The Art of Stale Treats
Imagine you are a film lover, hoping to break into the industry and you are sat around a table with the highest in movie culture. You know the great critics like Roger Ebert, directors like Spielberg and actors like Jack Nicolson. It’s one of those fancy dinner parties and you are dressed to the nines with facts, criticism and trivia to impress. Luckily, it is a success and the titbits you stole from Wikipedia have gone down a storm. Thank you, Wikipedia, thank you.
All of a sudden you are hit with a question that throws you; “what is your favourite movie?” Oh, it is a difficult one, after all, how can you just pick one? And do you elaborate a lie? Pick one of the worlds well renowned favourites like Citizen Kane and proudly announce it as your favourite? But you don’t know anything about Citizen Kane, you fell asleep in the first few moments and they’ll want to follow it up with the dreaded “why?” question. You could go for something “indie.” But ironically, it’s become a bit of a cliché. All this is rushing through your skull, movie titles are popping left right and centre. You don’t know which to choose.
Liar, that isn’t exactly why are you are panicking, is it? You know what your favourite movie is. It could be High School Musical or Law Abiding Citizen. It was the first movie that popped into your noggin with blaring flashing lights. You know every line, you know how it was made and when this is all finished, you are going to go home tonight and watch it again. But why can’t you say it?
It’s because it’s bad, isn’t it? It’s something tragic like Purple Rain. If you utter those words, they will be your last. Boom, there goes your name in lights, the big column in Empire and you’ll go back to serving people in some fast food restaurant. You’ll either be laughed at or shunned. A big gasp will hit your ears before you’ve finished saying “..On.”
Because your favourite movie is terrible. It’s oh so terrible. The acting, the story, the dialogue and the plot are a mesh of every bit of awful. It is sneered at constantly, pulled out in conversation when critics and wannabe experts want to tear it apart. You’ve seen it. You may have joined in, betraying your one true love just to look knowledgeable. But deep inside you are hurt, hurt that anyone could ever want to flame Bubble Boy.
So your clutch your glass of wine tight in your palm, take a deep breath and mumble out Drive before anyone has a chance to cotton on to your panic. All of a sudden a hand appears on your shoulder and whispers, “its ok. I understand.”
Don’t worry, that’s me. Cookie. From this site, Cookie N Screen. The one you are reading.
Hi.
Welcome to my big bad world of guilty pleasure. Or as I like to call them, “Stale Treats” because I really like bad jokes (and puns!) While on the many other pages of this site, you will find the greatest, the unknown and the best cult, independent and foreign cinema, Cookie N Screen also specializes in guilty pleasure movies. Why?
Well, why the hell not?
Guilty pleasures are a hard one to define. Some ridiculously bad movies get loads of mainstream success and buzz. Without sounding like a snob (and thus, completely sounding like one,) the common movie goer just wants entertainment and disregards a lot of facts. And of course, one man’s Die Hard 6 is another man’s Die Hard; a lot of it is down to opinion. Yet to those who eat, sleep and breathe film; there is a general line of good and bad. Great and awful. And it is up to critics to sieve them out.
So while a lot of film journalist throw movies out of the window, I am sifting through the garbage exclaiming, “well, this is a perfectly good piece of meat if you cut around the rot.” Guilty pleasures come into our lives because something caught our attention. With every guilty pleasure movie with it’s a hundred reasons to burn, also has a spark that sets of a fire of devotion. It could be as simple as a favourite actor doing something out of the ordinary, it could be because you love the genre or it could be the musical numbers.
And yes, it could be very much like The Room or Troll 2, where the movie is so poorly made that you have to celebrate it. It limps over the finish line last and you can’t help feel sentimental that it finished, as you slow clap “go you, you made it.”
Cookie N Screen is not applauding bad movies such as Springbreakers and we aren’t talking about movies you hate because we are all about the love, man.
Come join us over at Stale Treats and peruse our ever expanding catalogue. The leather clad gimp mask of films, the Lambrini glass of cinema and the “pass the sell by date” slice of movies. They are all here and we will, together, celebrate their last place achievement like the proud parents we are!
So next time someone asks you, “what is your favourite movie?” Think about Cookie N Screen, down your glass of cheap wine and scream;
And I will salute you.
TTFN
Cookie.