20 Movie Hooks You Can't Resist

[caitlin1214]

PopWatchers 'fess up about the one type of movie — spoof, British costume drama, forbidden love story — that pulls you in every single time, no matter how many films like it you've seen before

I call them ''Forbidden Love'' movies — I'm a sucker for 'em. Anything having to do with a priest, teacher, married man/woman, etc. falling in love (or lust) with someone they shouldn't...I'm there! It can be a theatrical release like Notes on a Scandal (pictured), or a cheesy Lifetime movie, or an old '70s made-for-TV movie. If the description involves ''forbidden love,'' I'm watching it.




Anything with a large and/or mutant animal terrorizing an isolated group of attractive morons. Bonus points if it is something that was supposed to be extinct. Extra super bonus points if it's a shark. [see Deep Blue Sea, pictured]




I'll watch any British period drama where lots of corsets and cravats are involved. If a man can ride a horse, dance and bow every time a woman enters the room, I'll be first in line at the box office, ready to swoon. Bonus points if the movie is based on a novel by Jane Austen [see Pride & Prejudice, pictured].




I love action movies. If it has guns blazing, high-speed chases, and a body count in the double digits [like Commando, pictured] I'm there. I'd watch an action movie over a chick flick any day.



I love watching movies about writers. I have no idea why. Wonder Boys (pictured), Adaptation, Sunset Boulevard. Even just movies with supporting characters who are writers... Weird.

[caitlin1214]

Sword fights. If a trailer shows a sword fight [like The Mask of Zorro, pictured], I will watch the film. Lightsabers also count.




Oh gawd, glad I'm not the first. Dance movies. Even Coyote Ugly (pictured). I watch it every time it's on.




Love all sports movies: Rudy (pictured), For Love of the Game, Bull Durham, Remember the Titans, Bang the Drum Slowly, Tin Cup, Invincible, Miracle, Leatherheads, White Men Can't Jump, It Happens Every Spring, Chariots of Fire....




If the previews announce BASED on the CLASSIC or BESTSELLING SERIES. If you're based on a series of Classic or Brilliant books I am there. It all began with Lord of the Rings (pictured) for me, I picked up Harry Potter along the way, and The Chronicles of Narnia will work nicely. I even went to Golden Compass. If only for the feeling that you are going to potentially re-visit these characters over a series of movies...it's like having a film family. There is a joy in watching them grow up.




I will watch anything with ''The Damned'' in the title. Queen of the Damned (pictured). Village of the Damned. The Damned. They're all so awful. It is my cross to bear.

[caitlin1214]

I love disaster movies. Natural disasters, unnatural disasters, man-made disasters, shipwrecks, plane wrecks, train wrecks! There's something about the man vs. nature thing that just pulls me in. Even better if we're shown the hero dealing with the psychological fallout from going through all that trauma. I can't count how many times I've seen Cast Away (pictured) and I never grow tired of it. I was hooked on Lost before the first episode aired just from watching the trailer for it. I guess it's the whole surviving-against-the-odds thing.




Sci-fi or alternative history...with dystopian undertones. I swear you put anyone in a space ship or in rags on a desert plain. I'm looking at you Mad Max (pictured)!




Heist movies. I will see any movie that involves attractive men stealing things through cleverly impossible means. I even watched The Bank Job (pictured) a couple weeks back, because, come on — it was a heist movie!




I'll watch any spoof, from Top Secret! (pictured) to The Naked Gun and Date Movie and beyond. I've seen them all. Can't get enough! Although Epic Movie should have been shot and put out of its misery....




I'll watch any movie having to do with WWII, and I especially loved both Flags of Our Fathers (pictured) for its portrayal of Ira Hayes and Letters to Iwo Jima for showing the other side.

[caitlin1214]

Movies about impossible missions or commando raids are a hit with me, particularly The Guns of Navarone (pictured), Where Eagles Dare, and Jason and the Argonauts.




I'm addicted to movies about historical queens: Marie Antoinette (pictured), Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Other Boleyn Girl — I was there on opening weekend, even if I had to go by myself and not tell anyone else about my secret movie guilty pleasure.




Having grown up with a summer house in the Hamptons for the past 30 years, I enjoy most any film having to do with a person's connection to their house and home, such as Life As a House, Under the Tuscan Sun (pictured), and The Lake House.




I will see any movie revolving around political or corporate scandal, especially if Watergate is somehow involved [like All the President's Men, pictured]. I'm not sure why exactly; I think it has something to do with a fantasy of being a hard-hitting investigative newspaper reporter.




This may be the most humiliating of my PopWatch confessions, but I'm a sucker for high-school movies about spoiled rotten teen queens getting dumped on [see Heathers, pictured]. One doesn't need a psych degree to figure that one out.

[aklein]

Caitlin, I think you are my long lost twin.
I love all the types of movies listed. I will watch Deep Blue Sea any time it is own. And You Got Served is the best dance movie. EVER.

[caitlin1214]

For me, a movie has to be funny. Not stupid, you understand, but funny. (And to borrow on a famous quote, I'll know what's funny when I see it in the movie's previews.)



I love anything from dry, sarcastic humor to the out and out ridiculous.

Like in the preview for Hamlet 2. A high school drama teacher has to write THE play that will save his school's drama program. Obviously, he's stressed and under a lot of pressure. There's a scene where he's at his computer and his cat looks at him and he goes, "What is your effing problem, man!?!?"

[aklein]

Some movies are unintentionally funny, because they take themselves too seriously. Then they end up being played constantly on TBS.

[Sophie-Rose]

thanks for posting!