You Should Have A Cinematic Guilty Pleasure

I have a confession.

I watched 'Step Up: All In' for the second time...and enjoyed it. It's not exactly something I'm ashamed proud of but I want you, as readers and fellow movie-lovers to forgive me just this once for committing what may be an unforgivable sin in the Mainstream-Movie-Bible. I realize that at this point most of you are either shaking your head in pity or hiding in a mental closet because you've probably seen it more than I have. It's okay, I can take the punches. To my fellow sinners, I just want you to know that we're all in this together and we will be living one day more doing what we love. We won't let it go and we have to step up to the plate and roll with the pity looks and the disapproving glares. But you know what? I'm not apologizing. Not for the last two sentences or for my secret love for dance movies. I'm just gonna come right out and say it: 'Step Up' is my cinematic guilty pleasure.

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Let's face it. We've all done it. No, I don't mean settle all of our life's problems with dancing and show tunes (although that would be useful for getting my homework done). I mean that we all have that one movie, that one television show, that one franchise that we can watch from now until we're dust in the ground. What's funny is that we don't like to tell people about what those are unless we find out that they're on the same crazy train as us. After that then we tend to gather everyone who shares our level of insanity and hide away with them (mostly in caves or blanket forts) to indulge our cinematic guilty pleasure with our new best friends who we want to be with forever and ever and ever...and ever. Don't believe me? Walk out into a crowd of people, speak elvish (Tolkien style) and see how many covered smiles you get from guys and girls walking by who want nothing more than to ask you out on a date to the Misty Mountains followed by a few nights in The Shire if ya know what I mean. A lot of people love the 'The Lord of the Rings' movie franchise but very few love it so much that they can recite the whole thing backwards. Those are the people that has LOTR as their cinematic guilty pleasure. 

The 'Step Up' movie series is my cinematic guilty pleasure. I've seen every single one at least twice and I bought all of the soundtracks. I'm also one of the few people in the world willing to admit that I'm eagerly awaiting to see if there will be a sixth one. You better believe I will be the first in line at the movie theatre, dancing shoes and all, forking up money to see it just so I can see it again with friends the following day. You may say I have a problem and I am willing to embrace that if I can see all the characters from the last five movies return to solve all of their problems with dance just one last time.

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While I adore 'Step Up' and all of it's dancing glory, I will be the first to admit that it's not, in any shape or form, perfect. That's what makes cinematic guilty pleasures so special. It's flawed. It's imperfect. Sometimes the premise of the dance battles are borderline laughable and the cheesy, simplistic romance plots are unoriginal and bland. Half of the target audience for the 'Step Up' movie series only continue to watch the movies because they're secretly waiting for the very-unattractive Channing Tatum to pop back up and spin around one more time (I'm not one of them. I promise....pinky promise). Despite all of that I still love this imperfect, unoriginal mess. To this day I don't think any other film even comes close to the tightly executed dance choreography (not to mention incredible cinematography) that the 'Step Up' movies do so, so well. In the end, I want to dance like those guys. The soundtracks and remixes are continually stellar and I'm pretty sure the 'Step Up' series holds the records for most character comebacks in one franchise. Long story short, it's phenomenal fan service and I'm utterly and hopelessly in love with it.

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I wrote all of this to really just say one point: it's okay to have a cinematic guilty pleasure.  Just about everyone loves movies, just like everyone loves food. In that case there has to be that one thing that counts as your go-to comfort. By my usually-mostly-sometimes-correct logic, that means that everyone has a comfort food item and everyone has a comfort cinematic movie or television show. I've met guys whose cinematic guilty pleasure is 'Pitch Perfect' or 'The Princess Diaries'. I've met some girls whose cinematic guilty pleasure is 'Gladiator' or 'Expendables'. Guess what? That's perfectly okay. 

These days where there's films and shows being released every 2.75 seconds, one needs a go-to that transcends the madness and doesn't burn a hole in the wallet every single week. That one thing you can sit down and watch with a tub of ice cream, a few blankets and a couple bowls of cereal. The cinematic guilty pleasure serves as an escape that we all could use every now and again. They allow us to enjoy our time without the sticky floors, the ringing cellphones or the untimely commercials. We can mouth every line, dance with every battle in our undies and sing every note without fear of judgement or company. Our cinematic guilty pleasures allows us to be us, which we don't get to do in our fast-paced social lives. You should have a cinematic guilty pleasure, take some time out to be you escape. Live a little.