I can’t believe I watched them… 47 times each

I’m guessing I’ve seen in the neighborhood of about 1,000 movies. Note I say “movies”- there is a difference between a “movie” and a “film”. “Movies”, to me, are the widespread, “mainstream”, blockbuster types that are made for the sheer entertainment of their particular target audience (and, of course, the sheer dollar value it generates), whereas “films” are the types that appear in about 2 dozen theaters worldwide, are “critical masterpieces”, aren’t concerned with box-office revenue, and that most people have never heard of. Jackie Chan movie, foreign film. “Star Wars” movie, independent film. You get the idea. I’m not knocking “films” or people who enjoy “films”; I’m merely stating that I’m not a big fan of “films” and I typically stick with “movies”.

There have been some really good movies (”The Shawshank Redemption”, “12 Angry Men”) and there have been some really bad movies (”Best in Show”, “White Chicks”). The great majority lie somewhere in between the two.

Now, of course what constitutes a “good” movie and what constitutes a “bad” movie is completely subjective, based on each person’s individual tastes. I don’t like social conscience movies, for example, yet I thought “Boyz N’ the Hood” was very well done. As a rule, I hate musicals, but how can you not like “Grease”? But then, I like really silly, stupid comedies, yet have hated virtually everything I’ve seen starring Will Ferrell, the reigning king of really silly, stupid comedies. Go figure.

What’s my point? There isn’t one. Simple.

There are some movies widely accepted as really, really horrible movies, yet I like them. And these movies are horrible. But here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite really bad movies.

Hudson Hawk (1991) Bruce Willis has had innumerable hits. The “Die Hard” series, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”, “Armageddon”, “The Whole Nine Yards”, “The Whole Ten Yards”, just to name but a few. Hell, his voicing of Mikey was the only thing that made the “Look Who’s Talking” movies even remotely watchable. This movie, however, is likely the biggest turd on his résumé. He was on Letterman once a few years back, and Dave remarked something like, “you haven’t made a bad movie yet”, to which Willis replied, “have you seen ‘Hudson Hawk’?!” Even he thought it sucked. I mean, Sandra Bernhard and Frank Stallone are in it, for piss sakes; how good can it possibly be?! But holy crap, I can’t keep from watching it. Hell, I own it on VHS. I don’t know what it is about that movie that appeals to me so much- must be either the fact that James Coburn, one of my favorite actors and possessor of one of the greatest voices of all time, agreed to slum it and appear in the movie, or maybe it’s Willis and Danny Aiello singing “Swinging on a Star” during the auction house heist scene- but I watch “Hudson Hawk” with alarming regularity. Or maybe it gives me alarming regularity. Something like that.

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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978) I’m a huge Beatles fan- though I liked them far more when they were more a “pop” band and before they discovered LSD and started writing all those whacked out acid-induced songs one can only do shots of bong water to. But as a general rule, I love the Beatles. Why, then, would I be so taken with this pussified, cheesy raping of their musical legacy? God only knows. But folks, I own this one on VHS too. Hell, I have the entire soundtrack on CD and on my iPod. What’s that about?! The movie all but killed Peter Frampton’s “street cred” in the music business (at least as it pertains to rock and roll), yet to this day, nobody ever mentions the fact that Aerosmith was in it. Somehow, SPLHCB, like “Hudson Hawk”, is one that I’ll blow the dust off the ol’ box and cram into the VCR some boring afternoon when I have just a little too much time on my hands. Perhaps the biggest bit of far-fetched fluff comes near the end, when Barry Gibb (yes, that Barry Gibb) punches Alice Cooper unconscious. Yeah, THAT could happen. Plus, it’s kinda cool at the end to try to name all the 60’s and 70’s music legends (Wilson Pickett, Tina Turner, Johnny Rivers, Wolfman Jack, Curtis Mayfield, etc.) and not-quite-legends (Elvin Bishop, Yvonne Elliman, Seals & Crofts, Sha-Na-Na, Leif Garrett, etc.) that appear in the final reprise. Also, look for a very young (but grey-haired even 30 years ago) Steve Martin in a great role as Dr. Maxwell Edison.

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Grease 2 (1982) As I mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of musicals (the previous movie notwithstanding). The whole idea of people spontaneously bursting into song in such places as Tornado Alley or a women’s prison just is too much for me to stomach, even for a movie. I liked “Grease”, but that was just because the music was remotely tolerable. So what would possibly be worse than a musical? A sequel of a musical, of course! “Grease 2″ would be Michelle Pfeiffer’s “Hudson Hawk”. She’s made some great movies, but this is brutal. Two words: Adrian Zmed. Yet I can’t not watch it, either. God help me, any time I catch it on TNT or USA or wherever, I sit and watch it, though they usually cut out the best scene- the “Reproduction” song. And then after it’s over, I go take a shower to cleanse myself of the hell I put myself through.

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Popeye (1980) Hmmmm. Apparently, I only like really, really shitty musicals. Shitty even by musicals standards. As before, this would fall on Robin Williams’ list of movies he hopes like hell nobody ever mentions. Starring Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and Ray Walston as Poopdeck Pappy, this was a very bad movie version of a decades-old cartoon I never really liked in the first place. Yet as a 12-year-old when this movie hit the theaters, I literally saw it seven times in four days and I don’t know why. It does have some really, REALLY good character actors, however (that probably also hope nobody remembers this movie)- Richard Libertini, Donald Moffat, and Paul Dooley, as well as a young Dennis Franz in one of his very first roles.

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One Crazy Summer (1986) John Cusack is a terrific actor who seems to make great choices in movie roles. Except this one. He stars as an aspiring cartoonist who hates the water, yet inexplicably spends summer vacation visiting a friend who lives on the island of Nantucket. (There once was a cartoonist from Nantucket…) Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda, formulaic premise, wacky characters, damsel in distress, improbable yet victorious outcome. Just thinking of this movie is making me throw up a little in my mouth. Yet any time I catch it on TV, I am compelled to watch it. There are many reasons not to watch it- Demi Moore is in it (and she doesn’t get naked), Bobcat Goldthwait is in it (Bobcat Goldthwait = bad movie; that’s just the way it is), or the fact that Mark Metcalf plays the exact same Neidermeyer character that he played in “Animal House” and it’s not funny here either. Look for Jeremy Piven as one of the bad guy’s toadies, and one of the most severely underrated comedians of the mid-to-late 80’s, Rich Hall, as a gas-station attendant. Oh, and 50 bonus points to the first person to correctly name the title and artist of the super-duper cheesy sappy song that plays as the closing credits roll.

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Well, there you have it. Those are just a few really crappy movies that spring into my head when I think of really crappy movies I can’t not watch. Don’t get me wrong; there are many, MANY good movies I enjoy, plus many purportedly good movies I thought weren’t what they were cracked up to be (”Forrest Gump” was mildly entertaining but not even close to Oscar-worthy). These just happen to be horribly awful movies that I watch over and over, knowing full well how horribly awful they really are.

So what about you? What movies are widely accepted as total crap yet you love them? Or at least watch them again and again? See, I don’t really think you can even call them “guilty pleasures”. To me, that’s an oxymoron, like “jumbo shrimp” or “government organization” or “journalistic integrity”. There’s no reason to feel guilty about something that gives you pleasure (within reason, people), and if you do feel guilty about it, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. Anyway, if any of you have any movies that fall into this category, lay ‘em on me.