What ruins a movie for you?

[Ms Blue Jay]

I rewatched "The Fan" from 1996 and I figured that Tony Scott knew a lot about baseball.  As a big baseball fan the whole thing felt authentic to me.  

Edited March 16, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[proserpina65]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:39 PM, katha said:

Damon can't always shed his persona and Affleck is entertainig, but sometimes also totally falling out of the picture.

I do make an exception for Ben Affleck in Shakespeare in Love.  I thought he was fantastic in that and was surprised as hell that he didn't stick out like a sore thumb.  But usually?  Yeah, it doesn't generally work.

 

[Wiendish Fitch]

Movies (and books) that don't trust my intelligence.

You know the kind: the ones that have the characters spell out the theme of the story not once or twice, but dozens of times, or the narrative has it so we know exactly as much as the protagonist knows, no more, no less.

Because why trust that your audience is smart enough to understand what's going on? Why have yucky things like drama, tension, or surprises, when the screenwriters insist on holding our hands every step of the way? 

I'll be the first to admit I'm not that smart, but I ain't that stupid, either.

 

[SherriAnt]

On 3/9/2022 at 10:39 AM, katha said:

Not ruins, but always pulls me out of the experience: Actors who look too "modern" in historical settings

I feel like some actors don't want to look "silly" so they don't fully commit to the style of the time. Especially if it's about teens. I think most of us followed trends pretty closely from about 12-20. Being an '80's kid, mine were big hair, big shoulders, and big glasses! 

[RealHousewife]

Bad accents. I'd rather they just cast an unknown actor who sounds the part than someone who's a more notable movie star.

[Ms Blue Jay]

17 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

Bad accents. I'd rather they just cast an unknown actor who sounds the part than someone who's a more notable movie star.

Very good addition to this topic that I didn't think of!!

Edited March 16, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[Ohiopirate02]

17 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

Bad accents. I'd rather they just cast an unknown actor who sounds the part than someone who's a more notable movie star.

I take it you are not a fan of Sean Connery's non-Bond movies then.

[proserpina65]

22 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I take it you are not a fan of Sean Connery's non-Bond movies then.

Is it really a bad accent if he doesn't even try?  I mean, it's not like he tried to sound Lithuanian in The Hunt for Red October. ;-)

[Dandesun]

On 3/17/2022 at 8:35 AM, proserpina65 said:

Is it really a bad accent if he doesn't even try?  I mean, it's not like he tried to sound Lithuanian in The Hunt for Red October. ;-)

Or Spanish in Highlander.

[caracas1914]

Maybe it's more a plot point, but the quick visual and script shorthand establishing that the city folk are heartless, cold , manipulative and career- driven creatures  versus the "real" living, caring, non materialistic  and nurturing values  people in the  idyllic country.  

 

[dmeets]

Casting actors that I find loathsome. All I can ever see when I look at Miles Teller is Miles Teller the arrogant douchebag. For example, I wound up rooting for J.K. Simmons in Whiplash which I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to be doing.

I'm conflicted on Top Gun: Maverick because the '80s kid in me is like, nostalgia yay! While on the other hand, Tom Cruise and Miles Teller as the leads, boo!

Edited April 13, 2022 by dmeets

[EtheltoTillie]

On 3/9/2022 at 8:59 PM, Bastet said:

I love that Penny Marshall made the women in A League of Their Own dye their hair (well, Lori Petty had to wear a wig, since her hair is much shorter than women wore it then) because they all had highlights, which weren't a thing in WWII America.  So they all had to pick a solid color.  They also had to learn to bat without gloves, since those weren't worn then, catch with mitts that didn't have webbing, etc.  Marshall even had the field mowed a different way to match how it would have looked at the time.  The little things add up.

This is great stuff.  I think they also had to learn to slide with those skirts on and no padding?  Ouch!  I can't play at all, but I loved the movie. 

[Shannon L.]

3 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

This is great stuff.  I think they also had to learn to slide with those skirts on and no padding?  Ouch!  I can't play at all, but I loved the movie. 

They did and this bruise was real.

[methodwriter85]

On 3/9/2022 at 3:25 PM, Ms Blue Jay said:

All of Kim Basinger's Botox in "The Nice Guys" which is supposed to be set in the 70s.  It's always a mistake to do a period piece if you've got way too much work done.  It's going to distract the audience the whole time.

You could have chalked it up as a bad facelift, which was definitely happening in the 70's, but the problem with that is that getting a facelift didn't fit the character Kim was playing. If she were playing a bored society matron like Lee Grant's character in Shampoo, it would make sense. But that wasn't the character Kim was playing- she was playing a hard-driving politician from the 70's.

I had similar problems with Virginia Madsen's character in The Haunting in Connecticut. A noted botox enthusiast (she literally appeared in ads for them at the time of the movie), it just made absolutely zero sense for the character. Why would a tired, working class mom with a ton of kids and a crumbling marriage while dealing with her son having cancer in 1985 look like this?

That's not a knock on Virginia- she looks great in the movie, but again- it made zero sense for the character to be all Botoxed up, as she was supposed to be an exhausted, down on her luck woman barely holding it together. In 1985. Again, 1985.

 

[Fool to cry]

Wow very informative thread. There's probably a lot of movies I like that do this but now any future movie I see that does I'm going to know it's inaccurate!

[methodwriter85]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:26 PM, RealHousewife said:

Bad accents. I'd rather they just cast an unknown actor who sounds the part than someone who's a more notable movie star.

This was a MAJOR point of contention for me when it came to Tom Hanks in Elvis. The character was supposed to be Dutch yet Tom was attempting some kind of Franco German accent. It was bizarre.

[RunningMarket]

On the points of bad accents, the entire cast of Enemy at the Gates.

Jude Law = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Rachel Weisz = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Ed Harris = German (speaks in natural American accent)

IIRC, Bob Hoskins and Joseph Finnes may have attempted accents suited to their character. And it wasn't great, Bob.

Edited November 16, 2022 by RunningMarket

[methodwriter85]

Clark Gable reportedly refused to do a Southern accent for Gone With The Wind. Probably the right call- if you can't do an accent, don't it at all.

[Danny Franks]

2 hours ago, RunningMarket said:

On the points of bad accents, the entire cast of Enemy at the Gates.

Jude Law = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Rachel Weisz = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Ed Harris = German (speaks in natural American accent)

IIRC, Bob Hoskins and Joseph Finnes may have attempted accents suited to their character. And it wasn't great, Bob.

I'm rarely bothered by accents when the characters would be speaking in a foreign language anyway. If we're going for complete realism, their dialogue should all be in Russian so, as soon as we all agree to accept the artistic licence of them speaking English, I don't care about the accents.

Now, if someone is playing a Russian character who is speaking English, I want to hear a Russian accent. Because their speech would be accented when they speak in a second language.

For example - Sean Connery in Hunt for the Red October. When he's speaking Russian, I'm fine with him using his own accent, but when he speaks English to Jack Ryan, I wish he'd put on a Russian accent. Of course, Connery never did accents at all.

[Ohiopirate02]

I would rather actors use their speaking voices than attempt an accent. There are ways for a movie to show the audience where the story is set like the script and production design.  I find that a bad accent or incorrect accent (there is more than one southern accent) takes me out of a movie quicker than a British actor using his/her/their natural speaking voice playing a Russian character.  

Now bad production design will take me out of a movie.  I get that movies are shot in one place but set in another due to a multitude of reasons, but some filmmakers do not even try to hide it.  I know both the first Avengers movie and Captain America Winter Soldier were filmed in Cleveland and that the Russo bros are proud Clevelanders, but they didn't even try to hide the fact they were filming in Public Square in the first one or that Nick Fury's ride from hell was done on Euclid Ave and not in DC.  

[RunningMarket]

23 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Now bad production design will take me out of a movie.  I get that movies are shot in one place but set in another due to a multitude of reasons, but some filmmakers do not even try to hide it.  I know both the first Avengers movie and Captain America Winter Soldier were filmed in Cleveland and that the Russo bros are proud Clevelanders, but they didn't even try to hide the fact they were filming in Public Square in the first one or that Nick Fury's ride from hell was done on Euclid Ave and not in DC.  

I'm originally from Vancouver, where a lot of things are filmed, and it stands in for a lot of different places. We laugh at those beautiful mountains in the background... that are generally not found in say, the Bronx.

[Bastet]

47 minutes ago, RunningMarket said:

I'm originally from Vancouver, where a lot of things are filmed, and it stands in for a lot of different places. We laugh at those beautiful mountains in the background... that are generally not found in say, the Bronx.

The opening of the first X-Files movie is set in and around Dallas, and the film gets pretty much everything about that wrong, including overlooking the fact Dallas is flat.  I live in Los Angeles, but happened to be in Austin opening weekend.  That Texas crowd laughed pretty hard at the mountains.

[Ms Blue Jay]

One of the most "beloved" instances of this is Rumble in the BRONX being filmed in Vancouver lol

[Anela]

I hate love triangles. 

I didn't understand why Bridesmaids was so loved, even if it hadn't had the diarrhea scene. I guess that one belongs in unpopular opinions.

In books and movies, and I don't like villains explaining themselves. The monologues can be really annoying. 

[proserpina65]

On 11/16/2022 at 4:40 PM, Ohiopirate02 said:

I would rather actors use their speaking voices than attempt an accent. There are ways for a movie to show the audience where the story is set like the script and production design.  I find that a bad accent or incorrect accent (there is more than one southern accent) takes me out of a movie quicker than a British actor using his/her/their natural speaking voice playing a Russian character.  

I wax and wane of this, but if the entire cast is doing appropriate accents and one or two people aren't, it bugs.  Whereas in something like Chernobyl, where everyone used their natural accents, I could suspend my sense of disbelief because nobody was trying to fake a Russian/Ukrainian accent.

[JustHereForFood]

On 11/16/2022 at 6:50 PM, RunningMarket said:

On the points of bad accents, the entire cast of Enemy at the Gates.

Jude Law = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Rachel Weisz = Russian (speaks in natural British accent)

Ed Harris = German (speaks in natural American accent)

IIRC, Bob Hoskins and Joseph Finnes may have attempted accents suited to their character. And it wasn't great, Bob.

I am the opposite, I prefer if people don't try to use accent that is not their natural one. If the filmmakers are not going for realism by having everyone speak the language they would be speaking and use subtitles, then just have everyone speak English (or whatever language it's made in), we can get that if all characters in the scene are German that they are speaking German even if we hear English, for example. 

Unless there's a plot point where characters speak different languages, then you kind of have to show one of them speaking that language.

On 11/17/2022 at 11:58 AM, Anela said:

I hate love triangles. 

Seconded.

[kiddo82]

Accents in general don't bother me.  One person's "bad" accent is another person's "spent 12 months with a dliaect coach to work on this super regional accent that covers like 3 counties in PA."  Thing is, I'm from Northern New Jersey and even my own accent can be wonky.  I will say "cawfee" and "mawll", especially if I'm leaning into it, but I have friends who grew up not far from where I did who might not accentuate those words but do it to differnt ones.  And some days it's a "rah-diator" and sometimes it's a "radiator."  Just depends on whatever spills out of my mouth that day.  I don't get too hung up on it.  One of my favorite takes on our regional elocution (and hair, and clothes, and driving, and general us-ness) is in Don Jon.  It's all very mildly over the top, I swear the swiffer scene is only there so the characters could say "Swiffa" over and over again, but it's also not wrong.  I watch it and I'm like, "I know awll these people."  

Amadeus did this thing where it's in English but any character whose native language would have been German spoke in their normal "American' accent. Any character who wouldn't have natively spoken German (Salieri, for example) spoke English but in the accent from which he was from.  That's a way of doing it too, but like I said, either way doesn't bother me.

Edited November 20, 2022 by kiddo82

[DianeGlover]

Families that come with young children to movies.
Of course, I understand everything, and young parents don’t want to lock themselves at home. But why do they need to ruin everything for the rest? The last time I went to the movies, a young couple with their infant broke in, and I could barely hear something coz their baby was crying non-stop. It was actually the last time I went to the movies.
Now, I watch them online. Besides, recently I ran into this site — 999flix. It has a couple of good and newly released movies. For me, it can work out as a substitute for a cinema.

Edited November 24, 2022 by DianeGlover

[RealHousewife]

2 hours ago, DianeGlover said:

Families that come with their young children at the cinema.

I haven't run into that too much, maybe because I go to so many late showings. But when I go to a packed theater, it's the teens who annoy me. They are just so loud and act like they own the place to themselves. 

[RunningMarket]

3 hours ago, DianeGlover said:

Families that come with their young children at the cinema.

This is very much movie-dependent. If I go see the latest Minions movie, I am not going to be mad there's children in the same theatre. The 6 year old who sat next to me during Dark Knight (and proceeded to squirm, fidget, and lean over to his dad and talk during most of it)? No. The dad apologized afterwards, and I bit my tongue instead of telling him that maybe DK wasn't the best movie for a young kid.