Putting aside all the ridiculous bullshit they put in movies about computers (“zoom in and enhance”, guy hacks into anything by pounding keys with no mouse using just a DOS window with no tools or utilities, while his keyboard plays a beep boop sound for every keystroke, passwords that the good guy guesses in seconds b/c the Genius Mastermind has a comically soft password, like, oh, “Ramses II”, nonsensical crap meant to sound like impressive computer lingo)…
What drives me insane is when all movie computer people are total nerds / weirdos / misfits. It would be nice to have a developer character that also happens to look and act completely normal, and not have bandaged thick glasses, empty red bull cans everywhere, crazy hair, a troll doll pencil that he twirls and chews on, speaking in a socially awkward babbling patois and living in some dark basement.
Historical novels/miniseries. Most contain such ridiculous inaccuracies. Examples:
A woman singing “Amazing Grace” in a story set in American colonial times (it wasn’t even published till 1779 according to Wikipedia).
Cora Grantham saying “Have gun, will travel” on* Downton Abbey,* I believe the time period was the 1910’s. (The TV show Have Gun - Will Travel was on in the late 1950’s IIRC.)
Catherine of Aragon portrayed with coal-black hair in The Tudors. (Granted the whole series was an exercise in WTF, but seriously, one look online would show that her hair was actually auburn.)
I love history so this kind of stuff makes me want to cringe, then slap the face off the skull of whoever couldn’t get such simple stuff right.
You wouldn’t have liked 60s era doctor shows- there was always the operating room with two props: occiloscope and rubber bag. The scope would saw tooth a bunch of times, and then flat line; the bag would slowly inflate and deflate, then stop. Seat edge stuff it was, to be sure :rolleyes:
I loved Harold and Kumar just because it made Kumar into a perfectly ordinary stoner. Yes, he wanted to go back to medical school in the end, and that was still stereotypical, but I liked it because it depicted him as an ordinary guy first and an Indian nerd second.
There is a reason I hate movies for personal reasons: Indians are rarely “mainstream” and always have to talk about kooky beliefs or arranged marriage. There are hundreds of thousands of Indian kids that have been born here and grown up here and the only reason they are distinguishable from anyone else is because they are brown.
I have a somewhat opposite one: I can’t stand things that depict infidelity as a justified reason for actively trying to harm somebody. Context matters, but I find most “infidelity revenge” scenarios extremely ugly, unpleasant, and idiotic. And I think they often reinforce a very unhealthy view of relationships.
I don’t think infidelity is a good thing, but I also see it as more complicated than “cheaters deserve whatever they get.”
Meanwhile, I can’t stand it when a character decides to give it all up to run off with the romantic adventurer. I know from experience it only ends with someone’s life in pieces and both people miserable. Bridges of Madison County may be crap, but at least Francesca had the sense to know the romance wouldn’t last.
I never saw this movie, but I vividly remember seeing an ad for it on TV and feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was a teenager and my father had been dead for years at that point, but the ad basically came right out and said “If a father really loves his children, he’ll magically return from death to comfort them.” So thanks, Hollywood, for making a family film in which the “heartwarming” message is that if you have a dead parent then they clearly didn’t really love you or they’d have come back to life somehow.
Wow, that really strikes a nerve with me being that I’m the “nice guy” who women pass up for assholes.
I vote for the buddy cop film where two cops don’t like each other in the beginning of the film and they’re forced to work together, always becoming best friends at the end of the film.
Women most desiring A-holes so they can tame their troubled, misunderstood loves and make them into good mates (ha!) has been a movie thing since the beginning of movies. Marlon Brando, Elvis, William Holden, and Frank Sinatra (Some Came Running, and that one with Doris Day - Doris Day!!!) - countless others to some extent or other - were all out of control or damaged rebels whose women could look beyond the bad and see the sensitive, wounded little boy underneath. Good luck with that in real life. You can try to tame a feral cat, bring it in, feed it, and eventually pet it a bit, but leave the door open and out it goes!