What are the key takeaways from this The Daily (NYT) episode?

Key insights include: **Defining "Good Bad":** A good bad movie requires at least one over-the-top or absurd element combined with high rewatchability. The key distinction from simply "bad" films is that audiences return to them repeatedly and form emotional attachments. The formula: infectious watchability plus identifiable flaws that loop back into virtues rather than killing enjoyment.; **The Nostalgia Variable:** Personal memory is a primary ingredient in good bad movie attachment. Films first encountered during formative moments — a first solo drive, a teenage summer, an early relationship — become frozen in emotional amber. When evaluating your own list, trace whether the affection is for the film itself or the life moment it represents.; **Cultural Fragmentation Makes These Films Valuable:** In an era with no monoculture, good bad movies function as rare shared reference points. Unlike current prestige TV or arthouse film, titles like Face/Off or Grease 2 carry near-universal name recognition across generations, enabling low-stakes communal debate that modern fragmented media consumption rarely produces.

What did Maya Salam and Taffy Brodesser-akner discuss on The Daily (NYT)?

NYT Daily hosts Rachel Abrams, Maya Salam, Gilbert Cruz, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner define the "good bad movie" genre using examples including Volcano (1997), Grease 2 (1982), Hackers (1995), and Face/Off (1997), exploring what makes technically flawed films endlessly rewatchable and culturally enduring. Key topics include: **Defining "Good Bad":** A good bad movie requires at least one over-the-top or absurd element combined with high rewatchability. The key distinction from simply "bad" films is that audiences return to them repeatedly and form emotional attachments. The formula: infectious watchability plus identifiable flaws that loop back into virtues rather than killing enjoyment.; **The Nostalgia Variable:** Personal memory is a primary ingredient in good bad movie attachment. Films first encountered during formative moments — a first solo drive, a teenage summer, an early relationship — become frozen in emotional amber. When evaluating your own list, trace whether the affection is for the film itself or the life moment it represents..

How long is this episode of The Daily (NYT)?

This episode is 37 minutes long. SignalCast provides an AI-generated summary so you can get the key insights in about 3 minutes.

The Daily (NYT)

The Good, the Bad and the Good-Bad (Movie)

September 13, 2026

37 min episode · 2 min read

Maya Salam,Taffy Brodesser-akner,Gilbert Cruz

Episode

37 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Relationships, Leadership, Crypto & Web3

AI-Generated Summary

Published Sep 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

✓Defining "Good Bad": A good bad movie requires at least one over-the-top or absurd element combined with high rewatchability. The key distinction from simply "bad" films is that audiences return to them repeatedly and form emotional attachments. The formula: infectious watchability plus identifiable flaws that loop back into virtues rather than killing enjoyment.
✓The Nostalgia Variable: Personal memory is a primary ingredient in good bad movie attachment. Films first encountered during formative moments — a first solo drive, a teenage summer, an early relationship — become frozen in emotional amber. When evaluating your own list, trace whether the affection is for the film itself or the life moment it represents.
✓Cultural Fragmentation Makes These Films Valuable: In an era with no monoculture, good bad movies function as rare shared reference points. Unlike current prestige TV or arthouse film, titles like Face/Off or Grease 2 carry near-universal name recognition across generations, enabling low-stakes communal debate that modern fragmented media consumption rarely produces.
✓Time Creates Cult Status: Films dismissed by critics on release — Hackers earned poor reviews in 1995 — can achieve good bad status only after distance allows reappraisal. Audiences recognize what was taken for granted: Hackers now serves as a precise 1995 time capsule of cyberpunk fashion and pre-internet visual imagination that no intentional period piece could replicate.
✓The "Rich Middle" Is Underserved: Critical attention concentrates on prestige films and epic flops, ignoring a large middle category of films that neither won awards nor bombed into obscurity but achieved lasting pop culture relevance. Volcano (1997), Grease 2 (1982), and similar titles maintained decades of audience engagement without critical rehabilitation — a commercially and culturally distinct category worth tracking separately.

What It Covers

NYT Daily hosts Rachel Abrams, Maya Salam, Gilbert Cruz, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner define the "good bad movie" genre using examples including Volcano (1997), Grease 2 (1982), Hackers (1995), and Face/Off (1997), exploring what makes technically flawed films endlessly rewatchable and culturally enduring.

Key Questions Answered

•Defining "Good Bad": A good bad movie requires at least one over-the-top or absurd element combined with high rewatchability. The key distinction from simply "bad" films is that audiences return to them repeatedly and form emotional attachments. The formula: infectious watchability plus identifiable flaws that loop back into virtues rather than killing enjoyment.
•The Nostalgia Variable: Personal memory is a primary ingredient in good bad movie attachment. Films first encountered during formative moments — a first solo drive, a teenage summer, an early relationship — become frozen in emotional amber. When evaluating your own list, trace whether the affection is for the film itself or the life moment it represents.
•Cultural Fragmentation Makes These Films Valuable: In an era with no monoculture, good bad movies function as rare shared reference points. Unlike current prestige TV or arthouse film, titles like Face/Off or Grease 2 carry near-universal name recognition across generations, enabling low-stakes communal debate that modern fragmented media consumption rarely produces.
•Time Creates Cult Status: Films dismissed by critics on release — Hackers earned poor reviews in 1995 — can achieve good bad status only after distance allows reappraisal. Audiences recognize what was taken for granted: Hackers now serves as a precise 1995 time capsule of cyberpunk fashion and pre-internet visual imagination that no intentional period piece could replicate.
•The "Rich Middle" Is Underserved: Critical attention concentrates on prestige films and epic flops, ignoring a large middle category of films that neither won awards nor bombed into obscurity but achieved lasting pop culture relevance. Volcano (1997), Grease 2 (1982), and similar titles maintained decades of audience engagement without critical rehabilitation — a commercially and culturally distinct category worth tracking separately.

Notable Moment

After spending the entire episode building enthusiasm for Face/Off, host Rachel Abrams actually watched it afterward and reported back that her verdict was simply that it was bad — no qualifier — undercutting the entire conversation with a single deadpan conclusion that the panel had failed to convert her.

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Episode Transcript

This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Colin Martin, head of fixed income research and strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, along with their guests, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy, and more. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone. It's Rachel. I wanted to let you know that our colleagues over at POPcast, which is the Times pop culture chat show featuring music critic John Karamonica and reporter Joe Coscarelli, they have a brand new look. And now they're going to be coming out weekly in both video and audio. POPcast features conversations with some of the biggest names in pop culture, like Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, Anne Hathaway, Lou Combs, and so many others. You can subscribe to POPCAST on their YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. And, of course, you can watch or listen or both on the New York Times app. If you aren't already a subscriber, you can download the New York Times app and get your first month free. And if you already subscribe, we thank you. Okay. Here's today's show. From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily on Sunday. No magic is stronger than sisterhood. The film Practical Magic two opened in theaters this week. Here's the thing about magic. It won't be silenced. If you weren't familiar with practical magic one, it came out in 1998. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman play sisters dealing with a pretty inconvenient generational curse that kills any man they fall in love with. It was a curse, wasn't it? He died because I loved him so much. Also, by the way, they're witches. In practical magic two, we learn that Sandra Bullock's character has passed the curse onto her daughters who are also witches. We're witches in the in the curses room. I will never trust you again. The release of Practical Magic two has prompted a lot of conversation here at The Daily about a particular kind of movie. Not a good movie, not a bad movie, but movies that are good bad. Because for a lot of movie lovers, the movies that we love the most, they're not necessarily the movies we think are the best. What to you is like a movie that you really love even though you know that it is bad? Looney Tunes back in action. And if you start asking people about their favorite good bad movies, you'll find they have a lot to say on the subject. Like, listen. 2003, Joe Dante made this movie because he hated Space Jam. He's like, I'm gonna make a proper Looney Tunes movie, and that's like Steve Martin's Like a lot to say. And it's like a subtle critique of capitalism where it's like You kinda can't …

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