It's a Guilty Pleasures double feature

It's popular nowadays to complain about how Hollywood only releases garbage.

To which we say: Oh, please. Hollywood always put out garbage.  Those films are the stuff that movie Guilty Pleasures are made of.

Some of our picks are just plain bad. Some suffer from Guilt by association. We've even paired up some movies with matching wines, just to take the edge off.

‘On A Clear Day You Can See Forever’ (1970)
Can you believe that Jack Nicholson’s second role after earning his indie cred in “Easy Rider” was in this uber-Hollywood Barbra Streisand flick helmed by “Gigi” director Vincent Minelli? With those credentials, you’d think you’d get something extremely special. It’s special all right — in the short-bus sense. Babs stars as Daisy Gamble, an ordinary girl who just happens to possess psychic abilities. She goes to a psychiatrist (played by French heartthrob Yves Montand) to help her quit smoking. He’s not the least bit interested in her until, under hypnosis, he realizes she’s lived many lives (like the Shirley MacLaine story come to life) and falls in love with one of them, the lovely Melinda. Babs gets to go from ‘60s Brooklyn-accented Mod to Victorian English with just a snap of Montand’s fingers. If you’re a Babs fan (and I watch “Funny Girl” anytime I catch it on cable), you won’t be able to resist this aged cheese. Montand even warbles a few tunes. Meanwhile, all Nicholson has to do in his role as Streisand’s half-brother is look as cool and stoned as possible. On a Clear Day, indeed. –Paige Newman

‘Dude, Where’s My Car?’ (2000)

20th Century Fox

Some films tackle world wars, Rwandan genocide and paralyzed boxers. “Dude, Where’s My Car?” is about two stoner dudes who lose their car. It also involves breast-enhancement necklaces, a room full of pudding, cultists wrapped in bubble wrap, a giant alien woman and one really pissed-off Chinese takeout order box. It’s stupid, but it’s fun in the same way that Bob and Doug McKenzie were fun. Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher are such good-natured, uh, dudes, that you know nothing really bad is ever going to happen to them. And some of the dialogue and scenes, though slapsticky, are legitimately funny. Not all of us will end up with “Dude!” and “Sweet!” back tattoos, but who hasn’t wanted to “go all egg roll” on a fast-food speaker box? We're still waiting for the eventual sequel, which is rumored to have the awesome title, “Seriously, Dude, Where’s My Car?” Dude! Sweet! -Gael Fashingbauer Cooper

‘Ski School’ (1991)

Universal Studios

It wasn’t just that “Ski School” had all the elements of a classic “Porky’s” on the slopes — including, but not limited to, gratuitous nudity, sequential on-camera beer bashes, a think-what-we-saved-on-music-rights soundtrack and way too much generic skiing footage. The true mark of its distinction? Just how long after its time this gem, shot at British Columbia’s Whistler resort, was born. By 1991, it had been a long slalom down from 1984’s “Hot Dog … The Movie” or even John Cusack’s star turn in “Better Off Dead.” By the ‘90s, bad sports films were supposed to be earnest, not titillating. Just witness “The Cutting Edge.” “Ski School” dared to be out of place, out of time and out of taste. Yet it has a certain “Animal House” brilliance, thanks mostly to the sublime efforts of Dean Cameron, whose ski instructor Dave Marshak is a sort of Otter of the mountain, around whom all good times and cleavage necessarily revolve. Cameron’s acting talents (see also “Sleep With Me”) have never been fully appreciated, perhaps because he signed on for the utterly pointless “Ski School 2.” Why ruin perfection with a sequel? -Jon Bonné

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