Movie Morals that Annoy You

[snacktastic]

monsterzero said:

The Perfect Storm is extremely annoying. The audience is supposed to invest their sympathy in this group of characters who throw away their lives to...save the world? Nope. Protect the life of a child? Uh-uh. Dispense justice? No siree.

To get some fish to market before they go bad. This is why they die.

I know this is a true story but...was there really a need to make a movie about them?

I don't know, but it comes off as being really goofy. That and titling it THEY DIED FOR THE GORTON'S FISHERMAN makes me laugh.

A Perfect Storm is interesting if you grew up in an area where fishing is a predominate industry. It's a difficult and dangerous profession that is often performed by people who are economically disadvantaged and in economically depressed areas. It would have been interesting if they had really emphasized that point and what that means to people who have to labor in dangerous circumstances to stay competitive in the world market and in an economy that is increasingly stratified. The trouble with the Perfect Storm is that they missed some of the real salient message.

Greed is too simplistic. This is the same with loggers and clearcutting. It's easy to condemn multi-national coorporation. It's harder to pass judgement on people who are just trying to make a living in the only industry available in the area.

I guess I have to say, and some of this is because I grew up in a rural area, is that sometimes environmentalists do a disservice to rural economies because they simply do not propose plans that would allow for sustainable economies in many areas in the country. If you want to eliminate an industry in an area, there has to be a replacement.

[tacoflavored]

monsterzero said:

One of the morals that never fail to amuse is the whole of Smokey and the Bandit: it's okay and somehow against authority to help some hicks bootleg unsafe liquor to another state on a bet. Because most of the working class people who help the Bandit out surely want to pay higher prices on shittier beer....yeah, really working against the Man that way, yup.

Aw c'mon, you're entirely missing the point of that movie if you're busy looking for morals! Turn your brain off and focus on Sally Field and the car chases/crashes already, yeesh...

[Deleted]

Awesome point, Snacktastic. It's ok to want to save the Piping Sand Plover, but saving them can also ruin an entire community of hard working people who only want to raise their families and pay their bills.

[Deleted]

treyother said:

If you are a tomboy, and your best friend is male, it's totally okay for you to suppress your love for him to help him win the love of another.

Never mind that you've always been there for him, play drums in his band, and are overall a better person than the woman he loves.

She is popular, marginally prettier than you and rich, therefore she should get him because she is ever more deserving of him than you are.

In the end, if you keep quiet and stay true, he'll realise it was you he loved all along and you'll live Happily Ever After.

Or you know, until the next popular, rich marginally prettier girl comes along.

Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't.

I don't really think Watts tried to help Keith win Amanda. She only started to help out with him AFTER he realized that Amanda wasn't actually interested in him and he developed his big plan to stick it to her. Keith and Watts also weren't in a band together. And Amanda wasn't rich - she hung out with rich people.

[slashgirl]

shriekingeel said:

I remember watching open-mouthed the first time I saw the ending of You Got Served, where the winners of the dance competition--the protagonists of the movie, the people we're supposed to identify with-- viciously taunt the losers to the wild applause of the crowd.

It was one of the most vile, mean-spirited moments I've ever seen in a movie.

If the losers hadn't said that their opponent's victory was "bullshit," then I'd be offended. As far as I'm concerned, the losers & the winners got what they deserved.

[keepittight]

bonsai said:

DoctorNemesis said:

The Matrix: If you're a freedom fighter (particularly a cool freedom fighter in a neat leather combo) it is perfectly acceptable to blow away masses of innocent people, police officers or security guards, and cause incalcuable damage to property and loss of life; after all, your enemy can be any one of them, so why take the chance?

Heh, this reminds me of an odd obsession of mine, and this isn't totally on-topic, sorry. During an action sequence, when, say, 1 car is chasing another and they crash through store windows and other cars... I always grimly think, "Someone's going to have to deal with this mess!" I realize that the wanton destruction in scenes like this is supposed to add to the excitement, but some prissy part of me always wonders who the hell is going to fix the mess later. They're going to have to deal with insurance companies, hire rentals, close the store for a couple days... But, hey, as long as the hero catches the bad guy.

I caught a glimpse of something on t.v. (no idea what it was) but it had one of those completely implausible scenes where a character crashes through the floor -- and continues crashing through the several floors below that, and you get glimpses of the apartment dwellers looking flummoxed as they see a howling person hurtling through their ceiling, then floor. This does not amuse me. First of all, it's physically impossible. Secondly -- Hey! This is someone's home and they're going to have to repair the damage!

(Honest, I have a sense of humor... There's just something about scenes like this that make me think, "But what happens after? Who's going to come back and fix that?")

This reminds of a scene in Charlie's Angels (Lord knows why I remember this, but it stuck with me), when Cameron Diaz chases the Thin Man for no ostensible reason in a race car, and they up actually on the road and cause a car crash. There's this huuuge sweeping slow motion shot of some random person's car Cameron caused to crash sailing through the air and crashing into the ground. It's supposed to look cool and isn't lingered on at all but all I could think was- yeah, the supposed heroine just caused some poor random to die or at least be seriously injured, for no good reason! (or indeed any reason at all but I'll blame that on the atrocious script), and we're supposed to find it 'cool' and instantly dismiss it!? Fuck you, McG.

I realise I sound uptight but that really bugged me.

And I agree about Kill Bill- the whole moral of Beatrix's 'roaring rampage' is a little dubious. In the context of the film I guess you can justify her killing the other members of the Deadly Vipers and Bill, but cutting off Sofie Fatale's arm? Being so cold with a four year old girl who just saw her mother die? Blinding Elle? I know Kill Bill isn't supposed -or indeed designed- to be taken 'seriously,' but the implications of some of Beatrix's actions distracted from the shiny, gory, trashy entertainment of it all for me.

[chiqui]

Actually, that didn't bother me at all. Sofie was Ishii's right-hand woman and lover (?) and in on her act, Elle was blinded in self-defense, and as for the little girl, that was mean, but Vernita was one of the ones who had deprived Beatrix of her own child, and to rub salt in those wounds she went on to have the happy home life Beatrix could have had, and was unapologetic about it. What bothered me, a little, was when Beatrix amputated all the limbs of the poor Crazy 88s, who after all were only doing their jobs!

[Deleted]

Quentin Taratino actually said in an interview with EW that that was his intention with the movie: he didn't consider Beatrix's quest as pure, it was revenge, and that because she did the same thing to the little girl that was done to her, it erased any moral superiority. He also said that he wants to make a Kill Bill 3 someday, and for it to concentrate on Vivica Fox's daughter, now grown up, who goes on her own rampage.

[Ginger]

I caught The Secret Lives of Dentists, and the ending really annoyed me. The moral seemed to be that if you avoid talking about the problems in your life, eventually they will resolve themselves (I wish that were true), and if you have an affair, it's ok as long as you come back to your husband, even if it is only because your lover dumped you.

[speciousreasoning]

My all time favorite:
If you want to avoid the Wrath of God, close your eyes.

Thank you, Indiana Jones and your finding the Ark of the Covenant. I'll keep that in mind when I meet God.