CONGRATULATIONS TO RANDY ROHN (r2)FOR HIS SELECTION IN THE BEST MYSTERIES OF THE YEAR!!!!
Kieran Shea commented the other day that THE BIG LEBOWSKI is a cult movie. And I hear that all the time so I guess it's true. But for me, the humor in it is pretty mainstream. It has an A-actor cast and well-financed directors that get wide distribution.
I have always thought of cult movies as low budget, campy kinds of things. Like ROCKY HORROR or PLANET NINE.
What makes a movie a cult movie? Is is strictly that it becomes popular after its initial release? Is it that it has a small but ardent audience who will view it repeatedly. Is it that it has unusual themes? You tell me. What is your favorite cult movie?
27 comments:
Office Space is one of my favorites. Juno was pretty good too.
To me, a cult movie is all about speaking a(n unspoken) truth about our society at that time. Budget doesn't matter--though indies tend to be more likely cult movies, since there isn't a marketing department pulling the strings.
I think a true cult movie has to have a disconnect between what the filmmaker originally intended to create and what actually ended up on the screen. The reach really has to exceed the grasp. When we’re watching cult movies, we view them on two levels—the aspiration and the final product. Even though “Rocky Horror” is considered the ultimate cult movie because of how it took root and became a cultural phenomenon, it’s hard for me to believe that when it was being made anyone associated with it considered that it was going to be anything more than a romp. On the other hand, when Faye Dunaway was playing Joan Crawford in “Mommy Dearest,” I’m sure she didn’t think she was about to make one of the all-time cult classics. A lot of the great Technicolor melodramas of the 1950s and 1960s are great cult movies because the aspirations of the filmmakers are so at odds with what was finally released. My personal cult favorite is “The Oscar” starring Steven Boyd.
Yes, I suppose I do have a camp sensibility.
Oh, these are good definitions, interesting. I haven't thought of Stephen Boyd in years.
Office Space was a real surprise and Juno, I just loved.
Plan 9 From Outer Space and The Little Shop of Horrors are my favorites.
Little shop features a very young Jack Nicholson in a bit part as a patient in the dentist's office. I think it was his first acting role.
In my opinion, it's interesting and offbeat characters and plots that make for a good cult movie. One of my favorites is This is Spinal Tap . I also admit I like the tongue-in-cheek parody, too!
I've never seen Planet Nine but the others, yes. What about movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette, for instance? Are they cult movies for people of a certain age? Are their cult movies for different interests: motorcycles, surfing, campy musicals?
PLAN NINE, Patti, not PLANET NINE, as Randy gently corrected...we don't even have a ninth planet any longer, just a whole lot of planetoids.
"Cult" is such an overused term in this context that it has tended to lose meaning...but any film with a fandom seems to be billable thus, though Deb's distinctions are pretty good, and one can make Fleur's argument. It's not quite as abused as "pulp," which actually has a specific meaning, but similarly.
My favorite bit of PLAN 9 is the one effective scene...the zombie Tor Johnson character rising from the (cheaply constructed) grave. It could've used another take, but Johnson is genuinely eerie-looking.
THE OSCAR is the only film (vs. tv) script of Harlan Ellison's yet to be produced...and it was what killed his film career, in part. (The producers rewrote it, but Ellison didn't seem too impressed with what he came up with.) Also, the first and only evidence needed that Tony Bennett can't act (sings brilliantly, paints well, is a piece of wood when emoting in character).
THE WIZARD OF OZ is the ultimate cult classic, Patti. It didn't break even until 10 years after its release. Then, television discovered it and turned it into "must-see" TV.
To me a Cult Movie is one that gathers a small to medium sized, but very loyal and devoted fan base. Often times re-watchability is a key to a film gaining cult status.
The Big Lebowski was released to middling reviews, ok box office numbers and was mostly written off as one of those Coen Bros. films that their fans liked but was kind of light weight coming off of Fargo, and then the Achievers got into the act. One thing that I think really makes a cult film is that on your first viewing you don't catch everything, and it's only when it's rewatched that the viewer really starts to pick up on what is going on.
You can correct me today, Todd, but I don't guarantee next week won't find me calling it Planet Nine again. Doesn't PLANET NINE sort of capture the mood.
WIZARD OF OZ-yes, TV made it gold. Now it's probably on DVD that a movie becomes cult.
Probably any movie will reveal more details on subsequent viewings, but perhaps not the quirky ones these films possess.
Oh Todd, I'd completely forgotten about Harlan Ellison's connection to "The Oscar." I remember another Ellison anecdote though: He wrote a script for the T.V. show "Ripcord" and had a line about a character being compared to "Hemingway, Faulkner, and Camus." When he watched the completed show on T.V., the actress read the line, "Hemingway, Faulkner, and Kay-muss."
For some reason, that has always stayed with me.
When the movie becomes more of an event than just a movie. Rocky Horror Picture Show with their midnight showings and audience participation is a perfect example of this. The Big Lebowski, which is an excellent movie. has still touched a nerve among audiences to inspire Lebowski festivals, which makes it as much a cult film as RHPS.
Well, Patti, the mood of PLAN 9 is that of a bunch of easily-frustrated superannunated children playing "war"--I don't think that (but don't remember if) they ever detailed Plans 1-8.
Deb, were you reminded of that anecdote when W. mentioned his reading of Camus's THE STRANGER? (Short novel about an unreflective guy haunted by his mother and impulsively driven to act out...I can see it...)
Yes, I like the event aspect. It would mostly be a movie you went to see at a theater or with a group of friends at home, probably drunk ones. Was RHPS, the first one to earn repeated midnight showings?
Zombie movies seem like a likely bet for cultdom.
To me, a cult movie is one that attracts and holds an audience--usually small, but not necessarily--that has a borderline unhealthy attraction to that film, and memorizes lines, dress like characters, and may use elements of the movie in their everyday lives.
Prime examples are Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Animal House, Spinal Tap, Clerks. Twin Peaks is a cult TV show.
Star Trek and Star Wars do not qualify. I liked them, but those people are just weird.
The Dude abides.
I love that borderline unhealthy attraction. In that case, Doris Day movies from the sixties are my guilty cult pleasure.
Another goofy movie I would put in this class is Killer Klowns From Outer Space, a really odd little alien invasion movie.
I was skimming my blog roll and misread the title of this post as "What it takes to make a child." Egad!
I used to know the answer to that one, Chris.
Never seen that, Randy. But heard about it a lot.
I haven't the faintest idea what a cult movie is. For generations, Casablanca was considered one of the finest ever made, but now modern critics have reduced it to a cult film. It's a species of dismissal visited upon us by airheads.
IMHO Casablanca could only be cult if you defined it mainly in terms of how often people watch it.
Hay Patti, thanks for the shout out!
I'd have to go with Clint Eastwood's dollar set of spaghetti Westerns.
"Blood Simple"?
BLOOD SIMPLE, the first Cohn Brothers movie. Maybe all their movies are cult after all.
Clint's movies were cult. Are they still? I'm not sure. I think they moved into classics at some point.
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