List: Top 5 Movie Gripes

LindsayMarch 16, 2011

I feel like everyone has a few gripes about common things they see in films. I’m talking about the specific little nuggets of annoyance you tend to find from time to time in certain flicks. I polled some of the other FTS members to come up with a short list of those pet peeves. These are the Five Annoying Movie Gripes.

01. Enough with the sprawling cityscape.

FTS member Nick, who is currently being awesome & helping with construction in New Orleans, picked this for our list. He gets annoyed with films that employee the use of extended shots of cityscape to constantly remind the viewer “Hey! This takes place somewhere with BUILDINGS!” I suppose I this one never bothered me too much because they usually only stick out in mediocre movies anyway.

Notable Offenders:
This gripe can be said for tons of flicks so I just picked a few that I can remember from some recent movies. Opening to M. Shamamamlammma’s Devil. This is taken from the trailer, but the opening credits to the actual film is about 5 minutes of this same thing. It pretty much adds dick to the plot of the film.

These are taken from Cop Out, which seemed to be mirroring a little bit of the opening credits for the far superior Panic Room (see below). Anything Fincher does just seems to be copied until the value is lost (similar to the opening credits to Se7en).

02. Can I have a beer?

Ever notice how a character will just walk into a bar and order a beer? They never really specify what beer they want or what size, the audience is just supposed to go with it. Now, I’m not a big beer drinker myself, but I can tell you that if you walked into any bar here in the real world and said “gimme a beer” the server would look at you like you just asked “I’ll have an appetizer.” In the clip below from Good Will Hunting, at least Ben Affleck narrows it down for the bartender.

Notable Offenders:
Zack an Miri Make A Porno shows us a prime example at the beginning of this clip.

Much longer clip from “All The Real Girls” but the beer question pops up right around the 2:55 mark.

03. All the problems are solved in the last 5 minutes.

This one pretty much explains itself. You know the story: complicated plots, a string of character issues, or a seemingly impossible-to-solve problem all gets boiled down and figured out within the last few minutes of the film.

Notable Offenders: War of the Worlds

Click for Ending (spoilers)

04. MAKEUP

I’m sure all the ladies out there have noticed this gripe a few times. Whether she’s being chased by monsters, just woke up or, shit, maybe she’s just been swimming, that bitch will still have perfect make up. In the real world, my makeup will run if it rains or I rubbed my eyes at work, so when I see perfect make up in the movies, I just can’t help being annoyed.

Notable Offenders: Emma Stone in Zombieland

Seriously, you haven’t taken a shower in forever but your eyeliner is pitch perfect. This chick ain’t buying it.

05. EYEBROWS!

This one is similar to makeup but OMG! This one really really bothers me! I hate hate hate watching some sort of period piece where all the ladies just seem to have the most perfectly shaped, plucked/waxed eyebrows! You know they weren’t doing upkeep on them back then.

Notable Offenders: 10,000 BC
and The Book of Eli

So what movie pet peeves do you guys have?