Just when I sighed of relief about the newspaper computers, Charlie walks 'back in' wearing a suit, and behold, ANOTHER batch of clunky CRT monitors that are NOT CONNECTED TO ANYTHING, and some bad extra even pretending to type, sitting next to a turned-off monitor without computer anywhere to be seen!
WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE COMPUTER STUFF for this movie??! They should be SO fired they are still burning!
It's not JUST the computers, though, or maybe I have lost the ability to just WATCH movies, because I have to keep pausing every few seconds due to nothing making any sense.
This newspaper editor relaxes by not only 'working', she's doing 'serious newspaper work' by reading magazines and what appears to be arranging clippings of newspapers. That's what editors do in their free time, right?
But it's not even just that.
She's doing this work ON HER BED, because women are always on a bed, when they're not in an office, right? (Doing something with PHYSICAL copies of a magazine she has stupidly surrounded herself with so she ABSOLUTELY can't have a comfortable position on that bed, is so unnecessary, considering she's a NEWSPAPER EDITOR and those magazines should be in the computer for easy editing).
She's using what appeasr to be scissors, glue, and whatever, ON A BED instead of doing this MUCH more comfortably sitting in front of a desk, and using some papers, magazines, newspapers instead of just USING A COMPUTER, like a real editor would (wait for it..)
What is this movie trying to constantly force-feed the viewers?!
I know it was 2001, but computers have been used for publishing and such for a long time before 2001, ..
..plus, this movie CHEATS.
She turns out to actually HAVE a computer after all, but it's OUT OF FRAME, behind a wall, so we can't see it.
It STILL begs the question, what the heck is she doing in that awkward, uncomfortable position on a BED with physical newspaper stuff, when she could do that much more comfortably sitting down in front of a proper desk?
Why is her computer a laptop anyway? I didn't check yet but I will bet 20 dollars that laptop is not connected to anything.
What a drinking game THAT would make - every time you see a laptop or a monitor not connected to anything, or a nonsensical computers setup, take a swig. You'll pass out before this movie reaches halfway mark.
P.S. Yep, I would've won the bet. Any time this movie shows a laptop, it's NEVER connected to a power source. EVERYONE IS WASTING THEIR PRECIOUS LAPTOP BATTERY LIFE THAT WAS PROBABLY ONE HOUR MAX. ANYWAY BACK THEN!
P.P.S. Geez, they can't even get the PHONE stuff right! Phones had been around, what, 130 years or so when this was made?
Charlie's character's friend calls his wife, then the WIFE hangs up, and HIS phone gives the 'dial tone' signal. THAT IS NOT HOW PHONES WORK!
Also, the way Charlie's character 'types' - there is no CURSOR, and the letters don't appear, as they would, if this was a real computer, they just 'fade in', and do it way too fast - plus, what softwqarew is that supposed to be anyway? He's using an iMac-style laptop, and yet we see Windows-style menu and buttons up there, plus the corners of the window are definitely not Apple's (Macintosh) stuff.
It's like someone wanted to make EVERYTHING AS WRONG AS POSSIBLE, and they succeeded.
Can't they just have pointed the camera towards the ACTUAL screen?
Also, that's definitely not the laptop's monitor frame in any case, in a previous scene, we see sun shining directly at it and making the edges really bright, but in the close-up, the edges are dim, and look like a completely different monitor.
Did anyone know ANYTHING about ANYTHING when they were making this movie? It shouldn't be THIS difficult to make these simple things realistic and believable, geez!
Does Charlie's character have speech recognition software? Why is there NO blue color on the monitor frames, as the iMac laptop is supposed to have?
Also, why is Charlie's character STILL just typing the answers, and not the questions? Being able to see the question (the reader's letter) is quite crucial part of the whole format. WHY doesn't he type the question, for example, while reading it?
The same mistakes continue - but the font size suddenly changes from 18 to 10! This is an ENORMOUS difference in font sizes, and yet, visually, nothing changes.
The formatting is also incredibly unprofesional - there are unnecessary spaces, the whole 'Ask Cindy' has the text way too low compared to the picture, there's an unnecessary box frame around it - who designed this, an underpaid temp's ugly cousin??
Why is '-HAIR LIP' written directly under the main text, but it's not formatted so it's not centered OR at the left or right side, and why is it in ALL CAPS?
Nothing, absolutely god damn NOTHING makes any sense about this movie, least the (supposed) computer scenes! There's no way a woman would adopt a pen name like 'Hair Lip' anyway, it should be in quotes, etc.
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avortac4 (3746)
3 years ago
Cindy's photo is also greyscale and really bad - so much is wasted on her shoulder and hair, when her face should be the focal point. She also has her back turned towards the stupidly small 'Ask Cindy'-logo, making it look like she wants to avoid actually answering any questions. She also has an ANGRY look - would you want to start writing questions to someone like that? I certainly wouldn't.
There are also no decorations or even tiny clip art to make it look more delightful or anything. It's as stock as can be, why is there no decoration whatsoever? I mean, it's not some professional doctor's column, it's some 'Cindy' that isn't even introduced as any professional whatsoever. Just 'Cindy'!
This is of course preposterous, but whatever.. I am beginning to get the sense that people that made this movie didn't really care about ANYTHING but getting money.
WHY do those characters FADE IN when he's supposedly typing?
Also, why do we NEVER heard the keyboard typing sound? He just speaks, and text 'fades in'. This is not how computers work (even today)!
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avortac4 (3746)
3 years ago
What the.. even at home, he doesn't have an external mouse connected to the imac laptop, AND HE STILL HAS NO POWER CABLE CONNECTED TO IT!
These must be MAGICAL laptops, NEVER needing to charge or to have a power cable connected!
In fact, ALL computers and most of the monitors in this movie are magical, cordless wonders that do not need power or connection anywhere to be perfectly usable!
Charlie can type with basically two fingers, hitting the same keys over and over, to produce this magical text that keeps fading in. At least they finally show the whole thing a bit further away, so my deleted guess about it being called 'iBook' would've been correct.
It's like someone decided cords and cables are ugly, so they can't been shown in the movie. The end result is that any monitor that's turned away from the camera, is completely or mostly cordless, and only those monitors that are turned towards camera, so the cords can be hidden behind it, can be shown to be ACTUALLY usable.
Someone should've been slapped about this kind of super 'tidiness' that destroys all realism here. Why can't they just be realistic and connect a laptop to a charger and outlet when it's used indoors? WHAT rule prevents this??
What is wrong with these people, how can they make this many mistakes in one movie?
When a movie is THIS stupid, it's easy to start evaluating EVERYTHING this movie is showing us.
Why is the computerless editor's coffee machine on the high shelf, right next to a painting? Coffee can be hot and wet, why would you put it RIGHT NEXT TO A PAINTING?
Also, why is it so high? It might work fine when getting the coffee (wouldn't this stuff be in the kitchen? I guess they were trying to show that this editor is a workaholic or something, so obviously she has a luxurious coffee machine in her office, or something, but it DOESN'T WORK, because it's not believable!), but think about MAKING it.
You would have to lift your arms ridiculously high to make the coffee, and where IS that coffee_ Wouldn't there be coffee grounds all over that unbelievably clean area?
Coffee stains? Something.
Also, isn't that whole table (or whatever it is) claustrophobic?
Wouldn't the MUCH LOWER AND BIGGER desk next to the piles of paper be much better for coffee purposes? Or, most realistically, why can't the coffee just be in THE KITCHEN, as it would realistically be?
Where does the editor get the WATER for the coffee, is there a faucet or somd kind of storage in her office as well? WHY have coffee maker anywhere else but the kitchen?
Lamps..
Why are there desk lamps everywhere? The editor's office lamp doesn't even make any sense, as it's right next to the 'window wall' - the light would just glare from the window or light the other room instead of properly bouncing off a wall in the editor's office, helping to light that particular corner.
The restaurant has a tiny desk lamp on the damn BAR. Why? To blind people that try to order drinks? So that drunk people can accidentally push it off the bar table?
Why are tables so skewed and weird in that restaurant? They are neither positioned efficiently nor look like they'd be comfortable to use.
So this is a restaurant-bar-something, and there are people sitting in old-fashioned couches reading newspapers? Is this a library, some kind of daytime club or a restaurant?
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avortac4 (3746)
3 years ago
Another stupidity I noticed, is that Charlie's character is typing DIRECTLY "into the layout".
That's not how ANYTHING works. You don't have a ready layout with the picture, logo, columns, and some stupid EMPTY BOXES (basically just frames) for the questions, and then just CRAM the questions into those, no matter how much space they actually take.
You don't start answering the questions before you have edited, formatted, and most importantly, typed them in first. Also, you don't really make the decisions as a writer as to how it's going to look in the paper, the final look, layout and editing is done by OTHER PEOPLE, and you have NO SAY in it.
So what we're shown is not how ANYTHING works. You send your answers to them as text, and even the letters are probably not even handled by you as a writer, you get the questions probably as already-formatted, shortened, edited, grammar-corrected, TEXT FILE versions, and you submit your answers as just pure text so the layout people and editors can edit your answers and then lay them out in any damn way THEY please, any way that they think fits nicely, and so on. They might even edit your wording a lot before sending anything to the printing presses.
Other people design the layout and where anything goes, the fonts, font sizes, paragraphs, and so on.
This movie is pure fiction and fantasy, ESPECIALLY about details on how anything works, especially computer, timezone-, or coffee-related.
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