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?
For TV, it’s Leverage, Bones, and Doctor Who. Doctor, even though you change, I just can’t quit you.
for books, my main crack is Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz in most of her guises (can’t read the Stephanie James books, and the Amanda Quicks are borrow from the library, rather than buy, but I’ll still read them). I’m just about to go on a Patricia Veryan freak, as soon as I finish this intense Art History class I”m in.
but right now my obsession is Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party. I can’t read enough, find enough information about it to satisfy… there will be nothing for it but a trip to Brooklyn to see it this summer… which I can’t afford, but am going to do anyway. (and why am I here when I should be doing my art history homework? This site and Dear Author are my on-line crack, and the blog Pharyngula. I can spend all day on Pharyngula.)
JR Ward for certain – so ridiculous, yet so awesome. I’m about ready to give in and buy the overpriced Kindle version the wait list is so long at my library for the new one.
Bring it on, Zoolander and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I can watch these over and over – I even once watched Bill and Ted dubbed in spanish at a hotel. My husband also loves Bring It On and Zoolander.
For TV, its definitely Hells Kitchen. Can’t wait to watch it every week now the new season has started and yet I’m quite sure it makes my IQ go down.
For books, it’s Mary Stewart. Just can’t help myself.
For moves, Dodgeball. Every time it’s on (and it’s on a LOT!).
For TV: Barefoot Contessa on Food Network … speaking of which, it’s on now …
I’m with Kristina—Discovery Health Channel is badbadbad. And I have spent way too much time watching House Hunters on HGTV. I try to counter all of this by conducting marathon days of PBS World when they’re running science programming (Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda!!!).
I’m most ashamed of the Diana Palmer and Debbie Macomber issues I have. I’ve almost licked the DP problem (thankfully she’s now writing about characters I have not heard of so I don’t need to read about them) which is good because the last one I read was by far the worst piece of crap I’ve ever had the misfortune to pick up.
Movies: Princess Bride, Pride and Prejudice (the tasty Colin Firth edition!) and Bridget Jones’ Diary, The Scarlet Pimpernel (Anthony Andrews edition) and possibly Roxanne.
I guess my list isn’t so bad after all.
Some awesome crackadelic suggestions here.
W00T I am with Jessica, SB Sarach & co. regarding J R Ward’s “Bhooks” (snigger). I love ‘em.
Zoolander & Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure + pretty much anything with Bruce Campbell (including Old Spice commercials, rofl).
Plus the 1995 tv version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle is cracktastic. (I feel so unmanly about being all fangirl over Colin Firth)
However the absolute height of cracktastity, the absolute textual embodiment of cracklicious addictive goodness can be one thing only:
Wikipedia.
(I have watched wikipedia + thepeerage.com eat up entire weekends of my wife’s life. Thank god I’m the cook or we’d both starve to death)
I am an avid romance reader since I was a teenager. My mother recently started reading romance, and was appalled to learn I had never read a Nora Roberts book. She on the other hand was immediately hooked and bought up books in every version she could find. She started trying to get me to read Nora by offering to give me the first one…I wouldn’t even have to buy it! To this day her new Nora books are referred to as her Crack. You don’t bother Mom when she has gotten her latest shipment of Crack! I never read one, but I did start listening to all her audible versions. Nora has accompanied me on many a car trip!
Movies: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Van Helsing, Underworld, The Mummy 1 & 2. Yes, I know they’re not good movies. Don’t care. Must stop to watch.
Books: I’m less inclined to put up with “so good it’s bad” in my reading, although I’ll admit I’ve collected all of the ones “written” by Fabio.
TV: Pretty much anything on the Food channel. There are some incredibly bizarre creations being made on those shows, and I can’t not watch.
Oh Crack. (The new “Oh Snap” saying?)
Yes. I have crack. Especially movie crack. I can stop anytime I want. Really. I’m pretty sure I can. Maybe.
Here are the movies/shows that I can’t flip the channel from if I find them on. And some of them I watch obsessively at certain festivals of the year.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off—Springtime Crack
What’s Up Doc?—Monthly Crack
You’ve Got Mail—Christmas Crack
The Princess Bride—Crack to share with the kids
Ever After—Girlfriend Crack
Pride and Prejudice—1995—Favorite Crack
Money Pit—Renovation Project Crack
Friends TV show—Bad Day Crack
Book Crack? Yes I have a few. And a few I’ve done 12-steps for:
Janet Evanovitch’s Stephanie Plum series (almost weaned off)
Sue Grafton’s ABC series (fully recovered)
Outlander—New crack. Read highlighted portions weekly
Laura Kinsale--Need more. Now. Today. Please Write. Quickly.
Jane Austen—Need more Darcy. You need to ghost write.
Little Women—I swear, if I read it often enough—one of the days Beth won’t die. And Jo and Laurie will get together. And have hot, marvelous sex.
@ Tracy: We need to get together for a weekend movie marathon. Anthony Andrews’ Scarlet Pimpernel? Crack-a-licious. Roxanne? I could watch the “twenty insults” scene every day for the next year and not get tired of it.
BBC North & South. Or…OK anything with Richard Armitage in it. Even the really crappy stuff. Or especially the ones where he shows his ass.
@Manda
Oh I forgot Richard Armitage! How could I?!!? He’s how I found the delightful series Vicar of Dibley. I followed him there from the BBC’s North and South. Yum.
@Laurel
Scarlet Pimpernel (Anthony Andrews) Sink Me! *sigh*
OMG, I thought I was the only one with this problem!
My movie crack is What a Girl Wants. The first time I saw it I thought it so was so bad that I kept stopping the DVD, walking out of the room, then greedily sneaking back in to start it again a minute or two later. Now that it’s on Netflix Instant View I can watch it on my laptop without risking getting caught. heeheehee. Until reading this post I would have put P&P (2005) in the guilty pleasure box, as opposed to crackalicious, but upon reflection, maybe seeing it six times in the theater, then pre-ordering it from Amazon so I could watch it again, As Soon As Humanly Possible, does count as a problem.
My TV crack is The Game or NCIS. I’ve been known to lose whole days after stumbling across a marathon.
My book crack used to be (or maybe you never really recover?) Stephanie Laurens. I’ve greedily read everything she wrote, no matter how terrible the books got towards the end of the series, and no matter how much I hated that said books ceased being about the main characters because they were so overwhelmed by cameos of other Cynsters and Bastion Club members. My mom and my aunt used to sit around hypothesizing what *new and improved* way she would make her characters have sex in front of a mirror next. Gah!
However, after reading, whatever the first book of the Bride series was called, I’ve drawn a line. Really, who fills a book with cameos of characters from not one, but two series (!!!), and expects readers to come back? Not only did that book hit the wall on several occasions, but I had to skim large chunks of it just to finish. So, Stephanie Laurens and I have officially broken up and I need a new drug.
why52: WHY did I burn through the whole Twilight series in less than 52 hours?
@Kristina
No, I’m the same way about Elloras Cave, in my defense though…
no, no there actually isn’t a defense.
Fitness program infomercials- they always convince me that I will lose 50 pounds by simply having their crap in my house. I bought one of ‘em yesterday. total crack.
While You Were Sleeping is my Chistmastime movie crack. The anime Fruits Basket is my general anime crack – I can pop in one of my discs and lose a good chunk of time, even though I’ve seen the whole thing multiple times, in both English dub and Japanese with English subtitles.
As for books, I’m not really sure anymore. I think I might have finally kicked my Laurell K. Hamilton habit – the toxicity has finally overcome any lingering rabid urges to read her stuff. There are authors and series that used to inspire in me uncontrollable urges to read their stuff, to the point where I stayed up and made do with hardly any sleep just so I could finish the whole book, but I don’t think I really have anything like that anymore. Or maybe I’m so deeply in denial that I can’t even recognize my crack.
I tend to hate those “let’s follow a group of obnoxious people and see what they do!” type of reality shows but must confess to being hooked on The Rachel Zoe Project and more recently,The Millionaire Matchmaker(damn you,Bravo,for playing those endless reruns!)-between the work place drama of Brad vs. Taylor(Rachel is no Miranda Priestley but her management skills are extremely passive-aggressive) to Patti Stranger’s bawdy blunt talk to her financially well-off but socially awkward clients,I am insanely addicted.
My favorite MM moment has to be when that crazy cougar client of hers literally ran away in terror upon being set up on a date with a man her age(and she knew what the guy looked like beforehand,so there was no excuse for the shock and awe there)- that wacky woman actually lost a shoe during her mad dash to freedom and didn’t stop to get it back!
Movies,You Got Mail is an automatic must-watch for me. Glad to see that I’m not the only one who digs Kate and Leopold(even own the DVD) but who else will confess to Mystery Men and Once Bitten(anyone,Bueller,anyone?)?
As to books,I managed to successfully taper off from LKH but am starting to enjoy the rush of Victoria Holt(picked up a nice four pack of titles at a church sale)and fantasy sagas like The Sword of Truth series. I adored Legend of the Seeker(it’s a shame that show isn’t getting a third season),which got me into this niche.
The Richard Chamberlain version of King Solomon’s Mines. Hell, anything with Richard Chamberlain.
for TV, I’m going with Overhaulin’. Why? It just sucks me in and I know it’s awful. But I just can’t look away from the Foose. I’m not even into cars. WTF?
for books…. hm. Laurell K Hamilton. I am absolutely unable to stop reading. Can’t do it.
Every time I pick up one if Katharine Kerr’s Deverry books, I end up reading the whole series. All 15 books – I just get sucked in. Every. Single. Time. I really love those books!
Also, sometimes I get this craving for John Ringo’s books. I truly destest the characters in his books and their views on women – also the political views. But sometimes I look them up on my hard drive, no matter how toxic they are.
Crack’d Authors: Amanda Quick, Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn (almost off), Victoria Alexander. Just. Can’t. Stop. Myself..yet. When I started reading historical romance novels, someone handed me a Hannah Howell book and said they were great. (snicker). I had nothing to compare it to since I had never read historicals, so I snatched up and read every Highland book and others I could find. There was an intervention when my family and friends noticed I was saying things like ‘tis’, ‘mayhap’ and ‘nay’. It was ugly, but Dr. Drew assures me I’m fully recovered. OFF Stephanie Laurens, Lynsay Sands, Jo Beverley, and Candace Camp. I glommed the Cynsters, Bastions, Mallorens, Boscastles, Rogues….ugh.
Movie Crack: Sense and Sensibility, Dante’s Peak, Armageddon, Zoolander, You’ve Got Mail, Airplane, and Caddyshack. Anything Mel Brooks. Old Disney movies. I break plans to watch the 60’s Parent Trap movie even though it’s recorded.
Crack’d TV: Real Housewives of OC/NY. True Beauty, must watch and see who steals or lies next. Hell’s Kitchen, Top Chef. Almost got on the Bachelorette wagon for the first time, but watched the season premier and said NAY. Oops, must call Dr. Drew.
My favorite train wreck of all time: “Cop Rock” (early 90’s). Musical cop show.
What timing! Just last night I was reading an anthology of historical rom novellas and could NOT look away. Even despite the hero/heroine being supposedly half-uncle & niece for 80% of the story. It just kept going and going and I was utterly incapable of putting it down.
Cracktastic, crackalicious, cracktabulous – any way you want to put it equals addictive!
For books, some of my addictions are:
JR Ward (The BDB – can’t read just one)
Laurell K Hamilton (Anita Blake; Vampire Humper, also known as Anita of the magic hoo-hoo – This series has been seriously sucking the past few years, but I can’t seem to give up hope that it will return to its former glory.)
Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum, bountyhunter slapstick humor – always good for a laugh)
Diana Palmer (a/k/a stories of old Texan bachelor guys and young naive virgins – some days her stories just hit the spot and other days you want to slap the crap out of the spineless heroine and toss the book in the shredder)
Caroline Davidson (Harlequin Western Historicals with some really great characters – always a pick-me-up to visit with old friends)
Elizabeth Vaughan (Warprize trilogy – one of the best fantasy/romance series EVER!! I had to buy a second set because I wore out the bindings on my first one because I reread it so often.)
Enjoy your crack of choice!
@ Laurel and Brooks*belle: Oh, the Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews! I WISH I had that on DVD! Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!
My earliest crack was the mini-series North and South (with Patrick Swayze…oh, god, the happy memories!) We had it on VHS and at the time had one channel in English…we watched it so much my brother still shudders at the opening music!)
I don’t have time to read crack books so I look to fanfic for my crack. I can get lost in even the worst Spike/Buffy fic.
I also have a strange problem resisting the allure of Halle Berry’s Catwoman. I hate the movie. Can’t stand it, as any good comic book fan is obliged to do, but I can’t skip past it whenever I find it on television.
My confirmation word is “again73” which is roughly the number of times I’ve watched the damned movie.
I’m with you on the topic of Stephanie Laurens. I’m not sure why I keep borrowing her books from the library, but I do! Reading them feels a bit like a chore, but still I suffer through it. Every time I get to a lengthier sexy times scene (as in pretty much everything after The First Kiss Moment(TM)), I skip it – not sure what it is about her writing, but it just does nothing whatsoever for me (and I was pretty much glued to the corresponding bits in the for example One Dance with a Duke).
I also find Laurell K. Hamilton’s books strangely addictive, though in that case I know the lure – I’ve always been a sucker for “not having to say goodbye” to characters, to be able to continue to follow them as they develop.
free66 – yes, it’s freeing to admit that my “guilty pleasure” isn’t so much guilty, but definitely mostly pleasurable (well, with the exception of Ms Laurens).
I really don’t have any reads these days that I would consider ‘crack’ reads. Except maybe the Evanoviches, which come with bigger fonts, narrower margins, higher list price and less originality each time. I can take her or leave her these days. I have several comfort reads that I go back to on a regular basis, but they are much, much too high in quality to be considered ‘crack.’ The first name that came to mind, tho, for a crack read was good ole Diana Palmer. I haven’t read her books in prolly 20 years, but I bet I can tell you the plot of every book she’s written in that time. LOL (I’m not a hater—I like a good DP every now and again. I just prefer the old ones).
I have been known to lose entire weekends to HGTV and the Food Network. Like Terry, I watch Holmes on Homes religiously even tho it makes me neurotic, since my house is usually in worse shape than the ones he’s working on. LOL
You can actually run a drinking game around how many times Giada, Sunny and Sandra use the word ‘nice’ as a descriptive term. (Am I the only one who was howling at the irony last nite, when Giada was lecturing the Next Network Star kids that ‘nice doesn’t mean anything, so don’t use it’?) LOLOL
The new cooking channel has a few interesting shows, tho it’s mostly old reruns of other food network shows. It runs the Galloping Gourmet and Julia Childs, tho. And umn. Two Fat Women. Gotta Love a cooking show like that.
Diane
Book Crack: Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. I did Breath of Snow and Ashes in about 3 days (I have a friend who read it in 24 hours straight) and I’m DYING for the next book.
Movie Crack: The first half of West Side Story. Everything goes to crap after the rumble, but I’ll watch up to then. I’ll also always pause at Knight’s Tale for the dance to Golden Years. Ladyhawke.
TV crack: Vampire Diaries, Smallville.
Password is volume 62. If there were 62 volumes of Outlander, I would read all of them and eagerly await volume 63!
Any time I come across The Birdcage on TV, I’m trapped for the rest of the day. And I laugh as if I’ve never seen it before, it delights me so much. It’s just so brilliant!
I’ll also get briefly trapped by The Breakfast Club, which is one of my favorite movies, but then I see how badly they dub the profanity and/or chop it up, and I turn the TV off in disgust.
And what is the crack that they sprinkle all over Law and Order (all of them)? It’s evil, I tell you!
I can’t think, I’m too excited about the possibility of SVH-related gossip on Smart Bitches.
So, yeah, SVH. Still. I love the high school ones the best, enough that I’ve created several different alternate universes in my head: in one of which Todd and Elizabeth only broke up when he went to Vermont, and DID NOT keep cheating on each other.
Oh, also, the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent Dyer. Written in the 30s and 40s about a girls’ boarding school. No one ever swore or had sex (although they did smoke) and if they acted dishonourably (by, like, passing notes in class) they were terribly terribly sorry. And all the goodest girls grew up and married doctors as their rewards. Ultimate comfort reading.
I’m embarrassed but….
Movies
<ul>
<li>Mommy Dearest - Great one liners
<li>Blue Lagoon
<li>Xanadu
</ul>
Books: Young Adult Fiction
<ul>
<li> Hunger Games - seriously good!!!!!!
<li> I'd Tell You I Love You, But I'd have to Kill You
<li> Mortal Instruments Series
</ul>
Books: In General
<ul>
<li> Pride and Prejudice continuation stories
<li> Parasol Protectorate series
</ul>
Movie-Crack, there are three I will watch every single time they’re on television – Demolition Man, Murphy’s Romance and Best in Show. And I mean every. single. time.
TV-Crack, I’m a marathon crack whore. Don’t even care what the show is – if there are 20 straight episodes of it running, I’m there, chips in hand, eyes glazed over. Oh, and The Real Housewives of New York and New Jersey. I have no interest in Atlanta or Orange County.
Book-Crack – I’m actually far less free with my favors. Books require far more effort than something you watch, so I’m a much tougher nut to crack. That said, I will read anything by Lisa Kleypas, Loretta Chase, or Charlaine Harris.
I’m with you Kirsten! Xena Warrior Princess and Hercules are my delicious delicious crack. When the shows were on TV it was awful! Anytime somebody came in the room I would have to dive to snag the remote and change the channel to something ‘appropriate’! But now I found Hercules on DVD….and now my antics have changed to saying some sort of variation of “Uh…I don’t know what this is, I swear it’s not mine!” I even have addicted some of my friends to it! Muahahahha! Now we sit around and play drinking games where we drink whenever we see a wench getting saucy, ridiculous effects, stupid villains, etc…
For books I have a secret love for paranormal/sci-fi/fantasy romances. It’s just that they mostly ALWAYS have the stupidest looking covers. I have to hide and think of clever ways of disguising them!
Books: Right now, I cannot stop reading Julia London. I only own like half of her historicals, but I keep reading them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read The Hazards of Hunting a Duke.
Internet: Vlogbrothers on YouTube. And Cleolinda on LiveJournal.
TV: Glee. I missed the first 10 minutes of the finale so I caught it on hulu the next day and watched the whole thing again. Hulu makes this addiction worse with all of the web exclusive clips.
Movies: Bridget Jones, most definitely. And Harry Potter. And Little Women.
Know56: I know I shouldn’t, but I still do it.
I have a very crack-personality, but I don’t consider the actual product crack unless I think of it as bad. (Not low-brow, but bad. As in I spend most of the time watching/reading it going, “WhyTF am I watching this?”) So while I sit and watch West Wing over and over again, I don’t think of WW as crack, whereas Ward’s BDB, which has so many elements I hate (the alpha males, the disappearing heroines, the stupid dialogue, etc) is crack, because I really have no clue why I enjoy it as much as I do. (However, if Blay and Qhuinn don’t get together I’ll be over it, for sure; and I have no interest in starting her new series.) Harry Potter? My crack personality comes into play, but I don’t think of HP as crack. Infomercials? Definitely crack. Bad, laced with poison crack.
kirsten & Andrea: If you ever find out how to watch some Xena please let me* know. I have the strongest desire to watch that show again. Esp that Groundhog Day episode. And the musical. And…*face palm*
Ben P: Forget Wikipedia, TV Tropes is what does it for me. I can sit and read those for about ten hours, easy. But it also helps with my writing so I don’t consider it bad crack.
FYI, if you fast forward through the judges on So You Think You Can Dance it makes the show about twenty times better. And saves you a lot of time. 🙂
Great to finally meet you in person! I should have brought White-Harp and held her to my face; that way everyone would have recognized me.
Oh cracktastic things. I have several.
Books: Jacqueline Carey’s KUSHIEL books. I cannot put them down and I buy every single one when they come out. Sex! Courtesans! Kinky sex! Bisexuals! Spies! More kinky sex! Fantasy stuff! More sex! (Clearly I have my priorities straight.)
Movies: The Mummy. Indiana Jones. If it involves archaeology, pseudo-fantasy elements, quips, and action, I am SOLD. On a related note: any crackpot ancient history theory that warrants a History Channel documentary is also my crack. Ancient civilizations were founded by aliens! King Tut was in love with his cat! Etc.
TV: …my best friend Soph would kill me if I revealed this, but one holiday weekend, we watched the entire first season of Kyle XY, which had a marathon on ABC Family. We ran to the bathroom during commercial breaks and even quit smoking for the day because we didn’t have time to take a break. (We have since quit smoking. We’d like to thank Kyle XY.)
Can’t believe no one else has offered this crack up yet:
COPS
All the complexities of the human mind contained in one half hour.
My Crack is Say Yes to the Dress – my 12 year old daughter and I can sit and watch hours of this show, marveling at the horrible relatives of the brides, the prices of the dresses and the amazingness of Randy!! In a similar vein, there is a truly horrible show on TLC called 4 Weddings where 4 brides who don’t know each other go to each others’ weddings and judge them – the winner gets a free honeymoon. Horrible, but can’t look away whenever it’s on!!
Yes, yes and yes!!!
My fave SAY YES TO THE DRESS may be the (obviously) gay groom-to-be (the one wearing the white v-neck t-shirt) who picks out all the equally clueless bride-to-be’s clothes and pooh-poohs all her wedding dress choices. Oy!
I didn’t add my book crack – anything Jennifer Crusie. I will read her over and over again. And then again.
My TV crack is, at this moment, “The Next Food Network Star”. I just love watching these people get put through wacky cooking challenges, not to mention the gleeful schadenfreude when the person I dislike most flubs a recipe, or someone admits that they really hate cameras (then why are you on a reality show, you ninny?!), or Bobby Flay shoots someone down.
My book crack is the House of Night series by PC and Kristen Cast. Good Lord, but these books are bad. The vampyres (yes, that’s the spelling) are an entire race of incredibly beautiful and talented and intelligent people, the heroine redefines Mary Sue, the dialogue is full of pop-culture references that are already dated by the time each book is published, they can’t write gay or African-American characters to save their lives…and yet I seize each book as it comes out, reading and laughing and occasionally making lists of how many times each character swears by the Goddess. It’s the very best kind of train wreck.
Growing up if starred John Wayne, or was about WWII, we watched it. My brothers and I have actually carried this over into adulthood. I thought it was only me, but then one day I was at my brother’s house & my sister-in-law called us to dinner. We both looked at her, pointing at the tv, and said “But this is about a sunken aircraft carrier that….” She looked at us like we’d lost our minds. Same look she gives us when we start quoting “Young Frankenstein.”
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat through “Hellfighters”. One of the worst JW movies made, and yet… John Wayne AND Jim Hutton – my first actor crush – how can I not get out the pop corn & settle in?
I’m upset that the Big, Black Rat has stolen yet another thing from my youth.
I know Starstruck as a charming, Australian import from 1982. New wave, campy, silly, musical…what’s not to love? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084728/ (If you must see a Starstruck, look for this one.)
Old Dallas reruns. Scary, I know.