Movies you like that one else does aka guilty pleasures

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Hey guys, do you have any movies that you are apparently the ONE person who enjoyed it? I don't mean some indie film that hardly anyone knows of, but rather a mainstream movie that people dislike and was skewered in the reviews?

For example, one of mine is Battlefield Earth. I know WHY it received horrible reviews and WHY people laugh when I say I enjoyed the movie, but I enjoyed it anyhow. My guess is that I'm just THAT much of a sci-fi/alien movie geek and I love the word "leverage."





What are yours?
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Showgirls IIRC correctly was widely disliked & panned. No clue why since I enjoyed this movie.
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"How tall is King Kong ?"
I kinda intended to make a thread like that some day, but minus the guilty pleasure part. That is, movies you feel that only you, or almost only you, enjoyed, and other people diss unfairly.

For instance, I don't, really don't, understand the bad reputation of Cimino's Heaven's Gate, which I consider a magnificent movie.

I see why people mock Jean Giraud's Cabbage Soup (there's a scene that features farts, farts ! that is not serious !). But to me it's a masterful adaptation of the funny, moving and poetic René Fallet novel.

Not even David Lynch wants to hear about Dune, which was apparently butchered by the studios. Still, I find it a very honorable adaptation of the novels, I love its slow, heavy pace, and its designs and casting choices - I only reproach it its weurd deus ex machina ending that fast forwards half a dozen novels in two lines of dialogues, and its much too unbirdlike ornithopters.

There's a french comedy named You won't have Alsace-Lorraine, which makes me laugh and only me (well, it made another person laugh but he's dead now, so I'm the only human left), but that's only because other humans have no humor and I hate them all.

Not all of Romero's later living dead movies were great, but Diary of the Dead was nice.

I consider Runaway an excellent sci-fi action thriller (gotta love these mechanical arachnids, hovering mines and homing bullets).

And I don't get the criticism of Carpenter's Prince of Darkness, for instance.

So.... "guilty" pleasures..? As in : movies that I like but wouldn't present as great and misunderstood ?...

Maybe a bunch of Hill/Spencer flicks. Not the two Trinita, which are objectively great, but stuff like Who finds a friend finds a treasure. Because childhood. I suppose the old Fantomas movies by Hunebelle fall into that category too. Damn they can be bad. I love them.

Also, maybe (and increasingly) by old beloved James Bond movies, with all their cheese and sexism. This kinda includes the eerie Ok Connery / Operation Kid Brother, because.

And maybe some monster or saucers movies from the Harryhausen era, I'm not sure of their public status but I still enjoy them tremendously. I'm just fond of ancient sci-fi, and clumsiness or naivety just endears them to me.

So maybe Walt Disney's The Black Hole ? It's a terrible and terribly interesting, paradoxical movie.

Some old films of that kind may be shielded by childhood nostalgia (The Final Countdown, etc) but I'd have to re-watch them to see on what level they should or shouldn't be defended... Which ones are objectively good, which ones would embarrassingly fall out of grace, and which ones would just retain their aura of psychological comfort...

Also, it goes without saying that, be definition, no John Carpenter movie is below me. I know that Ghosts of Mars and Vampire$ are... well... okay... they are what they are. I'll love them forever no matter what. I've decided they were great before even watching them and nothing will ever make me change my mind, not even them.
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Hey guys, do you have any movies that you are apparently the ONE person who enjoyed it?...
Hmm, I'll have to think about it. I was going to say welcome to MoFo! Only I looked at your profile and you've been here for over 11 years

Showgirls IIRC correctly was widely disliked & panned. No clue why since I enjoyed this movie.
Showgirls is properly trashy and is great for what it's trying to achieve. I seen it at the theater first run and I liked it. Haven't seen it since though.

...For instance, I don't, really don't, understand the bad reputation of Cimino's Heaven's Gate, which I consider a magnificent movie.
One of the most beautifully filmed movies I've ever seen. The roller skating rink scene itself is pure magic.
Not even David Lynch wants to hear about Dune, which was apparently butchered by the studios. Still, I find it a very honorable adaptation of the novels, I love its slow, heavy pace, and its designs and casting choices - I only reproach it its weurd deus ex machina ending that fast forwards half a dozen novels in two lines of dialogues, and its much too unbirdlike ornithopters.
I love the original theatrical cut, but the extended version, meh.
So maybe Walt Disney's The Black Hole ? It's a terrible and terribly interesting, paradoxical movie.
OK, now that's a real guilty pleasure, it's crap made but very watchable non the less.



I don't feel the slightest bit guilty for any of these:

Hulk (Ang Lee, 2003)


Honestly, it's one of my top 5 favorite superhero movies. The deliberate pacing, the split screens, Danny Elfman's wonderful score, and that ****ing gorgeously epic desert sequence.... It's incredible. I have loved this movie unapologetically from the moment I left the theater back in 03'. Better than anything in the MCU

Domino (Tony Scott, 2005)


I actually really enjoyed Tony Scott's "post production the **** out of it" style that he used in his later films (except for Taking of Pelham 123. **** that movie). Domino is him at his most excessive. It gets a lot of hate, but I've never not enjoyed the hell out of it, and after finally watching (and loving) Branded to Kill, I would say that Domino is of a similar flavor.

Speed Racer (Wachowskis, 2008)


Nothing else I have seen looks like this movie. The lenses that were developed to shoot the film entirely in focus were wonderful. It really gave movie an anime quality. It's just pure spectacle and pure fun, and you see the Wachowski's love for the source material in literally every frame. I couldn't help but be sucked right into the joy of it all.

I might think of a few more later



"How tall is King Kong ?"
Ah, here's an awkward one :

I do not consider Costner's The Postman to be a bad movie. I enjoyed it. Some clichés infuriated me, as well as Costner's habit of making movies that feel very much like vanity projects, pompously framing the super godly humble awesomeness of his own character. But I found this universe very interesting, its western-like approach to post-apocalypse more believable than Mad Max (even though I vastly prefer the Mad Max movies), and I really appreciated its postulate on communication being the root of civilization, and how an institution is born out of belief in an institution. I enjoyed the accidental snowballing effect of this societal reconstruction.

It never passed the quality threshold of "movies I have to own on dvd" but still I find it unfairly maligned. It's more original, and its message is more interesting, than criticisms make it seem. It's much better than Waterworld, for instance. And for me to say this (given my gigantic bias towards movies taking place at sea), it means something.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
The only problem I had with The Postman is that it was too overly preachy I felt, but the rest of it I remember being pretty solid. Haven't seen Waterworld to compare.

Some guilty pleasures for me include The Birth of a Nation (1915), Junior (1994), and The Tuxedo (2002), if those movies count as guilty pleasure types?



The Happening is a genuinely good and widely misunderstood movie.

The Apparition, that movie with Draco Malfoy about ghosts. It took me four times, but I actually ended up liking it. I thought it was awful at first, but something in it gripped me and made me rewatch it all those times.



Ah, here's an awkward one :

I do not consider Costner's The Postman to be a bad movie. I enjoyed it. Some clichés infuriated me, as well as Costner's habit of making movies that feel very much like vanity projects, pompously framing the super godly humble awesomeness of his own character. But I found this universe very interesting, its western-like approach to post-apocalypse more believable than Mad Max (even though I vastly prefer the Mad Max movies), and I really appreciated its postulate on communication being the root of civilization, and how an institution is born out of belief in an institution. I enjoyed the accidental snowballing effect of this societal reconstruction.

It never passed the quality threshold of "movies I have to own on dvd" but still I find it unfairly maligned. It's more original, and its message is more interesting, than criticisms make it seem. It's much better than Waterworld, for instance. And for me to say this (given my gigantic bias towards movies taking place at sea), it means something.
I think the Postman is awesome.
My only major criticism of it is it's way too long (which gives it the time to go somewhat off in some unnecessary directions - along the lines of what Rules pointed out).



I like both Showgirls and The Postman, and own both on DVD.

A couple of movies that come to mind for me are Joe's Apartment, which I get why people dislike, and Death to Smoochy, which I don't get the dislike for.



I remember being really hungover one afternoon, and as the headache began to clear, finding Deuce Bigelow hysterically funny.


I'm pretty sure if I ever saw it again though, I would stop being the only person alive who enjoyed it.



Registered User
I actually like Cuties.



Domino (Tony Scott, 2005)


I actually really enjoyed Tony Scott's "post production the **** out of it" style that he used in his later films (except for Taking of Pelham 123. **** that movie). Domino is him at his most excessive. It gets a lot of hate, but I've never not enjoyed the hell out of it, and after finally watching (and loving) Branded to Kill, I would say that Domino is of a similar flavor.
Huge fan of KK, but I found this to be unwatchable.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
Some people defend Showgirls saying that it's a guilty pleasure because it's trashy, but it's not trashy enough, and needs to be trashier for that I think.



The Postman isn't bad. The book it's based on is loads better though.