[Closed] Things I am sick of in american films

Americans?

In a car scene the camera showing the speedo creeping up. Usually to around 75mph.

Firing more rounds than there gun can hold in a standard mag.

Only incredibly fit and sexy people being in the film.

Getting shot and not falling over screaming for there mother.

The list goes on...

Oh yes cars! I forgot that.

People who drive a 'stick' and can somehow change up around 20 times while the revs never drop!

The way every car in America, when crashed, will either have the horn blaring, or instantly burst into a massive fire ball.

if you see a cute young family at the start of the film you just KNOW that they are about to die to justify all of the rest of the deaths that are about to happen

Only incredibly fit and sexy people being in the film.

unrequired happy endings - See shawshank redemption for example
Rewriting of history -see any war they take part in but enigma film as a more clear cut example.
treatment of women re looks mattering as much as talent.
Accents - Dick van Dyke Keanu Reeves rusell Crowe etc

people, usually baddies, always dieing instantly from a gun-shot wound
the whole '555' phone number thing
the motorcycle race in Wall Street 2

British people going on about them.

Someone in a film saying "What do you want from me?" is a general marker that the film is bobbins.

The super car that struggles to keep up with a van or struggles to out run a van or 20 year old sedan? WTF?

The good guy stood in the open whilst the baddy empties a magazine and hits fresh air.

The martial art expert that kicks the ass out of 20 guys and the baddy waits till his mates been battered until he tries to have a go.

Even NASA agree

HOLLYWOOD blockbuster 2012 has been blasted as the worst-ever sci-film by NASA scientists.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3327114/Nasa-names-most-absurd-sci-fi-film.html

Anyone British is invariably the bad guy.

C'mon, the last time we were at war with the USA was 1815!

The fight scene where someone gets hit in the face with a shovel and then comes running back in for more!

Love the way they cock their guns all the time..... one in the chamber...safety on..job done

Excellent point luke!

HOLLYWOOD blockbuster 2012 has been blasted as the worst-ever sci-film by NASA scientists.

But you didn't mention "bad" films, just "American" films.

In what way are British films any more 'true to life' ?

tom cruise

30 year old teenagers

And another which Lee Evans commented on once. When the actress wakes up and is perfect with makeup and hair

The way really simple plots have to be explained to the audience.

English = posh
2 stroke motocross bikes that sound like Harleys
Cars racing each other neck and neck flat out but one gear change means another instant 'turbo boost'.

30 year old teens - ala Inbetweeners??

Personal hate is product placement, the shocking Heineken advert in Wall Street 2 made me want to punch the screen.

Why does the '555' area code annoy? It's there to avoid ordinary people getting crank phone calls because their real number gets used accidentally in a film. It's happened in the UK, where a genuine STD code was used and real people got stupid phone calls.

Fist fights that go on for ten minutes.
The re-writing of history is fairly annoying, it becomes the truth in so many people's minds.

I actually enjoy the super cars not outrunning the standard cars bit. Makes me laugh. And I definately enjoy films only have stunningly attractive women in them. I'd forgotten how sexy the lady hacker was in Die Hard 4, a film so hilarious it completely removed attention from even the remotest links with reality.

[img] [/img]

In the film she was an expert hacker, knew loads of martial art moves, confident with a gun and was harder than John McClane. In real life there's so many risque pictures of her that I suspect she's a bit of a naughty girl.

Ticks all my boxes.

The whiny "teen punk" music about how shit it is to be young but isnt really when you get to shag the dumb blonde of yor dreams in the final scene even though the protaganist is a ****.

Have any of you ever heard of the expression 'the suspension of disbelief'??

It's fiction. Fantasy. Make-believe.

IT'S

NOT

REAL.

I'll agree with elfin, generally, but there are still things that irritate a bit, like 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.

[i]IT'S

NOT

REAL. [/i]

[b]NOOOOOO!!!!![/b]

I was watching 'Psycho' t'other night, and there's a bit where the private eye is talking to Norman in the office, then steps outside and looks up at the house, and sees someone at the window. Now, we know it's Norman dressing up as his dead mum, so who is the person at the window, seeing as how Norman was down by the motel with the detective?

Or have I missed something? 😳

See also 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' fred. There's loads of continuity errors in it which to me screwed the film up because I felt they were important, especially in a film that relied on precision to keep it all together considering the nature of it.

I've been told these were deliberate to portray a struggling mind's effort to retain a hold on reality, or something.

Elfin - as I recall, Norman carried his mother about the place, so likely propped her up against the window during the day, so she could keep an eye on things. He thought she was still alive you see. It's in the title...

Hmm, you've hit on an interesting thing here. I was watching something a while back talking about ancient Greek theatre. They were really worried about messing with people's minds, so they'd have to come on and tell you when they were switching scenes to a different building to avoid confusing you. Now go and watch an American sitcom and you will see they do exactly the same thing visually - every cut to a room is preceded by an exterior shot of the building. Always.

So that got me thinking, and all these cliched shots and lines that you are talking are actually a meta-language that summarise the film for you. Ever wonder why you can only half-watch a film, missing loads of scenes and dialogue, but you still know what's going on? It's to help people follow the film.

Interestingly this meta language is different in different cultures. It's quite conspicious I think if you watch a foreign film that they've tried to make like an American film along American lines - it just looks strange.

The same happens with TV adverts. Even more so they have to speak to our subconscious in a language we are expecting. American adverts are completely different to ours because they have to talk in the language of advertising that the consumers speak. Mrs Grips thought all our TV ads were completely bizarre when she came over.

So, who wants to fund my PhD in media studies? 🙂

Hollywood tyres - you know they make squealing noises when driving on sand in the desert
Computers making bleeping noises. May have done in the late 70's but not now pleeeze.

The thing I'm sick of is entire films and scripts built around special effects.

They've forgotten that special effects are just one of the tools available to them for telling a story.

See also 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' fred. There's loads of continuity errors in it which to me screwed the film up because I felt they were important, especially in a film that relied on precision to keep it all together considering the nature of it.

I've been told these were deliberate to portray a struggling mind's effort to retain a hold on reality, or something.

I literally couldn't watch this film in one go. Couldn't handle it.
So it worked on me! Very good for an american film I thought.

So that got me thinking, and all these cliched shots and lines that you are talking are actually a meta-language that summarise the film for you

Very good description. But I think different directors use it to different levels. When you watch a thoughtful film then something full of this crap, you realise how lazy it is.

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

It's in the title...

See, I don't think it is. A psychopath is one thing; the medical definition of what Norman suffered with is something else really. I spose the manner in which he dispatched his victims could be considered psychopathic mind. There was no real good reason to kill people, other than to satisfy his dissociative personality disorder.

If I was to use one word to describe Norman, it would simply be 'Ill'.

[i]So it worked on me! Very good for an american film I thought.[/i]

It's ok. It's funny, quite often people who I discuss this film with, immediately decide it's too clever for me and I clearly can't understand it. The film is fairly simple IMO but I find there are lots of films like this. If you watch (a film with some cleverness built into it) and don't think it's that good, everyone immediately draws the conclusion that you didn't understand it.

Try suggesting that pulp fiction is not that good, or ESotSM, or any of the matrix films, or Insomnia or memento (I really liked that) or Primer (probably the most difficult film to understand I've seen) to any of the afficianado's and they'll go mental and complain you're killing cinema by wanting dumb assed shoot fests. Not true.

Being clever is not the same as being good.

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.

[img] [/img]

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 [i]ever.[/i]

Luckily British comedy films are much more "true to life".

Luckily, British [s]comedy[/s] 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:

[i]"whooop, whoop, we good guys let them evil Nazis have it good and proper"[/i]

or do we get

[i]"was it really worth the terrible cost in life?"[/i]

Luckily, British [s]comedy[/s] 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 [i]claim[/i] 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 [i]fairly[/i] 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.