Even films that ”show their work” can fall victim to this: Enchanted was shot on location in Manhattan and mostly gets the geography right, but then we see the father in his office at Columbus Circle with a clear view of the Lipstick Building across the street…
And a shout-out to Krakatoa: East of Java for its title – can’t get taken out of a movie before it starts, I guess, so my response was just never to go. As has been pointed out endlessly, Krakatoa is west of Java.
Or shows and movies that get the geography wrong. One absolute howler from the 1990 action movie Bird on a Wire is when Mel Gibson’s and Goldie Hawn’s characters take a ferry from Detroit, Michigan to Racine, Wisconsin. That’s a long-ass ferry ride!
One trope that always bugs the hell out of me is when something horrible happens to a main character, then it turns out 'it was all a dream / nightmare". Not just because it’s a lazy way to create drama and a very overused trope, but people generally don’t dream of themselves in the third person as if they are watching themselves on a screen, they dream in first person, the same way they experience life when they are awake. The camera is ‘God’s eye’. An accurate depiction of a dream should be through the character’s eyes.
As has been endlessly rejoined, Krakatoa can be east of Java as long as you don’t mind going the long way around.
The thing that gets me about the Krakatoa movie title is that there was no reason to use “east” over “west”. Either word makes a pleasantly dramatic title and none of the action depends on the geographic relationship between Krakatoa (sic) and Java.
I saw that as a kid when it was new. Living on the beach in SoCal it kinda rattled me that volcanoes or tsunamis could wreck my little world on zero notice.
Reminds me of the terrible over-the-top acting in cheap commercials using local nobodies. e.g. The housewife is struggling mightily to use a broom to pick up some recalcitrant debris on the floor. She tosses it aside in frustrated anguish. Cut to her effortlessly using the Miracle Sweep-o-Magic WonderSucker to clean up the same mess in a trice. With a near orgasmic smile on her face. As seen on TV!
Well we know who the sucker in this vignette is: anyone who orders one of those things from the 800 number while operators are standing by.
It almost makes me wonder if the over-the-top emoting is part of the hook. Like Nigerian scammers who pretend to be stupid to reel in the very stupid marks by making them think they’ll outsmart the scammers.
These examples don’t really seem trivial, though? It has a fairly significant impact on the fundamental structure or events of a movie if the purported location is in a totally different place geographically, or an interrogation subject spills the beans vs. keeping shtum, or main characters get blown up vs. not getting blown up.
I have a lot of nitpicks about period costuming in historical films, but #1 dealbreaker is: PERIOD HAIR. If you are a postpubescent female in basically any European or European-derived culture from medieval times up through the 19th century, you are NOT running around in public with no head covering, unless you’re fleeing a fire or literally insane. (You might have your portrait painted in an indoor costume with more decorative head adornment, if you’re the class of person who gets your portrait painted, but you’re not physically going out in public like that.) And you haven’t got artfully styled loose waves or a half-updo going, either.
Largely for that reason I’m not even bothering to see The Uprising, much as I think it would be cool to have a movie that really explored the events of Wat Tyler’s rebellion. If they can’t be arsed even to get the basic silhouettes and palettes reasonably realistic, they’re unlikely to be showing greater respect for the actual history and characters.
(Oddly enough, the bizarrely ahistorical costuming in most of The Odyssey (2026) didn’t bother me at all. I suppose mostly because right from the start it’s an ancient classical fantasy epic stuffed full of supernatural incident, so the costuming can be just vaguely gesturing towards “Ancient World” and I’m not bugged by lack of fidelity to a particular real-life period or region. But a movie purportedly about a specific 14th-century societal upheaval in a particular country? You need to get that shiz right.)
That’s interesting…so a coin that was equivalent to a week’s wages was only the size of a nickel.
I’m starting to see something similar in Taylor Sheridan’s shows; with the exception of stock establishing shots, everywhere in his shows is in Fort Worth, Dallas, or somewhere nearby, and if you know what to look for, you can tell.
On Landman or parts of 1883, that makes sense, as a lot of those shows do take place near Fort Worth. But Lioness supposedly takes place largely in Washington DC and in various places around the world. I can however, forgive them for filming scenes set in the Houston area in Fort Worth or nearby; most of it does look pretty similar in terms of suburban sprawl.
But yeah, if you watch enough TV and pay enough attention, you start seeing the same backlot locations in multiple movies, just redone. For example, there’s a set of Southern California hills that seem to be in every TV show set somewhere arid. They must be in a state park or somewhere else conducive to filming.
And that small town square set (“Courthouse Square”) most famously used in Back to the Future is in a LOT of productions if you pay attention.
Things obviously written by west-coasters who have never been to the east coast. There was an episode of (I think) the X-Files where a character is shown waking in Baltimore around 8 am, then driving to Rhode Island and getting there around noon. I’ve made that drive - it’s at least 8 hours, assuming perfect traffic.
And on NCIS, the team going from DC to Norfolk to visit the scene of a crime, then getting back to DC that evening. It’s around 190 miles and a minimum of 4 hours one way, again, if traffic is perfect. Just because DC is on the border of Virginia doesn’t mean all of Virginia is that close to DC.
A biggie that makes me crazy is any show that involves uniformed military folks where uniforms and grooming standards are sooooo wrong. Maybe it’s not obvious to someone who hasn’t been in the military, but I spent enough time on active duty that I cringe.
My mother watches the original Little House on The Prairie with Michael Landon regularly.
It is set in southern Minnesota which is completely flat-the Prairie of the title.
But the show shot in southern California routinely depicts high mountains and rough terrain that nowhere near Minnesota.
Right, I’m originally from Texas. Before I moved to New England, I thought the northeastern states were a mishmash of tiny states all right next to each other. In particular I had Rhode Island and Delaware conflated in my mind before I moved here. I also quickly learned that driving through the NYC metro area was a non-trivial task.
I’ve heard the opposite-- scenes where the tough guy resists all manner of torture, to the point where the torturers huddle up and say ‘we can’t break him-- what do we do now?’ are mostly fiction. I believe IRL, most people fold like a cheap card table at the first threat or experience of torture, tough guy or not.
Not that that necessarily means torture is effective at getting to the truth-- people being tortured are willing to say anything to try to stop the torture, real or made-up.
IIRC, the male characters in L.A. Confidential anachronistically go around hatless in 1950s Los Angeles because the filmmakers decided all the period-accurate headwear would be too visually distracting.
Cars that hit something that cause them to launch into the air, rotate to one side, and burst into flame when they land.
There’s a baffling moment in Ordinary People where a character visiting Texas says “I’ll never get over how flat it is here!”…while prominent mountains are visible behind him.
When a TV show or movie is set in a particular time period, and pop music on the soundtrack is from the wrong time period. If a series is based in 1969 and they use music from 1972, I know that it’s wrong, and it takes me out of the story.
I realize, though, that as a person who’s been involved in the radio and music industries for a long long time, I’m more aware of such things than 99% of the population would be.
I also realize that often pop music is used to set a mood, and perhaps the mood is better set by a particular tune, even if it is from the wrong time period, but if it’s way way off, it still bugs me a little.
For many people a week’s wages is still around the size of a nickel. Look what $4300 worth of gold looks like.
Oh yes, this! I’ve never been in the music business, but I’m a fan who listens to a lot of music and reads many books and other media about it, I’ve also always studied liner notes religiously, and when it comes to things that interest me, I easily absorb and remember otherwise useless information like release dates of songs/albums. That’s why I always catch such inconsistencies, and it brings me out of the film.
One that I notice is conversation volume. In one type of scene people will be having a loud “private” conversation a few feet away from someone who can’t hear them. In another people are gaving a normal conversation and someone overhears them from a different room. Or people having normal conversations in very noisy situations.