Guilty Pleasures

Guilty Pleasure – How to Beat the High Cost of Living

/ / Home Video
  • Title: How to Beat the High Cost of Living
  • IMDb: link

how-to-beat-the-high-cost-of-living-blu-rayReleased in 1980, How to Beat the High Cost of Living starred Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, and Jessica Lange as an unlikely trio of friends who turn to crime to pay for the high cost of inflation slowly strangling each of their lives when Jane’s (Curtin) husband drains their bank account to run off with his secretary, Louise (Lange) is being sued by her husband (Richard Benjamin) fighting off an IRS audit, and the divorced Jane (Saint James) with a homeless father (Eddie Albert) and three kids is struggling to make ends meet with another baby on the way.

The goofy screenplay by Robert Kaufman involving the three women working to rob a giant glass ball full of money in the local mall during its anniversary sale isn’t exactly high concept, but the three leads, and a supporting cast that includes Benjamin, Albert, Dabney Coleman, and Fred Willard, somehow makes (most of) it work as a guilty pleasure heist flick most memorable for Jane Curtain’s striptease during the middle of the mall robbery.

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Guilty Pleasures – Once Bitten / Love at First Bite

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Once Bitten / Love at First Bite
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

Once Bitten / Love at First Bite

Sometimes studio released dual-packs are an odd mixture of movies thrown together. That’s not the case with Scream Factory’s new Double Feature of insane vampire parodies from the late 70s and mid-80s. Once Bitten stars a young Jim Carrey as a sweet high school virgin seduced by a mysterious older woman (Lauren Hutton) who just happens to be a vampire in need of his blood to continue her immortality. Mark’s increasingly odd behavior doesn’t going unnoticed by his equally chaste high school girlfriend (Karen Kopins) who, in true sex comedy fashion, will discover the perfect solution to saving Mark’s soul.

Love at First Bite is arguably even more ridiculous starring the world’s tannest man George Hamilton as Count Dracula who attempts to fit into New York City while stalking a fashion model (Susan Saint James) he belives to be the reincarnation of his great love and being perused by a descendant of the world’s greatest vampire hunter (Dick Shawn).

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2004 – Walking Tall

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Walking Tall (2004)
  • IMDB: link

Walking TallOn this date ten years ago Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson‘s remake of 1973’s Walking Tall hit theaters. Loosely based on real events, the simple premise finds war hero Chris Vaughn (The Rock) return home to find his home town at the mercy of an unscrupulous businessman (Neal McDonough) and old high school rival who keeps a stranglehold on the small Washington town with a shady business dealings and rigged casino.

Discovering the man’s total disrespect for the law, and after being assaulted and almost killed by the man’s hired thugs, Vaughn finds no help from the local police which causes the former Army Special Forces ass-kicker to bust-up the casino with only his fists and a two-by-four before running for office on the platform of cleaning up the town.

Along for the ride the film casts Johnny Knoxville in the role of comic relief as Vaughn’s idiot best-friend and Ashley Scott as a childhood friend turned stripper turned love interest.

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1994 – The Chase

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Chase
  • IMDB: link

The ChaseReleased on or around this date 20 years ago, The Chase is by no definition a good movie. However, despite its many faults the absurd road chase of falsely convicted Jack Hammond (Charlie Sheen), his rich-bitch hostage (Kristy Swanson), and the various cops, rednecks, and documentary crew following them to the Mexican border does provide some dumb-fun moments (along with one of the most preposterous sex scenes ever filmed).

Other than The Phantom, The Chase is arguably Swanson’s best movie role (especially for those of us who far prefer Sarah Michelle Gellar in the role of cheerleader turned vampire hunter Buffy Summers). At its best The Chase is a guilty pleasure fans of Sheen and Swanson can enjoy without using any more brain power than those who put the film together in the first place.

Available on DVD (but not Blu-ray), the only feature the home video version includes is the ability to watch the film in either Full Screen or Widescreen.

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Guilty Pleasure – Blind Date

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Blind Date
  • IMDB: link

“I warned you not to let her drink.”

Blind DateNeeding a date for an important business dinner with a prestigious Japanese firm, workaholic Walter Davis (Bruce Willis), against his better judgement, allows his brother (Phil Hartman) to set him up on a blind date. Warned not to get Nadia (Kim Basinger) drunk, Walter doesn’t realize just how crazy his night will get after sharing a few glasses of champagne. By the end of the night Walter is fired, crazed, robbed, his car are best suit are both ruined, and he’s arrested for a violent scene involving Nadia’s psychopathic ex-boyfriend (John Larroquette).

Directed by Blake Edwards, Blind Date is pretty much a one-joke movie as Nadia’s increasingly wild behavior drives Walter further and further over the edge. Despite the worst night of his life, and everything he looses over the course of the evening, Walter falls for Nadia using her weakness to alcohol to win her back from her ex-boyfriend in the film’s final moments after Nadia, blaming herself for the entire night, makes a deal with him to keep Walter out of jail.

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