Corrected entry: Unless the character is being portrayed as a bumbling oaf then their car is always spotlessly clean inside and out. No empty sweet wrappers, drinks cans, receipts, window streaks etc.
The_Iceman
18th Oct 2018
Common mistakes
21st Oct 2018
Common mistakes
Corrected entry: Despite being a lawyer, architect or whatever, the male character will have a garage filled with high end, spotlessly clean tools.
Correction: Several issues with this entry being a mistake: - first, how often do we actually see this? If this has happened in some shows, perhaps it would be better expressed as a mistake in those specific shows, instead of 'common'. - second, why a male character? Can't female characters have tools in a garage? - third, the writers may have given the character shiny tools for a reason: the character is wealthy but still handy; they feel they needed to buy the tools to project an image even if they don't use them; they like buying shiny toys (the character does the same with the kitchen or home cinema); somebody else in the family uses them; the character has a hobby or a long term DIY project, etc.
To me, it's a mistake because it almost always feels out of place for the character, their life, lifestyle etc.
Again, do you have an example?
A garage full of top of the range, specific, expensive and spotlessly clean tools? How many lawyers, office executives etc do you know who perform sophisticated diy projects on a regular basis to need a whole garage full of tools like that?
My brother is a CFO and he built a treehouse for his kids by himself. He has a garage full of nice tools which are kept clean. Clean tools are long lasting tools.
Can you give an example?
15th Feb 2017
Stir Crazy (1980)
Corrected entry: When they are on the chain gang, the ladle with water is a solid cup for the other prisoners but when they film Pryor drinking from it, the bottom is a sieve and the water runs out fast.
Correction: That was intentional. It's part of the stars getting the "treatment" for not playing along. The server switched the ladle when it was Richard Pryor's turn.
9th Dec 2016
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
The Hesitation Ramification - S7-E12
Corrected entry: When Sheldon comes to tell Leonard and Penny his perfect joke he is wearing a plain green T-shirt, but when Penny leaves and he begins to tell Leanord about it, his shirt now has a black symbol on it.
Correction: The symbol is there the entire time. It's just very difficult to see.
19th Oct 2016
The Big Bang Theory (2007)
Corrected entry: Bernadette says the thing she loves most about Howard is his chest hair to which the other girls say "he has a hairy chest?" and she replies "Nope, just one" but a few episodes later they are in bed and Howard has a full chest of hair.
Correction: She's just making a joke.
4th Dec 2013
Bruce Almighty (2003)
Corrected entry: When Bruce is checking the prayers on the computer, one of them reads "bra for my sports car."
Correction: A bra for a vehicle is the cover that protects the front of the car. This is a picture of a car bra: http://supercamerabagswall.blogspot.ca/2012/11/car-bra.html.
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Correction: How is this a mistake? Clean people do exist and it is not a mistake to want to film them. Cleanliness is a virtue, and the films might want to deliberately exploit the fact. Women with hourglass-shaped bodies? Now, that's a mistake.
FleetCommand
Every single person? I've never, in my life, been inside a spotlessly clean car.
The_Iceman
Bear in mind the vast majority of the time we aren't shown the entirety of the car. My car's pretty clean but has bits of leaves, etc. in the footwell because I never clean there - no movie ever shows the footwells! I don't throw random garbage around the inside either, it gets put in the side pockets, again, not somewhere that tends to be of great focus in movies.
Jon Sandys ★
Films are intended to bend reality. Wanting to have clean cars in the film is not automatically a mistake. It is at best a cliche or trope. Sometimes, it is advocacy.
FleetCommand