If I were ever to produce a movie, the first thing I would do is set up a land line phone in every location where the movie is supposed to take place. No more “555” phone numbers.
I watched Twister recently and I found it annoying that you have two sets of tornado hunters, one rich and powerful and the other being a rag tag team of heroes. And of course the rag tag tornado hunters win the tornado battle. There has been many movies along the same lines which can be somewhat annoying at times.
Contrivance 1: Empty roads that are apparently about 12 lanes wide, and that have no stop signs, traffic lights, or intersections. How else to account for the long, soulful looks that drivers give their passengers during the conversations that take place while the vehicle is going sixty or better? Unless:
Contrivance 2: Unless there IS an accident after the driver-rarely-looks-at-the-road sequence. Lately, these are always side-impact. (I can only assume that a CGI program for side-impact crash imagery has been widely distributed, because there are a LOT of these semi-truck-coming-at-driver scenes FAST OMG HE’S GOING TO HIT PROTAGONIST!, lately.)
Contrivance 3: If a semi-truck crashes into the driver’s side of a car in reality, it will not go well for the driver. But in movies (and television), the driver will probably escape with just a few scrapes and bruises…ready to take on the dastardly villains who sent that truck at him!
CSI investigator or CIA spook taking pictures with a high tech camera that goes ‘btweeerint’ when they take a shot. <Pro Tip> Switch to a digital rig and you won’t hear the film advance.
Also. zooming in on digital pictures and “enhancing” them to an extent that is not possible IRL so as to get clear license plate numbers or count the suspect’s nose hairs. (“Yup, that’s him, the nose hair count is the same as recorded when he went to prison 15 years ago!”)
Getting seriously wounded and walking it off
Many action movies of the past has the hero get shot in the arm or leg and they still manage to run and fight like nothing. The worst offender is in The Killer where Jeff gets shot in the back, in the chest and he’s still running around shooting other people dead. I was impressed when Billy Dee Williams’ characters get slashed in the face and it’s an injury that makes him stop in his tracks. Other films it only pisses off the good guy/bad guy more.
Car doesn’t start
I hate that so much. In old movies it’s expected but anything from 2005 and up it’s unbelievable. Sometimes the car is shown driving just fine but only when the monster is chasing them does the car display problems.
awkward dialogue to set up cool response
The corrupt banker is about to get killed and he chooses to ask this robber defiantly, “what do you believe in?”
Robber: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.”
Corrupt business man who is about to be killed by his co-conspirator, “what are you?” (He’s clearly a man).
“A necessary evil.”
Not finishing off the bad guy
Yes you gave him a graze wound to the neck and he’s not moving, but the guy just killed off all your friends. You need to be sure he’s dead. Audiences just know the bad guy is coming back so it makes the main character seem that much stupider.
The winning poker hand.
Our hero is holding a 10, J, Q and K of spades and is playing 5 card draw poker. He always draws the ace of spades to win the hand, game, and the big money. Why the hell can’t he draw the 9 of spades? Sure, a king high straight flush isn’t as good as a royal straight flush, but what the hell are the chances of someone else having one of the 3 available RSFs?
The minor shoulder wound.
Other than a graze, there’s no such thing.
**The running woman breaking a heel. **
Does this need an explanation?
Explosions that only kill or wound if you are right next to them when even a measly, little fragmentation hand grenade like in all the WWII movies can kill you from 50 feet away.
In fairness, the adrenaline rush in a fight-or-flight situation will often override pain. There’s numerous real-world accounts of people who kept running or fighting without realizing they’d been shot.
My own pet peeve: Heroes on the run from the law, holed up in a seedy motel. They switch on the TV. Without fail, the TV news will be reporting on exactly whatever’s happened in the movie so far. Even worse, one of the heroes will always dramatically SWITCH OFF THE TV – instead of, you know, paying attention to what the cops are doing and what steps are being taken to find them.
Also: People having conversations about sensitive, intimate topics in public. Okay, maybe no one cares if someone eavesdrops on a guy who talks about cheating on his wife – but it seemed like hardly a week went by without Tony Soprano discussing “business” with his companions over dinner at a crowded restaurant. Sheesh!
Also also: Remember, kids…volcanic lava’s only hot if you physically touch it!
not a movie but in Star Trek it always annoys my how everyone instantly responds when you call them on their comm badge
Picard to LaForge
Here Captain
Picard to LaForge
OH no he didn’t respond within one second he must be dead!
For me, its the car driving off the pier or off the road into the lake or river. It always sinks 50 feet into the water.
The water is not that deep that close to the shore.
The hot doctor/physicist/scientist who just happens to be the only person who can help the hero. I’m not saying that scientific world experts with multiple doctorates can’t be 25 years old and easily mistaken for a Victoria’s Secret model, I’m just saying that there surely can’t be as many as I’ve seen in the movies.
Similarly, they aren’t responding to hails just as quickly.
lsn’t there a St. Aaargh’s in Cornwall?
I recently binged on the last season of Scandal on Netflix, and it cracked me up how many meetings took place at the various monuments around DC, in broad daylight. I’d love to have 2 men in suits and trench coats talking together on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial just so I could watch the tourists and see if/how any react to such a setup.
[QUOTE=Gerald II;17431676Car doesn’t start
I hate that so much. In old movies it’s expected but anything from 2005 and up it’s unbelievable. Sometimes the car is shown driving just fine but only when the monster is chasing them does the car display problems.
[/QUOTE]
To be fair, modern cars can act up at times. GM’s passkey system has gotten me a few times, if for some reason the electrical resistance from the key isn’t quite what it expects you’re screwed for five minutes. Mind you, I wasn’t trying to escape from a serial killer but annoying nonetheless.
Oh yeah. Not just enhancing the picture, but enhancing the reflection in a store window, a shiny hubcap (do they even make those anymore?), or someone’s glasses
My bold. Are you absolutely positive you weren’t?
Also, “I heard a bang, but I thought it was a car backfiring.” Hmmm…I’ll bet there are plenty of people under age, say, 35 who have never heard a car backfire in their lives. Cars just don’t backfire all that much anymore.
There’s the convenient bop on the head. Someone walks into the room at an inconvenient moment, or it’s the bad guy, so someone whacks him on the head, perhaps with a china vase. The vase shatters, the guy’s eyes go wonky, he teeters and falls unconscious. Later, he awakes none the worse for wear.
I read somewhere that in the real world if you hit someone on the head hard enough to induce unconsciousness, there’s going to be real neurological damage. (Not to mention that in the movies the person never injures himself when he falls flat to the ground.)
No, that’s St. Ives. 