# not a mistake but it takes you out of the movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2009, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629 "2009-01-23T13:34:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/21 "2009-01-24T04:39:01Z")
Peter Stormare as Gunnery Sgt. Hjelmstad in Windtalkers. I expect a John Wayne type in that role, a tough, vulgar Amurrrican, not someone struggling to hide his accent. Every scene with him just doesn’t work very well. ETA: Not to mention every scene with Nic Cage shooting the enemy where his weapon seems to have a 100 round clip. Reload already! ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/22 "2009-01-24T05:24:22Z")
Any appearance by **Chris Elliot** pretending to be an actor. I loved him on the original Letterman show, but he is the very definition of a one-trick-pony! Any role he’s ever been in, all I see is The Regulator Guy or The Fugitive Guy or The Guy Under the Seats. That is, all I see is, Chris Elliot, the C-list celebrity/comic trying to be funny by acting ridiculously over the top. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/23 "2009-01-24T07:23:03Z")
> [@Morbo](#): > > Product placement always does it for me when it’s gratuitous. Yeah…I love **Blade:Trinity** (who doesn’t love a movie with a fit, often shirtless Ryan Reynolds?) but the ipod scene, ugh. The thing that most often pulls me out of movies is when the characters fail to take what seems to me the most obvious course of action. **Take End Of Days** for example. People are trying to kill the girl, so she doesn’t end up having Satan’s baby as a prophecy foretold. You know the best solution to that? a hysterectomy. Did I expect them to do that? No. But since it’s so blindingly obvious, I thought at least one of the characters should suggest it, and they could explain why it wouldn’t work - like Satan would just regrow the organ or something… ---
**Author:** ![Baine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Baine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baine)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/24 "2009-01-24T07:29:55Z")
Any time a character in a movie is shown being hanged (hung?), I get distracted wondering what kind of precautions were taken to keep the actor from getting hanged for real, and then I’m out of the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/25 "2009-01-24T07:35:34Z")
> [@](#): > > **Stephe96** : The Paris flashback scenes in Casablanca. Seeing Rick so stupidly happy is way too jarring. The “We’ll always have Paris” line tells us all we need to know about their brief, doomed love affair. The first time that I saw _Casablanca_ was on an abandoned TV set in the 1970s. I had to slap it around a little to get a picture. The late movie on Saturday nights was hosted by our local weatherman, nonother than Pat Sajak. He billed himself simply as “Your Announcer.” The version that I saw back then completely left out the Paris scenes and I didn’t know any better until I had a chance to see it again at a showing at Vanderbilt. Strange now to think how we could just see movies on demand. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/26 "2009-01-24T08:03:28Z")
In the movie _Matchstick Men_, there’s a scene in a parking lot where you can see part of a car in the lot. The only car I know of with the particular characteristics you can see on the car is exceedingly rare. Like only five were ever built, and I don’t know if any were ever shipped to the States. So I’m constantly wondering what that car could be and why it’s in the shot. ---
**Author:** ![Sr\_Siete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@Sr\_Siete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sr_Siete)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/27 "2009-01-24T08:04:15Z")
> [@Agonist](#): > > Unless it’s done very well (and actually, you know, contributes to the plot), most nude scenes take me out of the picture, because they’re all just fanservice. I don’t see many movies, so coming up with examples is hard, but… Forgetting Sara Marshall, for instance, or the newer remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. Both had just a few seconds of nudity for no real reason other than “Look! He/she’s naked!” Ha! The opposite for me. I didn’t bat an eye with Jason Segel’s scene, but kept thinking “why was Kristen Bell having sex with her bikini on? Who does that?” It’s a bit like the gratuitous hotel scene in the movie “Open Water”: the actress is naked except for the typical strategically placed bedsheet between her legs. I wouldn’t mind it if she was full-on naked (at all!), I would understand it if she was wearing underwear or if the take consisted of extreme close-ups, but this “oh, the sheet just happened to fall there” approach was so fake and amateurish that totally threw me off. ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Rock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/art_rock/32/525_2.png) [@Art\_Rock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Art_Rock)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/28 "2009-01-24T08:12:31Z")
Any cameo by a well-known actor/actress, which seems completely out of place. For instance, Rowan Atkinson’s (Mr. Bean, Blackadder) short role in a James Bond movie. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/29 "2009-01-24T08:46:11Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > Anyway, this is why I simply could not watch **Bobby**. It was like, jeez how many favors of famous actors did _Emilio Estevez_ call in just to designate them with insignificant roles in a film that fails on any number of levels. Any attempt to follow a meandering story line completely falls apart when you’re more curious to see which big name actor is going to come from behind the door next. Hurm. I actually really like Ashton Kutcher & Demi Moore’s characters. But yeah, it’s a movie for those of us who are used to seeing people we know play characters, like in theater. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/30 "2009-01-24T10:34:43Z")
> [@Freejooky](#): > > I was watching _Falling Down_ the other day, and I was struck by a scene in the police headquarters. The main character (Robert Duvall) is a police office on his final day before retirement, and as part of good-natured ribbing, one of his fellow officers says something to the effect of, “Yeah, be careful…you don’t want to be like Johnson…sucker was on his last day and got killed on a routine call!” and then all of the other officers are cracking up and high-fiving each other and stuff. It just struck me as something that would _never_ be joked about by cops under any circumstances. I’ve only seen the movie once, and that was a while ago. Is it possible that they were joking about the Hollywood cliche and not about an actual event? Johnson is a pretty generic name. > [@minlokwat](#): > > This is why directors have to be very prudent with their use of cameos. Anytime a big name actor makes a sudden, unexpected appearance in a film, the audience’s first reaction is “Hey look, it’s [insert famous actor’s name here]” which translates to suspension of disbelief, momentarily shattered. (Consider \*Sean Connery’s \*cameo at the end of **Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves** as an example.) I remember watching the movie Fletch in the theater when it came out. George Wendt had a small role in it as a homeless man. When he appeared on scene about half the audience yelled “Norm!” This was not a cameo, Cheers was in the middle of its run and he was not a big star. Another thing that takes me out of the movie is the soundtrack. I mostly mean when I catch an older movie on TV. The worst offenders are from the late seventies and early eighties. Songs from the period are fine. Its the scores that are jarring. I caught Abscence of Malice on the TV a while back. Newman’s performance holds up very well and for the most part the movie does too. But the score is horrible. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/31 "2009-01-24T10:45:12Z")
Two camera shots that take me out of the movie. The first,a character is getting something out of a fridge and the shot shows it from the perspective of someone INSIDE the fridge,WTF! The second,the hero/ine of a horror/ripper movie knocks on the door of a house wherein there might be all sorts of scary things but the camera shot shows the door being answered either from behind the potential vampire or axe murderer or whatever from their perspective. It seems to take away a good part of the mystery and scary factor rather then just showing the hero knocking on the door and wondering what lies within. ---
**Author:** ![cactus\_waltz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@cactus\_waltz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cactus_waltz)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/32 "2009-01-24T10:50:20Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > When the sound/foley guys use the same damn sound effects we’ve all heard for forty years. The most famous is the “Wilhelm Scream” but there are others. The generic “childrens’ laughter” track is heard all over the place, especially toy commercials. The “police background radio chatter” (made most famous by Sim City) is VERY annoying one you notice it, especially in Law and Order (it’s literally in every scene that takes place within any vicinity of a cop car.) > > There are others, but those are the big three. Honestly, someone should just take a coupld months and make a whole new batch of sound effects. Yes yes! Poorly implemented sound effects is high on my list. Of course, that’s one of those things which I believe the common viewer doesn’t catch. Only, once you do get aware of them, they are very apparent. The episode of House mentioned above was very ridiculous because of it – Cubby is holding a baby that is very obviously plastic while we hear [CHILD CRYING] that is equally obviously a recording. I recognise the children’s laughter you mention. There are also a few very recognisable punch sounds, that “crunch” effect when somebody hits somebody else in the face that usually take me out of the experience. The Wilhelm scream, on the other hand – that’s just an inside joke in the industry, isn’t it? I think it’s cute. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/33 "2009-01-24T11:04:54Z")
> [@Art\_Rock](#): > > Any cameo by a well-known actor/actress, which seems completely out of place. For instance, Rowan Atkinson’s (Mr. Bean, Blackadder) short role in a James Bond movie. Was that a cameo? Atkinson was in _Never Say Never Again_, released in 1983. By that time he’d done _Not the Nine O’Clock News_ and the first series of “Blackadder”. (Would you automatically associate Nigel Smal-Fawcett with the actor in [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgl5FxglI5w)?) I don’t know how famous that made him in Britain, but I doubt many Americans had heard of him at that point. ---
**Author:** ![Otanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Otanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otanx)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/34 "2009-01-24T11:08:06Z")
My problem is with poor editing for TV. The movie Blackdog has been on a few times latley. I enjoy the movie (dosen’t say much for my taste in movies I know). There is one scene when shown on TV goes like this; Junior: Does this change anything? New driver and all. Red: You planning on having kids Junior? Junior: I don’t know, meet the right woman someday. Why? That is it. Never referenced in the movie again. Of course on the DVD the final line is from Red “Because you suffer from a sorry ass lack of balls.” The whole scene is just this joke, and they could have taken the entire converstation out without losing anything but that joke. Instead they leave you wondering what that was all about. Another from the same movie. Prior to the scene above, Wes and Sonny show up to follow the truck. They get introduced to the new driver, and there is an exchange between Sonny and Red that ends with Sonny saying “He came down from the top? You make him sound like god-damn Mosses or something.” They cut that line out, but later in the film they keep the scene where he applogizes for the “Mosses comment” What Mosses comment? Again if you haven’t seen the DVD you have no clue what they are talking about. -Otanx ---
**Author:** ![Art\_Rock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/art_rock/32/525_2.png) [@Art\_Rock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Art_Rock)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/35 "2009-01-24T11:09:48Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Was that a cameo? Atkinson was in _Never Say Never Again_, released in 1983. By that time he’d done _Not the Nine O’Clock News_ and the first series of “Blackadder”. (Would you automatically associate Nigel Smal-Fawcett with the actor in [this clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgl5FxglI5w)?) I don’t know how famous that made him in Britain, but I doubt many Americans had heard of him at that point. Good point. I got wrongfooted because I saw that movie on TV (years later), rather than in the cinema. ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_C.Semone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cc9497/32.png) [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/36 "2009-01-24T13:58:57Z")
> [@Stephe96](#): > > The Paris flashback scenes in _ **Casablanca** _. Seeing Rick so stupidly happy is _way_ too jarring. The “We’ll always have Paris” line tells us all we need to know about their brief, doomed love affair. I’ve seen _Casablanca_ four or five times and I have never seen any Paris flashbacks! I didn’t know they existed. I’m going to have to rent a “complete” version to check it out. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/37 "2009-01-24T14:36:14Z")
You must have only seen heavily edited versions, then - the whole ‘waiting at the train station in the rain’ bit, while the rain washes out the note from Ilsa? That’s the END of the Paris flashback sequence. Mine is from a _Batman_ movie (_Batman Returns_, I believe), where every car in Gotham City is a Volkswagen with a center headlight, except for Bruce/Batman’s cars. ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/38 "2009-01-24T14:36:29Z")
In the Battlestar Galactica “movie” **Razor** there’s the scene where Kendra Shaw is supervising the nuggets field-stripping/reassembling their rifles, there’s a closeup of the buttstock of the rifle, which has a _VERY CLEARLY_ visible Beretta logo, the firearm in question is a [Beretta CX-4 Storm](https://www.shopberetta.com/e2wItemMain.aspx?parentID=IT00006123&parentLink=2100000084:3100001363:3100001373) carbine normally, the BSG set dressers and props department do a good job of disguising the props, but this was so blatantly obvious that it momentarily pulled me out of the movie, who knew Beretta had such a frakkin’ good distribution system, they’re able to supply firearms for both Earth, and the Colonies, way on the other frakkin side of the galaxy 😉 Or in any movie with a hospital scene, you’ll hear over the P.A… “Doctor Davis, telephone please? Doctor Davis, telephone please?” Doc. Davis must be in high demand, he’s in _every_ hospital, must be a frakkin’ good doctor… ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/39 "2009-01-24T15:27:24Z")
I’ve mentioned this in another thread. In any water scene (e.g., _Jaws_), when the camera is splashed and drops of water are visible on the lens / movie screen, I am immediately pulled out of the movie. It’s like when the boom mike casts a shadow–it reminds you that someone is filming it and it fouls up the illusion. It momentarily makes it that much more difficult to suspend your disbelief and immerse yourself in the “world” the director is trying to create. But maybe this is a “mistake” and off-topic (the boom mike is, for sure). But I always mentally process it as: the director sees the drops of water and doesn’t think it matters. Well it _does_, dammit! ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629/40 "2009-01-24T15:38:29Z")
Baby bumps, or obvously hiding baby bumps. If the character ain’t pregnant, don’t use a pregnant actor to play her. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/not-a-mistake-but-it-takes-you-out-of-the-movie/482629.md?page=3)