Ooh, I hate that. Pardon the blatant sidetrack, but what’s with the out-of-control sound effects? Someone types on a computer keyboard, and the sound is just deafening. Or they hit the speed dial on their phone and it goes BEEP BEEP BOOP BOP BEEP BIP BOOP. Hey sound-effects guy: Just stop it.
another computer point. How about entering a user id? Why just a password?
Really? I must watch a lot of downer movies then, because I’ve seen many a movie that centers around being poor or at least deals with it on some level.
Two recent examples:
Real Women Have Curves
Whale Rider
As for the period thing, why would anyone want to see that in a movie? And I’ve never had much of a problem just jumping into sex when the time is right. If you shower daily, you shouldn’t have to clean yourself beforehand. I’m with Bouv on what he said. Most of that stuff is not in movies for a reason.
Also, while a biopic, “Ray” certainly talked about him coming from a poor family, which was show on-screen.
Yet another computer one… No-one ever uses the frickin mouse! No one ever plugs their frickin laptop in. Battery life is not great on those things… plug it in for ogs sake! And when you’ve finished using it turn it off, don’t just close the lid.
And they never ever ever ever watch movies made after 1950!
I’m sure there’s some legal reason for that but it bugs me. Even young characters. their fave movie (if it comes up) is always some old old shit.
Nobody ever buys groceries except for French Bread, celery, oranges and a couple of cans of something unidentifable. You never see a man shopping for groceries period.
Yet another computer related tidbit: You never see anyone on a computer poke around a bit before they can figure out how to do whatever they want to do. They just sit at the damn computer and happily click away at 90 words a minute. Even if they’ve never seen the computer or that particular program before.
Because we know that all computers in the world are exactly the same.
While I’m thinking about it, here’s another one: Why does everyone in Movie World own a Mac?
Product placement. Apple pretty much has a lock on the film industry, though I have seen Compaq servers and IBM PCs in a few films.
World? Independence Day shows that computer compatibility extends far beyond this one little planet.
The girls are listing Gilligan’s Island episodes in Dazed and Confused.
Interestingly, most non-Apple computers seen in movies appear to be running some generic operating system—you almost never see bona fide Microsoft Windows running on a movie computer—whereas an Apple computer will always be running a standard, recognizable Mac OS.
How about disabled folks? Notting Hill is the only movie I’ve seen where a character just happened to be disabled.
Speaking of Macs and product placement, has anyone ever seen a PC get a BSOD, or a scene where a Mac locked up?
Also, as the father of two elementary-school kids, has anyone ever seen an actual booger onscreen?
This is slightly off topic. but it bugs me when technitians in star trek can learn to use an alien computer in seconds!
I would actually love to see someone who dives into a body of water to escape gunfire run out of air, resurface in the same spot and get shot in the head.
Somehow there always seems to be some underwater escape path for them to take. And somehow the visibility in the body of water is perfect. And somehow they can see perfectly fine without the aid of a mask or goggles.
It’s so uncommon for people to actually
cough
in movies that in Finding Neverland when the scene switches to outside Barrie’s cottage, and Kate Winslet is outside pegging up clothes, and she
coughs
just before he arrives, my wife and I both immediately went
“Consumption!”
The whole plot had been summed up in one moment. In fact it’d be original to have a movie about
people dying of consumption
where it wasn’t immdiately made obvious.
Man that was a depressing movie. Hey, you know the final scene? Just as it fades into “The End”, wouldn’t you have loved it if Depp had given the tiniest hint of a
cough?
And close with a close-up on the kid’s horrified face?
It is possible I could have laid out this post more elegantly. Never mind.
Even worse - that time they traveled back in time, and Scotty, after realizing that the computer doesn’t have a voice interface, began typing at lightning speed. Why would he know how to touch-type?
This is what I was coming in here to say. Another similar one is they never need to take down the spellings of people’s names, regardless of the ethnicity. If someone gave me a Russian name, I’d certainly need to write it down.
Spellings are mentioned when it’s a bit of a plot point. In Tucker, when Preston Tucker and his backer Abe Karatz meet with Sen. Homer Ferguson, Ferguson spells out Karatz’s name with the implication that he’s aware of Karatz’s ethnicity (Jewish) and doesn’t think much of it. (Considering that this occured just a few short years after WW II, when images of the concentration camps were fresh in people’s memories, it doesn’t speak well of Ferguson.)
How about flipping open their cell phone and NOT find a signal!