Things that bother you or make you laugh about moviemaking

- 'Shaky cam' syndrome. Used sparingly, it can be effective enough, but when an entire movie relies on it to 'create a feeling of chaos', it's sickening. Examples: The Bourne trilogy (especially the last two parts), Cloverfield

- Excessive swearing for the sake of ... swearing? It's not cool, and it doesn't add anything. Again, used sparingly is okay, but if every sentence contains a fcuk or a biatch, that's pushing it.

- Then again, when filmmakers cut away all cussing in order to obtain a lower PG rating (make a film suitable for all ages) for a movie that's supposed to have some cussing, that's just dumb. Example: Live Free Or Die Hard. John McClane just ain't John McClane without it.

- All too obvious advertisements. When John Connor whipped out his Sony Ericsson in Terminator Salvation (it's a Sony Pictures film), I had to laugh.

- Bad guys can fire their UZIs and AK47s all they want at the good guys, and they rarely ever land a hit, where the good guys are more precise than professional snipers with their ordinary handguns.

- In horror movies, why does the group always decide to split up even though they know a killer is out to get them?

- Unimportant people die instantly to gunshots or stab wounds, but significant characters always survive long enough for a tearful and emotional goodbye.

- when they get out of a car, they never close windows or lock the doors.

Also in horror movies the car does never start immediately, only when the killer reaches the door. And they NEVER have a signal on their mobile phone.

And someone who got 'killed' off earlier miraculously survives...

The hero never looks to the final explosion, he always turns back before the explosion and starts to walk as it was a normal thing

And no matter how old and dilapidated the barn/shed/cave/circus tent is... there is always an oxyacetylene welding kit available!!!

(Or am I just preempting the A-Team movie here...)

casting a different actor as the same character that was used in the past xx episodes in some spaghetti-long series.
the hilarious part is when they try to convince the viewer that this character is well known and always was who she/he is, by suddenly directly naming him/her at every possible situation ;)

or an opposite of that, casting one actor as some minor background character and then all of a sudden he appears as a different main character in the later episodes.
Alex Krycek from The X-Files anyone? ;)

Presenting a renowned director's name on top of a movie poster when, in actuality, s/he didn't direct the movie at all, but only produced it. Example: Hostel. This tends to happen more often with Quentin Tarantino-produced films.

Similarly, renowned actors' names credited on posters with huge lettering, even when their roles in said movies are only cameos, lasting no more than a few minutes.

Videogames are also guilty of this: Crawling around in air ducts and on ceilings. Either is quite impossible, in reality air ducts are much too small for a person to crawl around in. In some larger buildings the main duct would be large enough, but the branches going out to the various vents aren't. And your typical office ceiling can't even remotely carry the weight of man, or even a child.

- Guns with infinite ammo.

- The 10 second countdown takes over 2 minutes of film time to reach 2 seconds.

- A car jump, where the car's landing obviously completely smashed the whole front and chassis upwards, and yet in the next scene the car is undamaged.

- A car has a head on collision with another, disabling it, but then drives off with a slight dent in the wing or a headlight out. A great example of this was the Jason Statham film War, where he drives a Dodge Charger straight into the side of another car, completely disabling the other car. But then drives the car off and all that is damaged is the headlight and wing.

When the hero is in a fight against seemingly impossible odds, it never occurs to the bad guys to attack the lone hero simultaneously. Instead, they go at it one at a time, allowing the protagonist to handily deal with them one by one.

In real life, all it takes is one well-placed punch or kick to the head for someone to go unconscious. In movies, major characters can last 10-15 minutes being pummeled in the head with fists, bottles, furniture, bats and other weapons and remain unfazed.

- They never shoot the baddy in the head, always in the chest. Why? If I wanted to make sure someone was dead the head is the logical target.

- Someone is involved in a serious accident or fight that really smashes their face up, but in the next scene they have a small cut on their lip, maybe a bloody nose or a black eye. WTF?

- Why don't the good guys ever pick up the bad guys weapons and use them?

squeaky tires on a gravel or dirt road...
the sound of bullets ricoshaing of concrete or brick or even wood surfaces...

Car jump scenes where the car jumps an astonomical length.
You know damn well that the car or bus or whatever vehicle it is wouldn't make that jump in real life .... it's against the laws of physics! (eg. Speed with Keano Reaves & Sandra Bullock .... no way would that bus have made that jump!)

- carrying on from the car jump one. When the vehicle makes a jump, but is obviously launching from a much steeper angle than the road it was on. Looks silly.

- In older films, when the hub caps would fly off the car as it took a corner, but were then all magically on the car again in the next scene.

- missing rear view mirrors. How many times has there been a shot of two people sat in a car from a bonnet cam, and the rear view mirror is missing? For me it ruins the illusion.

Indeed, the rear-view mirror is often a problem for film-makers.
I own a classic chevy belair '63 and it was used in a promo-film for windows95 when it was launched in europe.
A very educational venture it was for me and the chevy both.
The film-maker was not impressed with the car's age and only cared for the look, so he wanted to strip the mirror and the front wind-shield.:nuts: They wanted the car to pull out and stop with screaming tires. The muffler had to come off for the sound-effect.
They polished it as it never was before though and the luster stayed on for about 6 months.:p

Being part of a film-set was an adventure and an opportunity to see the illusion being created. Meeting the director(an a-hole!) and the actors(several a-holes!!) and seeing how streets and back-roads were altered and remodeled by a hard working crew(top-guys!) to fit the needs of these strange people was quite a hoot!

The directors I've ever met have all been complete A-holes, so your experience was not unique. They have all been completely arrogant with an air of self importance, and have the belief that they are the only important element within the film making process.

I loved the time a Director told me to setup some technology for a shoot and I had to correct his storyboard and direct him on how it needed to be filmed. That was funny. You should have seen his face. But more importantly the faces of those around him. ;)

People in movies cocking their gun for dramatic effect. I mean, what the hell? If you're going to walk into a potentially deadly situation, you're damn well going to make sure your gun is ready to shoot!

The most ridiculous instance of this is in Matrix 3, where Morpheus, Seraph and Trinity confront the Merovingian in the club to negotiate the release of Neo. After a brief altercation with the Merovingian's henchmen, the three end up in a standoff situation where everyone has their guns aimed at each other, and Trinity has hers aimed at Mero's forehead.

After some more dialogue, where the Merovingian provokes Trinity a little more, what does Trinity do?! Yup, she proceeds to cock her gun, as well as saying something along the lines of 'Either you release Neo, or we all die here now'.

Um, right. Had the gun already been cocked, perhaps she might've been able to follow through on that statement, but as it was, the bad guys could've blown her head off without her being able to do anything.

i think it's safe to say that most of the hollywood mainstream films are ridiculous pulp...
it's a matter of tuning down your common sense and just enjoy the fantasy.

actually all movies are like that, even the documentaries are generally setup for months to film 10 different scenes of one animal doing something that matches the script or some theory. ;)