What bugs us in movies
This week is a little funny as we have already really done the Midnight Movie Club podcast on Sunday for the film Dirty Dancing but because we know you pine for us every Wednesday we thought we’d have a chat about movie things that irritate us.
Now full disclaimer, this was recorded amidst a lot of technical difficulties and then it was edited by Lee instead of Dan so the quality may be all over the place and there will be no fancy meta data much to the furious anger of Dan. But this is a very relaxed instalment this week.
Next week though will be different as we are watching John Carpenter’s They Live!
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Themocracy
Reboots of recent franchises!! Hate ‘em! Spiderman… Superman… Gah! If Superman Returns had been a true reboot instead of a sequel, I could have handled that, but now that it’s out there, rebooting annoys me (though I hear they’re changing their approach yet again, so it may not be a reboot next).
A scene or line inserted into a movie purely to achieve a rating. I’m thinking of instances like those I mentioned in the Last Starfighter comments. Usually gratuitous sex or profanity inserted where it makes no sense.
I actually kind of like the scene after the credits thing, though. It’s a nice reward for people like me, who generally stay through the credits anyway. Was Ferris Bueller the first to do that?
Treating the audience like morons bugs me. For example, changing the James Bond film title from the original “License Revoked” to “License to Kill” because they didn’t think the audience was smart enough to know what Revoked means.
And of course… Han shoots first. Enough said there.
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Dan Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 10:12 pm
@Jeff, I’m with you on all of those bugbears.
The thing that annoys me about superhero reboots is the fact we have to sit through the origin story again. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS!!
(Batman Begins is the exception though)
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Lee Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 10:57 am
@Jeff, I think we walk a fine line though when discussing scenes that should or shouldn’t be in films because of their nature be it violent, sexual or profanity. It all depends on the intent of the scene which upon first watch and even further consideration may not be evident.
A scene that may feel out of place or not required or even forced may actually be there to set tone or create particular sensation.
An example that I’ll put out there is in the end of Alien, Ripley stripped down to her underwear fights the alien in the escape pod, now there are many people who argue that it is completely unnecessary and gratuitous to have her in her underwear. Yet there are very purposeful reasoning that went into this scene and without the sequence it would have changed the film. But there are still people who believe it to be exploitive.
That’s not to say it doesn’t happen and I’m certain it does and in those cases it’s poor direction or meddling but I think it’s also a personal perception thing as well.
In next week’s film Thy Live there is a scene that I would have said the same thing (and in fact I did in the podcast)yet on further thought I know why the scene is there and it does make sense to me yet I’m sure there will be plenty of people who disagree and are welcome to.
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Jeff Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
@Lee, absolutely there are those that scenes that are more borderline cases, where it basically comes down to taste. Those generally don’t get me bent out of shape. That Alien scene is arguably in that category. There are others, though, where it’s so blatantly something to garner a specific rating, or – more frequently in kids’ movies – is just a dumb decision that is inappropriate for the target audience. Those bug me.
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SG-3 Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
@Jeff, “The Dish” is my “favourite” example of this – I would love to show this to my nine and eleven year old sons, except they inexplicably dropped an F-bomb in the middle of it! It was as if they couldn’t live with the label “family film”, so came up with a quick classification-altering solution!
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Just had a listen…great stuff.
For me it has to be the insertion of goeey romantic stuff when it’s really not warranted.
Also cars involved in high speed carchases that would never cut it in reality. Like the astra in Vantage Point. Honestly my Astra never handled like that…Ridiculous!
Also agree with your points about footage at end of credits. Do you stay in your seat or do you move? What to do?… Oh and agree with Terminator Salvation points – what a travesty!
Ta for allowing me a bit of a moan on a Wednesday!
Kelly
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Dan Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
@Kelly, I’m with you 100%, in fact it was actually on my list of points to make but I just didn’t get round to saying it. It is incredibly patronising that filmakers feel that they need to put token romance in “for the ladies”
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Kelly Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 6:58 am
@Dan, Yes well this is one “lady” who could do without it (discounting of course Dirty Dancing because that is a gooey film and so the gooeyness is warranted…).
V v patronising of film makers. Unfortunately some people are there to be patronised!
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Lee Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:00 am
@Kelly, I think it all depends on how the film maker handles the romantic aspects of some of these films, I completely at ease with the romantic storylines within say films like Ghostbusters or Big Trouble in Little China or even LOL ConAir. But then other films completely mishandle or force a romantic subplot where a lighter touch may be in order.
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Airplane was one of the first movies that did the after credit scene. They used to call it a “monk’s gift” because you had to be patient to see it.
And Robbie Williams did get some acclaim in North America for Millennium.
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Dan Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
@MC, I don’t remember it in Airplane. We’ll have to add that to the list actually as I’m curious to see if it is still funny to the 34 year old me as it was to the 14 year old me.
And that’s interesting about Robbie Williams – I thought he’d been a complete flop over there for some reason.
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MC Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 2:46 am
@Dan, it was just one last little joke at the end of Airplane. Turns out the new name for this phenomenon is a stinger.
And Robbie Williams’ first few albums were all on the Billboard charts in the States. He has fallen off the maps somewhat lately over here though.
I know something that bothers me in movies. When you are watching a movie regarding a real life events that there is a photographic or filmed record for already, and to try to make a movie more dramatic, they filmmakers try to create a different reality than the thing that we’ve all seen! This happens a lot in movies recounting sporting events.
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Lee Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:09 am
@MC, Actually it was our good friends The Muppets in The Muppet Movie who would have beaten Airplane (released the year before) though the practice of placing stuff at the end was done much earlier by Bond films which I honestly didn’t dislike but then it was only text and was announcing the next film.
http://whatsafterthecredits.com is my site to keep across them.
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MC Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
@Lee, notice I said one of the first… I didn’t say it WAS the first.
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Lee Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
@MC,
granted.
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You two need to stop paying so much attention. I find attention to stuff only ever leads to rage, that’s why I try to live my entire life at a level of ignorance that suppress such rage.
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Dan Reply:
February 18th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
@Ian, but you do keep bumping into stuff though, surely that gets annoying after a while?
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Lee Reply:
February 19th, 2010 at 11:10 am
@Ian, pffft it would be a pretty quiet podcast then
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I have developed the habit of wherever possible, sitting through the credits at the cinema. I have always dreampt that one day I may appear somewhere on the credits of a major motion picture(!) so feel that until then I should at least give the second-unit gaffer the courtesy of seeing his name appear! And so it was that I sat through the credits of Iron Man, and being one of the few left in the theatre, got to see the last scene… only to have it get cut off mid sentence by the projectionist! Not quite as bad as the time the projectionist put the wrong anamorphic lens in for ID4, and didn’t fix it until a good ten minutes into the film!
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Lee Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 10:14 am
@SG-3, I just don’t have the patience to do that, I have a couple of times when there with friends (with no pavlovian reward I might add) but don’t make a habit of it.
I don’t expect my name any time soon but if there are any budding film makers who’d like to pad their credits with names out there…
Actually if you were a member of one of the Lord of the Ring’s appreciation/fan groups you got your name into the credits on the special edition of Fellowship of the Ring which was nice, I suppose?
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Great episode guys – I’ve vented about some of the very same things, particularly the 3D debacle and the whole reboot ridicularity. Newest one apparently is to be American Pie. What a load of garbage!
Just wanted to nod towards some great end credits and say HOT SHOTS! the only film I can think of that has a recipe in its end credits.
Also don’t get me started with McG – Terminator Salvation’s opening credits had the film’s title in them twice! (That was Terminator Salvation – just to double up there…)
Think you covered off most of mine. One quite particular one is for when films tout minor characters as being major ones, usually for merchandising or tie in prospects – once again I’m shaking a fist in George Lucas’ direction, partcularly with Darth Maul, Jango Fett and General Grievous, all of whom appeared for a grand total of about six minutes. Awesome!
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Lee Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 10:19 am
@Chris, OMG Hot Shot’s credits are some of the absolute BEST credits ever, thank you for making me smile remembering them. Mentioning recipes, I really love how Robert Rodriguez includes recipes as special features on his DVDs, Sin City tacos are VERY popular in our household.
I read that American Pie 4 isn’t going to be a reboot that they are trying to transition the comedy into the ‘grown up’ marketplace by following the same characters. Of course this is wild rumour and when son of Stiffler shows up as the main character I will delete this comment.
Darth Maul was such a disappointment – lots of phantom, very little menace.
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Dan Reply:
February 20th, 2010 at 8:53 pm
@Chris, I think I my well have solen the 3D one from your podcast actually. I should have credited you really. We were planning on giving you a shout out on the next one we record.
General Grievous was featured quite prominently int he series of short star trek cartoons I seem to remember (the ones doen by the same guy who does samurai Jack), but I do take your point yes. DAMN YOU LUCAS!!
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Dan Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 8:25 am
@Dan, star trek?? I meant star wars – obviously.
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Lee Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
@Dan, I wasn’t going to say anything. It hurt not to say anything but I didn’t say anything… I need to lie down.
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Gentlemen, gentlemen,
What fine work you are doing. I have only just recently been made aware of your outpourings by my good lady wife, and have enjoyed the two I have listened to so far (this one and Bill and Ted). You even managed to drag me away from Timeform podcasts previewing the Cheltenham Festival, which takes some doing.
However, I am certainly not looking forward to hearing you slag off the Cannonball Run, and if your entry on Last Starfighter does not contain a reference to Jaws IV, then there will be trouble.
Oh, and I HATE outtakes at the end of movies. Or rather, I hate them when they involve Jim Carrey. See Liar Liar for a prime example of an overindulgent ego at work.
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Dan Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 8:24 am
@Little Robbie Jones, Mr Jones!
What connection does last starfighter have to Jaws IV?
And seriously – the Canonball Run was awful. I didn’t think it would be. I remembered it to be fantastic. But it isn’t. It’s bloody awful. When was the last time you saw it?
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Lee Reply:
February 24th, 2010 at 10:38 am
@Little Robbie Jones, I had to think for a couple of minutes why Jaws and Last Starfighter were linked and then I realised: Lance Guest!
Which is ironic because I read about him and he was in precious little else so that should have stuck out. But in fairness I was praising the film and him and there was no need to mention unpleasant things such as Jaws 4.
So I guess we now are just going to have trouble. I do hope that it is big and preferably located in Little China
Thanks for listening!
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Discussing the reboots – the new Star Trek is the only one in that franchise that I will loudly go on record as loving.
What I don’t like are sequels for the sake of a sequel – namely a movie that doesn’t warrant one other than the box office take was higher than anticipated. Superhero movies, Star Trek/Wars — those are ongoing storylines and I’m fine with that, but Titanic II: Rise of the Icebergs? No thanks. Also, no Celine Dion.
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Dan Reply:
February 28th, 2010 at 5:21 am
@Whit, We’re watching Wrath of Khan soon, and I seem to remember that that’s a pretty cool film.
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Lee Reply:
March 1st, 2010 at 11:58 am
@Whit, I think that there will be a whole generation of people who are going to be thinking the new Star Trek film is their favourite or the best. I have no dramas with that
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