# Movies that make you angry

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 1, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538 "2008-08-01T20:46:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 11

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**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/201 "2008-08-06T16:25:35Z")

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[QUOTE=An Gadaí]  
Are Jewish mobsters not fairly standard in movies?  
_Once Upon A Time In America_ and _Casino_ have Jewish mobsters don’t they?  
[/QUOTE]

I meant mobsters as in the muscle men, not the bosses or associates. I don’t recall these two movies having that. But maybe Im wrong?

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**Author:** ![meenie7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@meenie7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meenie7)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/202 "2008-08-06T18:32:29Z")

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[QUOTE=Malthus]  
The book was inspired by a true story about the writer’s childhood friend.

> **[Takoma Voice: Features](http://web.archive.org/web/20060522104539/http://www.takoma.com/archives/copy/2005/06/features_takomaarchives0605.html)**

[/QUOTE]

Awww, how sad ☹

Makes it more understandable to me, then. A lot of writing draws bits and pieces from real life. That poor little girl ☹

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**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/203 "2008-08-06T19:20:58Z")

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[QUOTE=meenie7]  
Awww, how sad ☹

Makes it more understandable to me, then. A lot of writing draws bits and pieces from real life. That poor little girl ☹  
[/QUOTE]

The funny part is that the true story was considered by his editors to be “unbelievable” and so he changed it for the fiction:

[spoiler]In reality his friend was struck by lightning out of the blue:

“Over the next several months, Paterson put the story of David and Lisa on paper. Bridge to Terabithia ultimately became the tale of Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke living in rural Virginia rather than suburban Takoma Park. Nor was Leslie struck by lightning (editors said no one would believe it).” [/spoiler]

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**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/204 "2008-08-06T20:04:17Z")

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I totally understand the “but…WHY?” reaction to Bridge to Terabithia - I found the movie and the book heartbreaking. I think the point of the story is for us to deal with our own reaction to the tragedy. We often have no control over life’s events, so our only choice is to react to them as best we can. The boy turns tragedy into hope at the end of the story. (This sounds corny, I know, but I can’t think of any other way to say it.) What I’m trying to say is that I can understand feeling anger at the movie (or book), but if that’s all you feel then maybe you aren’t done with it yet, maybe it needs more time to process.

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**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/205 "2008-08-06T20:13:01Z")

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[QUOTE=gaffa]  
…  
**Ex-Leper:** Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I’m a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood’s gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! “You’re cured, mate.” Bloody do-gooder.  
[/QUOTE]

**Brian:** There’s no pleasing some people.  
**Ex-Leper:** That’s just what Jesus said!

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**Author:** ![meenie7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7993a0/32.png) [@meenie7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/meenie7)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/206 "2008-08-06T20:41:43Z")

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[QUOTE=starryspice]  
I totally understand the “but…WHY?” reaction to Bridge to Terabithia - I found the movie and the book heartbreaking. I think the point of the story is for us to deal with our own reaction to the tragedy. We often have no control over life’s events, so our only choice is to react to them as best we can. The boy turns tragedy into hope at the end of the story. (This sounds corny, I know, but I can’t think of any other way to say it.) What I’m trying to say is that I can understand feeling anger at the movie (or book), but if that’s all you feel then maybe you aren’t done with it yet, maybe it needs more time to process.  
[/QUOTE]

I don’t remember the very end of the book – the sad part left such a mark on me, especially because the teacher who was reading it to us burst into tears when she read it to us. I think I was just so struck by the fact that this was something _so awful_ it made a big strong grownup who I respected weep (she didn’t just tear up, she was sobbing and had to stop reading for a few minutes) that I never really fully absorbed the very end, when maybe there was something that would have made me feel better.

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**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/207 "2008-08-06T20:45:07Z")

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I’m in a minority, but _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_. When I first saw it as a teen, I was incensed. “He’s getting away with breaking the rules!” I _so_ wanted him to get caught and suspended for a semester or something. And I was mad that all the authority figures were portrayed as complete dolts.

Later, as I got old, I learned to appreciate the humor a little more and didn’t take it so personally. But it really turned me off Matthew Broderick for a long time.

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**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/208 "2008-08-06T20:47:32Z")

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[QUOTE=starryspice]  
I totally understand the “but…WHY?” reaction to Bridge to Terabithia - I found the movie and the book heartbreaking. I think the point of the story is for us to deal with our own reaction to the tragedy. We often have no control over life’s events, so our only choice is to react to them as best we can. The boy turns tragedy into hope at the end of the story. (This sounds corny, I know, but I can’t think of any other way to say it.) What I’m trying to say is that I can understand feeling anger at the movie (or book), but if that’s all you feel then maybe you aren’t done with it yet, maybe it needs more time to process.  
[/QUOTE]

**The Bridge To Terabithia** is one of my favourite films of all time, and although it made my heart ache painfully in places, I still came away from it with a sense of the wonderful positivity of the human spirit.

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**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/209 "2008-08-06T20:53:13Z")

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[QUOTE=RandMcnally]  
“The Notebook” still pisses me off.

“It’s so sweet and romantic. Aww…” No one ever remembers that Allie was a cheating whore. She completely lied to and screwed over her fiance.

“But she was in love!”

So ‘being in love’ gives me permission to act like a despicable human being? And besides, if it were the fiance who cheated on her he’d just be called the douche bag he rightfully was, not try to repackage it as being a romantic.  
(grumble)Cheating whore(grumble).  
[/QUOTE]

Yes! Thank you!  
I had similar complaints about _Bridges of Madison County_ and _Brokeback Mountain_. Adultery makes me angry.

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**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/210 "2008-08-06T21:12:13Z")

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[QUOTE=Skammer]  
Yes! Thank you!  
I had similar complaints about _Bridges of Madison County_ and _Brokeback Mountain_. Adultery makes me angry.  
[/QUOTE]

_Serendipity_ gave me the same reaction. Cusack & Beckinsale’s characters each dump a long-term relationship so they can hook-up with each other. Maybe it’s my history but I couldn’t get past the pain they caused their former loves. Just seemed overly selfish. Not angry about though.

_America’s Sweethearts_ was a lot of fun. In general I like John Cusack films.

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**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/211 "2008-08-06T21:29:26Z")

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[QUOTE=Rachael Rage]  
**Argent Towers** for the win. 😃  
[/QUOTE]

By about 85 lengths. No, more. 100 furlongs. Maybe more.

As for Mel Gibson, I strongly suspect that he would have played Christ in that Passion movie had he been a little younger. However, I ought not comment on the _fillum_ since I have not seen it. I suspect further that he does indeed indulge himself in private in the manner described above - but maybe more of us would too, if we had that father of his as our father.

Movies that make you angry because you wasted your time and money? \* August Rush\* springs to mind, the latest in a sad list of mistaken trips to the cinema.

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**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/212 "2008-08-06T21:32:57Z")

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[QUOTE=vison]  
By about 85 lengths. No, more. 100 furlongs. Maybe more.

As for Mel Gibson, I strongly suspect that he would have played Christ in that Passion movie had he been a little younger.  
[/QUOTE]

And of course the fact that he’d have to play a filthy Jew. :eek:

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**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/213 "2008-08-06T21:45:23Z")

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I think \*Bridge to Terebithia \* was a horrendously sad book, though I didn’t see the movie yet. I cried when reading it as a kid (and my brother made fun of me, that’s what I remember most about that experience). There is some redemption at the end, when Jess becomes closer to his little sister (who had been previously scorned by him), and his art teacher becomes involved in his life.

Here are some movies that made me angry because I didn’t think there WAS any uplifting, redemptive bit at the end. Just totally negative, horrible, tragic. I’m a fan of a well-done tragedy, ala Shakespeare, but these just left me feeling terrible, and then angry. The fact that they are well-made and acted only makes it worse, because you really care about the characters and then, they get completely fucked over:

_The Pledge_, with Jack Nicholson. Talk about a protagonist trying to do the right thing getting royally fucked over by random happenstance.

_House of Sand and Fog_: psychos ruin the life of an immigrant family.

_Dancer in the Dark_: I will never see another von Trier film again.

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**Author:** ![vison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/e47774/32.png) [@vison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vison)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/214 "2008-08-06T21:59:34Z")

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[QUOTE=Freudian Slit]  
And of course the fact that he’d have to play a filthy Jew. :eek:  
[/QUOTE]

But . . . but . . . Jesus wasn’t a REAL Jew!!! :rolleyes: :eek: :rolleyes: :eek:

It is one of those sweetly precious oddities I treasure, that some Christians can’t accept Jesus’ birth family.

Sometimes I feel a bit sad for Gibson. He was wonderful in\* Gallipoli\*, but when you stop to think of it, he was nailed to a cross in that movie, too. (And that movie made me angry, everything about Gallipoli makes me angry.)

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**Author:** ![mr.jp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@mr.jp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr.jp)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/215 "2008-08-06T22:08:04Z")

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[QUOTE=Skammer]  
I’m in a minority, but _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_. When I first saw it as a teen, I was incensed. “He’s getting away with breaking the rules!” I _so_ wanted him to get caught and suspended for a semester or something. And I was mad that all the authority figures were portrayed as complete dolts.

Later, as I got old, I learned to appreciate the humor a little more and didn’t take it so personally. But it really turned me off Matthew Broderick for a long time.  
[/QUOTE]

Boy, were you a square. Didn’t he just take one day off?

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**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/216 "2008-08-06T22:09:10Z")

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[QUOTE=Rubystreak]  
_The Pledge_, with Jack Nicholson. Talk about a protagonist trying to do the right thing getting royally fucked over by random happenstance.  
[/QUOTE]

Well…

He does basically use his girlfriend’s little girl as human bait to try and draw out the serial killer. If you believe the ends justify the means, all good, but I’d also say it’s an example of a guy perhaps going too far.

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**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\
**Post date:** [August 6, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/217 "2008-08-06T22:16:52Z")

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[QUOTE=mr. jp]  
Boy, were you a square. Didn’t he just take one day off?  
[/QUOTE]

Actually, I remember that he took something like 9 absent days but changed it via the computer to two.

Still, I totally wanted to be Ferris when I was younger. (Well…date him, anyway.)

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**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/218 "2008-08-07T00:15:03Z")

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[QUOTE=Skammer]  
I’m in a minority, but _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_. When I first saw it as a teen, I was incensed. “He’s getting away with breaking the rules!” I _so_ wanted him to get caught and suspended for a semester or something. And I was mad that all the authority figures were portrayed as complete dolts.  
[/quote]  
I despised that movie, too, but not for your reasons. Afterall, I was no stranger to breaking the rules and skipping class every once in awhile.

My problem was simply that I hated that smarmy, manipulative bastard. He was a user and a cheater who thought nothing of lying to his family and friends to get his way and who ultimately suffered no repercussions for his selfishness. Weirdly, I empathized most with his sister, who should have sold him up the river when she had a chance instead of covering for him. I actually felt betrayed by that.

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**Author:** ![HoboStew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@HoboStew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoboStew)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/219 "2008-08-07T00:29:05Z")

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[QUOTE=AuntiePam]  
_Crash_ is my choice too. I might hate it less if it hadn’t won the Best Picture Oscar.  
[/QUOTE]  
This movie pisses me off to no end. People treated it like its this powerful commentary on modern day racism, when its just a bunch of cartoon characters without a trace of believability. Heavy-handed doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m getting angry just typing this.

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**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2008, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-make-you-angry/458538/220 "2008-08-07T01:00:35Z")

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re: The Pledge

His motivation was to save the child from the serial killer, and he thought the only way he could do it was by catching the guy. Otherwise, he couldn’t proect the child. The fact that it didn’t work because the killer died before he could be caught in the trap is what made him look like a crackpot who endangered the girl for no reason. And the consequence was that he died alone, a broken alcoholic, reviled and misunderstood. Arguably he went too far, but holy shit! That was a fucking HARSH ending.

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