We don't hear tire squeals on dirt much any more but you still "hear" them occasionally in an older TV series.
Of course these are technical errors or continuity errors, mostly. And there are plenty of errors out there. But...
The other sort of stuff I'm asking about are cliches -- things that are done by characters (or stuff that happens in the plot) that ALWAYS happens, like clockwork. Not necessarily errors per se, but repeated plot sequences that happen every episode.
The other sort of stuff I'm asking about are cliches -- things that are done by characters (or stuff that happens in the plot) that ALWAYS happens, like clockwork. Not necessarily errors per se, but repeated plot sequences that happen every episode.
Female good guy (gal?) looking for a bad guy will ALWAYS have the gun knocked out of her hand, and then start losing a hand-to hand fight.
To make something simple is a thousand times more difficult than to make something complex.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
They "Best" I ever seen on a TV cop show was an Episode of Hunter where his female partner pulled out her Walther .380 and blew a bad guy clear off the roof 2 or 3 stories up shooting from the sidewalk below...... POP (Powerful Cop Pistol) :rotflmao::rotflmao:
OTOH, I liked the actors and the show well enough.
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
I've noticed the tiny bores, but I figured it was so autos would fire blanks. I always figured Spencers weren't used, especially in the older movies, because they weren't available. Nowadays, the replicas are.
Concealed carry is for protection, open carry is for attention.
Let's see detectives are always getting chewed out by the Captain/Police Chief. IA is always trying to pin something on them/investigating them. They hate all their new partners cause their old one got shot in LOD and it may or may not been their fault if they could have just been there and the BG they are after has connections to cops on the take..............................................
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
One thing I actually like about Criminal Minds is that the character of Dave Rossi (played by Joe Mantegna, host of "Gun Stories" on the Outdoor Channel) carries a 1911 in .45, without all of the superfluous clicking.
Knowledge is essential to living freely and fully; understanding gives knowledge purpose and strength; wisdom is combining the two and applying them appropriately in words and actions.
Let's see detectives are always getting chewed out by the Captain/Police Chief. IA is always trying to pin something on them/investigating them. They hate all their new partners cause their old one got shot in LOD and it may or may not been their fault if they could have just been there and the BG they are after has connections to cops on the take..............................................
Oh, man, that's just the start of it! And during my writing mystery book reviews for a web-zine, I am dished out tons and tons of cliches in print, too.
It does however encourage me to work to avoid such mistakes in my own books, and try to shake the bottle a bit before pouring the words out onto the page. I may not always succeed but at least I've got some bad examples to eschew.
Oh...and we can't forget...."The smell of cordite".....I've seen that line used in everything from westerns, to mysteries, to hunting stories...in spite of the fact that the stuff hasn't been used since WWII....
Sharps Model 1874 - "The rifle that made the west safe for Winchester"
Oh...and we can't forget...."The smell of cordite".....I've seen that line used in everything from westerns, to mysteries, to hunting stories...in spite of the fact that the stuff hasn't been used since WWII....
I had some old .303 British surplus ammo and pulled a bullet and strips of Cordite were inside.
It's only true if it's on this forum where opinions are facts and facts are opinions
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
I had some old .303 British surplus ammo and pulled a bullet and strips of Cordite were inside.
The operative portion of your sentence....I used to find cordite loaded .303 as well (so I know what it smells like)....but these authors are using to describe the smell of burnt gunpowder....
Sharps Model 1874 - "The rifle that made the west safe for Winchester"
Oh...and we can't forget...."The smell of cordite".....I've seen that line used in everything from westerns, to mysteries, to hunting stories...in spite of the fact that the stuff hasn't been used since WWII....
I've read lots of modern-era mystery books with the "smell of gunpowder" too. Plus a room or area obscured with gunsmoke! (er, mr. author, not for a hunnert years or so, pal)
Reviewed a book recently that was set in the late 40s, had a critical firearm used, a "Soviet Tokarev TT-33" described as a revolver. Nope.
My ex trier to write a romance novel and they all follow the same plot line so she wrote hers different but when she submitted it to the publisher they liked it but told her to rearrange it to the order of all the other ones. All of that kind of book have to have the same plot line. That's when she left and I don't know if she ever redid it.
I've got permission ("persimmon"?) to re-post reviews I've written for the mystery website I review books for, "OverMyDeadBody.com" so long as I attribute the review properly. Here's one review a wrote a couple years back you may find amusing. I certainly thought that the book I read was that... (I might have posted this review previously, but hey, it's all free, folks...)
Mystery novel “Cut and Run” by Matt Hilton, reviewed by Sam Waas and written for “Over My Dead Body” mystery magazine, attention Cherie Jung.
Reviewed by Sam Waas
Joe Hunter, the tough-guy protagonist in CUT AND RUN, is one of those heroes whom all men dream to emulate. Okay, young men. Okay, teenage boys. All right, would you believe tweener boys who still dread that Mom will find “that book” in his bottom desk drawer, boys who think that the tall girl in math class is cute but can’t quite muster up enough gumption to sit next to her. Boys whose parents always name them “Phillip” or “Jeffrey” or “Marcus” but never, ever, something keen like Joe Hunter. Okay, so the family name is DeVrees but still you gotta hope.
Grown men will also enjoy this latest thriller by Matt Hilton, women too, I suppose, readers who like their fiction hot and spicy, plenty of fightin’ and stabbin’ and chasin’ with not a lot of time for contemplation, certainly not much effort at verisimilitude. CUT AND RUN is what we fondly call a “ripping yarn,” perfectly within its genre, a quick, energetic read that succeeds nicely. It’s what my sister called an “airplane book,” one you grab at the newsstand before boarding, zip through, and leave in the seat pocket.
I shouldn’t disparage CUT AND RUN too much. I’m certain it will sell a zillion copies and please many readers who search out such action-hero novels. The story is quite reasonable for its genre. Joe Hunter (love that name), a former “wet ops” expert, is suspect in a series of vicious murders in his own Florida home area. We soon learn that an old enemy has contracted a vendetta upon him, employing an assassin who’s had surgery to resemble Joe and thus frame him while eliminating anyone about whom Joe has cared. The trouble that these criminal masterminds go to!
Joe targets the killer while the killer targets all of Joe’s friends, reserving Joe himself for the final course, naturally. The action takes us from Florida to Maine to Colombia and back to Florida. Many are killed.
I did find the novel helpful. I’ll list just a few of the Truths Learned While Reading CUT AND RUN:
—Joe’s instincts border on the supranormal, like Tarzan or maybe Elvis. Entering a room, he can detect minute currents of air caused by someone standing quietly nearby and sniff the odor of a nervous assassin hiding in the closet. I kid you not.
—Despite this, Joe, even while conscious of being tailed by cops while driving on the city streets, is still so unaware of his nemesis trailing him that the bad guy tracks him for miles, then amazingly knows where Joe’s headed (even though Joe picks his destination at random) and in about two minutes, sets up a sniper perch atop a large public arena after having parked in the underground lot and made his way up through the multi-story structure, past the people inside, all the while lugging a case with a large sniper rifle inside. And takes out a couple cops at a considerable distance, too, no zeroing shots needed. Joe’s enemies are not only cunning, but prescient.
—State police in Maine still carry revolvers and don’t wear ballistic vests, even when investigating an apparent felony. Perhaps they were celebrating retro month?
—Nine millimeter is the baddest and hottest handgun caliber available to covert ops, spies, cops, and baddies alike (excepting the retro cops with .38s). This works fine on TV where the entire universe uses 9mm Glocks, but hasn’t anyone heard of a .45, nearly twice the juice?
—Regardless of being somewhat underpowered, the 9mm still overpenetrates in a gunfight, whizzing right through people and out the other side like we used to see in Fearless Fosdick.
—Speaking of being shot, everyone, men, women, cops, spies, Starbucks customers, and covert ops pros all “scream” when hit. So many people were screaming that I thought they were filming a Wes Craven movie. Grab a thesaurus, fellas.
—Just like 9mm pistols, ceramic folding knives are the cat’s pajamas, the death-bringer of choice for any assassin worth his salt, evidently so radical a weapon that nobody suspects it. Yeah, right. I’ve got one somewhere, bought it as a novelty years ago.
—Joe Hunter and his buddy must enjoy swamps. They take a treacherous backwoods detour to a remote hospital, only to simply walk in the front door anyway. I’ve yet to figure out why the watery trek was needed, unless maybe a bath?
—Smoke from a big gunfight smells like a fireworks celebration. Well, no, Joe, it doesn’t. Modern smokeless powder smells nothing like black powder. And they call it smokeless for a reason. Maybe they celebrate retro month in Colombia, too?
—Lear Jets are now Leer Jets.
—The definition of “insure” has changed. Once it meant that you take out an insurance policy, but in Joe Hunter’s world, it’s replaced the word “ensure,” meaning that you make certain of something. Maybe they should ensure a good editor was available. Or insure against a haphazard one?
—The narrative does offer a few fun “huh?” sentences that rise up and grab you: “We headed out on Kennedy Boulevard, sitting silently.” or “My ears were pulsating.”
My brain was certainly pulsating after finishing the novel. Still, for those into this fast-action, damn the consequence type of potboiler, CUT AND RUN is an entertaining read.
The only problem I have with movies and tv is when I make a comment about " they didn't have lever guns back then" or " the French didn't use o-3s" etc etc the wife tells me to go to Hollywood and straighten them out!
JAY
THE DEFINITION OF GUN CONTROL IS HITTING THE TARGET WITH YOUR FIRST SHOT
The only problem I have with movies and tv is when I make a comment about " they didn't have lever guns back then" or " the French didn't use o-3s" etc etc the wife tells me to go to Hollywood and straighten them out!
JAY
There's a point at which endless trivial pursuit just becomes counterproductive. In the movie "Hurt Locker" someone complained that the troops are using a smartphone feature that didn't come into use for a couple years afterward. Or that a particular model of bomb disposal suit was shown in the movie and it also wasn't used till about 2 years after the movie was supposed to occur.
I know that this is an error per se, but it's nitpicking. Like a movie set in, say, 1985 where a 1987 car shows up in the background of a street scene.
It may come as a surprise to some folks, but they aren't filming a documentary. There are, you know, these people called "actors" who are being filmed reciting lines written by "screenwriters" and some of the stuff that kinda looks real is a movie prop instead, and so on.
Where I draw the line is if the error is an operating factor to the story line of the movie, a pivotal plot point, and then it needs to be accurate within the "universe" of the movie's plot.
Of course, movie errors are fun to spot but I'm more interested this time around in cliches instead. The difference:
A TV cop's Glock makes a funny clicking sound when he draws it, indicating a non-existent hammer being cocked or a non-existent safety being let off. That's an error.
vs
TV cops always carry Glock 9mm pistols and nothing else. That's a cliche. (no physical error was committed)
The thing about cliches that irritates me is that it's a cheap way out that sloppy or lazy writers use to make a plot point. Such cliches as, maybe, the town cop of a Western or Southern town being fat and stupid. Or ANY character who's overweight is automatically stupid or prejudiced or otherwise a bad guy, like a bully. As if bullies can't be slender and good looking.
That sort of stuff, especially in a book, drives me nuts! It's because as a writer I sweated blood to make my characters realistic and to not use stereotypes as shortcuts (Dan also avoided this carefully in his new novel) and to see it used repeatedly, arrghh!
Let's see detectives are always getting chewed out by the Captain/Police Chief.IA is always trying to pin something on them/investigating them. They hate all their new partners cause their old one got shot in LOD and it may or may not been their fault if they could have just been there and the BG they are after has connections to cops on the take..............................................
I know I spent lots of time getting chewed out even screamed at by various Agencies Chiefs of JTF, on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation, lost partners due to disciplinary action, they got re-assigned to other duties.
And you hate a new partner that does not know the deal in a particular venue and have to break them in.
And My friend Joey D had to get rid of his new Lexus because internal affairs of the NYCPD would not or refused to understand that his FIL had paid for said Lexus as a wedding present !!!!!!!
And yes, Serpico was a real police officer of the NYPD, a crusader that really suffered as a whistle blower, call a 10-13 as nobody comes ? No thanks.....
"There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you, the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say, you do not improve with age. Founding member of the G&A forum since 1996
I know that this is an error per se, but it's nitpicking. Like a movie set in, say, 1985 where a 1987 car shows up in the background of a street scene.
Frank Darabont mentioned this in his directors narrative of the film Shawshank redemption, the car he used was not period correct, not enough time to get another car after the owner of the correct car did not let them use it or some such thing.
"There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you, the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say, you do not improve with age. Founding member of the G&A forum since 1996
Also, I can almost always tell when they do not use real dinosaurs in a film !!!
Shamelessly misquoted Tracy quote ! :jester:
Later I figured that might have referenced the use of lizards in old films with stuff glued to them and trick photography to make them resemble some dinosaur like creature.
"There is some evil in all of us, Doctor, even you, the Valeyard is an amalgamation of the darker sides of your nature, somewhere between your twelfth and final incarnation, and I may say, you do not improve with age. Founding member of the G&A forum since 1996
Replies
:spittingcoffee: Good one!
― Douglas Adams
Tire squeals on dirt.
The v8 rumble coming out of stock cars of every make model and engine size.
Bad guys on motorcycles running pickups off the road.
Of course these are technical errors or continuity errors, mostly. And there are plenty of errors out there. But...
The other sort of stuff I'm asking about are cliches -- things that are done by characters (or stuff that happens in the plot) that ALWAYS happens, like clockwork. Not necessarily errors per se, but repeated plot sequences that happen every episode.
"This is the famous Colt Peacemaker" as "the expert" picks up an 1858 Remington
Recently there was a series on WWII that had all the American G.I.s armed with SMLEs...
Saw a recent show about the Spanish-American War which had a bunch of re-enactors armed with 1903 Springfields...
For educational purposes...(which they claim to be)...both channels suck....
Female good guy (gal?) looking for a bad guy will ALWAYS have the gun knocked out of her hand, and then start losing a hand-to hand fight.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
OTOH, I liked the actors and the show well enough.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
I've noticed the tiny bores, but I figured it was so autos would fire blanks. I always figured Spencers weren't used, especially in the older movies, because they weren't available. Nowadays, the replicas are.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
In ALL of the cop drama shows there is a scene at about 7 min left where all the main characters all come to the same conclusion on who/how.
-Mikhail Kalashnikov
Oh, man, that's just the start of it! And during my writing mystery book reviews for a web-zine, I am dished out tons and tons of cliches in print, too.
It does however encourage me to work to avoid such mistakes in my own books, and try to shake the bottle a bit before pouring the words out onto the page. I may not always succeed but at least I've got some bad examples to eschew.
I had some old .303 British surplus ammo and pulled a bullet and strips of Cordite were inside.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
The operative portion of your sentence....I used to find cordite loaded .303 as well (so I know what it smells like)....but these authors are using to describe the smell of burnt gunpowder....
I've read lots of modern-era mystery books with the "smell of gunpowder" too. Plus a room or area obscured with gunsmoke! (er, mr. author, not for a hunnert years or so, pal)
Reviewed a book recently that was set in the late 40s, had a critical firearm used, a "Soviet Tokarev TT-33" described as a revolver. Nope.
Mystery novel “Cut and Run” by Matt Hilton, reviewed by Sam Waas and written for “Over My Dead Body” mystery magazine, attention Cherie Jung.
Review is Copyright © 2012 Sam Waas and is provided to “Over My Dead Body” e-zine for the e-zine’s exclusive use, as the e-zine deems suitable.
CUT AND RUN
(a Joe Hunter novel)
by Matt Hilton
HarperCollins, 2011
ISBN 978-0-06-207994-7 (paperback, $9.99)
Reviewed by Sam Waas
Joe Hunter, the tough-guy protagonist in CUT AND RUN, is one of those heroes whom all men dream to emulate. Okay, young men. Okay, teenage boys. All right, would you believe tweener boys who still dread that Mom will find “that book” in his bottom desk drawer, boys who think that the tall girl in math class is cute but can’t quite muster up enough gumption to sit next to her. Boys whose parents always name them “Phillip” or “Jeffrey” or “Marcus” but never, ever, something keen like Joe Hunter. Okay, so the family name is DeVrees but still you gotta hope.
Grown men will also enjoy this latest thriller by Matt Hilton, women too, I suppose, readers who like their fiction hot and spicy, plenty of fightin’ and stabbin’ and chasin’ with not a lot of time for contemplation, certainly not much effort at verisimilitude. CUT AND RUN is what we fondly call a “ripping yarn,” perfectly within its genre, a quick, energetic read that succeeds nicely. It’s what my sister called an “airplane book,” one you grab at the newsstand before boarding, zip through, and leave in the seat pocket.
I shouldn’t disparage CUT AND RUN too much. I’m certain it will sell a zillion copies and please many readers who search out such action-hero novels. The story is quite reasonable for its genre. Joe Hunter (love that name), a former “wet ops” expert, is suspect in a series of vicious murders in his own Florida home area. We soon learn that an old enemy has contracted a vendetta upon him, employing an assassin who’s had surgery to resemble Joe and thus frame him while eliminating anyone about whom Joe has cared. The trouble that these criminal masterminds go to!
Joe targets the killer while the killer targets all of Joe’s friends, reserving Joe himself for the final course, naturally. The action takes us from Florida to Maine to Colombia and back to Florida. Many are killed.
I did find the novel helpful. I’ll list just a few of the Truths Learned While Reading CUT AND RUN:
—Joe’s instincts border on the supranormal, like Tarzan or maybe Elvis. Entering a room, he can detect minute currents of air caused by someone standing quietly nearby and sniff the odor of a nervous assassin hiding in the closet. I kid you not.
—Despite this, Joe, even while conscious of being tailed by cops while driving on the city streets, is still so unaware of his nemesis trailing him that the bad guy tracks him for miles, then amazingly knows where Joe’s headed (even though Joe picks his destination at random) and in about two minutes, sets up a sniper perch atop a large public arena after having parked in the underground lot and made his way up through the multi-story structure, past the people inside, all the while lugging a case with a large sniper rifle inside. And takes out a couple cops at a considerable distance, too, no zeroing shots needed. Joe’s enemies are not only cunning, but prescient.
—State police in Maine still carry revolvers and don’t wear ballistic vests, even when investigating an apparent felony. Perhaps they were celebrating retro month?
—Nine millimeter is the baddest and hottest handgun caliber available to covert ops, spies, cops, and baddies alike (excepting the retro cops with .38s). This works fine on TV where the entire universe uses 9mm Glocks, but hasn’t anyone heard of a .45, nearly twice the juice?
—Regardless of being somewhat underpowered, the 9mm still overpenetrates in a gunfight, whizzing right through people and out the other side like we used to see in Fearless Fosdick.
—Speaking of being shot, everyone, men, women, cops, spies, Starbucks customers, and covert ops pros all “scream” when hit. So many people were screaming that I thought they were filming a Wes Craven movie. Grab a thesaurus, fellas.
—Just like 9mm pistols, ceramic folding knives are the cat’s pajamas, the death-bringer of choice for any assassin worth his salt, evidently so radical a weapon that nobody suspects it. Yeah, right. I’ve got one somewhere, bought it as a novelty years ago.
—Joe Hunter and his buddy must enjoy swamps. They take a treacherous backwoods detour to a remote hospital, only to simply walk in the front door anyway. I’ve yet to figure out why the watery trek was needed, unless maybe a bath?
—Smoke from a big gunfight smells like a fireworks celebration. Well, no, Joe, it doesn’t. Modern smokeless powder smells nothing like black powder. And they call it smokeless for a reason. Maybe they celebrate retro month in Colombia, too?
—Lear Jets are now Leer Jets.
—The definition of “insure” has changed. Once it meant that you take out an insurance policy, but in Joe Hunter’s world, it’s replaced the word “ensure,” meaning that you make certain of something. Maybe they should ensure a good editor was available. Or insure against a haphazard one?
—The narrative does offer a few fun “huh?” sentences that rise up and grab you: “We headed out on Kennedy Boulevard, sitting silently.” or “My ears were pulsating.”
My brain was certainly pulsating after finishing the novel. Still, for those into this fast-action, damn the consequence type of potboiler, CUT AND RUN is an entertaining read.
― Douglas Adams
Wow. I've not seen that in maybe 30 years, probably longer. Any more recent "sightings"? (I love laughing about movie goofups)
JAY
There's a point at which endless trivial pursuit just becomes counterproductive. In the movie "Hurt Locker" someone complained that the troops are using a smartphone feature that didn't come into use for a couple years afterward. Or that a particular model of bomb disposal suit was shown in the movie and it also wasn't used till about 2 years after the movie was supposed to occur.
I know that this is an error per se, but it's nitpicking. Like a movie set in, say, 1985 where a 1987 car shows up in the background of a street scene.
It may come as a surprise to some folks, but they aren't filming a documentary. There are, you know, these people called "actors" who are being filmed reciting lines written by "screenwriters" and some of the stuff that kinda looks real is a movie prop instead, and so on.
Where I draw the line is if the error is an operating factor to the story line of the movie, a pivotal plot point, and then it needs to be accurate within the "universe" of the movie's plot.
Of course, movie errors are fun to spot but I'm more interested this time around in cliches instead. The difference:
A TV cop's Glock makes a funny clicking sound when he draws it, indicating a non-existent hammer being cocked or a non-existent safety being let off. That's an error.
vs
TV cops always carry Glock 9mm pistols and nothing else. That's a cliche. (no physical error was committed)
The thing about cliches that irritates me is that it's a cheap way out that sloppy or lazy writers use to make a plot point. Such cliches as, maybe, the town cop of a Western or Southern town being fat and stupid. Or ANY character who's overweight is automatically stupid or prejudiced or otherwise a bad guy, like a bully. As if bullies can't be slender and good looking.
That sort of stuff, especially in a book, drives me nuts! It's because as a writer I sweated blood to make my characters realistic and to not use stereotypes as shortcuts (Dan also avoided this carefully in his new novel) and to see it used repeatedly, arrghh!
I know I spent lots of time getting chewed out even screamed at by various Agencies Chiefs of JTF, on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation, lost partners due to disciplinary action, they got re-assigned to other duties.
And you hate a new partner that does not know the deal in a particular venue and have to break them in.
And My friend Joey D had to get rid of his new Lexus because internal affairs of the NYCPD would not or refused to understand that his FIL had paid for said Lexus as a wedding present !!!!!!!
And yes, Serpico was a real police officer of the NYPD, a crusader that really suffered as a whistle blower, call a 10-13 as nobody comes ? No thanks.....
I know that this is an error per se, but it's nitpicking. Like a movie set in, say, 1985 where a 1987 car shows up in the background of a street scene.
Frank Darabont mentioned this in his directors narrative of the film Shawshank redemption, the car he used was not period correct, not enough time to get another car after the owner of the correct car did not let them use it or some such thing.
Shamelessly misquoted Tracy quote ! :jester:
Later I figured that might have referenced the use of lizards in old films with stuff glued to them and trick photography to make them resemble some dinosaur like creature.
The only time my tv is on one of the channels between 2 and 13 is for a sporting event that ABC-CBS-NBC might be carrying. Regular TV is boring to me.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.