yeah, this reminds me of another one. In Spiderman, when Peter Parker goes on his “reforming his life” montage, there is a classroom scene. The professor asks the question, “What is the eigenvalue?”. Parker responds with 3.6[sup]*[/sup] electron volts.
I may be wrong here, but everytime I’ve been exposed to eigenvalues, they have always been unitless and they have always been integers. If I’m wrong, let me know. Otherwise, we can all point and laugh at Sam Rami.
[sup]*[/sup]- not sure if 3.6 is the number he said, but that part is irrelevant.
Eigenvalues are the scale factors to an eigenvector; they’re not typically integers and could readily have a unit attached to them. However, if I understand the timeframe correctly, Parker is in his first or at most second year; any course involving calculating the eigenvalues and eigenvectors for voltage is would be at least an upper division if not graduate level E&M course. Even assuming that Parker is somewhat advanced, it doesn’t really make sense that he’d be covering that material. But then, this is a guy who gets superpowers from the bite of a genetically-modified spider, so…
Damn, I thought I was on to something. The only experience I have had with eigenvalues was in linear algebra (300 level math course)in college, and it pertained to matrices.
It was a flaw from my (somewhat limited) experience, but thanks for setting me straight.
Well, at least there is something wrong with that scene.
Most movies in which someone is shown playing a musical instrument or typing. Usually, it seems like the direction is something like “We’ll position the camera so your hands can’t be seen, so just move them around.” Well, anyone who knows typing or has watched a lot of musicians can tell by the way the elbows and shoulders move that it’s fake.
It’s even worse when someone is playing the violin, because they never seem to be able to get the actor to even position his hands correctly. I can see that the sounds coming out of that violin are going to be horrible!
Don’t even get me started on the music you hear vs. fingerings or brass instrument ranges that only a handful of pro players can manage accurately when warmed up.
More than a handful of shots of allegedly college/HS marching band field shows are actually DCI drum and bugle corps footage.
And speaking of that movie, MIT is not MIT, but Princeton was Princeton. And I don’t think they got Alicia’s house right - it did not seem close enough to the train station for one thing. I also don’t think the layout is right, but I’d have to watch it again to be sure.
Better this than Crossroads, where they did lots of head-on shots of Ralph Macchio pretending to shred on the guitar. I’m a very good guitar player, and I wouldn’t try to air-guitar my way through a duel between Steve Vai and Ry Cooder, which is exactly what Macchio did in the final scene.
There are no errors in the above post because there is no such movie. It does not exist. Never has. Never will.
That’s ok. Russell Crowe doesn’t know how to skate either. How can he be the all-star in Mystery, Alaska?
My complaints are with hockey movies. Every goal that is scored has the goalie’s angle completely off. You can let the puck in for the scene (nod to Jacques Plante) but you don’t have to step aside completely.
Also, a puck that is shot hard does not flutter unless it is tipped by something.
Lastly, breakaways don’t last for 10 seconds. I know the producers are just repeating shots for dramatic effect but the sheer speed at which a scoring chance materializes and resolves takes one’s breath away. That is one of the most appealing aspects of the sport.
Oh, speaking of flaws in hockey movies, that reminds me of a persistent peeve of mine - how cold and/or snowy is portrayed in movies. The one movie that got it mostly right was “Fargo,” and even they got one glaring error (in my opinion - other people say that they scrape their windows before starting their car in other cold places). No one in Western Canada does it in that order. Why would you waste five or so minutes of your car warming up to bearable temperatures before you hop in and start driving? (Yes, I know that there are places where it is illegal to leave a car idling - this is one of them, but we just ignore that law, because it is too stupid.)
And a little note to actors playing cold - if you’re blowing on your hands and pretending to be cold, make sure you’ve got your coat buttoned all the way up to the top. If it’s that damned cold, you’re not going out with your coat undone and no scarf. And if you’re in snow, you make every effort to keep it off of you, because snow melts and moisture is the enemy in winter.
Okay, back to my conscious suspensions of disbelief.
What bother me is that heart monitors do NOT emit a continous beeeeeeeeeeeeep when someone ‘flatlines’ (and don’t they usually say ‘asystole’ instead of ‘flatlining’?) Heart monitors beep when the heart BEATS, and that’s only if they are set up to do so. Most of the time, they are set to be quiet unless it encounters an alarm condition (like asystole, v-tach, or v-fib.) They don’t usually beep with every beat because that is really fucking annoying! So if the person was flatlining, instead of a long beep, it would likely be an alarm noise, which is often a series of long and slow beats string together in a unique fashion, so that the staff nearby can tell that it’s an alarm, and will often keep alarming unless someone hits the silence button, which if they’re in serious cardiac trouble, people aren’t always bothered to do, because you’re trying to save the person’s life.
Oh, and you don’t shock on a flatline, you shock on v-tach or v-fib. Yes, sometimes a shock is given for asystole because there’s a chance that it might be fine v-fib, but that’s generally the exception, not the norm.
My former job was testing and fixing hospital equipment, so it bothers me when I see it being used improperly or doing something it doesn’t usually do
Pretty much any film involving a swordfight, ever.
It’s much, much easier to kill or injure somebody with the point of a sword than with the edge. You simply aren’t going to decapitate someone unless you’ve knocked them silly first, or at least disarmed them… and yet every movie swordfight, even the ones involving “skilled” fighters, has the two combatants swinging away at each other, instead of thrusting and stabbing.
Big movements look better on screen, I suppose, and fencing movements can be subtle.
And real swordfights tend to much shorter, with both parties actually trying to inflict real injuries on each other rather then just trying to make each other’s swords clash over and over again. All those elaborately choreographed swordfights – they look exactly like they’re not trying to hit each other (and, of course, they’re not; it’s choreographed after all).
Near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy has a panzershrek pointed at the Germans in one scene. The problem with this is that the panzershrek wasn’t invented until near the end of WWII after the Germans saw how effective the US Army’s bazooka was.
I remember watching some fencing action once, and was amazed at how quickly
each encounter was concluded-almost always within the first five seconds. Perhaps
that’s because of the light weight of the epee` they use; with broadswords or even
rapiers (greater mass) would it be longer? I recall from a few days ago the
discussion about disarming someone with a gun, and how action time will almost
always outweigh reaction time, and I guess that would apply to swordfights too.
Or maybe the True Professional Cinematic Swordfighters always play defense first,
never taking a risk of exposing themselves to a possible counterthrust?
Peter Woodward examined this on an episode of Conquest. First his crew learned stage fencing, then they learned real swordfighting. It was very educational to watch the differences. As he put it: “Real swordfighting was fast, quiet and deadly.”
My father made the comment about how one movie (I think “McCabe and Mrs. Miller”) made a much more realistic gunfight scene. Rather than the typical facing-one-another-on-Main-Street, the shooters ducked and hid out of town and tracked each other while protecting their own hides.
Well, generally anyone wielding a broadsword would have been armored, so yes, those fights would have taken longer.
Also, in a battle, as opposed to a one-on-one fight, everyone gets tired, because swinging a sword does that. The “hack, hack, hack, stagger, hack” fight makes much more sense in that context.
There still wouldn’t have been a whole lot of sword clashing on sword, though. And against an armored foe, you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time just banging metal against metal – you’d be looking for a quick way to change the situation.
People carrying broadswords or wearing heavy armor would also have an interest in ending things quickly. I remember an old “What’s New?” comic that tried to demonstrate what real battle would be like. The instruction was something like – hold a telephone book in each hand, stretch your arms out straight, and then bang the telephone books together as fast as possible. The stuff is heavy. No matter the type of weapon you’re using, you want to get your disabling blow in quickly.
I don’t think it’s that they’re playing defense. It’s that they are trained in a completely different art – a kind of choreographed dance instead of actually trying to harm someone.
