Amid my desperate search for emotionally unchallenging films to watch during the pandemic, I spent a good chunk of this year drilling down on comedies from the ‘80s, the decade of my childhood, a decade of films characterized by big hair, bad sexual politics, and lots of white people belonging to country clubs—weird stuff to feel nostalgic for, maybe, but there’s no other reason to watch The Bonfire of the Vanities in 2021. I assumed Earth Girls Are Easy would be all of that, plus some aliens for added color. I’d long had it pegged as one of the bad movies Jim Carrey was in before he hit it big on In Living Color. Oops, it’s actually amazing?
Co-written by MTV VJ Julie Brown (not that one) and Terrence E. McNally (not that one), it’s a candy-colored pop musical that seems to take place both exactly in 1988 and at no time at all. Aliens played by Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, and Jeff Goldblum come to Earth to prepare it for invasion and wind up vibing too hard with humanity (including an effervescent Geena Davis, just a few years out from becoming a megastar in Thelma & Louise) to complete their mission, which is mostly a framework on which to hang one bizarre comedic set piece after another. It’s garish and wacky and arguably terrible, and I loved every second of it.—Joel Cunningham, deputy editor
Where to watch: Tubi, Redbox, Pluto TV, YouTube