#MovieFailMondays: The Martian (or, How Movies Can Teach You About Logical Fallacies and Help You Ace the LSAT)
Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study? 🎥📖
Since we covered Gravity a few weeks ago, we figured we should also cover its sequel, The Martian. Read more
#MovieFailMondays: Scream (or, How Movies Can Teach You About Logical Fallacies and Help You Ace the LSAT)
Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study?
Before Dawson’s Creek, The Following, and Scream 2, Kevin Williamson forged a name for himself with the classic horror film, Scream. Read more
#MovieFailMondays: Gravity (or, How Movies Can Teach You About Logical Fallacies and Help You Ace the LSAT)
Each week, we analyze a movie that illustrates a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who said Netflix can’t help you study?
2013’s Gravity, also known as Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Film Fact Check, is a science fiction thriller from the mind of Alfonso Cuaròn. While not as scientifically rigorous as his earlier film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (NDT said, and we quote – “I have never seen a film with such obvious attention to scientific detail.”), Gravity did receive plaudits from the astrophysicist for the many things it got right.
Sadly, logic wasn’t one of them. Read more
#MovieFailMondays: Return of the King
Every week we bring you a new movie that teaches us about a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study?
Wait a minute, Matt – don’t tell me there’s a logical fallacy in Return of the King!
#MovieFailMondays: Planet of the Apes
Every week we bring you a new movie that teaches us about a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study?
Originally scripted by Rod “I don’t have a nickname because you should know who I am” Serling, Planet of the Apes is the tale of when a group of astronauts stop being polite and start getting killed by walking, talking apes.
#MovieFailMondays: Casablanca
Every week we bring you a new movie that teaches us about a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study?
Bought for the then-record sum of $20,000 after a professional script analyst called it “sophisticated hokum,” Everybody Comes to Rick’s was adapted by Warner Bros. studios to great success. Unlike many other classics, Casablanca received rave reviews, and word-of-mouth led to a solid initial run.
Widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, Casablanca tells the tale of a motley assortment of people stranded in Morocco thanks to the Nazi invasion of most of Europe. Tensions exist between the Nazis and French Resistance fighters who live in the town, but Rick (Humphrey Bogart), a jaded American, runs a lounge and wants no trouble.
#MovieFailMondays: Star Trek Into Darkness
Every week we bring you a new movie that contains a logical fallacy you’ll find on the LSAT. Who says Netflix can’t help you study?
People didn’t know what to expect when J.J. Abrams was picked to helm the reboot of the Star Trek franchise in 2009. Would it be the gritty reboot of Batman? The campy reboot of Footloose? The angsty reboot of The Incredible Hulk? The Norton-y reboot of The Incredible Hulk?
Instead, we got an action-filled, heartfelt, somewhat confusing reboot of a beloved franchise. The movie made nearly $400 million dollars, and a sequel was all but assured. Four years later, we were treated to the second film in the series: Star Trek Into Darkness.
As is traditional in the sci-fi world (thanks, Empire), the sequel sees the crew of the Enterprise split up because of demotion (Kirk), reassignment (Spock), and arguments over weapons of mass destruction (Colin PowellScotty).
Manhattan Prep Presents… #MovieFailMondays
Logical fallacies are present in our everyday lives. Sometimes, they’re tricking us into switching to Geico. Other times, they’re being used to argue against climate change or for doubling down on red. And they’re definitely used by the writers of the LSAT to create questions.
But they’re not only used for evil! They also appear in our favorite forms of entertainment. Writers of mysteries and suspense use logical fallacies all the time to misdirect the reader/viewer from the ending. Romantic comedies use them to ramp up the tension. Action and sci-fi movies often overuse them, leaving huge holes in their plots.
In our #MovieFailMondays blog series, we’ll take a look at movies that feature a logical fallacy and how we can use this knowledge to score better on the LSAT. You can also use it to smugly say, “Saw it coming!” at the end of the next M. Night Shyamalan movie. If anyone besides you goes to see it.
The Usual Suspects
Bryan Singer released The Usual Suspects in 1995. One of the movies that ushered in the modern era of the #SPOILERALERT, the movie had people discussing the twist ending incessantly. The movie, a story of five criminals (Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, that other Baldwin – no, not that one, the other one – and that guy who was in that thing…uhm…Jackson Pollock?) who carry out a heist after meeting in a lineup, is framed by Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint telling the story to Agent Dave Kujan.