Your Weekend Banned Films

Alternative Reel has a list of Top Ten Banned Films.

It's interesting what can get a movie banned. Pornography is just one of many reasons with these films. More often, it seems to be religion and politics that gets people worked up.

I can't think of more recent movies that have provoked the responses these movies have. In a way, I think controversy has become something cultivated by film marketers and we can't trust if outrage is legitimate or in fact co-opted by the gurus of marketing. Look at Dogma, The Da Vinci Code or The God Who Wasn't There.

UPDATE:
I just went to a screening of the documentary Frat House. While not technically a 'banned' movie, it was never aired by HBO (who funded it) and has been considered 'controversial' for revealing some of hazing rituals and rude behavior of fraternities. There are also reports that certain elements were staged for the cameras.

Co-director Todd Phillips (Road Trip, Old School), in a talkback after the film said the real reason it wasn't aired is that a lot of the use of image releases were signed when the subjects were drunk. "We thought that was a great idea," Phillips said. "HBO legal didn't agree." He denied that anything was "untrue," but did not deny staging. His example was the first scene, where a potential pledge is convinced in a long take under some streetlights. While in a bar, they had asked a drunk fraternity brother if he could grab a kid who was on the edge, take him outside and, while walking toward the camera, under the light of the streetlights, convince him to become a pledge. "Sure bro, no problem," was the response. Great scene. On the 16mm cameras they were working with - not possible unless staged.

In any case, Andrew Gurland and Todd Phillips were trained to approach documentaries with a less-reverent attitude towards truth thanks to an NYU teacher -- I do not remember the name -- who walked in on the first day of class and said, "Lie. Lie everywhere to everyone. And when they ask you if you are lying, lie to them."

Incidentally, one of the hazing rituals they witnessed but did not film, according to Phillips, was used in Old School where they tie a brick to the genitals of a pledge and drop it from a height (making sure the rope is just long enough).