Ever lied to a friend about something being good just so you wouldn't be the only one who had to sit through it?
Nov 12, 2008, 11:12 AM | by Mandi Bierly
Categories: Camp classics, PopWatch Confessional
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
Comments