in any way?

Clyde Folley: That's a good question. I don't know. I have a hard time answering that question right now because it's one of those things where it's like Showgirls just eclipses anything else that would even try to go near its form of maximalism. I don't know. It's very possible that we are all feeling the effects of Showgirls, and we don't even know it. We're just living with it.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. If you're just joining us, this is All Of It. We're talking to Clyde Folley, who's Criterion Channel's video editor and we're talking about the selection of the best worst movies for the month of March. We're going to take a quick break, but I want to point out one more time, listeners, we want you to be a part of the conversation. Call us or text us, 212-433-9692. What is your favorite worst movie? That's 212-433-WNYC, and we will be right back.

[MUSIC - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart, and we are talking about the best worst movies in your life. I'm talking with Clyde Folley, who's Criterion Channel's video editor, and in the month of March, they are putting out a playlist of the best worst movies that have won a Razzie. A Razzie is a anti-Oscar, I guess. Is that a way? The inverse of the Oscar?

Clyde Folley: That's a good way to put it, yes.

Kousha Navidar: We are asking for you, dear listener, to tell us your favorite worst movies. We have a bunch of calls. I'm going to go to two very quickly. First, Brian in Windsor Terrace. Brian, hi. Welcome to the show.

Brian: Thanks for having me. The best worst movie of all time is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1978, starring Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees and a whole host of other superstars. It's terrible. It's great.

Kousha Navidar: Brian, thank you so much. Let's hear from Angeline in Manhattan. Hi, welcome to the show. What's your favorite worst movie?

Angeline: Hi. My favorite worst movie is the Wachowskis' 2015 Sci-Fi epic Jupiter Ascending, in which Channing Tatum plays a genetically engineered military wolf who zooms around on roller skates, but because his wings were cut off, I don't know where the wings come from. It also stars with Mila Kunis and Eddie Redmayne, and Sean Bean. It's really not lacking for talent, but it's just incredibly misguided and incredibly fun.

Kousha Navidar: Angeline, thank you so much. Clyde, any comments on those two favorite movies?

Clyde Folley: You know what's funny? I have not seen either of those movies, but I would straight up watch Sgt. Pepper's right now. It sounds great, Peter Frampton, Bee Gees, completely reviled, misfire. Yes, I'd probably watch that.

Kousha Navidar: A movie that I'm guessing you have watched is The Blair Witch Project, right?

Clyde Folley: I have watched The Blair Witch Project.

Kousha Navidar: I think most people will be shocked to learn that The Blair Witch Project from 1999 is part of Razzie history. It was nominated for Worst Picture and star Heather Donahue took home the award for Worst Actress. How do you make sense of Blair Witch being nominated for Razzie?

Clyde Folley: It's one of those inescapable cultural forces where it completely dominated the discussion and the Box Office. It was hard to avoid Blair Witch Project in 1999, but there was also a fair amount of blowback to it. At the end, there were so many jokes about it's all shaky camera and people screaming, and it's amateurish, and you're going to get nauseous when you go see it in the theater, that sort of thing. It's all those things still, but I also think that there's almost a sense of shock of the new when it comes to a film like Blair Witch Project, where it's just like, no one had really made that movie before and had been that successful.

25 years later, we see the influence in even the whole creation of a sub-genre of found footage horror films. It's one of those things, where, yes, all these comments were made at the time, but I also think that time has justified it.

Kousha Navidar: My producer, Simon, asked you ahead of this interview what films you definitely wanted to focus on in this collection, The Criterion Collection. We got a response back, which included Freddy Got Fingered. Why must that film be discussed?

Clyde Folley: This is one of those films that I had not seen in a long time, and I rewatched it in anticipation of this program, and I flipped out for it again. It's maybe the most transgressive studio film ever made. It is insane. I cannot believe a studio put out this movie. Yes, there's really nothing else-- Maybe this is just a sign of how brain damaged I am at this point, but it's so funny. It really, I think, embodies this feeling of like, I don't know, people are saying, "How did this get made?" but genuinely, how did this get made? It's pretty remarkable. I kind of love this movie.

Kousha Navidar: Instead of a clip from the movie, let's hear Roger Ebert's review of it from 2001. Here it is.

Roger Ebert: I'm Roger Ebert and what is the most disgusting film of 2001? Well, let's see. In a field that includes See Spot Run, Monkeybone, Tomcats, and Joe Dirt, so we’ve got some great contenders. The champion is Freddy Got Fingered with Tom Green making David Spade look like Jim Carrey, and Jim Carrey look like Lawrence Olivier. It's a vomitorium of a movie starring Green as Gord--

Kousha Navidar: Who would you recommend that movie to?

Clyde Folley: People with strong stomachs, people who are maybe not socially well-adjusted, people who are looking for extremes, people with a good sense of humor, I don't know. It’s just I find it's almost hard to discuss this film because there's nothing like it and-- I don't know. I also want to clarify one thing here because I think there's a lot of discussion of there's some movies that are so bad, they're good. I want to make it clear, this is a good movie. It's transgressive, it's subversive, it's funny. Tom Green did it. Tom Green made a good film.

Kousha Navidar: How do you define a good movie?

Clyde Folley: That's a great question because it's like, what are we looking for here? Because people- -are looking for different things. I'm probably looking for different things on different days. Some people might say that they look for perfection in a film, but that's not the thing that I'm looking for. I think I'm looking for something that is where there's life behind it, where there's, I don't know, there's a viewpoint, there's something new, something fresh. If we're going to speak about objective terms, I don't know, maybe one metric is to judge a movie by what it sets out to do, because different movies try doing different things and have different ambition levels. You can't judge Stranger Than Paradise for not being Lawrence of Arabia. They're doing completely different things. It's like, what is the movie trying to do and does it succeed at that thing?

Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All of It. I'm Kousha Navidar. I am joined by Clyde Folley, who is The Criterion channel video editor. Listeners, we want to know what is your favorite worst movie of all time. Call us or text us 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Clyde a movie, dear to my heart that I want to make sure we point out that's in this collection is The Wicker Man starring Nicolas Cage. Why does that movie belong?

Clyde Folley: I think that when talking about, I don’t know, certain strands of-- you know what, I think that it's useful to discuss the career of Nicolas Cage where I feel like this is a career that has all sorts of arcs. He shows up in the ‘80s and he's doing his own different things. You've got like Raising Arizona and Vampire's Kiss, and he's known for being a very idiosyncratic actor. Then mid-90s he wins an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and then immediately backs it up with The Rock, Face Off and Con-Air. This guy is proving that he's not going to get pigeonholed into doing anything.

Now within his career, there are little pockets that, I don't know, it's almost like he was going from different levels of Hollywood stardom, and there's definitely the period of his career when he's taking so many jobs because he owes the IRS a great deal of money. I think that Wicker Man has a great deal of popularity because, I don’t know, it's a very memeable movie. I can remember this very early YouTube video that's just a compilation of Nicolas Cage's craziest moments in this movie. This is very early YouTube.

Kousha Navidar: This was a movie that launched 1,000 memes so we've got to play a clip. Here's How'd it get burned?

Edward Malus: Wh-what is that? What is that? What is it? Oh, no, not the bees. Not the bees. Aaaahhhhh. Oh, they're in my eyes, my eyes. Aaahhhhh. Aaaagghhh.

Kousha Navidar: Fact check, that was actually the bees are in my eyes, not how'd it get burned. If you would like to see how'd it get burned I encourage you to go to The Criterion Channel and watch the film itself. Why do you think that film was so memeable?

Clyde Folley: Nicolas Cage is doing his Nicolas Cage thing, acting to the rafters. I think Nicolas Cage-- I like Nicholas Cage. I don't think Nicolas Cage is bad in this movie. I think he's maybe the-- I don't know. This is not one I'm not so keen on. It's a tricky one for me. I don't know. I'm going to get lost in the weeds talking about Wicker Man so I'm just going to say Nicolas Cage, doing his crazy Nicolas Cage thing in a tough movie.

Kousha Navidar: This year's Razzie for Worst Picture went to the horror film Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey based on A. A. Milne’s children's book whose characters are now in the public domain. You're a horror guy. Did you see the movie?

Clyde Folley: I did not see that movie.

Kousha Navidar: Do you think that it would live up to The Criterion Channel's need for that like what is art sense to have it fit into the rest of the movies or do you think that it's something new that they're what you're looking for in the future with what bad movies will be?

Clyde Folley: I don't know. It's hard to speculate about a film that I haven't seen. I don't know how to answer that question. Ask me this question again in 20 years.

Kousha Navidar: Are there things that you look for in horror films that make it a bad movie versus other subgenres that aren't necessarily bad and it makes it distasteful but bad and actually makes it more enjoyable?

Clyde Folley: I don't know. It sounds like you're saying distasteful as if that's always a bad thing. I think that there's a place for, I don’t know, transgression, for going against the grain of accepted taste. I think it's all in execution. It’s like is what it's doing worthwhile?

Kousha Navidar: As we're wrapping up in the next few minutes, in general, as you look at this large pantheon of film that The Criterion Channel is highlighting over the next month, why do you think bad film is important?

Clyde Folley: I don't know. I don't think bad film is important. I think that looking at films on their own merits is important. I think it's important to not necessarily listen to what everyone's telling you and to actually look at something and then judging it on its own terms, and whatever your opinion of this thing is, and listening to that. I think there are many times when critics and audiences have gotten things wrong on the first time around. I think that, I don't know, be skeptical of anyone telling you one thing or another to judge something on its own terms.

Kousha Navidar: We've got a couple of texts before we close out this segment that I'd love to read. We just got a text from a listener. “Best worst movie is The Warriors. My brothers and I happened to watch it together years ago and to this day, we are constantly referencing it in conversation and quoting lines at each other. It has provided us a lifetime's worth of humor for us.” Clyde, I can tell you, for me, the story that matches that text is the movie The Room, which did not make The Criterion Channel's list but one of my fondest memories is going to a movie theatre and seeing it with a lot of people. There's a communal aspect to it too, right?

Clyde Folley: There's a communal aspect, yes. Also, Tommy was a very special man who made a very strange movie. I think there's always a communal aspect to movies. With certain kinds of movies, there's an aspect of everyone just in shock and recognizing something is deeply strange at the same time.

Kousha Navidar: What do you think that shock tells us? Do you think that is often meant to be or is it even better when it is totally by accident, which I think The Room might be?

Clyde Folley: I'll take either one of these. I just think that-- what's my choice here, to be bludgeoned by mediocrity or to be surprised or be presented by something that I don't quite know what it is? I'll take the surprise any day.

Kousha Navidar: We were talking to Clyde Foley, who's Criterion Channel's video editor. And the Razzie Goes to… is on Criterion through March. Clyde, thank you so much for joining us and for all of those wonderful tips on the bad movies.

Clyde Folley: Oh, thank you for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Coming up, a new documentary explores the life and work of beloved actor Gene Wilder. It's called Remembering Gene Wilder and director Ron Frank joins me to talk about it next. This is All Of It.

 

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