I’m a little burned out on seeing movies because I’ve seen so many bad ones in the line of duty lately.

My choices this week were “My Giant,” “Species 2” or “The Odd Couple 2.” I haven’t heard a good thing about any of them and just couldn’t face watching one.

Which got me thinking about bad movies I love. Everyone has a favorite terrible film. I have several of them — absolutely awful films I love. Call them guilty pleasures, call them crap, call them whatever you like, but here, in no particular order, are my personal picks for good bad movies.

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” — yes, I loved the big screen debut of those amphibian super hero-crime fighters. I had to see this one opening night. I swear, “TMNT” was one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. The image of Splinter, as a regular size rat, doing karate moves inside his cage along with his master is hysterical.

I can’t even use the “I was just a kid” excuse for this one. “TMNT” came out in 1990. I was 21years old at the time. I still have no idea how I talked my girlfriend into going to see it with me. She wasn’t nearly as amused by the antics of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michaelangelo as I was. Donatello was always my favorite. Turtle power!

“Adventures in Babysitting” — an early role for Oscar-nominated Elisabeth Shue (“Leaving Las Vegas”), who plays the babysitter of the title. The main plot involves her and the kids she’s watching heading from the cushy suburbs downtown to the mean streets of Chicago to rescue a friend trapped at the bus station. The friend is Penelope Ann Miller, and she is great as the frantic Brenda.

Everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and there are too many wacky subplots to mention.

“Hudson Hawk” — at the time, this movie was one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history. I can’t understand why.

Star Bruce Willis was in rare comic form as an art thief. His smart-ass, sarcastic side was really on display here. For example, when another character references the “Louvre in Paris,” Willis shoots back “as opposed to the Louvre in Wisconsin.”

Sure, the “plot” was an absolute mess involving some kind of art heist-kidnapping-blackmail thing. But the villains were insane and over the top (Sandra Berhard in one of her least-annoying roles), there are a bunch of secret agents named after candy bars and the writing was sharp and funny.

Overall, “Hudson Hawk” is very entertaining, and I’m not at all ashamed to say I own the video. Well, not very ashamed.

Tremors — classic horror film set up. Take a small group of isolated people, cut them off from the rest of the world and throw some monsters.

The monsters in “Tremors” are a group of giant, man-eating worms dubbed “graboids,” that use their snake-like tongues to pull victims underground to their gruesome deaths.

It may sound stupid, and maybe it is, but the bottom line is this movie is funny. Part of the comedic appeal is due to the bantering between Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon. Also, there’s country music super star Reba McEntire as a gun-toting survivalist.

“Anaconda” — another creature feature. This time, a group of documentary film makers are cut off from the rest of the world on a boat deep in the heart of the Amazon and are plagued by a giant, man-eating snake.

Sure, “Anaconda” is a bad movie, but it’s supposed to be bad, so that makes it OK. It’s a definite B-movie, maybe the perfect B-movie. I enjoyed every silly slithering second of it, as the giant snake picked off cast members one-by-one. I was never really scared, but I sure laughed a lot.

“Joe Versus the Volcano” — visually, this one is a real treat. Many of the sets are almost surreal. Tom Hanks plays Joe, a guy who works for a company that makes rectal probes. A nice touch is the customers “served” sign, with digits that flip as another customer is, well, “served” by the company’s product.

This is another movie with a ridiculous plot. Hanks’ character gets a deadly affliction called a “brain cloud,” so he agrees to be thrown into a volcano as a human sacrifice. Did I mention Meg Ryan co-stars in three separate roles?

The most important lesson in “Joe Versus the Volcano” is that we should always buy quality luggage.

There are, of course, other bad movies I’ve enjoyed over the years. These are just a few of the best of the worst. So watch your bad movies proudly.

There’s no need to be embarrassed by anything you enjoy watching. Unless it’s something starring that Ernest guy. If you find him amusing, I suggest you seek professional psychiatric help.

---

Mike Milik is a senior in advertising from West Des Moines.