Morally reprehensible films that you love

[Reno]

Ummmm.

Capturing the Friedmans, anyone?

Left me with a deep-seated feeling of unease.

Great film but again, just because a film shows a character who makes choices that are morally wrong, doesn't mean the film is morally wrong. The film just leaves you to make up your own mind about what is a very complex case.

 

[tufty79]

^^^i want to see that sometime.

allll of the jay and silent bob ones

 

[gsv]

...but how is a film that shows (I'd say hysterically exaggerates) the dangers of drug addiction morally wrong ?

I wonder whether many of the films people have listed are morally reprehensible.

Depicting reprehensible behaviour does not itself make a film reprehensible. That's the line taken by the frankly nutty Cap Movie Ministry. On the other hand, things like cruelty to people or animals in making the film, or presenting a hideously immoral outlook (read amoral if you're a damn hippie relativist ) may do.

cruelty to people: Twilight Zone (death of Vic Morrow and two kids in an ill-managed stunt)
cruelty to animals: Cannibal Holocaust (dismembering a live turtle)
immoral outlook: Payback (see other thread)

God I look square


GS(v)

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Starship Troopers ....Futuristic Fascist Earth ... splattering giant bugs and stomping all over their world for no good reason... Wonderful stuff!!!

But it's a satire of fascism, so how can it be morally reprehensible?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Also Batman could be argued to be morally pretty dodgy - rich kid goes out to kick arses of (mostly) Low-level street criminals. But I still loved Batman Begins...

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Most caper movies are ethically iffy.

 

[Melinda]

Road Trip! Properly wrong but bits make me laff like a drain.
American Pie count as morally reprehensible?

 

[Badgers]

Bambi

 

[Melinda]

Falling Down

 

[May Kasahara]

Basic Instinct. I enjoyed it, in the same way that one might enjoy cramming great greasy blocks of mature cheddar into one's mouth, but it is morally indefensible to show Michael Douglas naked, sweaty and shagging My poor brain is scarred forevermore.

 

[nino_savatte]

Falling Down

Aye.

 

[dylanredefined]

Man bites dog serial killer comedy I laughed but its very wrong .
Starship troopers tries to be ironic but people didn't get the joke or dont care that it is a joke .

 

[mrs quoad]

The Carry On Films. Sexist, homophobic, racist, every ism you can think of really. But I find them comforting!

I feel the same about war documentaries And find the growly, earthed, factual voice over lulling

I think they're another one that could be ruled out by technical means though

 

[Madusa]

The Dreamers.
Leon

 

[Melinda]

Leon

ooh yeah Leon.

 

[Melinda]

Animal House
Old School

 

[May Kasahara]

How is Animal House morally reprehensible?

 

[Leica]

I've just seen so many forum discussions where people link the work to a personality in a way that becomes simplistic and reductive (Hitchcock = misogynist, for instance)

I know. I've thought a bit more about this today, and decided that I couldn't care less if an artist/director/public person/whatever is "reprehensible" or not as a person. In fact I hate the type of thinking that considers acceptable to speculate and to pass judgement on another person's life and choices. There's far too many judges around.

 

[Dhimmi]

love the ending scene where she's playing cello on roof top...
from the delicatessen.

Its the Trogodytes that do it for me, I like the playfulness of an underground organisation which lives underground... well makes me laugh.

 

[gsv]

A lot of strength of feeling over on the othe thread about Cannibal Holocaust, I think largely because of the slaughter of live animals for the camera. So how do you feel about the end of Apocalypse Now, with a water-buffalo macheted to death?

GS(v)

 

[Flashman]

As long as they ate it and didn't just do it for a big laugh.

 

[Orang Utan]

Basic Instinct. I enjoyed it, in the same way that one might enjoy cramming great greasy blocks of mature cheddar into one's mouth, but it is morally indefensible to show Michael Douglas naked, sweaty and shagging My poor brain is scarred forevermore.

The most disturbing thing in that film is his sweater in the nightclub scene. <shudders>

 

[Orang Utan]

and I must echo the puzzlement that films like Starship Troopers are touted here as reprehensible. Happiness too. It's not morally reprehensible merely to show immoral behaviour is it? It is only reprehensible if the film explicitly condones it, surely?

 

[Cheesypoof]

A Clockwork Orange, because it skews your judgment of what is moral. Example? The main character played by Malcolm MacDowell plays a murderous gang leader and rapist yet you are utterly charmed and seduced by him - wrong.

His violent actions are spawned by the conventional and socially accepted mores of a bland northern society - he rebels by raping and robbing - also wrong.

Its extremely funny too - for instance the threesome sex scene done in fast motion to Ludwig Van is brilliant, not only for its cinematography but its humour too.

My favourite scene is the attack by phallic weapon that splodges into an acid trip milisecond cartoon. A highly intelligent, rivetting film that charms for all the wrong reasons!

 

[rollinder]

Fight Club for making the blowing up of computers and buildings look like the most beauitiful thing ever.