The Most Controversial Films Of All Time

[Kal]

What a stupid fucking list... those bastards at EW are obviously running out of shit to print.

Aladdin? Give me a break.

Kids was great and it was a fucking indie film. There are so many that are worse...

And United 93 is too new to be on any list.

[Pubrick]

yeah, the only lists worth a damn are the box office ranks.

[grand theft sparrow]

14. The Warriors
15. The Triumph Of The Will

So, what Entertainment Weekly is telling us is that the most notorious piece of cinematic propaganda, that also has to do with Nazis, is just less controversial than a cult movie about New York City gangs?  Not only is this list poorly thought out but poorly arranged.

[Kal]

yeah, the only lists worth a damn are the box office ranks.

if you someday expect to make a living making films then you'll see the importance of the list. until then you dont have to worry cause your mom probably buys your dvds.

[RegularKarate]

I'm sure I don't need to point this out, but you're just making yourself seem even more ridiculous.
How old are you?

[MacGuffin]

EW Gets It Horribly Wrong, Again: Tries to List 'Most Controversial Movies' and Fails
Source: Nikki Finke; LA Weekly

The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (aka the official magazine of office receptionists) takes a stab at listing the 25 most controversial movies of all time. "Every now and then, a film comes along that can genuinely get someone's goat without any studio goosing. Films whose incendiary elements can inspire an offended party to pick up a picket, call for a boycott, even pray for divine intervention. These can be important, progressive, taboo-shattering films--or merely films that feature a lot of randy humping. They can also be films that are truly, objectively despicable." I have real problems with EW's list: it's as if only the post-Star Wars prequel generation came up with it (yet they forgot Brokeback Mountain). I mean, where's Carnal Knowledge? Blackboard Jungle? Easy Rider? Straw Dogs? Apocalypse Now? I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang? Dr. Strangelove? Gentlemen's Agreement? Bad Day at Black Rock? Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Midnight Cowboy? Not to mention the original Manchurian Candidate which after the JFK assassination was withdrawn from circulation for 25 years? Or Song of the South, which is still Disney's biggest embarrassment for showing "happy slaves" onscreen. And since they're counting foreign films (Triumph of the Will is included), then where's L'Âge d'Or, for that matter? I could go on and on.

[Gold Trumpet]

I'll credit EW with one thing on the foreign film selection. Its that they included I Am Curious. Arguing what foreign films should be included is arguing among a laundry list. All choices have fine reasons to be on the list but none have definitive reasons. I Am Curious is definitive because it gave America its rating system.

The current rating system puts America in the class of high censorship with countries like China. Large studio films are made to an understanding of what will get by censors and what won't. The ability for violence to be acceptable while sexuality is prohibited makes for uneven reasoning. The world wide effect is that these are the majority of American films being seen across the world are ridiculous for their mis-portrayal of violence.

It was once said an actor could be a star in only one country but never only in America. This is the situation of the rating system as well. What should at least be uniquely American is stretched all around the world because every country is showing mainly American films.

[polkablues]

Let's all take a deep breath and remember that this isn't exactly Sight & Sound we're talking about here; it's Entertainment Weekly.  We should just be impressed they've heard of I Am Curious (Yellow).

[jigzaw]

Yeesh.  Was United 93 really controversial??  Some people didn't want to see it for understandable reasons and some felt it was "too soon", but was there really a controversy?  Were people marching around, or calling for boycotts??  Not that I know of, anyway.

I also agree that it's way too early to call the da Vinci Code one of the top 25 OF ALL TIME, it just came out.

[Pubrick]

yeah, the only lists worth a damn are the box office ranks.

if you someday expect to make a living making films then you'll see the importance of the list. until then you dont have to worry cause your mom probably buys your dvds.

i was serious. i really believe the box office ranks are the most important, nay, the ONLY important list known to man. i would step over my own mother, god bless her dvd-buying soul, just to be on one.

[Gamblour.]

Let's all take a deep breath and remember that this isn't exactly Sight & Sound we're talking about here; it's Entertainment Weekly.  We should just be impressed they've heard of I Am Curious (Yellow).

Right, but that inclusion is like, "hey let's ask our buddy who knows a lot about foreign cinema for a good, 'authentic' answer to put in there."

[pete]

if you someday expect to make a living making films then you'll see the importance of the list. until then you dont have to worry cause your mom probably buys your dvds.

kal will you please tell us what the two movies you're investing so much movie in about?  tell us about those two movies.

[Kal]

will post about it soon. first one is now finishing principal photography and going into post-producton next week.

[Reinhold]

will post about it soon. first one is now finishing principal photography and going into post-producton next week.

the 1-second film doesn't count.

[Kal]

no? oh man... then im screwed