MovieChat Forums > Glen or Glenda Discussion > This movie is not bad

This movie is not bad


I don't see why everyone says this is a bad movie. I've seen arthouse films and a lot of them are the same way. I am dead serious, this could be considered avant guard filmmaking. If David Lynch had made this, everyone would have assumed the movie was some sort of in-joke he was playing with his audience and it would be considered a decent art film with comedy.

The important thing is it kept my attention and it was interesting, unlike some of Ed Wood's later movies. It can't be bad if it isn't boring. Sure it does not succeed in being that serious and a lot of the ideas behind it are incredibly horrible, but it sustains my interest, and in the end isn't that what makes a movie worth it?

Anyway, there's always "Pull the string! Pull the string!" Which is one of the funniest lines in the history of cinema.

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in my opinion, this film was decades ahead of its time. had this come out around the time of rocky horror (which itself was a bit ahead of the times) this film would have been taken differently than it was. an interesting and entertaining watch, which is all that you can ask of a movie really.

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This movie had no sense of itself, mostly because ed wood had to compromise so many things just to get the picture made. This is really a horrible movie, but entertaining in some parts.

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Glen or Glenda - the musical?

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i think you need to take a few classes on cinema appreciation, this film is as bad as bad gets. sure the movie would be considered 'good' if you attached the name of a director like lynch to it and assumed it to be a joke, but that would require that the movie be an intentional pun and one which the audience is in on, neither of which are true. the point of a satirical movie which pokes fun is that the entire atmosphere of the movie is altered by being purposefully terrible, it gives different 'eyes' to the viewer. this movie wants to be taken seriously, therefore it's just plain pathetic. i seriously think that if ed wood ever did try to make a bad movie he would have made an epic masterpiece to rival citizen kane.

on a side note, this expression of wood's inhibited transvestite fantasies is proof that the guy was a looney tune who needed a qualified professional to help him be rid of the sexually deviant perversion and the confused "wanna-be-my-mother", norman bates syndrome.

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Excuse me, vijilante, but it is not weird to wear women's clothes.

If they're good enough for women, they're good enough for anyone else!

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Vijilante is seriously misguided in his assertions that taking cinema appreciation classes will suddenly improve one's taste in cinema. Cinema appreciation classes are bull... I think we all know that more or less. And who is to say what is a bad movie and what is a good movie anyway. Considering that this movie was sufficiently entertaining, weird, and funny confirms that whatever the initial intentions were. Suppose that Fellini meant Amarcord to be a teen comedy, but accidently came up with his colorful picture, which is universally hailed as excellent. Would that somehow make it worse cinema?

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I seriously doubt that Glen or Glenda, or any of Wood's output, was meant as a joke. It's just at the extreme low-end of the B-movie class, and the sort of ludicrousness that you really truly couldn't write, as a comedy that is. If Wood was really that clever, he would know that there was no way the film could have been a success as a comedy of that kind, an intentionally bad film, a sort of 50s Snakes on a Plane, in that day and age. And I'm pretty sure Wood always hoped he'd be a success.

I'd agree with you, that the movie couldn't be intentionally bad. For me, it's just too contemporary an idea.

I ran the only way I knew how, by placing one leg in front of the other in quick succession.

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someone who thinks 'scooby-doo 2' rules needs quality professional help to rid him of such taste!!!!!

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we are all looney-tunes man. what you're saying is utterly racist and I cannot feel less dislike about your attitude... take note: "Glen..." is my first and so far the only experience of Ed Wood's demented filmaking...

not trying to glorify 'glen or glenda', NOT having any cross-dressing "perversion" or any far-out fetishes, what I saw was a film with nuts, a 'damned' director, who might have lacked the talent, but had the passion. What I saw was an original, if somewhat absurd for some parts, film which kept me interested in what I saw... Nothing is flawless, especially a film by a director credited as "the worst of them all"

comparing this with lynch doesnt make sense, but I dont think that's what the original poster meant. there's no point in comparing completely different things anyway.

aCCept me for what I am / or piss off!
extravaganza, extreme, weird, *beep* :)

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transvestites are not insane, they just think differently than you. Now if you think people who think differently than you are insane then obviously you are insane.

though really isn't everyone...

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on a side note, this expression of wood's inhibited transvestite fantasies is proof that the guy was a looney tune who needed a qualified professional to help him be rid of the sexually deviant perversion and the confused "wanna-be-my-mother", norman bates syndrome.


Man, are you ever full of crap.

Psychiatric help is needed for people that need to change. A paraphilia like cross dressing is entirely harmless, and is only harmful in that people like you, for example, can be dangerous toward people who abandon societial convention. Social convention is mostly arbitrary although it's unlikely you realize it.

If Ed Wood was a pedophile, he'd need psychiatric help. If he was a sadist, it's reasonable to argue that therapy would be a good idea. But cross dressing? It's no worse than having a foot fetish or a breast fetish for that matter.

But your earlier statement says it all:

i think you need to take a few classes on cinema appreciation


Your opinions are directly derived from what other people tell you they should be.

You remind me of the art curator that when presented a painting done by an ape first thought the painting was done by Jackson Pollock, and estimated the painting to be at least worth $15,000 but when informed an ape had painted it, it was suddenly worthless proving that any moron can be a critic.

Incidentally, I appreciate people like Pollack, Dali, and Warhol because of their art. What few people realize is that it's not their creations that are their artwork, it's their "champions" that is their real artwork. Jeff Koons is more recent example of using the public.

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"i think you need to take a few classes on cinema appreciation, this film is as bad as bad gets"

So wait now you have to take classes to have an opinion? Oy vey life is getting confusing for you younglings; back in my day we just used our own instincts to form an opinion.

"People always sing 'Part of Your World' at auditions... that's why I only know one lyric."

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Take all the classes you want to.
Personally I watch movies to be entertained not to sit an analyze them.

Ed Wood may be bad but no worse then people telling others they need classes.

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Oh please. This is at least as good as anything put out by Buñuel or Dali.

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on a side note, this expression of wood's inhibited transvestite fantasies is proof that the guy was a looney tune who needed a qualified professional to help him be rid of the sexually deviant perversion and the confused "wanna-be-my-mother", norman bates syndrome.


Whoooooooh ... alternate reality? Time glitch? What year is it?

...

"and let's do the time warp again"

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Yes, Wood was on the same level as Welles, Bergman,Kubrick and Fellini. In truth and beauty he was a singular sort. The only other artist capable of such verisimilitude was the singular directorial effort of Gabby Hayes now lost to history. His "Captivating Itch of Fellow Tribes," would have stood the tests of the ages. Those in the know, KNOW. All others are merely ancient, juvenile minds!!

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Its so entertaining, its just a baffling film. I love it.

"You've seen it, you can't unsee it", (Futurama i think)

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Baffling if you're not smart ebnough to understand it I'm ytempted to say. Well I just I just said it. When you say something like it's baffling, it's because of your own capacity to understand something, not Ed Woods fault because I understood the movie just find and didn't find it baffling at all. Everything made sense, now am I just more intelligent than you? I don't know, truthfully I would probably say so but that doesn't mean I'm right. Plus, the ability to understand a flick doesn't mean anything. there's different types of intelligence and in the end everyone is equal. There's probably a ton of stuff you can do better than me and vice versa but in the end we're probably all equal. THat's my theory on life, everyone pretty much is on the same level. People maybe more "successful" than others only because of the things they're particularly good at.

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I would like to go on record and say that "vijilante" is an idiot. He seems to be talking through his nose to anybody who likes this movie, or even those who are just defending any aspects of it.

He said that any man who would dress in women's clothing has something wrong with their brain, but there's a lot of men who dress as women. And, believe it or not, most of them aren't terrible perverts or nut-jobs. Some of them even have wives! Gasp!

I'm sure I'd be horrified to learn what "vijilante" thinks about homosexuals, transexuals, or just anybody who is different from what he believes is "normal."

On another note...I wonder if the misspelling of "vijilante" is an "in joke" or if he just doesn't know how to spell it.

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right on man, tell the idiot :)

aCCept me for what I am / or piss off!
extravaganza, extreme, weird, *beep* :)

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i guess in essence when i refer to baffling its a combination of use of stock footage, terrible acting, terrible story, random scene inserts (ie the whipping scene)or Bela Lugusi's role. it's a relatively simple story and has a pre-John Watersness to it. Anyway i would say Ed Wood's best film and pretty interesting. I've seen a lot of strange films and this is in the realm of the stranger ones i've seen.

anyway i don't think this movie has any great depth of meaning aside from being a very good bad film.

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David Lynch would not make it so cheap, but more professionel, with better sound and photography and I doubt very much, he would have this unbelievable ridiculus old woman voice in it saying the sentence with the creator and the wings- the stupid looking farmer maybe.

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The movie made perfect sense to me even with its unorthodox structure and that one scene that didn't seem to fit (which was just put there to literally stretch the film, so if you take that scene out I think it would be a much more clearer film and would kill off all the bad hype around it). I don't really care what some textbook cinema class dorks say, it's really a solid film that isn't impossible to follow, and most importantly (unlike snooty art student films these days) is entertaining, the only aspect that should really define whether a movie was bad or not.

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"a lot of the ideas behind it are incredibly horrible"

No, child murder is incredibly horrible. Wearing women's clothes if you are a man is just a thing that some men do.

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