7 Movie Pet Peeves That Might Annoy You Too
As an audience member, watching a movie is supposed to take us away from our everyday lives, make us forget our troubles, and even (sometimes) teach us life lessons (I learned a lot from all the John Hughes movies in the 80s!). These are the marks of a great movie; but even sometimes great movies run into problems.
Have you ever watched a movie and had a piece of dialogue or a section of the score jump out at you because it was out of place? Or maybe a casting choice for a really well known character was just wrong? Well, I’ve seen these and A LOT of other issues in the hundreds of movies I’ve watched; and decided to sound off!
May I present (in no particular order) my biggest movie pet peeves:
In addition to movies, I like books. I generally agree with the decision that the book is better than the movie – BUT that doesn’t mean that some movie adaptations of books aren’t great. However, every once in a while the screenwriter, director, whoever will make some choices that just make NO sense.
Take for example the Harry Potter films. Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) has naturally blue eyes. In the novels, Harry’s eyes are green. Not only are they green, but the author makes it a point to mention this in EVERY book. it’s sort of a big deal. And even comes into play at the end of the series, but whatever.
Cut to the Harry Potter films where Harry has blue eyes. Uh…WHAT?! Now I don’t know how much it would’ve cost to make Daniel’s eyes green, but I can’t imagine that a change like that COULDN’T have been done.
Same goes for omissions from books into films. While I understand that condensing a 500 page book into a movie that’s an hour and a half or two hours is tough. But huge plot omissions should be avoided at all costs.
…I wonder how that’s going to pan out for the adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.
Dear Prop Master and Set Decorator,
When a scene calls for an actor to be drinking some sort of liquid out of a vessel used for such purposes, can you PLEASE make sure said item is filled with SOMETHING?! Anything. Anything at all, it doesn’t HAVE to be what the script calls for.
I cannot STAND it when an actor picks up their paper coffee cup and almost tosses it over their shoulder because there is NO LIQUID in the cup. I don’t blame the actor – YOU try making it realistic to drink out of something that has no weight.
In The Devil Wears Prada, there is a scene when Anne Hathaway makes a coffee run for the office. She’s holding four Starbucks cups on a carrying tray and she’s swinging the thing around like it weighs nothing… probably because it doesn’t! Just a LITTLE water in the cups would have given them some weight, making that particular scene more realistic.
Same goes for guitar cases, suitcases, moving boxes, and a long, LONG list of other things that I could think of if I really wanted to. FILL THEM! Make it realistic. This is Hollywood after all.
Full makeup and perfect hair: I know that actresses are supposed to be beautiful and perfect looking. I understand this and I embrace it. That being said; please take note:
NO ONE WAKES UP WITH FULL MAKE UP AND PERFECT HAIR.
Also, not one woman who goes swimming in full foundation, eye liner, mascara, and lip gloss will emerge from the water like some goddess with no streaks. And if you can find me some makeup that WILL stick that well then EVERYDAY PEOPLE (since that’s what these actors are portraying!) would use, PLEASE tell me.
I bring this film up because I just watched it (twice) this weekend: In Titanic (SPOILER ALERT) when Rose is perched on the piece of door or whatever it is after the boat sinks her hair (while it’s wet) is PERFECT. AND she still has eyeliner on!
Now, I’m not saying that the actress or actor needs to look completely disheveled and horrible, but a LITTLE realism, please? Smudge her eyeliner or something. Check out the scene below yourself.
While this isn’t something that happens IN the movie, it still has to do with the industry so I’m mentioning it. When did movie trailer become the place to show the ENTIRE PLOT of the movie? I live for trailers as much as the next person and expect a good trailer to show some explosions, hint at a surprise twist, or hell, and even SHOW us the killer!
HOWEVER – I don’t want to see the entire movie in a 60 second trailer. They’re called previews for a reason.
Take for example the extended trailers for Black Swan when the film was released nationally. There were MAJOR plot points shown in the clips – to the point that I even told my sister “Well, you don’t have to see the movie now, you just saw the ending.”
Let’s leave a little for the feature presentation, okay?
This is a saying that’s thrown around a lot in my household when my roommate and I watch movies. We tend to lean toward the horror genre, which I think this pet peeve applies to more than other genres.
I cannot stand when the victim is face to face with their would-be killer, probably holding a weapon, and all set to let the bad guy have it. Then… they sit (or stand, or lean, whatever) and TALK. This is NOT the time for a soliloquy. This is the time to knock the guy over the head with whatever you’re holding, or the time to pull the trigger – whatever – and get the hell out of their path!
They want you dead. A LOT of “the victim almost got away” would be avoided if the victim (or villain) would just stop explaining themselves and GET ON WITH IT!
Case in point: in Urban Legend (yep, we’re going WAAAAAYYYY back) when the killer is revealed there is – literally – a what? Six minute monologue between villain and victim and NOTHING happens. Nothing. The killer doesn’t try to kill the victim, instead villain (I’m attempting to not spoil the ending here, bear with me) EXPLAINS to victim why they’re doing what they’re doing.
I’m all for knowing why someone is killing someone (although some of the best horror movies are made because we DON’T know why killers are killing), but I don’t need an entire act, with flashbacks, about it!
Again, this tends to lean more towards the horror genre, but if I see one more stupid girl (or guy, but usually girls) run up their giant stair case to the second or third floor with no escape while they are being chased, I’m going to throw something at my TV.
Scream writer Kevin Williamson said it best in one of Sidney’s lines: “It’s always the same thing, some big breasted girl running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door – it’s insulting.”
It really is, Sid. It really is. (And we’ll forgive you that you turned into one of those girls right after that line – at least you called 911 from your computer.)
Is the glass half empty or half full? I don’t know, and sometimes neither does the filmmaker. I know that a lot of things happen on the set of a movie and a lot of little details are hard to keep straight.
But when there’s a glass of wine on a table that’s _ full in one shot, and then is magically half gone (and hasn’t been touched), someone should have caught that. Same thing with costume issues, nail polish, and table settings. It takes me out of the movie when I notice these things and the director didn’t.
Did you know – that in The Wizard of Oz, there are several scenes where Dorothy isn’t wearing the ruby slippers when she’s skipping down the yellow brick road. Sort of a big deal to miss something like that!
Now, I understand that these are going to vary from person to person, and that a lot of these things will not bother the average movie-goer. I also know that a film can’t be perfect, and there will always be something to complain about.
What do you think? Does Hollywood do anything else that really gets under your skin? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below! Sound off fellow movie lover!
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Love your list. I agree about the empty cup thing. So annoying. Also don’t like watching too many trailer because of the plot point thing as well.
If I had to add another pet peeve to add, it would be the driving scenes. Now I realize that characters have to sometimes look at each other but not to the point where an accident is likely to happen. Really? I am driving AND gazing in your eyes. Irritates me to no end.
YES! That’s a great one. And I also love how unnatural it is when actors try to “pretend” drive. They turn the wheel so hard that they’d for SURE drive right into another lane. GREAT addition.
I agree with pretty much every one of your pet peeves. And I have been known to say, “well now I don’t need to see the movie they pretty much told me the whole story in the trailer,” which is really sad because I love trailers, but sometimes it’s better to avoid them.
However, I have to disagree with you about the Harry Potter example. I don’t think the eye color difference was a big deal, because Daniel Radcliffe embodied Harry Potter so well, it would have been wrong to try and find someone else who had green eyes.
And I definitely don’t think that they should have made Daniel Radcliffe or any actor wear color contacts or try to fix it in post, why? Because, as they say, the eyes are the window to the soul and if you mess with them, it might affect what the actor is trying to express through their eyes and in the end affect their performance as a whole.
On the other hand, if a character is supposed to have different hair color, I think it would be ok to have the actor dye their hair that color to match it, unless it looks really terrible on them.
Other than that, I’m with you about the omissions from the books when turned into movies.
Anyway, that was a fun list 🙂
I totally agree that Daniel is PERFECT as Harry and I wouldn’t THINK to put another person in that role. You know how obsessed I am with HP… BUT the green eye thing is a BIG DEAL in the books… and while I know we’re talking about movies, it still seems sort of like a plot point to keep in.
BUT I do see what you’re saying about contacts or effects making the eyes dull… that is something that we see fairly often in movies.
Oh I know you don’t mean they should have picked someone else to play the part. I guess I just didn’t think the green eyes was such a big deal even in the books. But then again, I am not someone who cares about descriptions that much when I read. 🙂
Oh I know you don’t mean they should have picked someone else to play the part. I guess I just didn’t think the green eyes was such a big deal even in the books. But then again, I am not someone who cares about descriptions that much when I read. 🙂
Agree with all of these! The make-up one is my biggest pet peeve. I always HATE how everyone wakes up with perfect hair…it bugs me.
Another one I’d have to put on there, which I guess goes with adaptations – changing the book for no reason. Devil Wears Prada is a good example of this…that book was a movie in of itself. And then they go and COMPLETELY do things that don’t even happen in the book. Just irks me. But this is more a personal issue. 😉
FOR REAL. On both points. I was SO disappointed in The Devil Wears Prada and The Nanny Diaries. They took two FANTASTIC books and tweaked them to be something that wasn’t even really recognizable as the novel they were based on.
The makeup thing drives me INSANE, but I just recently found a good example of a filmmaker NOT doing this. I watched The Tenth Kingdom (the miniseries) and there’s a scene where the lead character is sleeping (she has REALLY short hair at this point) and when she wakes up, ALL of her hair is flattened on the side she was sleeping on. It was the most realistic thing I’ve seen in a LONG time – I half expected to find out that the actress HAD fallen asleep during filming!
Elevators that show what floor it is on in the lobby. How often do you see those?
Oh, good call. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those.
Only argument is Harry Potter. Radcliffe is allergic to contacts, so he couldn’t wear colored contacts, and do you know how hard, how long, it would take to Photoshop every second of the movie to give him perfect green eyes? I’m just happy he was such a brilliant Harry.