Consequences

[Halamadan]

I am also surprised that the shaky camera shooting style did not make the list seeing how much Movie Bob often mentions it in his reviews as a bad idea.

One thing I would have included is the 'ultra real' fighting style that the Born Trilogy created. This combat style was then used in the latest Bond movies making them feel more like a Born movie only with the lead is in a tuxedo.

Also, I think the orang-teal thing may start to annoy me now. . .

 

[Nurb]

How often have you been to a (theoretically) scary movie, only to have every scare spoiled by an audience member who laughs just a little too soon and just a little too loud because they think they're supposed to?

This made me realise I haven't been going to movies at all lately because the theater experience is so horrible now and the teenage staff isn't paid enough to deal with assholes in the audience.

 

[algalon]

I remember demanding my ticket back when these 2 parents brought their 6 and 8 yr olds to see AvP Requiem. First thought, great parenting. Hard R action/horror where babies are actually eaten. Great family material. But the 8 yr old, one of those overweight loudmouths you read about, would laugh at every chestburster scene, of which there was quite a few. 15 minutes in I left the theater and went to the ticket counter. I kinda gave the impression that I might commit a violent act without actually saying it, which got me a ticket to the next showing. Better customer service than I would've expected but I haven't been to that theater since. Not when there's a wehrenberg the same distance in the opposite direction.

 

[Don Savik]

Oh and if you really want your eyes to bleed from the orange and teal contrast, just watch The Losers. Or just the trailer for The Losers. Heck, even the box art! If you can find one 30 second scene that doesn't use it, I'd be utterly surprised.

I got the dvd of that movie, so yea I can see what you're saying, but it was a pretty good action movie for what its worth. Yea it was kind of by-the-books but it wasn't a BAD movie. Too be honest though, I haven't even noticed the orange-teal thing until just know, so I wonder how much of a problem it really is if its so....(cant think of a word)....unnoticeable?

I hate 'horror-comedy'. The bottom line is people like seeing cool deaths (why Saw and Final Destination are popular) and the easy way to kill lots of people in cool ways is to make it a 'horror' but then they don't even try to give it any kind of mood at all, they just have tits and gore. Not many good horror movies as of late is what I'm saying.

 

[dthree]

I'm surprised the shaky cam didn't pop up on this list, too. The lightning-fast editing and "just like you're there!" cinematography in the Bourne trilogy leaves me nauseated already, but this has become a trend in so many action movies since. Bourne would otherwise be a top-tier action thriller, with just the right pacing, explosions, and exposition to keep things interesting, but the editing style it inspired makes me shake my fist in rage for all the people who actually want to see what's going on in all the action.

Or it's closest predecessor, the steady cam technology.

Created for Disney's The Three Musketeers for the sword fights, it's been in almost every movie since, and is often used for stuff that really isn't needed. (the 360 rotation around a still character or face to face dialogue which could be done with a fricken tripod are prime examples.)

Steadicam goes back way earlier than 1993. It was used in Return of the Jedi, The Shining, Halloween, Rocky.

And you can blame Raimi for shaky cam shots. and for ridiculous frenetic moving cameras shots once HE got steadicam.

 

[dthree]

Orange and Tealism is the biggest one for me. Its everywhere and its one of the things the studios seem to have control of. Post production is often done 'out of house' so it could crop up anywhere you get a lazy colour grader in any film. It kills the look of a movie and makes it feel sterile and fake, like the entire movie has been really obviously photoshopped. It kills the change of a location, everything from a forest to a building looks exactly the same. bleh.

I agree. Its another one of those things, that when done right right and in a subtle way, is very effective. I don't understand these cartoon colors I'm seeing sometimes. The whole point of pushing the shadows A LITTLE towards green/teal is to allow the NATURAL skintones to come forwarda A BIT, you don't ADD orange to the skintones. The amount of control color graders have over the image is wide and deep, but extrememly controllable. There's no excuse for such sloppy work. The worst part is that, as the Hot Tub Time Machine, Tron Legacy and Transformers examples in the linked article shows that this color palatte has escaped from the edit suite and has infected costumers and set decorators.

 

[KevinR1990]

Regarding the Bourne movies and shaky-cam, I've gotten several hints from watching Bob's reviews that he didn't particularly care for that series. For instance, his statement about Hanna being "proof that the Bourne movies would've been better if you'd replaced Matt Damon with a little girl." Therefore, I doubt he'd list it in a ranking of "good films with bad consequences".

Also, I don't know if I'd put all the blame on the Evil Dead movies for popularizing the idea of horror as comedy. Methinks that that trend came from the big slasher franchises of the '80s (Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street) slowly burning themselves out with each installment, and audiences getting sick of it all and starting to laugh at them instead of taking them seriously. Remember, the first Evil Dead was very bloody, and had some moments of levity (the scene with Ash, Linda and the necklace, for instance), but it was pretty much a straight horror film through the end, no more or less comedic than any other early-mid '80s horror movie. It was only with the second film, in 1987, where the series went totally crazy and Ash got a chainsaw hand, by which time films like Re-Animator had already been out for a couple of years.

And it's not like The Evil Dead started the trend. Carrie had a ton of humorous moments (Piper Laurie thought it was meant to be a comedy before she saw the finished product), and my dad thought that The Exorcist was one of the funniest movies he'd ever seen, though that was admittedly unintentional. And before that, you had Abbott and Costello spoofing the old Universal monster movies back in the '40s and '50s, and let's not forget Roman Polanski made The Fearless Vampire Killers in 1967. Bottom line, the idea of mixing horror and comedy goes back way before Sam Raimi.

 

[algalon]

Actually a butt monkey would have a higher sense for color grading. All they have to do is bend over a pool of water and look at their own ass.

 

[douf]

i myself am a video editor so i really get the teal/orange trend ive been fighting against it for as long as i can remember, i also remember when i watch survival style plus 5 i was taken with the beauty of the colors, there is a lot to be learned from that film.

 

[Stemer]

What about the inception foghorn.
(Link for anyone who doesn't know what it is: http://inception.davepedu.com/)
It may not have messed up actual movies, but it seems to be in every single trailer nowdays.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

What about the inception foghorn.
(Link for anyone who doesn't know what it is: http://inception.davepedu.com/)
It may not have messed up actual movies, but it seems to be in every single trailer nowdays.

Actually that's just one piece of music. You've probably just heard it many times before without knowing. It was composed by Zack Hemsey, a musical composer who makes music for trailers.

Most movie trailers actually use music sourced from external companies and they very rarely feature anything that is composed by the movie's actual soundtrack composer. As such, you'll probably hear the same piece used in many movie trailers. The Inception trailer theme, <link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cXLYxx1yBA>Mind Heist, seems to be a popular one at the moment.

For example, this track, Nara by E.S. Posthumus, was used in the trailers for at least 12 different and completely unrelated movies.

 

[Rabidkitten]

No mention of the Matrix and bullet time?

Blair witch and the shaky cam? (I'm not sure that was the first but the shaky cam's first movie deserves a special stake to be burned on)

 

[AlexanderPeregrine]

The usage of the same musical cues across hundreds of advertisements is one of the worst trends Hollywood could ever adapt. It cheapens the original film by association. Try watching Aliens or Requiem for a Dream without dozens of unrelated, dissonant images coming to mind.

 

[RJ Dalton]

This is why I hate movie trends. When it comes to stories, what works for one thing won't always work for another. Gritty realism (or what passes for it in Hollywood) worked great for Batman, but there's no way it possibly work for everything. Some things are just not suited for realism.
And some things are supposed to be fun.

 

[Caligulove]

I was definitely thinking something like the shaky-cam or even the "found footage" trope didn't make their appearance. Bob seems to always be down on these trends. At the same time, I guess its not like we don't know his opinion on that subject, so less reason to put it into the article? (best guess)

 

[Bassik]

The guy laughing at horror films in the theatre? I'm sorry, that was me. A lot of horror films are just crappy, and bad acting, bad directing and bad plot just work on my funny bone.

Cool shout-out to Reanimater, tho. That film rules.

 

[Pyrian]

I can push horror/comedy back to 1938 with Addams Family, but I'm pretty sure we can get it further. Was there ever a time when horror didn't have its parodies?

 

[eljawa]

I personally like the Orange and Teel color scheme if not overused. Transformers overuses it, but it makes sense aesthetically.

Obviously there are plenty of other (arguably) better options, but overall digital color correction is a very cool feature