good-bad

English

Etymology

Attributed to G. K. Chesterton.

Adjective

good-bad (comparative more good-bad, superlative most good-bad)

  1. (film, literature) Enjoyably schlocky, poor in quality but nonetheless compelling.
    • 1945 November 2, George Orwell, “Good Bad Books”, in Tribune‎[1]:
      The existence of good bad literature—the fact that one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one's intellect simply refuses to take seriously—is a reminder that art is not the same thing as cerebration.
    • 1989 May 19, Roger Ebert, “Road House”, in RogerEbert.com‎[2]:
      “Road House” exists right on the edge between the “good-bad movie” and the merely bad. I hesitate to recommend it, because so much depends on the ironic vision of the viewer. This is not a good movie.
    • 2014, Sarah Nilsen, Projecting America, 1958, McFarland:
      Touch of Evil is not a good movie, but it is a good bad movie, which is more fun than the mediocre or even the adequate.
    • 2015 July 6, David Fear et al, “25 Best Modern Exploitation Movies”, in Rolling Stone:
      Is Showgirls good-bad or just bad-bad?
    • 2019 November 29, Donald Clarke, “The Two Popes: one giant leap of faith”, in The Irish Times:
      The Shoes of the Fisherman is a good-bad film that owes no duty to history or to what were then current affairs.

See also

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.