No Oscar?

Ask anyone what their favorite movie is and you are likely to get the stock response: The Godfather. Or maybe Scarface. If you ask a woman, you might get some crap like A League of Their Own or The Notebook. What you won’t get is an honest response. Deep down, somewhere in the deepest recesses of their soul, there is a movie that they will watch whenever it is on—assuming no one else is around—and enjoy far more than anything they are ever going to call their “favorite”.

You too have a secret favorite, and the chances are you can’t even admit it. You rationalize it by saying something like, “it’s just mindless entertainment that helps me unwind,” or that you “sometimes need to shut your brain off,” or worse yet, “it just reminds me of…(insert boring nostalgic story here)”

The real truth is that you have terrible taste, and no soul. You watched You Got Served on HBO last month. You laugh every time you see Men in Black. You whistle along to Patience, and you’d rather watch “Fear Factor” than anything on the Discovery Channel. Welcome to club.

Well I am not afraid of ridicule, and am not a spineless pussy like you are. So here are my favorite songs, movies and other things that I kept hidden deep inside...until now.

Movie: “Bring It On” (2000) – This is the cheerleading movie with Kirsten Dunst, and any guy who tells you they don’t like it is lying. You see, the prissy white cheerleaders suspect that the sassy urban cheerleading squad is jealous of their rhymes and their rhyme routines, and has thus been stealing same. Unfortunately for Kirsten’s character, who takes the reins of the squad, it turns out her predecessor was stealing the aforementioned routines from the sistaz the whole time. Surprisingly, the movie is well-written and funny, and did I mention it features Gabrielle Union, Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku? Well it does. Worth a rental if you don’t already have it in your DVD collection…Liar.

Music: “18 and Life” (1989) Skid Row – Okay, this one is really no contest. Sebastian Bach is giving it to us both barrels in this late eighties rock anthem. When this song comes across the classic rock station, who among us doesn’t regret a youth misspent studying and working hard instead of circling the drain like "18 and Life’s" alcoholic anti-hero, Ricky. More than any other, this song illustrates the innate coolness of drug abuse, domestic violence, and self-destruction. If only we had been more addiction prone and irresponsible, we too could have had fun boozing it up all night like Ricky did until he shot some kid. Plus, his girlfriend looked really hot in the video. Bang bang! Shoot ‘em up/The party never ends/You can’t think of dyin’ when the bottle’s your best friend/You know it! Tell me you haven’t gotten caught karaoke-ing that at a red light while head banging like a tweaked-out bass player.

You can't help it, human.

T.V.: “Dawson’s Creek” (1998-2003) – This one isn’t much of a guilty pleasure, since it seems everybody openly and inexplicably watched it without shame; nonetheless, it was a teen soap opera, and when you’re watching it at twenty-eight, you feel a little creepy... especially when it’s a rerun from the first season and you’re mentally undressing a questionably legal Katie Holmes. Shows like this are the dramatic equivalent of crack cocaine: unmatched high, addictive as hell, and completely white (Plus, while you’re watching it, you can almost picture what it would have been like to have friends in high school).

More Music: “Tiny Dancer” (1971) by Elton John – This song may have crossed over from guilty pleasure into the guilt-free mainstream at the moment of the sing-along in Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece Almost Famous, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant to remember your mother walking in on you at age six belting out this number in a duck suit and a cape while playing your O-scale piano with your toes. Did that ever happen to you? Yeah, me neither.

T.V.: “Small Wonder” (1985-1989) – From iMDB: “Father Ted Lawson creates robot, Vickie. The family, Ted, Joan, and Jamie, keep the information that Vickie is a robot secret, and pretend that she is their daughter. Harriet, their nosy and annoying neighbor, has a crush on Jamie and plans to marry him. Her dad, Brandon Brendall, is Ted's boss because Brandon stole Ted's ideas and said he invented them. Tiffany Brisset stars as Vickie "The Robot" Lawson.”

Fuck you, buddy! This idea is so apeshit, bananas insane—and fetishistically weird—that reading it now I want to max-out my credit cards, declare bankruptcy, and move to Detroit where I would take up residency in a dumpster, drink Thunderbird all day, and yell out “Small Wonder!” to passing strangers until my premature death at the hands of full-blown something or other.

Remember, somebody pitched this, somebody green-lit it, people got paid to direct it, write and act on it, and apparently some people watched this steaming loaf of sitcom gold because it was on for the entire second term of the Reagan administration. And yet, sadly, I can say I have probably seen every episode. My little brother started watching it first, out of spite, because he knew how much I hated it. Then I started liking it for the ironic value of acting like anyone could like this show. Then I liked it for real. Then I was shipped off to do piecework at the puzzle factory until I regained my sanity.

You hoo!

Even More Music: “Separate Lives” (1985) by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin – This little gem was hidden away on the soundtrack to White Nights (that rare example of Cold War agitprop set to modern ballet), starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines. The song opens to a simple strum of acoustic guitar. Then Phil hits the pipes, You called me from the room in your hotel... and on into a tale of lost love and regret that will have you wishing you were capable of emotion. By the time the chorus rolls around, you’re vacuuming your apartment naked, in tears, and singing along as Phil and Marilyn hit the duet—You have no right! To ask me how I feel!—that is, until your friends ask you why you’re vacuuming naked during the Rangers game.

Miscellaneous: Dead baby jokes, "The A-Team", shiny things, bum fights, "Real World" marathons, conspicuous consumption, sappy "Family Ties" re-runs, being a dick, "Sabrina the Teenage Witch", Starship Troopers, midgets getting mad, "Boy Meets World", flaking out and getting drunk all weekend, Spies Like Us, striped shirts, chardonnay, Steve, "Entertainment Tonight", knife juggling, and the Japanese.

Feel free to add your own...or just make fun of me.