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Top Ten Films I should have hated, but enjoyedMay 13 '01 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line A list of the films that had me cowering in shame and hiding the video case from my friends and family OK – we’ve all got films that we love and rave about to our friends and fellow epinioners because they’re terrific and respectable and well-loved and everything honourable, but what about those films you love in secret due to their general rejection by an unforgiving society? Admit it! We’ve all got them. And whilst I couldn’t find a proper category in which to voice my opinion on the topic I recently read sampo24's excellent "The Best of the Worst! Top Ten movies I'm ashamed to admit I love..." under this category. So bare with me now through a list of films that I liked against my will, that made me cringe in guilty shame, and even occasionally induced me to become defiantly defensive against the onslaught of hurling criticism. Please find below – in no particular order – the “Top Ten Films I should have hated, but enjoyed.” 1. Dead Man on Campus The first time I ever saw this film was under the instruction of my brother, and boy did I hate it. I felt its sheer suckiness in all its slapstick trite glory. “What did you think?” my brother asked at the end. We’re pretty alike in our tastes but I had to look at him as though things would have to change from here on in. The basic story line is as follows: two college guys (a dark-haired Mark Paul Gossellar and some other bloke) try to get a nutcase to move in with them when they discover the only sure way to get A’s on their report cards is by having endured the death (suicide) of a room-mate. Hmmm. Sounds dodgy? Well, yes. It was awful. But then something bizarre happened to me. One day one of my friends was trying to think of a way to get his under-aged girlfriend into a nightclub and attempted to discuss with me fake-ID options. And then there was something – a spark, a glimmer – a faint shifting inside my head that lead to snicker. And this spark was Dead Man on Campus: the scene whereby Mark Paul Gossellar tries to buy beer using a fake ID with a blatant Indian persona boasting a name like “Hajeem Rashjeed” or something. Then, other parts of this awful film started coming back. A: “I probably shouldn’t drive. I had my license revoked.” B: “What for?” A: “Attempted vehicular manslaughter…. Whatever the f*** that is!” Suddenly all these once-hated situations and one-liners came hurtling back, making me snort and snicker spasmodically like I was infected with something, and I was: “Dead Man” fever. I stormed into my brother’s room and we traded “Dead Man” memories with a fierce, reckless enthusiasm. I watched the movie a few more times, and laughed. 2. Untamed Heart I really surprised myself by taking to this one, because although I can appreciate a good romance (particularly if it is supported by something reputable or interesting like a good 18th century setting) I’m not really one for modern b-grade romances. For instance, I’ve yet to like a Meg Ryan film. So I don’t know what happened with this one: maybe I was sick at the time? But I really took to it. Marisa Tomei plays the role of a recently-dumped-by-her-boyfriend waitress whose luck gets worse when she’s attacked and almost raped by two customers on the way home from work one night. She wakes up from the attack, dishevelled and defensive, on her balcony, having discovered that the weird new guy from work (Christian Slater) saved her. From then on in they start a tentative romance which of course ends (as all soppy romances must) with one of them dying of some disease. But there seemed – to me, at least – that there was something honest in their romance. Maybe it was the fact that I liked the two lead actors – indeed, it’s hard to see me tolerating this film with the likes of, say, Charlize Theron and Freddie Prinze Jr as the doomed lovers. Hmmm. 3. Sliver Sharon Stone! Sharon Stone! Sharon.... say, didn’t everyone just LOVE Sharon Stone at one point? The point marked by Basic Instinct, that is. The fact is that when her follow-up film Sliver was released poor Shazz suffered a bit of a dent to the ol’ reputation. BOY did everybody hate this film! The critics hated it, audiences slammed it, my friends b!tched about it. “Please don’t get it,” one of them begged when we were selecting videos. “It’s absolutely dreadful.” It sounded so awful I wanted to get it to see how dreadful it really was. Their protestations had had the opposite effect intended – that is, they excited my curiosity. And what do you know? It wasn’t that bad. It’s generic, of course, and it’s not Shakespeare, but geez, I could think of a lot worse films than Sliver, even amongst those also-new-to-video at the time of its release. I kept glancing at said friend in confusion. “It’s not THAT bad!” I insisted. Okay, I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it. And besides, it got me out of helping with the ironing. 4. Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion This film got quite a bit of hype since it featured the very-popular-at-the-time Friends cast member Lisa Kudrow, who was so funny on TV everyone expected to see more of the same in this film. So did Kudrow live up to her reputation? Well…. according to the general population, no. People found the film lame and unimaginative. But I must argue against this view. Sure, some of the jokes were pathetic, but the parts of this film I found the funniest were the less tangible aspects – the general oh-highschool-was-awful atmosphere, the obsession with clothing, the Valley-girl attitude, and the frivolity of the storyline which provided a fun ride as long as you took your serious critic’s spectacles off and let the mellow brainlessness of this film simply wash over you. 5. Sense and Sensibility Alright, the critics didn’t mind it, and some maturer females seemed to like it, but for the most part I went through hell admitting I liked this film. An adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel starring the esteemed Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet in a blonde wig, this comedy-drama-romance about two sisters finding love was never going to make the male film market sit up and go, “hang on, maybe chick flicks and period films ARE a good thing, after all!” But for Pete’s sake – couldn’t they let me enjoy it? I remember my boyfriend tormenting me at the time whenever I watched it (I taped it) by shouting out sarcastic things like, “Oh, I DO declare, Mrs Pennyfeather!” in the background. And in the year of its release, my little sister’s teen magazine declared it the worst film of that year. Come on, it wasn’t THAT bad, was it? Maybe it was the last in a line of too many period films, or something. 6. Legends of the Fall “Slushy soap opera!” The reviews screamed. “Two stars out of five!” etc. Painted by severe critics and haters of romance as overly dramatic, sentimental, too long, and with too many unlikely plot twists crammed into one film, the negativity surrounding this film would be enough to keep some viewers away. But with the pull of Brad Pitt females flocked to this film and some even loved it. Being not a great fan of Pitt’s blue eyes and blonde locks it’s a wonder I still liked it, but I urge people to look at the convincing performance (and excellent hair! I want her hair) of Julia Ormonde, the well-portrayed aching of a love never quite finalised, and the flowing ride of this film which admittedly will have you asking, “can so much bad stuff really happen to one family?” but enjoying it all the same. 7. The Incredible Melting Man Wow. This was so awful I loved it. Absolutely dreadful. Surely this is the best example of a horror film so b-grade, so obviously stilted with its bad acting and bright pink pools of blood, that it’s hilarious. I laughed so much during this film we had to pause it mid-way because I almost had an asthma attack. One of my favourite bits is that of when the melting man (Alex Rebaar), whose limbs are slowly falling off one by one due to a bout of inexplicable radiation poisoning resulting from flying too close to the sun in his youthful astronaut days, runs loose in the forest and the only way for the concerned government-types to find him is to chase his gory trail. They hover by a tree: one of them sees something. “Oh my God, it’s his ear,” a frowning official proclaims in the most stilted manner, indicating a drooping plasticy ear casually hanging off a tree branch. Tasty! 8. Ever After This film is b-grade and everyone knows it’s b-grade, but, oddly, people still seemed to love it. A modern take on the Cinderella story starring Drew Barrymore as the title character it’s a fun, fresh look at the tale which doesn’t take itself too seriously. Perhaps because it admits it’s not a serious film, it gets away with it. If you turn your brain off and let yourself be carried away by pure escapism this is a very enjoyable film indeed. 9. Brainscan Remember when Terminator 2 came out and Edward Furlong graced the cover of every teen magazine which proclaimed him to be the “Next Big Thing?” When every female teenager of the world fell in love with his messy brown hair and bad T-2 “I’m with Arnie” attitooood? Well – this is the part where I smugly say I was above all that despite my early teen age at the time, but unfortunately... *grimacing*... I can’t. Yep, I was one of those infatuated, giggling, irritating female girls who bought every teen magazine and put Eddie’s poster on the front of all of my school books. For shame! Almost all the movies Furlong has released post-Terminator 2 have either barely filled a seat at the cinema or been simply awful (though admittedly I haven’t seen all of his movies, and I understand his recent film Detroit Rock City isn’t too bad), and many of them went straight to video here in Australia, but I did manage to glimpse a few of them (during my infatuation period) on the big screen. One I did see was Brainscan, and I have to admit, past obsessions aside, that this film wasn’t too bad. The idea is original and the film used its eerie-fantasy tone quite well. It’s one of those films where the main character (in this case, Furlong) undergoes considerable hell without knowing whether it’s all really happening to him or not, sort of like the more recent film The Game, though Brainscan was obviously directed at a younger market. Unfortunately, barely anybody saw this movie at the time and it faded into film obscurity. Oh well. 10. Onegin Based on Pushkin’s story of unrequited love and general gloomy Russian drama, this film copped a lot of walloping as the result of its casting Liv Tyler in the lead of the dreamy heroine, Tatiana. The funny thing is that while I can see how purists would be irritated to find the boldly American Tyler in the lead of an elegant Russian film, I think she did a damned good job. She’s got an entrancing look and her face perfectly suited the dreamy nature of the character. She acted well and her accent was quite good. In fact, she’s what I liked most about this film – and the two things the critics praised, Ralph Fiennes and the soundtrack – were the two things I think let this film down. Fiennes, quite a good actor, plays this charlatan character with too much obnoxious egoism (mixed in with a bizarre snobbish femininity) to convince me that Tatiana could ever love him, and the background music, which followed an eerie Indian kind of theme, didn’t suit the film at all. But Tyler’s performance and the appeal of unrequited cinematic love lifted this film above what it really was. P.S. – I also started thinking of films that everyone loved but me, and managed to come up with Four Weddings and a Funeral (not so hilarious), Meet the Parents (ditto), Shakespeare in Love (didn’t really touch my heart), The Talented Mr Ripley (ditto), Philadelphia (good idea but dull in parts), Titanic (didn’t believe the romance or like Di Caprio), and Road Trip (funny only in parts). Probably there are so many others I couldn’t count them, but can’t think of them at the moment.  |
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