Plot hole: There is a pivotal moment when Duke poolside casually says; "remember that night when..." That is a mighty strange way for him to mention the very last time the two met, barely two weeks earlier. Miles was not even supposed to be in the country, but Duke, who later jumps straight to casual blackmail once he gets the Google alert about Andi, never mentions that to Miles before or since. Miles cut him off pretending he meant "Anderson Cooper", but for the rest of the movie he struggles and has no leverage on Miles to the point that he pimps his girlfriend out to him. Furthermore, he mentioned the "pancaking" to the other friends, but somehow never mentioned it was Miles. If he was not going to take advantage of that, then he had no reason at all to keep the secret, especially with the lot of them hanging out for an hour waiting at Andi's door. Anyone would have mentioned the fact already back then, or if they realised it was important, would have already started to use it.
Sammo
9th Jan 2023
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Suggested correction: When Duke says "remember that night," he doesn't know that Andi is dead. At this point, he thinks Miles went to Andi's house (just as they all did) and didn't go in. Miles has reason to cut him short, though. Attempted murder is also a crime.
I can't stress enough how absurd it is that he'd tell his friends and co-conspirators that he nearly had an accident without mentioning WHO with. They are banging at the door of Andi without a clue for ages, over a matter that has Miles at the center of everything. That's not how human interactions work. They all are outside her house, and he does not mention the identity of the person responsible for the accident? Again, one could only withhold information like this if there is a purpose.
Feel free to file this one under another mistake entry.
9th Jan 2023
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Stupidity: Of course, it's a movie with a heavy comedic tone and it's a rather cathartic scene, but still it's worth noting that Benoit Blanc had no way to know that making the whole HOUSE (full of glass shrapnel, too) explode wouldn't gravely injure or kill anyone. What a ruthless fellow.
Suggested correction: The scene at point 2:06:02 suggests the opposite. Blanc knew the house would explode violently, hoped everyone would get injured, and sat watching it while helping himself and Derol to a cigar. Bron was guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. The remainder were accessories to the crime, having already pledged to perjure themselves. Their sentence would be death if it were not for their destruction of evidence. So, all Blanc needed was a sense of justice, not ruthlessness.
Helen, the innocent sister of the original murder, is in the building too. I wouldn't want to say that he hoped *everyone* would get injured, just the bad guys but that's the point. It's simply a case of an absurd decision that puts to mortal risk everyone but has no negative consequences "because movie."
9th Jan 2023
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Plot hole: Benoit Blanc ruins on purpose the murder dinner party because, allegedly, someone is really trying to kill Miles, and he wants to warn him that it's not a game. But as we know later, Blanc is actually trying to investigate the murder of Andi Brand and he does not really think that Miles Bron is in danger. In fact he is positively convinced that everyone has motives to kill in order to protect Miles and all he wants to be on the island for is to gather clues and investigate. Cutting the game short does not serve his purpose at all, in fact it defeats it. Had he played along, both Helen and him would have had a perfect excuse to investigate. In fact it is a miracle that nobody went back to their rooms right away after that tense moment, instead of being busy with the opening investigation; you even see that they are groaning and complaining and want to leave. The movie explains away most of the other details but none about this.
Suggested correction: Blanc knew he couldn't hide Helen's identity for long. He said so at 1:15:15. His fear was justified when Duke discovered Helen's identity on the night of her arrival. In short, Blanc and Helen were on a clock.
Regardless of how little time they had left (Blanc estimated "another week", so the leak happens presumably earlier than he anticipated), ruining the dinner does not serve the purpose; gives "Andi" less time to search the rooms, which is what Blanc planned her to do.
If the game was allowed to proceed, Helen would have been forced to play along. Any behavior, other than playing along, would have been suspicious.
9th Jan 2023
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Stupidity: The Disruptors have been close friends for well over a decade, and one of the other guests is Duke's girlfriend who has been living with him for at the very least one year (she was at the previous meeting). Yet nobody seems to have the slightest suspicion or recollection about his pineapple allergy, so lethal that it kills him in a few seconds, even more amazing considering that the favourite drink of one of those drinking buddies of his (who is sitting on his lap in one of the flashbacks) is exactly what would kill him; the topic of contamination surely must have been touched upon. (01:00:00)
Suggested correction: The disruptors were never close friends. According to 1:19:50, they were Andi's "pack." Andi discovered their potential in 2010 because she was an entrepreneur. They were so unfaithful to Andi that they had no qualms perjuring themselves in the Brand v. Bron case. At 1:27:07, Whiskey describes the group's relationship as fake. She says the group's gatherings are "the worst." The only things each of the Disruptors ever cared for was Bron's "golden titties."
Is the correction just about the usage of the adjective "close" on my part? I mean, fair, but I don't see how that changes the absurdity of the fact that these people (the victim's girlfriend and his "pack", "friends", "group", etc.) who have been hanging out at the bar, shown drinking together and established knowing each other for years and years, somehow are oblivious to the violent allergy of this person - something Duke himself is not secretive about and that they know would kill him with just a drop. It's the typical unrealistic dumbing down/forgetfulness of whoever in a wuddunit is not the main character (hence a stupidity, never painted it as a plot hole).
I get it. You say it is stupid that a group of friends know each other so poorly. I'm saying they were never friends. They cared for their own benefits. Hence, they never sought to know each other, let alone care.
22nd Sep 2023
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Factual error: Poirot attends a Halloween party in Venice in 1947. Halloween was never publicly recognized as a holiday in Venice or Italy in general in the XX century, especially with the traditional pumpkin-centered iconography. One could argue that, for the most part, Poirot is attending a private party organized by an American soprano. But, besides how unlikely it would be for 1947 Catholic nuns to take part in such a pagan-themed event, there are scenes showing Halloween decorations in the streets of Venice far away from the party location, as if it were a public holiday and not a private gathering from an eccentric foreigner.
Suggested correction: Besides what Oliver says to Poirot in the beginning about Americans bringing over Halloween to Italy, it's not true. Halloween has a European and Christian origin. A day called All Hallow's Day on November 1st has been a national holiday in Italy since the 9th century. There have always been activities in Italy the evening prior to All Hallow's day. This includes games, themes of death, carved pumpkins (turnips before), and masks ("guising"), all of which are very old traditions done all over Europe.
Being Italian and having lived in Italy for the past decades, may not make me an authority over all things Italian, but I can assure you that Ognissanti (which is what you quote as being "All Hallow's Day," since we obviously haven't been borrowing English names for our festivities) has never been observed as a national holiday with anything remotely close to what is shown here, which is, like Ariadne Oliver says, plain and simple Halloween. Like I said in the entry, it'd be perfectly fine for Americans to celebrate it, but no pumpkin banners in the public streets and parades with people shouting "Happy Halloween!" with nuns in full garb, no less! Halloween has never been celebrated here with any mainstream fanfare until the very, very recent years.
2nd Aug 2023
Secret Invasion (2023)
Plot hole: The Skrull base is inside an abandoned nuclear power plant with enough radioactivity to force any human (like, say, Nick Fury) to constantly pop iodine pills to fight the symptoms of a poisoning that would kill them in less than half an hour. Despite that, Skrulls also detain prisoners, for years in some cases, in rudimentary shackles without any sort of shield or protection against the radiation.
Suggested correction: Iodine pills don't fight the symptoms of radiation poisoning; they prevent the body from absorbing radioactive iodine. It does not protect from exposure to radiation; it won't save you from it. Secondly, it's all an act by Gi'Ah posing as Fury anyway. Thirdly, they are in the reactor control room where Gravik says the radiation is higher. The prisoners are in a low radiation room, which could be extra shielded from radiation. It could also be that the prisoners are fed iodine to block radioactive iodine.
We can make up if we want that there's a special, super-secret anti-radiation serum and/or super-effective shielding, helping humans even during an exposure that lasts years (a decade in the case of Rhodey!), but there has to be something in the actual visuals that remotely hints at it. It's hard to headcanon that the dingy area of the plant where they are racked together, strapped to bed nets behind tarps, can be "low radiation", or that they are given anything to counter it. In particular, in the ending, the rescued people leisurely walk around the plant with zero radiation protection, even casually in the open yard where "Fury's" Geiger counter was going mad earlier. And the radiation was not something induced by the Skrulls that just ended when the baddie died. Not only is there no techno-babble justification (one could argue it's simply a pedantic detail not unlike the lack of hair growth or muscle atrophy), there's a direct flagrant contradiction in how the environment of the location - which is the only reason why they picked that site as a base - is deadly to humans only to a dramatic degree only when it's convenient.
19th Feb 2022
Scream (1996)
Revealing mistake: Sidney is teasing Billy, and as a sort-of-reward to him she flashes him before he goes. That's the idea, but in the view from behind you can actually see through the nightie the shoulderstrap of a bra. (00:16:55)
Suggested correction: Could she have had a bra that undoes at the front and quickly flashed him?
To actually answer the question; her hand is on full display, holding the nightie open. She'd still have to open the bra. You can technically argue that you can't see her other hand, which she could be simultaneously maneuver to pull down the cup of the bra and expose a nipple, since there's hardly any time to undo it fully and she'd have to fasten it back afterwards. Or that cupless bras exist. Truth is, she opens her casual, normal, comfy nightwear during the unexpected visit of her boyfriend, and the way the scene is shot leaves no room to interpretation.
This is a question, not a correction.
16th Nov 2022
Dark Glasses (2022)
Stupidity: The police inspector leaves her calling card, not written in Braille, to the blind protagonist, asking her to call her in the next hours if she finds something out. She knows she lives alone. The scene is played unironically.
Suggested correction: There are devices that blind people use to read print to them, so they don't have to rely on everything being in Braille.
I am sure, but they show the 'training' she receives from Asia Argento in the couple of previous days, the only device being a phone that accepts verbal commands, and at no point she is shown reading anything or being introduced to the possibility of doing so, they spend time on that. The calling card is then used for a plot twist later, but it makes no sense that the thoughtful cop would give to a blind person without even asking if she can use it or giving the slight non-verbal hint that it was a blunder or problem.
28th Sep 2019
X-Ray (1981)
Continuity mistake: When we see Susan and her friend David laughing, Harold's at the closed window. When Susan comes back into the room the window's open.
28th Sep 2019
X-Ray (1981)
Audio problem: When Susan's cutting the cake in the kitchen she drops the plates upon discovering David's body yet there's no sound of them breaking. (00:04:25)
18th Jun 2022
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
Two of One - S2-E6
Stupidity: Adam Soong's daughter is a grown woman who is well aware of her unique critical condition and the outside world, and is homebound because of her health condition that prevents her from being exposed to direct sunlight and pathogens. Apparently, with all the free time she has and awareness and investment in her father's researches who are all about her, she never ever looked at her father's computer (which has all the info about her story right there on the desktop) nor googled him before.
Suggested correction: I'm sorry, but what reason would she have to look at her father's computer or google him prior to becoming suspicious of him? Yes, the information about the experiments is laughably easy to find but that doesn't mean it's stupid that she hasn't stumbled upon it yet. She never looked because she trusted her father. She doesn't have a reason not to, she isn't privy to his shady actions like the audience. It doesn't seem unreasonable that someone who is so isolated from society might be naïve.
If she were a pure innocent soul isolated from society in an absolute sense, yes, but if you look at episode 4, she is aware that he is being audited, and she even jokes about the line he actually used "Humanity is at a crossroad" implying it's a bad line that he used before and that, besides being a huge red flag about the unethical experiments she is totally unaware of a couple episodes later, there is contention about what he is doing. If your dad were implied in some public auditing the outcome of which your very life depends on, I think you'd peek at the media coverage. Even worse for the computer, with the data easily accessible from the desktop, in video format - she's home all day and yet she never ever in a lifetime peeked what her dad was up to, which is, and she is aware of that much, finalized to save her life.
7th Jun 2022
Star Trek: Picard (2020)
Stupidity: From a remote location, Kore deletes her father's research data from his computer, defeating him. So Adam Soong in a few decades of work as a geneticist, apparently never once backed his work up or kept a hard copy of it. (00:20:05)
Suggested correction: The question is left unanswered. We simply do not know if he did. Or when was the last time he did a backup. If she did a system-wide purge. Or if she got to that too.
There's no question waiting for answers about it, is there? Quite the opposite, the scene is very straightforward and would be entirely pointless if he had a backup to salvage (which would be a terrible backup if it could be wiped out remotely), and his reaction does not imply anything of the sort - she knows that she is completely destroying his work with a handwave (work she didn't even know about until hours earlier) and she is right, because he's a defeated man that turns to a very different project entirely because of her action. It's simply an oversimplification/trivialization of how research (and computers in general) work in movies.
19th May 2004
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987)
Encounter at Farpoint (1) - S1-E1
Corrected entry: When the computer instructs Riker to turn right, he turns to the left.
Correction: While it is true that the computer said right rather than left, Riker turned around in the intersection facing the way he came, so the hatch was on his right. It seems thought the computer gave directions a beat before he turned, but the result is the same.
The result may be the same, but the original entry is (I should use another word maybe) right. As the correction itself says, the computer says the word "Right", and does it while Riker is walking down the corridor. There is no way it would predict that Riker then would stop after the instruction has been issued and face another direction, and at the point where he stops, the hatchway is not directly to his right, but rather behind him so he has to turn, walk a few steps, still to his left. Sure turning 270° right can produce the same result as turning 90° left, but I wouldn't say is correct.
20th May 2022
Treasure of Nadia
Character mistake: The first time that Diana mentions the mysterious civilization that produced the 'treasure', she mentions that "They survived in isolation until the 1500's." It's a plural, 1500s, no apostrophe.
Suggested correction: Both versions are acceptable depending what style guide someone chooses to follow. Anyone saying different is just stating an opinion (well, until all style guides decide to follow one rule). It's similar to plural letters, as in "mind your p's and q's."
16th Mar 2021
Ninja III: The Domination (1984)
Continuity mistake: In the sequence where Hanjuro crashes the helicopter, the pilot disappears and reappears at random. (00:09:15)
Suggested correction: Actually no; he's still there even in the camera angle the second screenshot is from; the knee of the policeman that is fighting Hanjuro covers his head, and then the seat makes it impossible to see him again. You may have to slo-mo to spot it, but he's visible at the beginning of the shot.
28th Aug 2009
Trancers (1985)
Corrected entry: Jack Deth is in the past and driving a vintage car. Although he is driving in a straight line as he talks to the girl, he is swinging the wheel wildly from side to side.
Correction: Vintage cars often had a lot of play in the suspension which causes a person to make frequent corrections to keep it in a straight line. I had a 1965 car, with manual steering, that had a lot of side to side movement to keep it in line. Higher speeds meant more movements to keep it straight. This was in a car with a good, aligned front end, in a poorly aligned car, the movement is even more exaggerated.
I think the correction was posted without watching the actual scene (s), because I'd say it is evident that he's not driving a real car and he's doing the old style "Look at me, I am totally driving this car" wheel turn that does not match to the slightest any car movement he'd have to correct.
1st Apr 2022
Ghostbusters (1984)
Character mistake: Meeting Dana at the Lincoln Center fountain, Venkman tells her that Gozer was a deity worshipped in 6,000 BC by Hittites, Mesopotamians and Sumerians. There are no historical accounts of those specific populations dating back to that ancient of a date, or writing of any form for that matter. (00:43:40)
Suggested correction: Venkman said Mesopotamians, not Babylonians. The Mesopotamian civilization existed in 6500 BC so his information would be accurate in that aspect.
You are absolutely right, I have misquoted the movie there and I just fixed it thanks to your correction. "Mesopotamians" is just a generic denomination, though, so saying that Gozer would be worshipped by the Hittites in 6000 BC, and then list a generic name for the inhabitants of the area and then the Sumerians (generally accepted as the first organized civilization of the area, still much after the proposed date) doesn't seem to be quite accurate.
A valid point of view from both of you, however, it's established that Dr. Venkman is the least knowledgeable in paranormal history so it's possible he listed the groups out of order. As is rightly pointed out, Mesopotamia was a generic listing, like saying Americans, so maybe if he said Mesopotamians first, then the other groups, the quote would make sense?
I completely agree that he's the least knowledgeable of the bunch by far and it is well-established and reinforced in the same scene since he needs Dana's help to read "Hittites." Read, because he's not quoting from memory; he's reading (presumably something Egon or Ray had to write down for him). As you say, "if" he said Mesopotamians first, maybe it would have made sense (but it's not what he says), and even then, using your example, saying "in 1000 BC, Manitou was worshipped by the Sioux, the Americans and the Apache" just sounds wrong. (I know that by 'Americans' we mean generally the US population and feel free to add 'native' to it, then again Hittites established their civilization when the Sumerians were wiped out already, and that's 4 millennia past the date - it is what happens making a word salad in a small sentence that has to register just superficially for the audience).
17th Feb 2004
Death on the Nile (1978)
Plot hole: According to the denouement sequence shown in the film, Linnet Ridgeway is shot asleep in her bed approximately three minutes after retreating from the lounge. Less than 2.5 minutes pass from the moment Linnet leaves the lounge to the moment when Doyle is left alone by the other guests. It takes another 30 to 45 seconds for him to pick up the pistol, rush into his cabin and kill his sleeping wife. How could Linnet have walked to her cabin, taken off her jewelry, changed into her night-dress, retired to bed, and fallen asleep in 180 seconds? (00:59:00)
Suggested correction: The sequence never showed when Linnet goes to sleep. We can't be sure how long it is between her leaving and Simon shooting. All we know is in the actual scene she leaves after having already taken a sleeping pill. This is "movie time", not real time. 3 mins can be 30 mins in movie time. The flashback sequence doesn't clarify anything based on her timeline.
This...is not at all what happens. This is the 1978 movie; Linnet is playing cards with the others up until a moment before cutting the game short not by her choice but because of Jackie's interference, so certainly took no pill in advance nor does she take one on screen, and the characters interact with no interruption from that point on leaving no room for an implied 'movie time' elapsing at a significantly slower rate than 'real' time.
28th Sep 2016
The Nice Guys (2016)
Corrected entry: Holland tells Janet to "Call 911". It is supposed to be 1977 and the first city in California to implement 911 service was San Diego in 1980.
Correction: The first city in California to implement the 9-1-1 system was Gustine, in March 1970, and by 1972, the 9-1-1 system was installed countywide. In 1972, Assembly Bill 515 was passed, mandating that 9-1-1 be implemented statewide. Although it took until 1985 to be statewide, 9-1-1 services were available in 1977.
First and foremost, I can't express enough admiration for the precision. That being said, you do say that it wasn't implemented statewide until 1985, and in fact a quick googling returns reputable sources such as a 1985 article from the LA Times that says that it was implemented in the city only in October 1984. Overall, isn't it fair to say then that in 1977 two Los Angels kids wouldn't just say "call 911" like we do today? I think the entry needs radical rewriting or flat-out reposting, but overall there is some merit.
31st Dec 2021
House of Gucci (2021)
Corrected entry: In the sex scene, when Adam Driver pins Lady Gaga to the wall, the map of Milano on the wall says "Mailand." Now there are parts of Italy where they speak German, but Milan is not part of it, so it's highly unlikely that they have a German map of the town (which wouldn't be produced in the German-speaking parts either). Since it's in her father's office, the map cannot be from Gucci's mother (who happened to be of German origin).
Correction: It's very common in Italian offices to have ancient maps (replicas) with medieval/ancient names. Instead of an error, that's actually a pretty accurate reproduction of an average office.
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