I was sucked into watching a terribly written but strangely compelling Disney movie (Starstruck – do yourself a favor and do not go near it. If you lose two hours of your life, you can’t blame me) and it got me thinking about crack. I know we’ve talked about this before but what is it that makes some books, movies, or tv shows utterly cracktastic so you cannot put them down? Sometimes its the train wreck factor, like Toddlers and Tiaras. I have met more than one person who has encountered the show and has not been able to look away. I have movies, too, that, if I flip past them, I will stop to watch, no matter where in the movie I encounter the plot. Varsity Blues is one example (I Don’t Want Your Life!) of clicker-stopping crack movies. Goonies too – and even if I OWN the movie on DVD, I’ll still tune in to watch if I see if on tv when I’m on the couch. (What is with that, anyway?! I think I own Varsity Blues, now that I think about it).
Sometimes it’s some indefinable quality that keeps me hooked to whatever I’m enjoying… and it’s not always a good quality. I think there needs to be a word for when you’re balanced between horrified and enjoyment. I’ve had this experience with JR Ward bhoohks, Stephanie Laurens books, many, many things on Food Network and QVC (The “q” in QVC, I’m convinced, is for Qrack). I can’t stop observing and watching, waiting to see what happens next. I also have this problem more with first-person perspective books than third-person, as if I can’t be rude and turn away from this person confiding in me for pages and pages. Do I care personally about blow drying serums that prevent frizz, chest-pounding men who say things like, “I’m outtie,” or some random kitchen staffed entirely by lunatics? Nope. Am I still tuning in? Yup. Why?! Why do I do that?!
I’ve been pondering the topic some over the weekend, too, since today I’m going to find out what supah-sekrit plans are in the works for the Sweet Valley High sequels – and I get to meet the geniuses behind 1BRUCE1, the LiveJournal group that is itself cracktastic. Sweet Valley, for me, was crackalicious. I would spend my hard-earned allowance on two of them, and read them both within 45 minutes. The tv show never did it for me. Something about the Daniels’ sister’s heads freaked me out. Generally speaking, I like the images of characters in my own head more than any film production versions – especially when the characters look like 34 year-olds pretending to be in high school.
What books are crack-o-matic for you? What do you think it is that makes a tv show or movie or book un-put-down-able?
@Pam
Amazon has Thomasina. Used copies are cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Lives-Thomasina-Patrick-McGoohan/dp/B0001I55R4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276634720&sr=1-1
LOVE that movie!
Sorry.
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Lives-Thomasina-Patrick-McGoohan/dp/B0001I55R4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1276634927&sr=1-1
Any TV show using the “they’re in love but don’t know it/ can’t admit it/ can’t be together for some reason”- I KNOW it’s formula and a cheap ploy and possibly I won’t care after they get together but I CAN’T RESIST! I have to watch until they get together, however long it takes! I kept watching the X files right through the terrible last what? 2 whole seasons? just for the payoff and IT WAS WORTH IT!
and I would say Buffy except it’s good! not crack… but I love it as if it were drugs…
As I am writing this comment, I am watching “Benny and Joon” for, at least, the thousandth time.
I am hooked on TCM, especially the soap opera movies from the 1930’s, any musicals, anything in black and white.
My husband does not understand why, during the day, I have two T.V.‘s on in different parts of the house with QVC blaring, but I just don’t want to miss anything. I have emailed hosts. I have talked on the air four times. I won $150.00 QVC Shopper dollars in the days when they had their cute little games. I unscrambled the word sterling! My house is filled with products I didn’t know I needed. That’s my crack!
Hah! My security code is called95. Well, QVC has heard from me lots more than that, I’m sure! ;oP
We may not have a word for that inability to look away, but a couple of phrases come to mind. The train-wreck syndrome. Or guilty pleasure.
I hardly ever watch TV any more, but I had the most embarrassing fascination with Beauty and the Geek during its first season. Also Dancing with the Stars the season Billy Ray Cyrus was on. What a train wreck, but I just couldn’t look away.
The 80s Judith Krantz miniseries Scruples with Lindsay Wagner, Barry Bostwick and Kim Cattrall. Crack & Cheese Supreme! And Moonlighting, season 1-3 because what sort of clothes do you suppose would be worn by a man with a mole on his nose?
I’m loving this topic! Intriguing though, what different people find as “crack-tastic.” My own list:
Movie Crack: 10 Things I Hate About You (love, love, love this movie – have watched it a billion times and laugh out loud every time), Pride & Prejudice (every time I see it I hope that Kiera Knightley’s posture has improved), and Armageddon (Laugh, Cry, Everything in between- every time).
TV Crack: Friends, The Office, Gilmore Girls – any reruns and I’m pretty much going to stop and watch. (Guilty addition: So You Think You Can Dance, and if I turn Disney on late at night when I’m feeling lazy I must prepare myself to be there for a little while)
Book Crack: Julia Quinn – love EVERYTHING (don’t know if it’s considered crack- but they’re just so good, I’ll pick one up if I’m feeling out of sorts. They’re the fairy dust of the book community), Nora Roberts Trilogies, Meg Cabot’s Boy Series (they’re sweet and super fast to read- cause the stories are told through emails, texts and articles- but if I pick one up I’ll read them all).
Hmmm… I’m sensing a pattern in my life…
Hello??? Am I the only one who will admit to….TA TA TA DOM… Keeping Up With the Kardashians???? 🙂
Now that’s CRACK!
Crack Authors: Christine Feehan, Lora Leigh, JR Ward.
Crack Movies: The Mummy, The Mummy Returns: I have the DVDs but will watch them if I happen to see them on tv! Beastmaster: Marc Singer in a loincloth—there is no other redeeming factor to this movie. Just Bewteen Friends: Mary Tyler Moore (wife) finds our her new bff (Chirstine Lahti) had an affair with her husband (Ted Danson). I like the friendship between these two women so much that I watch it all the time, even though it is not a great movie!
Crack TV: TMZ. I went from thinking anyone who watched this was a looser to turning into one of those “losers” myself! I know it’s a horrible, no-content show, but I am hooked!
Glad to see someone (donna) shares my eyeball-searing love for Beastmaster! There was a period when I was traveling a lot for the Army in the mid-nineties and every single motel had that movie on cable three times per trip and I must have watched those ferrets I don’t know how many times. And what about the original Clash of the Titans? Young Harry Hamlin in a short sheet. Red Sonya. And the very first Conan, waaaay back.
Books – this morning my husband found me standing next to my bedside table reading “SEALed with a Ring” at 0700 when I had said I was going up to get a pair of socks. Socks, sex, SEALS, whatever. He caught me. Reading crack.
(I blogged about what a good guy he is in the face of my latest, perhaps worst, TSTL moment – I doubt many of you could top my sheer idiocy but you’re welcome to try at dscribwomen.blogspot.com)
Oh my word – effort53 – as in, the effort it took to restore my car could have bought 53 copies of Beastmaster).
@Jody
Thanks
It took me awhile but I finally decided that Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter books are crack. They drive me nuts because all but one of her heroes had horrible childhoods – raped, beaten, blinded, sold into slavery, etc. It got SO annoying! And meanwhile the heroines had families so well adjusted and happy they could’ve been from a 50s sitcom.
That being said I read every single one and would read more. Even if it’s always the same darn thing!
Yeah, crack: Keanu Reaves movies (esp. THE REPLACEMENTS and CONSTANTINE—cannot stop watching!), TNT rerun series (almost doesn’t matter what—ANGEL, ER, LAWℴ, CSI, etc.), J.R.Ward books (now that we’re done with the initial 6, WTF am I doing still reading???? and BUYING?????????), J.D.Robb series (ditto…), DEXTER. I stopped with Laurel Hamilton (finally!) and Lauren King, but damn. I had to stop getting cable to eliminate bad movies featuring Bruce Willis, Kurt Russell, James Spader, and Sylvester Stallone.
My book crack is/was Bertrice Small. I have to admit, though, that the craptastic load of buttcheese that is Crown of Desssstiny may have put me off her books forevermore. Up until then, I was very forgiving of any crappy books.
Movies? Romancing the Stone, all the way.
@ La Reine Noire: I’m so happy…and heading B&N. My high school french teacher had us watch that version of The Scarlet Pimpernel and I was hooked! I borrowed the VHS (hey, it was the 80s) and recorded it….and proceeded to watch it everyday for a year.
As far as BAD book crack:
I keep inflicting the Arcane Society novels on myself – no idea why – they’re bad and ridiculous – but addictive.
The early Julia Quinn stuff. The writing is less than groovy but the HEA is always simple and fluffy – perfect to zone out.
My first romance: Blades of Passion by Claudette Williams. Everything you would expect from a 70s romance – aww, the nostalgia. Actually found it used online about 10 years ago and keep it on the shelf when I need a throwback escape.
GOOD book crack:
Wuthering Heights. Read it as an angsty teenager and had first broken heart (luuurrrved Heathcliff). Still read it about once a year.
BAD TV:
Millionaire Matchmaker. I can’t decide who is more painful to watch – Patty or her “clients”. I’m totally peeking between my fingers but can’t look away.
GOOD TV:
Criminal Minds & ALL Law & Order. My entire weekend is wasted on those marathons.