I hate it in films when...

... a man is struggling to do something "manly" (e.g. firing a gun on a range, open a jar etc.) and woman comes along and does it with ease. This is made especially worse when the woman afterwards looks at the man (normally over her shoulder) and raises her eyebrows with a smug grin.

... a criminal (or indeed anyone) is entirely unfazed by any event that occurs near him, no matter how explosive or normally disturbing.

... the directors have put a woman in the film as "the love interest", when the film would be so much better without.

and so on...

Wouldn't it actually be the writers who put the unnecessary love interest in more often than not?

I hate it when a movie thinks it's funny just because someone is yelling something demeaning. A good example is the trailer for "Someone Like You", where she yells "Did you have ANY friends growing up?" at the top of her lungs. That annoys me...a lot.

I also hate anything that describes itself as "quirky" or "sexy" -- a "quirky, sexy comedy" is a sure-fire bomb. I'm sorry, but a dozen 25 year olds who have a dinner party and talk about sex is not the kind of subject matter that makes for an interesting movie.

Uh oh. The tagline for my movie was going to be "A Quirky, Sexy Comedy". I guess I had better rethink that, huh?

...when they use the "Deus Ex Machina" technique. Something is just introduced into the plot out of nowhere just to resolve a conflict. ie Jurassic Park 3.

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LOL -- well, I would say so. Hehe, sorry.

I hate it when they bring back the dead funny guy everyone likes at the end to give the movie a happy ending.

Instead they should kill the funny guy by setting him on fire and then he runs screaming into the street and gets smashed by two big trucks at the same time and his head flys off and lands in a tree. That wouldn't make anyone sad the funny guy died. That would make them say whoa! In the end, the hero could knock the funny guy's head out of the tree with a stick and it could fly through the air and break a window and land in someones lap. That way the funny guy could give us one last laugh and it'd be a happy ending.

...they make a sequel to a movie in which a charecter dies in the first movie, but miracuously he's brought back to life in the sequel. No explanation given.

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Or when a character is played by a different actor in the sequel (this doesn't always bother me, but some times it does).

Hannibal is a good example of that. I hated the fact that Jodie wasn't in this one

SPOILERS (ALBEIT OLD ONES) BELOW...

Has that ever happened? The closest thing that comes to mind is Jurassic Park, where Dr. Ian Malcom was killed in the first novel, but brought back to life for the second, due to the fact that he lived in the movie, and a lot of people would be reading the second novel because of the first movie. Did that make any sense?

KIND OF A SPOILER

Well, I believe it happened in Scary Movie 2, but that's the only one I could think of off the top of my head.

Of course, there was a dodge in City Slickers 2 where they introduced Curly's long-lost twin brother into the mix.

...the guy that doesn't know kung-fu beats up the super kung-fu master of all time villian with a few punches.

...Mitch of Baywatch was a Navy Seal, CIA, FBI, NSA, Covert-Ops, golden gloves champion, surfing champion, chess champion, master this, master that, his dog won best in show, his chili won the cook off, etc.. No he wasn't. He's just a freakin' lifegaurd dang it!

I know exactly what you mean. Ugh, it's sick. Although, you have to keep in mind that the FIRST time that happened, it was probably hilarious. At one point, that kind of thing was original, and very clever. Today, it's cliche.

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It's funny because its true!

... or when the hero was "sure as hell the best damn soldier / leader / shot / commander / cyclist / tiddlywinks-player I've ever seen".

Why is it that EVERY hero seems to have been in the Special Forces and in Vietnam? And when are we going to get to the point that a hero was too young to have been in 'nam? I suppose the next one will be the Gulf...

... two old buddies served together in Vietnam, one saving the other's life - normally an innumerable amount of times...

I hate the cliched lines about these mythical, highly-skilled characters:

• "Bob Johnson? Why, they say he lives on the mountain to this day..."
• "Bob Johnson? They say he's the best there ever was."
• "Why, Bob Johnson is the only one who could pull that off. He dissapeared years ago...no one knows why."

The sequel has characters in it that were supposedly in the first one that we have no idea who they are.

The trailer is made out to look better than the movie is.

This was mentioned before but I hate hate HATE it when female characters are introduced into a film just to have a female character. If they don't naturally come along, they should be imposed. They end up being obviously unnatural. Examples: Gladiator, Boiler Room

Boiler Room was an obvioud rip off of Glengarry Glen Ross, with the bruilliant performances and theatrical dialougue removed and a horrible and boring, thriller twist in it's place. Is there a female love interest in GGR? no. Are there any females in it? no. Why not? It doen't need them. So don't add Nia Long just to have some estrogen in the film.

Lock, Stock and Two SMoking Barrels. I was very impressed by how this film didn't add a woman, much like it's form, Resevoir Dogs. In fact, LS&2SBs only has one woman in it and she is topless with no lines. If you don't need it, leave it out. Movies are too long lately, anyway.

Time for some examples.

I started this thread having just seen Swordfish. Halle Berry's golf drive and Travolta throughout the entire film are good examples here.


Wild Wild West. They could have at least wheeled in someone more attractive than Salma Hayek. Of course, there wasn't much of a plot in the first place...

Gunnery Sergeant Highway in Heartbreak Rigde was "the best man under fire". In Eraser Schwarzenegger "Thinks he's the best. He's right".

Cliffhanger. "There are two, maybe three people in the world who can climb that face."

They're my first thoughts. Sorry, lot's of quoting.

[Edit: So much quoting I got it wrong and had to go and fix it...]





[Edited by OllieO on 08-08-2001]