My Guilty Pleasures

Its something that you enjoy that you don't want to enjoy, but you really do anyway. It really should be something harmless. Snuff films or child pornography are not guilty pleasures, they are just guilty!

But its something that you might only confess to your best friend, but wouldn't want the people at work to know, or at the very least wouldn't want to be known by. Since I am telling you mine, I will have to also tell you that 'I am really not that kind of person'. There will be a lot of disclaimers and explanations. But the reality is that these shows reach something in me.

Maybe that is why we have guilty pleasures, to help us discover something about ourselves that we try to hide, even from ourselves.

OK, here is the disclaimer, the 'this isn't really me' part.

I don't like slapstick humor very much, unless its done really, really well and Wipeout is not really done well at all. I never liked the Three Stooges or anything where people get hurt, could get hurt or humiliated.

And of course, Wipe Out is totally about all those things. And totally gratuitous to boot! The Big Balls is the best and begins every show. People try to run across a series of large red balls about 18 feet high and wide without falling into the water. No one ever makes it. Never. But people keep trying. Now, I would like to be able to say that at least they all fall differently, in funny ways, but they don't. Its just the same thing over and over again. Try, fall by the second or first ball, hit your head, go into the water. I love it!

I must say that by the end of the show I always have someone to root for. The last three who have escaped elimination go through a timed obstacle course. My favorite has never won, but like the contestants, I keep on keeping on.

I have watched All My Children since day one, literally. I was home and waiting for my daughter to arrive. We lived in the woods and I had three TV channels to keep me from going crazy all day. Ya, right, that was my excuse.

AMC takes place in Pine Valley. For years I assumed that it was northern New Jersey as it seemed so close to Montclair, well Upper Montclair, but some time about 10 years ago (of 40) they started claiming Pennsylvania as their state. OK, fine. Well, except that the characters can get to an ocean beach in about 15 minutes. Since PA doesn't have a coast and you have to go through NJ to get to very crowded beaches, let alone the secluded ones in Pine Valley, well that is a neat trick.

Another soap opera staple is that people can die, die and be buried, have a funeral and come back to life years later, sometimes more than once. You never know if a character is really gone, although the burying does limit the odds.

But the characters are great and that is why they come back. They were just too good to loose.

AMC is also famous for the social issues that it tackles. It was the first to deal with abortion after it became legal. The ultra girly Erica Kane has to deal with having a gay daughter. They have even tackled transexuality.

Heck, I don't even know if this can be called a guilty pleasure, well, not really.

Every Friday night Joel McHale tells us that he watches reality TV so that we don't have to! Well, someone does and he presents the skewering like no one else.

I call this a guilty pleasure because I usually don't like this kind of humor. I have never been a fan of Joan Rivers types of comedians who make a living calling others fat, etc. However, Joel usually goes after those who really deserve it. The professionally arrogant Nancy Grace, the narcissist Tyra Banks who manages to talk about herself no matter what the subject and many, many more. BTW, I say usually because well, when he goes after Dancing With the Stars, well, that is too much.

Except that Bruno, the DWTS judge who is often a subject of Joel's humor has actually appeared as an in person guest on the show! To me this shows that much or at least some of his targeting is good natured, but some of it is still highly deserved.

OK, small town in Nevada, just a handful of people and a couple of handsome outsiders and 4 giant worms who want to eat them all. Add just about every cliche and stereotype you can think of and well....you've got Tremors!

So what is so different about this movie? Well, yes, Virginia, there is good acting in this one. You can see everything coming a mile off, but I still didn't guess the end, well at least the part about how they won the battle. Oh, heck, I just love it and if it was on TV today I would have to go back and forth between it and the Rose Bowl!