What are your favorite subversive movies?

[Contrapuntal]

@WhyNot

Citizen Ruth. Everyone goes into it expecting to have their point of view emerge victorious and righteous, and instead it admirably skews *both *sides of the abortion debate.

What a great movie!

I’m voting for* Dr. Strangelove*.

[Lakai]

@Sr_Siete

It was an adaptation of the Brett “American Psycho” Easton Ellis novel of the same title, about as bleak and fucked-up as the movie. The James Van Der Beek character was even supposed to be John Bateman’s kid brother.

It may have been marketed wrongly afterwards, but this is not a case of a director running wild with the original source: Avary did exactly what he was being paid for.

I never read any of Brett Easton’s novels, but my understanding is that the movie is as critical of the characters in Easton’s novels as it is of shallow college films.

My source is a review by Ken Hanke:

Many critics are villifying The Rules of Attraction as a shallow, pointless film about shallow characters, written and filmed in a too-hip- for-its-own-good style. I think that misses the point. At bottom, I think it’s a film about the tragedy of a group of people who would like to be something other than shallow and pointless, but don’t have a clue how to go about it. As a result, they fixate on trying to connect with each other, or rather they fixate on trying to connect with their ideas of each other. These characters are doomed to forever chase after ill- defined phantoms of their own imaginings, never connecting with anyone or even with themselves. Writer-director Roger Avary hasn’t so much filmed Brett Easton Ellis’ novel as he has filmed a critique of it and its empty hipness. At the same time, The Rules of Attraction offers an antidotal comment on such truly shallow films about college life as American Pie 2 and Van Wilder, stripping away the veneer of fraudulent cuteness and laying bare the sexual desperation and yearning for something more that those films don’t even recognize as existing. The truth is that James Van Der Beek’s Sean Bateman is Van Wilder with all the bogus charm removed. It may go too far, since it offers no middle ground. But that doesn’t invalidate it. It simply means that that middle ground isn’t the focus of this film. Working in a stylized, layered, and utterly conscious manner, Avary plunges us into the nightmarish world these characters inhabit. It’s not realistic. It’s not meant to be. We are inhabiting the world as it’s perceived by the characters. It’s a daring, uncomfortable approach that’s bound to alienate a lot of viewers.

[joebuck20]

Last Action Hero. A spot on send up of the action genre and what would happen to a Schwarzenegger-esque action hero in the real world. Also a perfect example of mismarketed movie. I seem to remember that it was sold as just another standard, “blow shit up real good” action flick instead of the parody that it was, and I think that’s why there’s a lot of hate for it.

Also in that vein, but nowhere near as glitzy or spoofy, is JCVD, another great look at how action heroes would fare in the real world.

[Maserschmidt]

I’m struggling with the overt vs. covert nature, but I think of Forrest Gump as subversive. It’s a funny, sometimes heartbreaking comedy that reinforces the notion that liberals are immoral, dishonest losers.

[msmith537]

@Lakai

I never read any of Brett Easton’s novels, but my understanding is that the movie is as critical of the characters in Easton’s novels as it is of shallow college films.

It’s actually Pattrick Bateman, not John. (One of my favorite subversive movies FYI).

The characters in Eason’s novels and the film adaptations (Less Than Zero, American Psycho and Rules of Attraction) are supposed to be a critique on the upper middle class and affluent youth culture of permiscuois sex, drugs and alchohol. In contrast to American Pie and Van Wilder that portray it as a non stop frat part, Ellis portrays a bleak soulless lonliness of a world where the characters and all their “friends” care about is indulging in their particular vices.

Other favorite subversive films:

1984
Brazil
Catch 22
Donnie Darko
Eyes Wide Shut
Ferris Beulers Day Off
Fight Club
Full Metal Jacket
Heathers
Office Space
River’s Edge
Starship Troopers

[Shagnasty]

More votes for Heathers and Catch 22. Napoleon Dynamite could would be an honorable mention. I am going to go deep with a dark horse in Revenge of the Nerds.

[MovieMogul]

No offense, people, but there is absolutely nothing subversive about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If the film had decided to show, in its 3rd act, that Ferris was an actual narcissistic tool and that the Principal was the actual hero, then that would be subversive. But “popular charismatic HS kid pulls off hijinx and gets away with it”? About as mainstream and conventional as you can get. I’m not denying the film is entertaining, but subversive? Nuh-uh.

[msmith537]

@ArchiveGuy

No offense, people, but there is absolutely nothing subversive about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If the film had decided to show, in its 3rd act, that Ferris was an actual narcissistic tool and that the Principal was the actual hero, then that would be subversive. But “popular charismatic HS kid pulls off hijinx and gets away with it”? About as mainstream and conventional as you can get. I’m not denying the film is entertaining, but subversive? Nuh-uh.

I agree and recind my nomination.

I will replace it with another Matthew Broderick film: Election

[Argent_Towers]

Crash (1996) may be my favorite, as it deconstructs the cinematic obsession with car crashes and applies it to a personal level.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Over the Edge (1979)
Cops and Robbers (1973)
The Groove Tube (1974)

[unwashed_brain]

@Lakai

One of my favorites is Rules of Attraction. Roger Avary, who adapted the screenplay and directed the movie, became virtually unemployable after the film. Everyone thought it would be another Van Wilder type film

I don’t think anyone vaguely familiar with the source material or its author thought this. Roger Avary also co-wrote Pulp Fiction. These two things don’t add up to Van Wilder.

To the OP, mine is Fight Club. Heathers was also very subversive.

[Quercus]

I’m guessing that movies like Brazil, Norma Rae, or Malcom X that are pretty clearly indictments of current systems are too overt to qualify. Because obviously there’s a pretty big list of them.

How about Do the Right Thing, is that subtle enough?

Or The Unforgiven, which subverts to destruction the classic Western.

[Tranquilis]

I’m a bit surprised that Wag the Dog hasn’t come up.

Also, my favorite obscure black comedy, A Shock to the System delivers a rather nasty bite to the business executive community.

[Keith_Berry]

@Lakai

One of my favorites is Rules of Attraction. Roger Avary, who adapted the screenplay and directed the movie, became virtually unemployable after the film.

It probably didn’t help his career any that he was convicted of manslaughter and served a prison sentence. He just got out last year.

[RikWriter]

@msmith537

Starship Troopers

I thought one of the requirements was “subtle.”

[msmith537]

@Shagnasty

I am going to go deep with a dark horse in Revenge of the Nerds.

I’d go with that. I always thought the movie was supposed to be a metaphore for racism and prejudice with the “nerds” acting as a sort of non-controvertial analogue for Jews, homosexuals, ethnic minorities and other groups.
For it’s time, **Animal House **was very subversive. IIRC, it was one of the first films to deconstruct the notion that the clean-cut jocks from the well to do families are the good guys and the fat drunk and stupid fuckups are the bad guys.

[guizot]

@Lakai

According to Wikipedia, subversion “refers to an attempt to transform the established social order, its structures of power, authority, exploitation, servitude, and hierarchy.”…

What about subversion of form for its own sake? Because the presupposition in the thread title makes three questions:

1. “I think ____________ is a subversive movie, because…”
2. “I like _________________ and I think it’s subversive.”
3. “I like _________________ because it’s subversive.”

[QUOTE=RikWriter]
I thought one of the requirements was “subtle.”
[/quote]
(Okay, make that four questions.)

I’ll throw out Medium Cool.

[thelurkinghorror]

@ArchiveGuy

No offense, people, but there is absolutely nothing subversive about Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If the film had decided to show, in its 3rd act, that Ferris was an actual narcissistic tool and that the Principal was the actual hero, then that would be subversive. But “popular charismatic HS kid pulls off hijinx and gets away with it”? About as mainstream and conventional as you can get. I’m not denying the film is entertaining, but subversive? Nuh-uh.

I feel similarly about the Breakfast Club. The message seems to be that “opposites attract” (rich girl/poor guy), “if you’re a little odd or quirky, you can only be acceptable if you give up your core values for a guy,” and “geeks never get laid.”

[Lakai]

@guizot

What about subversion of form for its own sake? Because the presupposition in the thread title makes three questions:

1. “I think ____________ is a subversive movie, because…”
2. “I like _________________ and I think it’s subversive.”
3. “I like _________________ because it’s subversive.”

Do you want to name films that you don’t like, but are subversive? Or maybe films you feel ambivalent towards, but want to name them anyway? Go ahead.

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

Bob Roberts

A soundtrack album was never released because Robbins feared that the songs might be played out of context.