I don’t think it was even an issue during the time LoTR was composed, though I’m sure if I’m wrong someone will correct me.
Er…no. Even setting aside purely pedestrian movies, there are plenty of fantasy movies for which “there are exceptions to everything Isaac Newton discovered” is a better explanation for what’s happening than “this is an illusion.” Superman Returns, for instance.
Which brings me back to the thread topic: ridiculous casting decisions. I just could not accept either of the romantic leads in that movie. Not only is Kate Bosworth too young to play a seasoned, Pulitzer-prize winning reporter who’s also a single mom, but she’s too SHORT in the context of the story. That is, when she’s standing next to Brandon Routh, she seems even younger than her true age because of the height disparity; it looks like he’s dancing with his 12-year-old niece.
Why they didn’t cast Lauren Graham & Hugh Jackman for this movie escape me. Well–Graham. There’s reasonable answers to Jackman.
There was a similar moment in “That 70s Show” when an exasperate Donna said: “What? Are you stalking me now, Eric?”
Although stalking itself has bee around forever, it really wasn’t in the public consciousness as “stalking” until the 1980s when the term is commonly said to have been coined by the media in reference to celebrity stalking, and deaths of Theresa Saldana and Rebecca Schaeffer (whose co-star, Pam Dawber worked really hard on public awareness campaigns).
Outraged Donna should have said “following” or “spying on me”. Hearing “stalking” shocked me as “wrong time period!”
Kind of like when you see Columbo smoking in his office it strikes me as “Wow! That’s so not today!” but in that case, it just reminds me how dated the episodes are.
The display, however brief, of a gas station. “Hey, look at the price of petrol!”
This is not something I mind at all. But the mannerisms and styles in old movies are sometimes so ridiculous that they pull me out.
I of course know all the time that it’s an old movie. But when there suddenly appears a guy who is wearing his pants almost all the way up to his nipples, that’s just too much for me to keep the focus.
I finally saw the movie “300” the other night. There were so many “rip me out of the movie” moments that I couldn’t have suspended my disbelief with a freight dirigible.
a. “This is SPARTA!” – Maybe I missed it, but is there an explanation of why and how a pre-industrial society would have the time, method and motivation to build an enormous bottomless pit in the center of their town? It couldn’t have been a well, because you wouldn’t fling people into the town well. The water would get all funky.
b. The oracles. We see Leonidas climbing his way to the oracles. It’s a perilous climb. At one point he makes a desperate leap for a hand hold (the kind that no sane rock climber would ever make). So at this point, I’m thinking, “how do they get the hot virgins and the groceries up the hill?” At the end of the scene, Persians dump a wheelbarrow load of gold on top of Leonidas’ contribution. So I’m pretty sure that effete Persian emissaries didn’t claw their way up a sheer cliff carrying a metric buttload of gold. So why didn’t Leonidas take the easy way up? Or at least a less suicidal route?
c. The weapons. These are bronze or wrought iron-using primitive screwheads. Where do they get weapons that can repeatedly lop off heads and arms cleanly in one blow?
Finagle, no offense, but sometimes you just have to let things go.
My mother is like this. It doesn’t matter the movie, she will pick out the most trivial detail and pshaw over it … “Yeah right, like anyone would really leave there front door unlocked like that.” Stuff like that.
I understand you points about 300, but in context – they seem slightly misplaced. It isn’t an historical account, despite its basis, but a comic book movie. Superman can’t really fly either, you know?
Mrs. R and I were watching The Four Feathers last night. Our hero, who has copped out of accompanying his regiment to combat in Egypt, is at his fiancee’s ancestral home when he gets a package (containing the eponymous feathers).
He steps over to a nearby end table, picks up a pair of scissors, and opens the package.
I turned to Mrs. R and asked, “Back when we were engaged, could you have found a pair of scissors in my apartment that quickly?” She allowed as how it would have taken her a considerable time, and we had a little chuckle. 
The hyper product placement in films such as *Minority Report *ruin it them for me. As well as feeling as if the film makers are shills you have the anachronistic element with regard to sci-fi. I think it’s Blade Runner that has billboard adverts for Atari, Pan-Am and other defunct products or companies.
Regarding the line in The Two Towers, “No parents should have to bury their child” – it was not actually in the script. Bernard Hill came up with the line, and Jackson & company liked it.
Every moment of Fred Willard in Wall-E was annoying, but the “stay the course” joke was like a turd in the proverbial punchbowl.
I love martial arts in movies in all of their ridiculous inaccurate glory, and gobble up every silly No Shadow Kick and Five Point Exploding Palm there are. However, there is one actual MA technique that get used to completely the wrong effect that just bugs me.
When an inside crescent kick hits the opponent in the head, and sends them flying or spiralling backward, I lose the fantasy immersion. At best, the inside crescent is used to clear away guarding hands, or give a distracting blow to the head, and follow up with a “meat and potatoes” serious technique. 95lb girls should not send vampires across the room with this kick.
It’s only because this kick is used in every damn fight scene these days as the flashy “ooh ahh” power move, when there are so many cooler and better moves that could be choreographed.
Oh, I knew that. But I shan’t derail the thread by beginning another I-hate-Peter-Jackson rant.
Fight Club is one of my favorite films.
But in the opening scene, when Tyler takes the gun out of the narrator’s mouth he says “I can’t think of anything”.
Later, we come back to the same scene and he says “I still can’t think of anything”. And Tyler says “Ah, flashback humor”.
Took me right out for a minute.
RE: unnecessary nudity. The winner here has to be Under Siege. Bad guys have machine gunned everyone except Seagal…
…and Erika Eleniak, who was waiting inside a cake the whole time. When Seagal comes into the room she rises out of the cake and takes her top off. Uh…she didn’t think anything was wrong? Didn’t look around first? How long was she going to sit in that cake? Was it a soundproof cake?
And re: movie “hacker” people typing too fast - I also particularly like how they don’t ever use a mouse. Oh yes - writing code is a snap without a mouse.
Really? Wow, I thought that part played in nicely with the constant break-down of the fourth wall.
Sorry … I realize I’m coming across as the thread contrarian.
First time I saw this movie, it was with my brother and sis-in-law-to-be. She rolled her eyes at the scene and said, “Great, you’ve shown us your boobs. Now you can die.”
Perhaps you should have had a word with the housekeeper? If a guest couldn’t lay her hands on an everyday item like a pair of scissors, it suggests that the downstairs maid is not keeping everything in order as she should.
It probably is, in comparison to the fancy Photoshop work I see them do without one.
… and it seems I’ve contracted Jack Batty’s contrarianitis.
Yeah, variations on this theme:
gratuitous nudity in a serious film
anti-nudity, shoot the scene with it, or write so that it’s not necessary, but don’t put a nude actor behind a bunch of Austin Powers filters
She’s nude, or nearly so and he’s fully clothed or nearly so, yeah that seems natural (is it just me or is there less of this these days?)
This does it for me, the first time I heard them use Frak and then over and over and over. I mean yeah I can get they are trying to show this is how people talk in the real world while still dealing with censorship issues but it’s so annoying. It’s like if you know someone in real life who says “frick” or “fetch” you all KNOW what they mean to say. Either man up and use the word you intend or don’t do it at all.
Tom Hanks’ character in Castaway, supposedly a seasoned traveller, did not wear comfortable shoes aboard the plane. He took them off and kept them off even while going to the restroom. Who goes into a public can in their stocking feet?
After that, the movie became one of my nit-picking everything. Such as, when he found the dead pilot with the too-small feet, why did he cut the toes off the shoes and not the backs? Everyone knows that heels are less vulnerable to injury than toes–leave the heels exposed,dummy.
And on and on it went–right down to just" 4 weeks after the rescue" when Hanks’ face looks absolutely perfect-- absolutely no sign of tender pale skin where the beard used to be or rough wind/sun-burnt skin on the upper face and forehead.
The early incongruities made the whole thing a nitpick fest for me.