Bad movies I have loved

My daughter dared me to write about the movie we saw last night (Hi, sweetie) because she thinks my fans imagine me as hanging around the art-movie house (And you’d better believe Santa Cruz has one, or three) instead of guffawing helplessly over a piece of gore-soaked inanity like Tropic Thunder, and that I should hesitate to admit such lowbrow taste for fear of offending my readers’ delicate and intellectual sensibilities.

Too late.

You have to understand, I don’t see a lot of movies at the moment, it being tough to get a replacement set of legs-and-ears in the evening, so I have to choose my films carefully. Nothing dark and emotional, don’t have room in my life for that. No cartoons, too much of a risk that they’ll be candy-floss. Something with a lot of explosions and either an interesting story line or humor, and both is a bonus. Hancock, Batman, and now Tropic Thunder: I’ll save my emotional intensity for the dvd, thanks.

(This is not to say I recommend any of those three movies to most normal human beings. This latest one particularly is gruesome and foul, and it you’re nauseated by a high and unending jet of red coming from a shot soldier’s helmet on a film set, you really don’t want to see what they do when the hero saves his buddies by picking up a grenade. And: not for kids. Not.)

Raunchy and offensive (not just against “retards”, which is the focus of current criticism, but against everyone) and clever and ridiculous and, if you’re in the right mood, and have a strong stomach, just the thing.

Afterwards, we ate sushi.

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13 Comments

  1. Teresa on August 19, 2008 at 10:53 am

    What makes you think we’re so ‘delicate’?? We read Laurie R. King novels, don’t we? 😉 I’m with ya on the movie recommendation [or lack of] too. There are times when only another viewing of The Mask will do it. Or that Howard Stern thing. Or Big Lebowski. Or….

    😉

  2. Teresa on August 19, 2008 at 10:54 am

    …. It doesn’t mean ANYthing.

    T.

  3. tangential1 on August 19, 2008 at 11:59 am

    *raises an eyebrow* Your daughter is quite right…I would not have pictured you going to see Tropic Thunder. Not in a million years.

    My friends and I have been debating seeing that film, actually. Heard that it’s fairly funny, but definitely in a guy kind of way. An action buddy comedy? But is it worth $9??

    Btw, have you seen Hot Fuzz? Priceless for the ending. You can’t get away with that much destruction without a bit of paperwork;-)

  4. Strawberry Curls on August 19, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    We all have our secret stress reducers. During the Christmas insanity I watch “Love Actually” over and over. I find the sight of Hugh Grant’s bottom shaking a great source of calm and delight when I’m trying to accomplish ten different things at once. One year, when I had to wrap about a gazillion presents in one night, I watched that movie about 5 times, the ending montage always makes me tear up.

    BTW I love that you took up your daughter’s dare. <> It is always fun to shock our children when they think we are too “adult” to do something. My son has learned not to issue a dare to me. He finds he ends up embarrassed while I just smile and shine it on. –Alice

  5. BetsyC on August 19, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    For me the key to uncomplicated enjoyment is “The right things happen to the right people.” I recommend renting True Lies or Terminator 2 (our governor at his best), or Tremors or Men in Black for that happy combination of thrills and satisfaction.

  6. Meredith T on August 19, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Well, it’s all about the right movie at the right moment, isn’t it. I can remember distinctly during a blazing hot summer trotting off to see JAWS. It Was Perfect.-Meredith

  7. Carlina on August 20, 2008 at 7:58 am

    Nothing wrong with watching a movie for enjoyment. Napoleon Dynamyte, Ghostbusters, Terminator, Alien and Aliens all rank high up there for me.

    I have a love for David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick too….but that’s serious stuff.

    Really…we all must escape from the commonplaces of existence 😉 .

  8. Pat in Marin on August 20, 2008 at 9:20 am

    Also for a guilty blow ’em up pleasure I find the Die Hard movies a real bang.

  9. Teresa on August 20, 2008 at 9:28 am

    Strbr Crls: I love your attitude! My best friend grew a waist-long ponytail I swear just to bug his twentysomething son.

    BetsyC: Men in Black…yes!! Pat in Marin: Ditto!

    Everybody else: thanks for the suggestions!

  10. nkk1969 on August 20, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Favorite bad movies: White Chicks (what other movie can you watch to hear things like, “Move along, Schwarzenegro” and “The feeling in your legs comes back, I promise” ?) and the first Charlie’s Angels (Cameron Diaz dancing in her Underoos and being the only white girl on Soul Train?! Going on Soul Train was pretty much my life’s ambition as a tween.).

    Really _really_ bad movie confession (looking around to see if the Grammar Goddess is reading over my shoulder): In college, my girlfriends would all get together on Friday night and rent a John Holmes movie. Yeah, yeah, crack your jokes about me being a different kind of Holmes fan in the 80s. We’d have an alcoholic beverage of some sort and ponder such universal questions such as, “Is that even physically possible?!” and, “How did she get in that position in the first place?” And, of course, we would laugh ourselves silly.

    I once had to explain to Caitlin, much to my embarrassment, why I spew diet Coke on the screen when reading offspring fanfics where the author choses to name Mary and Sherlock’s firstborn after Watson.

  11. vicki on August 20, 2008 at 11:16 pm

    I have a weakness for movies targeted at males with arrested emotional development. I nearly hyperventilated laughing at most of Old School, the end of The Wedding Crashers (common element: Will Farrell), and the first 30 minutes of the South Park movie (an equal opportunity, insult-for-every-possible-living-subgroup extravaganza, if ever one there was). And yes, I watched every single episode of Beavis and Butthead–most of them more than once. Favorite line: “Let’s go break stuff!”

  12. corgimom on August 21, 2008 at 8:18 pm

    Beavis and Butthead have a…ahe..ahe…monument out at Chaco Canyon. I took a picture of what I thought was an amazing formation, only to pull it up and see Beavis (or Butthead).

    True Confessions: I love The Backyardigans. I was hooked from the moment I saw Samurai Pie Chef.

    [slowly plodding back to my mommydom of joy and small pleasures]

  13. Kerry on August 22, 2008 at 7:57 am

    When I need movie entertainment, I tend to go for the comedies — Galaxy Quest and My Cousin Vinny never fail me. I love a good action-adventure (The Rock, the first Die Hard, Escape from New York and Escape From LA), but don’t like the ones that keep going and going and going and going in an effort to give us the ultimate surprise ending. I also go for the sweet sappy stuff; I’ve seen the Anne of Green Gables mini series so many times I can pretty much recite the dialog.

    Don’t get me started on musicals . . . 🙂

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