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"People think it's dumb, but it's actually kind of genius!" This was me, effusing about Summer Rental, the 1985 film that the New York Times' review described as "largely uneventful." I was not drunk. In fact, I couldn't have been more lucid with anticipation. I had pulled Summer Rental off the shelf and was trying to convince my date that we should rent it instead of whatever normal film he already had in his hand.

"Are you sure you're thinking of the right movie?" he asked, taking it from me and turning it over. "This is that John Candy one about the beach house."

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"Yeah!" I said. "I know it seems dumb, but it's really funny! Remember John Candy falls asleep in the sun and gets sunburned?"

This is my fatal flaw when it comes to dating: my love for shitty '80s and '90s Hollywood comedies that you can find encased in tattered VHS sleeves at your local yard sale. These are not movies that are "so bad they're funny," like Howard the Duck. They're not cult classics like Haunted Honeymoon, nor are they campy icons like Outrageous Fortune or nostalgia-fests like The Goonies. And they're not the kind of movies you like to watch because they embarrassingly star some now-famous actor before they hit big, like Love Potion #9 with Sandra Bullock as a socially inept scientist.

I'm talking about middling movies that were released to ambivalent reviews and adequate box office. Sitcom-ish movies that nobody loves, nobody hates and nobody rents. Movies like House Sitter. Taking Care of Business. The Super. Punchline. Volunteers. My Blue Heaven. Movies that feel as if they were written by committee via conference call. They star big-name actors who took the "role" mainly for the cash so they're phoning it in. They feature nondescript scores written by nameless bands who write nondescript movie scores for a living. They're the types of movies which two separate studios make twice to cash in on the first one's popularity. K-9 and Turner and Hooch. Like Father Like Son and Vice Versa.

And Delirious. Have you seen Delirious? I beg you to see Delirious — another vehicle for John Candy, God rest his soul. He plays a soap-opera screenwriter who gets stuck in his own show. Or See No Evil, Hear No Evil. This was one of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor's last films together. They play a deaf guy and a blind guy who are falsely accused of a murder and must solve the crime themselves. Kevin Spacey costars. There's also Gung Ho!, Oscar, Brewster's Millions (John Candy and Richard Pryor again), Only the Lonely (James Belushi, John Candy) and Nothing But Trouble (Big John Candy).

I love these comedies, and without a modicum of distance — I genuinely think they're funny. Or, more accurately, I genuinely like watching them even though I don't really think they're funny. There's something about these films that makes me feel comfortable. When I was

We liked the fact that we could recite verbatim the entire script for Who's Harry Crumb?

growing up, we had a dresser drawer filled with these tapes, and my brother and I would watch them repeatedly. We didn't care that Folks! — a film in which Tom Selleck's character tries to kill his parents with their blessing — wasn't that clever; that's what we liked about it. The banality of Stakeout was pleasantly sedatitive. We liked the fact that we could recite verbatim the entire script for Who's Harry Crumb? (And do you know who Harry Crumb is? John Candy.)

We were raised in a mild, wooded suburb where movies of this demeanor fit right in. They were polite, breezy and safe. Our tiny local video store — my first paycheck job — reliably carried them. And I think even back then, my brother and I understood that these movies were mostly made by middle-aged, middle-of-the-road men like the ones who mowed their lawns in our neighborhood. Sort of like our dad. When the studios needed a film made competently and efficiently, they called one of these guys. As a result, these directors amassed profitable but largely forgettable filmographies, though many of them had a gem or two in there — Arthur Hiller, who directed Taking Care of Business, also did Love Story; the Stakeout guy made WarGames.