Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[dascoyne]

Everybody knocks 3 times.

 

[The Mad Professor]

Yeah, and why do they also always have clean underwear on?

They listened to mommy's advice: Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.

 

[p51]

Just thought of this after watching portions of 'Swordfish' on HBO last night:
1. Someone points a firearm at someone and it turns out to be unloaded, as they're making a point or messing with someone, then all is forgiven afterward. Most people I know, including myself, would be carving their names into the person's forehead for that or at the very least, drop some F-bombs then walking away for good.
2. There's always the one cop who just seems to 'understand' everything about a bad guy, knows everything he's doing with no explaination needed. How does he do that, by using the force?

 

[glunark]

People running away from something that is about to explode will instinctively know the exact second it is about to blow up, so they can throw themselves through the air first.

 

[Inquisitor Peregrinus]

I don't think I've seen it in this thread, but I just remembered...

Apparently, no matter where you are in Paris, you have a great view of the Eiffel Tower.

--Jonah

 

[p51]

Apparently, no matter where you are in Paris, you have a great view of the Eiffel Tower.

Or in Seattle, you can see the Space Needle from everywhere (never mind the rest of the city street looks an awful lot like Vancouver, BC...)

 

[Laspector]

I guess if they shot movies in my little town, in every shot you might see.....the water tower, maybe? LOL

 

[p51]

Good point. Every small farm town in a movie has to have that water tower shot...

 

[mattycsi]

Everybody knocks 3 times.

How about every cop show/ movie where, no matter how long a squad/ response car has been parked at the scene of a crime, the blue and red lights have to be left on, flashing and rotating. I can understand on initial arrival, but later on, when the excitement has abated, they are usually turned off. (I presume this is more of a visual thing for directors who want to make the scene more dynamic, rather than procedurally correct). Still looks stupid IMHO

In real life it largely depends where they've had to park or dump the vehicle. If it's on a junction or after a blind bend etc they will leave them on to highlight the hazard. And they whinge when you ask them to turn them so you dont get a blue/red hue across your photos coz they gotta get out and direct the traffic round them.

 

[gunnerk19]

Then there's the explosions that explode with a massive fireball no matter what type of ordnance was used, everything from a hand grenade to a 2,000 lbs. bomb explodes with a fireball yet when you see real life ordnance go off there's more smoke and debris than fire.

And no one is seriously hurt.

And this really bugs me; I was watching an old episode of M*A*S*H (When BJ arrives for the first time), and a Korean farmer had his two daughters probing for land mines in a field he wants to plant crops in. A mine goes off, one daughter is unscathed, and the other only gets some shrapnel in her lower leg. :facepalm

 

[p51]

And this really bugs me; I was watching an old episode of M*A*S*H (When BJ arrives for the first time), and a Korean farmer had his two daughters probing for land mines in a field he wants to plant crops in. A mine goes off, one daughter is unscathed, and the other only gets some shrapnel in her lower leg. :facepalm

Actually, some of those early Russian and Chinese antipersonnel mines, it oculd be possible for someone to get hurt and the guy right next to him to just have a ringing in his ears. That said, I agree it's unlikely' only possible.
How about in "Tranformers 2" where they drop a 2000 pound bomb within maybe 100 feet of the main characters and they're not even knocked down? I called in a training airstrike with a JADM once and it pulled the helmets off our heads, blew the soft top off our Humvee and made us all queasy from the concussion for most of the day and we were several klicks away from it!

 

[Zombie_61]

...And this really bugs me; I was watching an old episode of M*A*S*H (When BJ arrives for the first time), and a Korean farmer had his two daughters probing for land mines in a field he wants to plant crops in. A mine goes off, one daughter is unscathed, and the other only gets some shrapnel in her lower leg. :facepalm

Uhhh...it...was a dud! Yeah, that's it!

 

[dascoyne]

Hero faces a gang of thugs. And that gang has one Chinese guy.
You can bet he's the one who attacks with Kung Fu.

In the same vein: a gang of thugs who seem to look and carry themselves like a stunt team.

 

[p51]

Maybe it's been brought up before, but where there's a school prom and everyone dances like they've been a professional dancer for several years? High scholers dance like zombies walk in real life. I know a scene in a comedy spoofed this where at a prom scene, somone mentioned how everyone knew how to dance.
Or how about spontanious dance numbers in a movie that isn't a musical?

 

[Zombie_61]

Maybe it's been brought up before, but where there's a school prom and everyone dances like they've been a professional dancer for several years...

Alternately, any scene in which they show people on a dance floor and they're all dancing to the wrong beat because the producers couldn't get the rights to use the song they intended to use when the scene was filmed, and were forced to dub in a song with a different tempo. :lol

 

[Treadwell]

They actually aren't dancing to anything at all! At least in dialogue scenes. If there was playback during the scene, the song would jump forward or backward every time they cut from one shot to another in editing (and would sound awful anyway). So they shoot that stuff without music and put it in last. Ideally they at least rehearse with music so people can get an idea of tempo, but once it's off it's pretty impossible for everyone to stay in synch.

 

[SofaKing01]

Only in movies and TV Shows can our heroes find a parking spot RIGHT IN FRONT of their final destination! Wish I had that kind of luck!

 

[p51]

How about the former fed or soldier who still has a closet full of the latest machine guns, grenades or other stuff you can't buy even with an ATF class III permit (because you can't register machine guns made after a certain date).
I'm a former Army officer and I can assure you they didn't let me walk off with whatever machine guns I wanted to keep!

 

[Zombie_61]

They actually aren't dancing to anything at all! At least in dialogue scenes. If there was playback during the scene, the song would jump forward or backward every time they cut from one shot to another in editing (and would sound awful anyway). So they shoot that stuff without music and put it in last. Ideally they at least rehearse with music so people can get an idea of tempo, but once it's off it's pretty impossible for everyone to stay in synch.

When I worked as an extra on The Doors, during the "Miami Concert" sequence they shot one scene without music because they wanted to record the lines that the three actors in the "audience" were shouting out. But they did use some sort of "beat box" that was ticking off the tempo of the song the band was supposed to be playing so that the "audience" could continue dancing and/or swaying in the proper rhythm. That was the first (and only) time I'd been present during filming of such a scene, and I assumed it was standard practice; it was a rather simple and elegant solution to the problem.

 

[astroboy]

Here's one that kills me. Nobody in TV or film EVER takes their shoes off when they enter a home.

I realize how disruptive it would be for flow, but just once I'd like to see it happen on a sitcom