Movie and TV show pet peeves/ridiculous plots

I know there are a ton of them out there. I'm wondering what bugs you when watching a movie or tv show? Plotwise, characterwise, etc. Are there shows/movies you watch and rag on the entire time because things are so preposterous? Let us know. Two examples to start with.

Why whenever someone in a TV/Movie is a bar with a drink they end up leaving without finishing the drink. Usually it is mostly full. I know when I pay for an overpriced drink at a bar I'll finish it up before leaving...or at least take one last long swig before leaving.

The TV show Revolution. I could leave it at that but I'll cite a specific example. Power is out for 15 years. Power comes back for a select few and those few use it to fly jets, helicopters, cars, etc. As far as I know those items required gasoline and/or jet fuel and I am pretty sure (I could be wrong) that fuel has a shelf life less than 15 years..so how are these things flying/moving?

Anything bugging you about movies/tv shows?

 

How in a movie when somebody has a cough it can't just be that they have a cough... bound to be fatal.

 

The obvious one...why does everyone split up to search a house when they suspect an armed person may be in the house? Backup is there for a reason. Instead...split up and one of the people gets captured or has to shoot the suspect...

 

One quick one off the top of my head -
I should note first that I have not endured this awful film since I watched it on the big screen in the theatre when it first premiered.
Near the end in Daredevil when Ben Affleck gets stabbed in the right shoulder. As I recall he pulls it out himself then proceeds to swing around on his wannabe spiderman rope and fighting the main bad guy like he was barely scratched or Wolverine.
The whole film ranks up there somewhere with the apocryphal Star Wars prequels on the awful scale but that one point absolutely killed any suspension of disbelief I could muster for it.

 

Nothing good ever happens in the bathroom.

If it's a comedy there's going to be an embarrassing fecal disaster but in any other genre, there's either a mutilated body or killer behind the curtain.

Also, if you dare to look away from the mirror you will die. It doesn't matter if you're washing your face or opening and closing the medicine cabinet. Do NOT go in there.

I blame Hitchcock.

I resent both the predictability and the fact that I get scared by it every time.

A similar trend that's developing is with movie car rides. I swear since Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, nobody gets into a car in a movie unless there's going to be a violent crash.

 

It annoys me how often people are knocked unconscious. I know it's my medical background and inability to properly suspend my disbelief, but the blow to the head as an easy way to non-lethally disable someone is way overused. With the frequency of concussions and the durations of unconsciousness, many characters should be having some serious brain damage.

 

Vincent Price made a comment once on this very point. It was something to the effect that he should have brain damage for all of the times his character was knocked out on the radio show The Saint during his time in the role.
An excellent show I highly recommend listening to, Vincent's voice is superb of course but the writing is fairly sharp as well. Not like Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons - which reminds me of something ontopic for this.

The ever popular dumb sidekick that is there to act as muscle and/or a comic foil.

 

Especially car rides where the camera angle is focused on the passenger as if the driver was looking at them. Then you see it coming suddenly in the background, or the passenger's face suddenly looks up in horror and bam...I agree.

 

I HATE when a movie/tv show sets up rules for it's specific universe and then proceeds to break them left right and centre.
I don't mind when something breaks the rules and all the characters are like "WTF?!?" tho, as it's clearly breaking rules and it shouldn't within the confines of the show.

 

Besides the over-used unlimited ammo in some guns problem, it irks me when people are trying to arm themselves or using weapons they already have to take out adversaries then they hardly ever use the downed bad guy's better weapons.
Also, when the "hero or heroine" hits the bad guy and knocks them down, they run away instead of trying to subdue them somehow, which invariably lets the bad guy get..right..back..up and cut off their escape.

 

Why is it always the blonde with big boobs who gets killed first?

 

I hate when in the car chase scene the cars pull up next to each other, they start ramming each other and neither vehicle moves. I have spun cars at 30 mph with an effort that would barely crinkle the quarter panel. You simply overlap your front with their rear by about three feet. Move over so the bodies are touching, then turn the wheel a few inches. Hold it, and they will spin. One guy was so good, you wouldn't even feel the contact, you would just start to spin. I wanted him to be my proctologist.

 

Not really a complaint here, more of an observation -
The teenage kids are in the woods at "Camp we are all dead" for the weekend. They have their PG-13 sexual contact, show some breasts or possibly shower scene, and very likely smoke some pot hidden in someone's luggage.
Of course kids start disappearing at night and the girls feel compelled to look for them - in clothes that could be called skimpy on a good day. But we all know that any given teenage girl will go looking for missing friends wearing the bare minimum to avoid an R rating or maybe less depending on the target audience.

 

And the fact they are unconscious for minutes or hours until they wake up, bound or in a lair. Thats called a coma.
--- merged: Jun 10, 2013 at 3:45 PM ---

And the fact they are unconscious for minutes or hours until they wake up, bound or in a lair. Thats called a coma.

Outrunning explosions. I hate that one. Or shooting someone and they go flying 8 feet back.

 

Trained military guards can't hit someone 20 feet away with a fully automatic assault rifle but a lead character who had no reason to ever fire a gun before takes one shot to kill a guard with a pistol from 40 feet away. Or when a helicopter shoots at someone running on the ground and you see line of bullets behind the person running...how are they not hit?

 

Those helicopters fire squibs courtesy of ACME, Inc.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the three examples that come to mind instantly. Smashing nice cars while not blowing up cars that are no loss (and yes I am bit subjective here)
0) The new mustang they destroy in Killers - they could have gone with a Chevy Camaro or something equally expendable but they just had to use a Mustang
1) The Woody that gets trashed in Loose Cannons - that one really irritated me
2) and even worse - when they trash the main car in Cobra. They should have messed up a better option like Stallone's face but instead target the true star of the film.

 

How about when the action star needs a hot ride and his greasy mechanic friend happens to have some super muscle car under a tarp.