An Afternoon Comment Diversion / Dustin Rowles
Comment Diversions | August 6, 2007 | Comments ()
Before we get on to today’s diversion, I’d like to award the Pajiba T-Shirt and $50 gift certificate from the seriouly awesome folks at Fabulous Stationery to the commenter who offered the most impassioned defense of his or her secret shame in last week’s Guide. We had a hell of a time picking a winner amongst the 560+ comments — so many of you willingly and vigorously fessed up to your love of shit films, it was kind of impossible to pick out a favorite. At one point, in fact, we were all ready to give the “prize package” to the first person that admitted to a love of either Drop Dead Fred, Rocky and Bullwinkle or Young Einstein (all three, sadly, went unmentioned).
That said, I have to take some of you to task for simply admitting to a love of guilty pleasures (Bring It On, You’ve Got Mail, Bachelor Party, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, D.C. Cab(!) and maybe even Overboard), instead of real secret shames, like the strange affection for Jim Varney films and Howard the Duck, of which there is no excuse in either respect. We were tempted, also, to award Armando the prize for admitting on a site like this a love for Star Wars Episodes I and II, which is considerably more shameful here than admitting to an affection for, say, Death to Smoochy, Fear, Cabin Boy, Cool as Ice, or Xanadu, which are more so-bad-it’s-good than actually shameful on Pajiba. Context means everything. Cutting Edge, likewise, was totally a guilty pleasure, but Ice Princess definitely warrants secret-shame status (unless you’re a pedophile, in which case it warrants sex offender registration)
Still, a lot of your choices were terribly shameful: Jawbreaker, Dungeons and Dragons: The Movie, Troop Beverly Hills, Jingle All the Way, The Bodyguard (double yikes), Boat Trip (really?) The Postman, Return of the Blue Lagoon, Mighty Ducks 2, Grandma Boy and Sandra Bullock’s “oeuvre,” just to name a few. And Jen310: Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo? Ouch. Ouch. Say it isn’t so.
In the end, though, we loved Michelle’s defense of Twister, but didn’t think the movie was quite that bad; likewise with maljax’s defense of The Last Unicorn. Scarlett’s love for Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector warranted a lot of points, but we subtracted a few because we had too much respect for her to actually believe her. We agreed with David that putting Point Break into consideration was blasphemous, as were the choices of The Legend of Billie Jean, Money Pit, Teen Wolf and Mannequin all of which were genuinely awesome movies. Robert’s amusing seven-point defense of From Justin to Kelly (simply inexcusable) came damn near winning the prize, but in the end, we had to give it the heartbreaking defense of Britney Spears’ Crossroads, from a man, no less, who used Ms. Spears’ tour de force to get him through a difficult and depressing time in his life, seeing it not once, but twice in the theaters before actually purchasing it on DVD (and one mustn’t forget Kim Cattrall, Dan Aykroyd, and Kool Moe Dee’s contributions to that brilliance). So, congratulations, Ryan, who gained a few extra points for trying to convince another commenter that there was nothing shameful about loving Spice World. We’ll just have to agree to disagree, Ryan.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s move on to this week’s comment diversion, sticking with the same theme: Secret Shames — Albums Edition. Name the five albums that you love, but would never admit in “real” life.
And here’s what I’m guessing, following the most popular comment thread we’ve ever had last week: Folks won’t be nearly as forthcoming about their musical secret shames. I think most people are more sensitive about their musical tastes and that, even posting anonymously, many of you will feel compelled to preface your secret shames with something along the lines of, “Seriously. I really do like good music. No, really. I do,” before rattling off a list of your respected favorite artists. It’s a powerful urge, and one that I feel awfully compelled to give into here before offering up my own secret shames. But, I’m going to hope — as should the rest of you — that our past music-related comment diversions collectively speak for all of your decent tastes in (mostly non-mainstream) music.
So, here goes mine. And please, don’t leave me hanging out there:
1. Bon Jovi — Lost Highway (yeah, that’s this year’s “country” album. Cough on a pube.)
2. The Best of Hootie and the Blowfish (say what you want about Hootie’s lack of musical talent — but that Darius Rucker has the best damn baritone in the business)
3. Alanis Morissette So-Called Chaos (and yeah, I have Jagged Little Pill, too, but so does everybody).
4. Hall and Oates - Oh, fuck it: I own them all. It’s the Philly sound, people!
5. The Beatles - Ones. No, it’s not that embarrassing to admit owning this, but here’s my biggest secret shame of all: It’s the only Beatles album I own.
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