Toby Dramit

The opening scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Had it been played straight up until the moment Matthew Broderick sits up in bed, looks at the camera, and says "they bought it" it would have been perfect. The winking and the interplay with his unconvinced-of-his-illness sister who is calling him on his bullshit completely ruins that denouement, as we the audience are already aware that he is faking. A silly mis-step in an otherwise great movie.

Kurt D

It's called suspension of disbelief!

Draven

I think the title of the movie already kind of sets up what’s happening. And we have to see the antagonistic relationship he has with his sister before she leaves for school.

Toby Dramit

I have no issue with her actions/dialog in that scene at all. The antagonistic relationship is set up through her. It's his reacting to it that ruins the reveal, IMO.

Nick Danger

Fight scenes in modern action movies that fall into the uncanny valley. In old movies, the actors would punch each other for two minutes and then they'd shake hands -- no harm done. That's cool. In realistic movies, a guy gets his arm broken and he needs medical care, or a curb stomp kills the guy. That's cool too. But it bugs me when there's a fight scene, with bones breaking and blood is flying, and people get up and keep going.

I think it was in The Accountant where: a muscular assailant got kicked on the side of the knee; the knee went sideways about six inches; the man fell hard; and then the man stood up and was still a serious threat.

However, I love the silenced guns that go 'thwip.' Silencers work in that world, just like ray guns work in another world.

RocShemp

I like fight flicks, having been weaned on them since I was a little kid. Despite the fact that the fights do go on for too long, I enjoy them. However, despite solid fight choreography and physically capable performers, I hate The Raid and The Night Comes for Us because the fights are so excessive they each get to a point where they cease to be entertaining and I'm irked by the fact that no one can keep going that long. I dunno where the line is exactly (since I always look forward to the standout fight in a classic Jackie Chan flick), but those two aforementioned movies cross it repeatedly.

orangerunner

I loved bar fights in the 1970s movies and TV shows where you see the background patrons sitting around a table having a friendly drink one minute and then as soon as the main stars get into a fight those same background patrons develop an insatiable urge to slam a chair over their buddy's head.

Giantrobo

Lead Actors as Cops, Detectives, Firefighters, Soldiers,etc....who run into danger but have minimal protection and their Helmets off so we can see their faces. Especially noticeable when their "team" of no name extras are fully geared up as they should be.

Giantrobo

Or... when fights occur and the extras are seemingly told to ignore the huge fight happening in the room.

Giantrobo

^ and in the same category....when huge action scenes were something occurs on a busy street and the extras seem to be going about their day as if nothing is happening.

Count Dooku

The point of that action was not to reveal to the audience that he was faking. It was to reveal with a grand dramatic flourish to the audience that Ferris was going to be breaking the fourth wall.

Abob Teff

I commented too fast on another post, so I’ll delete the duplication and say …

As much as I love watching Bryce Dallas Howard in high heels, women running non-stop in all environments in high heels bugs me.

orangerunner

I recall the final action scene in "The Last Boy Scout" which takes place in a L.A. stadium with 70,000 fans where there is a shoot-out involving a helicopter flying inside the stadium, a guy riding a horse across the field while someone shoots-up the field and a another guy falling from the upper lighting platform into the helicopter blades. Just after the ensuing chaos, Bruce Willis does a victory-dance on the Jumbotron and all 70,000 attendees cheer wildly with applause as they all collectively seem to know the good guys have killed all of the bad guys and their safety has been restored!

Abob Teff

I believe that would be insertion of disbelief.

GoldenJCJ

I watched Back to the Future for the first time in awhile tonight and there are a bunch of trivial things I could nitpick but one that caught my attention was at the very beginning with all the clocks, Marty walks in as the clocks are all showing 7:53am. Marty plays the guitar, blows the giant speaker out, and then gets a call from Doc. As he’s talking to Doc, all the clocks strike 8:00am and Doc tells Marty about some experiment he conducted where all his clocks are exactly 25 minutes slow. Marty then acts surprised and says “Are you telling me it’s 8:25?! I’m late for school!” He then runs out, is late for school and gets in trouble by Strickland.

The trivial thing that bugs me though is Marty was at Doc’s place for just over 5 minutes. How was he surprised that the clocks were 25 minutes slow when he wasn’t using those clocks to tell time, Marty would have had to have some sense of the time before he got to Doc’s and shouldn’t have been surprised that it was 8:25am.


Also, when they were at Twin Pines Mall and Doc was showing Marty the Time Machine for the first time and had Marty videotape the whole thing, Marty is the absolute WORST cameraman in the history of cameramen. He doesn’t hold the camera still for shit and is constantly lowering the camera to his side. I’m surprised he was able to get anything usable on film.

RocShemp

I recently rewatched The Matrix Reloaded. During the freeway chase, one of the Twins fires upon the car Trinity is driving and then phases into said car. I was observing the bullet holes in the roof and how care was taken to justify why no one was hit, given the location of the holes. They are grouped at an angle where the bullets would have entered above the rear passenger side opposite from where the Keymaker was seated. However, when the Twin phases in, it dawns on me that the rear seat should be shredded because of the bullets. The seat is pristine. Now I can't unsee it.

Draven

It is actually incredible to me that in this day and age there still apparently aren't enough women involved in any production where someone high enough up is able to raise their hands and go "this is fucking stupid".

I actually get bugged even more when women are put in high heels and the the character is forced to take those heels off and run around barefoot. Have you spent a lot of time running around outside barefoot lately? It's so dumb. I don't know a single woman who wears high heels outside of a big formal occasion. Most certainly aren't running around offices in them.

Ash Ketchum

There's something I noticed yesterday and today in the two most recent movies I've seen, made 30 years apart and in different countries thousands of miles apart. Every time someone dials a phone the person they're calling picks up right away on what seems like the first ring even though chances are they wouldn't be there at the time or certainly not close to the phone. Only when it's plot-convenient do they have to leave a message. Something similar used to irk me on the old Perry Mason TV show: every time Perry called his secretary, his investigator or the homicide detective, or every time they called him, no matter how late at night it was, even in the middle of the night, they were always at the phone, whether it was in their office or at home, and picked up right away. Or Perry or the homicide detective are out investigating a case and they tell a witness to call them if they have any info and then the witness finds some info and calls one or the other and reaches them at that number right away even though they would still be out investigating and couldn't conceivably be back in their offices by then. All pre-cellphone, I should point out. Of course, if each phone call was given the full amount of time it would realistically take to reach somebody, each movie or TV show like this would have lasted for hours.

GoldenJCJ

^ Pulp Fiction lets the phone ring and it’s excruciating!

Jaymole

When people are being strangled/choked, many of them just flail their arms around instead of trying to stop the person from strangling/choking them. Also they die too quickly when being strangled.

Decker

While absolutely true, do you really want to devote three to four minutes of screen time to a strangulation?

Abob Teff

Only if the phone is ringing the whole time.

EddieMoney

"The Snowtown Murders" has entered the chat.

Josh-da-man

And they're looking for a parking space.

This starting to sound like we're making a movie about the murder of Hae Min Lee...

Ash Ketchum

Also, when the hero sneaks into some high-security place and knocks out the guards or henchmen with a karate chop or a quick hold around their neck or some other normally ineffectual method. Esp. when it's a slender hero and the guards are beefy thug types.