Does Hating These Movies Make You A Bad Person?

You might be a racist, anti-Semitic homophobe, but it’s not necessarily because of your taste in movies.
By Jordan Burchette
Premiere.com

Politics can teach movie studios a lot about marketing. If someone isn't buying what you're selling, simply brand 'em unpatriotic! Or socialist! Or Hitler!

That's the intolerance of intolerance, and nowhere is it more prevalent than in peoples' tastes in film. Suggest that Gandhi is too long and you're a monster. Call United 93 pandering and you hate America. With Important Movies, dissent is tantamount to treason, so you have to like them.

But it's important to separate the movie from the issue it addresses. Uwe Boll may very sincerely want to direct a film about Darfur. But it's still going to suck.

It's with this in mind that we've assembled the movies you're most obligated to like.

Ever felt bad for not liking something? Or tried to convince yourself that you like something more than you actually do? Liking something out of duty isn't the same as actually liking something, so feel free to one-star any of the following films on your Netflix account.

Just remember: When you don't like these movies, the terrorists win.

SCHINDLER'S LIST


If You Don't Like It... You hate Jews. And probably have syphilis.
In Your Defense: Scholars, critics and other filmmakers have blasted the film for its oversimplified portrayals of Nazis and the Holocaust at large. Plus, nobody gets a hard time for hating Battlefield Earth and all of the Jews get enslaved in that movie.
Same Goes For: Life Is Beautiful, Defiance



SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE


If You Don't Like It... You're an imperialist lowlife who doesn't care about poor foreigners. Are you going to finish that dolphin burger?
In Your Defense: The film's very makers plucked its most beloved performers right from the merciless streets of Mumbai... and promptly dumped them back there after wrapping. Indians don't even like this movie. Without its closing dance sequence, it's Forrest Gupta.
Same Goes For: City of God



THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST


If You Don't Like It... You're a heathen dirt worshipper who may rightly be treated as a soldier in the war on Christmas.
In Your Defense: Legendary celluloid deity thrashings aside, it's a one-note movie that suffers its own allegations of intolerance and anti-Semitism. Loving this movie doesn't make you a good Christian, nor does trashing it make you a bad one.
Same Goes For: The Ten Commandments, It's A Wonderful Life



BLOOD DIAMOND


If You Don't Like It... You support genocide and cheap frippery. You might as well wear an Angolan child's severed ear for a broach, you mountebank.
In Your Defense: Replace Leo DiCaprio with Owen Wilson and this movie is Behind Enemy Mines. Sure, it brought conflict diamonds to First-World attention, but so did Kanye West, only he was less preachy and predictable about it. Just 'cause you don't like this movie doesn't mean you don't care about black people.
Same Goes For: The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda



BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN


If You Don't Like It... You're a backwoods, gay-bashing homophobe. Which, if you ask any gay guy, means you're probably gay yourself.
In Your Defense: The movie's main characters might not even be gay. Jake Gyllenhaal himself approached it as the story of "straight guys who fall in love." Which really just makes it a plain, old boring love story like Shakespeare in Love, Atonement, and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down With a Sore Bum.
Same Goes For: The Killing Fields, Hotel Rwanda



THE HURT LOCKER


If You Don't Like It... You hate the troops. Why don't you just park a truck bomb outside your local VFW, you ingrate?
In Your Defense: The film's portrayal of a reckless madcap as the leader of a unit tasked with the most sensitive duty of the Iraq War is rubbish to vets. That the makers took such liberties and the movie was still boring to many folks deserves its own award. Feel free to display a yellow ribbon and trash this movie on Facebook.
Same Goes For: Saving Private Ryan, Platoon



AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH


If You Don't Like It... You're a tree mugger. You hate fluffy bunnies and transparent water and you poop smoldering coal.
In Your Defense: Who is this movie for? If you're a champion of the environment, you already know this stuff. If you're a climate-change infidel, you'll never watch this stuff. Sort your recyclables and reuse a plastic bag and you can dump this from your Netflix queue with a clear conscience.
Same Goes For: Avatar



BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE


If You Don't Like It... You're a gun-humping cave patriot who never thinks of the children.
In Your Defense: Filmmaker Michael Moore is equal parts entertainer and documentarian, often bending insinuations to his chubby will. He even chastised a politically sympathetic, but factually dogmatic, Roger Ebert for saying so. You can abhor universal access to tank-piercing bullets and still duck this flick.
Same Goes For: Boyz n the Hood



A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN


If You Don't Like It... You're a cudgel-carrying member of the He-Man Woman Hater's Club.
In Your Defense: In its effort to challenge repressive gender stereotypes, this picture boldly features 1. Madonna as a tramp, 2. Lori Petty as an insecure whiner and 3. Rosie O'Donnell as the annoying one. You needn't feel guilty for crapping on this movie, then kissing your mother with the same mouth.
Same Goes For: Thelma and Louise



JUNO


If You Don't Like It... You're a baby killer, the fifth horseman of the prenatal apocalypse.
In Your Defense: Someone actually wrote into this script the words "honest to blog." Of all the things a woman's decision to have a child or not may be—personal, emotional, agonizing—insufferably cute isn't one of them. By all means, have a baby. Just don't feel obligated to show her this movie.
Same Goes For: Waitress, Bella



A BEAUTIFUL MIND


If You Don't Like It... You derive perverse pleasure from the struggles of the disabled. You are the handi-Christ.
In Your Defense: The film posits that it's not science that could make a deranged man sane, it's the triumph of his will... or the love of a woman... or perhaps a particularly rousing musical montage. Trashing this movie makes you no more insensitive to the life of this schizophrenic than the filmmakers who whitewashed it.
Same Goes For: Murderball, Rain Man, My Left Foot



CRASH


If You Don't Like It... You hate everyone.
In Your Defense: Have you seen everyone? They popularized Lady Gaga, made American Idol the most watched show on TV for half a decade, and put Red Bull on everything. In Crash, the prevailing racial stereotypes so crippling to our culture get the showcase they never got in Nazi Germany.
Same Goes For: Precious, Driving Miss Daisy, The Blind Side



Read the whole article at Premiere.com.