Secret Favorite Movies...

Admit it. When somebody asks you what your favorite movies are, you always name films that are undisputed Classics, You always cover your butt by listing Martin Scoresese films, or Citizen Kane, or something most people haven't seen to make yourself look cool. I do it all the time. But secretly, we ALL have a movie that we love that our so called peers would laugh at you for liking. I figure this is the place where nobody will judge you for owning up to your secret favorite movies, so I will start.

My top 5 movies I never own up to liking in public:

1. Howard the Duck: YES, Howard the Duck. It's a silly, stupid misfire of a movie, but dammit, I laugh every time I watch it. Tim Robbins should have his license to be smug and self righteous taken away for being in this. I still love Lea Thompson and her huge eighties hair, too.

2. Short Circuit 2: Nobody from the original is in this, except the fake indian guy, and the film is blatantly manipulative, but I used to watch this every single time it came on cable. "Los Locos kick your ***!"

3. The Brady Bunch Movie: It's so dumb it's funny.

4. Drop Dead Gorgeous: Nobody but me likes this movie. Truly. I have never met another fan of this fim.

5. Anything with Jerry Lewis: At least the French are with me on this one.

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These are commonly referred to as "guilty pleasures".

We all have movies that we love for some odd reason or another, even though objectively we KNOW they are irredeemable crap. And I'm not talking about a movie you think is underrated or the critics or audiences just didn't "get", I mean movies you know damn well are indefensibly awful, but you turn to them with fondness anyway.

My greatest guilty pleasure, though I'm not really ashamed to admit it, is Xanadu.

Xanadu (1980). Horrid movie. A lame, completely misguided attempt at a '50s Hollywood Musical, but with the trappings and milieu of everything that was so very awful about the late '70s (hard to remember if there was anything GOOD about that time period, pop culture-wise). Olivia Newton-John stars as Kira, daughter of Zeus, one of the Seven Muses. Improbably enough she rollerskates around Venice Beach and literally runs into Sonny Malone (Michael Beck, The Warriors, MegaForce). Sonny is a painter who's lofty artistic temperament keeps getting him fired from his sell-out job of reproducing album cover art (???). Sonny then meets Danny McGuire, played by the one and only Gene Kelly. Danny is a one-time Big Band leader from the '40s who now spends his time drifting around the beach wistfully playing his clarinet. Kira's mysterious powers cause not only love for her (natch'!), but also inspires these two unfulfilled artists to team up and build a rollerdisco! No, really.

Of course there's plenty of singing and dancing along the way, with the bulk of the tunes provided by The Electric Light Orchestra. There's even an fantasy animation sequence by Don Bluth (All Dogs Go to Heaven, Titan A.E.). Plenty of cheesy effects that often look like an unconvincing mix of a blacklight poster and Tron. I absolutely adore Gene Kelly, but this movie is a waste of his time and considerable talents, even as diminished as they were by this stage of his life. For Xandu to have been Kelly's last big screen Musical is a travesty.


And yet...I frippin' LOVE this damn movie. Believe me, I know exactly how dreadful it is in virtually every way conceiveable, but I guess when I was eleven years old it tapped into something dark and cheesy inside me. This is the very definition of a guilty pleasure, though I don't know how "guilty" I am about it. I keep it out on the shelves in the daylight with my other movies, and not locked in the deep dark closet with the porno. I was oh-so-happy when it was released onto DVD, finally letterboxed at last! I own the soundtrack on vinal - lots of pops and scratches from repeated spins, as well as import CD (no 8-Track though). I often hate myself for liking this film, but damnit I do!


Let's see somebody beat THAT confession.


"A place where nobody dared to go, the love that we came to know, they call it Xanadu-ooo-ooo-ooo...."

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

My first post here

I loved City of Angels very much. I don't know why many people don't like it. The story, the cinematography is great.

Titanic and Starship Troopers.

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Yeah, like I said, let's hear some beloved movies that are irredeemable crap. I don't care for City of Angels, Starship Troopers or Titanic, but those are hardly deep dark secrets you wouldn't mention in mixed company, are they? I know it must feel brave to admit you liked Titanic, but as it made a billion dollars and a trunk full of Oscars, it can hardly be considered a "guilty pleasure."

Dig deeper, people. Howard the Duck and Short Circuit 2 are pretty bad movies, anybody got any more?

Frequency. I don't know why...I always have a hard time raving about that one in public.


Adventures in Babysitting


Brady Bunch Movies 1 & 2

The Hobbit ( the cartoon)

I don't know...I have to dig deeper...

Come on, I admitted I love Godd@mn Xanadu, one of THE worst movies ever made. Surely Monkey & I aren't the only ones here who like movies that are all-around horrible. Just because Frequency didn't make $100-million or some people you know don't care for the Sci-Fi angle hardly makes it a guilty pleasure.

Who can chime in and say Battlefield Earth rocks, even though they know it is beyond stupid? Who will admit they rented Ed, that movie where Matt "Joey" LeBlanc is a baseball player on the same team as a chimp, so many times they eventually just went ahead and bought the blasted thing? Who will say a poster for Prince's Graffiti Bridge hangs in their room, and they don't even like the man's music? Who watches Spice World, not in an "MST3K" way with your drunken friends, but alone at 3:00am because it makes you laugh and feel happy?

I'm not looking for movies you just wouldn't mention when others are discussing narrative in Citizen Kane, I mean movies you wouldn't mention that you like if you were drunk and in front of a Judge.

Come on, people! Let me hear 'em!

My family thought "Battlefield Earth" was worth watching...and they liked "Final Fantasy," but I don't share their sentiment on those two. Anywhere, here's my list, for now:

• The "Bill & Ted" movies
• The "Rush Hour" movies
• "Clueless"
• "Gone in 60 Seconds"
• "Mallrats" (a lot of Smith fans seem to think of it as crap compared to his other stuff. I dug it)

Those shouldn't be secrets! Those are all cool movies!

The Bill & Ted movies is the best you can do, Dude? Rush Hour 2 made $225-million this Summer and yet you have the guts to say you liked it. Clueless was a financial and critical success, whether it was "cool" to admit to your testosterone buddies or not, that's no shameful guilty pleasure.

Very brave.

So, you're saying only movies that make very little money, and are panned by the critics, qualify? Lots of people on here call "The Mummy Returns" crap...even if it did make a lot of money. Even "Battlefield Earth" turned a profit eventually.

I'm simply saying there's no good reason to be embarassed about liking Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Brady Bunch Movie or the frippin' Titanic. I know it, you know it, they know it.

While it's not strictly about how much money it makes, if any movie makes a couple hundred million bucks, how guilty a pleasure can it possibly be? Battlefield Earth may have turned a small profit by the time it went worldwide and hit video and cable TV and whatever (though I wouldn't bet on that), but we all know it was a "bomb", with everything that implies.

I think both of these new Mummy movies are pretty average, but they're extremely popular, no matter what their critical consensus. So maybe if you were in an elevator with Martin Scorsese you wouldn't try to impress him by going on and on about how The Mummy Returns was lots of fun, but that hardly makes it a guilty pleasure.


I don't see anybody offering up movies they know are flat-out horrible, yet they like in spite of themselves.

As much as I know what you mean I'm not Guilty for loving them and I'm not afraid to admit them to anyone but here's a one that would fall into that catagory for you.

99 AND 100/44 % DEAD

I guess this is one of the Movies I love for it corny @ss diaolgue weird situations that the main character goes through also that seventies style is so clear and evident that it becomes over-the-top-campy-fun.

Richard Harris is this hitman gangster that isn't afriad of shiyt he carries these two guns with snakes on the pistol grips also he wears these glasses with huge black frame and when he takes them off you know he means buisness.

John Frankenheimer directed it which might surprise some but I just loved the whole feel of the Movie.

HA ! HA !

I just might have you beat on this one Mr.Pike
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I've met people who think the "Bill & Ted" movies are horrible. But no, I'm not embarassed about liking any movies...it's got to be pretty amazingly crappy to be embarassed over...and movies like that aren't really the type I'm bound to like. In short: you're not going to find many movies that are both commercially and critically bad that people here still like, IMO...not with the bar that low.

Thinking about it more, I enjoyed the first two "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movies...though I imagine (I don't know for sure) that they were decent, commercially. Too long ago for me to recall how they did critically.

EDIT: actually, I'll go with "This Island Earth." It was the basis for the MST3K movie...but I actually enjoy it by itself, despite the fact that it's corny as hell. The dialogue is unintentionally hilarious.

Yeah, L.B., but over-the-top campy fun isn't really what I'm looking for either. Saying you enjoy Plan 9 From Outer Space is nothing to be ashamed of, it's a rite of passage and a natual activity.

Plus in regards to 99 and 44/100 Dead, it was made as a sort of satire of the genre to begin with. It's supposed to be campy. I don't think it succeeds overall and is not a great movie, but it's hardly something to be embarassed about, is it?

Now if you said the same thing about Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot or Cop and a Half, now THOSE would be guilty pleasures.


I don't enjoy Xanadu because of camp, I enjoy it because it moves me in some weird way. Yet I KNOW it is a completely awful movie, and for the life of me I can't figure out myself the hold it has over me. But it does. I actually like this film. Go figure.

I had a friend who loved "Cop and a Half." He loved to quote it: "Damn civilians." I still think your imaginary bar is too low, though. Being actually, truly EMBARASSED to admit you like a certain film is pretty extreme. The closest one I can think of is "Black Sheep," which I thought was a step below the hilarious "Tommy Boy," but still worth watching for reasons I cannot completely explain. Most other people I know hated it...ditto for many critics. I'm not embarassed to say I like it, even though it seems to be a commercial/critical flop.

But I thought that was the point of the exercise, to name those unnamable movies you are embarassed about but will be brave and tell us anyway.

Black Sheep, while not a very good movie even by standards of the day or comparing it to Tommy Boy, isn't what I would consider a guilty pleasure. Chairman of the Board starring Carrot Top, THAT is a guilty pleasure (assuming somebody actually likes it and will admit it).

i like Jim Belushi a lot, and i love him in Mr. Destiny....in fact it was on late last night and i taped it for future viewings......i like him in K9 too. and that brings me to another dog movie....this one with Tom Hanks - called Turner and Hooch.
i don't think it'll count, but i can name a few somewhat silly movies that i happen to really enjoy .....like The Burbs, City Slickers, Tin Men, War of the Roses, the Money Pit.....etc.

my bigtime so-called guilty pleasures tend to be t.v. programs that i just can't let go of......i would watch them anytime, over and over....and be happy as a clam; Murder She Wrote.........and Columbo......and other murder mystery type shows but those two are tops. the only recent similar style show that i started to love was the show with Dick Van Dyke.......Diagnosis Murder.......and i am quite fond of Nero Wolf..but that's pretty high quality stuff.....along with lots of other A&E, PBS..etc

it is my personal guilty pleasure to watch my favorite classics over and over, with no limit to how many times i see them.......i often work on art projects during my faves, so i'm not paying strict attention - if the movie ends, i will rewind it and hit play again.. i am just comforted having old B&W's on.....bette davis rules, and bogie rules.....and tons more depending on the mood of the moment.................addendum - i will watch ANYTHING with Vincent Price.

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Well, like I said, you're not going to see many of those at all. What, 3 movies listed here have qualified so far? I think "Black Sheep" should reasonably qualify, at least for me, because I can't even THINK of any movies anywhere offhand that I'd be GENUINELY embarassed to admit I liked. "Black Sheep" was unrealistic and stupid, with a few funny moments, and for that, it won me over.

Logically, I shouldn't like it, but I do, even though the public, and the critics, did not. If that still does not meet your strict criteria...well, sorry.

Apology accepted.