I hate using this slow system, & without "Spell/ChecK" I am always making typos. I am interested in YOUR GPs, & YOUR 4 film choices, as well as what you would choose for each MM character. Obviously the MM characters'
wouldn't have VCRs or DVD players, w/ access to countless movies & old TV shows. In fact, in 1963, I don't think there were any OLD TV shows(?) But, for the sake of discussion let's just say they knew someone in the business, who could get everyone at SC, professional video tape machines, then used by editors back in the 50s & 60s, & that MM characters COULD watch movies or TV shows over & over. I think one of Bettys GPs would be
"National Velvet"?
Hope you guys can make sense of this. Can't wait to read your thoughts!

Guilty pleasures? How about:

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS
MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION
MOMMIE DEAREST
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

I never tire of these things. That they are campy makes 'em even better. Broadway director Michael Shurtleff in his textbook to actors called AUDITIONING, asks rhetorically: "Whoever gave melodrama a bad name??"

I think all of us secretly savor melodrama, whether we admit it or not. (-:

GP - Anything with Carey Grant - but especially The Philadelphia Story!

4 Movies - Billy Elliot, Grease, Can't Buy Me Love, Forest Gump! Stop and watch every time they are on TV!

Hi rasputin1963!

I thought I was the only one who watched "Valley Of The Dolls"! I don't know why. It is so hokey! Great cast though.
Everytime I see Sharon Tate in that movie I think of the horrible way she died. She was a beautiful woman, and as far as I know, all natural. There aren't too many naturally beautiful women around today.

My guilty pleasure is "What Ever happened To Baby Jane". Din Din Blanche...

Bet Roger would watch Lolita and wonder what all the fuss was about...gotta love Roger.

Shoot, four movies..

Lolita
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane
The Birds
Tom Jones

runner up
Irma La Douce

Mine:

Some Like it Hot

The Mummy (1932 version w/Boris Karloff...note my avatar is Zita Johann from that movie)

Picnic

The Women (original Norma Shearer version)

A FEW of my Guilty Pleasures:

The Fabulous Baker Boys (Bridges brothers)
Come Back Little Sheba (love Picnic too!)
Jailhouse Rock (Elvis' Best)
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (Razzleberry dressing, anyone?)

To Present on TCM:

O Lucky Man (Malcolm McDowell)
Life Is Sweet (Mike Leigh, director)
Tiger Bay (Hayley Mills as a young child)
Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, director)

@Fifty-Two: LOVE Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol - the songs were great - "Winter was Warm" and "Alone in the World", both such bittersweet ballads. And love the cleverness of "We're Despicable" by the laundress, the undertaker and the charwoman.

I have many guilty pleasures besides the top four I mentioned. Love the Universal horror flicks from the golden age of horror movies: "Frankenstein" and "Bride of", "Dracula", "Mad Love", "Werewolf of London", "Invisible Ray", "The Raven", "The Black Cat" and many, many more. In the fall I like to watch "The Wolfman" from 1940 - an Octoberish movie.

Any of Norma Shearer's earl '30s dramas are great: "The Divorcee", "Strangers May Kiss", "A Free Soul" are three of the best.

I like the early '30s pre-code films. So much more daring and interesting than the pablum later allowed on screen.

Love "This is Spinal Tap", "Best in Show" and the other Christopher Guest mockumentaries.

Guilty Pleasure:
Johnny Guitar. Great B flick That somehow Joan Crawford fell backwards into. It's a rare Western cat fight, two women playing the typical male role of this town isn't big enough, and it has every exaggerated Western cliche, down to the dialogue:
"That's big talk for a little gun. You can't shoot all of us"
"Two of you will do"

4 discussion movies:

Sudden Fear: A pretty obscure noir. It's also a Joan Crawford, so you'll love it for that or hate it for that. But this one is her better years. More importantly the last half hour especially has some of the best noir photography and acting you'll see. She was up for the Oscar and got robbed. But great film even to this day. Jack Palance and Gloria Grahame at her best Gloria Grahame-ness, also.

Eyes Wide Shut: If you want a movie with layers you could write a dozen papers on, this is it. It's not about a man going on a sexploration; It's ultimately about the negative consequences of using sex as a weapon to hurt another.

Sweet and Lowdown: Hate Sean Penn but great acting, I think he was up for an Oscar. Great role. "A man wants to feel like.... he's been somewhere." It's quirky and a Woody Allen flick.

Immortal Beloved. Great film. Beethoven. It's basically an homage or practical re-make to some degree of Citizen Cane in structure yet applied to the story of a real man. Great acting. Great creative interpretation of basically a true story.

To present on TCM: "A Face in the Crowd". Andy Griffith shows that he's not just an easygoing sheriff from Mayberry. A period piece now, but what happens isn't so far from what happens in business today. The look at 1957 advertising and the making of a media star out of nothing - power corrupting - is fascinating to watch. Great roles by Patricia Neal as the mature woman who assists in making a star out of homespun jailbird Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes and Lee Remick as the cute baton-twirler who catches his eye.

My guilty pleasures (meaning I've seen them a thousand times and would watch them a thousand times more, they're not award winners, either; this is just a partial list):
Young Frankentstein
Animal House
MASH
Christmas Vacation
(parts of) Stripes
The Shining
any Doris Day movie with Rock Hudson/Cary Grant/James Garner
most Alfred Hitchcock movies
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Fargo

My movies to discuss have a theme that I like, the little guy against a corrupt system (and they also happen to be some of my favorites):
Chinatown
Parallax View
North by Northwest
L.A. Confidential

I meant not ALL of my guilty pleaures are award winners; a couple were. Forgot "Charade", with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, another GP.

HULLO RACE-Thanx for setting this up. You KNEW I'd COME!? I shall proceed accordingly (and appropriately too, I hope).This has been an interesting exercise in decluttering my MIND! Tricky to narrow down!?

TOP 4 Cinematic "Guilty Pleasures"

1)"Girl with a Pearl Earring"
2)"2001: A Space Odyessy"
3)"Teorema"
4)"Tess of the d'Urbevilles"

TCM GPs to introduce: SAME as the above. . .

1)"Girl with a Pearl Earring" is a luminous exposition of how the canonical Dutch painter-VERMEER (circa 1665)- discovered perspective, obtained a MUSE ("Griet"- a sixteen-yr-old maid) and vicariously taught her "to see," and marvel at the natural world. Everything about this film is SUPERB: casting, acting, direction, set design and production, cinematography, etc.etc. The director was Peter Webber.

2)"2001. . ." This 1968 masterpiece was co-engineered by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Through its Russian Formalist structure, the film dealt with human evolution and space exploration (as a narrative device ala BOOK-ENDS). "2001" pioneered the use of special effects and expounded upon Homeric, Nietzschean, and Artificial Intelligence themes within the realm of consciousness. Via the director's plot-pacing and photographic innovations, we see the mysteries of the Universe unfold and taunt. All-the-while wondering what that damn MONOLITH suggests/represents. GRAND.

3)"TEOREMA" meaning "theorem" or a spectacle whose structure is a covert series of formulae (also 1968). A gorgeous GOD/DEVIL/ROCK-STAR charachter unexpectedly invades the home of a bourgeois Milanese Industrialist. He (cutie Terence Stamp) seduces every member of the household including the devoutly Catholic maid who resultingly becomes a saint/healer figure. The others: son, mother, daughter, father, are irrevocably and existensially destroyed. There is little dialogue and the stark landscapes juxtaposed with the domestic scenes convey human experience as something empty and monstrous!? Teorema is an EROTIC and phlegmatic SHOCKER. Brilliant! (dir.-P.P. Pasolini)

4)"TESS. . .") Filmed in 1979, with the breathtakingly beautiful Natassia Kinski in the titular role, Roman Polanski adapted the naturalistic author Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel as a transcendental work of ART. Visually stunning, Tess is a pastoral parable admonishing LOVE crossing the boundary of Class. It is an astounding and astonishing TRAGEDY that exposes the fatality of (ill-fated) Romantic Love. . .Take Heed. LOVELY!

CHEERS!

(GREG-I so LOVE "Eyes Wide Shut" too. Kubrick was a GENIUS with all of his flicks!)

My GPs:
Forrest Gump
Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion
Office Space
Legally Blond

Wow, love everyone's choices!

Hard to narrow down mine, racy...but, on this particular point in time (list could change tomorrow! ha) these come to mind:

GP's ~~

Without a Trace (1983 movie -- NOT the TV series) with Kate Nelligan and Judd Hirsch ~~
I watch it just so I can cry at the ending....what an ending! (little boy is kidnapped, mom is berated for not being able to "accept" his never coming home)

A Place in the Sun ~~ fantastic...so bittersweet...if only he'd waited a little while and not planted his seeds in the wrong garden....sob sob

The Long Hot Summer ~~ get to watch the real life falling in love/romance of Joanne and Paul and wow does it come across onscreen!

Rosemary's Baby ~~ what we don't see is the scariest! Love it!

TCM presentation/disscussion movies:

Some Like It Hot ~~ funniest EVER, hands down

The Best Years of Our Lives ~~ beautiful...love the scene between Myrna and Frederic M. when he first comes home from WWII...so many scenes can't even begin to mention them all. Just a great movie.

Giant ~~ I love the part when Leslie (Elizabeth T.) visits Jett on his little piece of land Luz left him....the "tea party" ..... "When you gonna get married, Jett...don't you need someone to...help you with this kind of responsibility?" "One of these days I'll go East....Maryland...places.....Say, ya got any good-lookin' sisters back there might be interested in some poor people??" and the ending with Bic sitting in awe of Leslie, still not being able "to figure her out" after 25 years together....love love love this movie!

The Graduate ~~ wonderful....indescribable

To Kill a Mockingbird ~~ Classic delicious Gregory Peck wonderfulness (Tie): It's A Wonderful Life ~~ Jimmy Stewart in all his perfection....can't be beat!

Oops, guess I put one too many...sorry but got carried away. So many wonderful movies out there!

Also, not sure if I got that right about when the Newmans first met...some sources say 1953 and some say during that movie I mentioned up there (TLHS--1957) at any rate, the love/chemistry between them onscreen in that movie really comes across.. (they married in Las Vegas in Jan. 1958, after his divorce from first wife)

I love his response as to why he had always been faithful to Joanne...."Why fool around with hamburger when you have filet mignon at home?"

Ah, old Hollywood.....

egyptbelle I love The Women with N.S. I never bothered with the other two versions.

SCfan, as usual you listed many of my favorites!

Ha Ha! Hidey, 57! YES, We Oklahoma gals must stick together! How you feelin'? Better and better, I hope....

= - }

I have too many guilty pleasures to count! Movies that I could watch a zillion times and they'd never get old include:
The Birdcage
Best in Show (I like it better than Spinal Tap)
Saved! (Juno with a similar tone is also a fav)
High Fidelity, Say Anything, and Grosse Point Blank (love John Cusak)
The Fifth Element (weirdly wonderful)
Practical Magic
Walk the Line
Classic chick flicks like Pretty Woman and Dirty Dancing never get old either.

If I were to pick just 4 to show and discuss....
1. "Singing in the Rain" - Musicals are special to me, especially this one. Wonderful dancing and songs, Gene Kelly, and the very sassy Debbie Reynolds
2. "Almost Famous" - I love writer/director Cameron Crowe and this is one of his best works. The music is wonderful - early '70s rock.
3. "Dances with Wolves" - Gorgeous cinematography, moving music, beautiful love story. I always cry at the end.
4. "Dead Poet's Society" - Robin Williams can do serious films! Inspirational story as well.

I just realized they were all historical films or set in a different time period then they were made. Ha! Well I do love historical fiction.

GP: The Producers (the original movie version), Mildred Pierce, Gypsy, Chicago, Up the Down Staircase...I've got a bunch!

4 I'd present:

1-"A New Leaf"
2-"American Pie"
3-"Some Like it Hot"
4-"Inside Daisy Clover"

Here is another couple of goodies (soapy as they come, but such good ol' tear jerkers)

"All The Fine Young Cannibals" with Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, Pearl Bailey, Susan Kohner and George Hamilton....never miss it, although it isn't shown near as often as it used to be. Chad Bixby (Robt. W.) plays trumpet and becomes famous. Natalie loves him but marries George H. Catherine (his sis ... Susan K.) loves Chad, too.....Pearl just pines away....what a movie.

Oh, and "Home from the Hill" with Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard....wish they'd show it more often, too. George P. is Robt. M.'s illegitimate son....soapy soapy soapy...but good!

@Racy I thought i posted an answer here days ago. wonder if I got knocked off. can't imagine why on such a tame subject anyhow 4 movies I will always watch

Platoon
PulpFiction
To Kill a Mockingbird
Paths of Glory
Seven Beauties

there are many others GF1&2 Taxi Driver and almost anything with Nicole Kidman even though I think most of her movies are bad. The first one I saw her in was on a boat with Sam Neill can't recall the name.

@Hobo: I thought I was the only one that knew about Seven Beauties. Wonderful Italian movie. I also loved the Italian version of "Swept Away." - Didn't bother to see Madonna's version.

@Racy: Here are a few of my GP's:
Fatso, Gilda, Where's Poppa, What's New Pussycat

Here are a few "for discussion":
Nicholas & Alexandra, Diabolique (French veersion only), Return from the Ashes, LaDolce Vita

For me its the orig.series Peyton Place, A Touch of Evil, Vertigo, Lolita, Salem's Lot, Eyes Wide Shut, Most of the Christopher Lee / Peter Cushing British horror films, Invaders From Mars Orig.B/W 50's.Many more....

I watch these over and over and over and...

Sleeping with the Enemy - love the score, beach scenes, her decorating her new apartment, her getaway

Message in a Bottle
Gone with the Wind
The Pink Panther
A Shot in the Dark
Blue Crush
Wuthering Heights (just about any version - there's one I hate, but I forget the guilty party.)

I'm a Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol fan, too! It was one of my first "must-have" videotapes when VCR'S came out.

Penny Serenade
The Phantom of the Opera - the more recent versions, especially the Andrew Lloyd Webber. Also, the Brian de Palma version - Phantom of the Paradise - love those tryouts!

Blow Up - the John Travolta version - hate the original
Charade
Rear Window
Firelight
Camille Claudel - the story of a tortured student of Rodin
The Ballad of Cat Ballou
Pride and Prejudice - with Colin Firth - oh, Mr. Darcy!
Play Misty for Me
Dirty Dancing - a very guilty pleasure, LOL
Back Street
Madame X

Famous item NOT on my list -
That "Rosebud" thing - LOL - what an unwatchable film. My secret opinion is that those who promoted it so heavily as a classic were just glad to see Hearst hoist on a petard, anyone's petard. I don't know anyone who thinks this is a work of art who isn't a critic. My sincerest apologies to anyone who likes this!

My guilty pleasure is watching movies that no one else wants to watch with me. I watch them late at night, or on weekends w/o my husband...maybe I'm the only one that loves them!
They are my guilty pleasures...

1. Top Hat- Fred & Ginger are so beautiful dancing together, the silly plot, the black and white simplicity of it all: somehow it melts my heart every time.

2. Dead Man- I'm a sucker for Johnny Depp and Jim Jarmusch, but this movie goes to another plane of existence. Black and white makes this film honest, Neil Young does an ephemeral soundtrack: it's hard to come back from the mellow place this movie takes me to.

3. Spirited Away- After 9/11 I went into an animation only phase, things were so much simpler there. This Japanese animated movie enabled me to return from the brink! It packs powerful statements about kindness and humanity into a beautiful drawn otherworldly wonderland.

4. Babe- Yes, the movie about the talking pig. Nominated for a Best Movie Oscar (didn't win), but I still love this movie. If you aren't on your feet cheering and crying at the end, you might not be human.