Do An Inconvenient Truth and Moore films even count? I think the OP is talking about social commentary found inside dramas and comedies. Aren’t documentaries ALL social commentary?
There was social commentary in “Boondock Saints”? Had me fooled, I thought it was just religulous and retarded.
Throw me in for “Crash” (Haggis) and though I haven’t seen it, I’d imagine “Southland Tales” must be pretty bad.
“District 9” gave up on pointing out social commentary the first time someone got zapped then splash!
I’m going to throw in Munich.
The film just fails when it starts getting preachy. In the first half Spielberg creates a really effective action/suspense movie, but when he tries to get serious it doesn’t work. If you want to see the message done correctly go watch The Battle of Algiers.
To Strawdawg’s point — “Do An Inconvenient Truth and Moore films even count? I think the OP is talking about social commentary found inside dramas and comedies. Aren’t documentaries ALL social commentary?”: I think they SHOULD count, even if they are “documentaries” and have blatant social messages.
The original post just asked for THE WORST social commentary films of the last decade. If the originator of the thread, Squiffle, wants to specify that he meant only fictional movies, I’d be glad to lay off Michael Moore and Al Gore — at least on this thread.
“Aren’t documentaries ALL social commentary?”
aren’t documentaries FILMS too?
“aren’t documentaries FILMS too?”
Well yes they are in fact Dimitris. But it seems a really silly question when you throw docs into the query. Maybe it’s just me.
Crash.
To whoever said “all social commentary on TV”: I hope you haven’t seen the Wire, because that’s actually the BEST social commentary of the past decade.
…and this is from someone who thinks social commentary is usually pretty stupid in general.
American Beauty.
Also I agree with Crash. I typed it in the first line of my post, but for some reason it won’t display it no matter how many times I edit it. Perhaps the website has become self-aware and likes Paul Haggis, which would be a shame.
Toy Story
Crash and Boondock Saints, for sure.
V for Vendetta and Equilibrium were just regurgitated Orwell/Huxley.
I have seen The Wire. I agree with you… somewhat.
I forgot about V for Vendetta… man what a waste of a film.
High School Musical 3
High School Musical 3
High School Musical 3
“Good evening. Tonight we are going to discuss the phenomenon of Deja Vu”
Damn laggy post reply button, how do i delete those!?
@ Kwenton
“Hich Scool musical 3” x 3
agreed my friend, agreed, I wanna make a social commentary on how that is such a bad commentary
my vote would be elephant by van sant.
this film is riddled with bad stereotypes and cliches. i don’t like to hate on stuff so much but this honestly seems like a high school student’s mom wrote the film. every character is so neatly labeled and does/acts whatever the typical stereotype attributed to that person would do as perceived by someone who just assumes (ie- jock/cheerleader = popular/good looking, nerd = smart/lame, different = potential killer/stoner, etc…).
i mean the “shooters” in the film did everything that the real news media blamed for the actual real life shootings. being picked on [check], playing violent video games [check], wearing black [check], the list goes on.
my problem is that this film wasn’t anything special or original and i think it gets praised so well for it’s natural/realistic view of high school. he took an event/issue and in my opinion he didn’t add anything to it at all. i was a senior in high school at the time of all this and there was nothing raw or real about his film. i honestly don’t understand how it’s so praised. it just seems like the people i know who love it are the ones who assume everything in the film is an actual depiction of real high school life or something. am i missing something?
I can’t even see how one would think “Munich” is preachy. Granted, it shows the arguments for both sides, but it is neither for nor against either of the two. One might expect Spielberg to favor the side of the wounded Israelis, but he shows that their acts of revenge are just as reprehensible as the Munich assassinations themselves. They do nothing to solve the problem. The film is an illustration of how hate and revenge is cyclical, ending with the shot of the New York City skyline with the World Trade Center standing in the distance.
I’m going to throw “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” in for consideration, even though I haven’t seen all of it… the parts I saw seemed like badly-staged, badly-animated, philosophy-101 arguments about how quantum physics is awesome and proves that we’re all spiritual beings after all.
Wall-E
Great FILM though
>>I’m going to throw in Munich.
The film just fails when it starts getting preachy. In the first half Spielberg creates a really effective action/suspense movie, but when he tries to get serious it doesn’t work. If you want to see the message done correctly go watch The Battle of Algiers.<<
You’re a man after my own heart, Drew. I agree completely, and thought the exact same thing while watching Munich (This is no Algiers!). That Eric Bana intercut sex scene at the end was truly laughable.
Battle of Algiers is perhaps the only film I’ve seen that I think honestly deals with the concept of terrorism as political action without devolving into cheap moralizing or sweeping condemnation of anyone. What a brilliant film.
I also thought Munich was a mess, but I’ve got to go with the most recent debacle I’ve seen, Avatar.
There’s social commentary in AVATURD?
Yeah. Its hard to miss cause of the flashing 3D lights that say “SOCIAL COMMENTARY” just in case we’re not bright enough to catch on.
Brad S.‘s reference to flashing 3D lights that say “SOCIAL COMMENTARY” reminds me of a scene in Coppola’s You’re a Big Boy Now. At one point, one of the characters starts waxing philosophical about love and beauty and caring and a better world, and a little “thought balloon” appears in the corner of the screen that reads “Author’s Message.” It’s quite a funny moment, and it satirizes MANY such scenes in many preachy movies.
Must be my eyes going bad from age. Coulda swore those flashing lights spelled out: “Rat-bag of cliches!”
Hopelessly Addicted
Did An inconvenient truth have any social commentary? It was all preaching (by design).
Moore’s films are polemical and thus present a single point of view. They are not necessarily thought-provoking but you have to admit that they are entertaining. I am not sure if F911 deserves Palme d’or either…