Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by TA (A) on January 23, 2005 at 22:55:07

In Reply to: Movie Misstakes? Help! posted by Bambi B on January 22, 2005 at 15:26:41:

Roger Ebert collects a bunch of movie tibits like this. City streets are always wet when shot at night, even if the earlier scenes show that it was a sunny day. Wet streets at night look better on camera. Ransom money always fills the briefcase completely and neatly. These aren't unintentional mistakes, but artistic license that slip under our noses. I guess you'd probably draw more attention if that briefcase were half-full.

Remember the alec baldwin sketch on saturday night live where he plays a doctor on a soap opera? He mispronounces every other word ("i'm afraid to say ... you have canker").

Movies and TV take a lot of liberties. For example, my litigator friend who's done trial work tells me that criminal lawyers almost never put a defendant on the stand to testify, and when you cross-examine a witness, the one question a lawyer never asks is "Why?"

It usually backfires to put a defendant on the stand saying, "I'm not guilty," and for that you risk devestation in cross-examination by the other side and allow the other side to present certain evidence that they otherwise wouldn't be allowed to.

In cross-examination, a lawyer finely directs the questions to pin the person on the stand, not open give them an opportunity to defend themselves. You don't ask any question you don't know the answer to, and you ask directed questions where the only possible response is "yes" (and object that the witness is saying more than asked if they say anything more than that).

Now, just about every movie I've seen involving a trial (and every episode of Law and Order for that matter) puts the defendant on the stand and the the other side starts asking big, general questions. It's for drama - because the courtroom would be boring without a confrontation between both sides.

Or try watching a movie or TV show with a doctor telling you how they're flubbing ever procedure. Even now I can't help but notice mistakes on ER, like how they perform CRP wrong. Since they're doing it on live actors, you can't push straight down on the chest like you're supposed to, so the actors bend their elbows to give the appearance that they're pumping the chest.

I don't need a military friend to tell me that it's against regulations to smoke cigars in a submarine like they do in the movies. You can't even do that inside a bar in New York City or LA, nevermind an airtight vessel armed with nuclear weapons.

And the wild, crazy stuff they do in sex scenes in the movies ... sometimes they make me think that my real life is one heluva mistake! Someone tell me that's just in the movies!

Always makes me wonder what mistakes I'm missing when I watch movies.


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One of these days I gotta get myself organizized.