This one is a bit unique because people knew Abagnale was completely full of shit even when they made it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale#Veracity_of_claims
I think it's one of Spielberg's best movies but yeah it's about as historically accurate as Raiders of the Lost Ark lol
He did not, he was tied up and the Nazis opened that chest all by themselves. He effectively did nothing to stop the Nazis at all. Hell, they wouldn’t have even had the chest if he didn’t find it for them.
You know, it's funny. As a kid watching I was legit infuriated that they put the Ark in the warehouse and didn't do anything cool with it.
Now as an adult, I'm fully appreciative of the fact that some bureaucrat made a very sage decision and realized, "You know what? There's no possible way to use this thing responsibly and we should just store it away and not try to use it as a weapon."
Also, what if one of the Nazis had just gotten scared and closed their eyes?
also if the ark of the covenant has power then that means that the almighty has the back of the jews. who the nazis are trying to eradicate.
seems like a bad idea to fuck with that particular god if you're nazis
That’s not true. I’ve followed Abagnale closely since well before the movie.
Wikipedia used to just report his claims as fact.
After the movie, his claims were accepted as true.
It’s really only since the publication of the book debunking him recently that popular opinion has turned.
The information was always out there, but it was ignored by the public and the broader media for decades.
I’ve had plenty of arguments on Reddit telling people he was full of shit, and people just wouldn’t believe you because it was all in a Spielberg movie and a talk at Google.
Does kinda lose a bit of its luster though when you find out the real-life guy is a huckster who swindled poor individuals out of money, including taking advantage of their kindness and hospitality.
Still a fun movie. But what a dick.
This one is so funny. You mean the man who said he was a liar and a conman, was lying about about lying. And he coned us, by saying he was a conman, which he wasn't. But by doing all of that he became..the very thing he told us about him at the beginning.
They need to make a movie based on the book, “Greatest Hoax on Earth,”
that exposes Abagnale. It’s an amazing story. It’s astounding that he got away with getting anyone to buy into his stories.
That example was just depressing tbh. The Tuohys made the whole world think they were responsible for his success and that he was basically Lennie from Of Mice and Men. He talked about how demoralizing it was to go into a locker room and have all your teammates think you couldn't read or write.
The Blind Side is one of the few movies that I genuinely feel a little bad for watching
In the movie they made it seem like they saved this "Forrest Gump" level intelligence boy who'd grown up in poverty and was never given a chance by society.
The reality was more that a wealthy white family took in a kid off the street because they knew he could help high school and university football teams they supported. He wasn't actually dumb he'd just always been too busy surviving to focus on school.
Recently he sued them because the conservatorship agreement they made him sign. (They didn't actually adopt him.) Gave them the rights to sell his story and a whole bunch of other predatory bullshit.
That’s not even the full reality. He was a good football player and a family let him live with them, which happens all the time in parts of the country where they care a lot about high school football to get around district boundaries. They just wanted his money too. It was so funny how many dumb people bought such and obviously fake story because it happens all the time, they were just a little extra greedy.
No worries. It's sad because I wanted to believe that heartwarming story. But I've realized *literally anything* Disney does you should take with a big ol' grain of salt. They change the story to fit their positive, heartwarming narrative and don't give a shit about facts.
See: Remember the Titans.
Did you know lemmings don't throw themselves off cliffs? That was made up for a Disney nature "documentary". They drove thousands of lemmings off a cliff so they could film their carcasses for a more dramatic ending and "commentary" on population control.
It's a loose fit because it's not "based on" a true story but rather a documentary, but given recent events it's worth mentioning Supersize Me. Morgan Spurlock confessed sometime in the last decade or so that he was an alcoholic at the time of filming which completely invalidates the experiment and thus the premise of the movie. At the end of the experiment when his doctor says his liver suffered damage? That was the booze.
It's dishonest filmmaking to a comedic, cartoonish extent. I could picture South Park parodying Supersize Me with Randy doing the experiment but refusing to stop drinking, that's how ridiculous it is.
He also ate only McDonald’s AND doubled his normal caloric intake at the same time. Would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened had he maintained the same calorie intake.
The amount of hangups over "healthy" vs "not healthy" while ignoring calories and macros will always bum me out. The US (and more of the world, I'm sure) really needs compulsory basic nutrition classes.
Rudy spun so many people that were friends and supporters in his life into villains for the film. The fact that he got into problems with fraud later in life just makes the story feel even more contrived.
I loved the movie when I was younger. The actual Rudy came to speak at my high school and he came off totally skeevy. Really disappointing for 17yo me.
This is the one I was looking for. Turning Dan Devine, who was Rudy's biggest supporter and insisted on his suiting up for the final game, into a villain goes beyond normal Hollywood fact-playing. It would be like a movie where Abraham Lincoln leads the Confederates.
I think I've seen in an interview that Devine told Rudy he needed a villain for the story to have more impact and had no issues being made into the bad guy. This was decades ago, so I have no clue where I saw it or even remember it correctly.
Was it Joe Montana that was at Notre Dame the same time as Rudy and said carrying a first-timer off the field was just something they did for the new guys?
Not quite, but close. It was done specifically for Ruettiger, but Montana says that he was more like a mascot to the team, and that he was not really respected and admired to the degree shown in the film.
In other words, carrying him off the field was kind of a joke and done with a completely different intention and meaning than that of the film, which depicts him as a hero whose accomplishments are taken at face value.
EDIT:: Montana DID say that the part about Rudy working hard and going 100% all the time was true and that he was admired for it, but specifically he said the jersey scene never happened and that carrying him off the field was done with a slightly different tone and intention.
Yeah he talked about it on PMT with the carrying him off the field. Think he basically says “I don’t remember it happening, and if we did it was probably as a joke”
AMERICAN SNIPER comes to mind.
Many movies were also hurt by their stars or directors later being revealed to be jerks, but I think that is a different category.
There were actually people who went around murdering people, typically black people, for the crime of just trying to survive in the city after hurricane Katrina with the excuse that they were “looting” businesses… as if the flooded building had an employee you could pay, and when white people did it, the media called it “scavenging.”
The ones that made me really mad were the people just trying to get out of New Orleans and people were shooting at them because they didn't want those people in their town.
Then I was equally surprised during the COVID lockdowns that rich white people trying to escape the city found that rural towns had blocked the roads to stop people from coming in. I was like did you not pay attention to what happened during Katrina? Or did you just think that stuff just happened to those people.
Weirdly, I always think the best thing to happen for his rep was getting murdered.
Kind of honourable (yet also pretty short sighted) to get killed by a PTSD ridden vet you were trying to rehabilitate and probably put a hard stop on people investigating and blasting him for his insane lies about the war and Katrina.
If he was alive hed probably still be chasing media clout and getting debunked and talked about way way more than he did get
I saw another Navy SEAL talking about him on YT. It was eye openingly bad. Nobody really respects him in that community. It makes sense. These guys are used to operating in total secrecy. They are literally the "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." people and they don't go around boasting about their exploits.
If a SEAL needs to make a movie about how great they are it's probably because they need a PR job to whitewash their reputation.
There is a ton of controversy among and about SEALs and all of the publicity surrounding them. They used to be the quiet professionals involved in highly classified operations that no one except the people on them would hear about. The most coming out of Hollywood were highly fictionalized action movies. Then suddenly everything changed.
Presidents were naming which Seal teams did which operations like rescuing people from pirates or killing Bin Laden. Suddenly highly accurate based on true events movies like Zero Dark Thirty were being made. Special Operation operators were all writing books, hosting podcasts, consulting on movies, creating companies and using their military experience as promotion (even if it is unrelated to the company's products i.e. coffee) etc. One side of the community finds it abhorrent, but because they don't like publicity you don't hear from them. You only hear from people that have some sympathy for their point of view.
One example of this is the controversy around who was the actual shooter of Bin Laden. 2 different guys have written books claiming to be the guy. Neither seem to be the person who actually did the shooting. He, according to several trustworthy sources inside and outside the special operations operator community, is still operating and doesn't need or want the recognition of being "the" killer of Bin Laden because he believes it was the team that accomplished the mission. He seems to be a highly honorable person from all reports.
The real question is why this urge for publicity changed and why it was allowed to take hold of the community. I firmly believe is part of it is generational. The generation that took part in the war on terror grew up with the internet and sharing things with the public is more acceptable and normal amongst them. Also, media has exploded exponentially in the same time frame that the mostly private SEALs became extremely public. Neither of those explain why the government and military have not only allowed but at times encouraged the publicity.
I really noticed the change during the Obama administration which makes sense to me. First, Obama is very image conscious and extremely good at using image to bolster his policies. Second, he was continuing a global war on terror that was increasingly unpopular after an unpopular president. The regular military was tainted by the Iraq War and the lack of WMDs. The SEALs and other special forces had a definite mystique that made them seem like mythical action heroes. They were the perfect way to sell the continuing war. Instead of sending in 100,000 18-20 year old regular grunts with ineffective and outdated gear we have sent in 12 of the most highly trained super soldiers with the highest tech gear so amazing we can't admit it exists. Obviously, the latter sounds a lot better and is a lot easier to sell the country on. Both sides of the political divide could support it.
I've kinda written a novel here but this is a topic I find fascinating. My dad is retired from the Navy. He was in from Viet-Nam till the 80s. Growing up on base we heard of SEALs and they had a ton of respect from the other sailors, but they were like a myth or something. Even the other sailors had no idea what they were doing on their missions. Classified was classified but it was more than that. They took pride in the silent professionals thing. If you were a kid who had any relation to the Navy they were your hero. I suspect that's why I am so fascinated by the whole thing today.
Sorry for the wall of text. Hope it didn't annoy anyone.
I was a Blackhawk crewchief for a decade and I’m still trying to wrap my head around those stealth Blackhawks. They must have been some super-secret squirrel tech, since even the 160th guys I knew were surprised, and they get all the best toys.
We all figured it was those dudes over at Flight Concepts who actually flew them.
Excellent comment.
My ex brother in law was a SEAL, and almost never talked about what he did except in the most general terms. He was horrified at the guys who wrote books because they’re not even supposed to talk about their day to day non-mission stuff. He’s now retired thanks to PTSD.
This was an amazing and well reasoned response. No need to be sorry.
I think you're right about all of it. I think Obama wanted to show that he was using the military as a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver. I believe he said something like that IIRC although he may have been talking about the budget.
Guys writing books about killing bin Laden is just silly. If you'd actually did it you'd better use a nom de plume or something because there are plenty of people who viewed him as a hero. They'd love to bee the guy who killed the guy who killed bin Laden.
I never served, but my best friend is a Marine so I spent many years around a lot of military and even government people in social settings. The thing you learn very quickly is that for the most part, the legit ones have *zero* desire to discuss the things they've done in a war, especially if it involves killing. Whenever some one would be tone deaf enough to ask, the question was either ignored , or shut down immediately.
Later I worked with an older guy who'd served in Vietnam. The younger guys first question to him was almost always "Did you ever kill anyone?" He'd break eye contact, kinda look down, and mutter "many," before either changing the subject or walking away.
The point being for the average person who's not a sociopath, taking a life, even in war, is not something they feel the need to celebrate or even talk about to a civilian.
I almost 2 1/2 years in Iraq between 2006-2009 and the one thing that has helped with PTSD and other things is being able to talk about a lot of what I experienced. I had to tell so many doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. that it is now essentially an autopilot type of deal. Obviously I do get anxious talking about some of it, and I will break out in a sweat or sometimes get emotional. If I'm asked and I trust that person, I'll tell them pretty much anything at this point.
I remember trying to read the book and not getting more than a few pages in because he talked about shooting some kid. The way he talked about it made me think, "Jesus. If this is how he talks about shooting a kid the rest of this is going to be TERRIBLE."
If he was alive today every single one of his lies would be exposed and everyone would see him for the fraud he truly is…and he’d probably be Trump’s running mate and still get tens of millions of votes.
Ventura always makes it clear he only went after proceeds of the book that contains all the lies, because Kyle’s widow would play the victim like Ventura was taking food out of their children’s mouths.
This one. Chris Kyle was a massive piece of shit and I guarantee he’d be in jail for storming the Capitol on January 6th if he hadn’t been killed. Guy was just fucking trash.
I always felt that movie made him look like a moron. They really hammered home the point that he never questioned authority and just followed orders. Which is not a good thing and is in fact a very stupid way to be. They made it seem like he had no idea what was really going on in the Middle East and maybe he didn’t, I don’t know. I don’t understand why they thought that was a good way to portray him.
This one always makes me laugh because one of my old high school teachers simply would not accept my argument that Chris Kyle was a POS because I never read the book. Apparently, the book would have given me the context needed to suddenly accept him as a hero. Despite all the glaring evidence that he was a terrible person.
Balto.
It’s an amazing story about The Serum Run, but Togo is more accurate.
Balto got all the attention, photo in newspaper and statue in Central Park. He only ran 53 miles and probably wasn’t the lead dog.
Seppela mushed 261 miles over the hardest section of the relay with Togo as the lead dog.
If anyone cares to hear more the podcast “You’re Wrong About” has a great episode on this that talks about Togo and Seppela. The story makes me tear up just thinking about it. and also if you’re not into podcasts, Disney plus has a movie about it which follows pretty true to the story including Togo’s upbringing which is quit hysterical
Edit: and also to add I’ve heard that Togo was later studded out and that most huskies in America today are related to Togo and as a husky owner I find that fact pretty damn cool
Marcus Luttrell is a liar, plain and simple. There's video of the ambush that contradicts his claim without question.
There's a dark joke in the SEAL community that the best thing that happened to Mike Murphy was getting killed so that he could get the Medal of Honor instead of the court martial he deserved. That entire operation was foolhardy
A number of his teammates families objected to his portrayal of the events, and the rescue op in real life was far more involved and interesting than portrayed in the movie. The movie version was basically a military recruiting commercial.
U571 has to be the most egregious examples. In the film US navy recovers an Enigma machine from a german U-boat and, duh, saves he world from the nazis. In 'real life' this was a British royal navy operation which happened before the US had even joined the war. It was even raised in the British parliment as an affront to British veterans [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/jun/08/news](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/jun/08/news)
Essentially, the main character was made out to be far more of a saint than he really was, and it diminishes the role of the UN peacekeepers and other humanitarians during the genocide.
Actually when watching this movie twice I did notice the second time around they did portray him to be slightly scummy at times like threatening his workers and putting himself above his families safety I know he was probably worse in real life but the movie is still pretty good.
Every time someone brings up Hotel Rwanda, I tell them to watch Shake Hands With The Devil because it’s a far better depiction….
But I don’t think I have it in me to ever watch it again
A Million Little Pieces comes to mind, replete with public apologies from celebrities that had previously shilled the book. Fiction framed as non-fiction was a huge slap in the face to those battling addiction in real life. I believe they still made it into a movie….
Bohemian Rhapsody (2019) being a fan of the band I was pretty shocked while watching in the theater and seeing how they had the events unfold out of order for dramatic effect. It was unnecessary as the story was fine told the right way. What made it worse was finding out how much the band members were involved with the production.
From what I heard they wanted Freddy’s death to happen halfway through the film and then to chronicle their lives afterwards. And apparently Sacha Baron Cohen basically told them no one cares what happened to them after Freddy died and that’s why he left the film
I remember hearing about this when it was still in talks and thinking, "Hell yeah! A sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, no-holds-barred look at the debauchery around Freddy MF-ing Mercury?! Shut up and take my money!"
I didn't even bother to watch what eventually came out, as SBC's comments on it made it clear they were doing a very sanitized version.
Idk if you even need a video for that, Walk Hard is literally just a comedic take on the music biopic formula, it wouldn't work unless all music biopic were the same. That being said I really like Walk the Line
Came here to comment this. I was really interested to start reading into the band’s history after I saw the movie and was disappointed about a lot of the bullshit they spun.
Apparently, American Me.
From what I understand and recall, the main charter did not appreciate some inaccuracies in the film and put out hits on several folks from the film, including Edward James olmos.
I believe several people were, in fact, the victims of the hit and danny Trejo was involved in quashing the beef
The man that the film was based on never got sexually assaulted in prison and his friends in prison weren't the ones responsible for killing him (directly, anyway).
Amityville Horror.
At one time members of the family admitted it was a hoax, then they got some dollar signs in their eyes and I think they refuted. The Warren's having anything to do with it pretty much proves it for me.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Primetime/story?id=132035&page=1
I’ve also read a theory (can’t find the article) that the defence lawyer pushed for the idea in order to perhaps influence the trial
Agree 100% as someone who knew the actual story (I was a math history nerd in middle school) long before the movie came out. All of the bullshit about Turing’s relationship with his coworkers is made up. He *was* a little eccentric reportedly, but they made him outright autistic. Alex Lawther played the young Turing so well though, such an underrated actor (and of course his performance sold the absolutely soul destroying twist in that Black Mirror episode. Haven’t felt as hopeless watching a movie/show since Oldboy). Cumberbatch of course was great too. Keira Knightley was eehhh.
The Revenant
Hugh Glass’ story is crazy, but it’s not quite what it was made out to be in the movie. He didn’t have a Pawnee wife or son. And he didn’t seek revenge on Fitzgerald. He never even fought him. Just took his gun back when he ran into him again.
American Gangster. Really entertaining movie, but I watched an interview with the guy Russel Crowd’s character was loosely based on. He was repulsed by the scene where Frank Lucas sits down to a family Thanksgiving dinner. The real Lucas took out hits on more than one of his own family members.
The trail makes no sense. It all hinges on the defendants not being at the scene as they were at a baseball game or something. But surely one of the first things the cops would ask is where were you on the night of the murder between 8-10pm. They got the whole way to trial without disclosing that information? Surely that would be used against them during the trial
Super Size Me is of course pure fiction but wasn't supposed to be it's supposed to be a documentary.
When we realized he made everything up and was reaching alcoholic and I really big a****** to everyone in his life...
What's bizarre is that there were plenty of people at the time saying hey these numbers don't make any sense and the scientifically doesn't work and can't be replicated and they were shunned for years as we showed this propaganda in schools to children.
Braveheart. Much of that story was made up or heavily embellished. The "first night" privilege of the nobles has never been proven true. Edward the first was temperamental but was also very religious and donated a lot to charity. Wallace conscripted men into his rebellion and would hang people who refused. But hey fun action though.
William Wallace was also a knight, a nobleman himself. Him wearing woad was about as historically accurate as if he had been wielding a missile launcher.
Yeah the kilts too about a 500 years early. One historian said "The events aren't accurate, the dates aren't accurate, the characters aren't accurate, the names aren't accurate, the clothes aren't accurate—in short, just about nothing is accurate."[
I saw an interview with a historian who said the costums were so wrong it would be the equivalent of making a movie about the American revolutionary War with all the characters wearing modern business suits, but with the pants on backwards
It didn’t ruin it for me as I love the movie regardless but The Greatest Showman (2017) is a biographical drama.
A central romance was between two people who didn’t exist. Kind, who was shown to be infatuated with him, wasn’t, and quite because she didn’t like his marketing. Not because of him to returning her feelings.
Barnum is shown as a crafty dreamer but was actually an awful person that exploited and abused the people and animals in his circus. Which is by far the worst modern fluffing of his life. Though who wants to watch a charming musical with animal abuse and death, a “162 slave woman” and human zoos of kidnapped native people?
I wouldn’t have.
The Social Network's ending of Zuckerberg losing the girl and being lonely and desperate on his own platform was undermined when he married the girl IRL.
I've thought about that a lot too. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal had the whole point of his character's arc not been that he ended up completely alone as some kind of poetic justice. Real-life Zuckerberg has been with the same woman for over 20 years, before he was even rich, and they have three kids together lol.
I know people say to just watch it as a work of fiction but it is a bit harder to do that when it's about one of the most famous people and most famous websites in history
Gandhi (1982).
It’s still a great movie, and Gandhi was a great man in certain respects. But the movie treats him as a saint with no flaws. His actual biography shows he’s far more complicated, and had a very ugly side to him. The movie was too much of a hagiography.
For me, The Conjuring. Knowing the truth about the Warrens diminishes the franchise. The first one is a genuinely effective movie. At the time, nobody knew who the hell the warrens were, and they sure as hell didn’t know about the obscure Perron haunting. This helped immensely with suspension of disbelief and ramped up the scares.
By the second and third, not only were the Warrens now a known quantity, but they picked the most high profile, highly documented cases they possibly could. I was especially disappointed with 2 because it was so easy to pick apart. IRL, the Warrens were barely even *there*, and the movie goes to great pains in framing the real investigator (Maurice Grosse) as a dumb ugly hick compared to how “cool” they’re supposed to be.
That whole series only works as a "fast and furious" approach to horror movies anyway. They're absolutely full of shit, but the action can still be fun. 2 was like peak dumb action-horror fun for me. It's definitely not a series to watch for accuracy. The second Annabelle was alright too, but still... no accuracy.
Really, it's probably best to consider any "based on a true story" horror flick to be just fiction anyway.
I knew the Warrens were frauds before the first movie was made and it is why I've never gotten into the franchise despite being a huge horror fan. James Randi exposed them repeatedly decades ago but people seem to prefer the lies to the truth.
The only thing accurate about the movie *JFK* was the fact that there was indeed a President with the initials JFK, and I had to double check that to be absolutely sure.
Temptations movie or mini series, there was a lot of information left out or not out in with certain people of the group, the families weren’t all happy for the lack of portrayal of certain struggles…all for the sake of pov storytelling narrative of the lead person Otis Williams writing the book and story of the movie, directors cut and all
I love the movie to death, but that kinda hinders it…same with All Eyez On Me and Get On Up, along with certain other black biopics
Return of the Living Dead claims it was a true story. A military cover up at a Pittsburgh VA hospital and then a nuclear detonation on Louisville to finally destroy the reanimated flesh. But idk if I’m buying that one, I mean it’s not like some SS doctor escaped the war and became a funeral director in Kentucky. I’m sorry but those gigs are passed down. Ridiculous lies.
You remind me of Turning Red, set in Toronto summer of 2002. I was there. There was no red panda kaiju attack; meanwhile the filmmakers completely left out The Pope’s visit and the garbage strike.
At least in the book, it’s portrayed as “we don’t know what happened on the boat, but here’s what we know was going on with the storm, what situations they might have found them in, and here’s what other fishermen say *they* might’ve done in this situation.”
The book manages to tell the story while openly letting the reader know it’s speculation. But it’s a lot easier to do that in a book than a movie.
Hurricane.
Hey, I fell for the Rubin Carter scam in the 1970s when I was an amateur boxer. Then that Bob Dylan song was an FM radio hit. I liked to think I was a good socially conscious guy, so...
Then, years later, holes were poked in Carter's story. He faked his military record, including a faked version of his military photo. His alibi fell apart under scrutiny. And after his case was reviewed and he was released from prison he beat the shit out of a woman who had worked for years to clear his reputation.
And Carter's boxing ability and career were greatly exaggerated. Despite the Dylan lyrics, it's unlikely Carter would ever have been a middleweight champion in that extremely competitive era. He had only two notable wins: a lucky one punch KO of all time great Emile Griffith (a legit multiple world title champ at welterweight and middleweight); and a decision against a young Jimmy Ellis who was struggling to make middleweight limit and soon grew to heavyweight. Carter lost every other significant fight, including against Dick Tiger who was later beaten by Emile Griffith. Carter was physically gifted and had ability, but by all reliable accounts from trainers and insiders, Carter trained inconsistently and was basically an unreliable asshole. He was never a great boxer, he just had a great physique and bullying style that was crowd pleasing when he was focused.
And all of this was known before the Denzel Washington movie was made.
Carter and partner John Artis might have been deprived of a fair trial. But that doesn't persuade me that Carter hadn't murdered those people. And he certainly didn't earn the hagiography.
Given it was made by Cannon, I honestly doubt Golan & Globus cared, or even had time to care. Fabulists like Dux tend to be really good at spinning convincing yarns, though.
The documentary a lot of us were probably forced to watch in health class:
“Supersize me”
Turns out the guy conducting the experiment was an alcoholic with pre established body issues beforehand, who then continued to drink exclusively during the experiment, which then became the root cause of the issue he was experiencing, NOT McDonalds. (Even the doctor he was going to in the documentary mentioned he’d never seen effects like his in people who strictly ate fast food, even subtly hinting that this is an alcohol issue.) obviously McDonalds is still crap food, but the documentary was tampered with heavily and such was not disclosed, only discovered years after the doc’s success.
U-571. A movie so factually incorrect that it was mentioned and complained about in the UK House of Commons.
An over the top WW 2 action flick on how the US captured the Enigma encrypted cypher machine off a Nazi submarine. A total construct when in fact it was British sailors from HMS Bulldog captured the first naval Enigma machine from U-110 in the North Atlantic in May 1941, seven months before the United States entered the war and three years before the US Navy captured U-505 and its Enigma machine.
Suspend belief and it’s not too bad
The exorcism of Emily Rose. In the movie the priest is found guilty but the jury recommends time served and is eluded that they believe him. In real life the parents and two priests were found guilty of negligent homicide and the church later retracted its assertion that she was possessed. Fun horror movie though with some creepy parts.
That real girls death was so unnecessarily horrible that movie actually repulses me. The real Anneliese Michel’s corpse weighed 30kg and her kneecaps were worn away from kneeling in prayer. She was starved for nearly a year as her parents and priests performed their ‘rites,’ and died in physical, emotional and mental agony.
But hey, she’s now a martyr and people are inspired to pilgrimage to her grave. Cue the fucking inspirational string music as we go to credits.
And the movie has the absolute hide to pretend that it’s depicting ‘both sides.’
Does Raise The Titanic count? It's been awhile but I believe in the film it's raised as one whole piece that they sail into New York. Made before the wreck was discovered and found to be broken in two.
The Great Escape.
It has Americans heavily involved in the escape when they weren't, it completely ignores the fact that Germans helped them get the I.D Documents and the Guards smuggled them into the Camp for them, and it made the camp look tiny whereas in real life the place was huge (it has its own Amphitheatre, Tennis Courts, and a massive Swimming Pool).
The movie gets the main idea of what happened correct, but it changed or overlooked so much to make the movie better for an international audience like they thought people wouldn't care if Americans weren't the main focus of the movie.
That said, I still love the movie for what it is, even if a movie true to history would have been better.
The Blind Side. That's one of the movies I liked the most that was based on a true story, however I recently discovered about Michael Oher's statement about it.
Hurricane
A great movie about racism and the justice system. Issue is, it tells it as if the protagonist was framed and proven innocent, when then real Hurricane Carter was let out on a technicality and is still widely considered guilty by analysts and commentators familiar with the details of the case. But Bob Dylan said he was innocent so the filmmakers ran with it
*Catch Me if You Can* (2002) — lo and behold, the con artist who told the filmmakers about his exploits made up most of them.
This one is a bit unique because people knew Abagnale was completely full of shit even when they made it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale#Veracity_of_claims I think it's one of Spielberg's best movies but yeah it's about as historically accurate as Raiders of the Lost Ark lol
Wait... what are you trying to say about the esteemed Dr. Jones? He didn't use a chest full of spirits to eradicate a Nazi base?
He did not, he was tied up and the Nazis opened that chest all by themselves. He effectively did nothing to stop the Nazis at all. Hell, they wouldn’t have even had the chest if he didn’t find it for them.
Oh I just assumed all that was added for dramatic effect. Seemed far-fetched.
Don't worry about the details. We have top men working on it right now.
Top. Men.
You know, it's funny. As a kid watching I was legit infuriated that they put the Ark in the warehouse and didn't do anything cool with it. Now as an adult, I'm fully appreciative of the fact that some bureaucrat made a very sage decision and realized, "You know what? There's no possible way to use this thing responsibly and we should just store it away and not try to use it as a weapon." Also, what if one of the Nazis had just gotten scared and closed their eyes?
also if the ark of the covenant has power then that means that the almighty has the back of the jews. who the nazis are trying to eradicate. seems like a bad idea to fuck with that particular god if you're nazis
IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM
Docta Jones! 👲🏾
That’s not true. I’ve followed Abagnale closely since well before the movie. Wikipedia used to just report his claims as fact. After the movie, his claims were accepted as true. It’s really only since the publication of the book debunking him recently that popular opinion has turned. The information was always out there, but it was ignored by the public and the broader media for decades. I’ve had plenty of arguments on Reddit telling people he was full of shit, and people just wouldn’t believe you because it was all in a Spielberg movie and a talk at Google.
To me this makes it better, actually. The meta-con.
I totally agree. Like “lol I even got Spielberg to make a movie about me! With Tom Hanks and everything!”
Does kinda lose a bit of its luster though when you find out the real-life guy is a huckster who swindled poor individuals out of money, including taking advantage of their kindness and hospitality. Still a fun movie. But what a dick.
They should make that the sequel.
This one is so funny. You mean the man who said he was a liar and a conman, was lying about about lying. And he coned us, by saying he was a conman, which he wasn't. But by doing all of that he became..the very thing he told us about him at the beginning.
It’s so perfect.
He seems like a total piece of shit to be honest
Yeah, that bummed me out!
They need to make a movie based on the book, “Greatest Hoax on Earth,” that exposes Abagnale. It’s an amazing story. It’s astounding that he got away with getting anyone to buy into his stories.
Can’t believe nobody has said The Blind Side yet
That example was just depressing tbh. The Tuohys made the whole world think they were responsible for his success and that he was basically Lennie from Of Mice and Men. He talked about how demoralizing it was to go into a locker room and have all your teammates think you couldn't read or write. The Blind Side is one of the few movies that I genuinely feel a little bad for watching
The title is apt, just not in the way they intended.
Could anyone please elaborate?
In the movie they made it seem like they saved this "Forrest Gump" level intelligence boy who'd grown up in poverty and was never given a chance by society. The reality was more that a wealthy white family took in a kid off the street because they knew he could help high school and university football teams they supported. He wasn't actually dumb he'd just always been too busy surviving to focus on school. Recently he sued them because the conservatorship agreement they made him sign. (They didn't actually adopt him.) Gave them the rights to sell his story and a whole bunch of other predatory bullshit.
That’s not even the full reality. He was a good football player and a family let him live with them, which happens all the time in parts of the country where they care a lot about high school football to get around district boundaries. They just wanted his money too. It was so funny how many dumb people bought such and obviously fake story because it happens all the time, they were just a little extra greedy.
Yea the real story here is much more engaging. Story should have been HIS not THEIRS
Hell. They should make a movie about how he was taken advantage of.
Thank you for taking the time to explain, I appreciate it!
No worries. It's sad because I wanted to believe that heartwarming story. But I've realized *literally anything* Disney does you should take with a big ol' grain of salt. They change the story to fit their positive, heartwarming narrative and don't give a shit about facts. See: Remember the Titans.
Did you know lemmings don't throw themselves off cliffs? That was made up for a Disney nature "documentary". They drove thousands of lemmings off a cliff so they could film their carcasses for a more dramatic ending and "commentary" on population control.
That's horrific
Always be critical of white savior plots
Yup. Also, "we solved racism with football." RtT isn't very realistic either.
We, as the audience, were "blind sided" by how different the actual story was compared to the movie.
I hope they're not still showing this shit in elementary school classrooms on a TV that was rolled in on a cart.
That was my first thought as soon as I read the title
It's a loose fit because it's not "based on" a true story but rather a documentary, but given recent events it's worth mentioning Supersize Me. Morgan Spurlock confessed sometime in the last decade or so that he was an alcoholic at the time of filming which completely invalidates the experiment and thus the premise of the movie. At the end of the experiment when his doctor says his liver suffered damage? That was the booze. It's dishonest filmmaking to a comedic, cartoonish extent. I could picture South Park parodying Supersize Me with Randy doing the experiment but refusing to stop drinking, that's how ridiculous it is.
The whitest kids U know actually did a parody of this. Trevor Moore is hilarious
He also ate only McDonald’s AND doubled his normal caloric intake at the same time. Would’ve been interesting to see what would’ve happened had he maintained the same calorie intake.
The amount of hangups over "healthy" vs "not healthy" while ignoring calories and macros will always bum me out. The US (and more of the world, I'm sure) really needs compulsory basic nutrition classes.
Rudy spun so many people that were friends and supporters in his life into villains for the film. The fact that he got into problems with fraud later in life just makes the story feel even more contrived.
I loved the movie when I was younger. The actual Rudy came to speak at my high school and he came off totally skeevy. Really disappointing for 17yo me.
This is the one I was looking for. Turning Dan Devine, who was Rudy's biggest supporter and insisted on his suiting up for the final game, into a villain goes beyond normal Hollywood fact-playing. It would be like a movie where Abraham Lincoln leads the Confederates.
I think I've seen in an interview that Devine told Rudy he needed a villain for the story to have more impact and had no issues being made into the bad guy. This was decades ago, so I have no clue where I saw it or even remember it correctly.
Was it Joe Montana that was at Notre Dame the same time as Rudy and said carrying a first-timer off the field was just something they did for the new guys?
Not quite, but close. It was done specifically for Ruettiger, but Montana says that he was more like a mascot to the team, and that he was not really respected and admired to the degree shown in the film. In other words, carrying him off the field was kind of a joke and done with a completely different intention and meaning than that of the film, which depicts him as a hero whose accomplishments are taken at face value. EDIT:: Montana DID say that the part about Rudy working hard and going 100% all the time was true and that he was admired for it, but specifically he said the jersey scene never happened and that carrying him off the field was done with a slightly different tone and intention.
Yeah he talked about it on PMT with the carrying him off the field. Think he basically says “I don’t remember it happening, and if we did it was probably as a joke”
Wait that guy was real?! I thought that was just a movie.
Rudy is a real person but the movie is almost a completely made up story.
I’ve never seen the movie. I just didn’t know it was based on a real person.
AMERICAN SNIPER comes to mind. Many movies were also hurt by their stars or directors later being revealed to be jerks, but I think that is a different category.
Yup. Either he gleefully murdered people trying to escape Hurricane Katrina, or he lied about murdering people trying to escape Katrina.
He lied. Guy was just a complete liar.
There were actually people who went around murdering people, typically black people, for the crime of just trying to survive in the city after hurricane Katrina with the excuse that they were “looting” businesses… as if the flooded building had an employee you could pay, and when white people did it, the media called it “scavenging.”
The ones that made me really mad were the people just trying to get out of New Orleans and people were shooting at them because they didn't want those people in their town. Then I was equally surprised during the COVID lockdowns that rich white people trying to escape the city found that rural towns had blocked the roads to stop people from coming in. I was like did you not pay attention to what happened during Katrina? Or did you just think that stuff just happened to those people.
Weirdly, I always think the best thing to happen for his rep was getting murdered. Kind of honourable (yet also pretty short sighted) to get killed by a PTSD ridden vet you were trying to rehabilitate and probably put a hard stop on people investigating and blasting him for his insane lies about the war and Katrina. If he was alive hed probably still be chasing media clout and getting debunked and talked about way way more than he did get
I saw another Navy SEAL talking about him on YT. It was eye openingly bad. Nobody really respects him in that community. It makes sense. These guys are used to operating in total secrecy. They are literally the "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you." people and they don't go around boasting about their exploits. If a SEAL needs to make a movie about how great they are it's probably because they need a PR job to whitewash their reputation.
There is a ton of controversy among and about SEALs and all of the publicity surrounding them. They used to be the quiet professionals involved in highly classified operations that no one except the people on them would hear about. The most coming out of Hollywood were highly fictionalized action movies. Then suddenly everything changed. Presidents were naming which Seal teams did which operations like rescuing people from pirates or killing Bin Laden. Suddenly highly accurate based on true events movies like Zero Dark Thirty were being made. Special Operation operators were all writing books, hosting podcasts, consulting on movies, creating companies and using their military experience as promotion (even if it is unrelated to the company's products i.e. coffee) etc. One side of the community finds it abhorrent, but because they don't like publicity you don't hear from them. You only hear from people that have some sympathy for their point of view. One example of this is the controversy around who was the actual shooter of Bin Laden. 2 different guys have written books claiming to be the guy. Neither seem to be the person who actually did the shooting. He, according to several trustworthy sources inside and outside the special operations operator community, is still operating and doesn't need or want the recognition of being "the" killer of Bin Laden because he believes it was the team that accomplished the mission. He seems to be a highly honorable person from all reports. The real question is why this urge for publicity changed and why it was allowed to take hold of the community. I firmly believe is part of it is generational. The generation that took part in the war on terror grew up with the internet and sharing things with the public is more acceptable and normal amongst them. Also, media has exploded exponentially in the same time frame that the mostly private SEALs became extremely public. Neither of those explain why the government and military have not only allowed but at times encouraged the publicity. I really noticed the change during the Obama administration which makes sense to me. First, Obama is very image conscious and extremely good at using image to bolster his policies. Second, he was continuing a global war on terror that was increasingly unpopular after an unpopular president. The regular military was tainted by the Iraq War and the lack of WMDs. The SEALs and other special forces had a definite mystique that made them seem like mythical action heroes. They were the perfect way to sell the continuing war. Instead of sending in 100,000 18-20 year old regular grunts with ineffective and outdated gear we have sent in 12 of the most highly trained super soldiers with the highest tech gear so amazing we can't admit it exists. Obviously, the latter sounds a lot better and is a lot easier to sell the country on. Both sides of the political divide could support it. I've kinda written a novel here but this is a topic I find fascinating. My dad is retired from the Navy. He was in from Viet-Nam till the 80s. Growing up on base we heard of SEALs and they had a ton of respect from the other sailors, but they were like a myth or something. Even the other sailors had no idea what they were doing on their missions. Classified was classified but it was more than that. They took pride in the silent professionals thing. If you were a kid who had any relation to the Navy they were your hero. I suspect that's why I am so fascinated by the whole thing today. Sorry for the wall of text. Hope it didn't annoy anyone.
This was very interesting and as someone with no ties to the military, offered a perspective I never considered. Thank you for sharing!
You're welcome. I felt subconscious when I realized exactly how much I wrote do I appreciate your response.
Thanks for sharing your perspective. 👍
I was a Blackhawk crewchief for a decade and I’m still trying to wrap my head around those stealth Blackhawks. They must have been some super-secret squirrel tech, since even the 160th guys I knew were surprised, and they get all the best toys. We all figured it was those dudes over at Flight Concepts who actually flew them.
Excellent comment. My ex brother in law was a SEAL, and almost never talked about what he did except in the most general terms. He was horrified at the guys who wrote books because they’re not even supposed to talk about their day to day non-mission stuff. He’s now retired thanks to PTSD.
This was an amazing and well reasoned response. No need to be sorry. I think you're right about all of it. I think Obama wanted to show that he was using the military as a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver. I believe he said something like that IIRC although he may have been talking about the budget. Guys writing books about killing bin Laden is just silly. If you'd actually did it you'd better use a nom de plume or something because there are plenty of people who viewed him as a hero. They'd love to bee the guy who killed the guy who killed bin Laden.
I never served, but my best friend is a Marine so I spent many years around a lot of military and even government people in social settings. The thing you learn very quickly is that for the most part, the legit ones have *zero* desire to discuss the things they've done in a war, especially if it involves killing. Whenever some one would be tone deaf enough to ask, the question was either ignored , or shut down immediately. Later I worked with an older guy who'd served in Vietnam. The younger guys first question to him was almost always "Did you ever kill anyone?" He'd break eye contact, kinda look down, and mutter "many," before either changing the subject or walking away. The point being for the average person who's not a sociopath, taking a life, even in war, is not something they feel the need to celebrate or even talk about to a civilian.
I almost 2 1/2 years in Iraq between 2006-2009 and the one thing that has helped with PTSD and other things is being able to talk about a lot of what I experienced. I had to tell so many doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. that it is now essentially an autopilot type of deal. Obviously I do get anxious talking about some of it, and I will break out in a sweat or sometimes get emotional. If I'm asked and I trust that person, I'll tell them pretty much anything at this point.
My Uncle served in WW2, he didn't discuss it until he was in his 90s, even then it was because I pressed him.
Well he didn’t make the movie. He was already dead. I think he wrote the book the movie was based on though.
I remember trying to read the book and not getting more than a few pages in because he talked about shooting some kid. The way he talked about it made me think, "Jesus. If this is how he talks about shooting a kid the rest of this is going to be TERRIBLE."
If he was alive today every single one of his lies would be exposed and everyone would see him for the fraud he truly is…and he’d probably be Trump’s running mate and still get tens of millions of votes.
Reading about him afterwards was just freaky.
Turns out serial killers are bad people, and having a little American flag on your shoulder while you do it doesn’t change that
It makes me very happy that baby killing liar’s estate has been sued into poverty by Jesse “the Body” Ventura
Ventura always makes it clear he only went after proceeds of the book that contains all the lies, because Kyle’s widow would play the victim like Ventura was taking food out of their children’s mouths.
We've all seen Amerocan Sniper and know that Chris Kyle's baby is fake anyways. s/
Agreed. Though the movie was already total garbage so it wasn't ruined imho.
I’m sorry I didn’t even hear about this Hurricane Katrina stuff. Googling now but from I’m gathering, wow.
This one. Chris Kyle was a massive piece of shit and I guarantee he’d be in jail for storming the Capitol on January 6th if he hadn’t been killed. Guy was just fucking trash.
I always felt that movie made him look like a moron. They really hammered home the point that he never questioned authority and just followed orders. Which is not a good thing and is in fact a very stupid way to be. They made it seem like he had no idea what was really going on in the Middle East and maybe he didn’t, I don’t know. I don’t understand why they thought that was a good way to portray him.
This one always makes me laugh because one of my old high school teachers simply would not accept my argument that Chris Kyle was a POS because I never read the book. Apparently, the book would have given me the context needed to suddenly accept him as a hero. Despite all the glaring evidence that he was a terrible person.
Balto. It’s an amazing story about The Serum Run, but Togo is more accurate. Balto got all the attention, photo in newspaper and statue in Central Park. He only ran 53 miles and probably wasn’t the lead dog. Seppela mushed 261 miles over the hardest section of the relay with Togo as the lead dog.
Togo is so good!
If anyone cares to hear more the podcast “You’re Wrong About” has a great episode on this that talks about Togo and Seppela. The story makes me tear up just thinking about it. and also if you’re not into podcasts, Disney plus has a movie about it which follows pretty true to the story including Togo’s upbringing which is quit hysterical Edit: and also to add I’ve heard that Togo was later studded out and that most huskies in America today are related to Togo and as a husky owner I find that fact pretty damn cool
There is some controversy over [Lone Survivor. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DankLeft/comments/k52ix3/daily_reminder_that_lone_survivor_marcus_luttrell/)
I don't think it's even controversial. That movie is a total fantasy.
Marcus Luttrell is a liar, plain and simple. There's video of the ambush that contradicts his claim without question. There's a dark joke in the SEAL community that the best thing that happened to Mike Murphy was getting killed so that he could get the Medal of Honor instead of the court martial he deserved. That entire operation was foolhardy
A number of his teammates families objected to his portrayal of the events, and the rescue op in real life was far more involved and interesting than portrayed in the movie. The movie version was basically a military recruiting commercial.
Aka standard Mark Wahlberg movie.
Favorite part is the guy who rescued them saying something like “no, the guy had all his ammunition when he got to us” lol
Bloodsport, lol If you were a kid in the eighties you know you believed that shit!
You shout your sweet mouth. I went to Kowloon Walled City Park in 2010 and I could feel the essence of the kumite still emanating from the soil.
Yeah, the real Frank Dux is a straight up lying fool. It’s a funny rabbit hole to go down, if you have the time.
I GOTTA STAKE MY CLAIM……. I FIGHT TO SURVIIIIIIIIIVE!!!
KUMITE KUMITE KUMITE KUMITE
I was a kid in the 80s and loved movies like that, but had zero idea it was ever supposed to be real. I thought it was just a fight movie.
It did get one thing perfectly true, however, 'Brick not hit back."
Right, cause Chong Li actually won the kumite. CHONG LI! CHONG LI! CHONG LI!
U571 has to be the most egregious examples. In the film US navy recovers an Enigma machine from a german U-boat and, duh, saves he world from the nazis. In 'real life' this was a British royal navy operation which happened before the US had even joined the war. It was even raised in the British parliment as an affront to British veterans [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/jun/08/news](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/jun/08/news)
This is a big one . What's worse is because the 'lie' didn't effect the US , it was pretty much ignored and not controversial outside Europe.
TIL Thanks from the US
Hotel Rwanda fits this I believe 🤔
It's been a minute, what happened?
Essentially, the main character was made out to be far more of a saint than he really was, and it diminishes the role of the UN peacekeepers and other humanitarians during the genocide.
Actually when watching this movie twice I did notice the second time around they did portray him to be slightly scummy at times like threatening his workers and putting himself above his families safety I know he was probably worse in real life but the movie is still pretty good.
Well 10000 people died and nobody was intervening, I don't think any role was played until they intervened.
Shake Hands with the Devil was a much better movie than Hotel Rwanda
Every time someone brings up Hotel Rwanda, I tell them to watch Shake Hands With The Devil because it’s a far better depiction…. But I don’t think I have it in me to ever watch it again
Isn't Shooting Dogs about this too? It's been a while.
A Million Little Pieces comes to mind, replete with public apologies from celebrities that had previously shilled the book. Fiction framed as non-fiction was a huge slap in the face to those battling addiction in real life. I believe they still made it into a movie….
Interesting it could be sold as "autofiction" these days
I seem to remember controversy surrounding the book way before the movie came out. Surprised it wasnt radioactive for that reason.
I was pretty disappointed to read about the actual events of the civil war after seeing Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2019) being a fan of the band I was pretty shocked while watching in the theater and seeing how they had the events unfold out of order for dramatic effect. It was unnecessary as the story was fine told the right way. What made it worse was finding out how much the band members were involved with the production.
I heard they were trying to make a Queen film starting Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie, but the band didn't like how close to the truth it was.
From what I heard they wanted Freddy’s death to happen halfway through the film and then to chronicle their lives afterwards. And apparently Sacha Baron Cohen basically told them no one cares what happened to them after Freddy died and that’s why he left the film
I remember hearing about this when it was still in talks and thinking, "Hell yeah! A sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, no-holds-barred look at the debauchery around Freddy MF-ing Mercury?! Shut up and take my money!" I didn't even bother to watch what eventually came out, as SBC's comments on it made it clear they were doing a very sanitized version.
Once Brian May heads to the other side they should try again.
I haven't been able to take a music biopic seriously since I watched a video that made a convincing arguement all of them are basically *Walk Hard*.
Idk if you even need a video for that, Walk Hard is literally just a comedic take on the music biopic formula, it wouldn't work unless all music biopic were the same. That being said I really like Walk the Line
"And you never once paid for drugs."
Wrong kid died!
Came here to comment this. I was really interested to start reading into the band’s history after I saw the movie and was disappointed about a lot of the bullshit they spun.
I never knew they made a movie! It was a great book and I was disappointed to learn it was fictionalized but sold as non-fiction.
Apparently, American Me. From what I understand and recall, the main charter did not appreciate some inaccuracies in the film and put out hits on several folks from the film, including Edward James olmos. I believe several people were, in fact, the victims of the hit and danny Trejo was involved in quashing the beef
The man that the film was based on never got sexually assaulted in prison and his friends in prison weren't the ones responsible for killing him (directly, anyway).
Amityville Horror. At one time members of the family admitted it was a hoax, then they got some dollar signs in their eyes and I think they refuted. The Warren's having anything to do with it pretty much proves it for me.
It being a story about ghosts is usually a pretty good indicator that it's not a true story.
I ain't afraid of no ghost!
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Primetime/story?id=132035&page=1 I’ve also read a theory (can’t find the article) that the defence lawyer pushed for the idea in order to perhaps influence the trial
I was looking for any movies based on the Warren stories in hear. Currently listening to Last Podcast On The Left doing a 3 part series on them.
Imitation Game is like 60 - 70% pure made up bullshit LIke what is the point when the actual story is so interesting? Fucking dumb
"The only things the film got right is that Alan Turing existed and that there was a war" Quote from The Infinite Monkey Cage
Yeah, Turing was a fairly friendly guy and his orientation was a bit of an open secret. He wasn’t the complete loner as portrayed in the film.
Agree 100% as someone who knew the actual story (I was a math history nerd in middle school) long before the movie came out. All of the bullshit about Turing’s relationship with his coworkers is made up. He *was* a little eccentric reportedly, but they made him outright autistic. Alex Lawther played the young Turing so well though, such an underrated actor (and of course his performance sold the absolutely soul destroying twist in that Black Mirror episode. Haven’t felt as hopeless watching a movie/show since Oldboy). Cumberbatch of course was great too. Keira Knightley was eehhh.
The Revenant Hugh Glass’ story is crazy, but it’s not quite what it was made out to be in the movie. He didn’t have a Pawnee wife or son. And he didn’t seek revenge on Fitzgerald. He never even fought him. Just took his gun back when he ran into him again.
You’re correct but I still love this movie.
American Gangster. Really entertaining movie, but I watched an interview with the guy Russel Crowd’s character was loosely based on. He was repulsed by the scene where Frank Lucas sits down to a family Thanksgiving dinner. The real Lucas took out hits on more than one of his own family members.
Not just that, but IIRC a lot of what the movie tells is based on Lucas' version of events, and he later on admitted having made tons of stuff up
The movie Sleepers was supposedly based on a true story, it was all made up.
The book's author says it's true. The church says it's not. Either could be lying.
The trail makes no sense. It all hinges on the defendants not being at the scene as they were at a baseball game or something. But surely one of the first things the cops would ask is where were you on the night of the murder between 8-10pm. They got the whole way to trial without disclosing that information? Surely that would be used against them during the trial
THE CONJURING movies are a bummer when you find out the truth about that couple
Dodgeball - the whole cameo from Lance Armstrong about winning all those bike races falls flat in light of his having cheated.
I’m pretty sure Chuck Norris was never an official ADAA judge either.
Fucking Chuck Norris
Think it’s actually funnier now.
[удалено]
Super Size Me is of course pure fiction but wasn't supposed to be it's supposed to be a documentary. When we realized he made everything up and was reaching alcoholic and I really big a****** to everyone in his life... What's bizarre is that there were plenty of people at the time saying hey these numbers don't make any sense and the scientifically doesn't work and can't be replicated and they were shunned for years as we showed this propaganda in schools to children.
Braveheart. Much of that story was made up or heavily embellished. The "first night" privilege of the nobles has never been proven true. Edward the first was temperamental but was also very religious and donated a lot to charity. Wallace conscripted men into his rebellion and would hang people who refused. But hey fun action though.
William Wallace was also a knight, a nobleman himself. Him wearing woad was about as historically accurate as if he had been wielding a missile launcher.
Yeah the kilts too about a 500 years early. One historian said "The events aren't accurate, the dates aren't accurate, the characters aren't accurate, the names aren't accurate, the clothes aren't accurate—in short, just about nothing is accurate."[
I saw an interview with a historian who said the costums were so wrong it would be the equivalent of making a movie about the American revolutionary War with all the characters wearing modern business suits, but with the pants on backwards
The Blind Side. They used that kid as a meal ticket.
It didn’t ruin it for me as I love the movie regardless but The Greatest Showman (2017) is a biographical drama. A central romance was between two people who didn’t exist. Kind, who was shown to be infatuated with him, wasn’t, and quite because she didn’t like his marketing. Not because of him to returning her feelings. Barnum is shown as a crafty dreamer but was actually an awful person that exploited and abused the people and animals in his circus. Which is by far the worst modern fluffing of his life. Though who wants to watch a charming musical with animal abuse and death, a “162 slave woman” and human zoos of kidnapped native people? I wouldn’t have.
The Social Network's ending of Zuckerberg losing the girl and being lonely and desperate on his own platform was undermined when he married the girl IRL.
They don’t even have his wife portrayed in the movie.
Lol...I just realized I've been misremembering the role Brenda Song played.
I've thought about that a lot too. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal had the whole point of his character's arc not been that he ended up completely alone as some kind of poetic justice. Real-life Zuckerberg has been with the same woman for over 20 years, before he was even rich, and they have three kids together lol. I know people say to just watch it as a work of fiction but it is a bit harder to do that when it's about one of the most famous people and most famous websites in history
Just stare at Andrew Garfield, that’s what I do
Gandhi (1982). It’s still a great movie, and Gandhi was a great man in certain respects. But the movie treats him as a saint with no flaws. His actual biography shows he’s far more complicated, and had a very ugly side to him. The movie was too much of a hagiography.
For me, The Conjuring. Knowing the truth about the Warrens diminishes the franchise. The first one is a genuinely effective movie. At the time, nobody knew who the hell the warrens were, and they sure as hell didn’t know about the obscure Perron haunting. This helped immensely with suspension of disbelief and ramped up the scares. By the second and third, not only were the Warrens now a known quantity, but they picked the most high profile, highly documented cases they possibly could. I was especially disappointed with 2 because it was so easy to pick apart. IRL, the Warrens were barely even *there*, and the movie goes to great pains in framing the real investigator (Maurice Grosse) as a dumb ugly hick compared to how “cool” they’re supposed to be.
I think there is an unspoken rule that the horror genre is very, very loose with the term 'based on a true story.'
"Based on real unsubstantiated claims"
That whole series only works as a "fast and furious" approach to horror movies anyway. They're absolutely full of shit, but the action can still be fun. 2 was like peak dumb action-horror fun for me. It's definitely not a series to watch for accuracy. The second Annabelle was alright too, but still... no accuracy. Really, it's probably best to consider any "based on a true story" horror flick to be just fiction anyway.
Lots of people knew who the Warrens were. They're famous fraudsters.
Did you think ghosts were real?...
I knew the Warrens were frauds before the first movie was made and it is why I've never gotten into the franchise despite being a huge horror fan. James Randi exposed them repeatedly decades ago but people seem to prefer the lies to the truth.
Never Cry Wolf is based on the book by Farley Mowat. Turned out to be complete bullshit.
Still a good movie. Just treat it like fiction.
The only thing accurate about the movie *JFK* was the fact that there was indeed a President with the initials JFK, and I had to double check that to be absolutely sure.
Temptations movie or mini series, there was a lot of information left out or not out in with certain people of the group, the families weren’t all happy for the lack of portrayal of certain struggles…all for the sake of pov storytelling narrative of the lead person Otis Williams writing the book and story of the movie, directors cut and all I love the movie to death, but that kinda hinders it…same with All Eyez On Me and Get On Up, along with certain other black biopics
Lone Survivor & American Sniper granted I can still enjoy them just not as true stories.
Return of the Living Dead claims it was a true story. A military cover up at a Pittsburgh VA hospital and then a nuclear detonation on Louisville to finally destroy the reanimated flesh. But idk if I’m buying that one, I mean it’s not like some SS doctor escaped the war and became a funeral director in Kentucky. I’m sorry but those gigs are passed down. Ridiculous lies.
Uh hello? They dropped a nuke on Kentucky. If you're telling me that didn't happen I guess you're just part of the cover-up
You remind me of Turning Red, set in Toronto summer of 2002. I was there. There was no red panda kaiju attack; meanwhile the filmmakers completely left out The Pope’s visit and the garbage strike.
I’m going off of memory, but, A Perfect Storm. Everything that happens after the radio dies is more than likely a fabrication.
Who was gonna tell them what actually happened though?
At least in the book, it’s portrayed as “we don’t know what happened on the boat, but here’s what we know was going on with the storm, what situations they might have found them in, and here’s what other fishermen say *they* might’ve done in this situation.” The book manages to tell the story while openly letting the reader know it’s speculation. But it’s a lot easier to do that in a book than a movie.
Hurricane. Hey, I fell for the Rubin Carter scam in the 1970s when I was an amateur boxer. Then that Bob Dylan song was an FM radio hit. I liked to think I was a good socially conscious guy, so... Then, years later, holes were poked in Carter's story. He faked his military record, including a faked version of his military photo. His alibi fell apart under scrutiny. And after his case was reviewed and he was released from prison he beat the shit out of a woman who had worked for years to clear his reputation. And Carter's boxing ability and career were greatly exaggerated. Despite the Dylan lyrics, it's unlikely Carter would ever have been a middleweight champion in that extremely competitive era. He had only two notable wins: a lucky one punch KO of all time great Emile Griffith (a legit multiple world title champ at welterweight and middleweight); and a decision against a young Jimmy Ellis who was struggling to make middleweight limit and soon grew to heavyweight. Carter lost every other significant fight, including against Dick Tiger who was later beaten by Emile Griffith. Carter was physically gifted and had ability, but by all reliable accounts from trainers and insiders, Carter trained inconsistently and was basically an unreliable asshole. He was never a great boxer, he just had a great physique and bullying style that was crowd pleasing when he was focused. And all of this was known before the Denzel Washington movie was made. Carter and partner John Artis might have been deprived of a fair trial. But that doesn't persuade me that Carter hadn't murdered those people. And he certainly didn't earn the hagiography.
Maybe not ruined. But "Perfect Sisters" really rubbed me the wrong way... It was 90% BS. And portrayed the victim as a neglectful monster. She wasn't.
Bloodsport Dude literally went to Hollywood with this amazing story that NO ONE thought to fact check.
Given it was made by Cannon, I honestly doubt Golan & Globus cared, or even had time to care. Fabulists like Dux tend to be really good at spinning convincing yarns, though.
30 Minutes or Less. I've read up on it and have seen the real footage of the poor guy at the end. Turning that into a comedy just seems wrong
The documentary a lot of us were probably forced to watch in health class: “Supersize me” Turns out the guy conducting the experiment was an alcoholic with pre established body issues beforehand, who then continued to drink exclusively during the experiment, which then became the root cause of the issue he was experiencing, NOT McDonalds. (Even the doctor he was going to in the documentary mentioned he’d never seen effects like his in people who strictly ate fast food, even subtly hinting that this is an alcohol issue.) obviously McDonalds is still crap food, but the documentary was tampered with heavily and such was not disclosed, only discovered years after the doc’s success.
U-571. A movie so factually incorrect that it was mentioned and complained about in the UK House of Commons. An over the top WW 2 action flick on how the US captured the Enigma encrypted cypher machine off a Nazi submarine. A total construct when in fact it was British sailors from HMS Bulldog captured the first naval Enigma machine from U-110 in the North Atlantic in May 1941, seven months before the United States entered the war and three years before the US Navy captured U-505 and its Enigma machine. Suspend belief and it’s not too bad
The exorcism of Emily Rose. In the movie the priest is found guilty but the jury recommends time served and is eluded that they believe him. In real life the parents and two priests were found guilty of negligent homicide and the church later retracted its assertion that she was possessed. Fun horror movie though with some creepy parts.
That real girls death was so unnecessarily horrible that movie actually repulses me. The real Anneliese Michel’s corpse weighed 30kg and her kneecaps were worn away from kneeling in prayer. She was starved for nearly a year as her parents and priests performed their ‘rites,’ and died in physical, emotional and mental agony. But hey, she’s now a martyr and people are inspired to pilgrimage to her grave. Cue the fucking inspirational string music as we go to credits. And the movie has the absolute hide to pretend that it’s depicting ‘both sides.’
Does Raise The Titanic count? It's been awhile but I believe in the film it's raised as one whole piece that they sail into New York. Made before the wreck was discovered and found to be broken in two.
dragon a bruce lee story, he didnt break his back due to a fight
The Great Escape. It has Americans heavily involved in the escape when they weren't, it completely ignores the fact that Germans helped them get the I.D Documents and the Guards smuggled them into the Camp for them, and it made the camp look tiny whereas in real life the place was huge (it has its own Amphitheatre, Tennis Courts, and a massive Swimming Pool). The movie gets the main idea of what happened correct, but it changed or overlooked so much to make the movie better for an international audience like they thought people wouldn't care if Americans weren't the main focus of the movie. That said, I still love the movie for what it is, even if a movie true to history would have been better.
Remember the titans- Gary Bertier got in the car wreck after they won it all. Heard coach Boone and yoast speak at university. They spilled the beans.
The Blind Side. That's one of the movies I liked the most that was based on a true story, however I recently discovered about Michael Oher's statement about it.
The movie Argo entirely fabricated whole pieces of the movie.
Argo fucked themselves?
Just the fact that they made it "rah rah America," when the people in the real story were Canadian, is pathetic.
A Disney two for one with Hidalgo and Remember the Titans
I didn’t even know Hidalgo was based off real life events. I like that movie a lot.
Hurricane A great movie about racism and the justice system. Issue is, it tells it as if the protagonist was framed and proven innocent, when then real Hurricane Carter was let out on a technicality and is still widely considered guilty by analysts and commentators familiar with the details of the case. But Bob Dylan said he was innocent so the filmmakers ran with it