jarring details
Do you ever have moments, while reading a book or watching a movie, when you just cringe because you sense that a scene, or even just an isolated detail, just shouldn't be there? That happens to me a lot.
Last night I watched Speed for the umpteenth time. It's a very nice entertaining movie --despite Keanu Reeves typical wooden performance-- but there's this one scene that always annoys me. When the bus "jumps" over the gap in the highway the front end rises way up in the air right as it takes off. Now that's what you see when a biological critter jumps because just before you jump you spring upwards so you'll go further. I don't see how a bus could do that. LOL Buses don't pop wheelies all on their own.
A scene in The Last King of Scotland struck me the same way. Near the beginning of the movie, the young Scottish doctor, due to unusual circumsances, finds himself treating Idi Amin. While the injury is small--just a sprained wrist--the nearby bellowing of a cow distracts the doctor. The cow is by the side of the road, hit by Idi Amin's truck, and presumably has a broken leg. The doctor demands that the cow shut up, then requests others to convince the cow to be quiet--then finally grabs a handgun and shoots the cow several times in the head himself.
I guess that all was to establish how brash and direct the doctor is--none of these things actually occured since the doctor's character was based on a man much older and ex-military, not medical background--but to me it just seemed silly. The demands direct and indirect that the cow be quiet when it was in agony come off as petulent and grabbing a gun in the presense of Idi Amin and his numerous bodyguards would have been suicide. The scene just seemed foolish to me.
What scenes have you seen that grate on your nerves?
Last night I watched Speed for the umpteenth time. It's a very nice entertaining movie --despite Keanu Reeves typical wooden performance-- but there's this one scene that always annoys me. When the bus "jumps" over the gap in the highway the front end rises way up in the air right as it takes off. Now that's what you see when a biological critter jumps because just before you jump you spring upwards so you'll go further. I don't see how a bus could do that. LOL Buses don't pop wheelies all on their own.A scene in The Last King of Scotland struck me the same way. Near the beginning of the movie, the young Scottish doctor, due to unusual circumsances, finds himself treating Idi Amin. While the injury is small--just a sprained wrist--the nearby bellowing of a cow distracts the doctor. The cow is by the side of the road, hit by Idi Amin's truck, and presumably has a broken leg. The doctor demands that the cow shut up, then requests others to convince the cow to be quiet--then finally grabs a handgun and shoots the cow several times in the head himself.
I guess that all was to establish how brash and direct the doctor is--none of these things actually occured since the doctor's character was based on a man much older and ex-military, not medical background--but to me it just seemed silly. The demands direct and indirect that the cow be quiet when it was in agony come off as petulent and grabbing a gun in the presense of Idi Amin and his numerous bodyguards would have been suicide. The scene just seemed foolish to me.
What scenes have you seen that grate on your nerves?
Comments
One such scene recently... Evan Almighty... Evan's wife thinks he's crazy and has decided to leave him if he doesn't drop his strange inexplicable behavior. He doesn't lift a finger to reach her. All he had to do was to take her into the bathroom and shave his self-regenerating beard and she'd know that whatever was happening wasn't a question of sanity. This would not have impacted further plot choices, as the wife could have still left him because she was freaked out. Her arc still would have played the same as well.
We notice things like this a lot.
Interesting post. :)
~S
Kristi, my girlfriend likes that movie but I can't figure out why. There's so many plot problems in it!
Rosemary, I'm lucky in that regard. There's not a lot of lab science movies out there so I don't often get my professional sensibilities offended. Medical folk and law enforcement must grit their teeth a lot during movies and tv.
Sassy, books are often as bad as movies--but that's another post!
Anyway - great post!!
Maybe this is why I almost never watch movies.