No matter how sophisticated we may become, no matter how many degrees in film, literatures or the arts we may obtain, we retain our guilty pleasures — by which I mean those movies, books, and television shows that we know aren’t great art and sometimes, are downright stupid. It doesn’t matter. We love them anyway.
I have a whole bushel of them, ranging from television shows about vampires with glowing eyes (Forever Knight), to reruns of the original Lassie. I’m a sucker for any movie featuring a non-human, be it cat, dog, horse, or sea creature. I’ll watch pretty much anything in which Candice Bergen starred or was at least featured. I’ll watch anything from any season of any Star Trek, even if I’ve seen it a hundred times.
I love comedies by Mel Brooks, even the bad ones because they make me laugh. Ditto the Zucker brothers for the same reason. If you can make me laugh, you’ve got me. Sometimes, I watch things that are unintentionally funny … Xena, Princess Warrior comes to mind. I don’t know whether it was supposed to be funny, but it made me laugh until I cried.
My lists of favorite movies, books and television shows are a study in contrasts. I love The Lion In Winter and The Seventh Seal. I love Airplane and Hotshots Deux. I never miss a run of Best Of Show or A Mighty Wind. Or the original version of The Haunting. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I will watch or read whatever grabs my fancy or makes me laugh without discrimination.
It’s one of the reasons I think that “awards” like the Golden Globes and the Oscars need many more categories. How can you put a screwball comedy against a serious drama and have any kind of sensible outcome? It would be like having a dog show that included camels and goats. It wouldn’t matter how beautiful a goat or camel you have entered, it would never win Best of show.
I’d love to hear about your guilty pleasures? What makes you laugh? What cheers you up when you’ve got the blues? Are you a secret fan of Gilligan’s Island or Love Boat? Fess up! Time to come clean 
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March 18, 2013 at 4:53 pm
The Lion in Winter … a masterpiece … and surely a required study for any aspiring thespians.
I saw a remake of it with Patrick Stewart and Glenn Close – both fine actors in their own right – yet it paled badly when held against the the work of Hepburn and O’Toole. Stewart – bless his soul – also did a remake of Moby Dick, but again when inevitably compared to Peck’s version it was shadowed. But I admire his taste. Engage!
March 18, 2013 at 5:47 pm
There are movies that shouldn’t be remade. You aren’t going to improve on them, no matter who you put in the cast or how much you spend on effects. ut they keep trying anyhow.
March 18, 2013 at 10:55 am
I have a thing for the Lara Croft films – I know they are far from great but I always have a good time with them.
March 18, 2013 at 11:02 am
I think sometimes we forget. Movies are art … but they can also be just fun.
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 10:55 AM, SERENDIPITY
March 18, 2013 at 12:19 am
My guilty pleasures these days are certain foods. I cleaned up my eating habits a few years ago so it’s definitely comfort foods.
The first season of Revege was enjoyable and I felt female powerful. It has not continued in the same vein.
Ditto for Grimm’s, Friday nights. There are some good freaks in that show.
I love sarcasm and humor. Often I will watch an entire program waiting for that one great line. I find myself doing that with Idiot Abroad.
I’ve been a self- protection mode the past few years. Anything written that goes too deep emotionally without bring me back, I avoid. I love books and miss the feeling of holding a book with the e-readers.
If they would give my Kindle the smell of paper I’ld be so happy.
I also watch Star Treck, anyone I can find. Still reread my old Roddenberry books.
March 18, 2013 at 12:22 am
We are absolutely on the same page. I am not willing to put myself through any painful emotional experiences for a movie. Life has quite enough drama. I too am enamored of wit and great lines. Perhaps too much so, but one great line can make a whole movie worth watching!
On Mon, Mar 18, 2013 at 12:19 AM, SERENDIPITY
March 17, 2013 at 8:56 pm
One of my guilty pleasures was always Dark Shadows. Ah-h-h! Barnabas
As I think back, it is really ironic for I never got into the movie Dracula or the Twilight saga. Mists of Avalon and Dragonheart are favorite movies and I love anything related to mythology like the original Clash of the Titans. Hated the remake. Secretariat is also at the top! Don’t even want to go into television today…blah! blah! blah! What really gets me are the stupid commercials, I mean stupid! But the stupidity is not the worse part…it is the fact that I remember them! UGH!
March 17, 2013 at 9:10 pm
I didn’t get into Dark Shadows because it was on when I was at work and those were the days before DVRs so if you missed it, you missed it. I saw the original Dracula on Broadway with Frank Langella and it was unbelievable. How they managed to make it into such an awful movie is hard to understand because on stage, the man was mesmerizing. I loved the Mists of Avalon, though I liked the book better. Dragonheart was good too. Twilight is a bit too teenage girly for me, but when I was that age, I was mad about Troy Donohue, so who am I to talk?
My guilty pleasures of today are so different from when I was a girl. Strange how much most things change … but not everything. Some things are still as beloved as ever. They aren’t guilty pleasures. They are just great books, movies, tv shows and music that have stood the test of time.
March 17, 2013 at 1:24 pm
Marilyn, you’ve already covered many of my guilty pleasures so I’ll be brief:-) It’s great re-visiting some of the old shows and finding them funny as ever. M*A*S*H* is exhibit number one. Especially the “Colonel Flagg” episodes. I laugh as he enters a scene before he says a word. It’s like seeing Fred Willard in ANYTHING. People who make me laugh are national treasures. The unhappiness with current TV fare is familiar fodder. It’s one of the reasons I spend so much time with the old stuff. And, I’ve had a life-long love affair with films from Hollywood’s “golden era”. I’ll never tire of watching The Duke, Bogie, Cagney, Tracy, Hepburn, Crawford, Davis, Flynn and all the other legends again and again. I love the familiar characters, plots and happy, funny or weepy endings. Yes, a guy can enjoy love stories!! I’m just discovering one of Marilyn’s guilty pleasures “Forever Knight”. It’s especially nice watching HER enjoy these episodes because she’s searched so long and talked so much about this “guilty pleasure” and now she has it. Life can be frustrating so, YES, it’s nice to have our guilty pleasures. We DESERVE them!! (Epilogue: Today is St. Patrick’s Day so, yes, I have a few of those old Irish films being taped from TCM. “The Quiet Man” will round out our day. That’s not a guilty pleasure. It’s PURE pleasure and holds very special memories for Marilyn and me).
March 17, 2013 at 2:18 pm
And you even get a collage of pictures from our Irish honeymoon AND a corned beef dinner! Wow, you lucky guy!
March 17, 2013 at 1:11 am
Welllllll, my favorite show is one called The Sentinel. It’s about two handsome guys, but of course. One is a police detective who has 5 enhanced senses that drive him crazy. The other guy, an anthropology student, helps guide him to use his senses to fight crime and catch as many bad guys as possible. Kind of a weird premise but I love it. It’s old as dirt but I have also had the wonderful pleasure of meeting one of the stars and having a photo with him, so one dream fulfilled.
Some of my other favorites are Emergency. I also have a wonderful photo of me with the star of that show Randy Mantooth. Can’t forget my teenage crush on good old Starsky and Hutch. Oh they were just the cool cops in town.
Now, I don’t really watch TV any more. With one exception being the new version of Hawaii 5-0. Love those cop shows. Funny thing is I don’t even have cable TV although my kids have satellite but not much interests me these days. I prefer to read and socialize through good old Facebook and have friends all over the world that I converse with through a land line as well. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful people this way. So, those are some of my guilty pleasure TV viewing. I’m such a fan girl of cops. LOL.
March 17, 2013 at 10:37 am
I actually answered this and the answer never posted. Hmmm. There is something odd afoot. Anyway, we watch a lot of cop shows … reurns of NCIS and the new ones, too. Old Law & Order episodes, The Closer and a bunch of current ones — Blue Bloods, The Mentalist, Body of Evidence, Person of Interest, CSI, Criminal Minds and Elementary … Garry watches the new Hawaii 5-0, but I don’t. It’s okay, but I’ve got other stuff to do. The Good Wife is intermittant. We also watch a lot of reruns of MASH, Cybill (still hilarious after all these years), Golden Girls and the new one “Hot in Cleveland” which is also very funny.
Network TV is not exactly a rich hunting ground these days, but we watch movies, lots of old one, and whatever new ones look worth a view. We watch Leno, or at least the beginning (monologue). I do less watching and more writing and reading. There aren’t enough hours in a day for me to do everything and if I’m going to be working, there were be fewer available hours. I’ll have to adjust myself to a different (slower) pace for this blog.
We gave up on the various hospital shows. All of them decayed into soap operas and got silly and dull.