Greetings, all. For this week’s pick we all chose a film that we’re not exactly proud to enjoy.
Tony Beaulieu: Mine is “Heavy Metal” (1981) based on the *awesome* magazine of the same name. It’s so shamefully committed to genre, there’s nothing else there — pure chaff. But it’s so good! It still somehow holds this dangerous, off-limits quality it had when I was a kid — because of the violence and nudity. Sure, it’s a near soft-core porno, hard sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comedy animated anthology, but there has — and probably never will be — another movie like it, ever. All that talk a few years ago about a sequel with the involvement of David Fincher, James Cameron and Gore Verbinski, was ultimately too good to be true. Everyone was committed but no studio would finance an R-Rated cartoon. Last I heard Robert Rodriquez picked up the rights and was going to take ideas from fans to help create the segments. That was like 2010, though, and we all know how Rodriguez can be (fickle). The original is still a classic, however. And no, I don’t consider Heavy Metal 2000 a sequel at all.
Jesse Blume: One of my big guilty pleasures is the 1992 musical, “Pure Country.” When it comes on TV, I’ll watch it from start to finish, and have no regrets later. George Strait plays a massively popular but discontented country music superstar named Wyatt “Dusty” Chandler. Dusty is displeased with how his concerts have become more about spectacle and less about the music, so he abruptly leaves his tour for a week with no notice. After returning to his hometown, he finds romance with a young cowgirl who inspires his greatest song. While he’s off rediscovering his roots, his manager decides to replace him with a lookalike to pose as him in the shows. The idea behind the story isn’t a bad one at all, but it’s the execution that makes the film suffer. As much as I adore George Strait, he can’t act his way out of a paper bag. Thankfully, he’s playing himself most of the time, so it only hurts in scenes like the climax with his impostor. Even though I know this movie isn’t a good one, I don’t feel as guilty as I could. After all, the soundtrack it gave us is excellent. In fact, if and when I get married, I’m going to insist that “I Cross My Heart” be the wedding song.
Derick ‘d-rock’ Dotson: Oh man, here it goes! Never Say Never. Yeah, that’s right. The Justin Bieber documentary. I only bring it up because it’s the one movie when I say I enjoyed it, jaws drop. Funny thing is, every person who hates on me for appreciating it has not seen the damn thing.
“Never Say Never” is fascinating simply because it documents the insane rise of this average kid. Also, depicts side effects of dealing with that type of quick fame as a child.
Peter Howell of THE TORONTO STAR sums up my feelings on this flick.
“You don’t know whether to damn Bieber and Chu for manipulating our emotions or praise them for trying to put some essence into this effervescence. ”
It’s a documentary just as effective as The social network, showing how such a small thing can easily become great.
And for the record, I hate Justin Bieber. So that should say something
Brandon Groppi: Man I’m going to lose some credibility after this. . . Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance. Now before you scroll past me whilst rolling your eyes let me say this: I know it’s a horrible film. But damnit if it isn’t at that “so bad it’s good” status. Nicolas Cage’s over-the-top Nic Cageyness is awesome in this film. I was in the theatre laughing my ass off the entire time. The action is ridiculous, the acting is sub-par at best with the exception of Idris Elba, and the dialogue is cheesy and dumb. I will admit though that with some better execution the film could have been ok. I did like some of the shots in the film admittedly. Like the one of Idris Elba from behind when he gets launched from the bridge.
I own this on blu-ray (don’t scroll yet!) and watched some of the special features. Nicolas Cage actually wanted to get into the character more since he was doing the motion capture for The Ghost Rider. So he naturally painted his own face (no help at all) and found this neon lions mane to put around his head. Naturally. I think I just love Nic Cage really.
Rick Tym: For Love of the Game. I know this one is widely considered a stinker, now and at the time of it’s release (it didn’t even make back it’s $50M budget and earned Kevin Costner a Razzie nom for his lead performance), but man, I love this flick. Something about baseball, the elusive perfect game and the way to story of pitcher billy Chapel’s life — full of love, loss, bullheaded actions and grief — weaves its way in and out of Yankees Stadium…I just love it. Am I a hopeless romantic? Maybe. If For Love of the Game is a guilty pleasure, so be it. If it stinks, so be it. Kevin Costner, Kelly Preston, John C. Reilly, Brian Cox and the baseball diamond captivate me every time.
Also, you can’t point fingers and accuse me of being a Raimi fanboy or completist. I didn’t realize for months until after seeing this film that he directed it. Some called it a step backward after A Simple Plan for the director; I think For Love of the Game was just more personal and, perhaps, a bit under appreciated.
Shawn S. Lealos: Stone Cold – This is a hard subject for me because I don’t feel guilty about liking movies. I like movies and if someone else doesn’t – tough. I figured this should either be a stupid comedy that I liked (Little Nicky), a chick flick that I liked (Message in a Bottle), or a cheasy action flick. I choose the Brian Bosworth movie Stone Cold, a kick-butt action movie that I will watch anytime I get the chance. Boz is a young cop who goes undercover in a biker gang with Lance Henrickson and William Forsythe in it. He then has biker rumbles, gun fights, there is a flaming biker memorial (the biker is actually the one on fire), gratuitous nudity and Boz has a pet lizard. This movie is just about perfect in my eyes.
Caliber Winfield: I agree with Shawn, in that I never feel guilty for liking a film, but there are some films I don’t open talk about digging, if only to avoid having to argue about it. Blade Trinity is one of those films.
Yes, for the most part it’s a bad film. The Nightstalkers absolutely suck, the absence of Kris for most of the picture is a disgrace, and Dracula seems more like something from Shakespeare In The Park than The Lord of Darkness.
Despite all this, I still find a good amount to like about it. The action is incredible, and completely on par with the rest of the series. Although Dracula is a bit off, he’s still a bad-ass, and the rest of his gang is pretty decent; including Parker Posey being a rather hot vampire, and Triple H as a fang-bearing dog-lover.
One of the more popular reasons for people, including myself, having a distaste for the film is the fact it contains some of the worst jokes & one-liners in history. However, it was recently made known that these lines were created by the cast as a sort of protest to the way Wesley Snipes was treating everyone. He wasn’t treating everyone all that great, apparently, so they came up with these lines in order to annoy him as much as possible. Take that, Blade.
There was actually a different ending attached that hinted at a Nightstalkers film. Here’s the link if you want to see Ryan Reynolds do battle with a werewolf/vampire hybrid. The fact they went with an organic costume instead of CGI is old-school bad-ass. Blade Trinity Alternate Ending
