Pet peeves in films/tv

[Brown Bottle]

People smoking on screen who obviously don’t really smoke.

People armed with only a butter knife taking on 20 men with sub machine guns and living.

Cheers BB

 

[RJohan]

Squealing tyres on dirt roads.

Pete

Why tires prone to squeal are called Hollywood tires.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

The lies sold to kids about how strong cars are, especially “YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAA!” cars

 

[RJohan]

Any movie where it is filmed dark for effect, Batman movies being the worst. My eyesight has always been good but I won’t watch movies like the above.

Theres plenty on the subject on youtube. Everybody hates it. It seems there are at least two reasons:
- Commercials and child movies has lot's of color and brightnes.
- Digital SF'x are expensive and not very good. Make it dark and the audience won't notice how bad it is, plus, just one color is cheaper.

It's horrible.

 

[davidsrsb]

For example: a police chief is explaining a situation to his assembled crew, he says a few words, then one of his right hand men takes over with another few words of explanation, then his next in command jumps in with a bit more, then it goes back to the chief, then…….
…. and between them they somehow get to the end of it.
Just doesn’t happen like that!

I always thought that this was to allow the actors to just crib their next line and not actually learn a script.

 

[davidsrsb]

When a car door is enough to stop a burst of assault rifle fire

 

[Tony Lockhart]

When a car door is enough to stop a burst of assault rifle fire

Back in the 80s I’d been reasonably well trained in the use of a variety of weapons. Without optical sights, and using the 7.62mm SLR, I could easily hit the centre of a car door at about 200 metres. And that round would go through the body behind it, and keep going.
9mm is for softies, stopped by tissue paper at 200ft

 

[John Phillips]

Aircraft landing on a runway accompanied by ‘Eek Eek’ screeches as the tyres touch tarmac.

Doesn’t happen. May have done years ago as the old Maxaret anti-skid reacted to the wheels speeding up, but I’ve been close to all sorts of aircraft landing on runways, and I’ve never heard it. ...

And there's Castle thunder, Hollywood frogs, the Wilhelm scream and other instantly recognizable stock sound effects including some others already mentioned.

 

[foxwelljsly]

Any film that is patently propaganda designed to subliminally reinforce the outdated values of capitalism or the patriarchy.

This might include, outsiders being accepted when they achieve some sort of normality or extreme wealth being presented as some sort of achievement or success. Also any film that perpetuates the nonsense of the Horatio Alger myth, that all that is required to achieve such success is a little pluck and freely available luck.

It’s all a dirty lie, comrades.

 

[Wolfmancatsup]

People who, even in central London or New York, manage to park right outside the building they’re visiting.

 

[KrisW]

Why tires prone to squeal are called Hollywood tires.

I thought that too until I drove in California. They all use super-hard compound tyres and the streets are concrete, or concrete with a thin asphalt layer... there's not actually that much grip. So if you have to make a sharp turn at speed, you can get a genuine movie-syle screech out of them.

(Driving a Ford Taurus helped. Named Taurus because.. well, have you ever tried to get a bull to go where you want it?)

@Tony Lockhart, "Dukes of Hazard" hugely increased the value of Dodge Chargers, first by exposure, but second by reducing supply. The producers originally picked the model because they wanted an American "muscle" car that they could get dirt cheap on the second hand market, and it fit the bill. But they got through so many cars in the early series that they needed more, and that's when they found replacement ones had become really hard to get, as enthusuasts and restorers started buying the junk ones to turn into "General Lee" replicas. Eventually, they were cannibalising their own crashed cars and reusing old footage to put together the scenes, because there we so few cars left.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

There used to be a shopping centre in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, that had a large car park on the roof. The surface of the car park was almost polished smooth over the years, and any steering input even at a walking pace resulted in hilarious squealing.
And then a ladies underwear shop caught fire and the whole place was torched. A real shame, as the Shula Centre had almost everything we needed.

I noticed many cars had tyres made in Mexico, even if they had ‘big name’ branding.

 

[Burdy]

Suitcases carried by characters are clearly empty, going by the way they swing them about.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

Suitcases carried by characters are clearly empty, going by the way they swing them about.

I mastered the art of making a very much overweight suitcase look within the allowance years ago. There was a period when the BA staff would walk along the queue trying to work out what was overweight just by looking. I managed 46kg once, with 25kg hand baggage!

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Shite car chases. Eg where the hero in his TVR Tuscan can’t outrun some pleb in his lardy arsed SUV.
Another being the how the car chase is actually happening at 20mph, but has lots to camera changes to give it different impression.

Movies that try to change history. You know the ones, eg U571. Just why?
Another classic being We Were Heroes, set in Vietnam. Most of it was well done, but the ending was ridiculous. It wasn’t until several years later that I read the account for the battle, and sure enough, that final day didn’t happen that way.

Sci-fi where the premise of some actions make absolutely no sense. Eg aliens turn up to wipe out mankind. Why on earth would they bother landing an assault force when they could just drop an asteroid?

 

[Big Tabs]

Noise in Space - a vacuum, were as far as I know sound cannot travel

 

[Bob McC]

Noise in Space - a vacuum, were as far as I know sound cannot travel

I know however
NASA sound of a black hole.

 

[stevec67]

And then a ladies underwear shop caught fire and the whole place was torched. A real shame, as the Shula Centre had almost everything we needed.

I can see the problem, in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia. Where did you go to get your bras and panties after that?

 

[Bob McC]

Spaceships that aren’t rotating yet have gravity on board.

 

[tones]

I'm sure you're right about the gun. It shouldn't put off people from Saving Private Ryan - I read a while back that soldiers actually part of the landings rate the beginning of that film as unusually (and of course horribly) realistic.

Spielberg did do his homework quite well (for example, the soldier carrying his severed arm up the beach survived the day and I believe that Spielberg interviewed him). On the other hand, the beach obstacles are apparently the wrong way around! See 35:06 here: