Guilty Pleasure Forever(In Time)

Rest In Peace Whitney Houston.

It's unfortunate, but she joins a long list of entertainers gone too soon.  Her passing also has me thinking back to the time period where she was at her peak.

Almost the end of November, 1992, Houston's film The Bodyguard is released.  I go see it with my girlfriend at the time, and find it surprisingly watchable.  A film WITH music rather than a musical.  Sure, the Costner stuff is over the top / Swayze in Roadhouse type cheese, but damn if it doesn't work.

Lawrence Kasdan's last big directorial hit, which looked at first glance like a movie he was slumming in.  I mean, this is the guy who wrote The Big Chill, Empire Strikes Back, Body Heat, etc. for God's sake!  And Costner was at his height after Dances With Wolves.  It shouldn't have worked, but it did.  Something for the men, something for the ladies, action, music, romance, and the African American audience appeal as well.  The thing was a hit to the tune of over 400 million dollars.  Awesome box office today, let alone almost twenty years ago.

The soundtrack was a smash.  I'm sure Dolly Parton loved the royalties off her previous country hit.  And it was everybody's last hurrah for a while.  Kasdan and Costner haven't seen numbers like that since.  Houston had some nice turns after, but this thing was the top for a while.  I don't know if a sequel was ever mentioned down the road with the same cast, but even half the box office of the original would have worked.

Basically, The Bodyguard SHOULDN'T have worked, but it did.  Certainly a guilty pleasure flick, but guilty pleasure is better than no pleasure at all.  I can't put my finger on something since with the same jumble of elements - but it certainly has broad appeal.  It's certainly watchable almost twenty years later.  And the soundtrack is certainly not dated either.

Sure Houston had her demons, don't we all.  But at least there's something captured that's still relevant years later, and years to come.  Swayze's Roadhouse comes on every once in a while, and I catch myself watching each time.  Legends of the Fall is another one of those stay-on-the-sofa-till-it's-over cable flicks

I'll be damned if The Bodyguard doesn't start showing up and joining the rest in Guilty Pleasure Heaven.