Films That Personally Offend You (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan Carter]

If people believe that though who are we to judge them as fools. I don't walk down the street calling people fools just because they believe all the stuff in the Bible actually and literally happened. A house bleeding or alien abductions seems no more far fetched to me than water into wine, plagues is various insects and reptiles, seas parting, etc. and none of those have ever been scientifically proven either yet it's perfectly acceptable and understandable for people to believe in that. No one finds The Ten Commadments offensive.

 

[RobertR]

It's very much justified to judge people as fools if they insist on believing in an extraordinary claim despite clear evidence that it's based on lies and/or distortions and/or half truths. These are falsifiable claims, and when people keep on believing in the face of evidence showing that the claims are false, that is indeed foolish behavior, just as it would be foolish to think that this particular pyramid scheme is going to be uniquely good.

 

[Jonathan Carter]

No offence but that sounds like a pretty elitest and snobbish stance to take. These people you would call fools are not hurting anyone with thier beliefs. Besides, not every single claim ever made had been exposed as a scam. People have faith in different things and it's no one elses right to look down upon them for it.

Yes, John Edwards and Miss Cleo are frauds. Obviously the people who claim to have been abducted by UFOs are frauds. However, just to play devils advocate again, why would anyone who actually did experience any of these things or have these powers actually come foward. You are turned into a laughing stock. And if I was somehow ablw to tell the future you can rest assured I wouldn't announce it to the world and sell my services for $3 a minute. I would be playing the stock market, enriching my life, and hopefully the lives of those around me on the sly.

Just because something/someone has been exposed as a fraud doesn't mean that next time it won't be for real and it doesn't mean you will even know for sure if the real deal is out there.

Again, no offence intended if my post sounds critical or harshly argumentative towards anyone.

 

[Paul McElligott]

I'm offended that it took three pages for anyone to mention Battlefield Earth.

 

[Ben_@]

In an effort to bring this thread back on track....

I've got three "offensive films" (pardon me if they've already been mentioned):
I, Robot and The Core. Do a search on I, Robot in the movies forum for more on that. The Core offended me because it mocks so much scientific information, at least when the first trailers came out. I think they may have adjusted the plot somewhat to be not completely idiotic, can't be sure.

and last but not least (of sorts)
Anacondas: I thought that whole 'giant snake' idea had been thoroughly finished up. Maybe it could get a direct to video release, but a summer release? What a waste!

 

[Scott Weinberg]

I don't disagree with your logic, Ben, but it's tough to get offended by movies you haven't seen yet!

 

[SteveGon]

Actually we do have every right to do that. I'm not saying it's the correct thing to do in every case, but if someone told me rocks were sentient beings, I think I'd be justified in thinking they were nuts.

 

[Todd McF]

I don't know why people bash Battlefield Earth. People seem to completely overlook its most interesting aspect - although not exactly ground breaking - the brilliant cinemaphotography. I thought the quick cuts and off angle filming added a surreal artistic flair to the film that oh what the hell am I talking about. What a stinking pile of rat brain turd that horrible peice of dog doo was. I love the special features where they say Lucas got involved to recommend the director. Did he intentionally torpedo the project or what? The only way to make that movie worse would have been to let Lucas direct it himself. This is definately the number one most offensive film ever made - bar none - case closed - no need for other entries period.

 

[Jonathan Carter]

The Core is definantly an offeneder I remember one section of the movie where they were attempting some ridiculous move and the writers obviously had no idea how to make it even remotely plausible so they showed the cast getting ready to do what they needed to do and the cut away to the next scene with the words "16 hours later"! It's as if the knew nothing the could do would be good so they decided to say screw it and gave up completely.

As for the belief debate, I could go on all day long because I love arguing this stuff but it is way off the thread topic.






I definantly wasn't putting you down. You've made a bunch of good points and I don't put down anyone who can form a logical thought and back it up. Sorry if you though I was attacking you. I'm unfortunantly very skeptical and cynical when it comes to this stuff also but that's part of the reason I don't mind when others aren't. If the dreamers weren't out there we'd all live a pretty sad life. Cold hard facts are pretty damn boring anyway.

 

[Mike Soltis]

I love the diversity of opinion we have on these forums, it's rather refreshing as we hurtle towards the uncertain future.

And I notice most of the disagreements have been civil for once, without resorting to personal attacks.

But since my opinion is the only one worth mentioning
I will say that ANY movie with anything to do with Woody Allen is offensive to me.
Anyone who thinks Tea Leone is anything near an 'actress' needs therapy, and lots of it.
The Matrix Revolutions should be eradicated from our societal memory.
George Lucas done lost his mind sometime before that piece of crap episode dumb.

Thank you, you may now continue.

 

[Chris]

Yep, I'll add one more.. and it's a film that I watched, enjoyed, watched again, got irritated, and now I find it unwatchable because some moments in it I find so irritating it makes me want to throw things at the screen:

Jungle Fever.

(and, yes, probably being in a multi-racial marriage has greatly influenced my view of the film, but I think I came to certain conclusions about it long before that happened)

 

[Lew Crippen]

Gee Steve, I don’t think that anyone has proved that they are not.

After all there was an Oscar nominated short last year that clearly showed that rocks were sentient—we just don’t have the time scale to be able to see that.

 

[Mike Broadman]

The dreamers that advance our society are ones that still think in the realm of possibility. For example, dreaming of flying to the moon was outlandish, but scientifically possible. And "cold hard facts" are often quite fascinating. The expansion of the universe, the compexity and variety of deep ocean life forms, the mating habbits of various insects, and to some of us, even mathematic constructs and computing algorithms. Can you help but be awed with the cold hard reality of the images brought to use by the Hubble space telescope? The ultimate tragedy of of superstition is that real life is so much more interesting.


Back to movies: I absolutely love Spike Lee. Maybe part of it is that I'm from New York, but I don't find him or his films offensive at all. He deals with uncomfortable realities and tackels racism from a modern perspective, not the simple "slavery is bad" rhetoric of mainstream (white) filmmakers.
Woody Allen I find uneven but brilliant at the top of his game. I can understand not liking his movies, but I don't understand being offended by them.


As for films that are so silly that offend me, I would say most romantic comedies. The formulaic behavior of the plastic people as they go through the motions and whacky antics- it all seems so insulting to that which is so wonderful, beautiful and bewildering about love and romance. I used to not mind them until I actually did fall in love and knew what it was like, and then seeing Adam Sandler and Sandra Bullock fart all over it like that kind of ticks me off.

 

[Kenneth English]

Well, it would be impolite to simply jump up and scream "IDIOT!" when confronted by someone's logically spurious beliefs, but I think it's a grave mistake to begin thinking of skepticism as somehow rude. I guess we just need to make sure that we at least begin by criticizing the belief not the believer. Unfortunately some people become so enamored of or emotionally dependent on beliefs that they abandon rationality altogether in favor of confining dogma.

On the matter of "faith" I will only say this: Faith is never a substitute for hard scientific reality. Just because someone wants to believe in UFOs or gods and monsters doesn't make their beliefs valid. Any attempt to portray medievalism and superstition as being as valid a source of knowledge as scientific observation and empirical evidence is ludicrous -- an insult to human intelligence.

Incredulity in the face of outlandish claims is no vice. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[Jonathan Carter]

Argh, I got sucked right back in....So what I am gathering from this thread is that it's ok to believe in God, the Devil, Heaven and Hell, any form of afterlife, and the possiblity of life in outer space but not demons, ghosts, or the possiblitiy that the life in outer space is as warped as we are here and would abduct people for testing. I just can't understand that line of logic.

And I can't stress enough how it seems people are putting far to much faith in our pitiful grasp of the universe that out limited scientific discoveries have granted us. Yes, we live in an incredible age of sciencetific discovery and we know quite a bit more than we used to but can anyone actually tell me with a straight face that we have even come close to unlocking all the mysteries?

I am constantly reading that things that were previously "scientifically impossible" are now in the scope of reason if we only had the scientific knowlege and technological advancement to put all the pieces together because someone made some tiny new discovey that could be the starting point for things like like this. Just because we can't figure it out or even come across it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

People would have laughed you out of the country if you had told them it was scientifically possible to clone someone 40 years ago. now we have to have legislation to prevent people from experimenting with it.

Again, I'm as skeptical as anyone, but I don't completely discount the notion of things just because they haven't been proven yet. I'm more prone to silently question the believer when it comes to outlandish claims rather than the belief. People do and say crazy things when it comes to their faith. People go to war (sadly enough) over it so I don't think that someone making up lies to bring attention to what they believe in is outside the realm of possibility.

 

[SteveGon]

I didn't think you you were putting me down personally, it's just that there seems to be a prevailing attitude these days - at least in the media - that glorifies the supernatural and denigrates critical thinking, common sense, scientific inquiry, etc. There's also the belief, part of the politically correct movement, that everyone's opinion is equally valid. That's just not so, like it or not. I have nothing against dreamers and fantasists; I enjoy fiction as much as anyone. I also do enough fantasizing myself (usually involving myself, Julia Stiles, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but I won't bore you with details).

And uh, I'll now let you all get back to your regularly scheduled thread...

 

[LarryDavenport]

I'm offended by that comment.

I think she was great in most episodes of The Naked Truth. She was a hot sexy version of Lucille Ball.

 

[RobertR]

Since I am the person who initiated this particular tangent, I'll respond to your point: I was not dismissing the possibility of extraterrestrials and how they might behave or previously unknown phenomena in general. Nor does any other skeptic. I was addressing the issue of movies based on specific claims of such an occurence, and the fact that such claims are demonstrated to be based on lies, distortions, and/or half truths. You have to understand the difference between a falsifiable claim and a nonfalsifiable one. If I claim to have been abducted by aliens and investigation shows that my story is full of holes, it's falsified, and yes, anyone who still believes the story even when the stench of the bullshit is right under his nose is a fool. That is not the same thing as saying "well, there could be aliens out there somewhere, you just don't know", which is a nonfalsifiable statement.


It's the difference between "it maybe, could be, might be" and "it IS", based on my (bullshit) "proof".

The same principle applies to nonfalsifiable religious statements, which skeptics don't address. However, we can address falsifiable claims, such as the age of the Shroud of Turin or claims that monks can "levitate".

 

[Jonathan Carter]

I completely agree with your point. However, what I was commenting on were the rest of the comments that people have made in this thread. They were all-encompassing comments related to the whole belief (UFOs, demons, GOD, etc...), not just specific instances in the media or made into movies.

 

[Brian Thibodeau]

RobertR, Steve Gon, Mike Broadman and Kenneth English, if you guys were women I'd marry all four of you! Not sure how well it would sit with my girlfriend, though.

Seriously, though, I'm absolutely amazed to see all the intelligent conversation that has evolved on this subject in the last couple pages of this thread. Also nice to know I'm not alone in my willingness to look at both sides of these issues and then let rationality (and evidence) guide me. Time and again, I find it's not to difficult to side with those "cold, hard facts," when there's more of them out there than even I could have imagined in my early days questioning the world around me (and the believers within it).

And Steve, The Skeptical Enquirer and Skeptic Magazine, the latter put out by Michael Shermer's organization, are wonderful publications that treat even the beliefs they attempt to debunk with a stunning amount of respect. The research and references that these organizations (and many other like them) provide are phenomenal. For anyone to think that Skepticism is some fringe group of cynics who live to slander believers and their beliefs is to be truly ignorant of a steadily growing segment of society that doesn't require unquestioing belief in fantasy to get it through its collective day.

Too many people who believe in paranormal phenomena, from gods and psychics to demons and UFOs and onward down the list, tend to automatically dismiss Skeptics as people who have already decided to not believe in something, then find information to back up their disbelief. it's a defense mechanism really. But often, true skeptics are always willing to give a paranormal claim the benefit of the doubt and even allow for extremely fair testing procedures that, if a claim is real, will unequivacobly show it to be real. That so many claims of the last two hunderd years or more have been proven to be fraudulent has, if nothing else, provided very reliable methods of investigation.

And if so many independent studies have rendered these claims useless, and if even the religious have shed many of their superstitions down through the ages (can you imagine what medicine would be like if religion had held sway in that area for the last, what, 500 years?), is it truly that big of a leap in logic to wonder if, one day, even bigger belief systems might be proven false? In the minds of many, they already have...





Would it really surprise anyone to know that Mel Gibson's production company was behind this movie? I've long questioned the man's need to play a borderline martyr in most of his films (as of this year, I fully understand it, of course), but FAIRY TALE, even though his name wasn't directly on it, really had me wondering just what the man believed in, particularly when he spoke about the movie in interviews around the time of its release. That ending was absolutely appalling, and to think that there could be some poor sucker (or worse, young child) who might take the movie at face value and, as I mentioned before, use the information it presents to quietly bolster their belief in something that has long since been proven an absolute fraud (hell, they even found copies of the same book the girls cut the fairy figures from!). I can only imagine what goes through the mind of youngsters when they start to realize they're never going to "see" these things unless they concoct a story by which others believers can then make them feel validated.