Pixel Scroll 9/5/17 For Sale: Baby Pixels. Never Scrolled

(1) GAME OF TINGLES. Zoe Quinn has posted a new trailer for Tingle, her dating simulator game based on the works of Chuck Tingle. Dual Shockers has the story — “Tingle Gets a New Pre-Alpha Trailer Featuring a Ton of Actors and Personalities”. May not be safe for work. Unless your boss is a unicorn.

The dating simulator looks incredibly strange. The trailer features a moving butt plaque, horse masks, terribly drawn male genitalia, puzzles, mini-games, and lots more. You can check it out down below. While the game could definitely be considered not safe for work, Quinn is including options that’ll make Tingle less raunchy.
 

(2) PRATCHETT ON DISPLAY. This is the event publicized by running over Pratchett’s hard drive with a steam roller… The “Terry Pratchett: HisWorld” exhibit at the Salisbury Museum (in Salisbury, England) runs from September 15 until January 13.

This is an exclusive major exhibition based on the extraordinary life of Sir Terry Pratchett, the creative genius behind the Discworld series. Follow his journey to becoming one of our best known and best loved writers. This unique exhibition will include artwork by the man himself and treasured items owned by Sir Terry which have never previously been on public display. Also featured will be over forty original illustrations by Paul Kidby, Sir Terry’s artist of choice.?

(3) HEAR SF IN PHILLY. When the new SFWA-sponsored Galactic Philadelphia reading series begins October 24 the readers will be –

Gardner Dozois was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine for almost twenty years, and also edits the annual anthology series The Year’s Best Science Fiction, which has won the Locus Award for Best Anthology more than any other anthology series in history, and which is now up to its href=”http://amzn.to/2xLXXFN”>Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection. He’s won the Hugo Award fifteen times as the year’s Best Editor, won the Locus Award thirty-one times, including an unprecedented sixteen times in a row as Best Editor, and has won the Nebula Award twice, as well as a Sidewise Award, for his own short fiction, which has been most recently collected in When the Great Days Come. He is the author or editor of more than a hundred books, including a novel written in collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Daniel Abraham, Hunter’s Run, and, in addition to many solo anthologies, the anthologies, Songs of the Dying Earth, Warriors, Dangerous Women, and Rogues, all co-edited with George R.R. Martin, the last two of which were New York Times bestsellers. Coming up is a major solo fantasy anthology, The Book of Swords. He has been inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and won the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction. Born in Salem, Massachusettes, he now lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Lara Elena Donnelly is the author of the glam spy thriller Amberlough, and its upcoming sequels Armistice and Amnesty. Her short fiction and poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Mythic Delirium, Nightmare, and Uncanny. She is a graduate of the Alpha and Clarion workshops, and a past winner of the Dell Magazine Award. In the summer, Lara is onsite staff at the Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers. She lives in Harlem, but exists virtually on most social media platforms as @larazontally, and on her website at laradonnelly.com

The venue will be the Irish Pub, located at 2007 Walnut Street, Philadelphia 19103, a block west of Rittenhouse Square, and start at 7:30 p.m. [H/T to SF Site News.]

(4) THE END OF CINEMATIC HISTORY. In Washington, D.C., people are invited to watch “My Favorite Movie with Francis Fukuyama: Children of Men”.

Join Francis Fukuyama for a screening and discussion of Children of Men, the haunting 2006 adaptation of PD James’ dystopian novel (directed by Alfonso Cuarón) set in 2027, when all women have become infertile and humanity is facing extinction.

This is the latest installment of our “My Favorite Movie” series featuring thought leaders hosting their favorite movies, and short conversations about them. Professor Fukuyama is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute and the author of The Origins of Political Order and The End of History and the Last Man.

The screening of Children of Men will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, September 19th at Washington, D.C.’s Landmark E Street Cinema at 555 11th Street NW.  If you would like to attend, please RSVP to [email protected] with your name, email address, and any affiliation you’d like to share. You may RSVP for yourself and up to one guest. Please include your guest’s name in your response. Seating is limited.

(5) FILER ON PODCASTLE. Congratulations to Heather Rose Jones, who has a brand new original short story out from Podcastle.org today, “Hyddwen.” Check it out.

Morvyth, the daughter of Rys, had no desire for a husband because of the passion and the love she had for Elin, the Lady of Madrunion. And after what we spoke of above–sending the gull as love-messenger to her, and the trick with the sack at the wedding feast, and sending the Irishman away empty-handed–Morvyth came to live at Llyswen. And there they spent three years in happiness and joy.

(6) ANN LECKIE, CHEESE EVANGELIST. There’s an uptick in interviews with Ann Leckie’s next book coming out this month: “Hugo Award–winner Ann Leckie talks new book, sci-fi politics, and Provel cheese” in St. Louis Magazine. Lots in here about the Imperial Radch series, and women winning all the Hugos this year – but no tea recommendations! Firm opinions about cheese, though….

St. Louis is home to a not-small number of award-winning creators—and BookFest St. Louis plans to gather them, along with writers from around the nation, in September.

Not least among those authors is space opera writer Ann Leckie, whose Ancillary Justice is the first novel to win the “triple crown” of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke science fiction awards. The book’s Imperial Radch trilogy went on to grab additional Locus awards and prestigious nominations. Leckie will speak at a science fiction panel with fellow writers Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, and Mark Tiedemann.

The September 23 event precedes the following Tuesday’s release of her fourth novel, Provenance, a standalone that’s set several years after the Imperial Radch trilogy and will feature new characters and star systems….

Is there anything around here that you’re a big fan of?

…I find myself often, when I’m travelling and talking to other writers from other places, telling them that they absolutely have to try St. Louis–style pizza. I don’t know what’s wrong with the people who are like, “That’s not even pizza!” Well it is; it’s just not the pizza that you’re used to, right? So I’ve been trying to spread the word about St. Louis–style pizza.

Spread the Provel gospel.

Yes. It’s made in Wisconsin only for the St. Louis pizza market. That’s what Wikipedia said. It’s only—there’s no other use for Provel cheese except us. It’s made almost exclusively for the St. Louis pizza market.

Writer’s note: NPR confirms Wikipedia’s story.

Nowhere else?

Nobody else knows what Provel is. Isn’t that kind of amazing? Which is I think part of why when people encounter that, and it doesn’t act like the cheese that they’re used to—not only is it not the cheese they’re used to on pizza; it’s a completely foreign cheese. So it’s like… [She pulls a face.] But they’re just wrong. It’s wonderful.

I thought you’re one of few who have that opinion. But a decent enough number, apparently.

I mean, it’s our pizza. You have to take it on its own terms. You can’t say, “This isn’t New York style, this isn’t Chicago style,” because it’s not. It is what it is.

(7) ROBBY ON THE BLOCK. William Malone has announced he’s selling Robby the Robot.

ROBBY GOES OFF to COLLEGE. I’m sure this will come as a shock to some of you. I just wanted to let all my friends know that after much thought and consideration, I have decided to put the Original Robby the Robot and his Car up for auction. This is not a hasty decision by any means. It’s actually something I’ve been thinking about for some time. I’ve had Robby for over 37 years and have enjoyed seeing him everyday and having coffee with him every morning (though he always preferred an STP Daiquiri to espresso). While I’ve tried to make Robby available to be seen and enjoyed as much as possible, I’ve come to realize his proper place is in a museum. I’m hoping this is where he’ll wind up. Robby is an icon and a star and just a plain good guy (err robot). Over the years, I’ve always tried to look after his best interests and he certainly has been good to me. I feel like I’ve never really owned Robby, I’m just his caretaker. It’s time for the next part of his journey. He will outlive us all.

Robby will be on sale at the New York Bonhams/TCM auction in November.

(8) SMOKE YOU CAN SEE FOR LIGHTYEARS. TV Line warns “The Orville Review: Seth MacFarlane’s Somber Sci-Fi Dud Crashes and Burns”.

Consider this a red alert to TV fans everywhere: Are you expecting Seth MacFarlane’s new Fox series The Orville to be a fun Star Trek parody packed with wall-to-wall jokes? Two words of advice: Abandon ship.

Despite what Fox’s official site claims, The Orville — premiering this Sunday at 8/7c — is not a “hilarious comedy.” It’s not even a comedy. Yes, there are a few Family Guy-esque punchlines scattered throughout, but as bafflingly as this sounds, The Orville is mostly a straightforward drama… and not a very good one, at that. Riddled with sci-fi clichés and paralyzed by a grim self-importance, MacFarlane’s shiny new vessel ends up being a colossal dud that not only fails to take flight, it short-circuits before it even gets out of the docking bay.

(9) HISTORY FROM ANOTHER PLANET. Star Wars: Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow has been cut loose:

Lucasfilm and Colin Trevorrow have mutually chosen to part ways on Star Wars: Episode IX. Colin has been a wonderful collaborator throughout the development process but we have all come to the conclusion that our visions for the project differ. We wish Colin the best and will be sharing more information about the film soon.

The Hollywood Reporter heard this from unnamed sources:

Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that script issues have continued to be a sore spot throughout Episode IX’s development, with Trevorrow having repeated stabs at multiple drafts. In August, Jack Thorne, the British scribe who wrote the upcoming Julia Roberts-Jacob Tremblay movie Wonder, was tapped to work on the script.

Sources say that the working relationship between Trevorrow and Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy became unmanageable. Kennedy, who had already been through one director firing/replacement on the Han Solo spinoff movie, was not eager for a sequel and tried to avoid this decision.

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • There is a school of thought that if you need to use a bookmark, you don’t have a first-rate mind. Today’s Drabble shows the down side of that. Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the laugh.
  • He also recommends today’s installment of Brevity, a terrible pun which made me laugh (don’t they all?)

(11) WATCHING STINKERS. List Challenges says these are “100 of the Worst Movies Ever” and gives you a chance to add up how many you’ve seen. Apparently I’ve done a pretty good job of sparing my eyeballs, having seen only 15 out of 100. (Was Down Periscope really that awful? I wouldn’t tell you to hurry and see it, but I know I didn’t throw my popcorn box at the screen either.)

(12) HARASSMENT SURVEY. Jess Nevins has published the results of his “Sexual Harassment in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Communities Survey”.

The science fiction and fantasy community has a problem: sexual harassment and sexual predation by men.

I put up a survey recently on the subject. The results, while not surprising, were nonetheless sobering. Of 802 respondents:

  • 24% had been sexually harassed at a convention.
  • 35% had witnessed sexual harassment at a convention.
  • 40% had a family member, friend, or colleague who had been sexually harassed at a convention.

In addition to overall numbers, he collected anecdotal information.

… Some of the victims of harassment refuse to go to specific conventions any more, whether because of that convention’s weak anti-harassment policies, the weak response by the convention’s staff to complaints about harassment, or because a harasser is a regular participant of that convention. Some of the victims refuse to go to any conventions now, because of their negative experiences. Some of the victims are no longer comfortable at conventions unless they are in the presence of a male partner or friend or group of friends. Some of the victims have developed PTSD as a result of being harassed.

(13) MULTITUDES ATTEND DRAGON AWARDS. They may be blurry photos taken with a phone, but they are clear enough to show the number of fans present for the Dragon Awards.

View post on imgur.com

(14) CLOSEUP OF THE EUGIE AWARD. This is a much better picture than I was able to find the other day.

(15) WHO CROSSES THE POND. Hold it, that sounds like an episode plot, not geography. The news story is: ATB Publishing has started shipping copies of Red, White and Who: The Story of Doctor Who in America by Steven Warren Hill, Jennifer Adams Kelley, Nicholas Seidler, Robert Warnock,  Janine Fennick and John Lavalie.

In this book you’ll find the rich history of everything DOCTOR WHO in the USA—from American TV Guide listings of Canadian broadcasts in 1965, through the Dalek movies, the early struggles of the Public Broadcasting System, the BBC sales attempts, the official debut on American television in 1972, the explosion in popularity among US viewers in 1979, the twentieth anniversary celebration in 1983, the conventions, the books, the merchandise, the fan clubs, the video releases, the games, the USA Tour, and every imaginable fan activity including cosplay, fan films and audios, PBS pledge drive volunteering, websites, podcasts, and much more, to the new heights of success, popularity, and fandom participation in the 21st century. It’s an enlightening and entertaining journey for everyone who admires DOCTOR WHO…and not just for American fans, but devotees around the globe.

(16) THEY KEPT WATCHING THE SKIES. Now they know which star they were looking at: “Scientists recover nova first spotted 600 years ago by Korean astrologers”.

On a cold March night in Seoul almost 600 years ago, Korean astrologers spotted a bright new star in the tail of the constellation Scorpius. It was seen for just 14 days before fading from view. From these ancient records, modern astronomers determined that what the Royal Imperial Astrologers saw was a nova explosion, but they had been unable to find the binary star system that caused it—until now. A new study published today by the journal Nature pinpoints the location of the old nova, which now undergoes smaller-scale “dwarf nova” eruptions. The work supports that idea that novae go through a very long-term life cycle after erupting, fading to obscurity for thousands of years, and then building back up to become full-fledged novae once more.

“This is the first nova that’s ever been recovered with certainty based on the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese records of almost 2,500 years,” said the study’s lead author Michael Shara, a curator in the American Museum of Natural History’s Department of Astrophysics.

(17) FANTASTIC FICTION AT KGB. Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel will present Katherine Vaz and Chris Sharp at the next gathering of Fantastic Fiction at KGB on September 20.

Katherine Vaz

Katherine Vaz is best known for her fictional chronicling of the stories of the Portuguese in America, often with a magical-realism twist. Her novels include Saudade, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Mariana, selected by the Library of Congress as one of the Top Thirty International Books of 1998. Her collections Fado & Other Stories and Our Lady of the Artichokes & Other Portuguese-American Stories have won, respectively, a Drue Heinz Literature Award and a Prairie Schooner Book Prize. She’s taught fiction as a Briggs-Copeland Fellow at Harvard and was a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She’s a frequent contributor to the anthologies of Ellen Datlow (and Terri Windling)plus a story in the upcoming Mad Hatters and March Hares.

Chris Sharp

Chris Sharp is the author of Cold Counsel, a human-free, post-Ragnarok, dark fantasy romp and The Elementalists, a YA epic about dragons and climate change—with new installments coming soon to both series. His articles have appeared in Tor.com, and he also writes extensively for feature films and episodic television. Prior to moving to MA and committing full time to writing, he worked as an independent film/commercial producer in NYC. His photography has appeared in New York Times Magazine, his drawing in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and some of the films he produced have won awards at festivals around the world.

The readings begin 7 p.m. on Wednesday, September 20th, 7pm at KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.) in New York.

(18) SEASONAL BREW. It’s the right time of year for New Belgium Brewing to send its Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin Ale to market.

Enough with the run-of-the-mill pumpkin beers. I’m not interested in an ale that takes cues from a frozen coffee drink, and neither are you. That’s why I made Atomic Pumpkin. Does it really feature Habanero peppers? Yep! What about Saigon Cinnamon? Ding! I round it all out with a hearty malt bill that makes for a spicy brew that puts the “Fun” back in Pumpkin. (Spelling was never my strength). — Voodoo Ranger

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, DMS, Carl Slaughter, Mark-kitteh, Rebecca Hill, Craig Glassner, Michael J. Walsh, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]</a<>

141 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/5/17 For Sale: Baby Pixels. Never Scrolled

  1. 11) Some of those were good! As someone who watched a ton of Troma movies (and worked on a couple of them), I feel that the list organizers should broaden their horizons. Or maybe not, if giant mutant radioactive squirrels are not your thing.

    Also, I only saw 9 of the listed 100 movies. A couple of them I really enjoyed, and others (which I didn’t count) I’d watch a bit of, and then turn off in disgust.

    ETA: First!

  2. While there were not huge crowds at the Dragon Awards, there where many more people than show in that photo. That looks like it was taken to make the crowd look like less than it was.

    That being said, it is amazing that anyone made it at all, considering that it was listed under S for Second Annual Dragon Award Ceremony. Even I, who really wanted to be there, had trouble finding when and where it was.

    But that is just who showed up to see the announcement. Apparently about 8000 people voted.

  3. (11) I got a solid 3 on this list. I think partly because a fair amount of them are before my time, and partly because I am (or was anyway) fairly serious about my film-watching.

  4. @L. Jagi Lamplighter: There are 22 photos taken from various different angles in that slideshow, one of which was taken from the back corner of the room so as to fit as much of it in the shot as possible. There were not a lot of people there.

  5. L.Jagi Lamplighter: While there were not huge crowds at the Dragon Awards, there where many more people than show in that photo. That looks like it was taken to make the crowd look like less than it was.

    There are 22 photos in the set to look at, covering it from all angles, that you can view by clicking on “next.” I’m sorry you jumped to the conclusion that I was misrepresenting the audience.

  6. L. Jagi Lamplighter: Apparently about 8000 people voted.

    Apparently about 8000 votes were registered. Almost certainly not the same thing, given the extremely poor controls on limiting registrations to one e-mail address per person.

  7. (6)
    I’m now curious about St Louis Pizza. (What makes it different from all other pizzas?)

    I also love that Diskworld-turtle art.

  8. 11) 19, they weren’t all bad. Down Periscope, for example, is merely a cheesy forgettable comedy. By that standard, half the movies released in the 80’s and 90s belong on the list.

    @P J Evans

    Based on mine own St Louis Pizza adventures, the secret ingredient is soap.

  9. PJ —

    There’s a pretty good description at Wikipedia. Different crust, different cheese, a tendency toward different sauce.

  10. I’ve seen 37 bad movies on the list — but as an MST3K fan, I not only had a leg up, I’ve really seen a lot more than that.

  11. 11) Red Sonya is a bad movie!? There are swords in it! I’ve only seen 12, but I liked several of them.

  12. I’ve seen only one of those movies in theaters (The Swarm) and two others on MST3K (Eegah! and of course Manos).

  13. Any list of “worst movies” which leaves out Monster a Go-Go is simply not a list of worst movies. The MST3K crew (who have some expertise when it comes to bad movies) declared it the worst one they’d ever seen. It’s certainly the worst I’ve ever seen–and I’ve seen quite a few famously-bad movies.

    It proves that beyond “so bad it’s good” there is a realm of “so bad it’s bad”. Many bad movies (e.g. Plan 9 from Outer Space or Manos: Hands of Fate) were at least made with enthusiasm (if no skill or talent) which can be endearing, or at least amusing. The folks who made MAGG honestly did not care, and that attitude shows in every frame. The writers didn’t care, the actors didn’t care, the director didn’t care, the producer didn’t care, the camera crew didn’t care, the editors didn’t care…even the foley crew didn’t care (which led to the only funny scene in the movie, where one of the actors makes a ringing sound with his voice, and then picks up a phone).

    Plan 9 had better FX. Manos had better acting.

    The most amazing thing about it, though, is that even though it’s simply bad from beginning to end, the ending is so spectacularly bad that it ruins what otherwise might have been merely awful! 😀

  14. Nope, sorry, “Superman Quest for Peace”(12% RT) is much worse than “Supergirl”(8%). Like Xtifr says, at least with Supergirl you get the impression they cared.

    I’ve seen 11 of them all the way through, but only regret about half. I’ve also seen parts of ~20 others just out of train-wreck curiosity, and those have all deserved their reputations.

    #10 – in my experience, not needing a bookmark is just an indication of a good spatial memory.

  15. I’ve seen 7 different movies on that list, but among those I must have watched Spice World at least 30 times… how’s that for a misspent youth?

  16. 11 – Huh, I’ve seen six of them. Was Jason X the one in the space station? I thought I heard that was surprisingly clever/good.

    Edit – oh yeah, it would be seven but I kept having to switch from Pearl Harbour it was so unwatchably bad. but there was nothing else on so I kept going back to it and it kept getting worse I couldn’t believe how bad it got it was offensive on a level to do with how craft and artistic merit of a standard so low obscenely wasted a high budget and standard of technical skill.

  17. @Jamoche

    Indeed

    Proposed” Replace Supergirl with Vampire Academy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 with Red Riding Hood and down Periscope with Basic Instinct 2.

    We might need a bracket…

  18. 11) I’m in the 20’s as far as number of movies, a significant number watched because of Skiffy and Fanty’s Torture Cinema feature. Oops.

  19. 11) 16 for me… I think most of them look like tired sequels or lame parodies or cheap attempts to copy more successful movies, which a) isn’t what you’d call a recipe for success in the first place, and b) is something I know to steer clear of.

    There’s plenty of things that are worse than some of the entries on that list. Where’s Robot Monster, to name but one? Or the various lesser entries in the Ed Wood oeuvre?

  20. @ Jamoche: Or simply a really good memory for numbers (which may or may not be correlated with spatial memory, but I suspect there’s a difference).

  21. (7) If Robby belongs in a museum, why isn’t it donated to a museum? I’d guess an auction would carry a non-trivial chance it will end up in some private collection.

    (12) I think Nevins’s analysis and conclusions are rather weak; Jim Hines, Alexandra Erin, Cheryl Morgan, and many others have done far more cogent and reasoned analysis and recommendations. As for his survey, I see no discussion about biases in a self-selected survey.

    The only real takeaway I can make is that the proportion of people who have witnessed harassment seems rather low compared to the number who are harassed. I imagine a lot of harassment is hidden in plain sight, with many people having been taught not interfere or notice.

    I do think cons that run post-con surveys should include a question if the survey taker suffered or witnessed harassment during or in conjunction with the con.

    (13) and @L. Jagi Lamplighter: Given the timeslot and the way it was shown in the programme, I think it seems that DragonCon the con doesn’t care about the Dragon Awards.

  22. @Karl-Johan Noren The only real takeaway I can make is that the proportion of people who have witnessed harassment seems rather low compared to the number who are harassed.

    And that a hundred and ninety-three people have been harassed at conventions, sometimes badly enough to prevent them returning, which is a good hundred and ninety-three people too many.

  23. (11) 38 here, though I disagree with much of the list – there are far worse films out there.

    (13) As correct as the images are, it just seems petty to snicker at their lack of an audience.

    Side Note: I just saw the remastered Close Encounters of the Third Kind in an IMAX theater. It’s worth going to see when it’s in your area.

  24. (11) — 14, after going back and selecting Pearl Harbor (which I’d completely missed on my first pass through the list, and which was a) a monumentally terrible movie and b) should’ve been called The Doolittle Raid). The list was a weird mix of misguided sequels (Superman IV), ham-fisted adaptations (Last Airbender), just plain terrible would-be blockbusters (Pearl Harbor) and campy, guilty pleasures (Zardoz).

  25. @Ghostbird re (13): The trouble with the numbers here is that given the amount of people going to cons yearly, 193 harassed people is likely well below the expected rate.

    From what I could find, 9% of Swedish girls aged 16-24 said they were sexually harassed in some form during the previous year (source: Swedish council of crime prevention, 2015). Now, cons are mostly one-off weekend activities, but I also expect them to be high-risk, given a new environment, alcohol, the party feeling, and so on. But lets disregard that.

    Just translating the Swedish figure based on Dragoncon, a four-day event with 80,000 attendees, would give around 40 girls or women being sexually harassed. (40,000 / 365 * 4). All the survey says here is that the problem is wide-spread, but we already knew that.

  26. 11)
    As far as I can tell, I’ve seen 22 movies on that list, though in some cases I simply can’t remember. I spot several which IMO don’t belong there (Red Sonja and the two Twilight movies), while several are missing that do.

  27. 11) I have decided if a film is bad, and the reviews say it is bad, I avoid it. I’m pretty certain I can find good films to watch and enjoy from many time periods. That these aren’t the bad films I grew up watching on TV is understandable. This is the DVD era of bad. I’ve only seen a few of these —
    I did see ZAAZ, which almost as good as TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE. It seems to be about a guy who wants to turn into a fish. And there’s a man in a fish suit. At 65 years, I think I should do much better.

  28. 11) I’ve seen six. But I have to protest the inclusion of “Down Periscope” out of family loyalty; my brother-in-law worked as an electrician on that movie. (Apparently large parts of it were filmed on a real, commissioned, active-duty nuclear submarine; they had minders telling them where they were allowed to go and what they were allowed to take photos of. If memory serves, he said parts of the bridge were actually covered with tarps so the crews wouldn’t see classified equipment.) Anyway, family feeling aside, it was a perfectly ordinary screwball comedy. It certainly wasn’t a terrific movie, but it wasn’t a waste of five bucks on a Saturday afternoon.

  29. (11) I’ve seen 32/100 (and I’m not an MST3Ker!), but the list has serious omissions. Most glaring to me is the absence of The Creature Wasn’t Nice, aka Naked Space, which I maintain deserves the title of Worst Movie Ever. Even Leslie Nielsen was unfunny in it. I go into more detail in my Amazon review, where I also get into the “so bad it’s really awful” phenomenon Xtifr mentioned. (And yes, the xkcd strip Soon Lee linked is quite apropos. Might be interesting to bracket the Holiday Special versus Naked Space, but I don’t know many people I want to put through that kind of torture…)

    @Iphinome: But then where will we put Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, which I am not making up no matter how much I wish it were otherwise?

    @Robert Whitaker Sirignano: “[ZAAZ] seems to be about a guy who wants to turn into a fish.”

    I wonder how it compares to The Incredible Mr. Limpet. I expect unfavorably, as TIML at least has Don Knotts.

    In other news, I’m swiftly catching up on the Game of Thrones HBO series. I am inordinately amused at the pun right in the middle of the setup*, as well as Jon Snow being called a “crow” by all the wildlings. (Has James O’Barr seen any royalties?) At least some of the more unsavory players have been removed from the board, and here’s hoping a few more will follow in the dozen or so episodes I have remaining.

    * Seriously, the Wight Walkers? Really?

  30. “(11) 38 here, though I disagree with much of the list – there are far worse films out there.”

    That list is heavily weighted, (as most lists in the internet era are, no matter whether it’s a ‘best’ or a ‘worst’ list), in favor of movies made after 1990 or so. There is a wealth of truly terrible films out there that were produced on the cheap from every decade since movies became popular entertainment.

  31. 11) I’ve seen 21 of them, and a few were not nearly bad enough to make this list, imo. My favourite bad movie (which I think is so-bad-it’s good, although few agree with me) is Ken Annakin’s 1982 musical comedy The Pirate Movie. I’ve seen it probably 200 times.

  32. @Karl-Johan Norén

    Percentages aside, I think my point is that even an informal internet survey can help show that a problem exists and is worth taking seriously. Which I take to have been Jess Nevins’ purpose in running it.

  33. GSLamb on September 6, 2017 at 4:27 am said:

    (11) 38 here, though I disagree with much of the list – there are far worse films out there.

    Same score and I expected mine to be higher, but some of them on there weren’t bad just mediocre. Jason X also might be my favorite Friday the 13th movie. I can think of several Italian horror movies worse than 90% of that list.

  34. 11) …and I’ve been hesitating over this, but… seeing the “Twilight” movies in that worst list made me think of this, from an article by Katherine Cross:

    Where manly junk food of the Die Hard vintage is considered an acceptably good time at the movies, something like Twilight is regarded as an abomination fit only for a cleansing flame. A more muted but still omnipresent sneering accompanied the release of Jupiter Ascending as well. Or consider the difference in cultural regard between spy novels and romance novels; Ian Fleming is worthy of the Vintage Press special edition treatment, despite his undeniably schlocky writing. It doesn’t take a genius to see why, of course.

    The common denominator is gender, of course. Low art, like much everything else in our world, carries gendered signifiers–with things perceived to be masculine considered more valuable (or at least less loathsome) than those seen as feminine.

    (I’ve not seen the Twilight movies – though I have a soft spot for Jupiter Ascending – so for my interest isn’t so much in whether they’re bad as why they’re on the list and not, say, any of the Transformers movies, or Taken 2.)

  35. That being said, it is amazing that anyone made it at all, considering that it was listed under S for Second Annual Dragon Award Ceremony. Even I, who really wanted to be there, had trouble finding when and where it was.

    At least you’ll know to look under “T” next year. And after that, two straight years when you can look under “F”!

  36. I keep up with lots of SF/F news, and I never knew about the harassment survey. I wonder how many literary SF conventions versus media and comics conventions were involved.

    The various “award-winners” who harass might include Hugo, Nebula, Eisner, Dragon or some other winners, but we’ll never know, will we?

  37. (11) I’ve seen 22 of these films, and I must protest in the strongest possible terms about the inclusion of Zardoz on this list. On the other hand, I saw Spice World in the theater, so…

  38. (11) I only count 6 movies seen from the list, and I don’t consider most of them particularly awful. “Down Periscope” and “Pearl Harbor” were just generic, like watching most TV. OK, “Howard the Duck” and “Zardoz” were pretty bad. “Plan 9” has become an important cultural work. Can you prove it didn’t happen?

    The first time I saw “Plan 9”, I was laughing so hard that the backs of my ears hurt, and I could not stay for the second half of the double feature. Few movies have given me that sort of delight.

    I have to question any list of bad movies which omits “Star Trek V,” the one William Shatner directed.

    Most of the list I would flee from seeing. Got too many hopefully-good movies to watch.

  39. Seen only around 17 of the bad movies (some of which I’ve seen I didn’t hate, some of which I haven’t seen look interesting. In researching some of the movies I’ve never heard of, I found Nukie On Youtube.

  40. Re Jason X:
    Some of the scenes were quite funny and it was nice to see some Andromeda folks get work.

  41. @Ghostbird

    Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is on the list though. And is a truly terrible pile of nonsense.

    Personally I’d add resident Evil to the list as two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

  42. @6 St. Louis pizza doesn’t sound quite as bizarre as Cincinnati chili; I’d try a bite sometime out of curiosity, but it definitely sounds like an acquired taste. I wonder how many toppings the stronger-flavored cheese works with? I’m croggled that there’s enough demand for a company the size of Kraft to make (and ship) the cheese; have the cheeseparing MBAs not caught up with this department?

    @11: does living in Tinseltown make you see more movies? I’ve seen just 2.5; the .5 is a TV rerun of most of _Bicentennial Man_, which I thought wasn’t great but may not belong on this list. Like @Steve Wright, I see what looks like a high percentage of sequels; any idea how that compares with the overall incidence of sequels (recently, per @idontknow’s point that the list tilts toward more-recent movies)?

    @Jamoche: I test as very high on spatial memory, but I use bookmarks all the time — possibly because I don’t have the patience to rediscover where I left off.

    @Ghostbird: the Cross article is interesting (to the extent I had referents — I’m not a gamer), but When “girl” is synonymous with ‘everything that doesn’t matter’, it’s not hard to see why. is a serious overstatement — at least for movies or books. wrt Twilight specifically, one can argue that after Buffy it was actively retrogressive; didn’t it take shots from the feminist front as well as the we’re-high-standards front?

    @Karl-Johan re @7: “it belongs in a museum” can be a smokescreen for “I want the money”; cf Smithsonian on somebody hoping to beat Tyrannosaurus Sue’s 7-figure price — admittedly for a remarkable fossil, but there’s a limit (especially when the owner has blown the provenance).

  43. I saw THE ROOM. It is bad. The film’s actors sound like they are rehearsing, or reading off a teleprompter. There are pauses between every spoken line, as if they had never done anything like this before. I wouldn’t watch it again, nor would I suggest it is a party film. If you watch it with drugs and/or alcohol, you’ll discover you’ve wasted your drugs and alcohol. It is the black hole of the suck fairy. This is the film that made me decide against negative amusement.

  44. Cincinnati chili
    I understand that “chili” is a misnomer – it’s a Balkan dish of noodles (or at least pasta) with toppings.

    Unfortunately, my diet has noodles (and pizza) severely restricted.

  45. (5) Thanks for the story shout-out! I’m so delighted that this series is being published on Podcastle (well, ok, that they’ve taken the two stories in the series have exist at this point) not only because they’re one of my favorite fantasy audio fiction venues, but because I aimed for the rhythms of traditional oral storytelling, with patterns and repetitions, and whatnot, and I’m glad that they can debut in audio form.

  46. Ghostbird on September 6, 2017 at 7:37 am said:

    (I’ve not seen the Twilight movies – though I have a soft spot for Jupiter Ascending – so for my interest isn’t so much in whether they’re bad as why they’re on the list and not, say, any of the Transformers movies, or Taken 2

    Transformers 2 is on there and is several degrees worse than any of the Twilight movies (which at least are consistent from scene to scene). I find it weird that they put the first two on there, no reason for it to take two spots.

    I mean there’s a lot of dumb action movies that get a pass so I get that, but Die Hard featured a guy trying to fight terrorists during an office Christmas party, Twilight featured an over 100 year old vampire pretending to be a teenager and stalking a teenage girl (like breaking into her room and watching her sleep) because he likes the way she smells (how many movies get to feature long awkward high school sniff scenes?, and she responds by wanting to throw her life away to become like him.

    I mean I can think of worse vampire and action movies, or to combine them I’d rather watch Twilight again than the first Bloodrayne movie, or Blubberella which features a vampire blackface re-enactment of a scene from the movie Precious, but Twilight is a pretty bad movie. Though it is interesting to see that stuff with violence tend to get a pass, like I’d consider the Resident Evil movies worse (even though I sort of liked the second one) with a plot line that makes the Twilight films seem like high art comparatively.

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