this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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Actors not sweeping correctly when somebody broke a glass or somebody's ashes were spilled on the floor or something like that is infuriating hahha.

They're always having some serious conversation with heavy relationship complications, but whoever has the broom is literally tapping at the mess on the floor because they know that the production crew is going to clean it up for them after the shoot, so they, the ac-tors, don't have to actually sweep the mess into the dustbin.

I f****** hate that.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Generic Hollywood bad guy actors everywhere hurting the heroes and almost killing them only to be killed themselves (or at least punished) by the heroes instead whatever and however so.

Cute and funny protagonists everywhere.

Forced humor into every film or show.

Teases and sequel hooks ala Marvel Studios.

Plot-twist elements being spammed by a film.

Recycling plot points from other movies or writing by the seats of their pants in movies.

Wasting source material in adapted works, especially in supposedly comic book movies.

Copying from Marvel Studios in general.

Taking shots at other original works in general.

Wasting potential materials of any kind.

Altering the work itself to sell more tickets.

Constant bait-and-switch gags everywhere.

Villainous side-characters ala Illumination, even if they especially get away with their own actions.

Juvenile or depraved humor in any work.

Characters overanalyzing their own mediums while spamming all of the above that I described.

Plot points that are constantly switching.

Controversial and immoral topics in any work.

Covering up all of the above with cute humor.

Overwhelming sensory abuse as an autistic.

Characters too evil to belong in a particular work.

Trying to get away with anything and everything in a work, particularly in a children’s work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

When people who clearly have never cooked a meal for themselves prepare one on film. The whole process.

We recently watched a movie where a woman was preparing dinner but she’s chopping whatever the hell she was chopping like it was the first time in her life that she had ever held a knife. Sometimes they even use the completely wrong knife for whatever the task is that they’re trying to do. Other times, they’re constantly stirring something like boiling noodles or sauces that don’t need to be stirred. All kinds of dumb things that are obviously done just to give the actor something to do with the props around them but that make the character look incompetent instead.

Even worse is when whatever they’re doing doesn’t even make sense within the context presented in the film, e.g. dicing a lime for drinks instead of cutting slices or wedges, using a pepper grinder on fruit, making another character taste something that would be scalding hot, etc.

Close runner-up is when characters go to a bar and order “a beer” or some other generic version of something. Just make up a god damn brand name, fer chrissakes.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Ha, cooking is a good one.

Whenever somebody cooks and nothing smokes or no extra sauce gets anywhere it shouldn't or no ingredients are on the counter or floor?

Julienned vegetables are a big one for me too.

I love the bear TV show, but very often they zoom in on one of the actors slicing a vegetable and the slices are wildly inconsistent, like at least twice as thick and thin each slice, even after they're supposed to have gone to culinary school or practiced for 10,000 or whatever.

Small thing, but this is a peeve thread, and I love the show otherwise or I wouldn't even complain about it, but those thick and thin slices are such a glaring incongruence with the rest of the show.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

The worst is explaining that X can't be done because Y, then doing X anyway. Solo does this by sending Qi'ra on the mission despite just saying the whole point was not to use recognizable gangsters

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Catering to the general population to make money instead of art.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

"Reality" shows.

My wife tried to get me to watch American Idol back in the day. I don't remember all the details, but there were like 10 people we were supposed to follow through the process.

Day one, they took the entire group who were auditioning and divided them up into groups.

"Wow, look at that..."

"What?"

"Each of the 10 people they want us following got their own group... No single group got 2 or 3 of them..."

"Why do you ruin everything?"

I have to admit, one of my guilty pleasures are ghost hunting shows. I love that shit.

Expedition X did a trip to Okinawa, which I learned was actually conquered and absorbed by Japan back in 1609, prior to that they had their own, distinct, language, culture, and religion...

But SOMEHOW all the ghost boxes were spitting out English! Man, what are the chances?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I hate when production companies dupe people into doing work on a movie "on spec". For those who don't know, on spec means that the work is done at a reduced upfront cost with the expectation of a share of profits after release. What the poor schmucks who fall for this don't know is that no movie has made a profit for production companies in over 50 years. At least not as far as paper is concerned. After a movie is made, production companies have to get it out there. The companies who do this are known as distributors, and they charge the production company to do the distribution. Now for the movie magic, the same company that owns the production company also owns the distributor, so they are essentially charging themselves more money than the movie can ever make to do the job. The legal loophole that they fuck people with is that, even though they are owned by the same company, they are separate legal entities, so contracts with one do not bind the other. The on spec contract is with the production company, but the distributor is the one who collects the money from the theaters, which it then funnels into the parent company. The production company shows a loss on the books, so the on spec clauses never trigger. Look into Life of Pi and Rhythm and Hues if you can find the right articles about what happened.

Oh, and remember how I said that theaters pay the distributors? Those contracts are almost as straightforward as the on spec ones. The standard layout is that the theater pays some percentage of the box office to the distributor for opening week, then each week after it reduces by some fixed percent until reaching 0. The initial percentages vary, as do the reduction, but standard is 80/10 from what I understand. The most abusive I have ever specifically learned the details for was a Disney production, I belive it was the first of the new Star Wars movies, but it was a 99% opening week, decreasing by 1% per week for 4 weeks, then 5% thereafter. Oh, and they also tried to strongarm the theaters into having to fork over 50% of concessions as well, which was the first time I had ever heard of that. Luckily the concessions thing was fought and won by the theaters, but it is atrocious that they even tried. Anyway, that is why concessions are so expensive, because theaters make virtually 0 money off box office sales since the bulk of a movie's gross revenue comes from opening week box office. Do your local theater a favor if you genuinely enjoy them existing, buy a fountain drink or a popcorn. Those are the highest profit margin items on the menu and they do actually need the money.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Damn, this sounds like mafia work. We need some laws in place

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I have studied all aspects of production, from writing all the way through to the audience watching it. There are strong laws on the production side because SAG and WGA exist and have pushed hard for legal protections against the studios and production companies prioritizing money over safety. Unfortunately on the distribution side the theaters actually have some very good anti-corporate laws working against them. What needs to happen is essentially a unionization of theaters so they can collectively bargain against the distributors and be able to say "good luck with getting your movie our there, because it won't be on a single silver screen with those terms." Unfortunately that behavior falls under the collusion and price fixing laws, which are spectacular and need to be there, but probably should be amended for situations like this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

@Adalast

This is the kind of thing I came in to talk about too. Here in New Zealand we don't have guilds that can stand against Hollywood industry and a right-wing government actually changed our labour law in favour of Warners and Peter Jackson so that they could call production crew and cast "independent contractors" (with no security or benefits) instead of employees.

The Actors guild protested but someone working at Weta at the time told me animators were "encouraged" to counter protest in support of the law change "if you want to keep your jobs".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That is appalling. I knew some of that, but not the full extent. It is disgusting. The on-set unions in the states are extremely strong, and I am so thankful for that. The whole post production industry needs a global set of unions. I would like to see the same for on-set. Someone needs to keep these jackasses in check.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, they really do.

I really lost respect for Peter Jackson over that whole fiasco. New Zealand was already giving Hollywood production companies massive tax breaks so there was no need for it, but he actively helped them stiff the local crew.

Weta's a bit toxic anyway but it's a widespread problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Same. I was really disheartened when I heard all of the negative stuff for living in NZ from a past coworker. It had been on my short list of "gtfo my dystipian nightmare" countries, but it sounds to me like it is nearly as bad, just in different ways.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Holy crap I had no idea how much theaters were getting f***** over, thanks for posting this. Fascinating!.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1602-audience-sex-5-things-you-deal-with-managing-theater.html

Number 3, and the first article linked in it are good for deeper dives and the linked article may have more updated or detailed info than I am recalling from my reports I had to write for my MA in VFX. There is a LOT of fuckery that really should be quite illegal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Understood, thanks. I'll read it.

Finally makes sense why so many theaters die when the overhead is so relatively low.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In fight scenes where they force the women to only fight women and the men to only fight men. Super bad ass girl could obviously take on guard one and two.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Lol. It's even worse when we contstantly see the male grunts get taken out two at a time but when the woman hero gets involved she gets overpowered and needs help

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've got to reply to myslef just in case it doesn't get mentioned, but when somebody getting shot at hides behind a wooden door or a piece of furniture and the bullet doesn't go through the sofa or wooden door.

Oh cool! You flipped over the coffee table?

You should be totally fine while machine guns rain down ammunition on you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Lmao yeah, just duck behind that 1/4 inch plywood to stop the bullets previously shown to dent metal

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Concussions. People get knocked out by a blow to the head or neck? They stay knocked out for an hour or so? They wake up okay?

I slipped on ice and cracked the side of my skull into the corner of a dumpster. I was out for...? It was the dead of winter. In Canada. -30. I couldn't have been out more than a minute or two.

I was all kinds of messed up for months. I couldn't control my arms right. My emotions went haywire. I had blinding headaches for weeks.

I still have nasty chronic headaches and memory loss. It happened more than ten years ago!

Knocked out for long enough to wake up tied up in a warehouse? Nah, you died. Buffy? Dead. James Bond? Dead. Sorry.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Yes, it's pretty established that a) it's not as easy to knock someone out as movies portray it, and b) someone who gets knocked unconscious is unlikely to wake up and be fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Wow, there's a hell of a story, pretty scary. Thanks for sharing!

Great point about concussions

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

maybe the antagonist snuck them some sleeping pills off-camera...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

People talking in their normal voices in noisy/loud environments.

A club, pub, pool hall, factory, even an airplane in flight - those are noisy environments. You're not going to make yourself heard without raising your voice even just a bit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

You would like christopher nolan's Tenet. The ambient noise is on point. In fact, it has the loudest HVAC that I have ever heard in a film.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Oh yeah, that s*** is bonkers

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

No one closes doors!
Empty luggage.
People go on vacation / move away with 1 tiny suitcase which magically has a warehouse of clothing in it.
The "dumb" character. Why is there at least 1 dumb person (who everyone rips on and bullies) in a series or movie. So stupid.
Hand guns with unlimited ammunition in them.
People hiding behind tables, normal walls from gunfire. 1 shot and you are dead.
Movies that are 90% explosions and 4% plot.

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