What movies do you actively hate?

Cafe Society
101

I got the sense of misanthropy from a combination of things. The first is George’s completely inability to write empathetic or sympathetic characters. It’s as if he has absolutely no clue about how people interact with each other or what could realistically motivate a person to do an action (any action). Why would a man be motivated to gain unspeakably dark power? George correctly guesses “love.” Okay. I can go with that. Anakin’s love for Padme. But then…George doesn’t understand why love is a motivation. Is it fear? If so, fear for what? And how can that fear be defeated through wielding power? So what we see is some vague dreams about how he loses the woman he supposedly loves, except…we never have any reason to believe he loves her (even though the whole 2nd movie was supposed to be about that).

So, Annie is turning against the Jedi Counsel because…of something. They don’t take him seriously enough and give him enough power, I guess. So that’s when he turns to Palpatine, who is supposed to be darkly seductive (and possibly a gay pedophile, I was never clear) and who lures Annie to the Dark Side, grooming him as his apprentice. Okay. That works for me. Except…the Jedi Counsel is utterly hapless and every time you see them, the Benny Hill theme might as well be playing. The only one who seems to know what he’s doing at any given time is Obi-Wan, who apparently suffers from the fatal flaw of listening to the Counsel and believing in it. George leaves the viewer in an impossible situation. The bad guys suck. The good guys suck. Obi Wan apparently sucks. Only Annie doesn’t suck…except, Annie is a complete mess with no clear motivations, no human emotions, and no ability to connect with anybody on any meaningful level. He isn’t even an anti hero. He’s barely human. His fall isn’t a tragedy. How could it be? He wasn’t that great before he fell. Obi Wan succumbing to the dark side would have been a tragedy.

And then we get the most calculated, manipulative moment in all of cinema history. When I saw it, I realized that George Lucas either has the emotional and mental maturity of an 11 year old, or he is so deeply cynical that he thinks he can tug a few heart strings and accomplish…well, fuck, I still don’t know what he was trying to accomplish. That’s when he had the entire Jedi Counsel destroyed. So…are we supposed to be happy that Annie has finally accomplished something? Are we supposed to be sorry they’re killed? They’re not even two-dimensional characters, so I’m not sure. Hell, a few of them we’ve never even seen before. And then he massacres the entire Jr Jedi League. “Hey look guys, he’s killing kids! I could have spent the last 90 minutes carefully crafting the story of a man who is doing his best to be good in a world he doesn’t understand but slowly and gradually succumbs to the sweet siren song of power while protecting his wife, a woman he would die for since he’s earned her devotion, but who gives a fuck? Instead I’ll show you a being that barely functions as human and then we can all glory in the badness of his downfall! Look how evil he is! He’s like Darth Vader! Remember him? I used to jack off to what a bad-ass that dude was.”

But all of this could have been tied together, somewhat, in the final scene between Obi, Annie, and Panda. Instead of anything redemptive (for the characters, for the movie, for Lucas, for science fiction, for life) we get the final proof that George Lucus has serious problems. I mean, he actually had his characters say these words

This was written and delivered with complete and utter sincerity. To Lucas, complete moral relativism is an excuse for…well, hell, for something. I mean, I guess Annie wasn’t really evil after all. I mean, I’m sure Darth was evil from the rebel’s pov, but from Darth’s pov, the rebels were evil! This was not a carefully constructed analysis of nuanced motivations where people are given impossible decisions and need to make the less evil or most good choice based on cultural, personal, and religious considerations that have shaped them their entire lives. This was, I truly believe, George Lucas presenting his view of humanity, where people act without rhyme or reason, without conscience, and without emotion.

And that doesn’t even touch what a fucked up character Padme is. I guess the sad thing is that she would have been a perfect consort for Darth, had she lived. She was still willing to try to talk sense in him after she learned he killed a bunch of children, she fell in love with him after she learned he killed a bunch of sand people, she fucked him even though she knew it was breaking a vow that he had made (it’s sort of like the never trust a cheater thing. if he’d lie to an ancient religion about you, what makes you think he wouldn’t lie to you about blowing Palpatine or whatever the hell he was doing). And they out-right stated she lost the will to live because Annie died.

I guess her children and can go fuck themselves, the little bastards.

102

pepperlandgirl, that was what I would liked to have said about that piece of shit of a movie but was never articulate enough to.

103

The Cook, The Thief…; Magnolia; Moulin Rouge; Gone With the Wind.

104

Wow, yeah, definitely.

105

Argh!

He can. He didn’t, in these movies, but he sure can. Watch “American Graffiti”, please! Lucas was making a tribute to the serials of his youth, with their stilted dialog and lame acting. He’s only directed three films “THX-1138”, “American Graffiti” and the Star Wars saga. Watch his other two films, the dystopian SF film and the one about one night with a group of teens cruising in cars. Ignore, for a moment, that this director went on to create a series of blockbusters. Watch the scene in the radio station with Wolfman Jack, a non-actor, and Richard Dryfuss (I can’t find the link on YouTube). He’s a decent writer who, for reasons of his own, chose to deliberately write the space opera in a purple and rather lumpy style.

106

Yeah, I’ve seen that argument over and over. I’ve even seen American Graffiti. I don’t believe that Lucas chose to write three big-budget crap movies. I don’t even think American Graffiti is a good movie (and I saw it before my loathing of the man reached epic proportions). “He chose to write crap” doesn’t make a film any less crap. I’m not going to shrug it all away as a conscious decision–in many ways, that makes it worse. I’m to believe that he knows how to write believable dialogue, motivations that make sense, and events that are not sickeningly emotionally manipulative to their very core, and he chose not to out of some bizarre need to pay “homage” to the shit films of his youth? That just makes the movie more disturbing, and Lucas ten times more culpable.

To contrast, I adore Raiders of the Lost Ark even though, as I’ve posted on this board before, there are some serious, serious plot holes in that film. In fact, it doesn’t stand up to any sort of logical analysis, because after about one minute of thought it becomes extremely clear that Indiana could have stayed home and it wouldn’t have made a difference at all. A commonly argued (and accepted) defense is that Raiders… is in the tradition of the old serials. I believe it. It doesn’t actually detract from the movie because the dialogue is believable (Dr. Jones never shouts that from his POV, Nazis are evil), the action is exciting, the motivations make “movie sense” (even if they are illogical ultimately) and it’s truly escapist fair that doesn’t take itself seriously and doesn’t ask the audience to take it seriously, either. It takes the audience by the hand and says “Let’s go on an adventure! I promise you’ll have a good time.”

Revenge of the Sith was deeply sincere. It is difficult to tell because Lucas is such a poor director and absolutely tone-deaf when it comes to writing, but I do think he meant it as a Serious Film and intended his audience to view it as such. So it either is a old-timey science-fiction action adventure serial that fails spectacularly because it takes itself too seriously, or its a serious movie that fails spectacularly because Lucas is a hack with a tin-ear and major issues. But even if I buy the “he meant it” he is no less responsible for making a very bad movie with a very disturbing subtext.

107

pepperlandgirl - I really enjoyed reading your critique. I do not “get” the love for Star Wars, but I realize tastes vary. I often can’t explain my reasons as well as you did, but what of the things that’s really annoying & hateful to me is the “monomyth” argument. The “it’s great cause Lucas studied Campbell, and it’s simple causes it follows a simple universal myth.” Humbug!! Whether simple or complex, a story still needs to be well told!

108

Indeed! And it’s not like Lucas is the only filmmaker or writer who has studied Campbell. (Just like the guys who did The Matrix aren’t the only ones who studied Plato’s Republic!).

I really don’t get Star Wars (that is, the original trilogy). I mean, I understand that for a lot of people, it’s one of those “right movies at the right times” and they have powerful memories and feelings attached to the series. I don’t get it, but I don’t think less of people who enjoy the hell out of them. And I found Eps 1 and 2 relatively inoffensive (though i can’t remember them. I know I’ve seen them. I paid to see them for Christ’s sake! But I have thankfully blocked 95% of them). But Revenge of the Sith was just a completely different experience for me. I went from bored, to shocked, to offended, to laughing so hard my sides hurt (“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”), to offended again.

109

There’s not a lot of movies I hate, as opposed to movies I just wont’ watch. But one movie that offends me is The Comic, which Carl Reiner and Dick Van Dyke made in 1969 as a, um, tribute to the silent-era comedians. Their idea of a tribute was to take Charlie Chaplin’s womanizing, Buster Keaton’s alcoholism, and Stan Laurel’s inability to maintain a long-term marriage; and roll them into one flawed character whose only saving grace was his having made funny movies.

I hate it because there was a lot more to Charlie Chaplin that just gags, Buster Keaton gave ten times as much money to down-on-their-luck performers than he ever drank up, and Stan Laurel didn’t die alone and forgotten in a crappy apartment watching himself on TV like the movie’s character. People would go to Stan Laurel’s crappy apartment and he’d invite them in and talk about the old days. One of those drop-in guests was Dick Van Dyke.

110

My nomination is for Bad Guy. Vile and reprehensible film. I hated the fact that I will never be able to unwatch this. If your cup of tea is to watch a college virgin get kidnapped by a thuggish pimp, forced into prostitution, debased…and she eventually decides to stay with him, then this is the movie for you. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. This is worse than a “bad” film. It is an evil film. After watching it I wanted to curl up in the shower for about 2 days. I felt like I was the one raped (by the director). He violated every part of me that is moral and decent.

111

Pepperlandgirl

Science fiction writer David Brin feels much the same about the “values” George Lucas is portraying, he wrote a series of essays some time ago about this topic.