Movies that are intellectually dishonest?
Oliver Stone's JFK. Any others?
sharethe rest of his movies based on real people/events.
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MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Movies that are intellectually dishonest...
The Fourth Kind - 2009
shareA very good example! This movie was marketed in a deliberately duplicitous manner.
shareHow anyone could read a summary of that movie and not know its basic premise was BS I do not know.
Still, I enjoyed it in a weird way because it was just soooo over the top. Especially sourcing of the phenomena to ancient Sumerian demonology.
That was kind of the tail end of that fake docudrama horror genre that began with the Blair Witch Project (1999) and got more sophisticated with Paranormal Activity (2007) and Fourth Kind.
I wouldn't exactly call those flicks "intellectually dishonest" though because they never made any real effort to try to be honest. They just reeled in some suckers.
JFK is a great example of breathtaking intellectual dishonesty. It's hard to even think of a remote 2nd.
Uhm, lawsuits aren't spurred by a simple, misleading synopsis of a film: https://www.adn.com/features/article/fourth-kind-pays-telling-big-fib/2009/11/12/
shareI guess I just saw the cover poster of a human levitating 4 feet above a bed, read the synopsis, and my natural assumption was it was a fake docudrama/horror flick. But maybe that's just me.
shareMy comment wasn't about the veracity of the subject matter but the "deliberately duplicitous manner" in which the film was promoted, which is what that article details.
shareFor me promotional posters and trailers featuring human levitation with Milla Jovovich asserting it's all real footage can't be taken at face value for being real. Different strokes.
Apparently a lot of people bought it.
And apparently you didn't read the article because you're still trying to obfuscate my point.
If you disagree with the movie being an example of intellectual dishonesty, then why didn't you address the poster who submitted it?
You're taking this way too personally dude.
I actually remember reading that article when the movie was released and was flabbergasted by how anyone could be taken in by those fake stories when the promotional trailer featured levitating humans.
I'm dealing with your point head on. You asserted a "deliberately duplicitous manner" in which the film was promoted. Well it doesn't get any more promotional than movie posters and trailers featuring human levitation does it?
You should read your very own link. Here's a quote:
It's a troubling commentary on the gullibility of people, she added.
Absolutely true. And I responded to you instead of hownos because you emphatically agreed with him. It was a coin flip. share
I read the article after stumbling upon the movie late one night which is why it immediately came to mind when hownos submitted it. I was never subjected to any of the overt examples you keep mentioning such as trailers and posters. What stuck in my mind were some of the more extreme and insidious attempts at trying to pass it off as fact-based, such as creating false news accounts and attributing them to an actual newspaper, The Nome Nugget. If that doesn't qualify as intellectual dishonesty, then I don't know what does.
shareAgain, if you don't think it applies to you then why are you taking it so personally? You're openly admitting you weren't exposed to any of the promotional materials before stumbling on it one night so you weren't in position to recognize the marketing stunt.
The only people who'd claim it was intellectually dishonest are those who were duped into believing a purported docudrama that featured levitating humans was real.
For the rest of us, it was a transparent publicity stunt, not intellectual dishonesty. The alien abduction aspect of the fake stories should have served as a giant red flag that it was bogus. Like I mentioned in my OP, JFK is a shining example of true intellectual dishonesty. That was a film that was portrayed as being historically accurate and was riddled with deceptive and outright bullshit. Nor did it feature any supernatural phenomenon that no rationally thinking person could mistake for being real like Fourth Kind did.
I'm taking it personally because you insist upon putting a distorted spin on my comments which, if you think about it, is intellectual dishonesty. You keep harping about levitating humans and what was blatantly obvious when the deception involved so much more than that. Do you not understand the difference between overt and insidious? Apparently the law disagrees with your interpretation of intellectual dishonesty since the studio caved and settled out of court.
Also apparently, you must think hownos was duped since he submitted this movie as an example of intellectual dishonesty.
Now go back to your Trump board!
You're making it a little too obvious you got duped by the promo materials. There's no other logical reason for you to be acting this defensive.
As for the Trump board, the irony is that it's you that first encouraged me to go there to argue against your pro-Trump foes that you were having problems with. Or have you forgotten?
https://moviechat.org/general/General-Discussion/5a373b7f0abcfd00148fc579/Net-Neutrality-gone-in-USA?reply=5a398f9fbbbeed0014dc7d78
The only thing that's obvious is that we don't agree on what's considered to be intellectually dishonest in film making and your persistent efforts to dance around that and obfuscate what I called you out on.
So you're claiming that I encouraged you to initially go to that board ? That's a bald-faced lie. I only happened to encounter you in that thread and agreed with you in that one particular instance. And there were no "pro-Trump foes" or "problems," just that one certain poster, MovieManCin2. More distorted spin.
Your claim that you read and remember that article also appears as a blatant lie since it seems only logical you would have mentioned that immediately after my having posted that link instead of several posts later in the thread.
Well it's funny what they tried to pull off. They claimed it was recreated shots backed up by archival interviews and footage and intermittently they would do side by sides of the recreation with the "real footage" (which was just additional actors). I saw this opening weekend so I didn't have time to have the hoax spoiled for me. Since people believe all sorts of crazy things, I was watching believing the "real footage" was from actual interviews of people who were claiming to be abducted by aliens UNTIL they got to the one shot of "real footage" that showed a guy starting to levitate before the film went to static. As someone who doesn't believe in the supernatural I knew right there I was watching some sort of fraud. I think the movie was about a decade too late and had it been released before The internet was widespread they may have been more successful with reading people in.
shareTotally. But they apparently did pull it off in terms of a successful marketing stunt by generating controversy.
And I completely agree, if that was released in 1999 they could have gotten a much larger buy-in.
The movie was fraudulent. Do you agree with that ?? The fact they even tried to pull it off was disingenuous.
shareMy point is that it was obviously fraudulent based on the promotional materials so you already knew that going into the movie. I did anyway, but I still enjoyed watching the movie.
shareThe director hasn't done a movie since just episodic television. I have a feeling he may have some regrets with doing this movie.
shareMaybe ... maybe not. It was always destined for the B-movie bin anyway because the plot suffered from incoherence. It would have made much more sense if they stuck to the alien abduction premise instead of making it about Sumerian demons.
Like I cited already, Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity that preceded it were fraudulent too and part of that same genre. But I don't think anyone would call those movies "intellectually dishonest" because you should have already known they were bogus going in.
The Fourth Kind director apparently did a better job of dressing up the fraud, but the promos still made it obvious it was clearly a fraud.
I stand by intellectually dishonest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD-KaIZoNAQ
Ok. Fair difference of opinion. I think any promos that purport real archive footage of levitating humans is obviously fraudulent. I already pointed out a not insignificant number of people didn't think so. Different strokes.
shareAnd I still agree that it was. This video reconfirmed the audacity and extreme claims in the marketing which seemed to go to a different level and which was my point.
Did you ever think you'd see the day when I'd catch so much flak for simply agreeing with your opinion about a movie? Ironic, eh ?
That was the first that sprang to mind. BOY were people pissed off that it wasn't real.... 😅
"The Doors" is another one.. Also by Oliver Stone. I was surprised that his "Untold History of the United States" was actually accurate!
shareI think most biopics in general take significant liberties with the truth. Houdini starring Tony Curtis and Janet Lee was a ridiculously innaccurate account of Houdini's life.
shareSchindler's List.
shareWhat was dishonest about it?
shareI really don't like where this is going...even if it's just a lame attempt at trolling.
shareHow is it trolling? He answered the question.
shareI'd like him to answer GotWood's question about what he considers dishonest about it. Mainly is he claiming the holocost wasn't real.
shareSam, don’t even waste your time with people like that.
shareYeah...I know you're right. Sometimes I just need the obvious stated to me so thank you for that lol!
shareI notice there were no replies to the other ones (hmmmmm)... Way to be consistent. Give him a chance to reply - not everyone is on their laptop 24/7.
shareYou're lying. You don't want me to answer GotWood's question. You said you "don't like where this is going" meaning you want to suppress discussion, because you know where's it's going. That's a perfect demonstration of intellectual dishonesty.
shareActually Mrmojo had it right..you're not worth wasting time over, and whether you're trolling or not I stopped caring whether or not you responded.
shareThey were speaking english.
shareArgo
Upon its release in October 2012, the film was criticized for its suggestion that British and New Zealand embassies had turned away the American refugees in Tehran. Neither the British nor the New Zealand embassies had turned the refugees away. Both embassies, along with the Canadians, helped them. The British took immense risks, having initially hosted the American refugees. However, the location was deemed unsafe as the British embassy itself had been targeted and surrounded by mobs and all involved officials from the various nations believed the Canadian ambassador's residence to be a safer location. New Zealand diplomatic ambassadors also took huge risks: organizing a place for the refugees to hide if they needed to change their location,[and driving the Americans to the airport when they made their escape from Tehran. British diplomats also assisted other American hostages beyond the escaped group of six. Bob Anders, the U.S. consular agent played in the film by Tate Donovan, said, "They put their lives on the line for us. We were all at risk. I hope no one in Britain will be offended by what's said in the film. The British were good to us and we're forever grateful."
Sir John Graham, the then-British ambassador to Iran, said,
My immediate reaction on hearing about this was one of outrage. I have since simmered down, but am still very distressed that the film-makers should have got it so wrong. My concern is that the inaccurate account should not enter the mythology of the events in Tehran in November 1979."
The then-British chargé d'affaires in Tehran said that, had the Americans been discovered in the British embassy, "I can assure you we'd all have been for the high jump." Martin Williams, secretary to Sir John Graham in Iran at the time, was the one who found the Americans, after searching for them in his own British car (the only Austin Maxi in Iran) and first sheltered them in his own house"
I should have thought of this one. The movie was a lie basically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Caper
I pasted it from there Howey, The Yanks will claim it all. Amityville Horror was a blatant lie as well.😉
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