guilty pleasures

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's magazine Film Comment has a section entitled "Guilty Pleasures" in which they invite actors and directors to share their favourite bad movies. I thought I would try my hand, since normally I stick to pretty high-brow fare on this blog. Here are my top "so bad they're good" picks:

Road House (1989)

Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer hired to keep out the riff-raff at a roadhouse bar called the Double Deuce (scuzzy dive, awesome name). "When the dancing is over, things get dirty." Pure, unadulterated 80's kitsch.

They Live (1988)

John Carpenter (Halloween) is the master of cranking out low-budget camp and has a huge cult following. In this choice nugget, "A drifter discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to wake up to the fact that aliens have taken over the Earth." Whenever the drifter (played by WWF wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) punches someone, he uses what seems to be  the sound of a car door slamming. So bad, it's hilarious.

Short Circuit (1986) Also see: *Batteries Not Included (1987) and Heartbeeps (1981)

Long before Wall-E, there was a host of "Boy and His Robot" movies made in the 1980s, in which robots display more caring emotion than their human counterparts and thus win the love and friendship of the young protagonists. Heavy on the guilt and less on the pleasure for me, these are probably among the worst movies I've ever seen. But, as a child of the 80's, I have a bit of a soft spot for them.

There's No Business Like Show Business (1954)

This one I'm not so guilty about--it stars Marylin Monroe and Ethel Merman and is a good old-fashioned lavish 1950s spectacle about (you guessed it) show business. If you're feeling low, I highly recommend it for a dose of eye-and-ear-pleasing musical technicolor therapy.

Pillow Talk (1959)

I'm not guilty about this one either, although it may be the epitome of fluff. Animosity builds between Manhattanites Doris Day and Rock Hudson, whose shared phone line puts them at odds. Having only heard his voice, Day doesn't recognize Hudson when he tries to woo her while posing as a Texas hayseed. Musical hi-jinx ensues.... The makers of romantic comedy today couldn't hold a candle to these guys.

What Happens in Vegas (2008)

My case in point. I don't really remembers what happens in this movie, just that it was really bad but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. (I guess I had low expectations.)

National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) and Christmas Vacation (1989)

The latter is a holiday classic and the former is just plain corny fun; Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo are side-splitting as Clark and Ellen Griswold. I haven't seen their third film, Vegas Vacation yet but will keep an eye on the satellite for it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

I'm talking about the original, not the TV series remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I was a pre-teen when this movie came out and I remember watching it with my friends at at least one slumber/birthday party. Kristy Swanson's Buffy was my ultimate female role model--sexy, tough, and kind of an outcast. I haven't watched it in years and don't intend to, lest seeing it as an adult detract from my idealized memory of it.

As you can tell, most of these picks date from the days before my good taste prevented me from watching them. What are some of your guilty pleasures?

bummed out*

Tonight's première of the RIDM documentary festival reminded me of what a rich city Montreal is when it comes to cinema. In his hilarious introductory speech, board president and indie producer Mila Aung-Thwin joked about how they will not be announcing a merger with Montreal's other film festivals, since certain journalists have been complaining that there are TOO MANY in this town. Too many film festivals? Sheesh! I think that too many festivals is a great thing for cinephiles (although it's not as great for filmmakers, since they usually don't make any money from having their films shown at them).

Anyway, that is a discussion for another day. Today I'm going to talk about....asses. Yes, that's right. Bums. Or, as world-renowned choreographer Philippe Decouflé refers to them in Frederick Wiseman's new doc Crazy Horse, "les cocos". Of the film's 2h15min run-time, there is probably an hour and a half of close-ups on women's bare tushes--floating in the air, being waggling at us, stroked by other dancers and at one point, multiplied by mirrors to look like waves atop the ocean (eye candy in its purest form, even for me, a straight woman). The remainder of the film shows us the excruciating tantrums at production meetings, the brutal evaluating of dancers' bodies at auditions and all the less glamorous aspects of what it takes to put on the world's "chicest" strip show, revered by intellectuals and oglers alike.

After the screening, someone actually yelled out "Sexist!! BOO!!" and I was disappointed because this person had completely missed the point. Although it may look like soft porn, you need to read between the lines. Underneath the disguise this is actually a film about the collaborative creative process: the inspiration, the obsession, the egos, the hopes and dreams and most of all, the hard, hard work. These people are not just in it for the money, they don't do it to exploit women--they do it because they view the striptease as High Art. And I agree. The infinite variations they've come up with on a woman taking 5 minutes to remove her G-string are indeed a sublime accomplishment.

While watching the film, I had a realization about cinema in general: the point of cinema is not to just to get to the point. The point of cinema is to draw out a moment for as long as possible, to create a reverie during which we forget where we are, who we are, and even what we're looking at. In this, what he calls his "most abstract film yet", Wiseman has done just that.

Crazy Horse plays once more at RIDM on Saturday the 12th at 5:30pm, and opens at Cinema du Parc on November 25th. 

*Thanks to friend, filmmaker and pun-master extraordinaire Ameesha for that one!