Any film where the advert has a plain white background, featuring 2 or 3 heavily airbrushed lead characters, pulling odd faces, is generally a cliche laden stink fest.

Not quite sure I follow you samuri, on that film, are you saying people say YOU can’t understand it? I agree that clever doesn’t neccesarily mean good. Some films are just obtuse for the sake of it. I would probably put the Matrix in that zone. How people got so excited over the plot and the things you could/couldn’t do inside the computers….yawn yawn yawn.

I’m not attacking you in any way BTW.

You’ll find obscure film fans everywhere. It’s more dangerous than pulling a gun out, suggesting that while Fight club is an excellent film (It’s my number one by the way), it’s not actually that smart or clever, just a bit.

edit: Sorry, yes. I meet people regularly who I consider normally rational and intelligent people, who can take quite bizarre stances on films. Which brings us back to Fred’s original point, they’re not real.

Changing Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode form from a cab-over to a conventional style truck.
It genuinely upset me.
They shouldn’t be allowed to sully peoples childhood icons like that.

I can understand annoyance with sloppy film-making, but I am willing to overlook certain overindulgences like unrealistic car-chases or far too pretty ladies in improbable roles. A James Bond film has just finished. 😀

Star Wars isn’t very ‘realistic’ now is it? but it’s still enjoyable. I think people can be a bit too critical, and not relax enough just to enjoy a bit of ‘entertainment’.

I concede that the likes of Hallberry are only in films because they are pretty, mind. And I don’t think it’s possible for Jason Statham to actually be able to carry off any role he is cast in. Even Arnie managed to be watchable in some of his films.

Personally I think that some of the recent ‘cartoons’ made by Pixar etc are absolutely superb. Wall:E became one of my all-time favourites instantly. I thought it was an amazingly beautiful bit of cinematic entertainment, and was genuinely stunned by how good it was.

Pixar films are always good 🙂 Wall-E is one of my favourites.

Also Primer is so hard to keep track of, I’ve watched it 3 times now and still none the wiser.

I quite like American films, if I want something mentally stimulating I’ll read a book.

Some weird complaints on here…

People on computers who never use the mouse, only the keyboard.

That’s to say: expert users?

high-speed car chases on freeways, where all the ‘civilian’ cars are all travelling at a nice steady speed and are neatly spaced so that the speeders can slalom easily through them.

If you’re willing to risk your life and that of others there’s more than enough space to slalom on a freeway – if there’s a car length between two cars you can fit in.

The “cars always exploding” thing is a bit of a myth, the Simpsons are always taking the piss out of it, and it doesn’t really happen that often.

ohhh i really enjoyed Primer, memento, eternal sunshine etc etc

but i also really enjoyed DieHard4, wall-E and so on..

Just loves films i do 😀 there’s something to enjoy in most films.. apart from the crap ones (wimminz films i tend to find)

ooOOoo – Member
Any film where the advert has a plain white background, featuring 2 or 3 heavily airbrushed lead characters, pulling odd faces, is generally a cliche laden stink fest.

not so much a rant a hollywood films, but their influence…. PLEASE can advertisers and TV trailer people stop using that fog horn noise from Inception in an attempt to build suspense!!!

just realised – my trainspotting poster is not an american fillum.

As mentioned above, it always stands out to me when a car is driving on a loose surface and the tyres are squealing like they’re on tarmac or multi-storey car park floor paint.

Not sure it winds me up as such, but I do notice it everytime.

Bullet-proof sofas are quite irksome too, and endless gun magazines….

Bullet-proof sofas are quite irksome too

And car doors, upturned wooden tables, etc…

Geographical things annoy me. Film I watched last night had a car going over Tower bridge with the Tower behind them, so heading south. Turned a corner and towards St. Pauls. 😕

Americans always coming to the rescue

Changing Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode form from a cab-over to a conventional style truck.
It genuinely upset me.
They shouldn’t be allowed to sully peoples childhood icons like that

I thought Optimus got off quite lightly compared to how the Decepticons ended up – featureless, silver and spikey. 🙁 AND at least Peter Cullen did his voice.

Americans always coming to the rescue

Films made to appeal to their target audience SHOCKER!

Some of you need your eyes open when watching this stuff I think.

Oh and the Matrix is NOT a clever film! A fairly heavy concept (human made God) glossed over in favour of the usual American hero dross. Annoyed me so much I didn’t watch the other two.

I tire of …….

The downtrodden good guy only really becoming a man when he punches someone, and that one punch making the world right and everything happy-ever-after. George Macfly’s destiny changing punch for instance.

Films made to appeal to their target audience SHOCKER!

Yes, but it goes beyond that – as per the comments above on the “re-writing of history”

George Macfly’s destiny changing punch for instance.

Yup I remember thinking, as I sat there watching Back to the Future, “I don’t expect that sort of nonsense from a science-fiction comedy film”.

Mind you, what does Steven Spielberg know about “entertainment” ?………he has got to be the worse film producer ever.

Luckily British comedy films are much more “true to life”.

Luckily, British comedy films are much more “true to life”.

Generalisation of course…, but isn’t there an element of this to many British films?

Take war films for example (an I’ll use a classic British example…)

At the end of the Dambusters, do we get:

“whooop, whoop, we good guys let them evil Nazis have it good and proper”

or do we get

“was it really worth the terrible cost in life?”

Luckily, British comedy films are much more “true to life”.

So Back to the Future wasn’t a comedy film then ? 😯

No really ……….. what a shite film. All these years I had assumed that it was a comedy film.

Which kinda sums up just how crap the Americans are at producing films 😐

So Back to the Future wasn’t a comedy film then ?

Docu-drama??? 😆

Nah, I crossed out “comedy” to extend your observation across the board.

Mrs rkk01 wonders were I was during the early 80s (or whenever it was) as I claim not to have seen Grease, Saturday Night Fever, Back to the Future(s), ET, Star Wars, Close Encounters, etc, etc, ad nauseam…

dambusters was made in 1955 i suspect it would be difeent if it was made now.
ernie back to the future was a comedy film but only just

pointless remakes are the things that annoy me, when they take a prefectly good film, sentimalise it and make any twists so obvious and then add on a sugary sweet happy ending

dambusters was made in 1955 i suspect it would be difeent if it was made now.

Of course, it is a product of it’s time (and our cultural outlook). Don’t forget, US films of this sort of era (ok, maybe 10 years later) would have had John Wayne running around winning the war single handed.

If anything, recent (post Platoon?) US war films have come more into line with our outlook – futlity, failure, less whiter than white characters.

Although even last year’s Pacific had the sugar coating of following most of the men through to their everything will be ok in the end post war survival (and I don’t mean that to take anything away from the USMC survivors that were portrayed). This is one area where Band of Brothers was probably better than Pacific. BoB was far grittier in this respect.

ETA – and of course, US films almost always have to have that easy to digest, unequivocal, white vs black , good vs evil, us vs them message. US films do that to this day, whereas British films don’t tend to follow this rather sickening format

Not films as such, but TV adverts for films where they ‘interview’ punters coming out of the cinema saying how good/cool/ace it was.

That guarantees utter cack.

i’m not sick of it yet, but i’m already bored by 3D…

it really jerks my gherkin when a seemingly benign film ends with a big religious message about how god looks after certain people. like at the end of that post-apocalyptic will smith film. urgh

People on computers who never use the mouse, only the keyboard.

I use the keyboard only for hours at a time. and my computer beeps.

it really jerks my gherkin when a seemingly benign film ends with a big religious message about how god looks after certain people. like at the end of that post-apocalyptic will smith film. urgh

Watched a Nicholas Cage DVD last year. Three quarters or more through it went from sci-fi (ish) thriller to god squad nonsense.

Kunstler – Member

I think this may be a long shot but does anyone here recognise the term ‘mumblecore’? anyone? please?
Posted 12 hours ago # Report-Post

I do, yes. Why?

What gets me is the way people (not just in American films) can empty endless magazines in an enclosed space, fire pistols, machine guns, shot guns etc right next to someone (you get the drift) and no one has perforated ear drums. They can all hear normally and carry on as if nothing happened. either they all have ear defenders on or every gun is suppressed although they don’t have silencers fitted!

OK, short term deafness would hinder the plot lines a trifle and would be a cinematic inconvenience but it does come over as a little silly.

I think this may be a long shot but does anyone here recognise the term ‘mumblecore’? anyone? please?

Another yes here as well.

Oh and the Matrix is NOT a clever film!

It’s fairly clever. Not the surface “life is a dream/simulation” thing which has been done a hundred times.

But the religious references add another dimension for those that catch them (I didn’t), which sn’t bad for an action movie:

Neo = “new” = “one”
Anderson = “Son of Man”
Morpheous = Greek God of Dreams
Zion, Trinity, Nebucadnezzar, Merovingian, etc

Annoyed me so much I didn’t watch the other two.

That’s probably for the best.

matrix was good the other two were just cash crops

Yeah but what annoys me is that he’s a human become God, right, and yet he continues to have the same kind of bust ups and fist fights that a human would. He just doesn’t get it. If he can really control the Matrix then he could do ANYTHING including getting rid of those stupid men in suits. But then again I guess that goes back to God – why does God not just get rid of the Devil? Except that it’s not framed like that at all.

And it’s taken for granted that the ‘real’ world is the best and anything fake is bad, and the snivelling Judas who wants to go back to the Matrix is a deplorable character. When in reality it’s a complex issue. How valuable is the idea of ‘reality’? Surely it’d be a Phyrric victory on a massive scale to get rid of the Matrix and live in that crappy world… But it’s not really dealt with.

See Total Recall for a much better treatment of that second point, and Dark City for a better treatment of the first imo.

The Christian messages within most Yank films about ‘good and evil’. Even Superbad was spoilt by this idiotness. It doesn’t need to be in EVERY movie you know.

If Americans are THAT Christian why don’t they question their countries foreign policy more?

Early 70’s in Vietnam seems to be the last time.

Plus….the slavish product placement of an American flag.

Give it a rest.

What gets me is the way people (not just in American films) can empty endless magazines in an enclosed space, fire pistols, machine guns, shot guns etc right next to someone (you get the drift) and no one has perforated ear drums

They did it quite well in Blackhawk Down.

American film views on vietnam, war, getting rid of aliens and their power trips over being the strongest force in the universe.