It Wuz What It Wuz

Almost without exception, every creative decision that went into its manufacture was catastrophic. Yet while any one of these horrible ideas could have completely derailed the whole thing alone, once you stack them one atop another you get a critical mass that starts to cancel itself out. Eventually, it cycles around the back of wrong and comes out the other side as imminently watchable.

At TCM’s Classic Movie Blog, David Kalat counts how many flaws it takes to make a film a glorious failure in a tribute to 1980’s Popeye movie musical, which is the kind of thing you see once when you’re seven and then forget about, and then fifteen years later you see the credit on Robert Altman’s Wikipedia page and you’re like what? And Jules Feiffer wrote it!? I’m afraid to rewatch the movie, but the post is pretty convincing all the same.

Incidentally: Altman’s Popeye is one of few films that were ever actually made in a sizable assortment of mostly abandoned ‘80s-era auteur-driven projects about beloved pop culture figures. Most of which were rightfully forsaken (thank god James Cameron never did Spider-Man), but man oh man do I wish Alex Cox had made Doctor Strange.