Podcast review: How Did This Get Made indulges in the best of the worst of cinema
Three mates trash cinematic horrors for your enjoyment. It’s fun and as satisfying as a late-night cheeseburger.
Do you ever watch things not because they’re good but because they’re bad?
This reviewer does, whether cinema, TV or streaming. The badder the better. Tommy Wiseau’s The Room? Love it. Plan 9 From Outer Space? Hook it to this reviewer’s veins.
Save your talent and hard work. Give me dodgy true crime, gaudy housewives and soap operas. There’s something immensely satisfying about watching something bad — like scoffing a late-night cheeseburger on the way home. You probably didn’t really need it but damn, it was good.
But why? Does it make us feel better about ourselves? We could have done it better. Look at that idiot over there, trying but failing while we safely don’t try from the couch.
Is it bad? Who cares. Life is hard and if a little schadenfreude gets you through the day so be it. There’s worse things in which to indulge.
Podcast How Did This Get Made? from Earwolf is for people who relish in the bad and the ugly of cinema. Those who like the good, this column is not for you. Stop reading, you’ve been warned.
Comedians Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas riff and indulge on the blights of cinema.
It’s very fun and as satisfying as a late-night cheeseburger.
Film victims include Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Number 23 and, of course, the pinnacle of unbelievably terrible cinema The Room.
Ever wondered why Shia LeBouf went to robot heaven? So do Scheer, Raphael and Mantzoukas. And why is Transformers so impossibly long?
There’s some weird idea gripping Hollywood that the longer the film the better. That’s not true at all. Audiences are busy and important. Stop wasting their time.
Sheer reveals at the beginning of the episode on Revenge of the Fallen that the series did the film after being harassed by a Transformers fan over two years. It’s quite a tale.
“This is not a movie we would normally do on the show,” says Scheer. “We’re doing it because for the last two years we were harassed by two people posing as Michael Bay sending us hundreds of DVDs. They’ve shown up at live shows. We’d be in the lobby of theatres and they’d be dressed up as transformers. They went above and beyond to get our attention to do this movie and we are doing it for them.”
The podcast is heavy on talking. In fact, that’s largely all it is. Three mates trashing cinematic horrors.
After a few episodes you do get a sense of, “well, if you’re so great why don’t you go make a film?” Probably because it’s hard and expensive. Misery loves company and who really has the time to pursue their dreams?
In the queue
Script Notes: for aspiring filmmakers who want to have a go at doing it better
Filmspotting: remembers great but forgotten films
Indiewire: Screen Talk: all the buzz of the indie film scene
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