Cinematic (and TV, What the Hell) Pet Peeves

[Watashi]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

[Grouchy]

In the 70s and 80s and beyond, all that stuff became bloated, too, because books weren't sold the same way. So we get 500+ page fantasy novels with plots that run into 3 book series because, again, that's what publishers demanded. Then they moved from cheap paperbacks to trade paperbacks, the price went up, and that changed the value proposition again. Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.

Absolutely true. My mother is a writer and she's constantly "encouraged" by her editors to make longer novels.

It's like selling literature by the pound.

[Grouchy]

On that vein I remember in the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, the latter says that he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest".

Ever since I watched that I chuckle everytime I hear "get some rest" in a movie. Most recently, in the New Mutants trailer.

[Irish]

Absolutely true. My mother is a writer and she's constantly "encouraged" by her editors to make longer novels.

It's like selling literature by the pound.

I'm fascinated how the basic economics -- like needing to shove as many paperbacks as possible into a drugstore display -- effect the art. I've heard, too, that publishers don't like novels to be over a certain length, like 750+ pages, because it requires a special binding that's more expensive.

ETA: Similar to epic films, which exhibitors don't like because it means less showings per day which means less money for them per week.

[Irish]

he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest"

This shit drives me batty -- why do they bother having the character speak at all? (Especially since it's cheaper if extras don't speak.)

I always wanted somebody to do something in the vein of "What's Up Tiger Lilly?" --- but make an action movie where every line of dialogue is dubbed from other movies.

[D_Davis]

Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.

One of the few.

[Dead & Messed Up]

On that vein I remember in the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, the latter says that he looks for some sentences that are always said by characters in movies, like, for example, "secure the perimeter!" and "get some rest".

Ever since I watched that I chuckle everytime I hear "get some rest" in a movie. Most recently, in the New Mutants trailer.

"What are you doing here?" and "Let's get out of here."

[Dead & Messed Up]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

And they're always discussing a Thematically Relevant Subject.

I allow this only in Indiana Jones films, because those films are purposefully evoking B-pulp.

[And they're two hours a pop.]

[number8]

I'm trying to find the photo of it, but there's a whiteboard in the Workaholics writers room with a giant list of phrases that's banned from their scripts. Like "In English!" or "I just threw up in my mouth a little..."

[transmogrifier]

Speaking of Stringy Thongs, I was a reminded of a major pet peeve when watching...

When teachers are about to start a new topic of discussion and then the bell rings and they're yelling over bustling students, "don't forget to read chapter 3! This will be on the test!"

It happens in every goddamn high school scene. No teacher ever teaches to the bell, let alone start up a new lesson before it. Stop with that nonsense.

I just realized what I need to do when I go back to teaching high school.

[Dukefrukem]

Because that's what there. It's not as if there's a lot of variety. The only movies I can think of that are regularly 90 minutes these days are horror films.

There must be some research behind this. I'm willing to bet somewhere someone said, 90 minutes is the maximum running time that a general audience can withstand during a horror film. People leave these films exhausted and drained.

[Ezee E]

There must be some research behind this. I'm willing to bet somewhere someone said, 90 minutes is the maximum running time that a general audience can withstand during a horror film. People leave these films exhausted and drained.

The stories, set ups, etc are so simple. I'm not sure how one could drag those stories out.

I remember I was STILL looking at my watch at last year's Lights Out.

[baby doll]

Few people are willing to spend $20 for a 150 page science fiction novel.

I try not to spend more than ten dollars (Canadian) on any book, period. I mean, why read new stuff when all of Jane Austen, the Brontës, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James is in the public domain?

[TGM]

I mean, why read new stuff when all of Jane Austen, the Brontës, William Faulkner, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James is in the public domain?

Because new authors gotta make a living, too. <_<

[Grouchy]

And because thinking didn't go out of fashion in 1962, right? We cling to that hope.

[number8]

Also because new art is better than old art.

[Sycophant]

That reminds me of a pet peeve I have: The idea that newer is inherently better.

[amberlita]

When characters are at a restaurant, take one to two bites of their newly arrived food, and then someone says "we need to go" even though there's nothing to which they are actually going -- they leave 95% of their food on the table and walk out without paying.

edit: similar pet peeve for cigarettes. two puffs, then it's on the ground for no good reason. no self-respecting cigarette smoker would be that wasteful.

[baby doll]

Also because new art is better than old art.

If you know of any contemporary novelists as consistently entertaining as Jane Austen, I'd be very happy to check their work out of the library.

[Grouchy]

Also because new art is better than old art.

What? That's a pretty ridiculous statement.

[megladon8]

That reminds me of a pet peeve I have: The idea that newer is inherently better.

I feel like with art the sentiment is often the reverse.

“They don’t make [insert art / media type] like they used to” feels way more common than “so much better than it ever was”.

[Irish]

Ehhhhhh... pretty sure 8 was joking.

My own tic: The way people overuse "art" so that it's become leeched of all meaning. Nowadays it describes anything created under any circumstance for any purpose. So that mass-produced pop-culture ephemera and blockbuster movies are automatically "art" and so are serial television and advertisements.

[baby doll]

I feel like with art the sentiment is often the reverse.

“They don’t make [insert art / media type] like they used to” feels way more common than “so much better than it ever was”.

Some things were better in the past. Hollywood movies (and pre-1970 Japanese cinema), for instance--not because stuff from the past is automatically better than new stuff, but because of how the studio system was organized. After 1960, the studios made fewer, bigger movies, and are consequently more cautious about taking risks. Furthermore, staging became less elaborate and less varied (as David Bordwell persuasively argues in The Way Hollywood Tells It), and scripts have become less concise (The Seventh Victim is only 71 minutes long; Detour is 68). Maybe American TV is better in 2017 than it was in the past (which is not saying much), but I don't think anyone can seriously claim that there are studio films today comparable to Shanghai Express, Trouble in Paradise, Sylvia Scarlett, Make Way for Tomorrow, Swamp Water, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Notorious, Thieves' Highway, Duck Amuck, Johnny Guitar, The Tarnished Angels, or Rio Bravo just to name only the first dozen that come to mind.

[Grouchy]

I actually agree with baby doll here. As far as mainstream entertainment goes, Hollywood today can't hold a fucking candle to its glourious past. Hell, it can't hold a candle to the '80s.

[D_Davis]

One of the main reasons to support to new things being made today is to populate the public domain of the future.

So while lots of great old stuff is available in the PD today, that's only because those creators and works were deemed valuable in the past. So, too, should we support creators and works today, so that the PD is continually and abundantly refreshed and added to.