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Films which just annoy you

104 replies

HollyMiamiFLA · 15/02/2014 16:31

James Bond - just his casual sexism and his treatment of women.

I'm watching Ice Cold in Alex. The first female became "hysterical" and got shot.

The second female is all sympathetic. But she "couldn't understand wha they were doing" and now she lets out the clutch and the truck goes down the hill. She bursts into tears.

Cheers - Sam being so charming around women and most of them falling for it. Just hits on every women in the bar.

Drives me mad.

OP posts:
Stockhausen · 16/02/2014 18:45

The piano

That lady be crazy!

Hate pretty woman, yick!

legoplayingmumsunite · 16/02/2014 19:08

Agree that Dirty Dancing is interesting. It follows the usual 'woman comes of age by losing her virginity' trope but agree that we can assume that she moves onwards and upwards, she's the one 'slumming it' that won't have negative consequences long term from the relationship. Johnny likes and respects her, and he has a good friendship with Penny as well (you don't often see male:female friendships) so as a male character I like him. Both characters are played by actors much old (Jennifer Grey was in her late 20s when she played the teenage Baby, Patrick Swayze was in his 30s) so I hadn't really thought about any putative age difference. Baby has agency, she confronts Robbie about Penny's pregnancy, she tells Johnny she wants him, she stands up to her father, all the action is driven by her. I do like it and think it's better than most female coming of age films. Then again, maybe I'm just showing my age!

WhentheRed · 16/02/2014 19:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mathanxiety · 16/02/2014 19:28

Recommendations?
I seem to remember Silkwood had a strong female character. Strong but very believable. And there was intrigue and tension.

nkf · 16/02/2014 19:30

I found all that squealing in Sex and the City annoying.

minniebar · 17/02/2014 08:02

Oh hell yes the horror that is 16 Candles watching it as an adult - I adored that film as a teenager. I was so excited to see it was on Film4 t'other night - I watched less than five minutes before turning it off. Hideously rapey.

and I know they're not films but Jilly Cooper books are hard to read from a feminist POV now

One that did make me go Hmm even a few years ago was the John Grisham film with Tom Cruise (is it The Firm?). He gets all heady with the power and excitement of his Big Six-Figure Job and shags a woman at a beach party. At the end, someone else tells his wife that she was a set-up - and lo, she's now able to forgive him. Oh right, so it's not infidelity if your DH didn't actively go looking for it?!

Anniegetyourgun · 17/02/2014 20:21

In the book iirc the wife never found out.

samandi · 18/02/2014 12:09

Any American "comedy" where the men go on about not being allowed out and hall passes and all that crap. Urgh.

And any film with a beautiful and intelligent woman paired with a dirty, ugly, stupid man.

Callani · 24/02/2014 15:56

I should have known better than to go see it, but Wolf of Wall Street was just genuinely awful. I cannot describe how violated I felt after watching that film, and all the bloody reviews just raved about how fantastic it is. It's utterly disgusting and I'm still struggling to explain why it filled me with so much rage when people say "Oh but it was amazing" "It's just showing how it was" blah blah blah. Horrifying.

Scarletohello · 25/02/2014 23:58

Callani, what specifically didn't you like about that film, not seen it but curious!

LyndaCartersBigPants · 26/02/2014 00:17

Scarlett, as a film about a predominantly male industry the 'perks' for good performance on the stock market included naked women paraded as entertainment, offered to prospective clients on yachts etc. basically all the female characters were purely sexual an decorative.

It was gratuitous and vulgar but I thought that was kind of the point (like using a dwarf as a human dart) to demonstrate just how far removed from moral reality these guys were.

VenusDeWillendorf · 26/02/2014 00:35

Knight and day, with Tom cruise and Cameron Diaz. Saw it the other night and my jaw hit the floor.

He stalks her, uses her as a mule, kills everyone around her, puts her through a plane crash, drugs her, brings her home, puts her to bed, leaves stalkery notes all over her house, makes her food and orders her to eat, tells her to keep away from the police, tests her not to tell anyone about him.

Then he chats up her male friend, and isolates her when she is trying to get help, then puts her in handcuffs and abducts her, shooting her old boyfriend.
He then proceeds to shoot lots of people in front of her, chases her when she runs away, and drugs her again to abduct her again. He compliments her driving, making her complicit in his crime."you saved us" boketastic.

Takes her in her drugged state on a international journey, to his isolated island, where he carries large knives and slices off fish heads when talking to her when she's complaining that he removed her clothes and put her in a bikini....

And that's not even half way through......

God I could go on - its such a chilling movie... Classic abuse.

Tom cruise is such a creep. I'm so glad Katie got out.

The only good thing about that movie is Cameron Diaz, but you just want her to hit him over the head with a car part and put us all out of our misery.

MummyBeerest · 26/02/2014 00:52

Pretty well any Jennifer Aniston/Lopez/Garner movie.

The protagonist is clumsily adorable and trying to make it on her own and then some rugged, boorish dipshit gets in her way and then "hilarity" ensues. O

h but wait...THEY LOVE EACH OTHER.

Duh! Because women can't be happy unless they're in love, too, you guys.

And that boorish assface? Totally just taking her down a peg. After all, she's gotta be real, right? That's why she's always slipping on her heels, falling face first into penises and making a funny one-liner about her IPhone.

All of that is totes embarrassing, but she gets the guy at the end. WORTH IT.

...

Sorry. Apparently I care very deeply about this.

Scarletohello · 26/02/2014 01:03

Knocked Up. Appalling film!

Also a bit pissed off at The Mindy Project on TV. Although she is a successful doctor all she is interested in is getting a bloody boyfriend..!!

Callani · 26/02/2014 12:55

Scarlet I think it was just the unending pornographic nature of it all - and it was REALLY pornographic (I genuinely don't know how they got it passed regulation really, it should be X-rated if there's such a thing)

I don't normally get bothered by sex on screen (though I do comment when it's particularly unrealistic) but the whole film just felt really seedy and horrible in the way it portrayed sex.

Examples of things that made me uncomfortable:

  • Opening scene is Leo snorting coke from a prostitute's arse (about 30 seconds of it, really uncomfortable)
  • Discussion of the "levels of hookers", with high class all the way down to "low rent" which was depicted as a larger woman completely naked, being shagged on a desk, while a line of men from the office watched and waited their turn (some with cocks in hand). Aside from the fact you didn't see penetration this, to me, is pornography
  • Just multiple, long, graphic scenes of Leo having sex with different prostitutes
  • A scene in which Leo and his business partner "treat themselves" to double teaming a female member of staff "for a Christmas present"
  • A very ambiguous scene in which Leo's potentially raping his wife (shortly before beating her up)
  • The one time a female character is shown taking control of her sexuality, Leo's character has the last laugh by pointing out that she's being filmed and that the security guards are watching, this is supposedly HILARIOUS.

I could go on, but it was just so graphic, so prominent (at least 1/3 of the screen time I'd say was pornographic) so completely unnecessary to the plot - honestly, we understood that these guys were decadent assholes after 20 minutes, we didn't need another 20 scenes proving it.

LondonNinja · 26/02/2014 13:03

Juno. Horrible. Hated hated hated hated it.

itshardthinkingofanickname · 26/02/2014 13:04

What was your issue with Juno?

LondonNinja · 26/02/2014 13:17

The, er, 'wit'. The one-liners. The plot. The characters.

Deeply annoying.

itshardthinkingofanickname · 26/02/2014 13:21

What about the way the issue of teen pregnany was handled from a feminist perspective?

ReadyToPopAndFresh · 26/02/2014 13:36

I thought Juno was really well done and a lot more realistic than it would have been if she had an abortion.

Girl gets pregnant has an abortion= immense relief follows for most actual women. In a film that wouldn't be very interesting so they would have her be miserable or some horrible outcome like infertility follow eventually

Girl goes to an abortion clinic to be met by protesters (likely in america) girl is shamed in to having a child by being given incorrect information about development (fetus has fingernails etc) by protester.

Girl is then humiliated in school by being obviously pregnant and then girl has to bear the devastation of giving birth and having nothing to show for it...and always knowing she has a baby out there somewhere. People act like just giving up a child for adoption is like handing out cupcakes.

I really enjoyed a more realistic view of the alternatives to abortion.

Chopsypie · 26/02/2014 13:38

10 things I hate about you was on last night.

Still not sure how I feel about it. I loved the film as a teen, as I felt the females were quite strong but only really realised last night that it's the males who drive the storyline

Callani · 26/02/2014 13:44

I like Juno but I understand how people could be annoyed by it in some ways. I feel like they really skirt over how difficult choosing to continue with the pregnancy would be, there's barely any discussion of how people react at school, or how she coped with being pregnant and and schoolwork. The ending is "and then everything went back to normal".

As my friend pointed out after watching Juno, "I feel like if I got pregnant it wouldn't be the end of the world and I could be pregnant and give the baby up for adoption" and you could do that, but it's not as easy as it makes out.

ReadyToPopAndFresh · 26/02/2014 13:46

Still not sure how I feel about it. I loved the film as a teen, as I felt the females were quite strong but only really realised last night that it's the males who drive the storyline

Feel exactly the same!

Callani · 26/02/2014 13:52

10 Things is pretty male driven, but what can you expect from an adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew which is basically, I have to sell off my older daughter to anyone who will take her before I can sell off my far more beautiful younger daughter in a socially acceptable fashion and for a far higher fee.

wol1968 · 26/02/2014 15:40

Dead Poets Society. That whole 1950s boys' boarding school thing where females were an alien species to be used for breeding and certain (barely alluded to) pleasures. I was blown away by the emotional message as a first-year student but feminist awareness made me notice its flaws on a second viewing.

Forrest Gump. He gets to have all the fun, she's stuck in the background. She's beautiful and talented and is punished for it by dying of AIDS. He, on the other hand, becomes President....

...er,hang on a minute, I may have mixed him up with George W. Bush. Never mind. Easy mistake to make. Wink And Dubya's real, which is kinda scary.