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Things in today's movies that are annoying ?

posted 7 years ago by brux (14840)
43 replies | jump to latest

Not in any particular order ...

1. Product placements in the middle of an important visual or scene?

2. The attitude of today's movies having to pretend they are so cool and smart. They run the movie really fast and noisy so you have to pay real attention of you miss something important. I guess it makes people who like the movie have to go see it again.

3. Again, the continual self-conscious reversal of expectations. Throwing stereotypes around any which way they can be used, as attention getters in the movie but maybe no real reason for it. Like always showing the little kids as being smarter with computers than adults, or Asians being smart. The young are smarter than they old, and when really old the condescending final reversal of that before death where a doddering old man with wisdom pushed the plot forward.

4. The constant profanity. I wonder if Hollywood is happy now that they have got profanity laced all throughout everything.

5. The inverse relationship between quality of the special effects and CGI and the quality of the movie. If there are good effects, then the movie is usually bad.

6. The same faces in the movies all the time. Certain stars and studios seem to have a monopoly on movies. Give other people a chance ... including Americans.

7. The constant examples of women fighting and defeating men, over and over, constantly until it is almost everywhere. It is sad but true that people have different fighting capabilities, and skill is important, but a 100 pound woman is not going to defeat a 250 pound man in a fight 999,999 times out of a million. It would be nice if movies would try to reflect reality just a little.

8. The total waste that most movies are. I used to see 1-3 movies a week 20 years ago. Not the movies are nothing I want to see, nothing I think anyone else should want to see ( just kidding ), cost way too much. The movie industry used to at least instill values in movies, and way back they have the newsreels and it was where Americans got their news. Today movie are like food, candy, and so much other stuff, cheap junk with an agenda.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

It seems as though the background music is louder than the people talking. Sometimes the music actually plays while the actors ARE speaking and it drowns them out completely.
This isn't because I'm half deaf either. The dialogue in films from 15 years and further back seem to come in loud and clear.

[–] brux (14840) 7 years ago

Yeah ... I hate that ... they seem to want to try to make every movie into a partial music video!

[–] TexasJack (12516) 7 years ago

MissMargo, you are so right about this. One of the first threads I created back in the early days of MC was “Movie Pet Peeves”, and this issue one of my most-hated characteristics of modern films — unintelligible dialogue.

I end up watching a LOT of movies with the subtitles on. In some cases, it’s obvious that the filmmakers made an intentional, artistic choice to partially mask the dialogue with music, but I absolutely hate it. It bespeaks a certain arrogance and disregard for their audience. Subtitles are not always available. Even if they are, not everyone has the technical wherewithal to turn them on. Why make it hard for folks who have made the effort to watch your movie/tv episode to actually understand it?

[–] Catbookss (13664) 7 years ago

"I end up watching a LOT of movies with the subtitles on."

I do too, and (good) TV. It all started with Mad Men.

Rarely do I think it's a good choice to obscure dialogue, even as an artistic choice. The sole example I think think of where it works is in parts of Gosford Park, where people are speaking over one another, as happens in a gathering of people. Even so, I hated it, lol!

Much worse is the decision to crank up the music and drowning out the dialogue. That's inexcusable, and I don't understand why it's become common now. I agree with Margo, this started about 15 years ago.

[–] brux (14840) 7 years ago

Hahaha, you just reminded me of yet another annoying thing.

When you watch the movie with the subtitles off you hear no dialog, and yet when you turn the subtitles on there is something said that did not pick up on the soundtrack or was not loud enough to be distinguished.

But subtitles are a whole separate world of annoyance. When you hear what is said and then read the dialog and they are sometimes two separate things, or when there is something said that is indistinguishable or in another language and nothing at all is in the subtitles.

[–] TexasJack (12516) 7 years ago

They are also a distraction from the actual image.

[–] brux (14840) 7 years ago

Maybe my hearing is not the best, but I like subtitles ... I wish they had them in movie theaters.

[–] db20db (17726) 7 years ago

Same here ! Dialogue is important to me when following a story and there's too much mumbling in movies. Whenever I rent a DVD, I go for the option of subtitles.

[–] GlenEllyn (21653) 7 years ago

I've come to find it amusing when the subtitles don't match what is actually being said. Sometimes it's a grammatical error, but other times it's lack of knowledge/ignorance of the local dialect. I recall watching Mamma Mia where the subtitles say "dig in the dancing queen" when it should be "diggin' the dancing queen." I know I've seen quite a few mistakes but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

[–] croft_alice (12180) 7 years ago

Studios involvement during filming and post - production,changing the script,including some characters then removing them without any explanation whatsoever,"based on" proving is a lie..

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

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[–] croft_alice (12180) 7 years ago

One good example is the resident evil franchise.Paul allowed sony to do wathever they want with his script.

[–] jamesboland (690) 7 years ago

I don't need the constant reminders telling me I can't leave my unfinished soda under the seat. It's my life!!

Sometimes when the person in front of me is using a cell phone to film the movie, I'll add dialogue during the quiet parts. So do people behind me whispering "Shh!" and being really annoying.

Ever watch Cocoon at a drive-in theater from the back seat of a convertible with a boom box blasting Hip Hop? People just freeze in disbelief. Makes you feel like a king.

[–] captainbucky (15252) 7 years ago

I don't need the constant reminders telling me I can't leave my unfinished soda under the seat. It's my life!!

Do they do that? What do they say?

[–] jamesboland (690) 7 years ago

They say things like, "use appropriate receptacles" and garbage like that. Then they insult everyone's intelligence with a cute little cartoon of a bag of popcorn and some candy marching off to the trash can. I don't need their commercials; I have better things to do with my time.

I paid good money for that seat and good money for that candy so if I choose to leave M&Ms on it, what business is it of anyone else?

When people are texting, sometimes it's fun to chew really loud with an open mouth. That's when the popcorn just flies everywhere, IMHO. But that's what they have protective cell phone cases for.

"Well, Lionel, why do yous still sit in the back then?"

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

I agree completely, Brux! I would add one thing:

Smoking:
Why in the hell do the pinheads in Hollyweird seem to think it's cool to show people smoking? It's gross and disgusting, and sometimes takes me right out of the movie. And it's a terrible example to kids and teens.

😎

[–] GlenEllyn (21653) 7 years ago

I agree. I don't see that it adds to the story or the character. I think it's more about playing to a stereotype. I thought we were trying to get beyond those.

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

Amen!

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[–] twinA (4921) 7 years ago

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[–] brux (14840) 7 years ago

I figure fights in movie are like gunfights ... the good-guys always hit, the bad-guys miss. I figure the results and point of the fights in action movies are predetermined and exaggerated to catch eyes and get people excited. So, for me the realism of a fight doesn't make that much difference. It is the suggestion of physical conflict that is the point, not the move by move. But in a Chinese King-Fu movie ... maybe that is more important.

[–] Renovatio (2990) 7 years ago

- Overly digital photography... For movies that cost 10s of millions film costs are trivial. Why not shoot more movies on actual film rather than with video cameras?

- Over explaining... I hate that in movies... It's common on TV because that is what TV is about, despencing information about plot and moving from incident to incident and making sure every episode is clear... Why do that in a movie? Why not leave things a bit more unsaid? Show us if you need to instead of telling us...

- Constant dialogue or action... Movies these days have very few quiet scenes where a story is told visually wothout words... Or scenes that are there to create mood and allow the audience to reflect on an earlier scene or process it... Perhaps the feeling is not to lose an audience that will check their phones and such?

- Lack of masculinity... Yes. Most male characters are delicate, are manchildren or morose... Very few examples of even remotely assertive guys... Real life is not at this stage yet!

- Lack of everyday sensuality... It's as if characters in movies these days are robots, are asexual and such... They don't hold one another, touch, and there is no sense of the sensual in filmmaking. The only time there is physical interaction is either a fight or sex... and the sex is without feeling, it is non-sensual...

A big exception to the last two points in a movie like Labor Day... Yeah, it's an American melodrama, but might as well be a French movie in how much it departs from what is common in Hollywood today...

[–] [deleted] 7 years ago

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[–] PeteRose (2893) 7 years ago

This one has been around forever but it still holds true: never saying goodbye at the end of a phone conversation. It basically never happens, not even a "see you later" or the very common "alright." Every time a phone conversation happens in a movie, I suddenly think, oh this is a movie, most jarring thing ever and the characters are never confused, hate it

[–] brux (14840) 7 years ago

>> never saying goodbye at the end of a phone conversation.

Haha .... I was just noticing that yesterday watching the new episode of "Homeland". I would be offended if someone called me and had a "Hollywood" phone conversation and then just hung up when they thought it was over. But in way that is like when they are reading an audio book, does the narrator have to include every "he said", "she said", etc, especially when they are performing the audiobook with voices and in a performance.

[–] Catbookss (13664) 7 years ago

That's one of my pet peeves.

I saw something a week or two ago and was shocked when the characters actually said goodbye! I was impressed. But apparently not enough to remember which show or movie it was 😬

I think it was a show, not movie.

[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

Also too much damn CGI, and WAY too many car chases, crashes and explosions! Boring.

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