Yep. Also when the author basically has a character mouth his (the author’s) political views. It’s one thing to have a political story; it’s quite another to interrupt your story to spoon-feed ideology.
It’s not necessarily a deal-breaker for me, although it will automatically lower my estimation of the writer by a couple notches or so. For instance, while the extended version of Ender’s Game wasn’t too horrible, it became clear that it was just a vehicle for OSC philosophy, it made me wonder if I wanted to read anything else by him (and no, I haven’t as of this date.)
Star-crossed lovers. Yick.
I dislike movies with rape or women who would rather stand and scream than run away…
I’d rather they stand and FIGHT – as practical --than run away.
I don’t see why anyone would find this annoying. It’s been done since time began.
I don’t mind it, depending on how well it’s presented and if it’s interestingly written. Victor Hugo was terrible at this, would bring his story to a screeching halt to talk about other stuff. Ender’s Game didn’t bother me so much. I rather like OSC’s books, it’s gently taught IMO.
Ditto on the psychic stuff. I get really turned off of anything that treats any kind of supernatural phenomena seriously. In overt fantasy it doesn’t bother me. When the audience is supposed to believe something like psychics or ghost might be real, it bugs me.
Also, MEGA dittos on hating movie romances. My least favorite thing about Hollywood is their seeming need to shoehorn a love story into every stinking movie, no matter what it’s about or how unnecessary it is to the plot. Every fucking writer or director who’s ever said, “now we need a GIRL in the story” should be hit in the head with a bat.
Add to the list “Ugly Duckling” stories in which a thin, attractive actress who looks like a swimsuit model is supposed to be believed as an unpopular nerd who can’t get a date. Then she “transforms” (usually in some stupid montage that shows her out with a bunch of secondary characters shopping, trying on clothes, getting her hair done and, of course, taking off her glasses) into a prom queen who finally catches the attention of the douchebag quarterback or BMOC whatever (because, of course, physical attractiveness is the only way a girl in a movie can have any value).
For that matter, I can’t stand any movie which revolves around women obsessing over men or trying to fix each other up with men and where they have no other interests.
Movie premises based around somebody trying to pose as something else. (man trying to pose as a woman or vice versa, anyone trying to pose as a doctor or astronaut or somebody’s long lost brother, etc.) These stories always depend on everyone else in the movie being complete morons who can’t see through the lamest disguises and excuses.
Any movie trailer which shows a group of people dancing lip synching to a song on the radio is a message to me that I never want to see the movie.
Rob Schneider.
Pretty much anything with the words “Disney”, “Pixar”, “Jerry Bruckheimer”, “George Lucas”, “M. Night Shyamalan” or “Michael Bay” attached.
Oh, yeah. Him, too. Actually, basically anything with 99% of the SNL alumni in it.
The presence of any of the following:
- Adam Sandler (can’t stand him)
- Jim Carrey (with the single exception of The Truman Show)
- Babies doing anything babies don’t really do (talk, act like adults, be portrayed by middle-aged men CGI’d onto the bodies of midgets, etc.)
- Vomiting, whether played for laughs or seriously–unless it’s well telegraphed so I can look away and miss it.
- Excessive gore.
- Cruelty to animals (especially a character’s beloved pet–I don’t mind, for example, horses getting shot in medieval movies, but if somebody kills someone’s kitten or puppy, I’m gone)
Two things come to mind:
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I won’t go to see a movie in which saving the world or the hero or the favorite pet depends on the rogue, quasi-suicidal, misfit alcoholic cop or soldier, who turns out to be the best on the force. I don’t have a moral problem with it. It’s just stupid and has been done to death.
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I also hate the premise in which some huge, dark, implausible conspiracy is the only thing that makes the hero other than a total jerk-off. The two that come to mind here are Oliver Stone’s JFK, and Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline–the book, not the movie. Without Clay’s realistically impossible collusion in JFK, Costner’s Garrison is nothing more than a histrionic, slanderous son of a bitch, much as he was in real life. In Pat Conroy’s book, Will is a smug misfit punk who goes to the academy because he’s too much of a wimp to face up to life and go to a school where he’d fit in. The only thing that masks this is the fact that he has to fight The Ten, a shadowy group trying to keep blacks out of the school.
Actually, now that I think about it, 99% of Pat Conroy’s characters should be lined up against the wall and stooge-slapped by Bull Meacham and the Bear.
Any attempt to mine comedy gold out of the premise of a man dressing as a woman, then another man tries to have sex with the cross dresser.
See, it’s funny because he’s really trying to have sex with a man. Ha, ha. What an idiot! If he knew that the “woman” he was trying to have sex with was really a man, he’d be humiliated. And that’s funny. Not.
Snerk. Yeah. I love that idea that if you put glasses and a ponytail on a supermodel, she’s suddenly unattractive. Somehow I have this feeling that if you took Rachel Leigh Cook (or whoever. I can’t think of any of those actual movies, so I don’t remember what actresses we were trying to believe looked ugly because their belts didn’t match their shoes) and put glasses on her and stuck her in a high school, every guy there would still be trying to get into her pants.
Agreed. This was the thing that pissed me off the most about Troy. They almost completely removed the Pantheon of gods from the story, and what little mention there was was made by fools and assholes. It turned a mediocre movie about a great epic into an obviously shallow crapfest.
Any trailer that uses the “scratch across a record” sound effect about halfway through. I have a 100% success ratio of predicting terrible movies this way.
“Bob was a happily married man, with a nice job and a lovely home in a great suburban neighborhood. <BZZZZZZZIP!!> Until Senora Bromista moved in!!”
Mistaken idenities or situations. Not costumes or scams, I just mean mix-ups, like when people overhear only part of a conversation, or have someone pointed out to them but focus on the wrong person.
Stupid, aggravating, no suspense. No laughs.
I dislike movies with any violence against women. Or children. 95% of it is gratuitous anyway, designed to establish a character as a Gold Plated SOB.
I also am down on anything where you can tell the good guys from the bad by the way they look.
I take it on a case-by-case basis. I guess my motto is “Never Say Never” and I try to keep an ear open for the unexpected. I don’t go to see movies that look bad or stupid but I pay attention if I feel that there might be something there. For instance, I have zero interest in “Adam Sandler movies,” but went to see Punch Drunk Love because it was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It turned out to be my favorite film from that year.
I have no interest in Friends (I’ve never seen an episode) but I’m glad I saw The Good Girl and Office Space with Jennifer Aniston.
Talking animals bore the hell out of me, but Babe: Pig In The City turned out to be one of the best movies of its year (as Gene Siskel so rightly pointed out, RIP).
I would have said any Troma film until I saw the delightful Lollilove.
Psychics in real life are problematic for me too, but I still think Poltergeist is a lot of fun. Overt religion in film irritates me, but I liked The Apostle, and Say Amen Somebody is one of my favorite films. I hate gore in films but still like the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original doesn’t have much gore though), Dawn of the Dead (both old and new) and Peter Jackson’s early films.
I don’t think I’d go see anything made by Rob Zombie or Uwe Boll though, not unless many people I really REALLY respected told me to check something out. Even then, I’d throw up in my mouth a bit while contemplating a viewing.
The problem with absolutes is that you might miss the occasional gem.
This isn’t so much a dealbreaker, but it’s a trope I hate: the extremely predictable ‘witty’ turnaround.
This is how it works: If a character in a movie says a given phrase more than two different times, there is a 99% chance that towards the end of the movie someone will find a situation in which to cleverly say back the same line in a table-turning fashion. For example, if a crusty old movie dad’s catchphrase is “Life isn’t fair!”, there is a near-zero chance that in the climactic scene of the movie, when he’s receiving his comeuppance, this phrase won’t be repeated back at him. For a true life example, in Thank You For Smoking:
I knew the mortgage line was going to be an example of this by the second iteration.
This trope isn’t necessarily awful, but it wears incredibly thin for me, because it always seems to pander to the audience by attempting to make them feel smart (“Wow, Billy, did you catch how when he said ‘you reap what you sow’, that’s actually what his ex said to him in the first scene?!? Well I did!!!”).