Here’s the problem with these movies that are either based on the story of a person’s life or based on a period in history, such as “Gangs of New York”: they always lie.

In small ways and big, they always distort the true life or the true history. I wonder what the point is of bothering to use historical or biographical source material (e.g., “A Beautiful Mind”) if they’re just going to twist it around so much that it barely resembles what it once was. Why not just — here’s an idea! — make something up.

Then, because I’m an obsessive-compulsive type, I’ve got to spend two hours on the Internet afterward to sort out what was true in the movie from what wasn’t. Save me the time. Make stuff up. “The Matrix” seemed to do OK with that approach. Not once during “The Matrix” did I think, “Hey, is this based on a true story?”

But now that I think of it, I wonder …