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Let’s face it. Whether we’re talking about movies, music, books or whatever, we all think we have great taste. Because we only see things from our own perspectives, we usually use our personal tastes as a way to judge quality.

But even so, we all have our guilty pleasures. I’m talking about that song you stop humming when someone walks into the room. Or maybe it’s that movie you claim your significant other dragged you to. Whatever the case, we all have guilty pleasures and that includes me, of course. With this column, I’m going to try to encourage people to stop being embarrassed for liking things they normally wouldn’t or that aren’t considered cool. I’m going to do this by celebrating movies that are my personal guilty pleasures.

Okay, so I’m kind of a big Sylvester Stallone fan - I wrote about Judge Dredd in a previous entry - but for some reason a lot of his movies don’t get the critical respect they deserve. It seems people don’t really understand how to rate a Stallone movie. You can’t judge a Stallone movie by normal standards. Instead of thinking in terms like “good” or “bad”, a better way to rate a movie by the Italian Stallion would be; awesome or AWESOME! (Spoiler: It’s usually the latter.) That’s why for this entry I dug up an overlooked gem starring Balboa himself; Daylight (1996).

By its nature, writing this column can sometimes get a bit embarrassing since I am admitting to liking things that I know are bad. Since I began writing this column, I’ve had more than a couple of friends and family members make fun of my movie choices. To this day, any time I don’t want to go out, my friends joke around that I’m probably going to stay in and watch Little Black Book (my first entry for this column). And don’t get me started on the annoying reaction I’ve gotten to my last entry (Green Lantern). Even a picture used in the very column had a caption that made fun of me. Ahh…the gift and the curse, right? But remember; I do this for you.

Daylight, directed by Rob Cohen, is an old-fashioned disaster movie. In fact if we’re being honest, it’s pretty much The Poseidon Adventure in a tunnel. But that movie was cool, too. When a truck containing dangerous chemicals explodes in the Holland Tunnel, it sets off a chain of events (explosions) that collapses all entrances to the tunnel. This weakens the tunnel greatly and traps all of the people inside. Fortunately for the people inside, Kit Latura, (Stallone) a disgraced former New York City Emergency Medical Services Chief - who now drives a taxi - was about to enter the tunnel and witnesses the catastrophe.

Latura, like all great heroes, is haunted by his past; however, in the face of tragedy he springs into action. He takes it upon himself to enter the tunnel through its ventilation system in hopes of getting the people out. The authorities know there are people inside, but like in all movies, they are completely useless and it is up to Latura to save these people before the tunnel becomes flooded in a few hours.

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