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I watched Waterworld this weekend… again. For like the 500th time. At this points it’s unfair to even call it a “guilty pleasure.” It’s just a pleasure. There is so much to hate about that movie, but for some reason I find the whole to be vastly greater (or at least more enjoyable) than the sum of its deeply flawed parts. Β I don’t even like it in a “so bad it’s good” kind of way. Waterworld is just s shitty movie, that makes no sense, with acting that ranges from wooden to bat-anus insane that I absolutely MUST watch every time it comes on TV.

The comic above involved a very real theory I have about how Enola from Waterworld IS Β the baby set adrift at the end of The Blue Lagoon. You think that movie takes place in the past. NO WAY MAN!. It’s the freakin’ future. That’s some Planet Of The Apes type science I just dropped on you. Shit, maybe that movie takes place on the other side of Waterworld. “YOU DAMN, DIRTY APES! YOU BLEW IT UP! OR MAYBE YOU SUNK IT! EITHER WAY I’M SUPER PISSED!”

COMMENTERS: Your turn to share with the group. Say your name and tell us the movie or whatever that you would like to pretend is an ironic guilty pleasure, but secretly you genuinely love it.

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154 Comments

  1. Star Wars Holiday Special
    I take immense flak for this, but I genuinely enjoy something so bad that George Lucas, who thinks the prequels were great, wishes to destroy it from existence

  2. The Princess Bride. The acting is mostly bad and the storyline so predictable a 5-year-old can see every twist comming, and let's not talk about the CGI. But I love it to tiny, ridiculous pieces.

    • Wait … there was CGI in that one? I thought these were the pre-CGI days (except for "The Laberinth" opening sequence, which wasn't that much more dated than the MIB opening sequence — and now I feel old because I remember when that one was in theatres, and when it was at the rundown discount, skeezy theatre downtown that's now a super-fancy theatre where the symphony plays).

      But that one is great. It's supposed to be ridiculous, and you're supposed to see the twists coming, but that's not why you watch it (you really watch it for Miracle Max).

      • Wait, how old are either of you? All those plot twists are now movie tropes *because* of the Princess Bride. It's a classic! πŸ™‚

        • Agreed. Princess Bride was really one of the first movies I remember to turn a lot of conventions on their heads. Also, the only thing that could possibly qualify as CGI would be the video game Fred Savage plays at the very beginning.

      • I got to see Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Ladyhawke, Willow, AND the old Clash of the Titans in the theatre on their orignal runs. Man, the Eighties were great.

        So if you feel old you're not alone. πŸ˜‰

    • Terrible?! Princess Bride is one of the best classic movies of all time! And what may seem "predictable" now is only predictable because princess bride subverted every fairytale trop in such a great way that filmakers are still going back to it!

    • Wait, Billy Crystal playing a Jewish witch doctor bringing the masked hero back to life is predictable? What could possibly go on in your brain to make that predictable?

    • "The Princess Bride"? Bad? Why do you use that word? I do not think it means what you think it means…

  3. Short Circuit…1 and/or 2. Even as a child, I could tell that the acting was dreadfully sub-par. And it had Guttenberg. Mr. Johnny Number Five carried the movies…to the small extent that they didn't suck.

    • I like waterworld too, in spite of myself (love the villain — reminds me of the Super Mario Brothers movie). The friend who introduced me to it always quotes the crazy paper guy, and now whenever anyone says "paper" I think of the paper guy. It's awful, because I end up thinking about it at least once a day, since I do graphic design/print stuff and work in a computer lab where I monitor printer paper levels. It's an issue.

      • Since we're owning up to awful Costner vehicles, I LOVE Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. My little brother was very young when it came out and was obsessed with it and I was his main babysitter so I think I must have watched it about 200 times :oO

        And yet, I just love it. Not guilty, not secret, just love. Especially the bit where he says, with no trace of self consciousness "This is English courage." In an accent that would need google earth to find England.

        • Wow, I'm impressed. I'm on board the bad Costner movie train through Waterworld and The Postman, but I have to get off at the stop before Prince of Thieves.

          • LOL I know. It's like a disease. But hey, we were confessing what should be shameful secrets and that's mine – even though I'm not particularly ashamed of it.

  4. I love terrible movies more than I should (I blame MST3K and also my boyfriend), and especially ones like "The Labyrinth" and "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and every other 80s movie out there. I also get flack for liking Napoleon Dynamite.

    But the movie I love the most, and which is both over the top and wooden in the finest traditions of B-movies everywhere is "Six String Samurai" — the land-based cousin of "Waterworld." It follows a Buddy Holly look-alike through the mutant-and-weirdo-filled post-apoaclyptic alternate-reality wastelands (Russia dropped the bomb in '57) on his way to Lost Vegas to become the king of the last free city, and of Rock-and-Roll. It's exactly as great as it sounds, and better.

    Another one that's up there is "The American Astronaut." You'd be doing yourself a favour to watch both.

    • I liked Napoleon Dynamite, but it was during a summer where I nannied a baby and the parents only had three DVDs, one of which was that. Then I heard the douchey fratboys quoting it and the movie was ruined.

    • Seriously? Neither Labyrinth nor RHPS qualify as "terrible" movies! Labyrinth is one of the great live-action/puppet movies of the 80's, I watch it regularly and have gone to rep cinemas for the big screen experience, and it's still amazing! Sure, it has its cheesy aspects, Bowie's tight pants and jock strap among them, but it's a classic children's film that adults can also enjoy. Hollywood has forgotten how to make those.

      And RHPS is a musical extravaganza that pushed the envelope of what a film in the 70's could do. It's genre-changing and hilarious. I'd say they should re-make it, but they'd probably cast kids from High School Musical or Glee and I'd have to cut my eyes out…

  5. The '98 "Godzilla". For about two months it was on Starz (or one of those channels) at the same time every Sunday night, so my brother and I would watch while we waited for my dad to come home from work. I regret nothing.

    • I saw that at a drive-in, on a double bill with – wait for it — "Spice World." needless to say, I enjoyed Spice World better. I may even have to revisit it…

      re Godzilla: the cats! WHERE WERE ALL THE STRAY CATS WHEN THEY DROPPED THE TON OF FISH ARRHGHGHH

  6. Cheryl Ladd and Kris Kristopherson in Millennium. The hair is fantastic. And, it has a cameo by everyone's favorite Kids In the Hall, Scott Thompson.

    I just bought it on Amazoon for $3US (which is about $0.09 Canadian right now).

  7. Independence Day!
    Childhood nostalgia turned into So Bad It's Good™ and Adam Baldwin! Whenever it's on tv, I'll watch it.

    • Meh, if you ignore the ridiculous dues ex machina of the magical computer virus, it's a pretty typical action movie. Not a great movie, but not exactly an atrocity. Then again, maybe I'm just blinded by the fact that I actually liked Independence Day, despite it's flaws.

  8. "Princess Diaries" and "Buckaroo Bonzai". The first one because, underneath all this cynicism, I'm really just a girl. The second because, well, it's just awesome.

  9. I second Buckaroo Banzai, John Lithgow is awesome in this. Also Streets of Fire for Willem Dafoe's villain (and the music), and Phantom of the Paradise for just being so over the top.

  10. I just re-watched most of Tremors this weekend… I will stand by it, and love it, for all time. Nevertheless, it's a truly awful B movie, when you look at it honestly.

  11. My Cousin Vinny. For the same reason Joel stated about Waterworld. If it's on TV I must watch it. I don't care what exciting breaking news is happening, or what actually entertaining show is on another channel – which isn't even possible because now they only ever show it between midnight and 4 am – but I must watch it. Sleep be damned!
    I especially like guessing how much of it I've missed by what part I come in on – because I've seen it enough times to know that. And… yeah. If I have to turn in my geek membership card because of it, I will.

  12. Teen Witch. God, it's true! The bad rap (Top That!), bad effects, bad clothes, & the cameo by Zelda Rubenstein…are you kidding me? Bad never looked so good. Also, Mannequin.

    • I loved Teen Witch as a kid, used to make my mom rent it for me all the time. Literally forgot it existed.

  13. Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century, the movie and the t.v. show. Gil Gerard in tight pants, Erin Grey with big crazy 70's hair,Twikie. It doesn't get better.

  14. So I Married An Axe Murderer. To the point that I can recite every line from memory. (Conveniently, my wife also enjoys the movie almost as much as I do.)

  15. Okay … I'm just going to say it … Hudson Hawk. It's so bad it's good. I watch it for Sara Bernhard and Richard E. Grant.

  16. Damn…. beat me to it. Hudson Hawk is definitely one of those "cheesy yet amazing movies"… Bruce Willis & Danny Aiello pulled it off.

    Also, Robot Jox – Being a huge Mechwarrior/Battletech fan, I just have to watch it…. but again, soooooo cheesy & bad acting. Plus, it's got Sato from Karate Kid 2 – how epic is that?

  17. Oh man, this thread is making me want to take a day off and just wallow in guilty pleasure paradise.

    My own is probably Face/Off. There's a lot that I should hate about that movie, the least of which being Nick Cage being … well, Nick Cage. But I can't help myself. There's just enough charm and John Woo to keep me entertained.

    It's also one of those movies that seems to follow me around. I never actively say to myself, "You know, Steve. You don't have enough reasons to hate yourself. Go buy Face/Off." Seriously, I don't own the movie, but it seems to just, I dunno, SUMMON ITSELF upon my screen. If I hit random numbers on my remote while channel surfing, there's a 75% chance Face/Off will appear.

    • Dude, Face/Off is in, like, the top three action movies of all time. With T2, and, I dunno, Die Hard.
      I'm gonna buy you a Face/Off t-shirt, so you can broadcast it to the world and earn the respect that you deserve.

  18. How did I fail to mention Evolution?
    Starring a former FBI agent, the "good" Orlando, and Julianne Moore playing a clutz.
    All with wonderfu Ghostbuster-y effects, one liners like "There's always time for lube!"
    Love it, even though a lot of the world seems to hate it.

  19. The Long Kiss Goodnight. Geena Davis as an amnesiac action hero and Samuel L. Jackson as her man Friday, directed by the guy who made such sterling cinema as Cliffhanger and Deep Blue Sea. And I will watch it EVERY TIME it comes on.

    "Die screaming, motherfucker."

    • I went through a phase right when DVD's started getting popular where I watched that movie 100 times.

    • Hee. This is in my stack of "christmas" movies that I watch once a year while wrapping presents or decorating the tree. My husband thinks I'm stretching the definition of "christmas movie" too far. And I'm saying, "But it happens at Christmas. Like Gremlins."
      Gremlins 2 is only in that stack because I can't watch Gremlins without also watching Gremlins 2.

  20. Pffffft, and the Terminator movies are the prequel to the Portal games, followed by The Matrix. Sure. πŸ˜‰

    Oh, and we don't see time travel or portal tech in the Matrix because the tachyon particles interfere with certain hardware components in the Matrix. Or Zion hacked it, either way.

  21. My husband will never let me like down my love of Tango and Cash, Big Trouble in Little China and Overboard. Really sad part? It wasn't until I just typed that out that I realized that they all star the same actor!

    • Kurt Russell just has that effect on men. We can watch him in anything; he's like Richard Gere in reverse.

  22. Hello, my name is Maggie, and it has been……14 days since I last watched Speed. For possibly the 137th time.

    It's a heap of win with Keanu and his redeeming arm muscles, spunky pre-overexposure Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper at his looniest, and a slew of amazingly bad supporting bus passengers, including stupid got-herself-blown-up lady and dryly funny Cameron Frye. I am never not sucked into this movie. Never. Ever.

    • I was gonna scroll down to the bottom and add Howard the Duck because I totally love it. I watched it first when I was about 9/10 and didn't get a lot of the sex stuff but just absolutely loved the whole film. Especially the principal from Ferris Bueller and his mad eyes.

      Thank you for making it okay.

  23. Joel apparently we have the same taste is bad movies. We both really like Contact and Waterworld. If you tell me you have a serious love affair with the 5th Element we're going to have to be bromates for life.

    • I think you'd have a harder time finding someone here who DOESN'T love the 5th Element.
      Both it and as someone else mentioned "Army of darkness" are very much the "if you don't get it, then it's not meant for you" type of film (which really could be said of any movie, but go with me here). The critics may not have liked them, and they may not have been smash hits at the box office, but to the "right" audience they become instant and enduring classics.
      Hell, those 2 are practically prerequisites for any Geek. They are a part of the fabric of geek culture, you may be able to get your Geek card without liking them, but you'd probably have to take a really hard make up test.

  24. Shark Attack 3. A movie filmed in Bulgaria, but plastered with posters of the Mexican flag to make it look like it takes place in Mexico. I'm not sure I've ever laughed so hard at another movie, which is kind of sad because no movie that was *supposed* to be funny could ever compare….

  25. Yeah but these are all movies that fall into the category of movies that get ripped to shreds by critics or people who like to pile on. Waterworld is almost more famous for being ripped for being bad than actually whether it was a good or bad movie. Which probably had a lot to do with its very large budget.

    • I don't remember 5th element being largely panned, hell, as a film student I know a lot of "critics" that like it, now saying that I know some people hated it, but I don't think to the level of Waterworld or Contact. At least not for a Sci-fi flick, that might be it though, most Sci-fi movies don't get much love.

    • Blazing Saddles frikkin' rules! There's no shame in it; it doesn't just break the fouth-wall, it demolishes it!

    • do not feel guilt my friend, that is a CLASSIC comedy. it wasn't meant to be "PC", it mocks those very things that were so un-PC about it.
      and I will defend to the death your right to love this movie without any guilt!

      {disclaimer: this offer non-redeemable for any actual fighting or dying}

      • I agree that Blazing Saddles is MEANT to be un-pc. It turns all the stereotypes on their 'Hedley!" My bloke and I are ALWAYS quoting that film. It's got so many good quotes in it, it's like Mel Brooks couldn't keep them all in.

        "Matthew, Mark, Luke, And Duck!"

  26. But now I question the concept of "guilty pleasures." Is the guilt internal, you thinking "I just should NOT love this?" or something that everyone hated but you enjoy unironically? The Craft, along with Mean Girls, are movies that make me feel like I should turn in my Man Card, but seriously, they're so damn good.

    • "Guilty pleasures" means the movies you love to watch that make you have to hide from your friends, loved ones and the public at large that you love to watch them – often for fear of ridicule.

  27. I am not guilty at all in loving it, but Last Action Hero gets a totally bad rap. Awesome soundtrack, Arnie smashing shit, it's great!

  28. I have a soft spot in my heart for spaghetti westerns, a la Fist Full of Dollars (which is way better than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, by the way), and period Jane Austen movies. Yes, I have watched Persuasion, Emma, and Pride & Prejudice within the last month. I may or may not own two versions of P&P (you should lean towards may).

    As far as more geeky fare goes, you all may shoot me for this, but I like the first Terminator much better than the second. Also Top Gun? Does Top Gun count? I saw that on the big screen this weekend. It was just as bad/good as I remember.

    • In may ways, Terminator is actually superior to T2. The "science" is more believable (the T-1000 makes no sense and shouldn't actually be able to time travel, according to the rules established in the first movie, since it is made entirely of metal and has no actual flesh), the story is arguably better, but the effects are obviously far, far worse (though, many of T2's effects don't hold up over time).

  29. House on Haunted Hill, the 1999 version that everyone hates. I've seen it so often, and love it.

    Hate the sequel though..

  30. I suppose it's time to come the rest of the way out of the closet.

    I'm DuckAmuck, and I *shudder* I watch Pauly Shore movies and Martin Lawrence movies. *sob*

    These are seriously the ONLY movies that force me to change the channel when I think I hear my husband walking toward the room. The line's been drawn. "If you watch 1 more ML movie… it's over."
    Adam Sandler movies – I'm embarrassed but I don't actually change the channel.

  31. Demolition Man! The joy-Joy way they weld bad puns and Sly's acting "talent" makes me want to have touchless sex with something.

    • Oh HELL yeah! Sign me up for a rat burger, then it's off to the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library, and I'll show you how to use the three seashells.

    • This movie firmly ensconced the jingle for Armour Hot Dogs in my brain since the first time I saw it – in the theater. That damn jingle has been rattling around my cranium since 1993.

  32. when it comes to movies it's hard to shame me. I gleefully own The Crow (saw it in the theater and still love it), Stargate and Virtuosity. I guess the closest I've come is Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. I saw it at a friend's place and it was so…Tokyo Drift-y that I had to get it. how can you not love an all-grownz-up Caleb Temple?

    • Man, I loved Stargate when I first saw it. I loved it far less when I watched it again after the TV version had been around for several seasons. That they managed to make a solid TV show out of what was actually a pretty terrible movie amazes me every time I watch the movie.

  33. I saw Super last week. I loved it! I thought it was absolutely perfect – funny, shocking and yes, batshit insane.
    For guilty pleasure movies – I may have to go with Piranha 3D. Can't beat annoying naked people being eaten by frankenfish.

  34. So many of the movies on here aren't really guilty pleasures. Princess Bride? Ghostbusters 2? The Labyrinth? Everybody loves those.

    My guilty pleasures? Oh God, Beautician and the Beast staring Fran Drescher. I'm embarrassed to type that right now.

    • I know what you mean. I would also call "The Nanny" a guilty pleasure show for me. But then you *really* have to make sure no one's around because man, does the sound of Fran Drescher carry far.

  35. Good Christ, is it ever. I am never not ashamed and never not entertained when I watch it with other people.

    "Yeah? Well, I'm TALLER!"

  36. It's weird because "guilty pleasure" implies I am sort of ashamed, but I just looked around at all of my favorite movies & am not ashamed of any of them, really.

    Maybe Disney movies? If only because I'm a 24 year old dude & will sit & maybe even weep & squee with childish glee at 90% of Disney movies, & even some non-Disney ones. Even before the amazing Pixar wave came & changed everything & got everybody to elevate their game. (How to Train Your Dragon, Tangled & Toy Story 3 all came out in one year!)

    & my favorite Disney era is the somewhat unpopular 60's British era: Sword in the Stone, Jungle Book, 101 Dalmatians, etc. Love the look.

    As far as movies I enjoy that I know most people hate, it's hard to say considering I haven't watched them in many, many years. Like, TMNT II. Or even stuff like American Pie & Out Cold, which I LOVED when I was 13-16, but don't know how I'd feel about now. Hmm.

    • I've been on a Disney kick lately so I sympathize. I'm genuinely concerned that one of my roommates is going to walk in one day and catch me singing along with Lion King or Little Mermaid

    • I will randomly break out in one of Merlin's spells/songs. And he does have a point, we really are in "one big modern mess".

  37. Deathsport. It stars David Carradine. I can't remember if it came out before or after Death Race 2000.

  38. Oblivion.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110706/

    It's a terrible, low-budget film that unashamedly pokes fun at Star Trek in several places (but then it has George Takei, so there…) — but gods, I love it. My husband and I used to rent it pretty much every weekend the whole time our rental place carried it. Haven't seen it since, and by gum, sometimes I do miss it.

    • Do you wanna partyyyyy it's party time. The tar man from that movie used to scare the hell out of me as a kid.

  39. The live-action Super Mario Bros. movie. It's one of those things where it's so bad it's hilarious.

    They did manage to get a really cute Yoshi, though.

  40. Oh god I just thought of another one. "Airborne" (1993). I LOVE that movie. It's a terrible (awsome) rollerblading movie (I miss rollerblading!) , but Seth Green is pretty funny. And there's random Jack Black, barely above the role of extra.I can curl up any time with this little piece of cotton candy.
    OH! Okay, one more. "Ski School". (The one with Chainsaw from Summer School, not to be confused with another crappy ski movie "Ski Patrol", starring some other bad actor). This was my go-to sick day movie in high school. Oh man….

      • HaHAA! Yes. Excellent. Good call. Also, "Gleaming the Cube" (not rollerblading but it's more RADical predecessor in the reelz about wheelz genre…)

  41. Hmmm most movies that I watch and others think are shit I find justifiably awesome. I think I'll have to go with 1776. It's not bad at all, It just gets me a lot of weird looks for being absolutely in love with it. Also made for tv Disney Channel Original Movies. Oh I always say that I won't watch you especially now that I'm twenty, but somehow I always end up watching you….do you even count as movies?

  42. Any Nicholas Cage movie, but "Conair" tops them all.
    Also, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead 2, and, while I didn't like the movie as a whole, I am the only person I know who genuinely enjoyed the "dance" sequence from Spiderman 3.

  43. Waterworld has a lot of sailing cred.
    On watching it, I was struck by the design of the trimaran. The sails, while decrepit looking, had the same shape and cut as a lot of top designs that came out in the ninety’s. The Farr series of yachts all have them for example. While the mast rakes back a bit much, the boom starting where the mast meets the deck and angling upwards the way it does, is common today on ocean racers.

    Most of all was the design of the trimaran itself seemed very familiar. After some brief research I discovered that they had hired VPLP to design the boat (the one used in the sailing shots, not the one with all the shit popping up everywhere.) This boat was clocked going at about 30knots in some of these shots, far more than needed to outrun most of the powerboats they show in the film.

    The firm is famous now for having gone on to design other timarans. Including Groupama 3, currently trying to win the Jules Verne Trophy, and of course, the Oracle BMW trimaran Dogzilla, that was the last boat to win the America's Cup. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUnKDDwCTcI&fe

    In the video, the sailboat is so elegant it never looks like it's moving, but check out the wake of the motorboats trying to keep pace, and you'll get an idea of how fast, and how much power is being generated by it's sails.

  44. Weekend at Bernie's 2. I love it a million times more than the original. There was a summer where I watched it about 15 times, or everytime it was on tv.

  45. Better off dead, and One crazy summer. Both directed by savage steve holland and starring John Cusak. I cannot turn the channel any time they are on.

  46. Earth Girls Are Easy. bad effects, worse music numbers. love it! also, twister, despite the many defiances of the laws of physics. plus, stevie nicks wrote a song for it.

  47. Boobs? I never noticed. But then, I'm not likely to.

    But now that you bring it up, they do look a bit like balls….

  48. Late to the party again, but I'm another Hudson Hawk fan. I even bought the "special edition". (It has a rotten tomatoes rating of 20. How was there even a special edition?) It's not an exaggeration to say this is one of my top 5 movies. I don't need to pretend it's ironic because everyone just assumes it is…

    My other favorites are The Big Lebowski, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Serenity and Heathers, so I guess I'm just a cult movie kind of guy.

    • And duck you should!! "Nemesis" was not a Star Trek movie. Also, "Insurrection" was soooo much better as a guilty pleasure πŸ™‚

      "You know, history just might remember this as The Riker Maneuver"
      Riker: "Yeah… if it works!"

      • Except, I don't feel guilty about Insurrection. True, it was more an episode story and definately the "save the whales" of the TNG movies, but still, not a bad popcorn film. Plus, Michael Dorn, Patrick Stewart, and Brent Spiner singer Gilbert & Sullivan…

        In defense of Nemesis, it tied up the loose ends for the characters so that they (Hollywood) could do the 2009 Star Trek movie. Granted, the bad thing is they tied up the loose ends for the characters so they couldn't do the big war movie against the Borg…

  49. "Judge Dredd!" That movie, for as cornball as it was, had some of the most awesome visual effects. I'll watch it any time that I can, which is only when I pop it in because no one will play the damned thing.

  50. I must have some kind of subconscious mancrush on Rutger Hauer because two of my guilty pleasures are Blood of Heroes and Blind Fury. Two more recent ones are Stick It and Fired Up, both teen comedies that have no business being as funny as they are. Lastly, I could watch any Transporter or Crank movie. Guess I crush on Jason Statham, too.

  51. Undercover Brother.
    What Would Neil Patrick Harris Do? He would pop somebody's head like a friggin watermelon at a Gallagher show, is what he would do.

  52. LOVE LOVE LOVE My Cousin Vinny! I had it on VHS in the early 90's and my mother threw it out because she just couldn't take it anymore! I probably still have it memorized… πŸ™‚

  53. With my head down in shame, I say Armageddon. I love every minute of that steaming pile of crap.

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