Everybody has their individual tastes. From the hardcore cinephiles to john waters aficionados. From horror fans to twihards.
But everybody has that film that they love that EVERYBODY else can't stand. I don't mean in an ironic, so bad its good or simply liking to be unique way. I mean a film that you genuinely love that people berate you for even acknowledging its existence. So much so that it sometimes feels that you're the only one that likes it.
I feel its time to throw away this sham of shame and carry these films as a badge of honour (wow that's hyperbolic)
I guess I'll get the ball rolling on this one.
Movies I genuinely like:
The collected works of Richard Kelly (Donny Darko, DD directors cut, Southland Tales, The Box)
Despite some questionable choices in his cinematography/art direction and an occasionally poor understanding of special effects, I actually really like all these films. I love the odd maximalist storytelling he employs. While they sometimes fail to get their point across clearly, Kelly's films have a mad man's sensibility to them that strums the right chords in my brains. Also the man is capable of coaxing fantastic performances out of commonly middling actors. He tells stories so far removed and wide in scope from conventional hollywood plot structure tropes that I feel stupid that I'm virtually the only one who likes them.
Plus he has the audacity to re-imagine a richard matheson short story as told by Alfred Hitchcock and Arthur C. Clarke, how can you not love that.
Knowing
I feel that people really exaggerated the scene chewery of Cage's performance far beyond what actually occurs in the film (extrapolated from the infamous baseball bat tree beating scene). I don't know why this film is good to me. I guess the structure and pacing of the story, coupled with the insidious tone of the film and its art direction just speaks to me. Also, though being athiest, I seem to appreciate the concept of religious iconography in science fiction pictures, where it seems everyone else just seems to get angry unless the film is completely secular (for an example of what I'm talking about, see Moviebob's review of The Book of Eli.
IRobot. See knowing for many of the same reasons, despite not liking the Sonny design very much.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I wont go into this in depth because it will become a 50 page long defence of the film so i'll sum it up in a few sentences. Arrogance and self rightousness of the modern film geek does not dictate the content of a movie. Religous Iconography not important for the story. Not a real adventure film nor even an original premise, but an expensive genre exercise that sets out to mimic the conventions and tropes of decade it's set in (50s ie: greasers, aliens, communists, bad puns and cheesy sets in b movies and so on) and it accomplishes this.
Sunshine
Absolutely love almost everything about this movie, despite feeling the last act could have used an extra 10-15 minutes to improve its pacing.
The Lovely Bones
I despise the book, but for some reason really like the movie despite its numerous faults. It also wins for being one of the four movies shot on a red camera that actually looks like a movie and not a desaturated hi res tv show (this goes along with knowing, District 9 and the social network
Terminator Salvation:
I love the look and feel of this movie. I love the way its shot. I love the amount of practical effects there are (if you haven't seen the special features on the home release, believe me its ALOT) And I don't hate the script. I do feel that christian bale's Conner should have only been a secondary character in the film, I don't think the dialogue is nearly as bad as people claim it is (this is extrapolated from Bale's part as well). I do believe this should have been more violent.
The Island
Bay's only truly well told story, with a long enough opening to actually assume his created world is believable. Despite one questionable story choice (Scarlet Johanson's naivety throughout most of the film being played for laughs and bay screwing us out of a topless scene with her)
Don't think of me as a cretin who only watches crap and michael bay movies, as I have seen a much wider breadth of film than this and love and appreciate classic and well regarded films just as much. I genuinely think these films are good (there are a few more, but I wont go into them now) and worth at least a viewing to those who avoided it purely because of reviews and snarky comments from friends.
so what are your favourite films that nobody else seems to like?
