I was chatting with Seth Green recently (look for his EW.com Pop Culture Personality Test to post Friday, just in time to plug the Nov. 16 premiere of Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken Star Wars Episode II special), and I asked him to name his most magical communal moviegoing experience. Once he finished recounting the first five minutes of Showgirls — and the precise moment that his opening-night audience figured out that said film was "not, in fact, a hot sexy thriller starring Elizabeth Berkley (pictured) licking a stripper pole, but was, in fact, a movie where you were gonna see Kyle MacLachlan with a visible hard on and have Glenn Plummer explore Elizabeth Berkley’s pants for proof of her being on her period" — I shared my experience with that particular craptacular.
I was in college, and my friend Oli went to see Showgirls opening night and told everyone that it was "the most amazing film ever made." We had to see it, she said. Immediately. I went to a matinee that Sunday with three friends (including two semi-good Catholic boys) and wanted to die. When confronted, Oli said she just didn’t want to be the only one who wasted money on it. (Note: We’d all eventually come to properly "appreciate" Showgirls, throwing a party the first time it was released on DVD, and road testing the V.I.P. edition for EW in 2004).
Green laughed, and said he’d actually done that himself once: "I was with a couple people in London, and someone had said, ‘Well, you know this play is playing, and I hear it’s really good,’ so we all went to see it except that person. The play was absolutely unbearably horrible — unbelievably, mindbendingly terrible — but we went back and told him, ‘That was amazing, man.’ We made a pact that we were gonna swear it was the greatest thing ever. We were gonna insist on the subtle nuances of the interpretive tone, and the costumes, everything. We just painted a glorious picture and then insisted he go see it the next day. And he did. And then when he came back, he was like, ‘I really didn’t care for it.’ We were like, ‘Nah. I f—in’ hated it, man.’"
Your turn. Have you ever lied to someone about something being good so they’d share your pain?
More on Seth Green (and questionable taste):
PopWatch Duel: Seth Green vs. his Robot Chicken cocreator Matthew Senreich
The PopWatch Confessional (Vol. 8): I have a crap addiction
Browse other PopWatch Confessionals
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I’ve never done that, but my friend Steve was *always* pulling that on us in college. He got a big group us to see “Freejack” with Emilio Estevez and (even worse) “Split Second” with Rutger Hauer and Kim Catrall. To this day I still can’t believe I paid to see that crap in a theater. And I never found out whether Steve just wanted company for his misery, or (even worse) actually thought these movies would be good.
Yes, with Gus Van Sant’s ‘Gerry’, but I also stupidly participated BOTH times. Part of me figured that it would make more sense the second time – and if not, at least these other people would be able to share in the pain.
I’ve definitely wanted to do this, but I’m just not cold enough to trick someone into wasting their hard-earned money on something terrible.
The latest example was with “The Happening.” I may or may not have snuck into the movie this summer and was blown away by how incredibly bad it was. Unfortunately, no one in my circle of friends had seen it or wanted to see it. I wanted REALLY badly to be able to talk with someone else about how bad the movie was, but I didn’t feel great about telling anybody to drop $10 on that turd since even I didn’t pay to get in.
God, no. I’d never do that – it’s a lousy thing to do. When time is lost, you can’t ever get it back. If I thought something was bad, I’d say so.
There was this cassingle released in the early 90’s called “Under Cover Lover” by this guy named Ken Defeudis that my friend found for 10 cents at a record store and she convinced me it had changed her life. Well it changed my life too, in a very disturbing way in that it infected me and I felt compelled to pass the virus on to all my friends because of it. That song haunts my soul.
I once told a friend of mine that “Mullholland Drive” was the best movie ever, and so easy to understand. When he came back and said he thought it was “unbelievably confusing,” we both had a good laugh. He hasn’t gotten me back….yet.
My friends and I used to have an unspoken pact about Stephen King’s novel It. In case you don’t know, it’s something like 1200 pages and 97% of a great horror novel. The remaining 3% is utter and complete crap, and ruins everything that comes before it.
We had a pact that if someone started reading it, we would talk it up and get them excited. Then we would all share our misery when we found out how much time we’d wasted.
I’ve been on the receiving end. My good friend told me that I HAD TO read “The Notebook”. When I told her (afterward) that I thought it was dumb and sappy, her response was, “yeah, wasn’t it bad?”
I used to work in a video rental store, so I did it to all the people I knew! My mom’s boyfriend at the time wanted to know if “The Horse Whisperer” was any good, so I told him it was great. He called me right after it was finally done and bitched me out, all I could do was laugh. I f’ing hated that movie!
I make all my friends watch “Meet the Feebles” at least once. My best friend’s wife now goes into convulsions any time you mention the title. It’s a beautiful thing.
He got me back, though, by telling me that “Phantom Menace” was completely awesome.
Frankly, I think he won that game.
I’m a terrible sport when it comes to these things. If anyone ever did that to me I’d never trust their opinion on anything ever again. But I’m the kind of person who only watches something if it’s been recced so I guess I see recommendations at somewhat sacred.
This one hits home for me because I’m currently doing this. I watched Blush last night (the hunt for the latest and greatest make up artist, supposedly) on Lifetime. Such a trainwreck that it makes Stylista look like an Emmy-worthy show. Needless to say I’m telling everybody I know that its fantastic and they need to get on board with it.
i had a friend once tell me the movie “mission to mars” (you remember the one…with gary sinise and don cheadle) was reminiscient of “2001″ (my all-time fave), so i went to see it, and it was horrible. god, just awful. 2 hours of silence. i recently got him back by telling him about this “awesome video” i saw called “2 girls 1 cup”. ive never seen anybody ever get so mad at me, but it was most definitely worth it.
I did that with my one of my friends and the Twilight books. Except it ended up backfiring on me since they genuinely fell in love with the series.
I got dragged to a showing of Pay it Forward with a friend of mine… who, unfortunately, thought it was the greatest movie ever made. Thus, I lied to my friends to go see it just so I would have someone to talk about the painfully awful ending with. Clearly the point of the movie was lost on me…
A guy I dated awhile back took me to see Event Horizon based on a friend’s recommendation. It was our first date. He called his friend and cussed him out for that one. The relationship didn’t last long but what a memory!
My boyfriend and I went to see “Epic Movie” for God knows what reason(he said he wanted to laugh), and we both ended up hating it. Later at the club we bumped into the usual crowd so we recommended it to all. We never had a response.
Awwwww…where’s the love for Showgirls? I watched Showgirls because everyone said how bad it was and loved it. Now I love it because of how bad it is. It’s like driving by a car accident…I just can’t help but watch. Showgirls is our generation’s Rocky Horror.
wow! i never lied to make someone see something–i’m just not very good at it. but i have perhaps over-exaggerated how good something was and recently i pretty much pretended that i knew something was bad (Twilight) but I just wanted to go to the theater and see for myself, promising to make fun of it along the way, when in actuality i’m hoping it’s really really really good.
Heh! I too had the joy of seeing this at the Carousel Center Mall, Mandie. I remember being alternately apalled and amused. Good times.
I actually had this happen TO me – I’ve never done it to anyone. A good friend encouraged me (a lot) to rent Eyes Wide Shut. So I did, because I trusted her taste in movies. The movie was horrible. I waited and waited for something … anything to happen – I wanted to mute the awful piano music soundtrack, but worried I might actually miss some vital dialogue that would finally get the movie rolling. It never happened. So after, I called her and said WTF? And she said well I suffered through it and wanted to share the experience. Needless to say, I don’t trust her movie recommendations much anymore!
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