To get twitchily annoyed when someone playing a piano in a movie...

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

... isn't actually playing it? Not so bad if the camera angle doesn't show their hands but, if hands are on display, it is NOT OK to just flap them vaguely about over the keys and think no-one notices.

AIBU or was it a mistake to open the Baileys early..?

Evil - it was the idea that 'virtual reality' would be helpful to geneticists that was the funny bit. (they had a bit where the scientists were supposedly working to fill in gaps using it). People have experimented with it for looking at molecular data (which is 3 dimensional) but sequences are 2 dimensional - it really wouldn't be useful.

I think the reason for the 'weird interface' is because they were using SGIs for the computer graphics (they were the machine of choice for CGI back then, and also for scientific computer graphics) - and although we'd use command line for serious work, those UIs really did exist - the film-makers didn't dream them up.

on a far less 'specialist knowledge' theme, it drives me bonkers when tv/film set designers make a total mess of a set when it would be just as easy and no more expensive to do your research and get it right. I used to watch Sons of Anarchy until it got unbelievably crap and a few series ago they had a couple of terrible episodes that were meant to be set in Belfast. Now, I'm not an idiot, I know there is no need to fly the entire cast to the other side of the world when you can just stay in the USA and pretend to be in Belfast. But could they not at least have given the cars plausible looking number plates instead of what someone who has never been there thinks they might look like? It would only take five mins to google it...and don't start me on the accents

Oh yes. If DP was awake he would be shouting COMPUTERS DO NOT BLEEP at us all. Happy days.

OMG treacle I am a massive SOA fan, but feck me the Belfast season was bad, bad, baddity bad. That shop with all the shit from the 50's in it?

my dad knew all about cars. he would make mum wrrite to publishers to complain that photos were inaccurately dated as x car did not come out until one year later. this was pre-internet.

wilson I'm sure that shop had pigs trotters in it, or something like that, because y'know that's what people buy from the corner shop in the 21st century in Belfast I was half expecting them to have gas light, and outdoor toilets. It was cringemaking.

Dh also enjoys ranting about the wrong war equipment in films. I'm usually too zzzz to care. I get annoyed when women in bedroom scenes get up and and wrap the entire sheet around themselves. Does anyone actually do that?? And wouldn't the other person in the bed be annoyed at having all the bedding dragged off them?

just been watching Armstrong & Miller - he does play the piano properly, which I had noticed before, but I guess I appreciated it more after reading this thread.

so many just pretend and don't care to make music scenes (or others) look professional. so annoying.

I'm pretty sure the "Crane brothers" play themselves as well, it never looked - lot's of piano scenes in Fraiser and they always looked authentic.

Hugh Laurie can play as well, he's pretty good actually.

bananas

oh the sheet wrapping!
and what's with just having had sex but she is still wearing a bra.
wtaf?

who the hell puts their bra back on - unless you actually get dressed?
and what's with the boxers for men?

I'll try to find the "list of things we learnt from American movies"- like all numbers start with 555, or how in a fight between the hero and a gang the gang members patiently wait in line to be kicked to the ground one by one. so realistic!

Robert Pattinson really plays in the Twilight films, and he wrote, played and sang some of the music. In fact he wrote (and performed Bella's Theme).

He's an incredibly talented musician.

I was impressed with Ewan McGregor's singing in Moulin Rogue.
I think he was brilliant.

Annoys me too. I'm not that good at playing the piano or 'cello but I'm good enough to spot when someone's faking it...

There is a Royal School of Needlework! I never knew!

Huw Edwards (although his hands are largely out of shot and non-pianists could learn a thing or two from that!!! ) is playing in that trailer with Tom Jones.

Yes, I definitely got the impression he is too.

yep, his hands are doing the right thing

As a midwife tv births, particularly soap births drive me absolutely bonkers and my DH has banned me from watching Holby!

The law being wrong in police/legal dramas drives me bonkers. Particularly when police officers have random not-quite-interview/not-quite-statement-taking sessions with a suspect, while alone in a room, without a tape-player or a lawyer.

Or people talking gobbledegook in court.

A friend of mine was the legal consultant for a very popular legal drama. She was paid a fair bit of money for the privilege of telling them they'd got everything wrong, and having them nod and smile and do it their way anyway.

And I just saw the mention of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. The film with the least grasp of geography every.

Look! We have arrived at the white cliffs of Dover, and after a few hours walking we shall be standing on Hadrian's Wall, pointing vaguely to the south and claiming that we will be in Nottingham by nightfall.

Russell Crowe learned to play the violin for Master and Commander.

A particularly funny example was The Da Vinci Code, which in both the books and the film had many, many idiotic errors, such as Heathrow being next to Hyde Park.

I'm from Edinburgh and a crowd of us went to see Sunshine on Leith at the cinema. We all loved it but at the scene where she's walking (the wrong way) to the train station our entire row went 'Eh? Who goes to the station that way?' a bit loudly

But you know, it was shot in Edinburgh, about Edinburgh, Edinburgh people are going to know it's a crazy route.

DH loudly criticises every time someone breaks into a run in a film.

'You can see he's not a runner. Look. His action is all wrong. Look, they've had to cut to another scene because he was getting out of breath. He was probably coughing his guts up at the end of that.'

The exception was Jason Isaacs in a Case Histories series. There were lots of scenes where his character was running.

DH approved: 'Look! Look! At last they've cast someone who can actually run. He has a really good style. Very relaxed. Are you looking?'

Yes, I was watching closely. But not at Jason's running style

What drives me most mad is languages, especially Russian because no one speaks Russian, right? The Pierce Brosnan Bond films are the worst offenders; it's like he didn't even try with pronounciation, intonation etc. Or even worse they make up some kind of Slavic gobbledigook and it's not even a language.

Agree with the horsey people too, it's painful to watch cowboys and knights bouncing around like sacks of potatoes and hanging on by the reins!

Yy to the lack of headgear in game of thrones. Winter is coming... so put your fucking hood up then.

I always look for continuity mistakes as well, especially in sitcoms - you know the thing, mug in right hand, then cut the next actor, while the other is in the same shot but now the mug is in the left hand!
ninja skills!

holiday

oh the going into labour/giving birth scenes drive me nuts too.

I'm not a MW, but had quite a few children - and saw a friend giving birth too - to know what's credible.

Yes, why do their waters break with no warning, then straight into full contractions for two minutes before the baby appears? Surely someone on the writing, directing or acting team must have had a baby (or read something about it) and know that it doesn't happen like that?! Mind you, I can see that 48 hours complaining of vague pains leading up to a 12 hour labour would not be quite as dramatic ....