Things that really f**k you off - Film & TV edition

[FishyFish]

Let's have 'em, the infuriating bits in movies and TV shows that really f**k you off. Those little moments where the suspension of disbelief comes crashing to the floor, the plot goes to crap, there's an acting malfunction, the VFX are a letdown, or that "clever" twist makes you feel like you've been kicked in the sensitives by Mister Deus ex Machina.

 

Here's one to start things off. It sprang to mind unbidden for some reason today, but it annoyed me even though it was quite a while since I last watched the movie it's from...

 

Tomorrow Never Dies - the helicopter chase.

I appreciate that Bond movies stretch the limits, but surely at least one person in the production team must've raised the point that this is just f**king stupid?

After a motorcycle chase through building seemingly made of matchsticks, Bond and Wai-Lin are pursued by a helicopterbut get stuck in a crowd of pedestrians who hamper their progress. The pilot of the helicopter is laden with bad guys armed with fully automatic weapons decides the best option is to tilt the helicopter forward in a physics-defying maneouvre to attempt to chop up the heroes (and presumably many pedestrians) with the spinning rotors. Instead of instantly pitching the aircraft into the floor, shattering the rotor-blades, and dumping the crew to the ground in a fireball, the helicopter moves slowly forward at an impossible angle.

But bond escapes into (Oh no!) a dead end. Forced back out into the street he sees the helicopter still waiting, still hovering at a bizarre angle, unmoving thanks, I assume, to some sort of anti-gravity tech that evil baddie Elliot Carver must have invented. Bond and Wai-Lin do a stunt, sliding under the rotors and throwing some handy bunting up into the helicopter tail rotor causing it to lose control, crash into a building, and explode.

It disgusts me (although it's redeemed slightly by the brief cut at the end where you can see the helicopter is filled with manequins before it blows up).

 

Let 'em roll...

[Benny]

Don't get me started on the running away from the cold and slamming a door on it scene in The Day After Tomorrow.

 

To this day one of the most stupid things I have ever watched.

[iknowgungfu]

All the fucking elaborate delays for dramatic tension in reality TV/Game shows and the like. Soul sucking. 
 

Action scenes that don’t show the action without a millions chops and cuts. 
 

 

[iknowgungfu]

Thought of another one:

 

In post apocalyptic settings (looking at you Walking Dead). How miraculously the world ends and somehow everyone can still find fuel, car spares and ammunition like it’s made out of thin air. 
 

 

[Steve McQueef]

The Wilhelm Scream can fuck right off.

[iknowgungfu]

40 minutes ago, Steve McQueef said:

The Wilhelm Scream can fuck right off.

I hate that effect too!  Had no idea it had a name. It never fails to completely remove me from a film. That’s a good shout. There are a few SFX like that. I can’t think where I’ve heard it but I always notice the weird woods sound effect in films that was also used in the game Magic Carpet. 

[Festoon]

Richard Curtis films. Fucking dreadful, every single one.

[PK]

8 hours ago, iknowgungfu said:

I hate that effect too!  Had no idea it had a name. It never fails to completely remove me from a film. That’s a good shout. There are a few SFX like that. I can’t think where I’ve heard it but I always notice the weird woods sound effect in films that was also used in the game Magic Carpet. 

 

The Doom door sound effect does that for me

[Ry]

When someone you dislike walks away from you but you look back and stare and the camera pans to your face staring. 

 

You are staring at a cunt walking away, at the back of their head. 

 

I get why it's done but it annoys me/makes me laugh. 

 

 

[Stig]

11 hours ago, iknowgungfu said:

Thought of another one:

 

In post apocalyptic settings (looking at you Walking Dead). How miraculously the world ends and somehow everyone can still find fuel, car spares and ammunition like it’s made out of thin air. 
 

 

 

See another one I have on this (not so much something that pisses me off, just a observation). Where are all the dead bodies and human remains? Cities full of millions of people and not one single person stayed behind and died there? Seems doubtful. There isn't even any Zombie remains unless killed by a character.

 

In TLOU they almost get away with this because it takes place 20 years after the prologue and it also takes around 20 years for an exposed human body to full decompose, skeleton included. But other shows/films seem to have nothing left behind.

[Stig]

No one ever says goodbye on phones, even with normal conversations, they just hang up. If that happened to me on a call, I'd presume their phone cut off and call back. But no, everyone's just rude in films/tv and hangs up. 

[iknowgungfu]

I suppose with TLOU the bodies also crust up into some sort of husky fungal remains?  But yeah - it is a bit daft. 

[El Geet]

No toothpaste foam when brushing teeth! 🤨

[Nick R]

40 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

No one ever says goodbye on phones, even with normal conversations, they just hang up. If that happened to me on a call, I'd presume their phone cut off and call back. But no, everyone's just rude in films/tv and hangs up. 

 

Especially when they've been given shocking/sad news, like a person's death, and they just sit there in stunned silence and then end the phone call. In real life, no matter how shocked they are, they'd probably still say something else before hanging up! ("Thank you for telling me" or "Do you want me to tell [mutual friend]?" etc.)

 

 

I sometimes get distracted in films when we don't see characters finish completing everyday actions. For example we'll see them open a fridge to take out a drink, and then they'll have a lengthy dialogue scene, but we don't see or hear the fridge door being closed. Or they go to the toilet but we don't see them washing their hands, or they leave their home without locking the door. Of course we can assume that they probably did those things, but if the editing conspicuously avoids showing them, we could equally conclude that they didn't.

[DeciderVT]

Little bits of ADR parachuted in to stitch scenes together.

 

There's a moment in Hannibal where Ridley Scott needed to get Paul Krendler out to his summer house so he could end the film but there was no logical reason for him to be there, so they recorded Ray Liotta having his half of a phone conversation with a receptionist explaining that he was leaving town for a few days. Scott dropped this in over footage of Krendler's car arriving at the house and it's so clunky that it took me out of the film more than any of the other ridiculous shit it throws at the viewer.

 

It sounds minor but once you start to notice this sort of thing it's everywhere and often looks like the product of a director panicking in the editing room.

[Commander Jameson]

What I call "EastEnders Hug Face". When two characters hug and the face of one of them changes to something like a grimace.

[FishyFish]

13 hours ago, Festoon said:

Richard Curtis films. Fucking dreadful, every single one.

 

C'mon. Details please. There has to be some specific particularly twee piece of middle-class luvviness that really causes insult.

 

[Eighthours]

4 hours ago, Ry said:

When someone you dislike walks away from you but you look back and stare and the camera pans to your face staring. 

 

You are staring at a cunt walking away, at the back of their head. 

 

I get why it's done but it annoys me/makes me laugh. 

 

 

A character walking away from another character to the door, then turning back to deliver a final line.

[Festoon]

21 minutes ago, FishyFish said:

 

C'mon. Details please. There has to be some specific particularly twee piece of middle-class luvviness that really causes insult.

 

 

Just the general awfulness. Ridiculous scripts from a plot pov - relying on ridiculous co-incidences and sub sitcom bullshit. (e.g: 4 Weddings when Grant walks out door but is later revealed to be standing up on a cabinet sink - utter shit). Terrible, unnatural dialogue scripts - full of lines that are purely, obviously joke setups, 'joke' characters i.e. the characters have no inner life other than to be kooky, 'joke' characters whose existence is purely to be mocked for being ugly, stupid, fat, boring, slutty, disabled - you name it, he's got it. If a character with a disability is portrayed positively, then it's completely through the lens of that disability s it's the sum total of their character. Foreigners are funny caricatured weirdos, except for Americans who are magical, mystical, beautiful creatures from space - but they're flaky. Being alone makes men charming, treating women poorly makes men charming, being alone makes women needy and desperate and a figure of fun, or makes them bitter and they will pine forever for main character. Letting a mate have sex with your girlfriend is a jape.

 

Oh, and lets not forget that bit in Four Weddings where a character, attempting to speak to a deaf man, makes mistakes in signing, and through the subtitles we see that she has mixed up worlds like "nice" with "mice" because, apparently, in Curtisworld, sign languages share the same linguistic similarity as spoken language, to the extent that the same jokes would happen or are likely.

 

Piss poor.

[FishyFish]

10 minutes ago, Eighthours said:

A character walking away from another character to the door, then turning back to deliver a final line.

Never watch Columbo.

[FishyFish]

3 minutes ago, Festoon said:

 

Just the general awfulness. Ridiculous scripts from a plot pov - relying on ridiculous co-incidences and sub sitcom bullshit. (e.g: 4 Weddings when Grant walks out door but is later revealed to be standing up on a cabinet sink - utter shit). Terrible, unnatural dialogue scripts - full of lines that are purely, obviously joke setups, 'joke' characters i.e. the characters have no inner life other than to be kooky, 'joke' characters whose existence is purely to be mocked for being ugly, stupid, fat, boring, slutty, disabled - you name it, he's got it. If a character with a disability is portrayed positively, then it's completely through the lens of that disability s it's the sum total of their character. Foreigners are funny caricatured weirdos, except for Americans who are magical, mystical, beautiful creatures from space - but they're flaky. Being alone makes men charming, treating women poorly makes men charming, being alone makes women needy and desperate and a figure of fun, or makes them bitter and they will pine forever for main character. Letting a mate have sex with your girlfriend is a jape.

 

Oh, and lets not forget that bit in Four Weddings where a character, attempting to speak to a deaf man, makes mistakes in signing, and through the subtitles we see that she has mixed up worlds like "nice" with "mice" because, apparently, in Curtisworld, sign languages share the same linguistic similarity as spoken language, to the extent that the same jokes would happen or are likely.

 

Piss poor.

 

That’s more like it.

[Stig]

3 hours ago, Nick R said:

 

Especially when they've been given shocking/sad news, like a person's death, and they just sit there in stunned silence and then end the phone call. In real life, no matter how shocked they are, they'd probably still say something else before hanging up! ("Thank you for telling me" or "Do you want me to tell [mutual friend]?" etc.)

 

 

I sometimes get distracted in films when we don't see characters finish completing everyday actions. For example we'll see them open a fridge to take out a drink, and then they'll have a lengthy dialogue scene, but we don't see or hear the fridge door being closed. Or they go to the toilet but we don't see them washing their hands, or they leave their home without locking the door. Of course we can assume that they probably did those things, but if the editing conspicuously avoids showing them, we could equally conclude that they didn't.

 

Walking away without locking car doors and leaving the windows down.

[Gabe]

I love The Rock (the film, not the persona) but there's a horribly clunky little chat which makes me cringe every time in how badly delivered it is to set-up Connery's character (is that an example of what 'ADR' mentioned above is?)

 

It's the bit where in the police interrogation room where the two old FBI men have to explain to the audience who Connery is and why he's been in prison for so long. It's spoken in the most horribly unnatural way to the point where I will mute that bit if I'm ever watching it in the background (like I did a couple of weeks ago when it was ITV3/4 for the hundredth time since Christmas. They sure do get good value of out of their film rights deals!)

[James Lyon]

5 hours ago, Stigweard said:

 

See another one I have on this (not so much something that pisses me off, just a observation). Where are all the dead bodies and human remains? Cities full of millions of people and not one single person stayed behind and died there? Seems doubtful. There isn't even any Zombie remains unless killed by a character.

 

In TLOU they almost get away with this because it takes place 20 years after the prologue and it also takes around 20 years for an exposed human body to full decompose, skeleton included. But other shows/films seem to have nothing left behind.

 

That always annoyed me in 28 Days Later when he wonders around central London and doesn't see any of the infected for ages and then they're suddenly everywhere. I guess it looked cool, though. At least I Am Legend had an excuse for empty streets.

[Jammy]

The really obnoxious alarm sound they use in everything, which is the really obnoxious alarm sound I have on my iphone to wake me up for work. Every time I hear it in a film or on the telly I get that pit of the stomach feeling that I’ve got to get up.

[RabMyself]

The one thing that always annoys me are slow moving giants. Surely a giant would move fast, cover lots of distance quickly, but no, just look at Antman in Civil War, swinging stuff around in slow motion.

 

The only one to get it right (in my eyes anyway) was the BFG, moves fast, ducks and hides quickly, just the was I think it should be!

[Plissken]

2 hours ago, Festoon said:

 

Just the general awfulness. Ridiculous scripts from a plot pov - relying on ridiculous co-incidences and sub sitcom bullshit. (e.g: 4 Weddings when Grant walks out door but is later revealed to be standing up on a cabinet sink - utter shit). Terrible, unnatural dialogue scripts - full of lines that are purely, obviously joke setups, 'joke' characters i.e. the characters have no inner life other than to be kooky, 'joke' characters whose existence is purely to be mocked for being ugly, stupid, fat, boring, slutty, disabled - you name it, he's got it. If a character with a disability is portrayed positively, then it's completely through the lens of that disability s it's the sum total of their character. Foreigners are funny caricatured weirdos, except for Americans who are magical, mystical, beautiful creatures from space - but they're flaky. Being alone makes men charming, treating women poorly makes men charming, being alone makes women needy and desperate and a figure of fun, or makes them bitter and they will pine forever for main character. Letting a mate have sex with your girlfriend is a jape.

 

You forgot that every character in Love, Actually is a fucking liar and trying to con their way into sex, a relationship or simply making someone else care about them rather than, you know, actually having any kind of likable personality.

 

Rickman is trying to have an affair. Neesons's son is learning to play drums rather than talk to a girl. Kris whatsisface is taking advantage of being British. Laura Linney won't deal with her brother. Bill Nighy is faking a Christmas record for the money. Colin Firth can't write. Hugh Grant lies to an entire nation and Andrew Lincoln is an absolute fucking stalker.

 

Samira Ahmed - I think - nailed it completely when she said it shouldn't be called "Love, Actually" it should be called "I Want To Fuck The Help".

[Stig]

1 hour ago, RabMyself said:

The one thing that always annoys me are slow moving giants. Surely a giant would move fast, cover lots of distance quickly, but no, just look at Antman in Civil War, swinging stuff around in slow motion.

 

The only one to get it right (in my eyes anyway) was the BFG, moves fast, ducks and hides quickly, just the was I think it should be!

 

Would they? Just using Pro Wrestling as an example, the big 7ft guys have always moved a lot slower than the smaller 5ft 6 guys. 

 

Larger animals move slower than smaller animals etc.

 

A quick Google search said the bigger you are the smaller you'll move. 

[Festoon]

8 minutes ago, Plissken said:

 

You forgot that every character in Love, Actually is a fucking liar and trying to con their way into sex, a relationship or simply making someone else care about them rather than, you know, actually having any kind of likable personality.

 

Rickman is trying to have an affair. Neesons's son is learning to play drums rather than talk to a girl. Kris whatsisface is taking advantage of being British. Laura Linney won't deal with her brother. Bill Nighy is faking a Christmas record for the money. Colin Firth can't write. Hugh Grant lies to an entire nation and Andrew Lincoln is an absolute fucking stalker.

 

Love, Actually cut this scene. I can't believe this, THIS, is what made Curtis draw the line.

 

 

[RabMyself]

19 minutes ago, Stigweard said:

 

Would they? Just using Pro Wresrling as an example, the big 7ft guys have always moved a lot slower than the smaller 5ft 6 guys. 

 

Larger animals move slower than smaller animals etc.

 

A quick Google search said the bigger you are the smaller you'll move. 

Don’t give me all your science mumbo jumbo, in my head they should move fast and that’s all that matters 🤣