11. The Passion Of The Christ
(Mel Gibson, 2004)
Guts-and-all account of JC's final 12 hours on Earth.
Danger, danger! When Mel told the world his Jesus movie was about “love, hope, faith and forgiveness”, what he forgot to mention was that it also featured agonisingly extended sequences of beatings, torture and death.
This apparently came as a shock to 57-year-old Peggy Law Scott, who died of a heart attack during the grisly crucifixion scene at a cinema in Texas.
The film's depiction of Jesus' Jewish tormentors also revved up a far-reaching anti-Semitic debate around Gibson, which resurfaced following his 2006 collaring for drunk-driving.
10. The Thin Blue Line
(Errol Morris, 1988)
Tigerish campaigning documentary which helped overturn an innocent man's conviction for murder.
Danger, danger! Wrongly imprisoned for shooting a Texas cop in 1976, Randall Dale Adams faced life in prison, before private dick-turned-filmmaker Errol Morris stumbled on the case in 1985.
Unconvinced of Adams' guilt, Morris carried out this filmed investigation, which uncovered proof that police had ignored, and even altered, various pieces of evidence to fit Adams to the crime.
The doc gave the case widespread coverage and was entered as evidence during the appeal, which saw Adams freed in 1989.
On his release, Adams' statement said it all (“The fact that it took over 12 years and a movie to prove my innocence should scare the hell out of everyone in this room”).
9. Fight Club
(David Fincher, 1999)
Violent, voguish and damning stare into the spiritual void of modern living.
Danger, danger! The searing charisma of Fincher's film has inevitably inspired various misguided copycats and lost souls.
Rumours of real-life fight clubs have rumbled for years and recently charges were brought against a group of Californian high-schoolers who'd started out brawling among themselves and then graduated to burglary and arson.
More disturbingly, a screening of the film in Sao Paulo was the scene of a double murder in 1999, when disaffected student Mateus Meira stood up mid-movie and opened fire on the audience with an Uzi.
Meira told police he'd been planning the shooting for years and chose Fight Club as he identified with Norton's narrator.
Comments
laulau1
Aug 3rd 2009, 15:55
Guys, about La Haine: Alain Juppe was never the French President but the French Prime Minister...
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somewhatfrail
Aug 7th 2009, 21:19
Fight Club also inspired some loon to bomb Starbucks recently. Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106655163
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SCY385
Aug 20th 2009, 23:09
Films aren't dangerous, but people's reactions to them are another matter entirely. I believe film should push the limits and make people think out of the box a little. Unfortunatley, some people go waaaaay out of the box.
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Nealsreviews1
Aug 22nd 2009, 15:03
Films are not dangerous, people are. Films are there to untap imagination & induce escapism from one's life for a brief time upon watching a movie. The people who emulate the characters they see into their own lives, well there is an underlying malfunction way before viewing.
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Gorty
Oct 30th 2010, 0:26
Yeap "Jaws" is most dangerous but not because what you said but because it replaced A-movies with B-movies in mainstream cinema for which we now have to suffer tremendously with "Transformers" and all other horrible franchise.
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