With Oscars Near, Dog Days for Filmgoers in Full Swing

Ed Wood is still dead. The reason that bears noting is that apparently the standard-less spirit of the infamously awful director (“Plan 9 From Outer Space,” widely considered to be the worst movie ever) lives on today.

Don’t believe it? Have you tried sitting through “An Alan Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn” or “Krippendorf’s Tribe,” two recently opened critical and commercial dogs.

With the 70th Academy Awards looming just 13 days away, you’d think the film industry might take care to present itself in the best light, so to speak, but sadly such is not the case. We’re still in the bad-movie season, a prime time for cinematic duds and factory irregulars that runs from January into the spring. John Krier, an industry box-office analyst, calls it an “orphan period,” when audiences exist on a diet of cinematic “leftovers.”

Other recent entrees currently wasting Sterno on the abysmal movie buffet include “Kissing a Fool,” “Sphere,” “Hush” and “Blues Brothers 2000.” (And who can forget such soon-to-be video classics as “Stephen King’s The Night Flier” and “Hard Rain”?)

But connoisseurs of lousy movies say you can’t lump them all in one basket. There are “good” bad movies--or at least amusing ones--and just awful bad movies that aren’t any fun at all. Take “Alan Smithee” for example--please!

“Smithee is more painful and dispiriting to watch than anyone could possibly imagine,” wrote bummed-out Times film critic Kenneth Turan, who suggested that burning was too good a fate for “such a wretched fiasco.” Many critics called it the worst film they had seen in years--possibly since “Showgirls,” not so coincidentally another film written by Joe Eszterhas.

And the public agreed; “Smithee” grossed less than $29,000 in its first week and by its second week was only being shown in three cities nationwide. (Responding to the El Nin~o-size storm of disgust over “Smithee,” Eszterhas published a self-deprecating press release in Variety last Wednesday and canceled an appearance at this week’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, noting that, “I am taking Jack Valenti’s advice and will seek immediate medical attention on Maui.”

“Krippendorf’s Tribe” fared better at the box office ($3 million-plus in its first weekend) but then quickly dropped off the Top 10 list by week two. This “family film,” featuring gags about drunken illicitly recorded sex, has been excoriated by critics such as Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum, who said it left a talented supporting cast “gasping for air” and rated it a D-plus.

Similar vitriol has been directed at other films in the past year such as Kevin Costner’s “The Postman,” “Speed 2” and “Batman & Robin”). (All are nominees for worst picture at this year’s 18th annual Razzie Awards, which copywriter John Wilson created to dishonor the worst that Hollywood has to offer.)

So what gives? Certainly no one sets out to deliberately make a completely bad, unremittingly horrible movie. Exploitative, derivative, cheesy and sleazy, sure, we can accept that. This is America, after all, where the citizenry reserves the right to cherish those qualities, even find merit in them.

Which brings up Eszterhas’ much-maligned 1995 epic “Showgirls,” a classic case of a good bad movie. Edward Margulies, co-author of the book “Bad Movies We Love,” points out that unlike another bad movie from that year, “Cutthroat Island,” “Showgirls” was bad and truly hilarious. Thousands of eyewitnesses agreed on both fronts, allowing embarrassed parent studio MGM to at least make some lemonade by re-marketing “Showgirls” as a cultish midnight movie. But there is no such hope for Eszterhas’ latest.

“I have to say it is dissipating to see something like ‘Burn Hollywood,’ ” says Wilson. “Even as the head of the Razzies, that was . . . [his voice trails off]. It’s amazing to me, but I guess you would’ve known . . . if [Eszterhas] thought ‘Showgirls’ was serious, he has an impaired sense of humor.”

As the clinkers pile up around town, theorists speculate as to how two hours of celluloid can become such a potent life-draining force. Not surprisingly, greed, ego and condescension are the usual suspects.

“I’ve been saying that ‘Batman & Robin’ existed solely to put faces on the drink cups at Taco Bell last summer,” says Wilson.

“Not a whole lot of artistic energy went into that,” Margulies concurs, labeling the fourth installment in the Warner Brothers franchise “utterly without entertainment value.”

As for ego, a wise man knows that the only time you can steer rapidly and wildly off course is when your sails are full of wind.

“I have this theory that if you wind up grossing a lot of money on a movie everybody fought you on, that you can [then] pull that script out from under your bed that everyone said sucked two months ago, and they’ll make it,” says Wilson. Otherwise known as Cimino-Costner Syndrome; the latter’s “Postman” was immediately returned to sender.

Then there’s the practice of strip-mining profitable brand names. For example, the fact that “Sphere” got flattened out by audiences and critics shows why Michael Crichton’s last unproduced novel had lain dormant. Ditto John Grisham’s “The Chamber,” which quickly adjourned to video last year.

But the ultimate explanation is that perennial head-scratcher--we get the movies we deserve.

“I don’t know if it’s intentional, but there’s a general disrespect for the audience,” suggests Wilson, whose anti-awards show was inspired by a double bill of “Xanadu” and “Can’t Stop the Music.”

“There’s an expectation that the audience’s mental level is about 9 years old right now. And that gets very tiresome. That’s why we have a new category this year, Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property.”

Ed Wood would be proud.