Yup, me too. And when they switch out horses all the time and you’re not supposed to notice that their markings-or even their COLOR- changes.
They do the noise making thing with dogs, too, the dog is constantly barking, growling, whimpering… I own 5 dogs and 95% of the time they are just… quiet. :smack:
Sorry, but anyone who has just explained to the president what a maharaja is deserves to be patronized.
For some reason it really bugs me when a main character is shown smoking early in the film to establish that they are the kind of person that would smoke. Then, they are never shown smoking again no matter how much they are stressed. Never stating that they have quit, they just fail to smoke in situations in which any real smoker would be lighting up.
Yes I realize there really are people that only smoke on rare isolated occasions but in my experience not many.
Any buddy cop film where the two cops don’t like each other at first but are forced to work together. And they always end the film as best friends.
Any film where a man and woman can’t stand each other in the beginning and end up together in the end.
A romance/sex scene for no reason.
A hot woman just for the sake of eye candy.
Scene begins with a couple in bed in the very final moments of a fairly active sexual experience. They finish, talk for a bit, move apart, then jump out of bed… and they’re wearing pajamas.
That’s just wrong.
(1) When good guys refuse to use guns. Most egregious in Clear and Present Danger where Harrison Ford, portraying a seasoned CIA agent, never touches a gun for the entire movie!
(2) When someone cocks the gun to appear more threatening, as if being able to pull the trigger 1/10th of a second faster makes a difference.
(3) When characters on the run are listening to a radio/TV report about the police searching for them, where the authorities think they are, where the roadblocks are placed, and the character switches off the TV/radio RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE REPORT – don’t you think it’s wise to know what the other side is doing???
(4) Any time two characters have to explain something solely for the benefit of the audience, like what a maharaja is, or the rules regarding FBI wiretaps, etc. Yes, it’s important to explain such things for the 2% of people who don’t already know, but when you have Tommy Lee Jones in Volcano, playing a senior vulcanologist, have to ask his co-worker what MAGMA is, you need to hire a better screenwriter.
(On the other hand, my favorite subversion of this trope is in The Day Reagan Was Shot, when Reagan needs to have the purpose of the Nuclear Football explained to him. You’d think a President would already know that – on the other hand, it’s Reagan. Richard Crenna even plays it off like a temporary pre-Alzheimer’s brainfart.)
(5) Computers. Dear God, all movie computers come from a different planet. Featuring a flashy, fancy GUI with beeps and boops and full-color 3-D graphics…and yet, nobody ever uses a mouse.
(6) Whatever happened to casual nudity?
(7) Once, just once, I’d like to see a dog in danger actually die. I’m looking at you, Independence Day.
When there’s a breaking news story, and somebody calls somebody else and says “OMG, turn on the TV!” and they turn on the TV and not only is it on the right channel, it’s at the beginning of the news story. How did the first person know to call?
Oh god, I missed this one the first time around.
I’m watching the BBC production of Bleak House and they are incapable of showing a horse without having a whinny sound effect. That country would be the noisiest damned place in the world if all of their horses were like that all the time.
You’ve never seen a local newscast where the anchor says “And coming up after this commercial, a report on today’s noontime bank robbery.”?
Oh Lord, yes. Apparently, women in Hollywood have sex while wearing a bra. Really? When Mrs. SMV gets home from work, her bra is the very first thing to come off. Even if she plans to do nothing more erotic than feed the dogs.
Seconded. There’s a small genre of “big city Yankee comes to the South” movies and shows that invariablely depicts the city slicker driving past some anachronism - women in hoop skirts, or men in string ties and frock coats. “Sweet Home Alabama” was, for Hollywood, fairly good about depicting small-town Southerners as ordinary people - even acknowledging that there are gays in Dixie - but even still, the whole town dresses up as Confederate soldiers for a re-enactment, and one guy has his own cannon. I saw the pilot of a series about a New York doctor (the Yankee is always a New Yorker, never an Ohioan or a Iowan) who moves to Alabama, and sure enough, she passes a group of ersatz Scarlett O’Haras in hoop skirts. I think they explained that they were practising for some Old Timey festival, but the implication is clear - these folks are still living in the nineteenth century. (I’ve lived in Georgia for 30 years, and the only women I’ve ever seen in hoop skirts were UGa sorority girls going to the Kappa Alpha Old South Ball. I have met Civil War re-enactors; they re-enacted a Union regiment.)
I hate super-stretchy-mouth screams. Like this. It strikes me as a particularly lazy effect.
I also hate the “make its mouth even bigger, and with more teeth before it eats you” effect. Like in this scene from the Star Trek reboot.
And the constant roaring from pretty much any movie predator. See the aforementioned scene.
Oh, and the “ignore a perfectly good meal, while I instead go after this puny human”. Like in the aforementioned scene, yet again.
You must hate Law & Order: SVU. It’s 1/2 the show.
I hate purportedly realistic movies that portray people who do really evil, cruel things for no apparent reason at all except that the movie needed a villain. Come on, if your hero’s not going to be a cartoon cut-out, why should any other major character be?
Another thing that pulls me right out of a movie is the obvious ignorance that many writers (and directors and actors) have about what it is, exactly, that people do when they work in offices. If your character is going to be working in an office, s/he is going to have to be doing something other than wearing stereotypically restrictive clothing and typing on a keyboard. Businesses exist to do business, not just to serve as dramatic contrast to the arts.
The Wilhelm scream. Yes, I know the history. It’s bloody annoying and the sign of a lazy sound editor. When I hear it now it yanks me right out of the film.
Along with the “Southern = dumb” cliche mentioned. Australians don’t talk like Steve Irwin, please stop using him as a blue-print for us.
I like movies where the good guys survive and thrive and the bad guys get suitable comeuppances, but even when they adhere to that, too many movies forget about the corrupt or overzealous authority figure and let him get away with whatever misdeed is portrayed.
I think authority figures should be held to much higher, more stringent standards that are more rigorously overseen and enforced, and more severely punished. When I see this situation, I presume Hollywood is conditioning us to accept a police state which it believes it will have a hand in running, and I get too scared and angry to enjoy the movie.
That’s just it. Killing off characters who exist entirely to be killed off doesn’t convey “real danger,” it conveys “lazy writing.” There’s a reason that redshirts have become a cliche.
I hate this one. All the J-Park movies are major offenders here.
So many movies with an animal predator, where the predator will chase the humans for no discernible reason, including long after they’ve become irrelevant as a threat or food.
I won’t say it… I won’t say it… I won’t say it…*
She breast-feeds the dogs?!
(Sorry, I just couldn’t help it!)
In fact, John Scalzi wrote a novel (with three codas) titled Redshirts, to address this. Highly recommended, especially if you’re a science fiction fan.
You originally mentioned characters getting killed off as an emotional sucker-punch and referenced Joss Whedon - that is different than killing off redshirts who only exist to be killed.
Killing a redshirt who has no other purpose than dying is definitely lazy writing to up the dramatic tension, but it’s different than Whedon’s tactic of killing off long running and beloved characters as an emotional sucker-punch to up the dramatic tension. They’re both devices to increase tension, but other than that they’re quite different.
The “real danger” control-z references is how Whedon likes to show us that even main characters can be in danger and that no one is safe. That’s different than killing off the never-before-seen ensign Ricky five minutes into the show to establish that an away mission is dangerous (which isn’t really “real danger”, because you know the main cast will always be safe).