Stuff I hate on movies

1 - when you can tell that the creator is in love with his character

This is usually found on indie films [at least for the most part]. And by this I mean those movies that even on the cover the main character [usually either a hero type or a villain/demon/whatever] is in full display.

It's as though the creator draw that character while at high-school and he/she dresses like it ever since.

This will [more often than not] be the major flaw in those movies. Too much time spent with the visual of that character, none with an actual story [or one that at least makes any sense]

Examples: Lord of Tears, Prototype, The Babadook

2 - Rub it one more time

This is when the guy wants you to REALLY NOTICE what one character says/do, an idea, a specific location, or forces a certain vibe upon the viewer.

When you want to convey an idea [any idea] that is the center of an argument, there is no need to repeat it ad nauseam. All it takes is a clear demonstration of that idea either via uncomplicated dialogue, a simple shot [of the action] or even some music/sound [or the absence of it] at the right time

Example: The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh ["I was lonely, I was lonely, I was lonely, I was lonely, I was lonely..."]

3 - Pseudo-intellectual drivel

I appreciate some thoughtfulness. I appreciate some [good] insight into the thematic the movie is based on. I absolutely loath pseudo.intellectualism in any shape or form, specially when the writers could easily do a bit of research into what they are writing about instead of pretending to be saying something profound.

Examples: Prometheus [gods are aliens, dna, "science"...]: BvS [gods, devils... whatever]

4 - "Artsy Fartsy"

This one requires no explanation. It's visual pseudo-intellectualism. Shallow, uninteresting, boring.

Examples: Lord of Tears; Hotel, Second Earth; Requiem for a Dream...


Addenda:


5 - Everything and the Kitchen Sink

Storytelling [whatever format it may take] is an art form in itself. It requires lucidity from the storyteller to focus on what the actual message he/she wants to convey is and the proper way to do it.

More often than not you are watching a movie with a synopsis/plot that interests you, only to find that the storytelling keeps jumping its focus on various things that have no real weight to the story itself and wastes time on needless stuffing.

This is a clear indicator that the person who came up with the story doesn't really know what he/she wants to say.

Examples: Waterworld, Alexander, and way too many to specify

6 - Message? What's that?

On the other end of the spectrum, you have those that simply have nothing to say and they seem damn proud of it.

Often will mix disconnected avant-garde visuals [of the "artsy fartsy" kind] with a semblance of a script. The end result is a head-scratching dumbfounding waste of film.

Example: Hotel

7 - The obligatory Twist

I like me some "Twist in the end". Some movies need it for the full effect of the story/plot to be delivered [example: Usual Suspects].

But as great as it is for the movie to kick the viewer in the teeth; not every movie needs them. Specially ones which you can see the twist coming from a mile away or the writer decides to employ the Twist just because.

A forced Twist that has no sensible connection to the motif of the story line [or the genre] in itself becomes nauseating; and these include:

- the lead character was evil all along
- the lead character has double personality
- It was all a dream
- it was all an experiment
- the character/s was/were dead all along
- the fragile/young/etc is the lonely survivor
-
Examples: Cube, Fight Club, Signs, Number 23, The Sixth Sense...

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There is so much pseudo intellectualism in that OP my brin imploded, you pretentious hipster wanker.

Just kidding. You know I luvs y man. I even told you in Tibetan

Yeh Prometheus. Hilarious.

There was an old guy on the Westworld board who gave a freaking thesis on every post about Prometheus. His passive aggressive 'I'm so sorry you people who dont like it are so uneducated'. LMAO. I just didn't like it because all the characters were morons. That guy had an entire blog dedicated to the movie, dissecting every frame. Woooooooooooooo. That was a mind bender.

I hate being talked down to... I guess some directors are elitists and think only THEY understand.

As a wise man once said, "Art doesn't leave anyone cold. Everyone gets a varying degree of understanding" and as Kiarostami said "You guys (audience) intellectualize my movies"

The whole point of art is to express what you feel, not what you think can sell.

Yeah I must say that grinds my gears when I feel I'm being spoonfed. Makes me want to smack the director in the teeth with my spoon

HA! I know, Prometheus is able to gather the most annoying morons around. I used to have a really good time on the Prometheus board just laughing of all the theories those idiots would come up with. And some were really bad.

"Shaw is able to move after a C-Section because the alien was not in her womb but under her skin"

"The laser scalpel that cut Shaw had antibodies on it, that's why she survived"

"David is the Antichrist."

"The Engineer was mad because Weiland was old"

Ditto.

Ouch!

Great points! Agree with you 100%

*cries*
I thought this was going to be a more literal complaint list like when the driver of a vehicle turns to the passenger during conversation for a good three or more camera cuts. Way long enough for the car to have eased off the road and off a bridge, or what have you. >=P~

But generally, I can agree with your OP!

Slightly off topic: please know that as I get more comfortable in this site, and more familiar with the different personalities I will eventually play devil's advocate on damn near any point that I can just because. I don't mean it to instigate or to be jerky, I just like to ask questions to see where the lines are when pushed. I think all of this just rolled off my keyboard because I am probably one of those guys that would argue points of Prometheus. I'm not that guy, but I might get close


- meow.

Oh, I can add those weird shots for sure. Some are indeed mind boggling.

Please feel free to expose every and all points you'd like to discuss. Discussion [as long as polite] is great.

I hate when characters wear shoes inside the house. What's THAT all about?

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Suspect's Reviews

I myself strongly agree with point 7 to a certain degree.

A twist ending can be a REALLY good cherry on top of an already great movie. And if done well makes a film legendary. Hitchcock did it multiple times with films like Vertigo and Psycho, both are masterpieces.

BUT... twist endings get stale when they become a trend by either the director or the production company. If say Martin Scorsese uses a twist ending in Shutter Island fine. It is still a good movie. But if Marty had followed Shutter Island with another movie with a huge twist then it would become monotonous.

M. Night being Exhibit A of this issue. The Sixth Sense was great! Great movie with a jaw dropping twist. The man was rightfully praised, and hailed as the next Hitchcock. And I think that last sentiment might have gone to his head a bit. Because he then went on to make movies that always seemed to have some kind of a twist. And it got to the point that felt like there were twist's became a mandatory part of his movies.

A similar issue came up with recent Disney movies with "hidden villains." Wreck It Ralph had pretty good hidden villain with King Candy and the villain reveal in Frozen was really good. But then I saw Big Hero 6, and I was able to call that there was going to be a villain reveal twist. And yeah, there was. They did it again in Zootopia as well. I was able to call that one. So while those movie are still excellent, they are make a little weaker by having the predicable hidden villain twist.

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Yeah, you're going to have to explain to me what the "big bad twist" of Cube is because that movie's reveals (or lack thereof) came across as appropriately scaled and sufficiently logical. I'm not sure how "the fragile/young/etc is the lonely survivor" counts as a twist on par with your other examples either.

This just reminds me of Inarritu's comments regarding The Revenant where he said it was the kind of film that should be watched in a temple or that he hated when people referred it as a Western because of the similarity between "genre" and "generic".

As for what I hate in movies - bad needle-drops, for starters.

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@Iroquois

Was it big? I didn't measure it.

From the moment that specific character entered, he was the one to survive. You could spot it easy [unless, of course, you didn't].

The pretentiousness is in trying to make it as a grandiose twist, when it's not. It's predictable, shallow, uninteresting [even for a "big bad twist"]; and far from logic as well [then again, so are the 3 Cube movies]
Sorry, but if that's his/her opinion on said movie, I'm not going to discuss it [although I'm tempted to agree with him/her].

cool.

What, pray tell, is a bad needle-drop?

I think it is that needle on a record sound you seen in trailers.

South Park did a gag like that once.

I don't get what you're trying to say here. There is no twist in Cube. There is no shock ending. It just ends, logically.

Hence why I said "obligatory". Some great movies have great twists, however the Twist in the End seems more of a needful tool to convey a particular idea [in the Usual Suspects, as per example, the twist carries the notion that the character in question is very resourceful and an astute manipulator. This is even more in emphasis when the movie shifts from the assault on a boat detective movie routine to an assault on a boat for a very particular reason - ie the needful anonymity of Kaizer Souze].

M. Night is one of the great responsibilities for the Twist in the end craze for sure.

At the same time of the 6th Sense, The Others came out, which is a movie with the twist in the end that - for me - worked better [albeit for different reasons that has to do with the motif of the movie it self]

On the 6th sense, as soon as the kid said "I see dead people" the image of Willis in the same room with the kids' mom came into mind and I immediately connected the dots. The Twist didn't come as a surprise.

There are others that employed the twist in the end thing as a mean to convey a message as well [ex: Jacobs Ladder] while others used it as a slap in the face [ex: Angel Heart], and - IMHO - did a fantastic job with them [granted, nowadays they wouldn't work]

Not only it just doesn't end, it has 2 more movies [Hyper Cube and Cube Zero].

The point is, the movie is set in order for the characters to reach the exit. Of all the fitting characters, the one with less chances is the one to survive - in itself that's a twist - only, you can clearly see it coming from a mile away. So the twist [the less fitting survives] fails to deliver.

The problem is that you're still assuming that it is a twist in the first place. It seems like so many of the problems you listed come from you trying to out-think the movie in terms of plot progression and thematics, so you predict every possible direction it can go then act disappointed when it settles on one.

Inarritu was the man who actually directed The Revenant, so for him to talk about his own movie like that...well, maybe you're not as intolerant of pseudo-intellectual "artsy-fartsy" pretentiousness as you claim.

In this context, a "needle drop" is when a movie uses a non-original song on its soundtrack. When I say a bad one, I mean ones where the chosen song does not suit the scene in question and undermines it as a result - or just serves to take me out of the experience.