Films That Personally Offend You (1 Viewer)

[Max Leung]

That travesty, Dungeons and Dragons really offended me.

I've seen better acting at real live D&D role-playing sessions!

And the sets and props...holy crap - straight out of a costume contest at a fantasy convention. No prizes there...

 

[RobertR]

I'm greatly offended by films that claim, based on lies, distortions, and just plain truckloads of unadulterated bullshit, to be based on "real" examples of the paranormal, such as Fire in the Sky and The Amityville Horror. It's sad and pathetic that people swallow stuff so readily from these kind of P.T. Barnum clones.

 

[DaveGTP]

Hey!! That's another one, thanks for the reminder. It shows what a good fantasy film should absolutely, 100% different from. And I've only seen pieces of it!

Calling it D&D just insults the role-playing crowd. I can't believe Wizards/TSR handed the rights over like that.

 

[Will K]

I agree, especially in the case of Amityville, but I'm more apt to swallow biological beings from outer space than pesky demons! I guess as long as people believe anything, they'll keep making money off of it.

 

[Torgny Nilsson]

I am offended by different movies for different reasons:

Some movies offend me because of they are unnecessarily violent or sick: Kill Bill Vol. 1; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover; and Pulp Fiction just to name a few.

Some movies offend me because they are overly simple, contain bad plots, or are just plain pointless: most summer blockbusters such as the Jurassic Park series, Independence Day, and the later Alien movies fall into this category, as do Fellini movies, A Boy and his Dog, etc. Yes, a rollercoaster ride can be fun, but think how much better it could be with a decent plot without major holes. And while Fellini's movies do have a point, it is not one that should take two hours to convey.

There are a lot of other movies that offend me in various other ways, or because of a combination of the above: such as A Clockwork Orange, The Running Man, and Never Say Never Again.

 

[Robert Ringwald]

If you found Kill Bill Vol. 1 to be offensive because of violence, it's strange to me, because the violence was so over the top and cartoon-like, it was almost impossible to take seriously.

 

[Jim_C]

Stargate

So much potential, so many plot holes...

 

[Ernest Rister]

"That travesty, Dungeons and Dragons really offended me."

I love Dungeons and Dragons. If not for Battlefield Earth it would be the "Plan 9" for the new century. D & D is so bad, it sinks to the dpeths of greatness. Far better to be so bad, you are unforgettable, than to be so safe, you are inconsequential. D&D sinks to greatness! Viva la Jeremy Irons! "TIME TO DIE!"

forgive me, I haven't slept in two days

...zzzzzzzzzzz.....

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

I agree with both you guys, and was wondering when someone would bring up this angle. I almost hate to say this around these parts, but this very last sentence of Will K's post (the second quote above) actually crossed my mind as I watched Mel Gibson's PASSION, and has crossed my mind many times over the years as I've seriously questioned my own beliefs and those that have been taught me. I often wish that people would apply the same skepticism they claim to apply to bunkum movies (and real-life tales) about psychics, demons, fortunetellers, UFOs and other paranormal and supernatural bric-a-brac (at least I HOPE people don't honestly believe in those things as they've been so thoroughly debunked) to the ultimate book of supernatural tales.

Then again, maybe the Witch of Endor bit would make for a cool movie.......

I agree with RobertR's quote (first one above) about movies that pander to the need people have to believe in the paranormal and the supernatural, in demons and angels, in superstition and religion, passing off these tales as "true stories" FIRE IN THE SKY and AMITYVILLE are excellent examples that, in real life, were revealed to be elaborate hoaxes the participants had psychologically conditioned themselves to believe really happened, thus adding to the allure despite the fact that the claims didn't stand up to any scientific testing (and yes, I believe many of these things CAN be simply, scientifically tested, especially nowadays).

Belief in the paranormal is a lot easier than you'd think, too. Abundant studies and books exist, many of which I've read and am reading, that go into some detail about the ability of the human mind to delude itself for a number of reasons, particularly the unending need to know that there's more to life than what we've got. Far too few of us are willing to acknowledge these tendencies within ourselves. Thus far too many of us accept things like FIRE IN THE SKY and COMMUNION and even THE EXORCIST at face value. For that reason, those films offend me too, though I certainly can't deny their craft or their ability to give me a few cheap chills when I suspend my disbelief.

I saw Amityville when I was around 12, unaware it was based on a book that was itself based on "real events." Thus I took it to be just another creepy horror filck which, while admittedly putting lingering, haunting images into my still-impressionable mind the way such films often would, never truly fostered a belief in the supernatural. Made for OK entertainment, I guess, but it also, even at that age, made me wonder just who would eat up such bullshit just because a book and movie told them it "happened."

Same thing for FIRE IN THE SKY, which I thought was well-made enough but really didn't inspire me to start believing in spacemen coming to earth. Not that I don't doubt lifeforms could exist on other planets in other solar systems far, far, faaaarrr away; that at least doesn't require a belief in the fantastical; that they could come all this way to probe anuses sorta does.

I guess it's not the films themselves that offend me so much as the tenacity of the hucksters who, even now in the twenty-first century, continue to perptuate these myths on an increasingly faithful and unquestioning moviegoing public (present company excluded, of course! )

 

[DeanR]

Fear No Evil. This movie went way over the line and I am not the most religous person in the world.

 

[RobertR]

Yes, it is bothersome to see so much embracing of irrationality and mysticism in the 21st century, especially when we have the previously unavailable scientific knowledge that it is bunk. Too many people seem to want to regress back to the Dark Ages.

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

Do you believe what you read in history books? If you do, why? You weren't there, so you can't know it's true. Probably a bunch of hucksters and charlatans made up the stories about the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, et al. Surely an army couldn't have crossed the Alps with elephants to wage a war. Surely there was never a man evil enough to try to wipe out an entire race.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Will forgot to end it with, "But thanks for letting us know it's all bunk."

 

[Kenneth English]

RobertR, you took the words right out of my mouth. When it comes to rationality and the human brain it's always one step forward...two steps back (if that).

My own choices:

American Beauty: Pure unadulterated cynical-elitist crap. Are we supposed to understand or relate to these self-involved jackasses?!?

The Passion of the Christ (aka Jesus Christ Chewtoy): 2+ hours of Holy Spiritually Delicious Nutritious Butchery. SEE "The Christ" flayed alive for your moral edification! GASP at torture beyond the bounds of human endurance! SCREAM as bones crack and the nails are driven home! CHOKE as you drown in a sea of sanctimonious bullshit!

Matrix Revolutions: Because it completely sacrifices all the depth of the earlier movies' ideas and cops-out with a boring 2-hour action scene and an embarrassing Neo-as-CyberChrist finale. What a load. Hugely disappointing.

 

[Anthony Neilson]

I don't get annoyed so much by the films themselves but by other people's reactions to them. I know it's all a matter of taste but it freaks me out that people think :

KILL BILL VOLS 1 AND 2 are examples of good writing

THE MATRIX trilogy is profound

EWAN MACGREGOR has a good singing voice

Overblown, undisciplined, pyrotechnical MAGNOLIA was a great movie whereas short and sweet PUNCH DRUNK LOVE was a disappointment

RETURN OF THE KING is not a second too long

Jack Nicholson was brilliant as The Joker

 

[Albert_M]

I don't know about offended, but in general I am disappointed - offended in the lack of quality in movies lately. First I love suspense movies and theere is very little effort for the most part to make a really good suspence movie. They go for very contrived over the top crap. And then there are trends, since '99 it's been the supernatural Sixth Sense style boring, throw the audience trend. There's no interest in a story based reason for such surprises, just the gimmick.

 

[RobertR]

And there are even more things that are fantasy. Our greatest asset is our ability to think, including the ability to use reason to be able to rationally distinguish between the two.

 

[Quentin]

Ernest Rister, meet "Van Helsing".

A new King for a new century...

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Indeed, to those who only go by what they are fed about history, it's easy to make such an assumption, but fortunately enough people - pro and con - WERE present at these critical junctures in time to document what happened, and while they may differ in the minutae, the larger picture formed is usually quite reliable. Sure they may have embellished their writings for posterity, but time and science have provide logical, rational, and often physical evidence that many events once thought to be mystical in nature could easily been achieved on a more human level once you remove all the hyperbole that has accompanied them down through the ages.

People who claim to have been abducted by UFO's have, when they've been submitted to proper, double- or triple-blind testing, always been proven to be frauds, whether even they are aware of it or not, or choose to 'fess up. Reliable data is out there, folks. Just because you choose not to read it doesn't automatically render such fantastical claims as the absolute truth.

As others have mentioned, it's not the products created in the wake of these ridiculous exercises in mythmaking that are offensive in and of themselves; it's the filmmakers and writers who perpetuate this stuff and profit from it at the expense of "believers" who are truly reprehensible in the face of all rational thought.

The makers of movies and TV shows that glorify the powers of psychics and spirit-mediums are just as bad. They may be entertaining as FANTASY, but far too many people come away figuring that because they exist, therefore they must support and reflect the existence of supernatural phenomena in real life (you know, movies mirroring society and all that). In "real life," spirit mediums and psychics like John Edwards have been repeately exposed as charlatans of the worst order (the kind who prey on people's desperate, religion-fueled need to know there's an "other side"). The worst ones won't even subject themselves to testing because they know they'll be exposed like all the rest. Those who do submit feebly try to claim that their powers were impeded by the lack of belief ion the part of their victims. How convenient.

Personally, I have no trouble watching movies about any of these phenomena, for it makes for good drama and good cheap scares, but anyone who leaves a theatre thinking their beliefs have been validated because Hollywood made a movie about the subject are just being led further down that path of ignorance.

And that's offensive.

 

[LarryDavenport]

What offends me is the gratuitous use of rape or the killing of animals to give the hero an excuse for revenge. It pissed me off when the bad guys killed Max's dog in The Road Warrior. I didn't think it moved the story along or was neccesary. And rape really disgust me (it's happened more than once to my family and friends) so I will rarely watch a movie or TV show about the subject.

PS Micheal Moore rules! And Woody Allen too!!

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

Further to Larry's point about violence against animals, I have to say that as a Hong Kong film junkie I've seen, on admittedly rare occasions, acts commited against animals in these pictures that really push my limits. Understand that it's like all HK filmmakers are sadistic animal haters, but there used to be a time when a fishtank shattered by gunfire (or rigged to explode) and depositing it's inhabitants flopping on the floor didn't really bother me. There's also a scene at the beginning of Tsui Hark's THE BLADE of a dog deliberately being led into a bear-trap like thingy that clamps down on its neck while it squirms. I had to go over this sequence frame-by-frame to convince myself they had cleverly faked it (and I'm still not sure).

On the making of disc for the Korean action flick SHIRI there's footage of the aftermath of the shootout in the fish shop and you can clearly see the production crew walking about the set, where several fish still flop about the floor, and nobody's making much of an effort not to step on them.

Worse still are scenes where animals are "killed" just to show how soulless or mean a character is. There's a scene at the beginning of Takashi Miike's YAKUZA HORROR THEATRE that was just sick enough I had to laugh in nervous disbelief, and then frame-by-frame it (again!) just to convince myself that it HAD to be fake. And again, I'm still not sure. In it, a gangster in a restaurant sees a woman outside at the window holding a cute little white lapdog. The cute little dog keeps staring at the gangster. The gangster keeps staring at the cute little dog, barely betraying a hint of his annoyance. All at once, in the middle of a conversation, he gets up, walks outside (the camera stays inside, away from the window), grabs the little dog, smashes it to the ground (below the frame of the window), then again, then fires it down the sidewalk. The girl and her companion are understandably shocked, but there is no revenge, as the story has this particular Yakuza die while being driven somewhere and the story then shifts to an underling trying to disguise this fact while the world around him becomes increasingly surreal.

I guess it isn't excactly unthinkable that human beings are capable of this kind of behaviour in real life (animal cruelty stories do make the headlines from time to time), but this is one of those dicey areas in filmmaking that can completely alienate an audience before the story proper even gets started.