Favourite film this year that almost no one else liked?

Everyone's seen Elysium, Gravity, Ender's Game, Captain Philips, Man of Steel, etc (yes, I know there will be that one person who hasn't, no need to point it out), but is there a film that you really, really enjoyed, and think could, or should, at least be nominated for Best Picture?

In my case it was Prisoners. I utterly adored the film. It was shocking and gruesome (people walked out when Jackman started torturing the slow guy..., ) but I thought it was brilliant. The acting height of Jackman's career to say the least, and for once, not a film that relies on special effects, action and a "handsome" protagonist to make it good. Either way, it was brilliant and I loved it.

What about you folks?

Museum Hours, though it isn' that people didn't like it...they just didn't see it.

Hugh Jackman isn't handsome?

Don't think there was one

I 'liked' the two films mentioned thus far

Are we talking about a film that didn't get a massive amount of attention(which may have been well revived critically) or one that didn't critically do well?

Because I can think of some if it's the former

Prisoners lost its footing as it progressed. A shame

Really? I thought it got better and better.

On a critical level, Man of Steel might be the most critically underrated movie I have ever seen.

Wouldn't say it needs to be in the run for best picture or anything, but consider that it is at only a 55% on rottentomatoes while that PoS Superman Returns is a good 21% higher than it on rottentomatoes and something is very, very wrong there.

The movie much deserved to get at least into the 80%'s on rottentomatoes especially considering that the score just merely indicates that many percentage of critics simply held a positive view of the movie and not actually what score they gave it....

@LostProphetFLCL: That last bit makes no sense whatsoever.

I liked The Counselor even if it's very flawed.

I enjoyed Kick-Ass 2, and it didn't get very many positive reviews.

I say ender game. I didny look at reviews before I seen it and glad I didn't... if I saw it had bad reviews before hand I most likely would never seen it. but I loved it.

kinda sad that they didnt even know if they make a second one due to reviews

I will say Man of Steel was completely underrated this year. So many mixed reviews, friends hating it/loving it. I couldn't ask for anything more out of a Superman movie, great acting, action, and atmosphere. I saw it twice and I thought it was worth the two ticket prices.

@k2theswiss:

God, that movie was awful. Not surprised with Cormac Mccarthy doing the screenplay....

Part of the

Yeah the movie was pretty damn awesome. Definitely in the upper tier of superhero movies. Really confused as to the hate it gets.

Prisoners was pretty good. For me two underrated movies are Place Beyond the Pines and Stoker. They both came out early in the year and I found them both to be quite good.

@ShadowsDemon: Besides The Road, Cormac McCarthy is a great writer. Blood Meridian is a modern classic, man.

I think I actually preferred Superman Returns to Man of Steel. I just found Man of Steel to be pretty bland for the most part and I wasn't able to get super into it. Of course, I've only seen each film once, and not for a while, so I'm not too adamant.

Part of the reason why EG got bad reviews was because of all the boycotters who slammed the film simply because of the author's opinion on gay marriage. I know people who loved the book but refused to see the film and support it simply because they disagreed with the author's (not director's, but the author of the novel) opinion. Quite amusing, really.

I disagree completely. He has good plots, but the dialogue, stuffed with the most unrealistic dialogue and characters ever who dash on and on with philosophically ramblings and intelligent "conversations" that are meant to sound intelligent but are far from it.

Furthermore, his reasons for writing the way he does (i.e. without punctuation, apostrophes or quote marks) is utterly laughable. The guy thinks he's 'revolutionized' the literary world...and all the universities believe it and earnestly study it.

I respect him and his work, but I think he's overrated. VERY much so.

^ No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses were good as well

I can't comment on Horses, but Old Men was boring, dull, drawn out, and had a terrible ending. Same goes for the film.

'Instructions Not Included' by far is the best film of 2013 that almost no one else liked

The only real film I've seen this year, and enjoyed, was "Mood Indigo" I'm not sure it was a film no one liked... But whatever. But then again, I havent seen all that many movies in general. Probably the only other was Pacific Rim, and while I enjoyed it to an extent, it couldve been better without the story.

Overrated is such a dumb term. How exactly is Cormac McCarthy overrated? You said yourself that Universities study him and his novels remain as relevant as they always were. No Country For Old Men still works as an allegory for the United States' changing society and not many living authors stay relevant as long as he has. The only objective way to measure quality is by longevity and except maybe Thomas Pynchon he's the most influential and relevant American novelist of his era. I know people who prefer him to Faulkner but that is a little too out there for me. Just because you personally don't like him doesn't mean he's overrated. I also think it's cute how you believe you're smarter than those Universities that study lol come on, man.

His dialogue is fine and works within the context of his stories. McCarthy's characters and stories are representations of ideas; Blood Meridian is about war and how it encompasses us all, No Country For Old Men was about change and how we resist it, etc. and so on. You need to separate yourself from what your subjective belief of "realism" is and judge it for what it is. Just like you can suspend your disbelief for those Sci-Fi/Fantasy stuff you like, you have to do it for other novels as well.

His stylistic choices are whatever, I'll agree with you on that. I don't particularly care for them either. McCarthy can think whatever he wants but you really shouldn't judge the man's work on his personal opinion. The most basic aspect of any sort of literary criticism is to separate the artist from his art and you seem really bias against him.

Edit: I'm not saying you should like him, I was just a little bothered by calling him overrated. When someone thinks something is overrated just because they don't personally like it is a little pet peeve of mine. There's plenty famous novelists I don't particularly like.

Man of Steel, a lot of people did not like it but I love this movie.

the great gatsby

no one liked it but me and my gf when we saw it with friends. i bought my parents the blu ray for Christmas and they didn't really like it either. i thought the story was told good and the movie looked visually well.

This.

Man of Steel: 6/10

I really enjoyed 'Now You See Me'. it could have lost all the CGI junk and made it more down to earth ,but I felt there was a really strong story that could have been told better. I still enjoyed it despite my issues with it.

wow, pathic... as long as your not saying burn and hang all the gays or w/e you should be good

Apparently no one liked the new Hobbit movie. I adored it.

I absolutely LOVED that movie and it might be my fav of 2013. Hard to pick between that and The Conjuring.

I'm not sure if you're trying to be sarcastic or not, but I guess I'll take it at face value?

I liked Man of Steel and Rush.

It's not about the suspension of belief. It's about accurate dialogue. There's a massive difference between having fantastical worlds and "fantastical" dialogue. The way his characters speak remind me of the self-appointed armchair philosophers you see around who think they're the contemporary visionaries of today. If an author can create a sci-fi society that is believeable and functions in a well executed way, then that works out pretty good. But the dialogue of his characters is so unbelieveably rigid and un-realistic it's impossible to see them as anything but cardboard cutouts.

Hell, watch The Counselor, a movie McCarthy did the screenplay for. Everyone thinks they're the Plato of the urban west. You can see them physically struggling with their lines.

I measure by quality, not my own personal tastes. There are films (such as 2001: Space Odyssey) that I dislike, but it doesn't mean it's not a masterpiece. I dislike it, but it doesn't take away it's quality.

Quite frankly, if McCarthy wrote a military novel, all his characters would be spurting out the philosophies of war, life, death, violence, etc, while they're dodging bullets in the trenches. While other books would represent the realistic dialogue of war, and everyone would be swearing their heads off, grinding their teeth and running for their lives. Which is more beautiful? The former. But this isn't about "beauty". This is about good writing, realism and true "voices" of characters. Give me the latter any day.

If anyone likes McCarthy, that's more than fine. I think he's overrated, and that's it. It's just my opinion. Just because universities study him it doesn't make him a literary genius. Believe me, universities study a lot of things that are complete crap. I'm going through it now.

@ShadowsDemon: OMG

I wrote a big post, hit post reply, and Gamespot left it blank. This is so upsetting.

short version: realism isn't everything and real people don't speak like they do in fiction anyway, a lot of McCarthy's stuff is stream of consciousness and not actually spoken, one style isn't inherently better because to me it depends on the books in question, and beautiful writing is good.

fvck you gamespot

I enjoyed Man of Steel.

Haha, yeah, I know what that's like.

But seriously, in the books I read, people do speak the way they do in real life, not like ancient philosophers and wise prophets of the modern age.

Also, the entire point of stream of conscious and free-indirect discourse is to match dialogue with the narrative. For me, that's the best way to write a book, because it truly shows an insight into each character and who they are, not some stupid, omnipresent narrator.

I'll agree his language is beautiful, but his plots, characters and dialogue fall flat on their face. It's not just about abstract imagery. Not for me, anyway.

If people want to like McCarthy; great. Just don't tell me he's incredible at everything and everyone should be reading him, and that reading speculative fiction is a waste of time. I get enough of that from university. (Not that I listen to them, either)

My favorite movie I've seen all year is You're Next. Brilliant homage/ parody to old slasher movies, but fantastic on its own, too. Shame almost no one saw it (saw it opening night on my birthday and there were about ten people in the theater). Definitely getting it when it's released on DVD soon.