I’m with **madmonk **about dream sequences. They’re even worse in novels.
Also:
People slicing open the palm of their hand when they need a few drops of blood.
On-screen vomiting.
Psychics being validated in a non-fantasy setting. I don’t mind it on Buffy, for instance, but it bugs me in a “realistic” drama.
Not just trailers that give away the plot, but trailers that include the last line of the film (“I’m back!” from The Color of Money comes to mind).
Sitcoms with magically aging kids (they go from infants to being four or five years old - I wonder if Raising Hope is going to do the same thing this season).
Shows where the kids graduate from high school and, no matter how smart or athletic they are, end up going to college at a local school and live at home. The only show I can think of where they had anything close to a valid excuse was ALF - when the Tanner daughter graduated from high school, she was told that the costs of feeding and hiding ALF had drained her college fund. What’s worse is when the show is about a group of high school kids who all end up at the same university - and I have a feeling this is going to happen with Glee (at least among the characters whose actors aren’t leaving the show for greener pastures); in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Will and Sue join them after the last of the original students graduate.
Fat slob married to gorgeous hottie.
I can’t stand actors on TV or movies who mumble their lines. Huh, what did he/she just say? If you have to rely on the subtitles or closed captioning to understand the dialog I’d say that the actor is not doing his/her job. The good actors are understandable regardless of accent or dialect or tone.
I work in video/television production and see lots of mistakes when a TV crew is shown on screen.
(a) Camera operators holding the camera incorrectly.
(b) News crews doing a live shot with the camera not connected to a live truck or using any sort of wireless transmitter.
A person who jumps in a car which is parked on a busy street, and immediately pulls out of the parking spot without looking anywhere. In real life the car would be hit by other traffic, or at the least folks in other cars would lean on their horns.
People driving along, and the driver spends 99% of the time looking at their passenger while talking. Eyes on the road, you!
Someone, typically a bad guy, is threatening someone else with a gun. Bad guy “racks” the gun menacingly to emphasise how bad he is. Dumbass. You either were pointing an empty gun at someone, or just discarded a useful round of ammo, probably with your thumbprint all over it.
Somone is firing a pistol. Last round fires, the slide is still forward. Every. Single. Time.
Cue Morbo once again: “Pistols do NOT work like that!”
Once the last round is fired, the magazine follower locks the slide open as a way of indicating to the shooter, “Feed me!” A worn follower may, on occasion, let the slide forward after the last round is fired, but that is not typical.
I came in to post:
Mystical mumbo jumbo out of the blue in an otherwise realistic world.
I’ll add;
Most Waif Fu. You know, I’ve met plenty of 90 pound female martial artists who could probably kick my ass. But they will not be doing it by punching me in the cheek or kicking me in the chest.
Bullets bouncing off cars. The movie Taken was completely ruined for me in one scene by that nonsense.
People in clubs where live rock and roll is being played and are still able to have a conversation without really raising their voices.
Any depiction of an AA or NA meeting or anything program related. They ALWAYS get it wrong.
Gun battles. People firing hundreds of rounds who were obviously NOT carrying hundreds of rounds with them.
And sometimes, they contaminate other things and make people get those wrong. I heard a guy on TV the other day say he’d been through the “twelve stages of grief.”
Just what is the mussel flashing? 
Cops, teachers, office secretaries - people with general middle-to-low-end-of-the-road salaries - who live in huge, tastefully professionally decorated apartments. Especially in big cities like New York or Chicago where such an apartment would cost an arm and a leg and then some, JUST for the rent, nevermind the furnishing.
Drives me up the wall!
Four words:
“You gotta believe me!”
Women having hot sex while keeping their bras on. Or covering their breasts while sitting up in bed. Just doesn’t happen in real life. We watched Bridesmaids last night, and after a night of hot sex with the guy from Mad Men, Kristen Wiig was still wearing her bra and panties when she slipped out of bed for a clandestine freshening up before he woke up in the morning.
This. Other examples: Knocked Up, and The Wedding Crashers. When I saw TWC on TV, an early sex scene in TWC the girl got out of bed and you could see she was bottomless, but still had her bra on. :rolleyes: Maybe she was nude in the theatrical release, but I doubt it.
People firing guns, particularly in an enclosed space, and then having a conversation in a normal tone of voice.
Lava.
Action
sequences
that
are
nothing
more
than
closely
shot
quick-
cut
MTV
editing
can
be
very
annoying.
In
fact
any
editing
where
there
is
less
than
two
seconds
of
screen
time
per
shot
can
bite
my
shiny
metal
ass.
Oh yeah, one of my current peeves is the tight close-up. Every scene that isn’t a car chase scene or a blowing shit up scene is shot so tight the camera is practically up someone’s nostrils these days. Pull back a bit, would you? Give us a little perspective.
Also, the never-ending swirling camera. A couple of people are talking together, and the camera goes around and around and around them - urk. Getting a little seasick here.
Three people ridiing in a car don’t all sit in the front.
People can’t jump 16 feet in the air and do flips and spins. Or fly.
I hate movies.