Oh God! I actually like the movie, but I do curse it as well, as I think the "We Never Went To The Moon" crap wouldn't be so prevalent if people weren't thinking "Hey was easy in that movie, so they musta done it back then!" My personal favourite? "They didn't have the high-powered sophisticated computers to be able to reach the moon!" "But the Russians watched them go there and come back." "Yeah, but they just flew it by remote control!" "But how could they remote-control the Lunar Modules?" "With high-powered sophisticated computers!"
I wonder if many people who've seen A Serbian Film all the way to the end have been offended, outside Serbia? It makes a strong point against actual sadism by countering the villain's belief that only real is good enough by merely existing. Also as someone who has very lacking knowledge of commonly known history, there was something to be learned in the film and comments around it, if not more than vaguely, so that aspect's not bad either. Seems like people who don't accept societal allusions in such a grim movie, wouldn't accept the movie in the first place, doubt that does any damage either.
I don't like Big Expensive Pointless Flops, I find the whole Blockbuster Turkey somewhat offensive and think money like this could be better spent on helping the victims of the Tsunamis, Hurricane Katrina etc Green Lantern, Alone in the Dark, Battlefield Earth, Gigli, Catwoman are just rubbish I am more offended by Hollywood itself, drug abuse in many places, overpaid actors, lack of imagination, less art, sex abuse of children like Dylan Farrow open letter on Woody Allen, Corey Feldman's new details sexual abuse, corruption, money laundering and general crime
!. Hollywood doesn't make those movies intending them to flop. 2. Most of those crimes happen outside Hollywood as well.
Actually, sometimes they do. For convoluted movie/investment insurance reasons, "loss leaders" to keep their name out there and plenty of other reasons.
I've seen plenty of shitty movies in my time, but After Earth is the only one that cost $130,000,000 to make. It was absolutely horrible in every way. (FWIW, I enjoyed Green Lantern and loved John Carter. Mine are not popular tastes. I even enjoy Battlefield: Earth)
There is no server on the planet with enough space to hold a list of all the movies I abhor. In fact, all the servers on the planet--past, present, or future--would not have enough space. Suffice it to say that 99.9999999999999999999999824% of Hollywood productions offend me.
Movies never offend me. Sometimes I get grossed out by things, but I don't consider that the same thing as being offended. Gore doesn't phase me, though. The bloodier the better, in fact. And the first Hostel is a film that I will (and have) defend to anyone who dismisses it as mere "torture porn". I do have trouble sitting through anything with Mel Gibson these days, but that's not the movie's fault. It's because he's an anti-semitic, mysoginist asshole. I have a certain curiosity about films like Human Centipede and A Serbian Film. I wonder if they would be too much even for me, but I'm still a bit apprehensive.
The Passion of Christ was a very anti-Semitic film and took a lot of historical liberties in portraying Jesus death - hence offensive. I also generally find Mel Gibson offensive because some of the things he's said and done in recent years. While not offensive per se using a strict definition, Oliver Stone's films take a lot of, 'liberties,' in telling history. For example, the film JFK reignited the multiple conspiracy theories regarding Kennedy's death while stretching the truth in order to make the case for an additional killer beyond Oswald. Similarly in the film Nixon and according to Henry Kissinger, Stone distorted / stretched the truth to make Nixon look more evil / weak minded than he actually was. For example, in the scene where allegedly Nixon weeps with Kissinger on his knees - Kissinger claims never happened and was a absurd portrayal of his final days in office. I'm also no fan of George W. Bush but Michael Moore in 9.11 really distorted the turth about how Bush reacted after the towers fell. His multiple cuts as he sat with children who he was reading with was at best misleading and at worst down right evil in the way he portrayed Bush. Under Michael Moore's world perspective the POTUS should have jumped up- scaring children - in what was the worst emergency this nation has faced since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Moore's depiction of 9.11 and the events surrounding it related to Bush is reprehensible IMO.
The only way it was going to work in an American context is if it was about a community of women who use and destroy men like female bees use male bees ('the drone must die!). There was no way it was going to be about a English Lord and the community he leads staging this festival, since that was already done (remakes usually change something from the original plot to make it fresh the second time around.) The same would probably happen with a remake (more like adaptation, since both the 1973 and 2006 movies are based on a novel called Ritual) from Bollywood or from some other country as well. A movie I've found to be offensive to me-and I'm not usually offended by movies-is The 40-Year Old Virgin, for suggesting that the main character is one simply because he collects comic books and action figures. At first I was indifferent to the movie and was blasé about seeing it, but after seeing a still of Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) on his bead reading a comic book, my indifference turned to revulsion; the movie simply states he's like this without examining other possible factors, like being a man going his own way, or a person who feels unable to marry because he has an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger's syndrome. What's more, the Carell character has to sell his stuff when he gets married, but the girlfriend character Trish Piedmont (Catherine Keener) probably doesn't have to sell hers. Put simply, I don't like people telling me my life or hobbies are linked to my virginity or reason(s) that I'm not married.
On a more realistic note...Napolean Dynamite. UGH. That character reminded me of a kid I knew in school & stayed friends with for years after. When I mentioned it on FB to a brother & sister I went to school with, they both agreed with me. I've noticed that the people who really loved that movie...are the ones who never had to live it, & those who either lived that or knew people that did found it horrible.
Just as bad was Welcome To The Dollhouse where the main character Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is treated like shit by everybody in town and in her school-not even at the end of the movie does she get any peace. And then in the sort-of sequel Palindromes we find out that Spoiler: Welcome_to_the_Dollhouse She commits suicide years later-all due to a life made miserable by bullying suffered as a child. Great movie? Great bullying porn is more like it. And the greatest (backhanded) compliment I can pay to it is that it's the perfect anti-bullying film.