When a character smokes but it’s obvious that the actor doesn’t. As a former smoker, the difference between a smoker and a non-smoker is easy to tell and I immediately think, “They do/don’t smoke.”
Bad accents. Michael Caine, a Brit, doing a Southern accent in “Hurry Sundown”. Bruno Kirby in “Flesh and Blood”. And of course, Tony Curtis: “Yonda lies the castle of my fodda.”
Scenes that ostensibly take place in New York but were obviously filmed elsewhere. (Looking at you, Suits.)
Any time the writers/director can’t get basic geography correct. Maps aren’t that hard, people!
People walking in the door as its unlocked.
Everyone escaping being blown up even though they are close to the explosion.
Rooms that are built on an angle, not on the square. Examples would include the apartments on “The Big Bang Theory,” Frasier’s condo, and the Cunningham house in later seasons of “Happy Days.”
I’ve dealt. It’s no big deal, really, and while I enjoyed these shows very much, the “built on an angle” really hit home when I rewatched “The Partridge Family” recently, after decades of not seeing it. Their house is built on the square: the living room, the kitchen, the dining room, the garage. If I knew how, I could draft a blueprint of the Partridge home using only a T-square, a ruler, and a pencil.
I’m sure that Partridge interiors were shot on a soundstage, since some shots would have a wall in the way of the cameras in a real home, so you want a wall that can be easily be removed and replaced as necessary. But contrast the Partridge house with the Cunningham house, and the difference in room shapes is stark.
Coffee cups that are obviously empty.
People getting knocked out for minutes (or more) at a time and waking without much more than a headache. Related: people receiving multiple concussion-level blows over a short time span and not dying.
I admit I get distracted when I see clear signs that a show was filmed in Canada. The other day I watched a movie which showed business signs for Mr. Sub and Pharmaplus, for instance.
Hundreds of background characters dying in a big disaster while our heroes narrowly escape. Why are we only supposed to care about the people in the foreground?
Pretty much it. Unless we are talking old B&W films.
Stupid stuff, like trying to outrun a car by running down the middle of the street.
Long choreographed fight sequences. In real life you want an advantage to take someone out ASAP. So you’d use some kind of weapon (knife, gun, blackjack, etc) to disable them as quickly as possible. Or Krav maga or some other method to disable them so you can go back to your mission. A long unarmed fight is a waste of time.
Also movies where there is a hardened criminal who gives up truthful information freely at the slightest form of torture and physical abuse.
I saw a movie once (The Office? Can’t remember, but it had Judge Reinhold and Rick Moranis) that was ostensibly set in New York City. Right across the street was a Royal Bank of Canada.
Characters who are crying, extremely distraught, absolutely inconsolable, bawling like babies, but completely dry-eyed.
A particular unfavorite of mine in that category is John Malkovich in Shadow of the Vampire where he portrays the director of Nosferatu, Friedrich Murnau. He plays it with a German accent that he can’t manage decently, and which wasn’t in the least necessary since much of the action takes place in Germany, and much of it involves characters who supposedly are speaking German.
If it’s set during a certain time in history, and they are showing coins or paper money, it had better be accurate to the period. No Morgan silver dollars during the Civil War, please.
Or if they use fake “Motion Picture Use Only” $100 bills, that tells me it’s not real. Kind of like phone numbers with a 555 area code.
What about the chase scenes in Rumble in the Bronx with Jackie Chan being chased while we could see the scenic mountains in the background?
Seabiscuit surprised me with its historical accuracy, and I say that as a student of horse racing. If Seabiscuit on film won a race by four lengths, I can look it up in my records, and see that Seabiscuit the real horse in real life won that particular race by four lengths. Plus, when Red Pollard is learning to ride as a jockey in Edmonton in the 1930s, the bettors at the track were using Canadian currency of the 1930s. Reproductions, most likely, as notes from that time are now pretty much all in museums, but no “movie money only” was apparent.
The details like that are important, and one of the reasons that I enjoyed Seabiscuit as much as I did, was because it took time to research and get the details right.
And, a $20 gold piece was pretty damn rare during the old west. More or less a months wages for some. The $5 was far more common- the size of a nickel, and also the size of the Uk sovereign .
The ubiquitous laptop that lives on a table, nowhere near power, with no cord in sight.