The Film Fool

What happens when you mix Steve Guttenberg, post-Breakfast Club Ally Sheedy and El DeBarge? Something so bad that even kids born 10 years after Short Circuit was released know who Johnny 5 is…and are laughing at him.

It’s hard to know where to start with Short Circuit. As with any “good” bad movie, it’s one that can be joyfully ripped on from beginning to end from a multitude of angles. Annoying, one-dimensional characters. Bad dialogue. Tearfully putrid acting. Glaring movie mistakes. Confusion as to who the audience is. And two freakin’ scenes featuring robot dancing…and at least one with robot singing.

For those who’ve never seen the movie, here’s the premise: A military weapons manufacturer in Oregon develops five prototype battle robots. During a demonstration for dignitaries to promote this new future of war technology, one of the robots – Number 5 – is struck by lightning. The robot escapes from the weapons facility and enters the community, soon befriending Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), a granola-type animal lover, and military hater, who immediately believes that Number 5 is alive. Given that this robot is military grade – and quite expensive – the weapons facility sends out its security force to try and recapture the robot. Number 5′s developers – Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) and Ben Jabituya (Fisher Stevens) also go in search of the missing robot. While avoiding the security force, number 5 foils an attempt by Speck’s ex-boyfriend to capture him for a reward, destroys the other four robots sent to capture him and convinces Newton Crosby…again, the person who built this robot…that he is actually a living being. The movie ends with Newton, Stephanie and Number 5 (now preferring to be called Johnny 5 after hearing the El DeBarge song, “Who’s Johnny.”) moving to Montana to live together on Newton’s inherited land.

Sounds so good, there had to be a sequel…right? Well, there was. And there were plans for the third, but even Steve Guttenberg didn’t want to be in it. Now that’s saying something.

Let’s first talk about Ally Sheedy. This movie, I believe, single-handedly destroyed her career. Look at the films she was in before: War Games. The Breakfast Club. St. Elmo’s Fire. And she was offered, but turned down, the role in Top Gun played by Kelly McGillis. She was officially a member of Hollywood’s “Brat Pack.” Life couldn’t get any better. Then she decided that Short Circuit was a good career move. Didn’t the fact that she was opposite Steve Guttenberg and a robot clue her in to anything?

"Sure, I'll drink to the end of my career."

Following Short Circuit, she finds herself in Maid to Order, then Short Circuit 2 (but just an uncredited voice part) and a series of other movies I’ve never heard of. Well, she was in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, but it was about a 10 second scene. She didn’t even have a character name…just “New York ticket agent” – yikes!

The problem with her role in Short Circuit is that she’s supposed to be the heroine, but all the viewer finds themselves thinking is how bad they want to punch her in the face. Every scene she is either ultimately annoying or unbelievably melodramatic. Either Sheedy failed this part miserably, or she absolutely nails the perfect portrayal of someone with uncontrolled bipolar disorder.

But Sheedy can’t be completely blamed – the dialogue she has to utter is just plain idiotic. When her character realizes that Number 5 is not an alien, but instead a robot from the local weapons facility (it took her a day to actually look at the “alien” and see its easily visible plate indicating this), she gets upset and immediately calls the evil “warmongers” to have it retrieved. But then Number 5 tells her that he’s alive…and that’s all it takes. She’s a believer. Don’t mind the metal, wires, circuit boards and the fact it’s powered by electricity. It’s computerized voice uttered the words – “I’m alive” – and she sees it as a living being.

Another gem of a line is when she’s trying to convince Newton that the robot…again, that he built…is alive. Newton exclaims that number 5 is a machine, and Stephanie retorts – “I’m a machine. You’re a machine. And we’re alive!” Well played Miss Speck…well played.

Let’s move on to Johnny 5. Ok, I’ll refrain from ripping on all the technological idiocy because it would be unending. Hollywood always has a way of dumbing down technology that treats the audience like morons. Have you ever seen in movies that feature computers that the operator is just typing away feverishly as the screen flashes with activity? When has a computer ever done this? Typically, you see this kind of interaction in movies that feature computer hacking. Because there is so little understanding of how hacking actually works…or the fact that it’s a lot less exciting to look at in reality…movies play this up with graphics jumping all over the screen as the operator types 60 words a minute. Drives me crazy. With a little bit of reality, one could achieve the same level of excitement, while eliminating the endless amount of geeks like me from ripping it apart.

Anyway, this type of computer “programming” happens throughout Short Circuit, but there are other “technology” examples that I just can’t let pass. First, why were these robots built with eyebrows? Next, in order to shoot their laser cannons, the robots need to be directly looking at their target. In other words, the whole frame needs to turn in order to aim. Yet, they are somehow built to exactly imitate John Travolta’s dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. Third, if these robots have tracks to be able to traverse any terrain or obstacle, why are they able to jump? And, limiting myself to four points of disgust…if these robots are made to be unstoppable in battle, why – oh why – do they feature a big red button, easily reachable on the outside of their frames, that completely shuts down all operation?

Alright, I said only four things, but, in honor of Number 5, I’ll do one more. At one point in the movie, Newton is looking at Number 5′s electronics and there’s a series of about eight wires that the robot has simply repositioned to become “alive.” Also, slightly earlier in the film, Number 5 turns the other battle robots into the Three Stooges by simply moving a couple of these wires. Wouldn’t that mean these robots were already programmed to act like the Three Stooges or to act “alive?” How would switching wires change programming?

"You may be metal, but you're giving me wood."

Ok, enough of that point. Then there’s the question of who is the audience for this movie. The quick reaction is kids. Number 5 acts like a little kid and there’s a lot of slapstick kid-friendly humor throughout the movie. Also, with characters being so one-dimensional, it resembles a Disney film…making it easy to understand who are the good guys and who are bad. That’s all fine and good, until we hear some of the lines from Fisher Stevens’ character, Ben. There are many times throughout the film that his dialogue is clearly adult. The best example of this? At one point, Newton – who has now figured out he likes Stephanie – is telling Ben how he was sitting with Stephanie at the diner and had a close talk with her. Ben’s response is something like “oh, you have me sporting a woody.” Beyond the concern of how a young kid is going to interpret this, why does hearing about a man talking to a woman get Ben physically aroused?

I could go on and on with Short Circuit, and that’s what makes it so enjoyable. Every time I watch it, I find something new to enjoyably despise. Here are some scenes to look out for to get started on your own ripfest:

-Right at the beginning of the movie when the weapons facility is doing its demonstration, a robot makes the speaker a drink and brings it to him. He takes a drink and says “just the way I like it, shaken not stirred” and you hear a guy in the audience laugh way too hard at that joke. And I’m talking pants-peeingly hard.

-Each one of these robots is valued at $11 million. But the van Newton and Ben are driving includes enough spare parts to build an entire new robot from scratch. Also, in another scene, Number 5 has a damaged arm and just happens to find a locker full of spare arms in that same van. If these are all prototype robots, what would be the point of having enough parts in this one van to build extra robots?

-When the four other robots are hunting for Number 5, one of the robots sees him and orders the other robots to capture, not destroy it. That same robot then proceeds to shoot a laser at Number 5 that earlier in the movie had the ability to blow up a tank.

-These robots are built of metal, so they are likely impervious to bullets. Yet, every time the security force tries to destroy Number 5, they shoot at him with pistols. Of course, it doesn’t matter anyway, Number 5 can outrun bullets. (Conveniently, when Number 5 builds a replica of himself to fool the security force, that’s when they shoot a cannon to destroy it).

-During one of the scenes in Stephanie’s house, see if you can spot the arms of the person operating number 5 as it turns to run.

-There is a scene where Stephanie’s truck breaks down and comes to a stop. But when we see her interactions inside the truck, the scenery outside the window is still slowly moving.

-There’s a scene where Stephanie brings Number 5 outside her house in the morning to watch the sunrise over the ocean. But this is in Oregon. Therefore, this is the Pacific Ocean. Since when does the sun rise to the west?

Let’s face it…it’s not tough to make a bad movie. Every year, Hollywood churns out countless steaming piles of celluloid excrement.

Just look at 2010 alone. A year that brought us such glittering jewels of film perfection as The King’s Speech, Inception and The Social Network…also excreted Sex & The City 2, Grown Ups and Little Fockers. Sadly, there are typically more examples of the latter than there are the former. Why? Because most bad movies still make a lot of money.

Grown Men Peeing in the Pool = Hi-Larious

These days, the movie industry is more of a business than an art. And though great movies make money (for instance, The King’s Speech made $135 million domestically on a $15 million budget), bad movies are easier to produce and many times make more at the box office (Grown Ups generated $162 million). So the 2010 best picture was beaten in revenue by one-and-a-half hours of fart jokes. Ok, there is a bright side. When you add in the foreign grosses – The King’s Speech made a whopping $405 million, whereas Grown Ups made $271 million. Yikes…maybe that’s not a bright side because what does it say about the American viewing public?

Even in this environment of rewarding the creation of bad movies as much, or more, than putting the time and effort into delivering a truly good film, there is a third category that miraculously appears when the stars align just right – bad movies that are somehow good.

Whether you refer to them as “guilty pleasure” films, “movies you love to hate” or, in this blog’s case, the “best” bad movies – there are just some movies that are so bad…they’re good. These are those movies that you know are stupid, but yet find yourself stopping and watching while surfing the channels on any given lazy Saturday. It’s like what supposed alien abductees refer to as “lost time.” You don’t know how it happened – but you’ve seemingly been in a trance for the past hour watching Roadhouse on the USA network.

It’s hard to know where to give credit for a “good” bad movie. These are movies typically featuring lame premises, marginal actors, directors who moved on to doing music videos, and screenplay writers who end up in advertising (my attempt at self-deprecating humor). They have nothing going for them – but somehow they achieve a new level of perfection. And many times they will live on for years bouncing around the ubiquitous cable networks, continuing to keep royalty dollars flowing to all involved. In 1989, Driving Miss Daisy won the best picture award…but when’s the last time you saw it playing on TNT? Roadhouse came out that same year…and when’s the last time you could cruise through all the channels without seeing it on? Ten bucks says Morgan Freeman is still kicking himself for not trying out for the part of Wade Garrett.

Wade Garrett Will Get Plenty of Sleep When He's Dead, Mijo

But another aspect that makes “good” bad movies even more mysterious is they rarely can be successfully pursued. They just happen. And they typically can’t be duplicated (i.e. Road House 2: Last Call). It seems when someone tries to make a movie that’s so bad, it’s good – they end up with just plain bad (i.e. Dude, Where’s My Car).

So enough of the setup…what’s this blog all about? Well, with every entry, I’ll visit a movie that I consider to be one of the “best” bad movies – recapping some of its qualities that makes it so beautifully bad. My intention is simple…I want more people to see these movies and revel in their badness. And, in the process, I’d love it if people would bring their own ideas of “good” bad movies to my attention. I’ve watched my share of crappy movies, but there are not enough hours in a lifetime to discover everything bad movies have to offer. Tapping into a bigger pool of bad movie fans will ensure I get to see more of the worst Hollywood has to offer.

I have two simple rules for determining if a movie qualifies for “good” bad movie status. It must have a less than 7-star rating on IMDB.com or less than 50% on RottenTomatoes.com. And it can’t have been nominated for any awards…unless they are Razzies, of course (see Razzies.com).

That’s it. Let the good badness begin. I’ll have the first post up next week. And let me know in the meantime…or anytime…if there’s a movie you think I should consider.