I have a crap addiction. And for the first time, I’m wondering if this is a problem. There’s been a recent string of come-to-Jesus moments involving my insanely strong appreciation of "bad" movies, television, and music. Some were mildly amusing: One of my bosses, known for his love of old movies, told me he’d just seen a film that I’d love — then handed me the Let’s Go to Prison unrated DVD. (He insisted he genuinely enjoyed it.) Others were actually alarming: Someone asked me to name the best movie of the last 10 years, and I couldn’t. That’s an opinion question. Shouldn’t I have had one?
After much self-reflection — and a call to colleague Dan Snierson, whose love of any art form involving a mullet kinda makes me view him as sort of a sponsor — I realized why the "bad" things (see: Gymkata, the first season of The Surreal Life, Patrick Swayze’s "She’s Like the Wind") stick with me longer than the "good" ones: I have no idea how they got made. How do you first dream up, then sell a movie starring Olympian Kurt Thomas that creates a new martial art by combining gymnastics and karate? Who could have imagined that Gabrielle Carteris and Vince Neil would actually get along? And Mr. Swayze (pictured), what does the line "She’s like the wind through my tree" even mean?
So here’s this week’s question, PopWatchers: What are the bad ideas that continue to fascinate you to this day? One of my favorite bad ideas ever, after the jump!
I’m willing to go on the record and say that I still get chills watching young Corey Haim’s video diary, Me, Myself, and I. Check out a clip here and see why. Corey on his career path: "The direction in my life right now that I’m trying to, I guess, proceed with in the business is graduate from being the younger brother, tryin’ to get to be the older brother or the only brother." Corey on his future plans: "I think maybe 10 years from now I’m hopefully gonna be in Tahiti or something, kickin’ back like in my huge mansion — if everything goes right, it’s all up to me — just watching the dolphins, and the porpoises, and the sharks and the little sea horses and all that fun stuff go by in a whole different country while things are happening back here." Corey on kissing: "What does kissing really mean to me? To me, if you feel when you kiss a girl that certain feeling of all those dolphins like swimming through your bloodstream, and you get those good tingles inside your stomach. I don’t think there’s anything better than kissing because it basically comes to, um, I guess the word ‘love.’ I guess that’s what it’s all about." I couldn’t have said it better, Corey.
Your turn.
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Stallone’s Over the top still perplexes me. A compelling story about a truck driver who moonlights as a professional arm wrestler? Is there a REALLY a competition league for this?
And if there isn’t, who in that pitch meeting thought “oh yea, it’ll be like Rocky with arm wrestling!”
Let me be the first to mention the WORST movie of all time. No, not Gigli. That beautiful piece of crap starring our favorite dancer turned bouncer: “Road House.” It’s like watching a bad train wreck. You can’t turn away.
So, let me get this straight. There are, in fact, professional bouncers who go from club to club in order to clean them up? You can’t hire someone from nearby. Oh, no. You have to hire someone from Chicago, was it, to come down to Texas to clean up your craptastic bar? This is a bong hit come to life.
My other personal favorite is “Cry Baby.” I seem to be the only one of my friends that can truly appreciate the amazing talent that is, not Johnny Depp, but Amy Locane. She had to play a good girl trying so hard to let her bad girl out. Come on. It’s priceless.
I have quite a few bad ideas that I’ve totally *heart*ed:
-”The Simple Life” – the fascinating life of rich retards. This is still the only show to break my anti-Reality TV fast.
-MTV after 1992 – Where did the music go? This is a love-hate relationship to the extreme. If it wasn’t for those rich-retards-in-training (“My Super Sweet 16″), I would have foresaken MTV many a moon ago.
-Any movie featuring Snakes, Anacondas, or other slithery montsterous reptilian creatures. Cheapshot: Snakes on a Plane.
-Any and all direct-to-dvd American Pie flick.
-Cruel Intentions 2…I HEART YOU AMY ADAMS!
-I’m so ashamed of this, but: “Catwoman”. I’ve watched it more times than I care to mention.
-Any film starring J-Lo, but NOT costarring George Clooney or Jane Fonda.
-Any CD album featuring subpar singers, but decent-by-the-by actresses: i.e. Ed’s “L.L.” (La Lohan). Ha!
-Any venture featuring Pamela Anderson. “Stacked” was underrated genius!
-Killer Tomatoes and fairy tale characters?
To this day, I am still shocked, dismayed, and yet obsessed with fashion from the late-80’s/early-90’s. I’m not talking about grunge – which I wore proudly.
I’m talking about the bright colors, the geometrical shapes, the shirts/hats with road signs or flags from different countries. I’m talking about anything Will Smith wore prior to “Summertime”, anything BoysIIMen wore EVER, and stuff like Cross Colors bags.
I am a white guy who played grunge music, wore grunge fashion, and yet I dig the style that black people had back then. How weird am I? Maybe it’s just a reminder of an easier time…
I don’t get this. As much crap as there is in popular culture right now, why try hard to look for it. Police dramas and hundreds of hours of reality TV make up the television schedule while intelligent shows like Veronica Mars, Studio 60, and Friday Night Lights face cancellation.
Most good Indie movies never get noticed, but the crappy horror movie sequel gets ton of ads.
Corporate radio is unlistenable. To find good bands you have to head to the internet.
So, I am trying to find good stuff that stays with you.
The crap is everywhere.
OMG….Ep! Speaking of Stallone badness that is awesome: DEMOLITION MAN! I mean, c’mon! Platinum blond Wesley Snipes? Dorky Sandra Bullock. No toilet paper? Taco Bell is the only restaurant chain in the world? Sex using electrically connected football helmets?! Pure fumunda cheese to the extreme! But I still love it! HA!
I recently purchased all 4 Karate Kid movies on DVD. Yes, there were 4. Yes, the 3 sequels blow worse than the first one. Yes, I need help.
Aramis, how could your relationship with “Sweet 16″ be love/hate? Mine is just pure hate.
Remember the episode with the Arab-American girl from the Valley that had her credit card declined in Santa Barbara? Yeah, she really deserved that Range Rover.
Or that snotty, white trash Florida girl whose Dad owns a ton of strip clubs or something. Didn’t he hire Ciara to perform? God, how annoying!
Wait a minute. I reread what I just wrote. Maybe it’s love/hate for me, too. LOL…
My brother-in-law is obsessed with “Grease 2″. That’s right, not the first one. GREASE-FREAKING-TWO!!! And I do believe he is hetero.
“Reproduction. Reproduction. Baby, give it to me now. Reproduction. Reproduction. Is that all you think about?”
Does it get more priceless than that?
CECE, if you are interested in the bad girl side of Amy Locane, you really need to check out Carried Away with Dennis Hopper. Her bad-girl is in full bloom.
As for me, I can watch Deep Blue Sea any and every time it is on TNT or TBS during the weekend. It drives my girlfriend crazy, but for some reason I love it.
I also like ot watch the CSI reruns, which if everyone is honest, are horribly acted and scripted, but for some reason compelling.
The movie I watch anytime it comes on is Maid in Manhattan. Seeing Ralph Fiennes try to do a terrible american accent (that destroys the myth that all english actors can do american accents) and the diva J.Lo be a humble maid makes me laugh every time.
I’m a sucker for the really bad action movies. Totally agree with the posts on Deep Blue Sea (so underrated!) and Demolition Man (The Three Shells!). See also The Punisher, Soldier, Predator 2 (Go Danny Glover), The Island (Run Scarlett Johanssen), The Cave, Mummy Returns, Chronicles of Riddick (Dame Judi Dench’s greatest perf), Bulletproof Monk, Judge Dredd, XXX State of the Union, Aeon Flux, Bloodrayne, Underworld, Running Man …sadly I could go on… Love bad movies!
Let’s just say I watched the entire season of Maui Fever, including “Maui Fever: The Movie” and DVR’d it just in case I missed it. AND, I LOVE “She’s Like the Wind”…I hear it on the radio yesterday in fact, and thought to myself “How could this be danced to at my wedding?”
Back to the teen idol thing from last week …
OK, so you have Rick Springfield and he’s a heartthrob, so let’s put him in a movie. And let’s make his love interest someone who no teenage girl would be threatened by — an uppity, drab child psychologist. No one will be bothered about him ending up with her because she’s so zero on the Richter scale!
OK, it helps a little to put his bare butt in the film, some concert sequences and one of his best pop songs (“Love Somebody”).
What I remember most though is a friend of the family taking me to the film, preparing to not be impressed and really taking to Rick’s spirit and talent.
ok last one: Worst idea: a Disney musical about the paper boy strike…but it was worth it for one of my favorite films: NEWSIES! (although it is suspiciously never mentioned in any christian bale articles)
Oops, forgot to include the name for those not as obsessed as I was! Hard to Hold was the schlockfest’s name.
Aramis, it shames me to admit that I like Demolition Man. Snipes nailed the cheesy old school comic book villain character. Even with the MC Hammer pants and the velveeta cheese hairstyle, he had a 1960’s era Dr. Doom badness that was fun to hate.
Also, the movie “felt” much more like a Judge Dredd comic book than the Judge Dredd Movie did (though admitedly, both are bad movies).
How did this idea get greenlit? And more importantly, at what point of the creative process did someone say “I got it! We’ll throw in a Dennis Leary stand up routine!”?
This was a great choice! Aside from Stallone and Snipes, some of my other “favorite thespians who pick lousy acting roles” are also present: Sandra Bullock and Benjamin Bratt.
Newsies. I am not at ashamed to admit that not only to I love Newsies, but I know the words to every song. To those of you who don’t know Newsies – it’s an early 90s Disney live action musical starring Christian Bale. Christian Bale as a singing newspaper boy with a heart of gold. Not to mentioned that they somehow conned Robert Duval into appearing as Joe Pulitzer. Plus Bill Pullman – I’m a sucker for anything with Bill Pullman in it. Panned by critics, loved by this girl.
I am an obsessed fan of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. It loved it when I was younger and have most seasons now on DVD. Its amazing how much cheesier it seems now that I’m older, but I still can’t get enough!
And I second the love of Newsies. Also know every word, used to watch it almost daily!
pulitzer and hearst they think they got us…do they got us? NO! hahaha…oh man, definitely shouldn’t have brought this one up (how hot was “spot”?)
AD, the Running Man is in no way a bad movie. It’s probably Ah-nold’s best action flick and is based on a story by Steven King. Yaphet Koto played a great sidekick, and the role by Richard Dawson as the sadistic game show host was unbelievably good. TWO future governors have prominent roles in the movie (Jesse Ventura and Ah-Nold). And while it’s true that Maria Conchita Alonzo’s role (+the outfits,and settings) now seem dated, the idea that reality tv programing could someday turn into murder sports seems somehow prophetic.
Totally agreed on Karate Kid. It was such an 80’s flick! Part II at least had that Peter Cetera song, (what was up with the drums though?) but by III Ralph Machio was like 40 and about four times the size of Mr. Miyagi. And didn’t they use a different kid for part IV? Joe Roth must have been in the pitch room for that one…
I love the show Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, but when I first heard about it I thought, “Did that crappy movie actually generate enough interest for them to make it into a tv show all these years later?” I applaud Joss Whedon for not only pulling it off, but pulling it off with aplomb.
I really can’t say anything nasty here – after all, I’m the guy who still owns (and watches) an old VHS copy of Styx’s “Caught in the Act” concert – you know, the one that brought us Mr. Roboto? Domo Arigato, indeed.
Ep Sato – yes, they indeed used a different kid in “Karate Kid” Resurrection…er, KK4…that “kid” is none other than 2-time Oscar Winner Hillary Swank. HA! She truly was a “working actor” back in the day!
I’m so glad there are other Newsies fans. I thought my brother and I were the only ones! In May, here is Austin, there’s this local theater/drafthouse that’s holding a Newsies sing-a-long. Can. Not. Wait.
My experience with Deep Blue Sea: “Oh Deep Blue Sea is on! But I’ve seen it a gazillion times. Maybe I should watch something else….but, but this is the part where Samual L. Jackson gets devoured by a shark…maybe I’ll just watch this part.” Then I go on to watch the rest of the movie…
A Walk to Remember is another movie I watch all the time, but truely sucks. It’s just awful compared to the book and yet whenever it’s on….
AD – oh WOW was that a veritable who’s who of so-bad-they’re-awesome action flicks! most of them are terrible on paper (and film) but I totally love watching! Agreed on the Dench performance in Riddick. Not to mention Scarlett in “The Island”.
My husband and I have all of Steven Seagal’s movies. Need I say more?
i once watched “chasing liberty” 5 times in one weekend…i guess it was a great idea because they remade it — “first daughter”