Good God yes. Horrible movie from beginning to end.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen it, but didn’t Michael’s outlook change after Vito was shot? “My name is Michael Corleone. You tried to kill my father. Prepare to die.”
I don’t think so, and I’ve seen it. If you’re sitting there thinking “If she really kills him this time, she’s going back to jail,” it screws up the movie. It doesn’t work dramatically if you expect her to pay the price for a revenge killing.
Okay, will someone go ahead and spoil High Tension, please? That’s what we’ve got spoiler boxes for, after all.
I’ll pick on one of my favorites: in Silver Streak, when George gets thrown off the train the first time, he catches a ride with a lovely lady who flies a biplane to get him to the next stop. The pass the train on the way. Then, when they get where they’re going (IIRC, a flight of several hours), and arrive in town to report the murder George witnessed to the police, the train’s already there and is, in fact, on its way out of the station.
I haven’t actually seen The Bonfire of the Vanities (or read the book) but my understanding is that there’s a major plot point in which Sherman McCoy is being accused of a crime and has evidence which would exonerate him but the evidence is not legally admissable. Which makes no sense because there’s virtually no restrictions on evidence for a defendant.
Would it go down more easily with a nice Chianti?
I’ll do my best. 
The story revolves around a pair of female college students on break to stay with the family of one of them. The visiting girl (Marie)is a lesbian who is in lust with the other(Alex). Late at night a man pulls up in a truck, knocks on the door and proceeds to very brutally murder Alex’s family. He then kidnaps Alex and takes off with her in his truck. Marie has managed to escape and hides in the truck with Alex. They are driven around for a while with various “adventures”. In the end Marie confronts the killer and proceeds to beat the everloving shit out of him. So far not bad right? Well, this is where it begins to suck. You find out that Marie IS the killer and that she kidnapped her friend. The major problem with this is the truck. There was no truck when they arrived so where did it come from?
He could have, but the operators watch what they’re doing, and can recognize the presence of agents near their people.
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow]
Okay, will someone go ahead and spoil High Tension, please? That’s what we’ve got spoiler boxes for, after all.
[spoiler]The basic plot is that a young woman is staying at the home of her best friend’s family when a serial killer breaks into the home, murders the other girl’s family and kidnaps the girl. The protagonist (who was unseen by the killer during the murders) sneaks into the back of the kiler’s truck, and basically, the rest of the movie involves the protagonist stealthily following the killer as he goes on his rampaging adventures, looking for an opportunity to rescue her friend.
The twist…
The killer is really the protagonist. She has a split personality. She’s in love with her friend. There are a number of logical problems with this, but the most glaring one is the truck itself. If the killer and the truck are imaginary, then how does half the movie take place in an imaginary truck. IIRC, there’s even a chase involving the protagonist chasing the truck. That aspect is what gave rise to Ebert’s line about the movie literally driving a truck through the plot hole.[/spoiler]
My favorite gigantic plot-hole is in the movie E.T. - the Extra-Terrestrial:
The movie opens with several E.T.'s exploring the California woodlands, and the protagonist E.T. being left behind. We see from his P.O.V. the spaceship pulling away, hovering ten feet above him - so close, yet just out of his reach.
Later on in the movie, E.T. manages to levitate himself, Elliot & Elliot’s bike. They take a magical bike ride miles above the woods. Elliot looks down and sees that the ground is miles below them. Later still, E.T. is similarly able to levitate himself, Elliot, Elliot’s brother & half the kids in the neighborhood (& their bikes) in a similar manner.
So…E.T. can makes himself (and others) fly, WHY THE HELL DIDN"T HE JUST FLY TO UP TO DEPARTING UFO IN THE FIRST PLACE? The damn thing was only ten feet above him f’rcrissake!
Die Hard is one of those movies, much like Speed 2, that rely on the audience knowing as little as possible about how the world works. The aforementioned transmitter problem, the lighter flame following a fuel trail, and the fact that automatic weapons don't work firing blanks without an adapter, and thus couldn't switch back and forth just by changing magazines.
All of this and more points to the fact that the movie is about as much a fantasy as Star Wars.
Thanks, spoilers!
(I watched Color of Night just because someone said it was so bad it had to be seen to be believed. I don’t want to do that again.)
I fear no spoilers, since I have no inclination to ever see the movie, so I’ll ask for clarification:
[spoiler]
Someone had to be driving the truck, and later get beaten by Marie, right? Was he an accomplice, and she decided to let him take the fall? Was he just some poor schmuck–a delivery guy or something–who happened to have a psycho and a clueless kidnapee stow away in his truck when he stopped to check a map, or piss, or some such thing? Was he, against all odds, another murderer who just happened to be parked nearby? Do they ever actually show the guy doing anything that would reveal his motivations?
[/spoiler]
the guy didn’t exist. He was the product of Marie’s imagination.
Except that they explicitly and repeatedly showed the operator monitoring their situations throughout the movie. So they should have known what he was doing.
That one has bothered me for years. Actually, in the original, it’s not even clear that there’s a pod – Kevin McCarthy goes away, and when he comes back, his girlfriend has fallen asleep and it’s as if her human body has been “taken over” without the necessity of a pod. It just makes no sense.
I don’t actuallt recall anything like this in the 1978 remake, but that had its own inconsistency – at first, the plant seeds/spores/whateve are tiny and not noticeable and just drift down to earth. At the end, the plants need big pods that have to be shipped by truck everywhrere. Why the change?
By the way, I don’t see a problem with The Matrix – Joe Pantaliano’s character could have contacted Agent Smith during some regular mission, although we don’t get to see the rest of it on camera. There is, I agree, no way he could’ve done this if he had to go in by himself, but it would’ve been possible to do it if your team broke up and you were all on separate little missions.
Here’s another thing that’s buggeed me for years. It’s not a plot hole, but it still annoys me. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad – 1959 Harryhausen film. Sinbad gets captured by the Cyclops and Sokourah the magician won;t help. He sewars the other men to silence and pulls out the shrunken Princess Parisa, who’s only 6 inches tall. He puts atop the cage, and she undoes the latch.
“It is done!” she shouts
Sinbad immediately throws open the lid from inside.
There’s a good chance that Parisa is still standing on the lid. Sinbad flips it up, and she goes sailing off for ten feet or so, the falls to her death. Sinbad and his men leave Sokourah on the island, go back to their ship, and, as they can’t return to Baghdad (How did they get their ship all the way up the river to Baghdad? ) , they take up pirating or being seagoing mercenaries.
Then why did he swap it for a BSA, IIRC, for the jump? Still an awesome bike and much more suited for motocross than a BMW.
I skimmed the thread in my excitement for my favorite, so I don’t THINK anybody beat me - but if the framing device for Citizen Kane is “what is Rosebud?” - who heard Kane say the word? He died alone. Which is partly the point.
Good question. You immediately see a nurse enter the room in the shattered glass, though, so the implication might have been that she was standing at the doorway or something.
I was watching “Speed,” which is a damn good movie, with someone who’d never seen it before. Early on, Keanu has gotten the whole 50-mph challenge from Dennis Hopper, locates the bus, and runs alongside, screaming for it to stop. It doesn’t, accelerates to 50 mph, and the chase is on.
My friend suddenly said, “Why didn’t he just shoot the tires out?”
I have never enjoyed that movie since.