Friday, January 22, 1999
Dusty corners of video stores occasionally prove amusing
COLUMN: If you’re tipsy, even worst movie rentals can become
entertaining
As someone who rents a lot of movies, I often find myself in the
back of the video store, in the forgotten section filled with
obscure movie titles that no one has seen.
No, not the porno section, which is tastefully marked off in my
own favorite video store with one of those cheap beaded curtains
that always appear in films about the 1970s, but which I doubt too
many people ever actually had hung up in their rooms between the
lava lamp and the four-foot bong with "Keep On Truckin’" written on
the side.
I’m talking about the back of the actual video store, where the
aisles with names like "Classics," "Horror" and "Cult Favorites"
are stuffed with films that haven’t actually been rented since the
invention of the VCR and which are covered in more dust than the
bed of Tom Joad’s truck.
Here is where you find films with names like "Bring me the Head
of Alfredo Garcia," and "I Spit On Your Grave" (both real titles,
I’d like to note). Other funny titles that I have personally seen
in various video stores which are never rented (bearing in mind
that none of these films were located in an adult section) – "2069:
A Sex Odyssey," "Guns," "The Absolutely True Adventures of the
Alleged Texas Cheerleader Murdering Mom" and my personal favorite,
"Poison Ivy 2." (I bet you didn’t even know they made a sequel, did
you?)
Now, as a person who has seen most of the mainstream films (and
even the most talked about independent features of any given year),
I have on more than one occasion been forced to pick a title at
random out of these endless racks of forgotten films of
yesteryear.
Such experimentation has occasionally yielded some wonderful
movie-watching experiences, as I normally would never have
discovered great movies like "Swimming With Sharks" had I not been
totally desperate and lost within the far reaches of Videoland.
However, most of the time, renting obscure, unknown or odd films
just because of their strange titles or unique box design is a risk
that pays off only if you have a sense of humor and don’t mind
wasting the $3 to rent the video.
I must say that renting absolutely horrid movies has provided
almost as much lazy Sunday afternoon entertainment as all the good
movies I’ve ever seen put together. There’s no underestimating the
fun that a group of people can have sitting together, watching an
absolutely wretched movie and loudly mocking its every action,
especially if each of these people have had a minimum of 10
beers.
I know my favorite horrible movie has to be Kevin Costner’s "The
Postman." Over the summer, an inebriated collective of my close
personal friends actually went out and paid to bring home a copy of
"The Postman" and watched it from beginning to end – twice! I swear
this is true. This movie has to be the worst ever made – the most
foul and gruesome example of movie excess ever created, more
bloated and self-important than "Cleopatra," "Spartacus" and every
performance Charlton Heston ever gave, combined.
This is a movie that actually ends (in theory, although anyone
currently watching it will swear to you that it never ends) with
the unveiling of a large bronze statue of a mailman picking a
letter out of a child’s hands, and then an adult from the crowd
weeps and exclaims that that child was, indeed, him. And if that’s
not bad movie-making, I don’t know what is.
Another fun terrible movie is the Joe Pesci and Danny Glover
comedy "Gone Fishin’" which, though pretty recent, has already
managed to totally disappear from the accessible shelves of the
video store. This movie starts out with the promising premise: Two
morons fish. Can you just imagine the pitch meeting for this
brilliant idea?
The executives walk into the office, and the head of production
asks them, "So, fellows, what have you come up for our new
picture?"
And the executives say, "Well, sir, how about two morons
fishing."
"Hmm… Who do you see for Moron No. 1?"
"How about Joe Pesci."
"Let’s do it."
"Gone Fishin’" is so bad that my television actually stopped
working after I watched it.
But, enough about my favorite horrible movies. Why not e-mail me
with your own horrible movies? Just send me the names of the worst
movies you’ve ever rented (or even worse, paid to see in a
theater!), and I’ll publish the responses in a future column. I’ll
even give you a head start – "Bad Blood featuring Lorenzo
Lamas."
Harris actually really liked "The Postman," and he’s just bitter
that Tom Petty’s stirring performance wasn’t nominated for an
Oscar. E-mail your horrible movie picks to him at
keyser@ucla.edu.Lonnie Harris
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