The Newest Entries	The Poster of the Month
	The Boring Wordy Page	The Links Page

The Wordy Page --
Diary of a Bad Cineaste

Entry Feb, 2007: The change to eBook format

The main body of the Bad Cinema Diary is now available as PDF files, rather than on html pages. The fundamental reason for this is simply that the Bad Cinema Diary has gotten too big for its britches. Once the count started approaching two thousand reviews, maintaining them in that fashion became untenable. And since no one is paying me to do this, I had to find a more time-efficient way to keep the Diary on-line.

The most web-correct solution, of course, would have been to craft it all into a SQL database and create an interactive query-centered site. That might be nice, but a film database is why we have the IMDB around, and for me to create a proper version of such for the Diary would have required a prodigious amount of my time to learn, write and test all the sql and php code. And that is time I really want for other things -- like actually watching the movies, for instance. And if I could get someone else to do it for me, it would take an even more prodigious amount of money. So that was right out.

What I do already have the tools and training for, however, is document design and layout. Keeping the Diary as an ebook (using InDesign) would be easy, fun, and fairly efficient for me. Therefore, the Bad Cinema Diary has become a PDF eBook. I realize that this is a little less user-friendly, I apologize for that. But on the up-side, the diary will hopefully be more readable and portable, with more content and more pictures (these will be added as I continue the process of re-editing the Diary). Also, you can now download the documents to your home computer or laptop for off-line reading at your leisure. Note, however, that the diary pages are laid out for reading on a monitor and are not currently printable.

Advertising

I had hoped to keep the Bad Cinema Diary a non-commercial site, and I will continue to do that as much as possible. But to reiterate a couple of the above points: the Diary has gotten too big for its britches, and no one is paying me to do this. Add a third unpleasant fact: bandwidth ain't cheap. The increasing readership of the Diary is gratifying, I do thank you for that, but as the bandwidth usage grows, so too does my hosting bill. Therefore, I will be experimenting with what I hope to be some unobtrusive (or at least non-obnoxious) advertising to see if I can keep the Diary online without going broke.

Finally, thanks again to all the readers of the Diary. If you have any comments or suggestions, scroll on down to the email contact and drop me a line.

Entry July 1998: Introductions

I have always loved the cheap films -- the 'B' movies, no-budget independents, and drive-in knockoffs.  I have consumed them since childhood and my appetite only grows keener.  Very late in my movie-watching career (1996), it occurred to me that I was seeing such a host of little films that many were quickly forgotten.  In order that I might have a record of which films I had seen, and what I had thought of them, I began this little diary.  At first, I noted only the title and a sentence or two that summed up the film for me.  Later, I began to include more cast & crew data and lengthier discussions.  Thus, the entries are still a bit uneven -- my apologies, I shall fill the gaps as opportunity permits.

This diary is devoted to the B-movies and low-budget flicks of all genres -- an 'A' film will only sneak in here if there's something I just have to say about it or if it's old & forgotten.

And just why the heck do I do this, you might reasonably ask...

The fundamental reason why I am so addicted to the cheap films is that I actually enjoy them. In many cases, a B-movie is a more honest attempt at entertainment than a megabuck blockbuster that seeks to be dazzling more than trying to tell a story. A cheap film is made to make the audience laugh or cry or scream and makes no pretenses at any value beyond that.

Unlike some B-movie reviewers, I actually hope to enjoy most films that I watch. Lately, when given the choice to watch either a movie with a budget of 100 million bucks or one that cost ten thousand, I'll go for the cheap one in a heartbeat. The movie with the shoestring budget is, oddly, less likely to disappoint. Don't get me wrong, I love many a big-bucks movie and even some of the artsy-fartsy stuff -- I think Kurosawa's Ran is magnificent, and Total Recall is one of the best roller-coaster pulp-action flicks ever made.

But... the cheap flick is still the better bet.  Roger Corman, for all the flak he takes, has been responsible for more hours of unabashed, unpretentious entertainment than Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Huston, Capra, and Griffith combined.

When I watch any movie, I give it every chance to thrill me or scare me or make me laugh or cry -- or at least keep me mildly amused. I hope to be able to applaud it rather than insult it.  Failing that, I have been known to do my share of heckling.  There is a certain perverse delight in finding a truly inept film (my personal favorites on this score are Robot Monster and Giant Claw). Although it may not have been what the filmmakers intended, a movie that is hilarious because of how badly it was made is a special joy. In my book, such a movie is not a failure, but rather an accidental success.

If you are the sort of person who rushes to see a flick because it has cardboard sets and its most expensive special effect is a naked woman, welcome to the delightful world of trash cinema!

  Please remember that the comments on these pages are just one man's opinion.   The factual information is as accurate as I can make it, but the only guarantee I make is that I have personally viewed each of these films and this is what I honestly think of them.

EMAIL:
If you have any corrections or amendments to my entries, by all means email me. Oh, and if you want to get past the spam, do not include attachments and do give a specific subject line. Thanks!

Copyrights & Permissions

All material on this site is copyright© by Bruce V. Edwards. It may not be reprinted or translated in any form. The movie still images remain the property of the filmmakers, of course. However, with but few exceptions, all these stills were captured by myself on my own equipment. Feel free to use them on your own website (please copy them to your site, don't just link to them), but please give credit to the Bad Cinema Diary for providing them. Thanks!

Icon Glossary

I don't actually give "ratings" to movies -- there are simply too many ways to like or dislike a flick; a simple numerical rating won't cut it. But I do have a set of "flags" that mark movies with certain salient features. The images on the web are a bit different from the ones I made for the PDF files, but the meaning is the same --here's what the set I'm using now means:

	Good Stinker -- as in, So Bad, It's Good. These are the delightful flicks where the incompetence becomes the main intertainment.
	Gold Star -- I thought these flicks had something a little special; not all of them are actually good movies, mind you, but I did find something in them that was a pleasant surprise.
	Gooey Gorey -- these flicks have way more than the required daily dose of unpleasantly abused body parts.
	Butt Stompin' -- these have at least one superior violent fight or shootout that should get you testosterone pumping (or whatever hormone you prefer...)
	Naughty Nudie -- these have distinctly above average nudity (normally meaning female) in terms of frequency and/or exposure.
	Blue Max Medal of Really Goodness -- okay, for these I'll stick my neck out and recommend them, because not only do I like them a lot, but I think they're really good movies (not always the same thing).
	Lethal Cinema -- as in so bad, it's just really, really bad. These are agonizing experiences that should be avoided by all but the most devoted trash cinema fanatics.