Name your TV/movie pet peeves

Cafe Society
61

Was watching this morning. they were talking about the death of Junior Seau. Tragic, of course.

But when they go to his neighborhood and interview the random dweeb on the street for their ‘reaction’…arrrrgghhhh!!! I don’t care what his ‘reaction’ is! His reaction is in no way newsworthy!! You might wanna check in with Uncle Goober! See what he thinks about all this!

:mad::mad::mad:

Also, newscasters should learn what words mean. Lady on the news doing a story on prom dresses. I guess they are getting pricey. I get that. But newscaster said the price was ‘prohibitive’. Look at a dictionary. It means So high or burdensome as to discourage purchase or use. If virtually every teenage girl is getting one of the dresses, and they are, than it can hardly be prohibitive!!!

62

Counterpoint: My last girlfriend.

Don’t ask me why, and don’t ask her why because even she couldn’t explain it, but she’d be perfectly fine being naked during the foreplay, sex, and post-coital cuddle. But you’d better believe that within five minutes of finishing, those panties are going back on, and probably a shirt to sleep in, too. Rarely a bra, but that was more of a comfort thing.

But I’ll agree that a bra during sex is completely absurd. I know they do it because the actress doesn’t want to do a topless scene, but I’d be happier with filming from behind with either a body double, or the bra edited out, or what have you.

63

Oh come on, there is no way those babies are real!

bad CGI

64

Agh, yes. I’m pretty forgiving of most of the little suspension-of-disbelief moments mentioned in this thread, but I can’t *not *get distracted when I see an actor swinging around an obviously empty paper cup and pretending to take a drink, usually as if it’s attached to their lip by a hinge. It just doesn’t look right. Or when someone is carrying an entire tray of coffees with two fingers. Can’t the prop department at least fill the cups with water so they have a little weight?

65

Oh lord, I forgot about that.

The stock sound effects.

The superfake squeals that are played CONSTANTLY every time there’s rats on the screen. Really, rats are not guinea pigs. They hardly ever make noise, and it’s usually because they’re SUPERPISSED or hurt. Not when they’re just walking around in an air duct.

And WHY is there a rat in the air duct? Mission Impossible, totally clean empty duct with a rat toddling through (yelling its head off for some reason) because they needed Tom Cruise to flip out and kill it.

Rats in ridiculously open places for no reason, acting like they’re fine being there… because they are… because they’re domestic and wild rats wouldn’t be there in the first place, even if it WASN’T a set.

The SAME horse whinny used anytime there’s a horse on the screen.

The SAME “rusty door opening” used any time there’s a dungeon.

The SAME “steel on steel” noise used any time there’s a sword drawn - even if it’s a rapier drawn out of leather.

The SAME howling wolf noise any time we’re in the night/wilderness and need to impress the audience.

ALL of those exact sound effects can be found in the Bethesda game “Daggerfall” from the 90s. Every time I hear one it cracks me up.

66

“The version I heard was,” they have to do at least something incorrectly (even if it’s as small as having campaign/decoration ribbons in the wrong order), or they run the risk of “impersonating a member of the Armed Forces”.

Then again, according to Federal law (10 USC 772(f)): “While portraying a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps, an actor in a theatrical or motion-picture production may wear the uniform of that armed force if the portrayal does not tend to discredit that armed force.” I assume “motion-picture production” includes television.
However, it is specifically against the law to manufacture facsimiles of Medals of Honor.

67

Also add to the stock sound effects:

-The falcon/hawk noise in a desolate outdoor place
-The cougar roar/growl

Same sound effects for 40 years if not more.

68

Particularly annoying when the scene starts with the couple in the final throes of passion, they part, chat for a few minutes, hop out of bed and they’re both wearing pajama pants.

69

Dark scenes where I can’t see anything on the screen if I’m watching TV during the day.

Picking actors who look alike for all of the main roles. With my face blindness, it’s almost impossible for me to follow the plot unless they have different hair colors, hair length, facial hair, body shapes, styles of dress, or SOMETHING.

Using doors as a shield in a gunfight. How many movies have you seen where someone steps out unharmed from behind the car door, and there are bullet holes all over the door? If the other guy is using anything heavier than a .22, it’ll punch right through that car door.

Cocking guns. Especially when the S.W.A.T. team charges through the door, and then one of them walks over to the bad guy, asks him a question, and cocks the shotgun menacingly. What, you just charged into a dangerous situation and you didn’t have a round in the chamber?

People waking up in the morning after a night of drinking and steamy sex, and they (a) are wearing underwear and (b) have perfect hair.

Big flashing messages on computer screens after a search or trying a password. Have you ever seen a computer that says “ACCESS GRANTED!” in huge red letters when you log in? Or “NO RESULTS FOUND” (with audio alerts) in a pop-up window in 48-point type?

Details on keyboards. All kinds of keyboards. It drives me nuts when they show someone playing a piano and their hands are moving to the left but the notes are going up. Virtually all courtroom scenes get the court reporter completely wrong. People walk up to an unfamiliar computer, bang away at the keyboard for a few seconds, and have an answer. With today’s operating systems, it’s highly unlikely that you can get where you want to be without touching a mouse or touchpad at least once.

And I wholeheartedly agree on shaky cam. I detest it.

Horses that run flat-out for miles and don’t sweat.

And I’m with Feyrat on sword noises. I own two swords and my son has two. NONE of them make that noise that they play on TV or in the movies when we draw them.

70

re the stupid sword noise when it’s drawn from scabbard - I saw in some behind the scenes bit from LOTR that they tried to do away with that sound but audiences have been so trained to expect it that they put it back in. (I love that LOTR even has commentaries about the sound effects.)

71

Computer searches where the monitor flashes all the searched items individually (faces, fingerprints, etc.) for a split second until finally it freezes on the matched result. And, of course, the accompanying:
“deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet-deet…”

72

Schwing!

73

Or the now almost classic fail of two people using one key board, on the same computer.

I submit NCIS:

74

Add me as the hundredth person to agree with this. I’ve said it before: The Hurt Locker might have been a really great movie, If I could have seen a bloody damned thing that was happening!. Same for the last Bourne movie. Shaky cam AND super-tight closeups. Could anyone see anything in that movie?

Yes, yes, and YES! Migod, that has got to be the single most over-used camera “technique” in TV dramas today. Most of the time I just have to close my eyes and wait for a scene change. I hate it, hate it, hate it! Stop it, already!

75

[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:69, topic:620674”]

People waking up in the morning after a night of drinking and steamy sex, and they (a) are wearing underwear and (b) have perfect hair.
[/QUOTE]

Or going to bed that way!

Buffy used to drive me totally bugshit with that. She would go to bed (in California, when it was warm enough to have the windows open) with a huge fluffy comforter, with clothing AND her bra on (sleeping in a bra is… no. Just no.) and all her makeup. And then wake up fresh and perfect.

Sleeping in your makeup is AWFUL, and you wake up looking like a murdered clown.

76

Every time there’s a conflict between adults they send the children out of the room or someone takes them “to get ice cream”. Like they’re delicate flowers who will be traumatized if they see an argument.

Speaking of “getting ice cream”, every time they want a kid out of a scene someone takes it to get ice cream - I swear I don’t know how these kids aren’t morbidly obese.

77

TV Tropes calls that audible sharpness, and it annoys the hell out of me, too.

78

I always just accepted this because I thought it was impossible to give real CPR on screen without seriously injuring the actor it’s being done on (broken ribs and such). Sort of like how they tell you never to do the Heimlich on someone who’s not actually choking because of the damage it can do. Is there a way around this?

Pursuant to that first article, though, it does drive me absolutely crazy when the script has them defibrillating someone who’s in asystole. That’s not how it works, guys.

79

I’ve always heard it called a snicker-snack.

80
  • The Walk and Talk:- in real life the person at the back of the pack says,“I didn’t hear that, what did he say?” In the TV/movies the person at the back of pack hears everything perfectly.
  • The endlessly-long-on-foot-chase scene where neither party is the least bit winded at the end of the chase.