Most disappointing movie you saw.

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**trexmeyer**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Not to mention he lied.
The calories he was eating didn't match what he said. It was a good 1500 more

And then the Fathead guy went and ate 2000 calories per day at McDonald's (along with 100 carbs or less) for a month and lost weight. You could lose weight eating cake, but it would be bad in the long run.

Edit:

New nomination. The Dark knight Rises or feth it, I don't care if my story is coherent. Hardy and Hathaway have some strong moments, but that movie is basically Idiot Ball: The Film. Also, somehow guns don't exist in an American city.

**Overread**

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can’t remember if I’ve wailed on it already?

Supersize Me.

Who knew eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days would lead to weight gain, and a drop in health? Spesh when you stop exercising?

Bog off, Morgan Spurlock, you pathetic hack,

The scary thing is there are people who do live on McDonalds and who don't exercise and who have no real idea that it is impacting their health. Part of it is because healthy eating is one of those "Your parents teach you" things so it doesn't always get covered at schools (UK side I believe this has improved since I was at school). Of course there's also regional variation in McDonalds; the UK version is, I'm given to understand, a lot healthier than the US version.

But I also got the impression that "supersize me" was just a really cheap idea that was blown up way more than such programs normally are. It's to me a kind of "channel 4 documentary" style production on the big screen. Then again I suspect it likely held more relevance/impact/influence in the USA

**Kayback**

Mr Morden wrote:
I never understood the aclaim for Zero Dark or the Hurt Locker - both seemed poor movies.

I watched a pirated version while in the Middle East and thought it was a B-grade movie made by enthusiastic filmography students who blew their budget on the opening scene (which was cool). The rest was mediocre action movie dross.

I was amazed AF when it was running against Avatar for Oscars.

**OldMate**

Matt Swain wrote:
trexmeyer wrote:
Just Tony wrote:Was just reminded that I have to change my answer...

The Hurt Locker.

I try to avoid US military movies based on procedural inaccuracies, but the last two decades have seen movies that portray the character in an incorrect light every bit as much as they butcher procedure. Some "high"lights from this piece of swill:

US Army Lieutenant Colonel directly orders a medic to kill an unarmed wounded insurgent, and you hear the medic following the order as the LTC walks off to essentially fellate Renner's character.

Apparently EOD is nothing but spec ops and Green Berets. Nice to know that they are all trained to be highly proficient snipers.

I was deployed to Baghdad and was based in Camp Liberty, which is portrayed in the film. What I can tell you with absolute certainty is that EOD teams weren't cruising around the countryside alone and unsupported whenever they felt like it.

Look up the weight of a 155 artillery shell, multiply that weight times, what, 9? THAT is what Renner deadlifts with his fingertips via det wire in the movie.

There's actually a ton more I can eviscerate this movie over, but I'll stop there while I'm still being civil. Needless to say, this movie smacks of a movie made by someone who was dating a soldier who deployed that came back and rattled off a thousand embellished war stories.

I defense of that "sniper" scene.

1) They weren't "snipers." It was just a long range engagement.
2) At the time (I'm not sure when it was changed), USMC recruits were trained to hit stationary targets at up to 500 yards with iron sights and IIRC we had targets up to 600 yards in MCT (used an ACOG then). I know the USMC has switched over to some kind of scope since then. In terms of shooting, it's not completely unbelievable.

In general, yes, it's not a good movie and the EOD personnel I know hate it.

I've never watched Zero Dark Thirty. For some reason unrelated to this thread I was watching clips of it on YouTube yesterday and I was thoroughly unimpressed. It really seems like a propaganda puff piece.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

OldMate wrote:
Zero dark thirty.
It's message "torture is bad but sometimes it gets things done"

If you follow the plot very closely which surprisingly seen to follow closely real life events you have this different message. "Well we tortured a heap of people and that really got us nowhere. But then we put our noses down, did some actual detective work like you'd expect any intelligence agency to do and wowee we found him."

Also if you are practicing to land a helicopter next to a solid wall. Do not simulate said wall with a chainlink fence.

At the time McCain lambasted the film for showing how torture failed to provide reliable intel and in fact proved false information.

By McCain do you mean john mccain? He had some familiarity with torture, I recall.

As to portrayal of torture in movies it's usually inaccurate and usually doesn't give good information. Sheik Khalid Mohammed was captured in 2003 and tortured extensively. He was waterboarded 183 times in a month, despite the CIA trying to claim that some of it was jut pouring water on his face not actually waterboarding. He was kept from sleeping for 71/2 days which likely caused permanant damage to part of his brain and his chillden, who were 6 and 8 at the time, were subjected to abusive interrogation.

This is a quote from his wiki article:

"One CIA official cautioned that "many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were 'white noise' designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session." For example, according to Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee, he admitted responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombing, but his involvement "could have been as small as arranging a safe house for travel. It could have been arranging finance." Mohammed also made the admission that he was "responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Operation," which killed six and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb was detonated in an underground garage, Mohammed did not plan the attack, but he may have supported it. Michael Welner noted that by offering legitimate information to interrogators, Mohammed had secured the leverage to provide misinformation as well.[99]

In an article discussing the reliability of Khalid's confession and the motive for giving misinformation under torture, Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent with considerable experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, pointed out that:

When they are in pain, people will say anything to get the pain to stop. Most of the time, they will lie, make up anything to make you stop hurting them. That means the information you're getting is useless.

His words are echoed by the U.S. Army Training Manual's section on interrogation, which suggests that:

the use of force is a poor technique, as it ... can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

As an example of this the article discloses that although the George W. Bush administration made claims that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the U.S. Bank Tower (formerly Library Tower and First Interstate Bank World Center) in Los Angeles in 2002, this has been proven to be untrue. In 2002 Sheikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan.[100] Likewise the claim by former George W Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA director of the National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez, that the torture of Khalid Mohammed produced the most significant lead in finding Osama bin Laden, has also been shown to be false. According to U.S. Senator John McCain, "The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times ... not only did the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information."[101][102]"

The fact is that the US treatment of mohammed has only disgraced america and made him a martyr and hero to radical islamists.

But we're getting off the topic here, even tho this is related to the topic of torture in movies and how movies often portray it inaccurately.

Well yes, everyone knows that information gleaned through torture is not reliable or useful, I mean it's great for making people confess to what you want them to, and to furthermore admit that their pet chihuahua is secretly a satan that they worship with human sacrifice. It's just that often humanity relapses into stupid trains of thought. the CIA actively went against its practices and protocals to torture people. These protocols and practices were in place purely for pragmatic reasons, namely because the CIA that put them in place only wanted quality intel. The only thing that torturing people does is justifies their low opinion of you and breeds for yourself more enemies while simultaneously alienating your potential allies.

**Matt Swain**

As was said in the novel and movie 1984,

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

Also, you should know that as soon as you say "everyone knows torture is unreliable" a legion of willfully ignorant morons will bellow in unison "HOLD MUH BEER!"

**Mr Morden**

Matt Swain wrote:
As was said in the novel and movie 1984,

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

Also, you should know that as soon as you say "everyone knows torture is unreliable" a legion of willfully ignorant morons will bellow in unison "HOLD MUH BEER!"

It is a recuring theme in tv shows and films that it works with good guys often using against bad guys to get that vital info. Having that message all the time does leave a lingering impression that maybe it does work.

**Overread**

Mr Morden wrote:
Matt Swain wrote:
As was said in the novel and movie 1984,

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

Also, you should know that as soon as you say "everyone knows torture is unreliable" a legion of willfully ignorant morons will bellow in unison "HOLD MUH BEER!"

It is a recuring theme in tv shows and films that it works with good guys often using against bad guys to get that vital info. Having that message all the time does leave a lingering impression that maybe it does work.

Don't forget that whole era of TV and movies and marketing when spoon bending and magic were taken seriously. There's still a lot of lingering impacts from that whole era of TV where such powers, and others, were often displayed in otherwise "fairly sensible" series as factual elements.

**LunarSol**

Mr Morden wrote:

It is a recuring theme in tv shows and films that it works with good guys often using against bad guys to get that vital info. Having that message all the time does leave a lingering impression that maybe it does work.

One of the great plague's on society is that a job done well is really, really boring.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can’t remember if I’ve wailed on it already?

Supersize Me.

Who knew eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days would lead to weight gain, and a drop in health? Spesh when you stop exercising?

Bog off, Morgan Spurlock, you pathetic hack,

I remember seeing this film, seeing what he was doing and being like.... man, I expected him to turn out far worse.

I did appreciate the discussion the movie prompted and I think it helped curb some problems in the food industry. It definitely wasn't what I'd call an honest film though.

**LordofHats**

LunarSol wrote:
Mr Morden wrote:

It is a recuring theme in tv shows and films that it works with good guys often using against bad guys to get that vital info. Having that message all the time does leave a lingering impression that maybe it does work.

One of the great plague's on society is that a job done well is really, really boring.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can’t remember if I’ve wailed on it already?

Supersize Me.

Who knew eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days would lead to weight gain, and a drop in health? Spesh when you stop exercising?

Bog off, Morgan Spurlock, you pathetic hack,

I remember seeing this film, seeing what he was doing and being like.... man, I expected him to turn out far worse.

I did appreciate the discussion the movie prompted and I think it helped curb some problems in the food industry. It definitely wasn't what I'd call an honest film though.

I find it weird though.

Torture is so played out. I mean lets set aside the ethics and stuff for a moment. It's freaking boring. Oh, torture. Empty drama.

Stories of interrogations I've heard, where interrogators didn't torture their subjects but instead cleverly maneuvered them into revealing more than they intended, tricked them into thinking they were in control, or got them to come around and flip by tackling their ideas methodically have all be way more excited than torture stories. Mind games are way more thrilling and excited than a torture scene, especially when the torture scene is turned into some kind of glorified sacrifice where the good guy does a bad thing for the 'right reasons'.

**LunarSol**

I don't disagree, but if consistently clever writing was that easy, we wouldn't have so many awards for it.

**hotsauceman1**

To write clever characters, you have to have some form of being clever.
It's like when someone tries to write a master manipulater or stuff like that it mostly fails.
It's why all Alpha Legion Stories suck

**trexmeyer**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
To write clever characters, you have to have some form of being clever.
It's like when someone tries to write a master manipulater or stuff like that it mostly fails.
It's why all Alpha Legion Stories suck

Or the ability to create that illusion. I doubt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would have made a great detective, but he managed to write one that has made his way into legend.

**OldMate**

LordofHats wrote:
LunarSol wrote:
Mr Morden wrote:

It is a recuring theme in tv shows and films that it works with good guys often using against bad guys to get that vital info. Having that message all the time does leave a lingering impression that maybe it does work.

One of the great plague's on society is that a job done well is really, really boring.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Can’t remember if I’ve wailed on it already?

Supersize Me.

Who knew eating nothing but McDonalds for 30 days would lead to weight gain, and a drop in health? Spesh when you stop exercising?

Bog off, Morgan Spurlock, you pathetic hack,

I remember seeing this film, seeing what he was doing and being like.... man, I expected him to turn out far worse.

I did appreciate the discussion the movie prompted and I think it helped curb some problems in the food industry. It definitely wasn't what I'd call an honest film though.

I find it weird though.

Torture is so played out. I mean lets set aside the ethics and stuff for a moment. It's freaking boring. Oh, torture. Empty drama.

Stories of interrogations I've heard, where interrogators didn't torture their subjects but instead cleverly maneuvered them into revealing more than they intended, tricked them into thinking they were in control, or got them to come around and flip by tackling their ideas methodically have all be way more excited than torture stories. Mind games are way more thrilling and excited than a torture scene, especially when the torture scene is turned into some kind of glorified sacrifice where the good guy does a bad thing for the 'right reasons'.

Well hostages are always an option and they as a system to get someone to do/tell you what they want generally works. Unless you're the good guy and they know you'd never carry through with the threat of you wanted coercion, but traditionally this is not the good guy's tools. But I think it's better than torture, it also raises the stakes for the hero. What if they actually have to murder/mutilate someone to make the other guy know they're serious?
Alternatively that is where some cleverness comes in handy.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
To write clever characters, you have to have some form of being clever.
It's like when someone tries to write a master manipulater or stuff like that it mostly fails.
It's why all Alpha Legion Stories suck

I disagree.

When we look at pop culture, it’s mostly about the Protagonist more observant than the Antagonist.

Consider Columbo, and “just one more thing”. This is something I use professionally, because I’m aware that I usually have more information than the parties involved. And I can work with that. Does that make me more cleverer? Nope. Just better informed. And I’ve developed a knack for spotting what someone is very carefully not saying. If someone dodged a question two or three times, it’s a sign that the answer might be detrimental to their argument. Whilst it’s rarely all that conclusive in itself, it’s still another part of the jigsaw.

**OldMate**

Subtlety is also great, nothing more satisfying than having several people reach the same conclusion at different points in the narrative for different reasons. Rather than the much more vulgar sign posting you see being thrown around.

**Easy E**

You know how Newspapers have to write stories at a 7th grade level? What level do movie makers have to go for?

**A Town Called Malus**

OldMate wrote:
Subtlety is also great, nothing more satisfying than having several people reach the same conclusion at different points in the narrative for different reasons.

LA Confidential is really good for this. You have three very different police detectives, each doing their own investigation and the little clues and connections between them all slowly pull tight and knit the whole thing together at the end.

**Mr Morden**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
To write clever characters, you have to have some form of being clever.
It's like when someone tries to write a master manipulater or stuff like that it mostly fails.
It's why all Alpha Legion Stories suck

Agreed - same with Nolan's Joker or 24 - you usually end up having the "bad Guy" seemingly having three million layers of plots or pre-cog abilities so that everything everyone does he/she /they have predicted.

Use of direct pain/Torture is a standard part of many action films - often by both sides and in films and media almost always works unless its the hero/heroine.

**Matt Swain**

Since this thread has gotten into the torture area, I guess i can say that IMHO the 'best" (I use that term with hesitation) torture scene I ever saw was in "Casino Royale".

Honestly, Danial Craig earned an oscar for that scene. His acting and emoting were so intense you had to shudder. His laughing while crying bit about "Now the world will know you died scratching my b-lls!" was such a moment of triumph.

The guy torturing him was great in that scene too. His casual "You know, I've never understood all these elaborate torture methods. It's the simplest thing to cause a man more pain than he can endure."

This was again the 'best' torture scene i think I've ever seen. It also revealed that torture generally doesn't work.

Another scene I remember was from "dirty harry' where eastwood shoots the psycho in the thigh then grinds his foot into the bullet wound to make him tell where the girl was buried. Sadly it didn't work either.

**A Town Called Malus**

Matt Swain wrote:

Another scene I remember was from "dirty harry' where eastwood shoots the psycho in the thigh then grinds his foot into the bullet wound to make him tell where the girl was buried. Sadly it didn't work either.

Well, the killer did tell him where the girl was. But she was already dead at the time.

**ScarletRose**

Matt Swain wrote:
Since this thread has gotten into the torture area, I guess i can say that IMHO the 'best" (I use that term with hesitation) torture scene I ever saw was in "Casino Royale".

Honestly, Danial Craig earned an oscar for that scene. His acting and emoting were so intense you had to shudder. His laughing while crying bit about "Now the world will know you died scratching my b-lls!" was such a moment of triumph.

The guy torturing him was great in that scene too. His casual "You know, I've never understood all these elaborate torture methods. It's the simplest thing to cause a man more pain than he can endure."

This was again the 'best' torture scene i think I've ever seen. It also revealed that torture generally doesn't work.

Another scene I remember was from "dirty harry' where eastwood shoots the psycho in the thigh then grinds his foot into the bullet wound to make him tell where the girl was buried. Sadly it didn't work either.

"The guy"? That was Mads Mikkelsen, who went on to play Hannibal. He's so perfect for that sort of sadistic, detached villain.

**Azreal13**

I can't believe you self-censored the word balls.

**Matt Swain**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Matt Swain wrote:

Another scene I remember was from "dirty harry' where eastwood shoots the psycho in the thigh then grinds his foot into the bullet wound to make him tell where the girl was buried. Sadly it didn't work either.

Well, the killer did tell him where the girl was. But she was already dead at the time.

Huh. I remember the scene ending with the pathetic psycho wailing about his rights. But it has been aeons since i saw it so i looked it up and -i'll be damned again- you're right.

My bad.

Been a long time since i saw it, i just remember him screaming and wailing about his rights.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Azreal13 wrote:
I can't believe you self-censored the word balls.

Well since some mod here changed my "BULL$&!#" thread to "nonsense!" i guess at least one mode here is picky about censoring.

**privateer4hire**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Not to mention he lied.
The calories he was eating didn't match what he said. It was a good 1500 more

His first meal vomit tantrum was really awesome acting, though.
It felt almost as realistic as the long fight scene in They Live.

**Matt Swain**

Speaking of torture vs other methods of getting information, I remember reading about an example of how a Nazi officer got a captured allied airman to give him some useful, not vital or really important, but useful information that nazis wanted.

Luftwaffe pilots were noticing that in air combat with allied planes sometimes the planes would shoot white phosphorous tracers and sometime they shot red ones.

They were curious as to why this was and wondered what it meant, if it was significant in anyway.

Well, a smart little gestapo officer was assigned to get an allied pilot to talk . He used no torture. instead he said the allied pilot was fighting for a lost cause, as the germans had noticed the allied pilots were using red phosphorous traces at times, which meant they must be critically short of white phosphorous, a vital war supply.

The allied pilot laughed in his face. He told the interrogator that allied planes were using WP tracers in the first 75% of their ammunition load and RP in the last 25% as a way of letting the pilot know he was low on ammo without having to try reading an ammo gauge in combat. He laughed at the dumb nazi for thinking the allies were short of WP or anything else.

Now this pilot thought he was doing a good thing, he can't really be blamed. He thought the germans believed the allies were running short of WP, which was a critical supply,and it was giving them some comfort. He thought by telling them the truth he was hurting their morale which was good for the allies.

Well, instead he gave them some useful information, the Germans now knew an allied plane firing RP traces was low on ammo.

Obviously the information did the nazis little good, but still he should not have told them. It's remembered as one slick piece of interrogation and an example of why you should give the enemy no information even if you think its the right things to do.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

Not far off the tactics I use in some of the cases I consider.

Nowt quite like getting the complainant to reveal something they’d been hiding!

**cuda1179**

I just watched two movies that truly disappointed me.

Ad Astra. Boring and left me depressed

Downsizing. marketed as a comedy, but really isn't.

**Easy E**

***Wrong Thread****

**OldMate**

Battleship. Not much of it even made sense.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

But that broadside though, and the actual original crew getting to play!