Guilty Pleasures

• Title: Blind Date
• IMDB: link

Needing 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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• Title: Action Jackson
• IMDB: link

1988’s attempt to turn Carl Weathers into an action star leading man fizzled with both audiences and critics making less money than Funny Farm, Short Circuit 2, or Ernest Saves Christmas. The premise of the film was to cast Weathers as the toughest cop in town (who we know is tough because various supporting members of the cast keep telling us that Jackson is such a bad ass).

The storyline involved Detroit Detective “Action” Jackson taking a second run at a powerful local businessman (Craig T. Nelson) Jackson knew, but was unable to tie, to the deaths of several union members who worked for the man’s company. When Dellaplane’s wife (Sharon Stone) comes forward to offer Jackson the proof he needs to take the man down, the auto magnate frames the cop for her murder forcing Jackson to rely on the help of Dellaplane’s heroin-addicted mistress (Vanity) and a hairdresser (Armelia McQueen), to prove his innocence and set things right.

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• Title: The Pirate Movie
• IMDB: link

Loosely based on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, 1982’s The Pirate Movie starred Kristy McNichol as mousey young Mabel lost in a dream of swashbuckling, and singing, pirates. After an accident leaves her thrown overboard and washed up on a beach, Mabel’s imagination creates a fantasy world casting herself as the youngest daughter of a Major-General (Bill Kerr) who falls for a young pirate named Frederic (Christopher Atkins) adamant on leaving his service of the Pirate King (Ted Hamilton) to start a new life.

The plot, which involves Fredric’s attempt to leave his old life behind while trying to stay true to his word and duty, is secondary to how insanely everything is played including some memorable music numbers such as “Pumpin’ and Blowin'” (you can find the video below). I’ll be honest, the film doesn’t work as well for me as it did when I was seven years-old, but it still provides enough enjoyment for me to classify it as a guilty pleasure.

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