10. Transformers: Okay, okay, okay. I know I have a reputation for being the biggest Michael Bay hater that you’ve probably ever met (and rightfully so, how can a man who makes Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II and The Island back to back still be considered a valuable commodity in Hollywood?!?), but I gotta admit, I like the first Transformers on a purely dumb escapist level. In fact, this is the first time that Michael Bay’s flaws have been really restrained. Sure, there’s hammy acting from Shia LaBeefy and any attempt at human emotion comes across as laughable, but they never linger on trying to be anything above popcorn entertainment. And after the crapfest that was the summer of 2007 (Spider Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Fantastic Four 2, Evan Almighty), this was a welcome installment of fun escapism. Now why did he have to ruin it by making the two sequels?
9. Universal Soldier: Jean Claude Van Damme. Dolph Lundgren. Roland Emmerich. Dean Devlin. Apart, this just sounds like a formula for disaster, but for some reason, this movie about soldiers killed in Vietnam and resurrected as super-soldiers is still a lot of fun. Van Damme gets to do his corny “acting” while doing his split kicks, there are some pretty fun shoot ‘em up scenes and the story is kind of entertaining. It’s an incoherent and implausible story, but it’s still fun nonetheless. So, if you’re ever in the mood for 80s cheese that was made in the early 90s, look no further than Universal Soldier.
8. Batman Forever: I know, I know, Joel Schumacher Batman movies are the bastard children of the Batman franchise, but honestly, I really hated the cynical decadence of Batman Returns so much that I was aching to see something bright in the Batman universe and this movie did that just fine. Sure, ALL of the characters are completely overacting in practically every frame of the movie and the plot ramble unintelligibly from scene to scene. What I liked the most about this movie was actually the fun camera work, lighting and special effects that were pretty good for 1995. The movie is stupid as hell, especially when you see The Dark Knight and see that comic book movies CAN be complexly constructed character pieces, but it’s a welcome bright installment after the cesspool of villains that was Batman Returns.
7. Kung Pow! Enter the Fist: Maybe it’s just the Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan in me, but I loved this movie, not so much for the guy fighting the cow scene, but how they blended the scenes from an old kung fu movie, Tiger and Crane Fist, redubbed it to be a comedy and shot some filler scenes to blend them with the other scenes. I mean, when one of the lines was a kung fu master explaining that he intentionally trained one of his students the wrong way “as a joke”, I can’t help but laugh. This movie is completely bizarre and nothing more than stupid funny, but for as weirdly stupid they were in making it, I can’t help but love it. This will determine if this is your type of humor.
6. Brit Rom Coms (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually, About a Boy, etc): Okay, there was once a time (I think it was before How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days soured the genre) that romantic comedies were charming and no other nation did it best than the British. Their romantic comedies were witty, cleverly written, fun and…romantic. Nowadays, they’re cheaply made American movies to cast thirty something actresses desperate for roles that pay seven figures before their stardom fades away into obscurity. But before those piles came along, British romantic comedies were actually very enjoyable and charming. A lot of people look at them as being femmy or mushy…and they are, but damn it, I still like them. They’re genuine, they’re fun and, yes, I think they’re romantic. There, I’m sentimental.
5. Hulk: Now, I’m not in love with this movie, but I guess the fact that I just don’t hate it as much as everybody else did means I have to consider it a guilty pleasure. When I saw it, I thought it was okay, not better than Spider-Man, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless. It may have helped that I never read the comics growing up. But what I saw was pretty stylish, neat effects and I LOVED the editing style of making the split scenes like a comic book version of an episode of 24. Yes, it was really long (2 and a half hours was a bit much) and the villain was pretty stupid, but overall, I liked the psychological story behind him, even though it may have been a bit corny. So, not really liked by me, but I give it credit nonetheless…and by that respect, I guess it is a guilty pleasure.
4. Street Fighter: Now this is a movie that I can’t help but admit is nothing but stupid. Every scene is poorly acted, a talented cast is wasted, the dialog is terrible, but the biggest problem is that it has absolutely nothing to do with video game. Instead, it’s about a rogue army that the UN army is trying to squelch, never mind that it’s based on a game called Street Fighter, which was about tournament fighting…and yet, every time it’s on, I can’t turn it off. It’s such a train wreck of epic proportions, but I can’t help but love it. Raul Julia is such an over the top bad guy that it actually becomes entertaining. In fact, everything is so overdone that it becomes entertaining. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at this clip.
3. 80s Slasher Flicks (Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, all their sequels and knock offs): There’s something about the low-budget 80s era slasher films that are simultaneously gritty with a sense of grandiosity to them. They knew they were nothing more than excuses for nudity, sex and gratuitous violence and they made no excuses about them. They’re the roman coliseum of movies and…I applaud them for it. If you’re ever in the mood for a quick fix of shamelessness, look no further than these movies. With the exception of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, which actually have a degree of creativity to the effects and teen murder scenes.
2. Rocky IV: Now here’s a movie that shows how far a movie series can fall from its roots. The original Rocky was a realistic underdog story that had clever characters and great interactions. By Rocky IV, the series has pretty much become a cartoon with his opponent being the equivalent of video game final boss. The writing is subpar, the scenes are so convoluted and the movie is essentially 80% montage. Which is probably what makes it so enjoyable is the soundtrack that could be used for any workout playlist and the fight at the end is still pretty epic and exciting, even if the ending speech is very pretentious. Still, it’s one huge slice of 80s cheese that goes down so well with the entire box of crackers.
1. Maximum Overdrive: Okay, let’s go through the guilty pleasure list: over the top acting? Check. Cornball dialog? Check. Talented actors in embarrassing roles? Oh yeah. Over the top violent scenes? Double check. Produced in the 80s? You betcha! Killer soundtrack? Um, did the credit “Music by AC-DC” go unnoticed? Oh, and it’s an apocalyptic movie, to boot. The only thing that would make this movie better would be zombies, but I’ll settle for semi-trucks getting blown up with missile launchers. This is a movie that is so cheesy, so hyper eccentric and so outrageous that I can’t help but be in love it. If it is on TV, I have to watch it. If I could find the soundtrack for it, I would buy it and I would listen to it ad nauseum. This is my biggest guilty pleasure movie of all time.
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