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Movie Distractions
I’m sitting here watching Elizabeth, The Golden Age while the snow falls and the dogs snooze. I can see why Cate Blanchett was nominated for her starring performance and why the film won awards for costume design and art direction. But, I’m totally put off by Mary Stuart’s thick Scottish brogue. Mary Queen of Scots was raised in France (her mother’s birthplace) and was a French queen at one time. She almost certainly spoke French and, if anything, had a French accent. It’s very distracting to someone even marginally familiar with the history.
James Delingpole and Toby Young discussed the odd and unlikely appearance of a Sikh soldier in the movie 1917 portrayal of WWI and the Western Front.
What do you find distracting in otherwise good movies?
Published in General
Oop! Mary just lost her head. Distraction over.
Whenever the story is forced to serve the writer’s urge to preach. I think it was D.H. Lawerence who likened it to when the butcher puts his thumb on the scale. It is just plain unfair, as well as dumb.
Binks. Ewoks. And all the slow scenes in “Heat”, which I watched again the other night.
Almost any movie that has a character with a southern accent. No actor can do a southern accent. New York accent? No problem. Boston? British? Perfect. Australian? Pretty good.
But southern? It’s always spectacularly bad.
I’m not sure why.
This Virginia boy seconds that observation. Val Kilmer in Tombstone.
I have to think about that. Was Forrest Gump bad? The title character had other reasons to speak as he did (mental deficits), but what about the other characters?
“What do you find distracting in otherwise good movies?”
An actress with obvious cosmetic work appearing on screen completely takes me out of the story. It’s like a strong reminder that she’s just playing a part, because the character herself likely would not have had cosmetic procedures.
See: Meg Ryan’s lips in “You’ve Got Mail,” plus a few others that aren’t coming readily to mind.
Also, modern-day makeup in movies set in the past. Completely distracting and shows poor attention to detail. After the first few seasons, Downton Abbey started doing this. Women of class back then would have worn very little, if any, makeup, not the “I just visited the Mac counter” amount and style seen on later seasons.
The Spanish are praying the Rosary in Spanish. They almost certainly would have prayed it in Latin. Oof.
As I recall wars were fought over prayers and the Bible in native languages……
I know!! And Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump! And he got an Oscar for that! NO. “Lahf is lahk a bawx uh chaw-klits”?? NO. Bad southern accents are what I came here to say, and I’m glad I’m not the only one. The only one I’ve ever seen do a good one is Meryl Streep, who does every accent well.
Any World War II movie (fortunately not so much anymore) where the actors can’t be bothered to get a haircut. You see the hair touching the ears and the back collar and you just know they’re cashing a check, authenticity be damned.
Rotten fight choreography.
For instance, “The Witcher.” I was told that the fights were based on the action in a video game. I watched a couple of videos of the game play. It had rotten fight choreography too. The last rule of chivalry — never turn your back on a foe — has two meanings. One, it implies cowardice. Two, you’re gonna get yourself killed! It might look cool, but it is a bad idea.
I’ve thought the same, like when a movie made in the 40s about the Civil War has the dark lipstick and Joan Crawford hair. But then I read somewhere that they do this on purpose, as a way to bring the audience more into the moment or something. They make a nod to the style of the day, but with a modern esthetic. I forget why, but they do it on purpose. Or maybe they can’t find an actress willing to look like that.
They always get the fashion industry WRONG. I mean can’t they make a phone call and ask someone?
Costume fails, whether it’s zippers, the wrong shape of undergarments, wrinkles, wrong time frame, etc.
Horsemanship fails. In animated movies, often it’s that horses act like dogs. “Tangled,” I’m looking at you, with your horse that sniffs the ground like a bloodhound. In live-action, it’s when characters that are supposed to be consummate riders are played by actors clueless about horses.
Day for night shots. No, you can’t just put a dark filter over scenes filmed on a bright sunny day to look like it’s night. Moonlight has a totally different color scheme. At least film them on a cloudy day so it’s not quite so obvious.
Rubber characters. Using CGI and stunt work to have characters survive long falls does not make them look impressive. It lets me know that physics no longer applies and that characters will only be in danger as the plot allows. *Glares at The Hobbit movies*
Really, I could do a post on all the stupidity in the Hobbit, but one more: when heat cannot travel through convection or conduction. Boating on a river of molten gold on a metal wheelbarrow or hiding from a dragon’s fireblast behind a 3′ wide stone pillar is just so bloody stupid.
There are too many. Off the top of my head: badly recreated eyebrows, bad makeup, odd hairstyles, like Norma Shearer’s in The Women, or those double bun things worn on either side of women’s crowns, a mild fashion a couple decades ago. Why do they bug me so? A period piece, woman wearing thick, long skirt, blouse, and jacket, traveling, carrying a suitcase that wouldn’t hold what she’s wearing much less anything else. This well-bred, well-dressed woman travels with only the clothes on her back? More modern movies where the characters are in their own homes, mind you, and when the phone rings or the door bell rings, they have to turn their heads to look at the phone or the door before they appear to determine what action that ring or knock means for them to take. I have never had to look at my phone, especially a land line, nor the door which NEVER moves to get up and answer either. Mobile phone, it keeps ringing so I get up first, head toward the sound and then locate it. I can’t remember ever seeing a movie where that head turn didn’t happen. Why does the director never correct that? Maybe I’m an outlier.
Westy,
I enjoyed Elizabeth: The Golden Age very much. I found it creative and dramatic. It got this piece of History across to a new generation. I can forgive a few manipulations of the truth as artists are not professional historians and can’t maintain such standards (I don’t forgive professional historians who don’t maintain standards for the sake of the narrative, needless to say).
However, one thing stuck in my craw with Elizabeth: The Golden Age. By putting Elizabeth in full armor on a horse and having her horse stumble around unattended was an incredibly bad woketard choice. Blanchet not only didn’t look comfortable on the horse but she looked like she might fall off at any moment. It would be hard to imagine men going into battle being inspired by this rather weird sight. The need to make a woman into a man is a woketard conceit that ruined my pure enjoyment of this movie. Once again woke dogma kills the pleasure and the real humanity of art.
Here, in a 1937 version, Elizabeth is allowed to be a little vulnerable and conscious that she is a woman and not a man. Yet, she expresses a pure English lion-like resolve, as a woman, that I think would be far more effective in the very real situation.
Regards,
Jim
This is not a Tiger tank.
Armor fails.
I get that this movie was supposed to be set at the point when the Romans has all but abandoned Britain, but these birds look like they looted the dumpster behind a Visigoth army surplus store. Hey you on the right! You wanna get a pair of greaves or something? If you don’t, somebody is going to cut those pins out from underneath you.
It varies, but there are a lot of howlers out there.
Westy,
This is my favorite clip from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. She is obviously attracted to Raleigh and Blanchet plays it perfectly. She remains the Queen at all times but telegraphs her desire anyway. She can share his excitement for exploring new worlds. Of course, we aren’t sure if she is thinking of exploring Raleigh or America. As I said before Blanchet plays this perfectly.
Regards,
Jim
I was going to say something relatively smart ass and then I saw the handle “Nice Grizzly” and that you know how to use a needle and thought better of it.
Isn’t Matthew McCoughnahay ACTUALLY southern?
Computer-generated music and sound effects. Can’t stand’em.
Costuming that mixes the 1950s with the early 1960s. I’ve seen them put bobby sox and poodle skirts in 1962 when they were over with by 1957 or 58 at the latest, and they mix the hairstyles up too.
Norm,
I did a post on The Hollow Crown. Henry V is the most patriotic play Shakespeare wrote. My point was that if you didn’t want to do this kind of play then don’t. Why mutilate a great work of art because you ideologically don’t approve of its theme. This is the Great? Performances? version.
Like a limp dishrag.
Here is Kenny Branagh’s version.
Like the blast of a cannon. This is what Shakespeare intended. If you don’t like the theme don’t try to do Henry V. Shakespeare wrote lots of other plays. Do one that requires less testosterone. Given the Great Performances performance, the play you choose must require a great deal less testosterone.
Regards,
Jim
Well, this was the BBC and there were evident budget constraints to make them into a series, leaving aside the artistic compromises. The best part of the series was the historical documentary Jeremy Irons did on the plays themselves. The performances have fine moments as most of the principal players have extensive stage experience with the plays, but they would have been better as individual productions with the budget and gravitas that go with them.
Norm,
Everything you say is undoubtedly true. However, to have delivered the St. Crispins Day Speech in this nauseating manner is something like an artistic crime. No, more like an artistic felony. To do this isn’t just bad it’s sickening.
Regards,
Jim
I always refer to it as the “Saint Lupens Day Speech” in casual conversation. And John Cleese did it better.