Movies that made you angry

[Goodheart]

I don't mean semi-historical, biographical movies that show atrocities like concentration camps or the rape of Nanking or the bombing of the World Trade Center and stuff like that.

I mean movies where you paid good money for admission and then immediately wished you had your money back because you feel that YOU got raped.

I've got three in mind:

1- Mulholland Drive: just wtf was that, except an exercise in being different and illogical for the sake of being different and illogical? it certainly wasn't pretty or poetic enough to be ART.

2- Memento: yeah, it was shown in unchronological order because otherwise, in proper sequence of events, it would have bored you to tears. It was boring, anyway, and on top of that you got a nice fat bonus of confusion.

3- The Prestige: look, if I wanted science fiction I would have searched for that genre. I wanted drama, a people story, and got crapped on instead with a ridiculous story and wholly implausible science.

I guess I've said it in a roundabout way: Chris Nolan owes me money.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "Lost in Translation" - I'm angry that no matter how many times I've watched that movie...

I still don't understand what the fuss is about.

[soothsayer]

2. Aw, I really liked memento

I’ll think of a bomb. I’d say most.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. I loved Memento, and thought it was not boring at all ...

Tho it's true that if it were chronological order it wasn't a hugely interesting story (actually almost 1/2 of it is, all the black and white scenes are in forward order). But it didn't need to be because the presentation order made it interesting.

The whole Tesla and sci fi part of the Prestige was a bit frustrating, but hey ... it was Bowie!

I still thought it was a cool flick.

First thing that comes to mind for me is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. There's no freaking romance in Tolkien's books. Still liked them overall but that aspect annoyed me.

[cemaphonic]

45. Just shows how important editing and narrative structure can be

There was a chronological version of The Godfather, and while it is still a compelling story, well acted, etc., it loses a lot from the original version. Plus, the structure of Memento does a good job (especially at first) in simulating the confusion of the protagonist.

As for The Prestige, I liked it, but I do agree somewhat with OP. A mystery movie about stage magicians, where the solution hinges on actual magic (even with sci-fi dressing) feels like a bit of a cheat.

[Darwins_Retriever]

4. OK

1. Under the Volcano. Most boring movie ever.

2. Last Tango in Paris. Movie created just to get Brando's rocks off.

[The Magistrate]

5. It May Have Been A Lousy Movie, Sir

But 'Under the Volcano' is one helluva good book.

[lame54]

20. It wasn't a lousy movie - he's wrong...

Albert Finney was great

[FSogol]

41. Agreed, awesome movie.n/t

[shenmue]

6. Breaker Morant

It made me angry ‘cause it plain old made me really hugely angry.

[Paladin]

11. Because of the historical events, or how the movie was made?

The historical events pissed me off royally---but I thought the movie was outstanding.

[shenmue]

50. Both

[rickyhall]

7. The Prestige: What about all the hats? Bowie was great, again.

I liked it after I watched it 5 times.

[Goodheart]

8. *SPOILER ALERT*. Amazing, wasn't it, ....

how all those hats got transported to the same place, and the cat ran to that very place, where Angier could find them. Or that the body doubles could be transported to the exact spot they were needed for a stage production. What coincidence!

[Harker]

13. That's dedication. n/t

[Mike 03]

9. Some of Lars Von Trier's work

Antichrist, Nymphomaniac and The House that Jack Built. Von Trier has proven he knows better when he made a masterpiece called Melancholia. When Antichrist was released, it was genuinely explicit and shocking for its time, and to be fair there was at least a semblance of a point. But his work has really become an assault on the viewer--it is like he is saying, "If you like my work, I really despise you, just wait and see what I'm going to make you sit through this time..." The anger comes from his in-your-face "I'm going to make you watch this actress castrate this actor in spite of the fact my film has already made its point. I'm never going to make a beautiful film like Melancholia again. That was an aberration; I'm back to depravity."

It's not that his work isn't meaningful. It's also that what he thinks is shocking in 2018 is really old hat, because I guess he missed the horror porn of the last 15 years, with remakes of The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit on Your Grave and Last House on the Left (not to mention the Hostel series). And right in his own European backyard we had the "New French Extremity" with films like Martyrs, Frontieres, Inside and High Tension.

So he's behind the times in terms of what is "shocking" and most of what he argues in his films has been better-argued by other filmmakers.

I respectfully admit that Mulholland Drive is on my list of best films ever, and probably my favorite since probably Scorsese's Casino (which is not to say there haven't been great, great movies since Mulholland Drive). It's not that difficult to understand compared to something like Inland Empire. David Lynch's "difficult" films are almost always about the inner turmoil and extreme pathology that is produced in a person who attempts to conceal the truth about something momentous from himself or herself: Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive and (as far as I can discern) Inland Empire are all about this one theme. Blue Velvet is almost like the stepping stone to Lynch arriving at that as a theme he wished to explore for the next 20 years.

One of the greatest things Roger Ebert ever did was have that huge open discussion of Mulholland Drive. I think he even taught a college-level course on that film. I participated and he published my interpretation--but I bring this up not because of that: the important part is that almost everybody, no matter how much they said they didn't understand the movie--pretty much did get it. The answers were pretty much the same ballpark.

Twenty years later, I wonder if modern audiences would still be so confused over the meaning of Mulholland Drive. I see real signs of progress, for example when listening to Millennials interpret something like Black Swan and arrive fairly quickly at a conclusion like "You know, I think the two ballerinas are actually the same girl." I don't think they'd struggle that much with Mulholland Drive.

[Zoonart]

16. Directy to your point...

you know what is truly shocking in 2021... emotional honesty and depth of character.

[Goodheart]

18. "Real signs of progress"? You mean more people pretending to "get it"?

The king has no clothes. It has no "meaning" except for being weird for its own sake. Utter nonsense.

I liken it to QAnon. Somebody sits back and says "let's see how much nonsense I can get the willing to swallow." David Lynch is laughing his butt off at all the "critics" who claim to understand it.

I want a refund.

[XanaDUer2]

26. I've watched MD dozens of times

a favorite of mine. Great post

[Bleacher Creature]

10. Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

The movie tried so hard to please a small subset of fans, which ultimately resulted in a pointless and idiotic movie that was supposed to tie up the entire Skywalker saga.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

38. Yes. That movie could have benefitted with a cameo from Jar-Jar Binks.

[Harker]

12. "The Limits of Control."

"Mulholland Drive."

"The Big Red One."

[Varaddem]

14. "Sideways"

Ought to have at least one likable character in a comedy.It would’ve been less tedious if they had driven off a cliff.

[Zoonart]

15. Last Tango in Paris

Still holds the record as the only movie I ever walked out on.

[tblue37]

23. The only movie I walked out on was "40 Carats"--I was horrified that a great actress like Liv Ullman

was in such an awful film.

[forgotmylogin]

17. The Bone Collector

(Spoiler)

It seems like it's a gritty procedural like SEVEN, but at the last minute the movie is "Aha! The killer is this one random guy who showed up in one scene at the beginning and you didn't know!"

[XanaDUer2]

25. I hated that movie nt

[yardwork]

31. I agree. That ticked me off.

[Leith]

19. Falling Down

The Bad Day of a Privileged Asshole is a better title.

Michael Douglas plays a guy who gets fed up with the inconveniences of modern day urban life so he sets out to make it a hundred times worse.

He's stuck in a traffic jam so he leaves his car in it and walks off, thus makes the jam worse.

He can't get change at a convenience store so he takes a baseball bat and trashes the place.

The rest of the movie goes on the same way. The only good part is when a couple thugs try to take his briefcase so he attacks them with the baseball bat (the only good part of the movie).

*spoiler*
At the end, when the police catch up to him, he's shocked that HE is the bad guy.

[Goodheart]

21. Well, at least it had a plausible story. :)

[First Speaker]

22. A popular film--*The Sting* (Spoiler Alert!)

...the ending makes no sense whatever. Supposedly, Hickey--the "FBI agent"--kills Gondorff, after Gondorff supposedly shoots Hooker. Then Snyder rushes Lonigan out, who's still crying out for the money he's lost. Then Hickey and Gondorff laugh at their sting, and Hooker and Gondorff walk out of the basement into Chicago. Happy ending. OK...but what if they had walked right into Snyder and Lonigan, who for all they knew were still hanging around the area? And did they think they'd be able to keep off of Lonigan's radar forever? He was bound to discover they were still alive at some point. He would not have been amused. I almost screamed at the theater screen the first time I saw the movie, and I haven't changed my opinion. Still, I must confess--*Vertigo* has an equally large hole in its plot--didn't anyone *look* at that body?--and it doesn't bother me at all. But Hitchcock can get away with anything. Mere mortals can't...

[XanaDUer2]

24. Saw 2

I do like Mulholland Dr, though.

[rurallib]

27. "Blair Witch Project" overhyped and underdone

[Goodheart]

28. Oh, I forgot that one. It made me so angry because of that handheld camera

No lie, I got horrible motion sickness that ruined the rest of the evening.

[rurallib]

29. me too

and it was a shitty film to boot

[yardwork]

30. I liked those movies, especially Mulholland Drive.

What movies do you like?

[Goodheart]

32. Fargo, Schindler's List, Lawrence of Arabia, It Happened One Night, Sunset Boulevard,

City of God, Spirited Away, Leon the Professional, Pan's Labyrinth, Back to the Future, Once Upon a Time in the West, Aliens, Paths of Glory, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Tootsie, Arthur, Toy Story, A Clockwork Orange, Amelie, To Kill A Mockingbird, Downfall, Up, American Psycho, The Sound of Music,...........

[yardwork]

33. I like a lot of those movies.

In fact, of the ones I've seen, I like them all!

[FSogol]

43. Translation: You hate movies.

[Goodheart]

44. Strange takeaway from that, but whatever.

LOL

[gratuitous]

34. A.I.

According to what I've read, Stanley Kubrick worked for years to try to pull off a movie out of a short story called "Supertoys Last All Summer Long." After Kubrick died, Steven Spielberg picked up the project, and demonstrated irrefutably why Kubrick couldn't make a movie out of the story.

SPOILERS: Husband and wife have an eight-year-old son. Sonny has a near-drowning experience and lapses into a coma. The couple are distraught, but Husband works for this toy company that's working on a prototype robot that mimics a human boy. Husband brings the monstrosity home to Wife, who is initially horrified (as she should be) by the robot. However, as the robot pads around after her, Wife eventually relents, and activates the robot's "human" mode by reciting a series of unconnected words (Woman, Man, Person, Television, Camera, or something like that). Robot becomes Boy and the family feels whole again for a little while. Naturally, Son comes out of his coma about this time, and the family realizes too late that they're one member too big, and Boy is outcast. The rest of the movie unspools from there as the audience contemplates either leaving or suicide.

The horrible thing about Robot is that it's 8 years old. Next year, it will be 8 years old. Ten years from now, it will be 8 years old. Robot will never get older, will never develop, hit puberty, graduate high school, fall in love, get married, or anything. It will be 8 years old forever. When you're 63 and you've just stubbed your toe on the coffee table, and you're hopping around in agony, here comes Robot with drawing number 8,941 in a never-ending series of juvenile drawings of "Mommy and Me" and get out of my way, you little shit! Mommy needs tylenol!

Thinking about the premise of the story for more than five seconds, anyone should see this gaping hole in the plot, and it pisses me off no end that Spielberg picked up this project and the studio actually brought it to market. I may get over it if I outlive Spielberg by 2 hours and 26 minutes.

[Goodheart]

35. I passed on that one... happy now that I did. :)

[gratuitous]

36. Lucky

[skypilot]

47. I never saw his being 8 years old forever as problematic.

I think the film established that the "Mecha" were disposable at best and despised at worst. The same Mecha would probably not be in the picture when his owner turned 63. Anyway...I actually like this movie a lot.

[Tommy Carcetti]

49. I just remember being depressed after watching AI. nt

[Totally Tunsie]

37. Here's my two:

Scent of a Woman - Al Pacino
Just so condescending and misogynistic. Awful characters. Insulting to women.

Soldier Blue
Horrendously gory. People leaving at the end couldn't even speak after sitting through the ending. Nightmares for weeks.

[Harker]

46. Good picks. I mean... bad picks.

"Soldier Blue" I've finally nearly forgotten fifty years after.

"Scent of a Woman" was insulting to everyone, or should've been.

[milestogo]

39. Battlefield Earth

John Travolta, how could you.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

40. The Men Who Stare at Goats

Well, ok, I didn't pay any money. It was on cable. But, they owe me two hours of life.

[Ron Obvious]

42. Prometheus

I've ranted about it here before, but it what Airplane! was for funny, Prometheus was for stupidity.

Memento and Mulholland Drive are two of my favourite movies, which makes me want to see The Prestige now!

[Tommy Carcetti]

48. Cruel Intentions

I know it was supposed to be a modern day take on Dangerous Liasons.

Bigger point was that I found everyone in the movie--including the protagonists, who I am assuming you were supposed to like--sleazy and unlikable.

Whenever I watch a movie where all the characters highly unlikable, I just wonder what is the point of spending an entire couple of hours watching them. And that includes movies that are otherwise well-written, well-directed and well-acted. (See Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street.)

As for Christopher Nolan, I find him rather overrated. Actually Memento is one of his movies that I actually did personally enjoy.

But I found The Dark Knight highly overrated. Ditto for Dunkirk. Inception and Interstellar had interesting concepts but were mostly just headscratchers.