What took you out of the movie?

Question

Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so falsely, that it breaks your suspension of disbelief? Here are some things that have distracted me from the story:
1. The Naomi Watts character running barefoot through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."
2. The Natalie Portman character repeatedly calling the adolescentDarth Vader "Annie" in Star Wars. No wonder he turned to the dark side.
3. The Gwyneth Paltrow character running in high heels through thejungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "Sky Captain: World of Tomorrow."
4. In "Gladiator," when Russel Crowe's character sees his friendhanging from a noose, and he grabs his friend's legs in grief. It looks like he's pulling on the guy's lower body. If the man wasn't dying before, that pretty much snapped his neck.
5. "Star Trek: Generations. Kirk is dying from being pinned under thismetal thing, and Picard comes over and basically kneels on Kirk's chest. If he wasn't suffocating before ...
What are some of yours?
Lois

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... The Naomi Watts character running barefoot through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."[/nq]
Yeah, everything in King Kong was so real and convincing until she was running barefoot.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... comes over and basically kneels on Kirk's chest. If he wasn't suffocating before ... What are some of yours? Lois[/nq]
I could be mistaken, but I'm sure the protag character in Coppola's "One From the Heart" actually drove his car into the set when arrives at "Vaselino's" flat to recover his missus.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... The Naomi Watts character running barefoot through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."[/nq]
I know exactly what you mean, and I agree Lois, but you have to admit that it's funny how, in a scene where a girl is being chased by a giant gorilla in a jungle teeming with dinosaurs, it's the bare feet that shattered your suspension of disbelief. ;-)
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so falsely, that it breaks your suspension of disbelief? Here are some things that have distracted me from the story:[/nq]
"The Patriot"
"Mind if I sit down"
"Sure it's a free country... or it will be."
Cringe, cringe, cringe, cringe. Talk about immediately yanking your audience out of 1776 and putting them squarely into the present. Did Robert Rodat think that was clever?
and
Every time a phone rings with the wrong ring. (But I guess that's a telephone tech thing.)

Paulo Joe Jingy

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"Sure it's a free country... or it will be." Cringe, cringe, cringe, cringe. Talk about immediately yanking your audience out of 1776 and putting them squarely into the present. Did Robert Rodat think that was clever?[/nq]
This sounds precisely like what those brainstormin' groups of puncher-uppers would do to "gag up" a script.
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... The Naomi Watts character running barefoot through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."[/nq]
(snip)
[nq:1]What are some of yours? Lois[/nq]
I recently tried to watch "BloodRayne." At the beginning there is a scene set in a lower lower class inn in Europe a few hundred years ago. And everyone in it is scrubbed clean, with freshly washed, styled hair, wearing clean clothes, with no tans, and hands that look like they have seen more manicures than manual labor. The disconnect between the people and their setting popped me right out of the story.
Of course, about as much thought went into the rest of the production, so I didn't watch much more.
Tim C

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."[/nq]
It didn't bother me that she didn't have shoes. What really took me out of the movie was, that King Kong was wearing giant cross-trainer reeboks.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... of disbelief? Here are some things that have distracted me from the story: snip What are some of yours? Lois[/nq]
Each film has its own set of realities, different from the rules of the real world. I couldn't stand "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" because of it's lack of physical rules, even those of the fantastical reality. The way the characters seemed to convey a self-conscious awareness that they're play-acting also ruined it for me. I felt all alone in this until Jackie Chan expressed similar sentiments to my own. Lord of the Rings, Scanners, and Matrix, on the other hand, though all involve fantasy, came across as "real" to me (yes, even the absurd post-scan human residues of Scanners). They each conveyed sets of physical laws for their film-reality and remained consistent to them.

I usually manage to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy films or tv shows. I avoid watching shows with my business partner ex-cop, ex-army, ex-CIA (what he has to say about tough-talking draft-dodging rightard chickenhawks is an earful), since he has a knack for popping illusions for me, especially scenes involving guns, protocol, etc.

Usenet · Answer

A couple years back there was this Hong Kong action flick called SO CLOSE. About this sister pair of super duper cat burglars. (Or hired assassins. Either of those. Probably both.) They are, of course, smokin' hot babes. As is the female cop assigned to catch them. Yes, it's that kind of movie.
So the opening scene is the older sister on a quiet little job, in which she goes all John Woo on an entire division of armed security guards as she makes her getaway. But since she's the good guy, she only shoots them in the legs.
Did I mention ARMED security guards? As in, with guns?

And the movie seemed to think this was, like, totally cool.

I wonder if I was being nitpicky, since it was, after all, that kind of movie. And not like I'm ex-cop, ex-army, ex-CIA either.

I wonder if this thread reveals more about its posters than it does the movies they rant about...

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Have you ever been caught up in a movie until something so incongruous happens, or a note is hit so ... The Naomi Watts character running barefoot through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. in "King Kong."[/nq]
Heck, she was a professional dancer. She could probably drive nails with her feet.
[nq:1]2. The Natalie Portman character repeatedly calling the adolescent Darth Vader "Annie" in Star Wars. No wonder he turned to the dark side.[/nq]
In the first no, not the first the FOURTH the FOURTH Star Wars movie, a scene with all the really cute, racially mixed, incredibly healthy happy slave children. One of them smiles. She's got braces.

Apparently, not only do these slaves live in really nice houses (at the time, Annakin and his slave Mom were living in an apartment much nicer than the one I was sharing with my wife and two kids) but they have *dental plans.*
[nq:1]3. The Gwyneth Paltrow character running in high heels through the jungle over rocks, thorns, dino bones, etc. ... like he's pulling on the guy's lower body. If the man wasn't dying before, that pretty much snapped his neck.[/nq]
You know what took me out of that story? "Unleash ****," cute line, total ***. Roman legions didn't "unleash ****" they marched in incredibly orderly phalanxes while the other side did the "unleashing ****" only to find that their unleashed **** couldn't penetrate the well-trained, orderly, incredibly disciplined advance of the Roman phalanx and they got slaughtered.
That was why they conquered so much of the western world. Not because they "unleashed ****."
[nq:1]5. "Star Trek: Generations. Kirk is dying from being pinned under this metal thing, and Picard comes over and basically kneels on Kirk's chest. If he wasn't suffocating before ...[/nq]
This was a futuristic form of the Heimlich manuever.

NMS

What took you out of the movie?

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