Badmovies.org Forum

Well, the B-movie night at the church did not go quite as planned, but there was at least one pleasant surprise.

The first problem was that the older youth group kids didn't come. We got a bunch of kids in grade 7 and 8. They were not quite old enough to grasp the idea of laughing at something that was bad. I think a lot of the stuff went over their heads. We had one girl of high school age, who understood the point of the evening, but she left on account of the others.

The other problem was that you never saw a bigger bunch of spoiled brats in your life. Lori has been working with kids for years, and she says she's never seen such a lack of respect. I'm inclined to agree. Where I come from, the kids who go to youth group at church are the good students, the boy scouts, the nice kids. I think Lori had the same experience. This is a city church, and we both come from a small-town background.

These were kids who have never been made to try a new thing, who have never had to do anything they didn't think they'd like. Worse still, there was one kid, a poster boy for Ritalin, who spent the whole time insulting the other kids, talking back to us, yelling, swearing and b***hing about everything. The first thing he does is tell us the whole idea is stupid, and that we should rent Spider Man. This, of course, set some of the other kids off.

I figured I should make the first movie an easy one, so I showed Plan 9. We even got them some paper plates, and tried to give them some cues as to when the funny stuff was going to happen. They spent so much time whipping plates (and coats and hats) around the room, screaming and jumping out of their seats, that they missed what little exposition the story had. From that point on, they just didn't know what was happening. Didn't matter, they'd pretty much rejected the movie out of hand because it wasn't in colour. Bad special effects and silly dialogue weren't funny to them either, just bad.

Fine. Maybe they hadn't quite developed the necessary sophistication yet, although I liked Plan 9 at that age. I had felt my hands were tied in choosing the movie in the first place, since it would have to be something the church folks would approve of (i.e. not a lot of violence or coarse language). They probably would have loved Death Race 2000.

 Anyway, Lori spent some time with the kids between movies, playing games that have always been popular with other kids she's worked with, to a chorus of "this is stupid." Meanwhile, I ordered the pizza, making sure I had three different ones, with very basic ingredients. Can't go wrong, right?

Wrong. The first thing I get is not a bunch of kids going "oh boy, the pizza is here," but rather a lot of dubious inquiries about what brand it is. It was an independent pizzeria near the church that makes good pizza for a good price, but I managed to avoid telling them that. As I'm opening the boxes, each pie is greeted with some variation of "yuck." Some kids hated the Hawaiian one, some hated any kind of vegetable, one expected us to order a plain pepperoni pizza just for her, because she doesn't like anything else. They sat around picking stuff off and b***hing. Two of them grabbed two pieces to start, then b***hed that they couldn't eat the second one.

I suppose this was because they'd filled up on candy, all the time b***hing that there were some black ones in the bowl. It wasn't good enough that there were plenty of other choices. The fact that there was anything they didn't like in their presence was enough for these kids.

You know, when I was a kid, I had to eat what everyone else ate. I wasn't allowed to say I didn't like something without trying a little, and I was certainly taught that it was rude to complain when somebody gave you something. These kids have gone through their lives saying they don't like things they haven't tried, and just having it accepted.

The same goes for movies. We had one TV, and had to compromise. I had to watch what the rest of the family wanted a lot of the time, and I'm better for it. These kids simply always get their own way. Criswell's words were really hitting home - God help us in the future.

Well, we put the second movie on, after considerable debate between Lori and I. She suggested The Blob, since it was in colour and moved at a steady pace. I figured it would still be a good idea to have something easy to laugh at, and put in Hercules in New York. At least it would have a familiar face. I was bracing for the complaints, but they didn't come. The kids seemed to like it. They still didn't make fun of the cheesy stuff, but they were at least paying attention. The Ritalin kid liked it most of all. He was actually telling the others to be quiet. Turns out he was an Arnold fan, and thought he'd seen every movie Arnold had made. I told him about Pumping Iron, which he'd also never heard of, and he was very interested.

Of course, I got to leave after that, and go tend to the dogs, while Lori supervised the sleepover. She came home very stressed out.

It seemed really funny that the kid I'd been insisting on sending home before I freaked out on him was the one who almost made me feel like the evening had been worthwhile. He'll probably go to school on Monday, bragging about the weird old Arnold movie he's seen that his friends don't know about. He might be one of us yet.

Kids at that age are hard to deal with.  It's an akward age, where you just want to be cool and reject authority.  That's why I am grateful that I work with infants at my job. =0)  But at least you tried something new for the kids, and maybe some of them enjoyed it more than they let on.  It is hard to sell kids on black and white movies, hell it's hard to sell me on black on white movies sometimes (and i'm 21).  As in all my social work classes they say, look at the environment and the forces playing on these children, you may get more insight into their attitudes.  But be proud of yourself for trying something new with an akward age group.

Deena

I have a number of favorite B&W films for "indoctrinating" people:

The Giant Claw
Robot Monster
20 Million Miles to Earth
The Beast of Yucca Flats
The Terror of Tiny Town

When dealing with younger crowds, as in high school or earlier, I tend to go for the monster movies.  "The Giant Claw" and "20 Million Miles to Earth" are both a little talky, but with monsters running around.  For the life of me I could never understand another child who did not love dinosaurs and big monsters (when I was a kid).

>They spent so much time whipping plates (and coats and hats) around the room,
>screaming and jumping out of their seats, that they missed what little exposition
>the story had.

 Sounds like the woman who rents the downstairs from my parents. She'll put a movie on (cable, DVD etc) and before it gets 2 minutes into it, she's in the other room getting more wine, looking for something or flipping through a catalog. I don't think she's ever watched an entire movie straight through start to finish in her life and she's almost 50.

Thanks for the kind words. I suppose somebody has to try exposing these kids to new experiences and ideas. Unfortunately, I hadn't really planned on a group that young. This was supposed to be an event for high school aged kids, and it somehow got turned into babysitting. Probably sounded like a kids' event  because it was billed as a sleepover first and bad movie night second. Not my doing.

At least they're now aware of B-movies. Maybe the experience did them some good.

Wait...you had a room full of young kids and you didn't order a single plain pepperoni pizza? I have so sympathy for you, sir, for you dug your own grade. I would have been right there with that girl complaining. How anyone can eat Hawaiian pizza is beyond me. Fruit does not go on pizza! When will man learn this simple truth?

Foywonder wrote:
>
> How anyone can eat Hawaiian
> pizza is beyond me. Fruit does not go on pizza! When will man
> learn this simple truth?

No offence Foy, but this is exactly the attitude I found so baffling. The Hawaiian was one third of the total pizza available, and a favourite of some of the kids. You don't like it, don't eat it. The other pies were not deluxe by any stretch of the imagination either. Pick off a green pepper and two mushrooms, and you have pepperoni pizza. We were trying to please 12 people with three pizzas. That's not easy.

The reaction was pure ignorance and selfishness, and I refuse to cater to it. I think I was doing them a service by giving them something different. Frankly, I think their parents dropped the ball in the first place. Rather than convincing them to eat a vegetable or two, they took the easy way and let their kids eat nothing but meat and cheese. That's not parenting. There are just too many people willing to bow down to the whims of children these days. That explains a lot of problems much bigger than picky eating.

All personal tastes and preferences aside, nobody promised any food. Nobody made us feed those kids. They were told to bring snack foods to pool with the other kids. Few did, so we decided to be nice and spend $40 of our own money to bring in pizza and extra soft drinks for them. Actually, most of the expenses came out of our pockets, because the budget for youth group is so tight. When somebody does that, it's just plain rude to b***h about it, and somebody should have taught them that. I wasn't in charge of the kids (just the movies), so I just bit my tongue the whole evening.

Now, not all of the kids were a problem, and not all of the complainers complained about everything. But the b***hy, whiny attitude was certainly the dominant one, and tended to spoil the fun for everyone.

that was a hilarious story.

lester1/2jr wrote:
>
> that was a hilarious story.


I'll probably think so too, given a little time.

The scary part is that these might well be the kids we have to entertain at every single youth group function for the next couple of years. Help.

The scary part is that these might well be the kids we have to entertain at every single youth group function for the next couple of years. Help.

VeggieTales? :)

I must say that this story was so entertaining. I would have loved to see any of those movies, but being raised by a single over protective mom (which is good and bad) but I am now in college and am startin to watch the more popular horror films such as Texas Chain Saw Murders (and this week its Halloween). However, I must agree that not buying a pepperoni pizza wasnt the best of ideas. If you are making them watch movies they may not want to, then you should at least order a pizza that they would have enjoyed. I think Hawaiian Pizza "like bad movies" is an acquired taste (I dont like pizza at all, it is hard to when you keep kosher). However, I commend your valiant attempts at trying to educate snobby children. I have seen my fair share and know what it takes to get through to them. If you are ever in Harrisonburg VA. visiting  James Madison Univ. I will arange a scary movie night for you, with a more........ mature audience

OK, I'll note the pepperoni pizza for next time. Still, in my defence, a pizza with less than three items was practically unheard of in my prior experience. I figured pepperoni, green peppers and mushrooms was a basic pizza.

As for the Hawaiian, I think it had as many fans as critics. I just can't grasp the idea of people complaining about something they're not eating.

By the way, you've gotten me thinking about kosher pizza. That could be an interesting culinary challenge. What would be required to make a pizza kosher?

I'll stand by your Hawaiian pizza decision.  I can't stand the stuff myself, but every pizza party I've ever been to has had Hawaiian in its midst.  As for the rest, I think the standard for non-offensive pizza choices, especially for kids, is pepperoni and then plain cheese.  (Why?  I don't know.  I order deluxe when I can afford it.)

Around here, Pepperoni and Green Chile is a staple pizza combination so I bow to local conventions when somone describes what pizza's the ordered :)

Two things I've learned from dealing with my niece and nephew:

#1) Bad movies and children under the age of 12 don't seem to mix. They're still too young to appreciate it. Heck, they don't even comprehend 90% of the jokes on MST3K yet.

#2) If you're not their actual parent by which you have total moral authority over them, good luck getting them to try anything new.  Sometimes when dealing with small children not your own you have to cater to their whims and not your own unless you're ready for a bad time. When a non-parent starts trying to force something on a small child with the "try something different" attitude, it usually has disasterous results. No offense, but listening to you talk about how you think you were doing them a favor by getting them to try something different sounds like you were setting yourself up for a mighty big fall.  Its not always a matter of the parent's not teaching them to try new things, but a case of kids acting like kids. Although, from I read, sounds like there were a couple of obnoxious brats in the bunch.  

Sounds to me like you had the wrong audience for what you were setting out to do that evening. However, I stand by my declaration of fruit not belonging on pizza. I have tried it and its the nastiest thing I've ever tasted.

I live in Mississippi. Dominos actually makes a seafood pizza (shrimp, crab meat, and spicier sauce) down here. NEVER ORDER IT!

Yep, I think you're right about kids and bad movies. I wasn't planning on kids that age

Just been talking with Lori, and the results are in for the B-movie night. Apparently, some of the kids have said they enjoyed it. Even the real troublemaker of the group actually asked when the next one will be held. Thinking about it, I suppose he had the most sarcastic sense of humour out of the whole bunch. His taste in movies might well come around when he's older.

Looks like Deena was right, and the kids had a better time than they were letting on. The evening was not the disaster I'd thought it was, so maybe we'll try it again some time. Still, I wouldn't mind a chance to put the same show together for an older crowd.

Hope I didn't sound too bitter, but I was as much angry at my own perceived failure as I was at the kids. I still stand by my statement that their parents should be teaching them manners and making them try new things.

By the way, how did this thread come to focus so much on pizza?

MMMM.... Pizza.  (I'm a big Hawaiin pizza fan but don't believe I liked it until I hit about 15-16 years old).

Anyway, that story was so painful to read I really felt for you, Andy.  Although I must admit I laughed more than a few times.

I'm glad to hear that the reviews a few days later were positive.  I agree 100 per cent with you regarding children's respect (or lack thereof) these days.  If I didn't like something when I was that age, I shut up and ate it.  That's the way it was.  

Keep up the good work.  Sounds like the kids may appreciate it but just don't know how to show it.

Oh,well.
....Sorry Lori ans you were so stressed. But, kids have energy that leaves us old folks in the dust.
....Kids at age are still Little animals. Subject to the impulses of emotion, and following the herd. I was never a follower, and being a loner, the "Normals" were a pain. When you notice things that the group can't see, it leaves you feeling out of place. Getting an adult joke, and seeing the others stare at you like your a two headed mutant, is a depressing experiance.

It would be tough to have a kosher pizza. I am not the strictest Kosher Jew, but I try as best I can without cooking myself ( I am in college, just cant do it) or being a vegetarian ( I love meat)

1. No pork, ever, it is so unkosher, so there goes pepperoni, sausage and all the real fun stuff (Hawaiian is out too).  Shellfish is unkosher unconditionally as well (so there goes that southern seafood pizza).

2. In order to be kosher, there is a specific (and I hear more humane) way of killing the animal, and it has to be under the supervision of a rabbi. Howeve, you can not mix milk and meat such as beef because that is unkosher (it is a perversion to cook a child in its mother's milk, it makes sense to me) So that leaves only chicken.

3. Any item, fork, pot, hand, water that has touched meat may not touch a dairy product because then you have contaminated it, so everything MUST be cooked seperately (in different ovens if you may)

So, while some things taste much better when cooked Kosher, Pizza doesnt. I have tasted it. It is awful. Dont try it yourself. It is bad. I warn you,

Thanks for the info. I figured kosher pizza would be difficult, but now it seems to be a virtual impossibility - at least if you want it to turn out anything like a regular pizza.

Of course, now I'm going to get creeped out every time I cook beef in any kind of cream sauce. Thanks for the imagery :)

Make a movie out of that story and I'll go see it.  Some of the ridiculous dialogue here about the hawaiin pizza would make a nice Tarantino-esque touch.  Maybe the story could be like a flashback and the movie could be about hawaiin pizza.

>3. Any item, fork, pot, hand, water that has touched meat may not touch a dairy
>product because then you have contaminated it, so everything MUST be
>cooked seperately (in different ovens if you may)

Wouldn't it contaminate your mouth if you eat beef and then drink milk or eat a dairy product? No offense, but it seems a little silly to me, especially as it would mean I could no longer have bacon cheeseburgers.

As for Pizza, I prefer sausage followed by pepperoni and sometimes bacon. Other toppings just don't taste right to me. About kids being picky eaters; I kind of sympathize with them since I hated being made to eat stuff I hated. Think how you'd feel if you went to a party and the only food choices offered to you were raw squid, monkey brains and fried tarantula. A plain pepperoni pizza would start looking pretty good to you...

Hmmm, yes, u would have a tough time being kosher. There is a loophole (that I think is justified). You can drink milk, than water, than eat meat, but water between each mixing.

John wrote:
>
> Think how
> you'd feel if you went to a party and the only food choices
> offered to you were raw squid, monkey brains and fried
> tarantula. A plain pepperoni pizza would start looking pretty
> good to you...

There is a big difference between a mushroom and a monkey brain, but that's beside the point.

The point is that there were choices available. There were three different kinds of pizza, as well as some candy, nachos and salsa, and potato chips. As far as I could see, everybody enjoyed something. The problem was a few kids who felt that everything must comply to their own personal taste, and loudly registered their displeasure at anything that didn't.

I might have given the impression that I got what I liked and tried to force it on the kids. Actually, I got what I honestly thought were plain pizzas that would please anybody. Some of the kids just turned out to be pickier than any kids I've dealt with before - a fact I'll remember the next time. Still, that's no excuse for them to be rude. Like the pizza or not, when somebody gives you something, you should at least appreciate the effort and be polite. I think I would have been more sympathetic to them had it not been for their tone. They've obviously gotten used to taking everything for granted.

What still boggles my mind though is that the event seems to have been a success, although by any measure of mine, it bombed.

Don't be hard on yourself, I think you did a good job, introducing new things to kids, especially  the movies, but even the Hawaiian pizza.  I did try it a couple of times when I was living in Oregon.  Don't care for it, but at least I tried it.  Of course, the only really good pizza is to be found in an Italian pizzaria in New York (and not just the city).

FWIW, I was a very fussy eater as a kid, but since I started buying my own food, my tastes have changed.  Mmm, raw calimari and monkey brains.

raj wrote:
>
> Of course, the only really good pizza is to be
> found in an Italian pizzaria in New York

It's on my list of things to try if I visit there.

Andy - VERY entertaining story!  People who do what you do with kids are saints in my book.  A couple of observations that may raise your spirits.

1)  My nieces have very good, strict parents who make them eat things they don't feel like eating, try new things etc., and they would NEVER talk back to their parents.  BUT, when the older girls are out with me, I see them pull some of the same crap you were talking about.  I know they're being raised right, so I think it's more a matter of them trying to strike out on their own and develop a little autonomy when they're with me (I'm not the strict parent, and in your situation, neither were you).  I think this is a pretty natural part of growing up.  Probably it's the kids who DON'T act up once in a while that you need to be concerned about.

2)  The single most common mistake I see adults make when dealing with kids is they assume that they're just "small adults."  They try to reason with them like they're adults, they expect them to be able to enjoy stuff on an adult level.  Kids aren't small adults - they're kids.  I'm not surprised at all that the kids enjoyed your movie night... they just didn't enjoy it in the way you expected them too (the way the adults on this site enjoy those kinds of movies).  This doesn't change the fact that they DID enjoy it and they want more.  Keep at it, sounds like a success to me.

3)  Not eating something you don't like is a perfectly normal human instinct.  Not eating Hawaiian pizza is just as normal.  Still, I hope you at least got thanked for buying the pizza... they should have known at least that much.

4)  If this is a church group, maybe they'd like Children of the Corn... just kidding!
: )

spoiled brats man my younger sister and 16 year-old bro ar the same way no idea your supposed to go with the flow laugh at stupid movie

.Mofo Rising wrote:
>
> I'll stand by your Hawaiian pizza decision.  I can't stand
> the stuff myself, but every pizza party I've ever been to has
> had Hawaiian in its midst.  As for the rest, I think the
> standard for non-offensive pizza choices, especially for
> kids, is pepperoni and then plain cheese.  (Why?  I don't
> know.  I order deluxe when I can afford it.)

Throughout my school years whenever we would be treated to pizzas we were always given 2 choices: plain cheese, or cheese and pepperoni.  This seemed to satisfy the greatest number of people with the least amount of fuss possible (picking stuff off of a pizza is bad kidwise, because you're never sure you got all of it off your slice).

AndyC wrote:

> By the way, how did this thread come to focus so much on pizza?

Just another fine example of thread drift, IMO ;) That, and most of probably feel more qualified at discussing pizza toppings than discussing how to make an 8th grader watch a bad movie.

Man, kids suck. When I was in youth group they had a movie night and I asked if we could do a bad movie night. The guys running it figured that all b-movies are offensive to women, too scary, and that most people just wouldn't get the idea anyway.

The guys running it figured that all b-movies are offensive to women, too scary, and that most people just wouldn't get the idea anyway.

Pretty perceptive of them, actually

Fearless Freep wrote:
>
> The guys running it figured that all b-movies are
> offensive to women, too scary, and that most people just
> wouldn't get the idea anyway.
>
> Pretty perceptive of them, actually
>
>

Was that an agreement or disagreement?

Creepozoid wrote:
>
> Fearless Freep wrote:
> >
> > The guys running it figured that all b-movies are
> > offensive to women, too scary, and that most people just
> > wouldn't get the idea anyway.
> >
> > Pretty perceptive of them, actually?

Hmmm, I seem to see dripping sarcasm on this response, so, isnt that part of what makes B movies so funny, their stance on women, and usually overly dramatic violence. If anything else, most movies feature the church, so church groups should like that.

No sarcasm, dead on serious.  Most "B" movies are "B" movies in ways that simply make them unappealing to the average viewer.  Most arr going to fall into the 'just don't get it' range, otherwise they wouldn't really be "B" movies. A fair number are going to be too scary for the average viewers taste, a fair number are going to be offensive to women, and men for that matter. When we say "It's so bad it's good" or "it's so bad it's silly and you can laugh at it", most people are  going to say "It's so bad it's just not worth watching"

It's just an aquired taste that most people don't share

I think showing "B" movies to an average group would need to be done with great care in terms of knowing what would be appropriate and enjoyed by all.

I agree that B-movies need to be introduced carefully, but I disagree with the idea of rejecting things out of hand because "most people don't like that stuff."

I imagine the only reason any of us like the movies we do is because someone either made us watch them, offered them to us or at least made them available to us at some point in our lives.

The problem is the current attitude of just giving people a lot of what we already know most of them like and never thinking that a little variety might be a good thing. That's where we get a TV schedule full of mediocre and virtually identical shows. That's why a lot of really good movie ideas never get past the idea stage and a lot of crappy films get a wide release.

In working with volunteer organizations, you would not believe the number of times I've heard the "people don't like that" argument when I or someone else is trying to pitch an idea. This usually comes from people who can't offer an alternative. This is not just with regard to movies, of course, but all manner of fundraisers and promotions.

Just try it. It won't always be a success, but if you give people some credit once in a while, they might also surprise you.

Children, especially, should be offered different things to try. We are doing them no service by always giving them what we know they like. It doesn't encourage them to grow, or to look at things differently. Schools, churches and youth organizations should be about broadening kids' horizons, something that should begin at home. That doesn't necessarily mean forcing them to do things they don't like, but it does mean sometimes finding out if any of them like something else.

Otherwise, we just get more narrow-minded sheep in the world.

Andy - I mentioned your story to my wife who's an educator.  She suggests that if you do another bad movie night for the kids you try working a game or challenge into it.  Like "who spots the most mistakes" or "who comes up with the cheesiest line."  The whole "Things I Learned From This Movie" format might be ideally suited.

We did something similar to that. We passed out a sheet with some fun facts on each movie and a list of things to watch for. The kids pretty much ignored it. We also tried teaching them some of the B-Fest games for Plan 9, throwing paper plates when the saucers came on, shouting "day" and "night" during the rapid changes in lighting, etc. The paper plates eventually had to be taken away, because they were always flinging them around, followed by hats, jackets and themselves. The other stuff just didn't catch on.

Thanks for the advice though. Good to know people care.

I agree that B-movies need to be introduced carefully, but I disagree with the idea of rejecting things out of hand because "most people don't like that stuff."

I didn't mean to imply he was right in rejecting them for those reasons, only that his reasons were preceptive in their own right