Guilty Pleasure
Yeah so I’ve been wondering about that particular phenomenon we call a GUILTY PLEASURE. It appears that the guilt is derived from the fear that someone may find out about our (according to Wikipedia) “lowbrow” taste(s).
Well shit… I stopped worrying about THAT a long time ago. Fuck’em if they can’t take a joke.
What got me to thinking about the idea of a guilty pleasure was from watching a movie on satellite recently… The name of the movie is AIRBORNE. But here’s what’s interesting… I first stumbled on this movie many years ago when I was stuck in New Orleans for a month with only one HBO channel. Being the insomniac that I am, the movie came on and it was OKAY but it was the kind of movie I could leave on in the background while I was doing other work.
The only problem however, was the fact that I was in New Orleans for an entire month and even though I had beaten a well-worn path from my room at the Days Inn on Canal Street to Ryans 500 Club down in the French Quarter, it seemed that every fucking time I finally got back to my room and turned on the TV, AIRBORNE was on. One very early morning after spending several very interesting hours with two Swedish female college students I stumbled my way back to my room and sure enough, AIRBORNE was on and this time, drunk as I was, I watched the damn thing.
And no… I didn’t like it. It was cute enough but not anywhere near my current taste in movies… And to top it off, it seemed like every damn time I got back to my room and turned the television on, this fucking movie was playing.
Let’s just say that I got extremely SICK of watching it and so sick of it that when I finally left New Orleans after a month and AIRBORNE would ever come on either regular, cable, or satellite television, I would dry-heave and turn the fucking channel.
So there I was sitting in bed last week… I was watching some movie — I can’t even remember what it was but left the channel on and sure enough, AIRBORNE comes on right after.
But this time, I swallowed my dry-heave and kept it on… And I’ll be damn if this little movie didn’t fucking grab me. Yeah, it was the same movie I’d seen back in New Orleans but this time around, I was actually enjoying it.
And now here’s my question… WHY DID I ENJOY IT? I’m still mulling that over but suffice to say that when it was over, I liked it so much that I found out when it was playing again and recorded the damn thing so I could watch it later.
And watch it I did. About five times now. Why? Simply because I am trying to figure out why it is now resonating with me when it sure as hell didn’t resonate with me way back when.
One of the things I’ve noticed right away is the simple YET EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE structure. It’s almost by the book Structure 101 storytelling. Now trust me… That does not mean that I like most Structure 101 movies… In fact, I do not but for some reason, this one hits home. Could be that the main character is a fish out of water surfer now having to live the next six months in Cincinnati, Ohio. Maybe I identify with the fish out of water character. Could be. Could also be that the main character is a really laid back kid who rarely gives in to sticks and stones rather than getting up into someone’s face. He doesn’t care that others see him as some kind of coward when in reality, he simply doesn’t see the need to fight about stupid shit.
But then of course at the end, he does finally figure out that there are some things worth fighting for… His new girlfriend, for instance. So fight for her he does.
Could be that I used to surf every day when I lived in San Diego and I completely understood his “perfect wave” mindset. Like I said, I’m still mulling that over but this is the first time since I’ve been a screenwriter that I’ve SERIOUSLY sat down and tried to figure this out.
Why THIS MOVIE?
I mean I like a hell of a lot of movies… Why is this one resonating with me so much right now? My last guilty pleasure movie was a very little known movie called EDDIE MACON’S RUN starring John Schnider and Kirk Douglas and don’t get me wrong… When that movie shows up on television, I still STOP what I’m doing and watch it. I just want to know WHY.
Why? Because I do the same thing with all the classics… COOL HAND LUKE. THE GREAT ESCAPE. THE MALTESE FALCON and on and on… When any of the classics come on, I shut everything down and watch them. I know why I watch them because I continue to learn from them and enjoy their storytelling techniques along with their characterization. I mean, what’s NOT TO LIKE with many of the classics? Sure, many of us won’t like the same classic movies but I do think that the classics very likely cross over for many of us.
So why the guilty pleasure movie? Why does it speak to us personally? Is it because we can easily interject ourselves into one of the roles? Is it because WE probably GET IT more than the average person gets it? And if so, WHY do WE get it?
And MORE IMPORTANTLY, how can we use this to benefit our own writing?
Can we glean SOMETHING useful for our own writing from these guilty pleasure films? Because there is definitely an argument against it… Many of these guilty pleasure movies never caught on with an audience which is why they show up at 3:00 in the morning on satellite or cable and none of your friends or acquaintances have ever heard of them before.
For instance, as I watched AIRBORNE, I realized that the movie did really well at revealing the protagonist’s ordinary world to us… A much needed structural element for a fish-out-of-water story. And AIRBORNE does it fast and very efficiently… The only thing I found wrong with it was the protagonist and his buddy roller blading to the beach WITHOUT their surfboards under their arm yet when they finally get to the beach, they miraculously have their boards and paddle out into the surf.
In other words, the movie has flaws but I found myself doing something I rarely do… Forgiving the flaws and diving deeper into my suspension of disbelief for the greater good.
So far however, I’ve broken down AIRBORNE in my head only… Not on paper. What I keep coming away with is the efficient way they show us the protagonist’s ordinary world and some of his exposition. There’s a scene where he meets his future girlfriend and tells her a story of why he doesn’t see the need to fight anymore… Once we hear his story, the girl asks him, “So what happened to the surfer?” — and he replies, “He moved to Cincinnati.” So even when we now understand where he’s coming from, we can also see that he’s only figured out half the equation… i.e., even the perfect wave isn’t something worth fighting for and to him, apparently the perfect wave was, at this point in his life (he’s only 17), the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN HIS LIFE until he meets his girlfriend but it takes him awhile to realize that she’s actually more important than the perfect wave… But when he finally does realize it, he gets onboard with this new revelation and fights for her.
There are other structural elements in AIRBORNE as well that are efficiently portrayed and I think it very well could be this movie’s SIMPLICITY that I find appealing to my senses. The structure is easy to understand and thereby making screenwriting or storytelling structure that much easier to understand overall. And that could be why I find these guilty pleasure movies a guilty pleasure.
I like the movie. I will probably watch it again and in fact, it is one of the few movies that my brain is telling me to strip down and reverse engineer its structure… Not to copy it but to completely understand it and possibly why it is resonating with ME — which I think is probably a good exercise for me these days… It will get my head back to writing in a sense.
I even did a little search on AIRBORNE just to see what I could find and as it turns out, it’s a guilty pleasure for a hell of a lot of people.
What about your guilty pleasure movie?
Unk
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43 Responses to “Guilty Pleasure”
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Great post, Unk.
We all have ‘em. For me, it’s Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Cheesy dialogue, predictable story…but damn if it doesn’t get me every time.
:)
No idea.
I only watch movies on DVD, which I now realize precludes me from discovering these guilty pleasures.
That said I’m a huge fan of BOWFINGER, which I don’t think is working at all on the structural level.
Must see AIRBORNE.
BTW UNK, there’s a double-up in your piece. The following section is repeated:
“Don’t get me wrong … to writing in a sense.”
I don’t know why, but I still consider ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS to be one of my favorite Christmas movies. And I can’t not watch THE ROCK when I spot it on TV.
Eric,
I’ve seen it… I thought it was worthy of watching i.e., wasn’t a waste of my time but definitely not a guilty pleasure for ME. This is what I really want to dig into though… Why is it for YOU but NOT for me. Of course many of the answers will be subjective BUT there just might be a few pieces to the screenwriting puzzle to discover.
I prefer to think that there IS.
Karel,
Maybe you should go ahead and rent ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS then…
Nick… I admit, I’ve never seen ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS but I think we can all admit THE ROCK is a decent flick and doesn’t have to be considered a guilty pleasure. But next time ESC is on, I will check it out because again, I am interested in WHY it resonates with some and not others.
Unk
THE ROCK is a guilty pleasure for me because I hate Michael Bay films. I can’t stand watching any of his other films, but for some reason I dig THE ROCK.
As far as why I like ERNEST SAVES CHRISTMAS, I think I just like the idea of a big, goofy idiot saving Christmas because I’m a big, goofy idiot. It could also be that the movie came out when I was 11, and it brings back childhood memories.
unk this is a great post. glad to see you back making posts. hopefully you won’t wait a few months to post again because i for one still visit your site every day hoping to see something new.
this is funny because a few posts back when you mentioned the movie “stick it” you just happened to mention my own guilty pleasure movie and i’ve never been into gymnastics or any kind of competition but for some reason the movie completely resonated with me and i keep thinking you might be right that the structure and of course the writing is so simply articulated that it hits you right between the eyes.
i would be very interested in reading about other’s guilty pleasure movies here because you’ve really got me thinking about this now.
enid
Oh, and “Air Brakes…Aheh heh heh heh.” had my eleven year old ass in stitches.
Am I right to assume this post was spurred by a recent airing of “Airborne” that I too watched?
It’s also one of my guilty pleasure movies. Although I think my true “guilty pleasure” movie in the same vein as “Airborne” would have to be “She’s All That.” For some damn reason, this movie has always made me happy. That scene where Rachel Leigh Cook comes down the stairs to Six Pence None the Richer…shit man. That’s the stuff. Then she trips and you can’t help but be happy…or sad that you have no one for yourself, which at that time I did not. I don’t know.
I think the reason these movies are guilty pleasures is because they actually make us feel something. And a lot of the time it’s a very basic emotion that stems from a very relatable character. I could relate to the main character in “Airborne” because I too am from San Diego and have a similar mindset, and his cousin is a great comic hero. The aunt and uncle are perfectly whacky and make you feel happy just looking at them. In “She’s All That,” all the characters are fantastic. The little brother, the dad, the girl, the boy, the friends. You feel an emotion for every character, a very basic emotion that makes you feel some sort of comfort.
For me, DRAGON reminds me of my time as a Chinese immigrant in the 1950s, and how I transformed my struggles into my own brand of martial arts…
Kidding. (Or am I? Hi-ya!)
I think I’m just sucker for Cinderella stories, especially when Cinderella can kick some serious ass.
i have a soft spot for arnold. just rewatched “total recall” twice in a row (on VHS). damn, i love that movie…and i don’t even feel guilty about it.
Crikey, isn’t that the movie about skating with Jack Black in a supporting role, a surfer dude moves to the midwest and refuses to fight?
Holy crap, you know I’ve seen that film at least five times, and you’re right, it’s definitely a film that can suck you in in spite of itself … there are good actors in it, too.
Guilty pleasures? I have far too many films to list, seriously … but THE BLOOD OF HEROES would be at the top of that list, and hell, I ain’t even feeling guilty about it.
And any GP list begins and ends with ROAD HOUSE, of course.
good to hear your voice, Unk.
Oh, and forget DRAGON and instead watch RAPID FIRE with Brandon Lee and Powers Boothe, there’s a guilty pleasure …
DRAGON is just ridiculous, seriously.
I’d have to go with Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Brilliant in its simplicity. I almost said Idiocracy but that isn’t pleasure.
For me it’s SPACED INVADERS with it’s Doughnut Of Destruction, moronic alien ‘invaders’ and Howie from The Fall Guy.
Please don’t think bad of me :-)
I can’t say no to “Big Daddy” or “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo”. Damn those movies.
Airborne also has a great “final fight” sequence. I know I missed the first half of that movie countless times, but couldn’t turn off the big derby at the end. I probably watched that sequence a dozen times before I found out how much fun the rest of the movie was.
Enid,
STICK IT is definitely a guilty pleasure and now that you mention it — it shares the screenwriting structure 101 with AIRBORNE.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Nick,
AIR BRAKES sounds familiar but I just can’t place it… I’ll watch for it.
Garrett,
Exactly… It just happened to come on and I’m like, “Fuck this (dry-heave-swallow)…” but then for some reason, I left it on which is very strange because it would take a thousand fingers and toes to count how many fucking times I’ve turned that movie OFF because of my experience back in Nawlins.
Some trivia since I made the post… Shane McDermott, the protagonist got sick of Hollywood and became both an artist and a real estate agent out in Galveston, Texas:
Shane McDermott
Eric,
Transmigration of the soul eh?
Josh,
Crikey? More transmigration? LOL. Yeah, I need to sit down and make a list of all these guilty pleasure movies because I think there is definitely something going on here… Could be outstanding fodder for a book of some kind.
Christian,
I remember watching KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE when it came out on VHS… I couldn’t wait to rent it. Unfortunately, it just didn’t do it for me but I would LOVE to know WHY it does it for YOU.
Jonathan,
Think bad of you? LOL. Naaaaaah. SPACED INVADERS? Really?
Piper,
Interesting… I’ve seen them a few times but they just don’t get it done for me personally… I’d love to know what it is about them that resonates with you.
Jon,
Yeah, the final roller blading sequence down Devil’s Backbone is definitely worth watching… No dialogue but it definitely grabs you because by now, you’re fully invested into the story.
Unk
I love guilty pleasure flicks. Generally for me its a movie where the real world doesn’t exist. No real violence, or if there is, its something cartoonish and poses no real threat to the story.
One of my guilty pleasures is the recent Journey to the Center of the Earth with Brendan Frazier. Totally corny, crap dialogue and they remind you you’re watching a 3d movie over and over. Like pushing a book toward the camera, or of course, a yo-yo. I know it sucks, but if its on, I watch it.
Not a movie but one of my favorite guilty pleasures are ghost hunting shows. Like Ghost Adventures. Its total crap. I don’t even believe in ghosts! Still, watching a bunch of people crawl around a dark building, running into stuff and getting the shit scared out of them its hilarious to me.
In the end, I think a guilty pleasure is anything remotely entertaining where you can just turn your brain off for a couple hours and enjoy the ride.
I really enjoy The Legend of Bagger Vance. I hate golf and it’s a film with a magic negro, but I don’t care. I feel my perfect swing, y’all. I feel it.
Also, if we’re allowed to list TV shows as well, Footballers Wives. That show was so awesome. That one chick dyed her baby brown so her husband wouldn’t know it was his white baby and not his brown baby. Awesome.
emily,
What about KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE?
Unk
“That Thing You do”
UNK,
I don’t know. It’s really camp but it seems like the actors had a lot of fun with it. Admittedly most of them sucked, but the clowns were just so “murderously funny” it’s it just makes me laugh. The plot was basically non-existent. We don’t know where they came from, or why. They just land one night and start cocooning people in cotton candy.
Also, they had different clown characters, a short child-like one, several enforcer types, a few happy-go-lucky types and some serious technology.
I also have to give kudos for them having interesting methods of attracting prey.
I’d say the range of characters all around made it seem like a real situation. The juxtaposition of the two cops added an “action movie” feel to it, while the heroics was definitely pure monster movie.
This is good. Now I can say that it blended content from multiple genres while still maintaining the seriousness of Killer Clowns.
Then you look at the FX. There was no gore but 100s of people were killed. There was perhaps the funniest “revenge scene” ever (spoiler alert) when the little clown pulls up on his little bike and the mean bikers destroy it. He then jumps in the air and comes back down with boxing gloves on. The guy asks if he’s going to knock his block off and a head is thrown into a trash can. BRILLIANT!
That brings up another thing that I noticed (I watched it last night on Netflix streaming). The clowns had this simplistic “almost-English” speech that just cracked me up.
It also did justice to the slasher in the woods movies as that was where they found the big top spaceship (I mean come on, a big top spaceship!!! LO fucking L).
It even had a really traditional structure of the inciting incident at around 8 minutes, Act II started right on time with escalated stakes. The midpoint was the bleakest of bleak when they can’t get in touch with the State Troopers, but soon they realize how to kill them. Of course, the heroes go to face the monsters without guns for the most part to rescue the damsel.
You have the two suitors fighting over her and the comedy relief duo who just happened to have a vehicle.
(Spoilers)
It even has a final showdown with the “leader” where the hero and the sidekicks barely make it out of the exploding spaceship.
All in all, it just had some well-used elements and it didn’t take itself too seriously. If ever I need to just watch something totally ridiculous but pretty well-done, I watch this.
In thinking about it, I have one more.
Dead Alive. It’s a perfectly structured movie with memorable characters and some of the most outrageous monsters ever.
There’s a couple I will watch over and over again.
Tombstone. The gunfight at the OK corral. The hero and the anti-hero hero out to clean up a town in the wild west.
I’m bringing hell.
Wall-E. I know animation but there’s still a powerful story at its core. Boy finds girl. Boy loses girl. Boy fights to get girl back. Told against the backdrop of a species seeking to survive.
My guilty pleasure is Notting Hill, no doubt, all bets are off. I’ve seen it too many times now to count and finally came to understand what it is that attracts me so much. That is, I knew on one level it was because Julia Roberts’ character was the more successful one (as opposed to it usually being the guy) but couldn’t get past that and what it meant.
The more I watched it – studied it – the more I could see the roles are completely reversed in this story. Not only is the female the more successful one, she’s the one who pulls the strings, i.e., is the more dominating, assertive character. In essence, you could reverse the roles completely and you would actually have the more typical romantic comedy as we usually see.
Not only this, but the supporting characters are incredibly unique, interesting and hold their own – each and every one. Moreover, the family and friends center around the male character – again a reversal of gender roles – rather than the female one. In fact, the female character doesn’t even demonstrate having any kind of a best friend but rather only business associates and the vague appearance of a somewhat threatening boyfriend.
The male character, played by Hugh Grant, again has best friends, family, an amiable (but strange) roommate and an entire circle of people surrounding him and involved in his life. Generally it’s the female that is set up like this and the male character is the lone, successful type.
I think the fact that it took so many times for me to watch this before I finally caught on testifies to just how good this story was written and cast that I didn’t catch it sooner. It is not at all obvious that one is going to watch a film where the gender roles are so completey reversed.
Of course the most obvious part of it is clear at first, since he runs a book store which is barely staying afloat and she’s a successful film start but after that, the story flows so well and is is told so artfully one can easily forget that this is a story that is going completely against the typical romantic comedy structure as far as gender roles are considered.
If you haven’t seen Notting Hill recently, or never, and you have any interest in the atypical romantic comedy, I totally recommend this one.
Also as others have stated, good to see you back, Unk!!
Hey, Unk, why do you want to hurt me like that?
Some good guilty pleasures here… A few that I might have to watch again for the hell of it since that’s all I seem to be doing these days.
Rick S.,
Yeah TOMBSTONE is something I’ll always watch when it comes on no matter what… Guilty pleasure? To me, TOMBSTONE holds it own and is a very decent movie.
Christian,
You never cease to AMAZE me… You’ve given KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE some real thought. I did think the clown makeup really helped separate it from the zero budget it was made from.
Linda,
Thanks! I’ve seen KNOTTING HILL a few times and I thought pretty much the same thing but never from the perspective of a guilty pleasure. Food for thought.
emily emily emily… Hurt you? HURT YOU? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! That hurts my screenwriting feelwings.
Unk
Clubb Dread and Psycho Beach Party. They are both ridiculous but they never get old to me.
UNK,
That’s why I come here. You force me to think and articulate. I may look back at certain “not-so-great movies” to figure why I watch them.
DEAD ALIVE would have to be number two.
Wait what? Are we having the same conversation?
There are two categories of guilty pleasure for me…the ones that aren’t really guilty because despite their cheesiness they have some cool factor: BUCKAROO BANZAI and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA are prime examples. Have watched these dozens of times.
The actual guilty pleasures, the ones I feel a little embarrassed to admit I enjoy. A lot of these have crept up on me at work.
We have a DVD player in the break room. Nothing too violent, no sex – so we have a lot of animated films and a lot of RomComs. Watching a movie at work tends to be a matter of seeing two or three minutes here and there, then catching a chunk at lunch, and eventually, over the course of a week or so, getting through the whole thing. Not the kindest way for a film to be viewed.
And I’ve been surprised.
I enjoyed THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT the first time I saw it, though I only watched it at my mom’s request. On repeat viewings, though, it’s developed more appeal for me.
A real shocker was the innocuous HEART & SOULS. This movie is goofy, light, and looks dated. But it holds so much charm. I really care whether the characters get their resolution. I think Robert Downey jr is a large part of the reason for this, but the movie is just too doggone sweet.
(Then again, I take BUCKAROO BANZAI in to work, and people stare at the screen in disbelief and confusion for a couple of minutes before replacing it with Toy Story.)
Christian,
Well thanks for the articulation because I honestly do believe there is something to be learned about story by exploring the guilty pleasure phenomenon. And, all your articulation has caused both emily and I to check out KILLER CLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE again and compare notes.
emily,
Is KCFOS on NetFlix?
Laura,
Agreed on your definition of guilty pleasure. I happen to love BUCKAROO BONZAI but nobody else that has ever watched it with me — gets it. LOL.
But even so… It’s got enough of that COOL FACTOR so that you’re not embarrassed to have it on when somebody enters the room.
And thanks for the multitude of emails from lurkers who have shared their guilty pleasure films with me and why… Much appreciated.
Unk
Oh! You don’t know. I thought you knew and that’s why you said that.
I’m coulrophobic.
Hi Unk,
my greatest guilty pleasure film would have to be 8 MILE. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched it, but every time i do it has a way of totally sucking me in and reducing me to a blubbery mess.
I haven’t read the screenplay or dissected the film on paper, but in my head I’ve spent a lot of time trying to reverse engineer the combination of elements that grab me so intensely, in the hope of injecting a similar verve into my own characters.
I think Eminem’s clear character path has a lot to do with it, and to me all the supporting elements of the film’s world gel together so well that I can see right inside his head and associate.
I find it a great example of a character who fights passionately for what he believes and has even greater obstacles to overcome to achieve them (which is of course the basis of most interesting characters), but in this case I think the story is so strong that even a non-actor can slip on those shoes and pull off a great performance.
I find this film interesting because a) I’m not into musical autobiopics, and b) I’m not really into rap, but it gets me every time.
I just watched THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS on AMC…again.
Haven’t seen it in maybe 20 years, but it is still watchable and enjoyable. Makes me want to see FOR LOVE OR MONEY again. I’d say they were a couple of guilty pleasures.
I am with you on the classics thing, UNK. I always stop and watch great films…it is a respect thing. I own COLL HAND LUKE on DVD (haven’t opened it in the 7 years since buying it), but I will watch every time I see it on TV. Same with CASABLANCA, CITIZEN KANE, THE THIRD MAN, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, SERPICO, etc.
How can you not?
My guilty pleasures are Waterworld and The Postman. I love the concepts, the attention to details of these worlds, and two of my all-time favorite bad guys played by Dennis Hopper (RIP) and Will Patton. I understand why these movies were horrible; one reason may be that they are super long for most people, but I love losing myself in another world for long periods. By comparison, Battlefield Earth is long and takes the audience to another world, but the concept is unoriginal, John Travolta is a terrible bad guy, and the movie does not take itself seriously.
“Eyes Wide Shut” for me. I identify with the Tom Cruise character and feel like, “Been there, done that”.
I need to open my eyes to figure this one out…
Bob
I love Airborne and have been saying that for years! People laugh and say what a shitty movie, but I say they’ve never really sat and watched it. For me, it’s this kid’s interactions with everyone he meets. Yeah, he’s a fish out of water, but he does what he can to feel at home. I also really liked the end when he decides there are some things worth fighting for, but not fighting in the physical sense. He stays true to himself, so his arc, while progressive, is simple.
Guilty pleasure? Hmm…Ok, if I tell you guys, you can’t rip me a new one, lol. I know how truly awful this movie is, but I just adore it, I really can’t explain it. Ahem. The Pacifer. Ok, ok, I know!
Does anyone here actually know what the term ‘guilty pleasure’ means? Some of these movies people are rattling off are actually good movies. Tombstone is pretty high up there with the all-time western classics. It’s not a guilty pleasure because it’s actually a movie that’s been filmed well and follows a good script.
Admittedly, The Rock is a prime example of a guilty pleasure, and that’s because for some reason Michael Bay is able to attract such high caliber acting talent which he promptly squanders on absolute tripe. His movies are terrible, but you watch it just the same because you’re drawn into this terrible movie by the overwhelming charisma of big-time actors like Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage (And Nick Cage has made quite a few guilty pleasure movies by me). Armageddon is utter tripe, yet it’s fun to watch because Bay essentially managed to assemble the most star-studded cast in movie history at the time. You have to watch a movie that boasts Bruce Willis in it at least once.
I’m absolutely puzzled as to how someone can start talking about Arnold movies when discussing guilty pleasures and NOT mention Commando. I freaking LOVE Commando, but that movie is dumb as hell. It practically takes refuge in how stupid and overblown it is, and if anyone other than Arnold was in the main role, I would absolutely hate this movie. “You’re a funny man, Sully, I like you. That’s why I’m going to kill you last.”
regulus – i agree completely that the definition of “guilty pleasure” has gotten lost here. these are mostly just terrific movies.
commando is genius, indeed. the soundtrack/score kills me. carribbean steel drums? gorgeously horrific. and yet, arnold can carry it all…
Some of my guilty pleasure movies, the ones I’d better not start watching or else it’ll steal the next two hours, are The Mummy, French Kiss (gotta love Kevin Kline), and . . . okay, it isn’t a movie, but I can’t pass up Spongebob. He makes me laugh!
Oh, and any of the Rush Hour movies. “Do you understand the words that are coming outta my mouth?!”
Unk,
Great post! And I enjoy this film as well. I like Seth Green with the long hair and our first real exposure to Jack Black, but I think the reason this stays with me is how I get into the story.
Every time I go to Wal-Mart I scour the $5 DVD bin to see if this film is in there.
never saw it. but the idea to reverse engineer it is interesting. all i ever see is people disentin big important movies, but why not start with something really simple for christsakes? i mean, the thing got made; even terrible movies have a reason they got made.