[Closed] Things I am sick of in american films

atlaz - shooting a gun from a moving car or multiple shots fired into the rear windscreen. Do the occupants have steel skulls?

ermmm Blackhawk Down was directed by Ridley Scott; last time I checked he was English

American films and TV series' are one the main reasons I haven't got a TV.
Most of the stories seem to be based around Americans shooting each other with the occasional variation of Americans shooting other people or Americans shooting aliens.

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

Is Peter jackson still going to remake Dambusters or has that (hopefully) been canned now?
I look forward (not) to a 6 hour borefest where at the end your just shouting 'throw the flipping [s]ring[/s] bomb [s]into[/s] at the [s]volcano[/s] dam

Hobbits flying big B52's could be interesting though

Re The Matrix. I thought it was about freedom v.s. slavery, that the humans could choose either a life in the matrix or one outside of it. The Oracle didn't want the matrix destroyed, after all she is only one of it's programs. Only freedom to choose, there would be enough humans choosing to stay in to continue to power the matrix. I assumed that Neo developed his ability to read and re-program the matrix code because he was a computer programmer.

I though it was quite a thoughtful story a la Simulacron 3, as well as being an action movie. But is it really a better film than The Thirteenth Floor?

In general, I'm always irritated by simplistic good-guy, bad-guy plots.

I can't see any way that the Dambusters could be re-made today. Same applies to Battle of Britain, 633 Squadron, Cruel Sea etc.

They were all made at a time when the aircraft (ships etc) required were still available in sufficent numbers to make it look convincing. Yes, the special effects were pants compared to today, but no amount of cgi could conjure the flying scenes in any of those films.

MidlandTrailquestsGraham:

American films and TV series' are one the main reasons I haven't got a TV.
Most of the stories seem to be based around Americans shooting each other with the occasional variation of Americans shooting other people or Americans shooting aliens.

Blimey 😯

<puts geek card on table>

IT in movies.

The protagonist sits down at a computer, types "grant me full access, priority 1"; computer responds "access denied"; protagonist types "override"; computer goes "full access granted."

Protagonist is presented with a password prompt; thinks for a second, then guesses the password on the first attempt.

The world's gone to hell, aliens are in the Whitehouse, the Internet's down, and most of Russia is on fire, but it's ok because *produces floppy disk* I have a virus! *Click* ... *progress bar* ... everything's ok! *roll credits*

VR interfaces.

A special nod to ID4 - Jeff Goldblum plugging his laptop into an alien spaceship. Hell, half the time I can't plug my laptop into a goddamn Ethernet switch without a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

"back doors"

Computers that boot up instantly.

Access codes, missile launch codes, bomb disarm codes etc, being cracked digit by digit on a large LCD display.

I could probably go on but you get the idea.

They were all made at a time when the aircraft required were still available in sufficent numbers to make it look convincing. Yes, the special effects were pants compared to today, but no amount of cgi could conjure the flying scenes in any of those films.

Rubbish, given time and budget it could easily match or surpass the flying scenes.

American films and TV series' are one the main reasons I haven't got a TV.
Most of the stories seem to be based around Americans shooting each other with the occasional variation of Americans shooting other people or Americans shooting aliens.

Blimey indeed! That's just such a sweeping statement - and so completely wrong - it's hard to know where to start! There's a lot of crap that comes out of the States, but that's true of any country's media. British television is hardly the greatest out there - for every quality David Attenborough documentary there are thousands of hours of crap... TBH when it comes to globally successful series I'd suggest the Americans are far better at it - I can't think of many series to rival the international reach of the Simpsons, Friends, CSI etc.

That sort of thing annoys me too, I mean, has no bad guy _ever_ implemented a realistic and sensible approach to IT systems and information security? What happened to password lockout? Or removal of excess accounts? Those things are right at the baseline of common sense.

My pet hate has to be the gun thing though. Too many rounds in the magazine, super-accurate onehanded moving car shootouts, tables blocking rounds... That sort of thing. I know from personal experience that a railway sleeper will not stop a standard 9mm round, so why will a table stop that and heavier? Grrrrr.

Don't get me started on the whole silencer thing either.

Blimey...

Interesting that one of the examples you give of good American TV is CSI.
Isn't that a TV series based around the aftermath of Americans shooting each other ?

Cougar:
<puts geek card on table>

IT in movies.

The protagonist sits down at a computer, types "grant me full access, priority 1"; computer responds "access denied"; protagonist types "override"; computer goes "full access granted."

Just for you Cougar....

Rubbish, given time and budget it could easily match or surpass the flying scenes.

Really? I can't see it with current tech - where it has been attempted it looks, at best, like a computer game.

Clearly rendered graphics rather than real objects - the sweeping scenes of the invasion fleets in Pacific are a good example.

Too ordered as well, the randomness of "real" filmed scenes is missing. Again, the scenes in the Pacific that use cgi to recreate multiple assets that are no longer available - too ordered.

The cgi in Memphis Belle, for example, is crap (too old to be comparable), but one of the most realistic looking scenes is the B17 crash at the beginning. Unfortunately they crashed a B17 during a flying accident, and happened to have the cameras rolling. Can't possibly advocate that sort of thing as planned, but it demonstrates what can't be convincingly done in a virtual environment.

I like American films, it's escapism innit! Not supposed to be accurate or truthful or even possible half the time.

There are plenty of realistic American films though Heat springs to mind as one, fantastic gunfight, right number of rounds and plenty of realism.

Lighten up!!

In general it does just of late appear that the Americans do not have the ability to produce a film that doesn't rely on special effects.

Interesting that one of the examples you give of good American TV is CSI.
Isn't that a TV series based around the aftermath of Americans shooting each other ?

Yes. And? The fact that you don't like series with shootings is hardly indicative of quality TV/films or not, and it's not the only series out there!

TBH, I used to really love CSI, but it seems to have gone a little too unrealistic recently... The IT thing Cougar mentions pisses me off, too, and CSI's got worse and worse at it.

FunkyDunc - Member
In general it does just of late appear that the Americans do not have the ability to produce a film that doesn't rely on special effects.

You would be amazed at how much of any film/TV is actually 'there'.

Talking about "clever" films...

Is Twelve Monkeys clever? I've always thought so, although I suspect that it may be less clever than I thought at the time

I used to know a guy who produced fake goods for TV...fake tins of food, drinks etc.

He would also create fake computer interfaces...i.e. rather than using M$ software.

Apparently the TV or film company would have to pay M$ a license fee to show the software in a programme, so they'd create their own.

Do you know what I don't like about American films/TV, British actors. They're either mockneys, or blundering posh idiots. Also British actors should not be allowed to play Americans, and American actors should not be allowed to play British characters.

Just for you Cougar....

That's the encore to 'Glorious' - I could probably recite the entire sketch verbatim (-: Worth the price of the disc / tape for that alone (it's much longer than that clip).

rkk01 - Member
I can't see any way that the Dambusters could be re-made today. Same applies to Battle of Britain, 633 Squadron, Cruel Sea etc.

They were all made at a time when the aircraft (ships etc) required were still available in sufficent numbers to make it look convincing. Yes, the special effects were pants compared to today, but no amount of cgi could conjure the flying scenes in any of those films.

Posted 1 hour ago # Report-Post

from Wikipedia -

Work on a remake of The Dam Busters, produced by Peter Jackson and directed by first time director Christian Rivers, began production in 2008. Jackson said in the mid-1990s that he became interested in remaking the 1954 film, but found that the rights had been bought by Mel Gibson. In 2004, Jackson was contacted by his agent, who said Gibson had dropped the rights. The rights were purchased by Sir David Frost from the Brickhill family in 2005.[5] Stephen Fry is writing the script of the film.[6] It will be distributed by Universal Pictures and StudioCanal.[7] Filming was planned to commence in early 2009, on a budget of USD 40 million,[8] although no project-specific filming had begun as of May 2009

Weta Workshop are making the models and special effects for the film and have made 10 life size Lancaster bombers

The last living pilot of the strike team, Les Munro, joined the production crew in Masterton as technical adviser. Jackson will also use newly declassified War Office documents to ensure the authenticity of the film

Remind me when it is finally released (seems to be delayed by over a year) to give it a wide berth

OK - insert the word "convincingly" into my post...

I think that most of these comments apply to hollywood style films but lets not forget some good smaller budget efforts like jim jarmusch films or terry gillan films which can be good .its only a couple of weeks ago that we were raving about " into the wild " which was a good , character based film

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?"

The view that the Nazis were the bad guys, is not simply the opinion of film producers, it is a legal fact which was established at Nuremberg.

Although I don't recall the film [i]The Dam Busters[/i] dwelling in any way, on the 'evilness' of the Nazis. The film very clearly focuses on firstly, the development of the extraordinary "bouncing bomb". And secondly, the courage and skill of the aircrews who delivered them.

Excellent clip cougar 🙂

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.

You can navigate maps, web pages and intricate building schematics much quicker on the keyboard than the with the mouse? Excellent, you're in the bad guys squad!! (errr...we forgot to buy mice 😳 )

Apparently the TV or film company would have to pay M$ a license fee to show the software in a programme, so they'd create their own.

Ermmm Linux/GNU software?

Cougar, if you were to wear a power balance you'll be my new hero 😉

Oh, I forgot,

"show me the CCTV footage... now zoom in... and enhance sector G2..." *bing* hi-res image of the bad guy from a screencap that looks like it came from a ZX81.

Cougar, if you were to wear a power balance you'll be my new hero

Surely I'd need one for each wrist or my power would be imbalanced.

Also British actors should not be allowed to play Americans, and American actors should not be allowed to play British characters.

I've never understood this; it's not like there's a great shortage of either. One of my favourite films is Highlander, but it always chaffed my arse that the lead two characters were a Frenchman playing a Scot and a Scotsman playing an Egyptian. What's up with that? Eh? EH? Dogs and cats, living together.

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.

Trainspotting is a good exception Pook, and hey as you said, it wasn't actually American 😉

I meant more like this load of toot:
[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Oh, I forgot,

"show me the CCTV footage... now zoom in... and enhance sector G2..." *bing* hi-res image of the bad guy from a screencap that looks like it came from a ZX81.

Lol that is a classic. Probably most of the sudience have used computers nowadays? Yet they still peddle this nonsense!

CSI does my head in for this. And how they can have the whooshy noises and strange zooms when someone is putting some pus in a petri dish or something....unbeliveable.

Most of these geeks must have poor eyesight too, as the 'accesibility' settings are pretty much always turned up to the max 😀

.....is generally a cliche laden stink fest

Ah yes, Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau ........ could it be more cliché laden ?

And I've lost count on amount of times I've gone to see Disney or DreamWorks films under the mistaken belief that they would be serious highbrow film, only to be bitterly disappointed when they turned out to be nothing more than cliché laden stink feasts.

But now I know to keep away from films where the advert has a plain white background, featuring 2 or 3 heavily airbrushed lead characters, pulling odd faces.

Thanks "ooOOoo" ........ a good point well made.

I like CSI!

I know some of it's preposterous, like the 3-D holograms of inside bodies and that, but I find much of it fascinating and informative. Very enjoyable telly for me.

Ah yes, the infinite resolution camera. 'Enemy of the State' was a classic for this sort of stuff "Computer, hypothesize what might be in the bag"

Also, computer users randomly fluttering their hands over keyboards. See Swordfish.

And telephones dialing out preposterously fast. In a film press a button on the phone and the other person picks up within a second or so.

Poor old Les Munro, lives through WW2 Dambusters and all that, and gets sent to live in Masterton ?? Send in the SAS and rescue him now.

I have to admit to a guilty liking of US Cop shows. Got bored with CSI ages ago, but Law & Order still delivers the goods. I have no other vices honest.

Yeah but think about it; in real life, your 'phone goes but you could be on the bog squeezing one out, and it'll take you several seconds to get to the 'phone. And computers take 30 seconds or more or whatever to fully boot up. 'Realism' in such instances would be quite boring.

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.

That is slightly annoying, when you know an area well. Just lazy film-making. Spooks does this all the time, to the point where I do actually find it spoils my personal enjoyment of the show. Yes, I think continuity is important. At least have the action follow a realistic route. Worse is when the weather changes from shot to shot! But it's not that big a deal. The 'acting' in something like Spooks is worthy of far more criticism...

sick of. . . . the black guy always dies first.

and the . . . we'll tackle the race issue 5 minute interludes . . .

Brits do this kind of thing too btw. What is the Go To Regional Accent for portraying a psychopathic nutter ?? Glaswegian, every time. That annoys me.

Thanks "Ernie". Glad to be of help 🙂
In return, could you explain sarcasm to me?

Oooh,

"trace this call"

*geographical map* ... every few seconds, a line crosses... "Atlanta... New York... London... Paris... Istanbul... too late, he's hung up before we've got a trace.

willard .

My pet hate has to be the gun thing though. Too many rounds in the magazine, super-accurate onehanded moving car shootouts, tables blocking rounds... That sort of thing. I know from personal experience that a railway sleeper will not stop a standard 9mm round, so why will a table stop that and heavier? Grrrrr.

And on the flip side of this you have what? An action movie with gun fight scenes where few people ever get shot? Again, suspend your disbelief.

As for 9mm round going througha railway sleeper, it would depend on velocity, range, angle of entry and what you class as a standard round. If you were being shot at and had the choice of standing in the open or taking cover behind a table what would you choose?

Ah yes, the Hollywood race thing.
The black cop and the white cop are allowed to be best friends, but at the end of the day the black cop always goes home to his black wife and the white cop always goes home to his white wife.

Will Ferrell.
Adam "Shouty" Sandler.

heres one for you.

Transformers - girl downloads hideously classified info from a computer using an SD card in a secure CIA building and manages to leave with it.

However, on loading the data onto a computer owned by her chubby pal in the hood they are all over them like a rash in 30 seconds.

Go figure.

what I really hate about American films
In fact any films

Is the price of popcorn and a drink

Oh and stinky nachos, who decided it would be a good idea to serve them in cinemas. They smell and they crunch. Bad idea

Also British actors should not be allowed to play Americans

I agree, apparently they're known as the white Mexicans of Hollywood cause they get paid up to half of what an American actor would receive for the same role.

What always annoys me is when 5 minutes have past in the plot yet it's gone from broad daylight to absolute pitch black!

MidlandtrailquestsGraham

Download and watch Boardwalk Empire, a great show about prohibition America. Lots of Americans shooting Americans but is so good.

Re the gun thing. Wasn't there that scene in Spooks in one of the last shows of the most recent series where this guy was shot in the shoulder by a sniper with a .50 cal Browning? He had a nice little hole and was up and about with a sling in a few scenes. Shows we can cock up on the realism front too!

Pigface - Member
MidlandtrailquestsGraham

Download and watch Boardwalk Empire, a great show about prohibition America. Lots of Americans shooting Americans but is so good.

Just finished watching season 1 last night. You can also add Brits playing Americans into the mix as I know for a fact Al Capone is played by [url= http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0334318/ ]matey out of This Is England.

That should get all the haters nice and angry 😉

Pigface, it's not just a blanket objection to films about Americans shooting people, I thought Saving Private Ryan was one of the best films I have seen.
Maybe I'm a bit out of touch because I haven't got a TV and I'm getting films confused with TV series. Most of my experience of watching Americans on a screen comes from living at home with my parents when it was all Columbo, Ironside, Rockford Files, Charlies Angels and Streets of San Francisco.
Maybe not relevant to modern films, but then again, when I think of modern American films, I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Will Smith and Clint Eastwood shooting people.

jimjam - Member
willard .
My pet hate has to be the gun thing though. Too many rounds in the magazine, super-accurate onehanded moving car shootouts, tables blocking rounds... That sort of thing. I know from personal experience that a railway sleeper will not stop a standard 9mm round, so why will a table stop that and heavier? Grrrrr.

And on the flip side of this you have what? An action movie with gun fight scenes where few people ever get shot? Again, suspend your disbelief.

As for 9mm round going througha railway sleeper, it would depend on velocity, range, angle of entry and what you class as a standard round. If you were being shot at and had the choice of standing in the open or taking cover behind a table what would you choose?

Granted that penetration depends on a lot of things, but I was talking about standard 9mm ball rounds from a packet marked 9mmx19 ball, fired through a generic Browning 9mm at a target about 10m away (ok, so he missed and got the sleeper, but it was his first go with a pistol). A lot of the films have shootouts inside a house, and it's rare to see a range bigger than a few meters in the scenes, so why would a table stop the round?

As for personal choice, I would not be _hiding_ behind a table. I'd use it to cover my movement to something more substantial. Like a brick wall. Or a pile of logs. Or some sandbags. Or the next house. But that's just me.

you have given this too much thought as the word fiction means made up ! we used to have a fine system in place for challenging TV /Films for not being real when we were students PS arnie is not a robot and Tom Cruise cannot fly planes

What I hate about American films is the way that America seems to churn out so many interesting, entertaining and occasionally classic movies as opposed to the usual inverted snobbery/"social realism" boring tripe that passes for film-making in this little introverted backwater...

Apart from one film by Mike Leigh.

boring tripe that passes for film-making in this little introverted backwater...

As someone who sometimes makes that (sometimes international, multi award winning) tripe in our introverted backwater I'd like to point out that if anyone doesn't like them, thinks they should be better or thinks there should be more of them (as in more better ones). Then you only have Thatcher to blame.
🙂
Seriously.
🙁

as opposed to the usual inverted snobbery/"social realism" boring tripe that passes for film-making in this little introverted backwater...

Jus because you are not spoon fed the best of UK cinema at the World of Cine WonderPlex does not mean they are not out there.

In the last couple of years I could point you at:

Skeletons
The Disappearance of Alice Creed
An Education
The King's Speech
Monsters
Moon
Nowhere Boy
Triangle
The Hide
Tony: A London Serial Killer
Harry Brown
Heartless

Etc etc.

....an obviously anything by Shane Meadows.

I'm sure that the idea that to properly finance films, you need government (ie: the taxpayer's) money will be of [i]huge[/i] interest to Hollywood.

Did anyone mention Nic Cage yet?

Although his presence in a film is usually a handy indication that it's not something I'd enjoy.

Obviously, you haven't seen "Adaptation" or "Bad Lieutenant". Or "Raising Arizona". Or "Face Off".

Raising Arizona was a very good film.

Actually, he was in Kick Ass too, and that wasn't bad.

If you star in 200 films a year, some of them are bound to end up being halfway watchable.

The list of bad Nic Cage films would be far, far longer though, wouldn't it?

Have you seen this pic from two different films?

[img] [/img]

Gutted I can't find the brilliant blog page of the guy who put it together.

Aha, found it now.

Please enjoy...

[url= http://www.cracked.com/blog/lets-play-nicolas-cage/ ]http://www.cracked.com/blog/lets-play-nicolas-cage/[/url]

Mr Cage is in Rumble Fish and that is a classic.

Eddie Murphy was in 48 Hours, but I tend to avoid his later work as well as Cage's.

What I hate most is 'if you really believe in yourself you can do it'
when the character fails it's not because they are rubbish/lazy/didn't train/failed maths it's because they don't have enough belief in themselves.

People never wipe their arses in films do they.
Straight in the cubicle, maybe a couple of noises (depending on the genre) then BAM straight to the flush!

The profanisaurus suggests that what must be happening here is a 'glory wipe'.

I'm sure that the idea that to properly finance films, you need government (ie: the taxpayer's) money will be of huge interest to Hollywood.

Nothing to do government money. There used to be a quota on film distribution - something like 10% of films playing in UK cinemas had to have been UK produced. The Thatcher government abolished the quota, after caving in to all the petitions, protests and eventually riots from the cinema-going public demanding that this 10% should instead be made up of US produced films that would otherwise have not cut the mustard.

I worked for a Norwegian production company recently - 1 ticket in 5 sold in Norwegian cinemas is for a Norwegian produced film. Its was the best resourced, best paid film I've ever worked on and they apologised for not paying me more. Dinky little Norway, tiny population, no Norwegian speaking countries to export their films to - able to support a thriving film industry through the patronage of their audience

Although there is the odd bit of government or lottery subsidy in the UK it could only ever be peanuts and it mostly consists of top up funding and support in kind - like location services. Films are funded from the profits of earlier films, without those profits theres nothing to top up. No distribution no profit. No profit no next film.

I watched Dirty Harry last night. The overwhelming feeling I came away with was that he was a truly appalling police man.

trucks / wagons/ lorries that catch up with fast cars to ram them from behind!!!! Grrrrrr