People don’t get cut at all (OK, maybe a li’l scratched up) when they, say, crash through a plate-glass window.
Gunfights right in front of a fruit market don’t attract attention, nor do screaming arguements. Tripping over a pebble does.
Bad guys with a kajillion years of military training can’t shoot. **Innocent Bystander Hero ** who’s never fired a gun in his life can pick up the Slain Good Guy’s pistol and take out an entire SWAT team.
High school - the hallways are never dirty or poorly lit, the desks are all identical (we’ve got seven differnent ‘styles’ in my math classroom), no one cares when the bell rings, cheerleaders are always wearing their uniforms, there are Geeks, Jocks, and no other groups…I could keep going, but grrrr.
Scrawny Li’l Guy will need (for some reason) to learn to fight. He finds Master Sensei somewhere, who is inevitably a gross stereotype. After two workouts, Scrawny Li’l Guy can kick ass and is not so scrawny.
People don’t hesitate to throw jumping spinning kicks (read: impractical kicks) in a real fight. They also have perfect balance and inevitably can find a metal pole, 2x4, set of sai, or something else to use as a weapon.
The female character always stands uselessly by and watches her boyfriend get pounded, stabbed, and otherwise brutalized into a bloody mess… and makes NO effort to help!
The typical female character is totally unable to protect herself. She “hits” with sissy little slaps that wouldn’t hurt a 5-year-old. If she picks up a weapon, she either can’t operate it or the bad guy effortlessly takes it away from her.
When weapons are pointed at them, people stand there and do nothing… even when the weapon-holder has turned almost completely around to argue with his buddies.
I’ve seen a couple of these where the person being threatened could almost have unloaded the gun without the gunman noticing.
That`s getting rarer and rarer. What is much more common these days is to see a woman five feet tall and weighing in at one hundred pounds who effortlessly beats the hell out of a six foot five, two hundred and fifty pound man. She throws punches that obviously have no power behind them, does a front snap kick or spinning kick that takes down a man twice her size. And she makes it look easy. And she often does it with no real justification, sometimes because of a remark she doesn`t like.
Watching Drew Barrymore beat up a team of thugs (while tied to a chair) in CHARLIE`S ANGELS was absolutely hilarious. She looks like she would have trouble picking up a TV set or opening a jar of pickles.
Youre seeing a lot of this in movies and TV. Someone like Michelle Yeoh, whos in great shape and obviously has had a lot of training…okay, shes believable in a fight. Or Cynthia Rothrock or even Linda Hamilton with the definition she had in TERMINATOR 2. Someone with arms like pencils and no coordination winning these fights... thats fantasy. You might as well show some of these actresses hitting a crook over the head with a motorcycle.
Since we’re on the subject of fights, how about the apparent fact that everyone of Asian descant is a master martial artist?
Once, I’d like to see a scene where a Jackie Chan-type guy gets into a fight and gets his butt kicked, and a 45-year-old white guy from the local General Motors assembly plant has to step in and save him.
I daresay that this particular fad has been taken straight out of many Anime cartoons and movies. It helps show that the inky-dinky girl in question is a “firecracker”.
here’s a pet peeve of mine from those very old hong kong tv serials - when you’re fighting a losing battle and am being chased, you will end up at the edge of a cliff off a sea of raging waves breaking on jagged rocks. so you jump off, intending to kill yourself rather than under the blades of your enemy, but nobody ever dies from jumping off a cliff! chances are you’ll be rescued by a retired swordsmaster/hermit and be taught some long lost uber martial arts skills. so in essense if you never see the corpse confirming the death of someone, they will be alive, and stronger to boot.
and a question about ‘crouching tiger hidden dragon’;
talking about cliffs i never really understood the ending of that show, they were practically flying around like grasshoppers! how would jumping off a cliff accomplish anything?
oh, and reading this thread i’ll have to say nobody will watch a movie that tries to address all the complaints written here…
No, she was blonde. Remember the episode (and dear god, amI really typing this?) where they show the video of the day she brought Michelle home from the hospital? She was blonde. Of course, she didn’t fit in with the rest of her family, who were all dark-haired Greeks.
To say something about soap operas that really anoys me,
THESE PEOPLE DONT KNOW HOW TO CLOSE A F**KING DOOR!!!
When your just about to confess to your brother that your having your cousins baby and he doesnt know yet, wouldnt you damn well lock the door? wouldnt you check to make sure the house is empty? if your about to lie to your husband, why the hell would you do it in a hospital bed cubicle where he only thing separating you and the person next door is a sheet? you know that the evil loudmouth bitch of the town is listening! she did the same thing last week!
Oh yeah, another thing, people on soap operas, have amazingly detailed inner monologues, do you talk to yourself like that? do you explain the whole story that you already know , to YOURSELF???
I recall seeing in one particular flick (the title of which escapes me… quite possibly an early Bruce Willis movie) where I saw this done, and it actually made sense.
Sort of.
The guy was firing two pistols at once, John Woo style, and the one in his left hand was held palm down (or maybe at a 45 degree angle) so that the hot shell casings weren’t ejected directly into the fingers of his right hand.
'Course, if you just held your right hand a bit higher than the left…
Not only that but no woman gets her period ever! It never interferes with spontaneous passion. It’s the last thing on anyone’s mind during a hostage situation. “No but I need my purse!!!” That never ever happens. It pops into my head any time a female character is whisked away on a surprise adventure or subjected to a sudden prolonged ordeal.
The caller ID thing bugs me because regardless of whether everyone has it the fact that I have it should at least mean that the FBI has it! Why are people still forced to “keep him on the phone til we can trace the call!”? Jesus! For 90% of the calls to my phone I can get the caller’s name and address in five minutes using my high tech phone and elaborate internet set up!
People who pick locks without a tension wrench, and exhibit no action consistent with known picking techniques.
Although it is one of my favorite films, a scene from Pulp Fiction was disappointing. When Bruce Willis’ character went back to the apartment to retrieve the watch, he slowly slid the key into the knobset and turned it to the right as he opened the door.
WRONG! The knobset was a Kwikset Tylo® and they lock when the key is turned clockwise.
I also hate combination dials that supposedly click and other junk science regarding safe and lock defeat, but that’s another rant.
Whenever you damage a control console it’ll do whatever you wanted it to do. Want to close and lock a door, shoot the control console! Want to open it, shoot the control console!
They only load the automatics with 2-3 blanks in teh magazine, and the slide locks back, but the actor doesn’t reload or even stop!
I really don’t like the way that all movie guns have no recoil and aren’t deafeningly loud. Firing a pistol in a car or small room would likely make your ears ring like crazy, if not screw your hearing up good! Plus, if someone’s firing anything besides a 22, the gun should usually kick pretty good and require them to aim a little better.
And probably the worst one- many(most?) movie characters have NO idea about proper gun safety. I can’t count the number of times these bozos go around with their finger on the trigger in situations where it’s completely inappropriate.
If you want a blatently funny example of poor gun saftey, rent Plan 9 from outer space, the detective actually puts his finger on the trigger and scratches his head with the front of the gun.
