10 Movies You Don't Want to Admit You Love - Part 2

8. Apocalypto

Pictured: Something vaguely racist and/or antisemitic

Ah, Mel Gibson... What ever are we going to do with you? Every time he pulls himself out of one controversy, he falls right into another. Will he ever make a good, clean comeback? Or is he destined to keep offending people for the rest of his career?

Why We Pretend to Hate It

Apocalypto was released fresh off the heels of Mel Gibson's infamous drunken antisemitic rant. People have lost their jobs over that sort of thing... you know, like... in the fashion industry. Even if he didn't mean anything anti-Jewish with The Passion of the Christ, it sure as Hell seemed like it now. So with Apocalypto coming out so soon on after the rant... It's not like people were jumping for joy over it. The man's Braveheart days seem behind him. Even Riggs would think he's crazy. No one's gonna like this movie. After all, we can't very well support such an irresponsible, ignorant man.

Pictured: Irresponsible, ignorant man.

Why We Secretly Love It

Mel Gibson is extremely talented. Whatever resentment he may or may not hold inside, Mel Gibson knows how to make a damn good movie... and Apocalypto was a damn good movie.

It's easy to say you're gonna boycott a certain artist because of something they do or say. But to actually do so may prove more difficult than you think. Also, consider that ALL Mel Gibson did was get arrested for DUI and say really cruel anti-semitic remarks to the Jewish cop who arrested him. I know what you're thinking. "What do you mean, that's ALL he did? That's a pretty big thing." Oh, it is. Don't get me wrong.

But Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl.

What does one thing have to do with the other, you ask? Nothing, except how the media reacted. Mel Gibson was immediately portrayed as some kind of horrible, horrible person. These days, Roman Polanski is portrayed as a sort of... victim. A victim of an unfair criminal justice system. To be clear, he DRUGGED and RAPED a 13-year-old girl. Then he fled the country and now resides in France where they refuse to extradite him. And we love his movies so much, we pretty much forgave him. We forgave him so much, that he became the first U.S. fugitive to ever receive an Oscar for Best Director. So he narrowly escapes paying his debt to society, lives in France, continues to make movies (great movies at that), with no fear of ever serving time for his crime. He not only made a mockery of the American Criminal Justice system, but he keyed its Hummer, fornicated its mother, spat on its dog and gave it the finger.

Then he appeared in Rush Hour 3... The bastard!

My point? Talent trumps behavior. Roman Polanski committed a horrible act against a child and got away with it. But it's hard to stay mad at the guy who made Chinatown, The Pianist, Rosemary's Baby, and most recently The Ghost Writer. So we'll continue to praise his work, while the F.B.I. continues its futile attempt to bring him to justice.

Now, with that in perspective, does Mel Gibson's drunken stupidity seem all that bad anymore? I mean, sure. It definitely isn't a good thing. But it's not enough to take away from a really well-made film about a man trying to escape from an ancient civilization that practices ritual sacrifice. In a dead language.

Now he can say offensive things in Aramaic AND Mayan. And you'll never know it.

The reason Apocalypto is so damn hard to hate is because it's actually quite awesome. Dropping the religious angle, Mel Gibson made a solid action movie. A two-hour foot chase through the jungle. Extremely violent, yet strangely human. It's about a man who wants to get back to his family. While being chased by people who want to pull his heart out through his chest a la Temple of Doom. It's got something for everybody!

All Mel Gibson has to do is increase his body of work, and all of this will be put behind him. Sure, there are some who won't ever forgive him. But if Roman Polanski can save face after raping a kid, I'm sure Mel Gibson can move past being caught saying a few bigoted things here and there.

I should also point out that modern filmmaking was shaped by the racist son of a Confederate Army colonel. With the most explicitly racist movie ever created. And it is constantly being honored as one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. At least we can all agree that any antisemitic imagery found in Mel Gibson's films is accidental.

7. Any Horror/Slasher Sequel

The faces of fear for one movie each. The sources of humor for countless.

Go ahead. Say it. "The first one was a classic. All the sequels sucked." You know you want to. It's almost like a reflex. It's like you were trained to say it.

Why We Pretend to Hate Them

Because they all defy logic. They die at the end of each film, and somehow manage to come back. How is this possible? I don't care how "evil" you are, there's only so many ways a person can be killed before the audience begins to lose its ability to suspend disbelief.

The source of their power.

So what gives? Okay, I get it. Freddy's a ghost. So technically, he can come back however many times he wants because... hey, you can't kill him if he's already dead. Even though each movie finds a way to kill him, he always comes back - most times before the movie is even over. And we're kind of okay with that. Because he's a ghost. He has that supernatural advantage, so we don't really question it.

The real problem arises from what happens to his character. Freddy goes from being one of the most frightening characters to ever grace the silver screen to, well, a guy who tells punny jokes while he kills you.

...No, this is the guy who kills you WITH his jokes. Slowly. Painfully.

So let's recap. In the first movie, he sucks Johnny Depp into a bed revealing he has more blood in him than fifteen full-grown oxen. This is, of course, one of the most shocking, scariest scenes ever filmed. In one of the sequels, he kills some kid by beating him at a video game. This is incredibly over-the-top, and too silly to not have been intentional. So when you take a scary friggin' ghost and turn him into a third-rate Larry the Cable Guy knock-off, that's bound to piss off some fans.

In the Freddy and Jason franchises, there were sequels that were supposed to be the last ones . And they still kept making more. "New Nightmare" and "Freddy vs. Jason" were released after what was supposed to be "The Final Nightmare". There were seven Friday the 13th films made after the one called "The Final Chapter". One of them was called "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday". THAT was followed by Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason.

Jason and Michael Myers REALLY make no sense. In the first Friday, it's established that Jason is dead. That's the whole reason his mother goes out on a killing rampage - to avenge her son's death. Yet somehow, in part 2, he's alive and killing (kicking, too). How did that happen? And why does he keep coming back? Why does Michael keep coming back? Michael's been blown up, shot, stabbed, beaten to death and decapitated. That last one seemed to do it, but wait... Hold on, they came up with a way to bring him back... Never mind, Halloween: Resurrection  doesn't count because that one actually DID suck. And it was a stupid reason - they pretty much said that it was one of the EMT's who got decapitated. One crazy, psychopathic, superhuman EMT who tried to kill Jamie Lee Curtis wearing Michael's mask.

"It's okay. I'm a doctor."

But in the end, it's that these movies are pretty much all the same. Killer comes back, stalks teenagers, kills a few in the most gruesome ways possible, then gets overpowered by an androgynous female and dies. Or does he? Hint: If there's enough money in it for the studio, he doesn't.

Why We Secretly Love Them (Except for Halloween: Resurrection. Fuck that movie.)

You remember what I said yesterday about how human beings like to watch shit blow up? Well, human beings also like to watch bad things happen to other people. It's why people rubberneck at car accidents and train wrecks. They wanna see blood. And it's not that we're some heartless species that gets its kicks from the suffering of others (although there are some of us like that). It's just part of who we are. And the fact that these characters are fictional makes it that much easier to enjoy it.

Consider the Grand Theft Auto series. Who doesn't enjoy going on rampages in those games? Like, seriously... that game allows you to kill innocent people on the street (prostitutes seem to be a popular target for some odd reason). What does that say about us? Are we so violent in nature that we have to use a video game to simulate mass murder?

Why is this man NOT on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List?

It's the idea that we're safe from all of this stuff. We're in no real danger. The Grand Theft Auto series offers you the release of being able to kill people without the legal repercussions of doing so. Likewise, slasher movies allow you to watch teenagers get killed while you, yourself are not in any danger. And it's all guilt-free, because you know it's all fake.

Studios keep making these damn movies because they're cheap to make, and they do relatively well at the Box Office. Which means people are watching these movies, and they keep on coming back for more. Cheap and unoriginal as these films are - they're essentially giving you the same story over and over again with more elaborate death scenes - they're undeniably fun to watch.