‘Weird, wonderful and woeful’ cinema celebrated

ASK a movie buff what their favourite film is and you’re likely to get an Oscar-winning title or foreign arthouse flick as your answer.

Ask Julia Mann and she’ll give you something a bit more unexpected.

The founder and lead programmer of Terribly Good Cinema is sharing her love of ‘they’re-so-bad-they’re-good films’ in a series of unconventional pop-up film screening events over the coming months.

“The plan is to screen films that you won’t necessarily see at the Regent or at the big places, films that I love, cheesy films, terrible films that are also awesome,” she said.

“We call them wonderfully good and terribly bad. It’s just about offering an alternative to the mainstream and what’s out there.

“It’s about getting people together who love fun movies and they don’t want to sit in a cinema, in the dark, in silence and watch films.

“They want to have a drink, a chat, a laugh, they may want to dress up as someone from the film, we’re going to have competitions and trivia and really celebrate the film as much as we can and have a bit of a different experience around it.”

The first Terribly Good Cinema screening is scheduled for this Saturday at the Ballarat Trades Hall with John Carpenter’s They Live, and other planned films include Ate de Jong’s Drop Dead Fred, John McPhail’s Anna and the Apocalypse and John Greyson’s Zero Patience.

“We have this idea that films like that are guilty pleasures and I want to step outside of that and say ‘hey, you don’t have to feel guilty about loving this stuff because it’s awesome and its okay to just want to escape and celebrate that’. You don’t have to do it behind closed doors,” Ms Mann said.

“I’m a big action movie fan, particularly Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme and all those guys from the 80s and 90s.

“They’re nostalgic from a time when you’re growing up, they’re comforting in that they’re fairly formulaic, they’re not challenging at all and they have a sense of fun about them.

“They don’t take themselves seriously, they’ve got those one liners in them, they’ve got iconic moments, they stand the test of time.”

Ms Mann said likeminded lovers of cheesy cinema are welcome to make their own suggestions for future screenings via Terribly Good Cinema’s Facebook page or Instagram.

“We really want to be inclusive and if there is a film that people are desperate to see on the big screen, get in touch… because we want to make that happen.”

For more information or to book tickets to upcoming screenings, visit terriblygoodcinema.com.au.