To chime in with everyone else, it happens a lot in cheesy bodice-ripping romance novels.
“Oh Lord CobraInYourPants, don’t ravish me! Don’t take my precious virgin blood away from me!”
“Shut up, Lady GoshYourBreastsAreHuge, you know you want it.”
“No! No! No!” insert really bad descriptions of love spears and pulsing tunnel walls here “Yes! Yes! YES!”
It was also used for comic effect in Young Frankenstein, but that’s totally different and much much cooler.
As far as things that are deal-breakers for me, well… bad romance novel porn cliches are one of them. No raped-and-loving-it, no “Your enormous manspear is the only thing that could satisfy me!”, no throbbing or heaving or… ahem… weeping erections. (Please God, no weeping erections!)
Tom Cruise. Kirstie Alley. It’s not so much the Scientology (although I’d be lying if I didn’t say it creeps me right out) as it is the their sanctimonious attitudes about it, and their repeated assaults on psychiatry. I can’t do movies that are based on comedic humiliation, which is why Meet the Parents bothered me so much. And while this isn’t quite a deal-breaker, as it usually doesn’t happen until the last chapter, I dislike books where every last little loose end gets wrapped up. The end of A Prayer for Owen Meany drove me insane.
I find myself increasingly turned off by movies in which the protagonists are amoral criminals.
I know that great dramas can be written around such characters. But still, it seems like most of these go down one of two paths: either their whole scheme dissolves and they suffer Just Punishment, or they succeed and walk away laughing at the suckers.
Both those paths are annoying. Furthermore, there seems to be a competition to be more sordid than tha last such movie. I’m just generally tired of being asked to find entertainment in the ennui of heroin addicts, the savagery of Colombian cocaine trafficers, the small-minded brutality of mob hitmen, the paranoia of the gang of thieves, or the depravity of serial killers.
Touches on something in gender culture, I believe –the feeling that a gentleman was a little “less” than a man. If in Victorian fiction a man had to prove himself a gentleman, in the 20th century the situation turned around.
I don’t think killing Wash–or, for that matter, Book–was pointless. It was to emphasize the gravity of their situation, and to make clear that their peril was real. This isn’t Star Trek, where nobody with a name ever really gets hurt unless it’s to die heroically saving the universe. People DIE in firefights.
Good point, the anti-hero has become just as cliche as the cowboy in a white hat in old westerns. I wonder if the next fad will be actual good guys again?
To each his own, Skald. I enjoyed Firefly and Serenity, but I don’t worship at the altar of Whedon. I thought it was gratuitous, you didn’t. I’ve been to many, many movies, including Serenity, where the gravity of the situation was communicated without killing a lead in the ensemble.
Poor flight is probably wishing that, in this one instance, the SDMB hadn’t provided quite so many occurrences of things that we’d all rather not think about.
look!ninjas, congratulations. You managed to get cranky old me laughing about something I hate. Of course, it’s funny because it’s true.
I agree, any rabid fanbase is a turn-off. I stayed away from BtVS for years in no small part because of glazed eyed true believers. For as much as I joke now that Joss Whedon owns my soul, at least I freely admit that his work is far from uniform, and yes, as with anyone stretching his or her limits, his reach sometimes exceeds his grasp.
Another movie where a woman is raped but then falls in love with the raper (in a manner of speaking) is Revenge of the Nerds. The cheerleader girl has sex with a nerd thinking he is her boyfriend (they were both wearing the same costume at some costume thing.) The nerd purposly maskes his identity so he can have sex with her, then afterwards, reveals who he really is. The cheerleader, of course, doesn’t mind and in fact was quite happy, because the nerd was so amazing.
No kidding, possibly the most responded to post I ever made. Missed most of them as I don’r read romance novels and haven’t seen most of the mentioned movies. Even the ones I’ve seen/read (The Fountainhead) I don’t particularly remember.
Rape scenes really bother me. During The Hills Have Eyes I covered my face. I didn’t even watch the scene and I was disgusted by it. I guess it’s even worse if it’s rape by a cannibalistic mutant perv. (And why the hell did it take her so long to wake up?)
Extremely graphic gore.
Women who don’t put up a fight.
Movies where the woman falls in love with her husband’s killer.
How about movies where stalking is portrayed as an endearing and charming way to court woman.
On a related note, the trailer for The Notebook turned me off just because of the scene where some guy is hanging off the top of a ferris wheel threatening to drop if the girl doesn’t go out with him. When in reality would a woman ever find that to be attractive.
As much as I love Say Anything, the scene where Lloyd Dobler holds up his Peter Gabriel-blaring boombox on Diane Court’s lawn at night is more strange than it is romantic. He’s a good guy, and charming and quirky and all, but that is stalking, pure and simple.
Juvenile gross out humor (I’m not going to sit through 90 minutes of fart jokes.)
Anything described as life-affirming or heartwarming or family friendly (i.e. sappy.)
Cute, smart alecky kids
Romantic comedies
Musicals
Anything with lots of “meaningful” conversation but little action.
Issue-of-the-month type TV movies
I know the kids thing has been said, but let me add a facet - kids that are there to do nothing else except scream their fool heads off. or kids that don’t look/act like kids and are way too precocious. Dakota Fanning, anyone?
I’d like to throw in another vote for the Wayan’s brothers. Actually Sean Wayan isn’t too bad, I can tolerate him. Marlon Wayan however makes we want to burn down the theatre.
Well, I don’t worship at the altar of Whedon anyway. But I constantly get vexed with stories about characters who regularly place themselves in perilous situations in which nothing permanent ever happens to the characters. It bugs me, and it takes away any true sense of jeopardy. I’ll allow that, if you have a true central protagonist, nothing permanently lethal can happen to him or her till the end of the series – but as for the rest of the ensemble, they’re eligible to die, or the whole thing’s as aimless as Star Trek: Voyager.
They’re different people? I always figured “Wayans brothers” was this faceless amalgam of suck from which lousy movies periodically arose. Sort of like Alan Smithee.