Guilty Pleasures

Agreed. Whenever anybody asks me about this movie, my answer is simply that from a pure "cinema" look at it, it is complete trash. But from anyone who actually reads the Pnisher comics, it is a glorious gem that should be treasured for ever existing.

Anyway... I have a LOT of guilty pleasures when it comes to movies...
Street Trash
The Mummy 1 & 2
Friday the 13th 1-4, 6-8
My Bloody Valentine (both versions)
Candyman 1 & 2
Basically any Sherlock Holmes movie.
Rats: Night of Terror
Slugs
Shivers
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
V/H/S 1 & 2
Black Sabbath
The Hills Have Eyes (both the original and the remake)
Batman Forever
Robocop 2
The Crow: City of Angels
Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
I believe wholeheartedly that any and all Arnie action movies are fantastic.

..........probably a lot more, but I think that's enough shame for now.

 

"The Story of Ricky" kind of does it for me. Basically a "so bad it's good" type of thing.

Same with "Freddy Got Fingered".

 

Mewtwo Strikes Back was a rather cool flick as far as first movies go. First saw that courtesy of a raw Japanese VHS copy I got in a tape trade back before the movie came out here.

 

I just had an old VHS tape of the dub from back in 1999, the one that combined Mewtwo Strikes Back and Pikachu's Vacation.

Overall, I was more of a Digimon and Sailor Moon fan as a kid though. My younger brother liked Pokémon (but also liked Digimon, a rarity back in those days)

 

Originally in Japan, that was how they presented the films, though they had them be rather standalone as Pikachu's Vacation had it's own end credit sequence before the main feature opened.


I didn't realize this film is nearly 20 years old come next year (having premiered first in Japan around July of '98, just a shy few months before the TV series hit America).

I would think that was normal, early one we may not know the difference whether one was copying the other or not.

 

Well, neither one copied the other. They both came out the same year in Japan (around 1996 or so) and both were greenlit to cash in on Tamagotchi's popularity. So, if anything, Digimon didn't rip off Pokémon or vice versa, but rather both sort of ripped off Tamagotchi.

The whole rip-off debate is a largely American phenomenon because Digimon was released in America a year after Pokémon was released. (Pokémon came out in America around 1998, and Digimon premiered in the spring of 1999)

But if you were a kid in my school in 1999-2000, you had to pick a side. You couldn't like both, it seemed. I stayed on the Digimon side, while most of my classmates liked Pokémon. I was in First and Second Grade, but the older kids in Third and Fourth Grade tended to like Digimon more. I'd even hang out with older kids on the playground back then and talk Digimon with them when I was a Second Grader.

Around 2002, after Tamers had finished it's run, Fox Kids died, and Yu-Gi-Oh! stole Pokémon's thunder for the next few years, the whole rivalry died off completely.

 

Anybody else ever see Bad Girls from Valley High?

 

You could say both series at least brought in one innovative the previous virtual pet device didn't have yet, the RPG gameplay elements.

It did take a while for us to catch on, and that "seizure episode" at the end of '97 didn't help matters much from it being the first time anyone's heard of Pokemon stateside.

I'm sure it was an interesting time (having been a kid in the 80's, I suppose we had similar sides with the cartoons/action figures out that time).

Often the case. Things don't always last long as we think they will (besides keeping certain IP's fresh).

 

Yeah, people forget that Pokémon was pretty much dead from about 2002-2009 or so. The video games is what saved Pokémon and kept it fresh. The anime is pretty much dead though outside of nostalgia for the early seasons.

Digimon didn't fare as well due to not having as strong of a video game base (though I loved the early Digimon games for PS1), complicated rights issues following the demise of Fox Kids and Fox Family, and most of all, the poor reception of the atrocious fourth season (AKA Digimon Frontier, as it was known in Japan) and the initial mixed reception of the third season (While Tamers is loved now, and is generally held in high regard alongside the original season of Digimon Adventure, but when it came out back in 2001, it was very much a "Love it or Hate it" season for people my age at the time), so it was essentially a dead fandom from about 2002-2012. The fifth season (Savers, or Data Squad as it was known in America), was barely aired at all in America and received zero promotion when it was on Disney XD's late night dead slots.

It wasn't until the rights issues were resolved, and the classic seasons of Digimon (Adventure, Zero Two, and Tamers) aired on Nicktoons and more importantly, were brought to Netflix and Hulu, did Digimon experience a revival of sorts, mainly driven by nostalgia from people such as myself. This even applies in Japan, with the green light given for Digimon Adventure Tri, to say nothing of the Xros Wars seasons and the upcoming Digimon Universe season in Japan.

Digimon could've been as big as Pokémon, it certainly had a better plot and more potential, but due to bad timing, was seen as a rip-off by many American kids and was perpetually stuck in Pokémon's shadow for years. Only now is it finally escaping from the shadow, as Pokémon is relying more on the video games and Digimon is cashing in on anime nostalgia.

 

When it comes to Pokémon, my guilty pleasure film is Rise of Darkrai, the tenth movie. Honestly, the films aren't all that good, and the last really good one was Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (the 17th movie about Diancie was not too bad, though), but something about the Darkrai movie was appealing to me compared to the movies that came after that. It may have had a stupid ending, but I just loved that backstory with Darkrai and Alicia, and I love "Oración".

It is, holy crap. I need to go lie down...

I remember the Pokémon vs. Digimon playground war :/. I was that oddball in the bunch who actually liked both Pokémon and Digimon, so I couldn't pick a side, but everyone else liked Pokémon more. Same with Cardcaptors, didn't know anyone else watching it at the time.

Yup, pretty much. Yu-Gi-Oh had a brief rivalry with Beyblade, maybe Duel Masters, but nothing more came out of that. Then Pyramid of Light went on to nearly kill North American theatrical releases of non-Ghibli anime movies for like a decade. Such a dumb movie, although the dub tried to make it tolerable and more easy to laugh at. Thank goodness Darkside of Dimensions was great, wish we had that movie back in 2004.

 

I also liked Cardcaptors as a kid (I was that weird sort of boy who generally liked masculine things, but for some strange reason also loved Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors), and I agree that Darkside of Dimensions was awesome. Saw that in the theaters recently and I was impressed.

I do like Yu-Gi-Oh! as well. Strangely, as a kid I loved collecting the cards and didn't really like the show (though I thought Seto Kaiba was pretty badass), now that I'm older, I can't even follow the card game since so much has changed since 2002-2003, and I love the anime now. (I still think Seto Kaiba is a badass)

 

The Yu-gi-oh anime was great, because if you knew the game rules you could laugh your ass off as they cheat maliciously. Hell, a fun Skype session I once had with a buddy was making up BS rules like that and then going from there. A favorite was Trap Hole not working on flying monsters because.

Doubly funny when you know most of those cards are now banned for no fucking reason.

 

My guilty pleasure would be the second Digimon series. Dubbed. Especially the "Digimon Movie"

 

I...I watch Hudson Hawk un-ironically. I'm so ashamed.

 

Been trying to rewatch 02 lately, but as awkward as the first few episodes were dubbed, I do remember it getting better. Davis, at the very least, grew on me, so I can't help adoring the guy even though the dub went out of its way to make him the butt monkey.

Speaking of awkward dubs, I'm probably the only one who actually likes Ocean's dubbing of Cardcaptors. I did watch the series in its entirety subbed eventually, but it admittedly was hard for me to get into since Sakura Kinomoto sounded really squeaky and she was too cute (I had read the manga by this point, so I expected this, still...) compared to the tomboy Sakura Avalon I looked up to as a childhood hero. I'm hoping they fix her squeakiness for the new anime next year, but I don't see it happening :/. I'm still pissed that no new dub was made, and NIS America went with the Animax dub for the release, couldn't stand that dub.

Also, why are people hating on the dub of Neon Genesis Evangelion lately? It's awkwardly stilted, yes, but isn't it one of the classic dubs at this point? I honestly can't watch Evangelion subbed at all even with Akira Ishida as Kaworu.

 

If we do something ironically is that considered a guilty pleasure? Or is that just me being the piece of shit goddamn hipster that I truly am?

 

"2012". It is the ultimate love letter to every Irwin Allen All-Star blockbuster disaster picture I grew up with, all of which I adore. Oliver Platt is great in that film, just chews up the scenery being a complete dick. I've got several guilty pleasures, but it's in the Top Five.

 

Blurry-ass line my dude. Like... I didn't feel any guilt when my wife and I "MST3K'ed" our way through a couple Twilight movies on a sick day - neither of us are anything like fans, but it sure was funny to watch that stuff and rip on it. So, I guess, no, it shouldn't be a guilty pleasure, because the pleasure isn't from the bad media itself, unlike something that you know is terrible but can't leave alone.

 

I love the Mike Myers "Cat in the Hat". It's just such a mess. A glorious, glorious mess. Dirty Hoe.

I love "The Room," of course, and "Cool Cat Saves the Kids". I have a soft spot for so-bad-it's-good movies.

I really like musicals...which is considered super dorky. Not stuff like Hamilton either; old Rogers and Hammersteins, etc.

 

I love many musicals unironically.