Pet Peeves

I don’t have many peeves, but I do have some. A few of them relate to Hollywood, so I thought I’d elaborate. Firstly, I’m annoyed that actors are paid so much. $20 million for a movie? Really? Couldn’t you just live with $5 million per movie and spend $15 million on wells so Africa can have clean water? But, since studios are willing to pay actors those fees, and since were willing to pay to see them, it’s pretty much just capitalism at work. I can’t really fault actors for trying to get theirs.

Secondly, I’m annoyed at critics who are more interested in good movies than fun movies. Inception – good but not fun. The Losers – fun but not good. Guess which one is preferred by critics, and which one is preferred by me. In their defense, critics see far more movies than I do (probably one a day or so) and they need the quality or they’d rapidly lose the will to live. It’s also possible that the critic position attracts the type of people who appreciate quality over special effects and banter. It’s not just any hack who can write about movies (as evidenced by this blog).

Mainly, though, I’m really annoyed at Hollywood inventions. These are the types of things that only show up in movies and TV, but never in real life. I don’t mind it in Science Fiction, because it’s supposed to be that. I don’t mind absurdly good martial arts or gun-play, because I’ll overlook a lot of flaws for good action. No, what really steams my clam is the type of thing like:

- Magic Phones. In movies and TV shows, phones have one of three settings. One, they will go directly to voicemail as soon as someone calls the number. Two, they will go to voicemail after one ring. Three, they will never go to voicemail, and the person phoning will urgently whisper “Come on, pick up the phone” as tragedy looms. Honestly, how many people actually set there phones up like this? Particularly ones that switch settings based on plot, not on whether the owner actually changes them. Almost all people have their phones set to go to voicemail after four or six rings. Dear Hollywood, please fix your phones. I’m afraid they’re going rogue, and may be the first step in Skynet taking over the world. You can see this in many episodes of Two and a Half Men.

- Visible Lasers. Lasers are only visible as a dot on the wall. They do not make a cool light beam across the room. Even if they did, they would need a surface to reflect light back to a sensor, so you can’t wave them around randomly. They also make lousy alarm systems. Motion sensors, sound sensors, vibration detectors, and thermal sensors work much better. Dear Hollywood, please stop putting visible lasers in movies and TV. Every time you do, I’m reminded how stupid you think we are. Stop insulting us! You can see this in episodes of Leverage.

- “Say that again” or “What did you say?” The main character will be trying to solve a mystery or puzzle. He or she will be completely bamboozled. They will have an unrelated conversation with another character. That character will say a word or phrase that’s also unrelated to the mystery, but will jar the lead into solving it. But the main character is incredibly dense, and needs to be jarred twice before he or she can solve the case. So they’ll inevitable ask “What did you say?” or “Say that again.” And so the side character will repeat what they just said, not five seconds ago, and suddenly a light bulb will appear above the main character's head, and he or she will solve the case (or possibly rush out of the room to solve the case, without explaining anything to anybody there, but I don’t mind that so much). As an example, say the victim was in a dark maze, but managed to get out. The lead character will wonder “How on earth did they possibly see in such a dark place? They don’t smoke, so they wouldn’t have had a lighter.” And they will be completely stumped until they talk to their friend, who would ask something like “Did you see the match last weekend?” referring to the latest soccer match between the woeful clubs they cheer for. But the word ‘match’ has jarred the lead character. Unfortunately, he’s to dumb to realise that the victim could use a match to see until his friend says it again. So he asks his friend to repeat what he just said (“Did – You – See – The – Match – Last – Weekend”) and suddenly he knows. It’s obvious after the first use what the clue is. Why do characters need it repeated? There’s only two times when you’d ask someone to repeat what they just said. One, if you couldn’t understand it, or two, if you couldn’t believe it. The first one would be used for a crummy phone connection, and the second could be used for something racist (and yes, I’ve run into both). You never, ever need it to solve a mystery. It’s my pet peeve phrase, and every time it’s used, I cringe. You can see it used in some episodes or Castle, and in the movie The Hangover.

- Computers. Hollywood, please get computers right. 90% of offices use Windows, not some proprietary software that renders everything in pretty graphics. Besides taking a long time to train, and not being able to use it anywhere else, it would be extremely possessor intensive. Also, when you log in, there is no screen saying “Password accepted.” It just lets you into the system. Thirdly, hacking is done mostly by typing (but not really fast gibberish. There is a spacebar. Use it) and not by using pretty pictures. Hackers was not depicting real hacking, and the expert you hired to give you realistic computer scenes was feeding you BS to see how much you’d buy (as it turns out, all of it). It would mostly be like typing in notepad or a command prompt (you know, C:\. C:\run. Run, :\ run!) and not a bunch of 3D images of breaking into buildings. You have it wrong. Wrong! WRONG!!!

So, what bugs you most about Hollywood?