Things you're tired of seeing in movies

[p51]

As for people being led by the bad guy, how about the bad guy's person comes and says, "We have your wife/kid/whatever and you're going to jump through a bunch of hoops to get them back" usually with a smug look.
Just once, I want the good guy to pull out a pistol and kneecap this person, or whack them in the legs with a baseball bat, throw them into their car, take them somewhere and torture the info out of them because the person being held is going to get offed if the good guy goes along, anyway.

When the movie suddenly goes from night to day in a span of minutes when you know it was nowhere near dawn when the scene was meant to happen. They don't even bother faking it it's just suddenly dawn out, you see it a lot in the 80s and 90s films.

Oh yeah, good one.
That always drove me nuts. You go from one scene in darkness, the next in twilight and the third in morning light. Yeah, the sun comes up fast but never THAT fast.

 

[Laspector]

That's one thing in Back to the future that always bothered me. Marty meets Doc at like 1:15am. Within 10 minutes the Libyans attack and Marty time jumps, drives directly into the barn, drives right out and it's getting daylight. Does it get daylight at 2am there?

 

[Treadwell]

Doc punched in the time he had had his revelation about the flux capacitor; the readout was not defaulting to the same time of day as when he left '85.

 

[Laspector]

Ah, okay, did not notice that.

 

[Treadwell]

I get why on many action and superhero shows there are frequent scenes of shirtless beefcakes working out. What does bug me is when another character interrupts them and they decide to get dressed, they put on a clean shirt or hoodie right over their nasty-ass stanky sweat coating.

CAN SOMEBODY GET THE BROTHER A TOWEL?

 

[dascoyne]

I've said it before but I hate it when a filmmaker's social/political biases/ignorance stand out as misrepresentation of an opposing ideology (a sort of cinematic straw-man) in a film that's not about politics.

What a disappointment when I was enjoying the film Arrival suddenly there's a parody of an online commentator (likely based on a well-known pro-second amendment talk show host) where he's pushing the opinion that we should literally fire "a shot across the bow" as a show of force to the aliens. Contrary to popular belief most second amendment activists (including the referenced talk show host) are not all about war-mongering nor do they celebrate violence and conflict. The film also falls into line with the antiquated trope of having the entire military establishment and its component individuals portrayed as one-dimensional and completely incapable of reason to see the aliens as anything but a threat.

FWIW Arrival is an excellent character piece in the trappings of a B-grade sci-fi plot. Amy Adam's character is explored but everybody else in the movie is one-dimensional. This could have been a better film. The sophomoric depiction of the military and right-wing folks simply spoiled any remaining credibility for me.

 

[DustOff59]

Period movies AND EVERYONE HAS PERFECT TEETH!!!
Then another one...

personnel files, ID Badges, family or person photos from the past....THEY ALL LOOK LIKE HEADSHOTS...HAVE YOU EVER LOOKED AT A COMPANY ID PHOTO, DRIVER LICENSE PHOTO? NOBODY AND I MEAN NOBODY LOOKS THAT GOOD!!

 

[Treadwell]

Or in a sequel, a character has a photo of a previous character that so happens to be a publicity still from the previous movie. (Indy IV)

 

[batguy]

I've said it before but I hate it when a filmmaker's social/political biases/ignorance stand out as misrepresentation of an opposing ideology (a sort of cinematic straw-man) in a film that's not about politics.

What a disappointment when I was enjoying the film Arrival suddenly there's a parody of an online commentator (likely based on a well-known pro-second amendment talk show host) where he's pushing the opinion that we should literally fire "a shot across the bow" as a show of force to the aliens. Contrary to popular belief most second amendment activists (including the referenced talk show host) are not all about war-mongering nor do they celebrate violence and conflict. The film also falls into line with the antiquated trope of having the entire military establishment and its component individuals portrayed as one-dimensional and completely incapable of reason to see the aliens as anything but a threat.

FWIW Arrival is an excellent character piece in the trappings of a B-grade sci-fi plot. Amy Adam's character is explored but everybody else in the movie is one-dimensional. This could have been a better film. The sophomoric depiction of the military and right-wing folks simply spoiled any remaining credibility for me.

So true. I don't have a military background but those depictions strike me as absurd. It just seems childish on the part of the filmmakers.

 

[darthvader073]

Mass destruction! Somehow, almost every single film of the past few years has it...

 

[p51]

The whole, "You need to come look at this" trope. How often do people really say that? Generally, they're going to try to describe what the other character needs to come look at.

I've said it before but I hate it when a filmmaker's social/political biases/ignorance stand out as misrepresentation of an opposing ideology (a sort of cinematic straw-man) in a film that's not about politics.

I think it's simple poor writing when you can't develop the opposing character to be believable. The best villains are the ones where you can say, "Yeah, I could see me doing that if the same stuff happened to me." Take Wes Studi's character from "Last of the Mohicans" for example, when he explains why he hates the Brits so much. You totally get why he's doing what he is.
This is where almost all movies about the Germans in WW2 fails. There's a huge opportunity in film to present real Nazis as people who love their kids but yet are capable of total evil at the same time. Almost every filmmaker just makes them out as 2D cartoon characters instead. Only 'Schindler's List' and the 2001 HBO movie, "Conspiracy' made any effort to show that duality. To do otherwise makes people dismiss even the possibility that this could happen again someday or that if it did, you'd be able to easily spot it ahead of time. That is the disservice filmmakers make upon the public.

 

[Riceball]

Here's one that I remembered while watching The Librarians, don't you just hate it in TV/movies when somebody picks up a massive tome and manages to (conveniently) turn to the exact page they were looking for without flipping through any pages. They just, pick up the book (usually a massive volume that's easily thousands of pages) and when they open it, that's the page with the information they're looking for, and it's usually the only entry on the page with a large picture on the page or on the page next to it.

Here's another one, people, when part of a group in a dangerous area, wind up wandering off from the group to check something out and not saying anything? Who does this in real life? Who would break off from the group without making sure that the person or people you're with know that you're going to check something out, away from everyone else, and who would allow someone to do that without also accompanying them, just to be safe?

 

[SofaKing01]

Here's one that I remembered while watching The Librarians, don't you just hate it in TV/movies when somebody picks up a massive tome and manages to (conveniently) turn to the exact page they were looking for without flipping through any pages. They just, pick up the book (usually a massive volume that's easily thousands of pages) and when they open it, that's the page with the information they're looking for, and it's usually the only entry on the page with a large picture on the page or on the page next to it.

RIGHT ON THE MONEY! That runs along the same lines as people dialing the old rotary phones. How many times did people have the number 111-2111. Can't wait those extra few seconds as the dial goes back to its original position?

Push button phones were even worse... randomly mashing buttons and not even counting the number of times the buttons are pushed... :facepalm

 

[Jeyl]

Has anyone brought up movie characters who say "In english" whenever another character is trying to explain something complex?

 

[Laspector]

You mean that doesn't actually work?

 

[Greenie]

Flashbacks and dreams always appear from a third person point of view. That's not how I remember.

 

[glunark]

When someone catches a bullet in their teeth, and its a hole bullet, with the casing any everything.

 

[dascoyne]

When the writer doesn't know the difference between jail and prison. When an ex-con says he's returned from 10 years in jail it's just ridiculous.

 

[Riceball]

When the writer doesn't know the difference between jail and prison. When an ex-con says he's returned from 10 years in jail it's just ridiculous.

True, but then again, how many people generally know the difference? I'd argue that to most people jail and prison are the same thing and while I haven't known any ex-cons, I'd imagine that even they would use the words interchangeably.

 

[Nismo]

long thread but these have probably been covered.

Humans only use 10% of their brains

When you kill the lead boss the whole bad guy group falls apart - I mean we got Bin Laden and it probably made things worse in the real world

People eating chinese food directly out of the boxes...like no one fixes a plate?