First off, welcome to the new blog format! I hope we’ll all
find it easier to post comments without the Evil Captcha Genie crossing his
arms and growling “you shall not pass” every time we misspelled “gxsmirch” or
“bloobing.”
Second, congrats to ANN M for being last week’s winner!
There’s an ARC of Summer at Mustang Ridge
headed your way this week! WOOT!
And now …
As those of you who follow me on social media may know, I
watched Hidalgo over the weekend, and
kvetched at the end when the hero released his mustang to return to the wild,
leaving the horse’s shoes on. While this could protect his feet from the rough
terrain in the short run, shoes that get torn off rather than taken off tend to
do major damage to the equine hoof. And a wild horse needs to have all four
feet working at all times, folks.
Of course, that wasn’t my only quibble. I rolled my eyes
over the wide range of noises Hidalgo made without ever moving his facial
muscles (hey, he’s a ventriloquist!), and how a nosebleed becomes a shooting offense.
It’s not just horse movies, either. Although I try to control it, I have
limited tolerance for bad science and police work, like when the characters in Bones mispronounce technical words, or any
of the TV techs go “aha!” and grab evidence without photographing or
documenting it first (but, hey, they’re wearing gloves, so it totally counts).
I know. Sigh. Artistic license. Suspension of disbelief,
etc., etc. But at the same time, I think that these little catches can allow us
viewers to interact more with our TV shows and movies. Heck, here at the Tree
Fort (so named because defensibility was high on Arizona’s house shopping
list), catching mistakes is practically a drinking game.
This is especially fun because we’re so different in the
things that send our BS meters into the red zone. He’s a numbers theory guy, so
I’ll only watch NUMB3RS reruns with
him when I’m feeling smart enough to follow what he’s saying when he catches an
error. He’s also a mountain biking wonk, so it was pretty fun to watch Premium Rush with him recently and have
him point out every time they switched up the bikes, or when there was no way
one bike would keep up with another.
I know we’ve all got our areas of expertise when it comes to
the entertainment BS meter, and I’d love to hear from you. What hits your radar
screen? Have any fun examples for us from movies or TV? Inquiring minds want to
know! And to celebrate our move to the new blogger software, one randomly
chosen poster will win a $10 gift certificate from Amazon or BN.com (your
choice). So have at it!
LOL! My husband and I like to pick apart Doctor Who episodes, though I'm not certain that really counts, since Doctor Who is, well, Doctor Who (and therefore has absolutely no adherence to rules or canon or even logic at times).
ReplyDeleteRomanceaholic- Hi, and yes, it totally counts! Sure, there's a different sort of logic (wink), but if it makes the viewer stop and go, "er, huh?" I think it matters.
ReplyDeleteTake sci fi, for example. I'm willing to accept that spaceships, ammo and explosions make noise in a vacuum, as it's a convention of on-screen science fiction. But when (Battlestar, I'm looking at you, though only the once) there's a hull breach and the rushing fog that's supposed to indicate the movement of air is pointed the wrong way (so it's jetting dramatically in toward the character, yanno), I call BS.
First of all, how do you know that word "Kvetched"? And you used it correctly, I think. umm.
ReplyDeleteCatching those innuendos is sometimes blatant. In the recent TV extravaganza,"The Bible," one of the rabbis had a Tefillin (modern name), little black box containing words from the Torah, on his forehead. And while the Lord commanded his people to wear His words between the eyes and on the arm, in Deuteronomy, they didn't have little black plastic boxes then. The actor only had it on for one scene, then removed it, it was a ridiculous mishap. I am sure, no one in the know, missed that one. It doesn't say in the bible how to wear the words, but most likely it was words on parchment rolled in cloth, then tied on the head and arm. Don't really know the right answer how it was written and then tied on. It is somewhat complicated. Maybe some Biblical scholar would know.
Love your blog Jesse. Thanks for destroying the captcha monster.
At one time I picked apart the legal shows, but have since stopped. I found I wasn't enjoying watching so now I try to look at these shows for their entertainment value. I loved the movie Hildago despite the little technical issues.
ReplyDeleteGail I- You know, I couldn't tell you where I picked up the dozen or so Yiddish words I use pretty regularly, but I do love them. They're so onomatopoetic (sp?), don't you think? And ooh, good catch on the Bible. Yeah, not so much with the plastic back then, huh? Thanks for giving the non-captcha-demonized blog a try!
ReplyDeleteGerri B- Good point. I shall practice my bad-science Zen the next time I watch CSI :)
ReplyDeleteI chew apart cooking shows, Im from Kentucky and when they fubar a catfish and bass makes me want to show them how to make rattlesnake stew with wild onions and dandelion salad lol point being man dont over cook the fish lol
ReplyDeletePam- I bow to you! I love watching those shows, but more like I watch Project Runway or Face Off, enjoying the sight of people doing stuff I can't do, which includes cooking anything that doesn't come with a detailed recipe (or, yanno, a box). And I would totally try rattlesnake stew :)
ReplyDeleteThere aren't a lot of shows on right now that capture my full attention enough to make my BS meter go off (usually I'm reading and only paying a scant bit of attention to the TV). However, yesterday we were watching an episode of Hawaii 5-0 (sadly no shirtless Steve) and Catherine, who never roller skated before, land on a derby team. Sorry folks. I've roller skated and ice skated, just because you can do one, doesn't mean you can do the other and not good enough to be on a team. Most of the time it's the little inconsistencies that I catch, "Wait, wasn't his tattoo on his left shoulder in the last scene?" With Sailor Boy you don't even want to watch any Navy movies/shows. His meter goes off constantly. And if we're watching a mystery, our daughter makes us promise not to give away the ending before it arrives as we both have a tendency to figure it out before the director discloses the bad guy. Hey, not my fault they don't know how to keep a secret. :0)
ReplyDeleteGail C- Yes, it's true. Shirtless Steve can distract me from most any mistake! And LOL on being forbidden to do the 'I totally know who did it!' when watching mysteries. I've learned to mostly squash that impulse, too, but it occasionally slips out.
ReplyDeleteMacGuyver's name for Hidalgo? Sandbiscuit. :)
ReplyDeleteWe're pretty merciless while watching detective shows together. We race to see who can name the murderer first. It's pretty easy, though, when you combine Fair Play with a large cast of regulars with a couple of guest stars. Sloppy evidence collection gets us pointing and hooting at the screen.
Still, I have to admit that I get very frustrated because we're expected to embrace a higher standard. ::whine/kvetch::
Hey look, there's even a 'reply' button! (go ahead and laugh at me, still figuring this stuff out)
DeleteLOL to Sandbiscuit, and YES to the getting frustrated thing. As writers, I do think we're held to a higher standard of getting it right (at least it sure feels like it some days). I like getting things right, granted, but if the TV peeps can call it artistic license ... ;-)
What tends to get me is when movies get military stuff wrong. I'm not a military guy, serving or otherwise, but I read enough to catch when the Hollywood writers have gotten something wrong. Do a little research people!
ReplyDeleteWord. While I'm not savvy on the modern stuff, I used to do Civil War reenactments, and we had a term for the inauthentic stuff: Farby. As in, 'far be it from correct'! [And may I say, you are now inextricably linked with the firefighter in Higgins's THE BEST MAN?]
DeleteLike the new site, Jesse!
ReplyDeleteI had to stop watching HOUSE because it drove me nuts to watch him walk with that darn cane on the wrong side. He was a doctor for God's sake! I also used to laugh at ER for all of the mispronunciation of medical terms. I actually notice more mistakes in TV and movies than in books, which is good, but it puts a lot of pressure on us writers to get it right and do our research.
Thanks, PJ! And thanks for pointing out that I wasn't doing myself any favors continuing to flog a user-unfriendly blog ;-) I don't have the computer chops for Wordpress, but so far I'm liking Blogger!
DeleteOooh, two very good examples there! Have Mike and Molly on in the background right now. Not much to complain about there, lol.
I do this a lot! I'm willing to forgive the stuff on Bones more because they otherwise do good things, although every time they say "scanning electron microscope" instead of "S.E.M." or /sem/, I lose my cool a bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm nearly the opposite of a horse person (scary!) but even I noted at the end of True Grit that he rode right by several horses which could have been brought along to change out, but instead rode one into the ground. (and massive costume continuity errors (recent version). Just dumb stuff all over it.
I actually can't watch the me Hawaii 5 O because of Teh Stoopids. Saw two episodes back to back with such big errors that I caught them - in things I'm not expert in. Yikes.
So I'm willing to suspend disbelief to a point if the story is good, but if the story is overwhelmed by errors, I bail.
The new Halle Barre (sp) flick was excellent until the last 15 minutes. It resolves opposite of how one expects because the characters make a series of TSTL decisions that are bad and unnecessary. (sorry for spoilers but I can't go back and insert text w/iPhone entry).
So yeah. Science, tech, navy SEAL stuff that even romance readers know, tends to interfere. But I still want to watch tech heavy shows so there you go.
CrankyOtter- Thanks for the great reply! (And may I say that I smile whenever I see your username, as 'Otter' is one of my nicknames for my hubby, and while infrequent, he has his Cranky moments.)
DeleteI was wondering about the Halle Berry (sp also?) ... yeah, I have a low tolerance for TSTL. No, no, don't go down into the scary dark basement by yourself. Wait for backup!!
Criminal Minds (I think?) recently had a character define EDTA as 'ethylene diamine tetraacetic' and leave off the 'acid'. It sounded to me like someone saying 'that's a really awesome.' Er. An awesome what? Can I buy a noun?
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