JCC Your favorite Guilty Pleasure film?

The Children of Dune TV miniseries rocks

 

I love this movie. About 5 or 6 years ago I met Ernie Hudson at WonderCon. I was the only person there without Ghostbusters stuff and I walked away with a signed Congo DVD.

 

Happy to participate but I refuse to leave it at one.

Super Mario Brothers: sure, it would have been safe to do an animated film of the Nintendo icons, especially in the early 1990s. But you really have to admire the risk taking with this film. They took elements of the film, revised them and we got a gritty, campy sci-fi action adventure. Dennis Hopper is delightfully evil, so much so, he is the funniest character out of the lot, which is how villains should be in this type of film. I especially love his Walken-esque line delivery, "See you lata, al-i-gator".

Batman Forever: the Schumacher era of Batman is generally, if not unanimously, seen as the black ship of the pre-Nolan era. I gleefully jump on the hate wagon when it comes to Batman & Robin but cannot bring myself around to hating Batman Forever. It definitely has its flaws in the writing and performances, but there's also a lot to be admired too. Jim Carrey may just be playing Jim Carrey as Riddler, but it worked. Tommy Lee Jones actually was a good choice for Two Face, but his performance suffered at the hands of Schumacher's directing. Meanwhile, the sets, fight choreography plus overall tone really works. This was the film that needed to be made following the melancholy predecessor, Batman Returns. In fact Batman Forever, though not prevailingly, can have its dark moments. Bruce is still mourning over the loss of his parents and is looking to punish someone for it. He sees precisely the same thing in Robin, so the dynamic between those two worked really well. I also liked the psychological aspect to the story too with dreams, split personality disorders and just the overall question of "who are we really". But, that is undermined by the overuse of Batman iconography and throwbacks to the 60s series. However, I can live with it.

American Pie (the first): not much to say. We've all been here at some point. It may not be the smartest comedy, but it can't be denied that American Pie is a pretty hard one not to relate to and have a laugh with too. Anything since then with the name American Pie has just been cash-in.

Doctor Who [the Peter Cushing films]: if you can forgive the fact that the Doctor is human and the time machine was invented, these movies are fun. The Dalek designs are badass too. Come on, at least admit they're better than Moffat's Jenny Craig meets Classic Star Trek colour coded shirt daleks.

Lethal Weapon 4: loaded with more personality and humour than parts 2 and 3 combined. It may not be the most faithful to what the series is about, but it's the perfect Saturday night in front of the television with a pizza film.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: this ended up being a guilty pleasure because whenever I mention my liking of the film, I get awkward stares. While my least preferred IJ film, it still wasn't all that bad. It certainly wasn't a Batman and Robin. For me, I got what I expected. When I saw the trailer, I immediately saw an action-adventure that didn't take itself too seriously with modern production values. That's precisely what I got which is why I can't hate the film. Though I must say I hated that they ended the film with IJ getting married. But it still has a place in my library and gets the odd re-run every now and then.
As for IJ5, i'm not sure. Mainly because I can't see how they'll continue it without having a married IJ with his son, Mutt. The only real way around this is by awkwardly writing their absence into the script or doing a Temple Of Doom type film where it's a prequel. But I agree that the two most disappointing aspects was the wedding and Mutt.

Ghostbusters 2: it certainly didn't live up to what made the first film so great, but it had what it needed to at least make it work. Good cast, a story to separate it sufficiently from the first, some fairly good character development, an atmosphere that was both comedic and gloomy plus a really good sounding soundtrack. That said, leave it there, can Ghostbusters 3. I want my Ghostbusters or none at all, not the Ghostbusters for 16 year old in 2013.

 

Screw guilt! You like what you like! I've studied Milton and Joyce - is it a guilty pleasure that I love Stephen King? Screw that. There's plenty of things the world tries to make us feel guilty about, are taste in art should not be one of them.

 

"our" taste in art, not "are"

noticed after it was too late to edit. grrrrrr.

 

Ravenous

The movie another JCer described to me as "the finest Western tragicomedy about cannibalism ever made."

Actually, it's more of a tragicomic Western horror fantasy about cannibalism.

And it was Guy Pearce's best role by far, also a terrific pre-sex offender role for the increasingly enormous Jeffrey Jones. Talk about guilty pleasures.

 

Spiderbabe

 

Stone Cold

 

Legally Blonde

 

V For Vendetta and Watchmen

I feel guilty because I'm a longtime, bigtime fan of Alan Moore and his work

 

I'll second Watchmen.

A genuine guilty pleasure for me would be Robocop 2. It's delightfully ridiculous, but the real beauty lies in some of the details...the malfunctioning prototypes, the guy with Elvis' body in his desk...I love it.

 

when i'm really hungover i like to watch horrible, sappy rom-coms and bawl my eyes out.

 

I watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles the other night and I was so drunk I bawled at the end.

 

"You know, Jesus had days just like this...."

 

A lot of the movies listed are just entertaining movies, no need to feel guilty for enjoying them. That's why I'm having a hard time coming up with anything.

So I'll go with Red Dawn. Terrible melodrama.

Really, anything with Swayze. Road House, The Outsiders, Dirty Dancing, Steel Dawn, Next of Kin, Point Break....

 

Don't forget "Ghost."

I think I'll get drunk and cry to it.

 

lol

 

Oh, Stiffler's mom...

 

"Met" in the biblical sense?

 

I just purchased Legend on Blu-ray!