A couple of peeves I have about the movies (add your own,please).

[Swede]

When someone is dismantling a timebomb,they always get down to the blue and red wires. There is no color code for bomb making! FFS.
Also,when someone is escaping capture,they jump a guard and knock him out. But never,ever take his gun.

[NightWatcher]

1. Peeve about the industry. Movies are only made for their 1st week totals

Producers will put millions into a steaming pile of garbage with no story or other redeeming value in the hopes that it nets their costs plus a few bucks before people realize it's total shit...usually by week 3 of box office release. By that time there's another worthless film that will flame out in two weeks.

They should also rename every romantic comedy: I Know It's The First Date And I'm Not Creative Enough To Find Another Way Into Your Panties, But I'm Hoping That This Movie, A $12 Diet Coke, And Dinner From Applebee's Will Impress You.

I miss the movies that had lasting entertainment value. Sure, there are still a few movies that make money upon DVD release and even fewer of those that are entertaining ten years down the road, but they are increasingly hard to find.

[raccoon]

9. Amen to that. nt

[geardaddy]

10. You nailed it.

[RZM]

13. One thing that annoys me is that too many films try to hit every demo they possibly can

So many films now try to have little bit of everything. There has to be a little action, a little romance, a little comedy, and mandatory dick jokes (or at least somebody getting hit in the nuts).

There is a time and place for all of those things. I just think putting them all in the same movie usually doesn't work.

Another phenomenon is increasing attention to the foreign box office. Hollywood has always made a good percentage of its money abroad, but it seems now that films intended to be really big around the world are quietly ditching some of the specific cultural references that are key for wry comedy, realism, and insightful social commentary.

I remember I saw 'Being John Malkovich' in the theater in Europe. I went with some American friends, but the rest of the audience seemed to be locals. We were cracking up the whole time, but the rest of the people there really didn't seem to find the movie very funny. There were just too many quirky cultural references (such as the portal dumping people on the NJ turnpike) that weren't really in their frame of reference.

[MiddleFingerMom]

16. Oops.

.
.
.
"They should also rename every romantic comedy: I Know It's The First Date And I'm Not Creative Enough
To Find Another Way Into Your Panties, But I'm Hoping That This Movie, A $12 Diet Coke, And Dinner From
Applebee's Will Impress You."
.
Long... LONG ago, how was I to know that "Kramer vs Kramer" was not a romantic comedy?
.
.

True story... a SERIOUS lust-magnet for me who had JUST gone through a nasty divorce. Needless to say, we
left the theatre very early and the lust was extremely unrequited. We did actually remain good friends, though.
.
.
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Oo-fucking-OOPS!!!!
.
.
.

[Scout]

44. hear, hear. n/t

[OriginalGeek]

2. In nearly every case where there is a snake

no matter what kind of snake it is, the sound effect is a hiss and a rattle.

Because every snake is a rattlesnake. :-/

[ashling]

51. If you corner a bullsnake

it will mimic a rattlesnake. Caught one in the chicken house once it curled up in the corner and shook its tail among some old newspapers which was fairly convincing.

[Populist_Prole]

3. Very loud obtrusive scores on adventure type movies

Seems to be an epidemic the past 10 years or so. When watching at home, my volume controls on my remote get quite a workout: The score can crescendo so loud it absolutely drowns out the actor's dialog, at which point I need to turn up the volume insanely loud to hear what's being said, and the overall noise near flattens the house. Why is that? Is the action in the movie so devoid of vicserality ( is that a word? ) that they need an artificial stimulus to implant the notion that we should be excited? Kinda' like laugh tracks on sitcoms.

- Edited for clarity -

[NV Whino]

33. I second that

The score is background for fucks sake. I hate the intro music to TV shows, too. Honestly, I'm gonna wear out the volume control on the remote.

[fizzgig]

39. i find that to be more and more of an issue across the board

movies and tv shows. i'm shocked i haven't blown out our crummy computer speakers.

[Behind the Aegis]

40. The CW is one of the worst stations for this.

We watch a few of their shows and the "background" music is so damn loud, you can't hear the dialog. It is really hard on my partner who is deaf in one ear, but even I am having problems because it is so loud, I have to really strain to hear the talking. It is almost as if the dialog has become the "background music."

I also hate shows that shoot everything, or most of their episode, in shadows. Everything is damn dark I can't figure out who is who or where they are because things are obscured. It is just strange.

[fizzgig]

46. my sister is also deaf in one ear

there are some shows she doesn't even try watching because the dialog is so quiet and the closed captioning is so delayed

[zeemike]

53. I third that.

And it seem that every action film has to have at least one explosion...and usually more....and lots of yelling and screaming....when it starts early in the movie I just turn it off because I know it will be repeated over and over again.

[LeftinOH]

4. Title credits that continue for several minutes into the action

of the picture. Ten minutes, twelve minutes.. it's ridiculous. However one feels about Woody Allen, at least he gets the credits out of the way quickly, and they don't clutter up the screen once the story begins.

[Populist_Prole]

6. Yeah that really IS annoying

I don't care for the "Cold Open" :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_open| beginnings either. I don't care if the credits are 5 minutes long over a black screen or even a montage, but once the movie actually opens I want no distractions ( unless they're subtitles )

[Initech]

67. Add to that the 1,000 production company logos that appear before the movie.

[HopeHoops]

5. The protagonist can always out-drive the bad guys.

[SCantiGOP]

15. concerning the driving

I can not ever recall a movie where two cars were involved in a high speed chase in some city, running down sidewalks and having pedestrians jump out of the way,that a police car just happened to be in the vicinity and got involved.
Whereas, in real life, roll through a stop sing and you know damn well there is going to be a police car watching you.

[HopeHoops]

18. "The Blues Brothers" when Bob and the "Good Ol' Boys" are chasing them in a camper pickup.

The cops from the mall scene were behind a billboard.

[SCantiGOP]

20. HopeHoops:

That would be a major exception to my statement. As I recall, that set a record for the number of cars wrecked in a movie scene.

[HopeHoops]

43. Oh, that scene would be the one at the end of the overhead subway.

The stunt driver really was doing 120 or so down that road. The initial take looked like they had sped up the film to fake the speed so they re-shot it with people in the background moving at normal speed to emphasize just how fast the car was going.

[harmonicon]

47. "overhead subway"? (nt)

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

22. Also, one of the cars always knocks over a fruit stand,

causing oranges to roll everywhere.

Someday I want to see a car chase scene where no fruit stand is knocked over.

[sharp_stick]

7. Somebody runs out of ammunition

using a 9mm and you hear the click when he pulls the trigger on an empty chamber. Even worse, you'll sometimes hear multiple clicks as he pulls the trigger again and again.

[gratuitous]

8. The Twisted Ankle of Certain Doom in any chase scene

"I can't make it! Go on without me."

Standard response: "No! I won't leave you."

gratuitous response: "Kthxbai."

[sarge43]

66. sarge response "Damn thoughtful of ya. See ya." n/t

[Wait Wut]

11. Lots, but...

...I'm a huge fan of the Fast/Furious series, big Vin Diesel fan.

In the real world, he'd be doing 20-life and The Rock would have his badge stripped for letting him walk after he and his posse did about $20 million worth of damage to the city.

Still a good movie, but I have to chuckle at myself for getting suckered by it.

Historical inaccuracies drive me nuts. Poetic license is only acceptable on things that were crap to begin with. Not all teenage girls are morons and the genius girls don't hang out with the ones that are so they can attempt to save their lame asses when they do something dumb like walk into a deserted house in the middle of the night when there's a serial killer on the loose. Not all teenage boys are jocks or geeks. Most teenagers are just your normal, everyday kid.

Oh, and there is no need to kill the dog. Ever.

[kentauros]

70. The only Vin Diesel movie I like

is The Iron Giant, and that's just his voice. Still, great voice-acting!

[white_wolf]

12. Horror movie pet peeves.

I liked the Ring and Ringu as much as the next guy and when its done good I like the Japanese style of horror, but for the love of god can we please quit ripping off the whole "scary ghost girl" cliche. I also hate how a lot of horror movies are just bad pornos with violence. Give me a story, give me characters that make me care whether they get a knife stabbed in them, give me real scares not just gore. Here is an example, the movie Joshua was about a 9 year old boy who was a sociopath, it was really well done, intense, and very creepy, but not gory. Or a different example, Cabin in the Woods, while not scary was very entertaining and I actually liked the characters.

[SCantiGOP]

14. Concerning knocking out the guard to escape...

Don't you think in the real world it would just hurt him really bad but leave him conscious about a third of the time, and kill the person another third of the time? No, every time it conveniently knocks the person out.

Another gripe: anytime someone is stabbed in the stomach, they die in a matter of moments. However, if they are shot they are anywhere on a scale of dying to continuing to fight and/or run. I personally think, if forced to choose, I would take the knife over the bullet.

[petronius]

32. Also, bad guys who get shot just drop dead, while good guys who get shot

have time to complete a farewell speech or save the day by finishing off the last bad guy before finally expiring...

[MiddleFingerMom]

17. Ahem -- it's called "suspension of disbelief". Look it up. Assimilate it. Resistance is futile.

[ohiosmith]

19. There is always a parking spot in front of wherever whoever in the scene is going. Time's Square at

11:59 PM on New Year eve there will be a parking spot.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

24. And when the good guys run to their car to chase the bad guys,

the car always seems to be unlocked with the key in the ignition. They never have to fumble to find their keys, unlock the car, stick the key in the ignition and start the car. They also never have to crank back and forth to get out of a tight parking spot or wait for other cars to get past them before they can go. It's like there's this magic car just sitting there, all ready to go, and the traffic parts for them like the f'in Red Sea.

[LeftOfSelf-Centered]

56. Except when the hero (or victim) is being chased by something nasty

Then the key is invariably are at the very bottom of the last pocket the person checks (or in a big bag with plenty of side pockets). Also it is on an enormous key ring with twenty thousand other keys that all look exactly the same and they have to try each and every one. And finally when they have found the correct key and unlocked the door, they get in, turn the ignition and the car doesn't start...

[Ron Obvious]

21. Fruit stand

Whenever there's a pursuit sequence in an exotic locale, they always knock over a fruit stand.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. Ha! GMTA!

[Ron Obvious]

25. Yup!

Eerie!

[Behind the Aegis]

38. "Family Guy" explains this in the episode "And Stewie was his Bang-o."

Basically, there is a central dispatch. The call comes in a high-speed chase is in progress, then dispatch notifies all orange cart vendors to proceed to the crosstreets. It is a very funny bit.

[baldguy]

26. When hordes of evil minions, used by the Evil Overlord to devastate worlds & conquer entire galaxies

Can't hit a target 10 ft away - when it just happens to be on Our Hero's forehead.

AKA the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Analysis/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy

"Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise!"

[harmonicon]

49. Oh, man, that video's hilarious!

That one really gets me. It's bothered me for a long time.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. When the bad guy is running away from the good guys, he always

runs UP something--to the roof of a building, up a watertower, up the Statue of Liberty, etc.

He's been a brilliant evil mastermind for 90 minutes, and all of a sudden he flees to something that he must KNOW is a dead end.

[Brigid]

28. One peeve I have always had about "Titanic":

You remember how Jack (and Cal) put Rose in a lifeboat and a few seconds later she jumps out? She was stupid to do that. After that, for the rest of the movie, Jack was having to drag her along as he survived the actual sinking (no thanks to her) and found a piece of wreckage for them to climb onto. Because it wasn't big enough for both of them, he stayed in the water and froze to death. If she'd stayed in the lifeboat, he might have been able to save himself and they could have been reunited on the Carpathia later.

[Bertha Venation]

31. Rose was an idiot.

[greatauntoftriplets]

64. Truer words were never spoken.

I got so sick of watching them run through the companionways, I started shouting "Sink, SINK already!" Happily, this was at home and not in a theater.

[Bertha Venation]

68. Hahahahahaha

Good to see you! Are you well?

[Mendocino]

73. Mine is

in all the time Rose was wearing the overcoat with the 10 pound diamond in it, she doesn't put her hand in the pocket until the Carpathia docks in NY.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. Stupid violence and threats without any human connection.

The Dark Knight was a horrible POS. Violence (bank robbery), people threatening violence (The Joker holding a knife to Vicki Vale's throat) and no emotional connection between any characters. Also very sexist. Bruce Wayne and his friends are rich white guys, so they are important. We must watch what they do, how they dress, what kind of expensive cars they drive.

The only dignity in the movie was Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine in minor parts.

[Orrex]

36. I didn't realize that Bruce Wayne had any friends in that movie

Other than Rachel, Lucius, and Alfred, of course.

[mythology]

61. To be fair Vicki Vale wasn't in the movie either.

Sometimes people see what they want to see.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. The bad guy corners the good guy, then proceeds to explain

his nefarious plot in great detail instead of just shooting the good guy, which of course gives the good guy a chance to escape and/or defeat/kill/catch the bad guy.

[Honeycombe8]

34. Girl in house, in undies, in dark, hears sound outside. So she goes outside to investigate!

NO! DON'T GO OUT THERE!!!!! But she does, anyway. Too bad.

[NV Whino]

35. Hearing the sound track do the next scene before the previous s ene ends

Somebody at some point decided it was a good transition to hear the knock/doorbell/phone before the s ene actually opens. Drives me nuts.

[Kaleva]

37. Despite hundreds of rounds being fired, one rarely sees spent shell casings...

being ejected from the guns.

[Behind the Aegis]

41. And they never seem to run out of bullets...

[Recovered Repug]

42. Movies where humans have the technology to travel to

other planets, but still use bullets to fight - Starship Troopers, Aliens & Avatar to name a few. Why not ray guns? Also, smoking seems to be more acceptable in the future than it is now. Maybe they're not smoking tobbacco?

[Kaleva]

48. And sound travels in space!

[kentauros]

71. The "sound in space" thing

is to appease stupid people, whether they are movie producers or movie-goers. I've actually seen people on IMDb.com complain about space being silent in "2001: A Space Odyssey"

Douglas Trumbull did the effects for 2001 and then four years later releases "Silent Running" and we're back to "sound in space" again. Lucas then glorified it further with Star Wars. We haven't seen Hollywood attempt to go back to no sound in space since then. Even 2010 had sound in space!

[JonLP24]

45. The main character

always does a horrible job of explaining themselves when they're in a situation no one but them understands.

[bluesbassman]

50. I know it's a gearhead thing, but incorrect engine sounds make me crazy.

If the scene has a Harley running down the road, how friggn' hard is it to get a Harley's engine exhaust sound? A V-twin sounds like a V-twin and NOTHING else.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

52. Previews that tell the whole story of the movie

noteworthy example: "Finding Forrester."

I have never seen that movie and do not need to, since the preview revealed everything.

[frogmarch]

54. 1 -Medical examiners eating 2- You know

that in crime shows when there is a cute dog or kitty, the dog is going to get poisoned by the bad guy, and the cat nailed to a door 3- When a witness is being questioned by police (as in Law and Order) the person being questioned will continue what they were doing when the police arrived - loading a truck, cooking in a restaurant, or whatever task their occupation calls for, without missing a beat. They also walk around doing stuff with their backs turned to the police, as if being asked questions by the police wasn't important.

[Withywindle]

69. Not a crime show (well, under a very broad definition, it kind of is)

but one of the best things about the original Alien was the way it subverted the oh-no-not-the-kitty trope.

[LeFleur1]

55. White on White

Important information during the movie, printed in very tiny white letters on a white background. Maybe it isn't important and they were just trying to mess with the viewer. What other reason could there be?

[pink-o]

57. "Confession" time in a murder mystery...

The murdering mastermind, the Moriarity wannabe is so damn clever, the plot twists and turns around his maniacal genius. He's gotten away with killing for money or killing for fun and the cops know he's their guy but only have circumstantial evidence.

So they stick the guy in the interrogation room and start some obvious psy-ops on him, he falls apart and tells them everything they wanna know. Either he doesn't want his lawyer there, or his lawyer advises him to STFU and he decides to sing like a bird. Yeah, right. Like he's gonna hand them his balls on a plate after being so clever throughout the movie!

That's why "Talented Mr Ripley" was so fascinating. He got away with it!

[A HERETIC I AM]

58. Geographical screwups piss me off

For example in "The Graduate" when Hoffman is driving South on 101 headed TOWARD Santa Barbara he is shown driving through a tunnel. I've been through that tunnel scores of times except that it is on the NORTHBOUND side of the road and there is no tunnel on the south bound side.

Or when a scene is in Miami and theyre shown driving from the beach toward downtown Miami but the cruise ships are on the drivers right. If the ships are on the right, you're headed to the beach, NOT downtown.

In the 2nd Transformers movie, they suggest they are on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean but there are mountains in the background. The highest point on DG is about 30 feet or so. That scene btw was shot in Palmdale, Ca at the Plant 42 complex. I used to live in Palmdale and recognize the mountains (the San Bernardino range)

[hedgehog]

59. In the trailer for the upcoming Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

the background shows a completed Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial!

[A HERETIC I AM]

60. Lol. Everyone knows Lincoln built it!

[sarge43]

62. In the book there's a flash forward to Dr King's speech at the Memorial.

Perhaps it's a quick cut from that scene.

I have to give them chops for showing, during Lincoln term, the Capital Dome half built.

[sarge43]

63. The hugh explosion behind Our Hero as he slo mo walks/runs toward the camera.

Last edited Sat May 26, 2012, 06:21 PM - Edit history (1)

The wave front would roll him like a ball bearing and probably rupture his eardrums. The flying debris moving at a significant rate would probably shred him.

But noooo, his hairpiece is still in place.

[sakabatou]

65. The Stormtrooper Effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_Evil_Marksmanship

[FloridaJudy]

72. In Cop/FBI shows or movies

They always explore dark places first with a flashlight before checking to see if the power is working. This strikes me as an excellent way of assuring that the bad guy can spot law enforcement and shoot first. They did it the other night on Grimm. After creeping around the spooky cabin, going through all the rooms and yelling "Clear!", they went back to the living room and turned the lights on. It would have been a less dramatic way of searching to have done that in first place, but it would have been safer and more efficient to my way of thinking.

And what's with the FBI not being able to afford either night vision goggles or a fresh set of D cells? Mulder and Scully seem to be stuck with those dim flashlights in every episode. With all those abandoned mine shafts, deserted cabins, and empty warehouses littering the sets, surely Scully should have realized this by now, since she seems to be The Bright One.

Regarding Vin Diesel, his best movie was "Pitch Black". That time it really made sense that they were all creeping around in the dark being picked off by critters, since the sun only set every few decades on that planet, and most of their equipment had been destroyed in the crash landing.

[beknighted]

74. Remakes

Way too damn many of them. The movie industry is one of the only fields where it can make a few bucks off of coming just short of admitting "we've run out of ideas".