I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.
– “The Picture Of Dorian Grey” (Oscar Wilde)
Movies: Guilty Pleasures
Oh come on, we all have them—the films that we say we love to hate, but which we oh-so-secretly love. Since I have to keep up my reputation as a cinema snob, I keep these secret favorites well-hidden from my family and friends. Here’s hoping they never find this page...
Backflash (2001)
This is one of those low-budget, straight-to-video affairs that rarely even makes it to late-night TV. Fortunately, the tiny budget was large enough to nab some excellent actors — how can a movie be bad when it stars Robert Patrick and Jennifer Esposito? In this flick, Patrick plays against type as a nerdy video store owner who gets drawn into a swindling scheme run by sultry ex-con Harley (Esposito). Throw in Colm Meany as a Christmas-obsessed mafioso and Melissa Joan Hart as a trashy, lollipop-sucking “coroner”, and you’ve got yourself one weird-ass movie—and I do mean that in a good way. Be prepared for plenty of twists!
The Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987)
Give Sam Raimi and his cohorts credit—they do learn fast. After realizing that their first Evil Dead flick was more ha-ha than horror, they pulled out all the stops in the sequel and went full-steam-ahead for the laughs. Oddly enough, this proved to be the key to creating a good horror film: the finely-tuned mixture of shocks and giggles in this film makes it doubly entertaining. Bruce Campbell, having finally learned how to act, is brilliantly over-the-top as Ash, the beleaguered hero.
George Of The Jungle (1997)
It’s on my video shelf, all right—half-hidden behind the other videos, of course. It’s a little embarrassing to admit that I like such a “juvenile” movie, but I can’t help it; even now, it still cracks me up. Brendan Fraser is perfect as the dumb-but-loveable Tarzan ripoff, while Leslie Mann plays the ditzy blonde without getting on my nerves, and Thomas Haden Church gets the villainous smarm down pat. The narration is hilarious, and the scenes with the Swahili-speaking guides make me howl with laughter. Of course, now I’ll never be able to watch a real Tarzan movie without yelling, “WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE!”
Night Of The Living Dead (1968)
One of the classics of the zombie genre, this flick has everything I ask for in a horror movie: good script, good acting, and decent scares. Oh, sure, the special effects are low-budget and dated, and there are one or two players who obviously slept through acting class, but that just adds to the cheeseball entertainment. Duane Jones is wonderfully natural in this film—too bad he never got another role this good. This is a movie made for late-night gatherings with friends who can appreciate so-bad-it’s-good entertainment.
Titanic (1997)
This film is really two movies in one: a romance flick, and a disaster flick. When people trash this film, they’re usually talking about the love story, which is incredibly insipid and painfully drawn out (just die, Jack, just die). Yes, I hate the star-crossed lovers as much as you do. But if you surgically removed the romance and left everything else, you’d have a decent movie and an excellent disaster flick. The props are breathtaking, the special effects are gorgeous, and the sinking scenes are gut-wrenching. Forget James Cameron’s clumsy script; focus on the little details, the minor characters, the lines that were actually spoken in real life (oh yes, there’s plenty of real dialogue in there). If sitting through a soppy love story is the price I have to pay to watch the great ship go down, it’s worth it. (Fortunately, owning the DVD means I don’t have to sit through the lovin’—I just skip right to the second half and watch the real waterworks.)
