Movie Pet Hates

[xianjiro]

Okay. Discussion is taking on a new life of it's own, so I've started up The Etiquette Lounge even though I'm guessing it will attract much less attention than our posts here.

Note to Mods: would you kindly move posts #384 on to the new thread? It seems they have all veered way off topic. Thanks!

[joachimt]

Note: people frequently take the aisle seat on the bus to forestall others from sitting next to them, much like they put their baggage there. No one cares when the bus is 1/4 full, but when people are standing and can barely get on the bus ...

I hate this! A few days ago I sat in the transferbus from the hotel to the airport on Kos. We were the first hotel pickup with six people in total. The next hotel three people entered and they clearly belonged together. All three of them took a different pair of seats and al three of them sat on the aisle seat!! I was boiling inside. We went along several other hotels to pick up more people and the bus got almost completely full, but none of those people moved.

[joachimt]

Not really a movie pet hate, because in this case it happens a lot in real life too.

Parents who leave their kids out of sad things, so they don't have to deal with it or whatever. Two examples today in movies I saw. Spoilers, so in case anyone noticed my checks of today, I'd better spoiler these things.

Blue Valentine (2010)Show

Kid is looking for the dog. Apparently it ran away. When the kid is at school, the mother finds the dog lying dead next to a road, after being hit by a car. The parents bury the dog and tell the kid some bullshit story about he probably ran away to Hollywood to become a movie dog. Just tell the kid the truth! That way the kid learns to deal with grief. It's part of life!!

Julieta (2016)Show

Kid is away on summer camp. Father dies in an accident. Mother doesn't fetch her kid until after the camp is over. By that time the cremation ceremony is already done and the ashes have been scattered. The kid still didn't even know her father died. Okay, I know this is part of the theme of the movie of how the people in this story deal with grief and loss, but I just can't imagine anyone keeping their kids out of the funeral of a father.

For people who didn't open the spoilers:
Kids need to learn to deal with grief and loss. Don't try to protect them by not making them part of the process. I can't understand parents who do otherwise.

[xianjiro]

Probably the most annoying film/tv trope - feeling emotion, must fuck.

What's with this crap? It spans genres and certainly the better part of fifty years of filmed entertainment. Mostly I just roll my eyes, but I was trying to watch Cidade Baixa. The doctor has just left saying the usual "an inch to the left and he'd be a goner" so what do the other two characters do, practically on top of the best friend's prone (but recovering?) body? Ruck their brains out.

Give me a frackin' break!

[xianjiro]

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but is anyone paying that close attention?

So, protagonist has seen the antagonist and tells the coppers, "I can identify him." The suspects are rounded up for some sort of parade.

No. No. No. past all the others, then the protagonist is starring face-to-face with the antagonist - wait, wait, wait, wait, no.

Okay, I know on some level the creators are using this moment to 'show' that the protagonist is thinking about it. Since there's almost always a woman involved, the protagonist is thinking "if I give him up, I'll get the girl, but then she'll hate me because I gave him up. Guess I have to say no."

Problem is, any decent copper will notice the hesitation - the point is to watch for a change in behavior, the tell. Good movies make the tell much less obvious. Average to mediocre movies have to call so much attention to it even a deaf, blind watcher who's been cremated and buried at sea can see the tell! It feels like such an insult to our intelligence.

[max-scl]

When somebody is reading a book or magazine during the night (usually in bed or a sofa) but there clearly isn't any good source of light for him or her to be actually reading the thing (or the source of light is not pointing in a direction that would allow him or her to read)

[xianjiro]

Has anyone mentioned - when characters are 'drinking' coffee, tea, or something else and either plain water is poured or nothing at all - yet?

I also really got a kick out of watching an actor not eat eating. Can't remember what he was eating (or even which movie it was), but he picked up the food with his fingers, brought it to his mouth, and then bent his fingers under. I'm sure he thought he was being really sly, but maybe he was faking out his director or something.

[albajos]

or Brad Pitt that has to eat in everything...

[jvv]

Biopics that change certain characteristics of the person, so he/she fits in better with stereotypes.

For instance Alan Turing in the Imitation Game is portrayed as basically autistic and humorless, because that is what geniuses are supposed to be. Or James Hunt and Niki Lauda in Rush are mortal enemies, while in reality off track they were friends.

[dr0id]

Everytime a character appears he lights up a massive cigar.

Documentaries that are nothing but talking heads all the way through.

[max-scl]

Talking about geniuses:

-When they write their equations in a mirror or window. (just so we can look at their genius face)

-When they have a breakthrough (usually after someone said something trivial that propelled the idea) and just leave withouts saying anything and go somewhere else (usually running)

[blocho]

Talking about geniuses:

-When they write their equations in a mirror or window. (just so we can look at their genius face)

-When they have a breakthrough (usually after someone said something trivial that propelled the idea) and just leave withouts saying anything and go somewhere else (usually running)

It sounds like you're really annoyed with A Beautiful Mind. To be fair, I think I am too.

[max-scl]

Talking about geniuses:

-When they write their equations in a mirror or window. (just so we can look at their genius face)

-When they have a breakthrough (usually after someone said something trivial that propelled the idea) and just leave withouts saying anything and go somewhere else (usually running)

It sounds like you're really annoyed with A Beautiful Mind. To be fair, I think I am too.

Yes but these 2 scenes came to mind while watching The Social Network (and of course reminded me of A Beautiful Mind, and also Imitation Game that was mentioned above which has the "flash of insight in a bar while talking about women", or was it The Theory of Everything that had that scene? )

[joachimt]

Non-Dutch movies where someone Dutch enters a scene. The subtitles say "speaking Dutch", but I don't recognize a single Dutch word.

[albajos]

goes for most other languages.

When they get an american to speak norwegian (like in X-Files), things go horribe wrong
The words are ther but the pronouciation is all wrong.

[max-scl]

Or when the film is set in Afghanistan (for the war) and there are Afghans speaking and the subtitles say "[speaking arabic]"

[xianjiro]

Film files that are formatted with both vertical AND horizontal letter boxes but have subtitles occasionally in the bottom black zone so if we use the zoom feature on our monitor it cuts off second lines of text.

[weirdboy]

goes for most other languages.

When they get an american to speak norwegian (like in X-Files), things go horribe wrong
The words are ther but the pronouciation is all wrong.

This is true for any language where a non-native speaker pretends to be a native speaker. It drives me up the wall. I have to spend two tortuous hours listening to this dumbass butcher their lines.

[weirdboy]

Film files that are formatted with both vertical AND horizontal letter boxes but have subtitles occasionally in the bottom black zone so if we use the zoom feature on our monitor it cuts off second lines of text.

The version of War and Peace that was on Criterion channel before was like that. Watching it in the browser was frustrating as hell because with all the letterboxing the content ended up being about 1/4 of available space.

[mightysparks]

goes for most other languages.

When they get an american to speak norwegian (like in X-Files), things go horribe wrong
The words are ther but the pronouciation is all wrong.

This is true for any language where a non-native speaker pretends to be a native speaker. It drives me up the wall. I have to spend two tortuous hours listening to this dumbass butcher their lines.

Same goes for almost any non-Australian actor doing an Aussie accent. Can spot them instantly and it’s painful.

[AdamH]

Yep, hell of a lot of fake (and awful) Scottish accents in films too.

I've also seen a weird thing where sometimes Irish actors play Scottish characters even though the accent is completely different. Pretty sure I saw a really bad Loch Ness film one time where everyone had an Irish accent.

[xianjiro]

Don't forget actors with normal abilities 'faking' the way a deaf person talks - when done for comedy, this is often particularly offensive.

[OldAle1]

Simple disguises - or rather the lack of them.

Somebody's on the run for some period of at least a day - it's worse the longer it is - and they don't make the *slightest* effort to change their appearance. The semi-noir I watched this morning has a guy break out of jail - he's got the typical pencil-thin mustache that most guys who weren't clean-shaven seemed to have in 1937 - and he doesn't bother to shave it off, the easiest thing he could do. Other very simple things - start wearing different kinds of clothing, get shoes with lifts or stop wearing high heels, colored contact lenses, changing hair color, parting the hair differently, cutting the hair shorter, etc, etc. Nope, your average movie character on the run does none of these things, even if s/he is on the lamb for a week or a month and has resources. It used to bother me that James Bond not only never disguises himself but always uses his real name - but the Bond films are, let's face it, semi-comedic fantasies about a borderline superhero. You can't take them seriously so just having Bond say "Bond, James Bond" with emphasis is part of the fun. But in films that are at least theoretically supposed to be more realistic and/or suspenseful, seeing characters time and again make no effort whatsoever to look different often drives me nuts.

[albajos]

Man, Super Man

[funkybusiness]

from the Black Lagoon, Creature from the Black Lagoon.

[joachimt]

A closeup of a matchbox with some logo on it, often from a hotel. Such a shot is screaming "I'M A CLUE!!"

[OldAle1]

Sort of the opposite of the Nolanesque explain-everything is the explain nothing problem. I watched a spaghetti last night where the main character keeps wondering just why and how the bad guy took over the town - and nobody will tell him, and in fact they all seem offended that he's asking, nor will they tell him where the bad guy even lives! His own brother just keeps telling him to get out of town and forget about it. And while we find out a few answers to the many questions raised in the plot by the end, some major ones remain - ultimately there seems little motivation for some of the major actions by the characters, and this problem wouldn't exist with just a couple of lines of dialogue by way of explanation. It'd be like somebody coming to America after 4 years away (and I guess in a coma) and asking what the fuck's up with kids in cages, repeal of most of what Obama's done, etc, and just being told "Trump", and on asking further, getting nothing beyond "Trump. Don't like it, leave. I won't tell you anything else, fuck off".

This kind of shit happens all the time in movies actually, though not typically as obvious as what I'm describing. Along with it is the old "I have something I must tell you..." but they don't say it right then and there, instead waiting until the most opportune moment for the bad guy to shoot them just before they would in fact reveal the secret.

[Ebbywebby]

Just brainstorming the first ones that come to mind….

It's an obvious one, but lately I've been especially annoyed at the convention (I see a lot of this in '40s films) of a man and woman meeting and, within maybe three days, they're not only "in love" but have matter-of-factly settled on sharing the rest of their lives together. I even see this in old Hitchcock films, for heaven's sake.

And, again it's obvious, but people outrunning a giant explosion blast that's "following" behind them.

I play piano pretty well, and bad piano-faking either annoys or amuses me, depending on how it's done.

Others mentioned the ease of computer hacking and women waking up with perfect hair and makeup.

As I've become used to routinely seeing foreign-language films, the Hollywood convention of depicting foreign-country dialogue with actors speaking in accented English becomes harder and harder to swallow. [Oh, now I see others mentioned this too.]

Macho men talking about "the lady" when she's right there. "The lady will have the steak and onions.” "Hey, the lady told you she's not interested." Oh, shut up.

Couples who first "connect" via the guy stopping to help the girl pick up something she's dropped. Boy, are women in romantic movies clumsy.

When being chased by a madman, the instinct to run upstairs and dead-end yourself in a bedroom/bathroom rather than running out the front door.

The band’s or singer’s big concert booking finally arrives, and they play just two songs and then rush off the stage in euphoric triumph.

How many people in real life have ever had to crawl through an air-conditioning duct? If you believe the movies, we all have to do it at some point or another.

Sometimes I marvel at how every movie’s cast of characters is lucky enough to have no two people with the same first name (unless this is a central plot point).

And this is purely a matter of personal taste, but nothing turns a film into a miserable, tedious experience for me more than excessive narration. Particularly when it aims to be "poetic" or doesn't directly connect with the visual imagery.

I started to chronicle some peeves, and then I discovered I had written a forgotten 2017 post that included several of the ones I had just freshly written down. Ha!

But OK, a few more that are particularly bugging me in recent times.

1) SO many contemporary horror movies using the same lame device of repeating some nursery-rhyme-like, music-box-like, until-now-innocuous little song over and over until it becomes creepy. I'd love to see a list of all the films that do this and which song they use. I don't know where this began. It's not really "M," because "The Hall of the Mountain King" has an inherently tense, menacing mood. Old Argento films did this sort of thing, but with original music....

2) Again, with contemporary horror music: the orchestrated score where the string players all dissonantly screeeeeech up and down the instrument's neck. Come on, this idea is so tired by now.

3) Horror soundtracks are so great, aren't they? How about when characters are in situations where they're terrified and the only thing they're afraid of is the non-diegetic music. OK, you're walking down the hall of your own home and it's dark. So? You're scared? And make sure to tiptoe, because you'll be safer that way.

4) When an animal's presence is emphasized, and you know it's only because it will be brutally killed later.

5) What is with couples in '40s Hollywood movies being unable to exchange a sentence without referring to their partner as "Darling"? Oh, how this grates on me. It's like there was a "style guide" for screenwriters and this was one of the rules. Give me a two-minute conversation and you'll hear four "Darlings." Not "honey," not "sweetie." "Darling."

6) Characters who turn enraged and impetuously sweep all the items off a table, desk, mantelpiece, etc. with their arm. Does anyone ever do this in real life?

[Grunge Rock & Ally McBeal]

Everything mentioned in this thread would be great fodder for the next Wayans Brothers film.

[Grunge Rock & Ally McBeal]

When people end telephone conservations without saying bye. Who does that?

[xianjiro]

Movies set in San Francisco were absolutely everyone is the film is straight.