Been awhile since we've done this thread, and it's always fun. Here are some of my picks:

  • The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) is really bad. Will Smith's inspirational moment is going to the New York Stock Exchange and seeing all the happy rich guys in suits walking around, and wanting to be like them. Having to do stuff like brown-nose executives, sleep in train station bathrooms and pull his son out of daycare due to lack of money are presented not as flaws of the system but evidence of Smith's smart bootstraps-oriented thinking. This movie is the Mein Kampf of liberalism.

  • Air (2023) is really bad too. Literally a feature-length Nike commercial coupled with a fuckton of Michael Jordan worship, the message being that a bunch of rich guys deserved to get even richer because they signed a sneaker deal. The closing 5 minutes of the movie are a "where are they now" montage showing how much money all the Nike executives made, yay!

  • Anastasia (1997), which portrays the Russian Revolution as the result of a wizard's curse and communism as bad because it got in the way of the Romanovs living in big palaces and wearing fancy dresses.

  • The Post (2017), about a wealthy, heroic girlboss newspaper executive who makes the heroic decision to...uhh...not block the publication of a story that would expose the lies of a corrupt president threatening our democracy (take THAT drumpf)

post more.

  • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    9 months ago

    Ghostbusters. A group of academic frauds are finally jettisoned by their university when they can no longer hide their fraud. When they go into private business they're angered that they actually have to follow safety and pollution rules. The older I get the more I hate that movie.

    • LeopardShepherd [none/use name]
      ·
      9 months ago

      Also idk if it's just me but I watched it recently with my wife who hadn't seen it before and she found it very sexist and creepy which of course I completely missed as a kid. Especially Bill Murrays character.

      • zed_proclaimer [he/him]
        ·
        9 months ago

        that's how a lot of these raunchy 80s comedies were with Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and the like. I remember liking Spies Like Us as a kid, and upon re-watching it's basically 2 hours of Chevy Chase sexually harassing every woman he comes in contact with and getting rewarded for it.

        The overall plot is pretty good though, American CIA psychos launching a nuke on themselves to test Star Wars and start a war with the Soviets is a pretty redpilled plotline. Very weird ending though where the Soviets and the American spies divert the missile after Star Wars fails and the CIA/military guys get arrested for their treasonous plot and the Soviets and Americans become friends and play games together. Very optimistic but not very realistic I’m afraid, nobody would arrest the perpetrators and nobody would be friendly to the Soviets

        • LeopardShepherd [none/use name]
          ·
          9 months ago

          Definitely true and it annoys the shit out of me that if you point any of this out to people who like these movies and view them through a very nostalgic lense, they get so defensive and angry. Like you can still enjoy something and critique it or realise it has problematic elements without it questioning your entire moral fabric. Like talking to toddlers I swear.

        • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
          ·
          9 months ago

          It's been a very long time since I've watched them

          Can you explain your bit about sexual harassment?

      • someone [comrade/them, they/them]
        ·
        9 months ago

        Absolutely agreed, the three white main characters are all awful. The only decent characters are the "villain" who's trying to make sure these three psychopathic sex-pest frauds aren't going to lay ecological waste to the city, and some hirees who are down on their luck and only work for those three frauds to pay the bills.

        I honestly can't think of a single Bill Murray role that's aged well. Maybe his role in Ed Wood but even that's a stretch.