Venti Verisimilitude

May 10, 2016 6:29 AM

Myles McNutt is on a mission: Bringing greater attention to unrealistic acting with coffee cups on television.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (104 comments total)

Heh. And, here I thought I was the only one regularly peeved by obviously empty "full" cups. Details, details.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:33 AM on May 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

I point this out all the time, to my wife's unending delight. No wait, I mean the other thing. Eye rolls and sighs.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:37 AM on May 10, 2016 [49 favorites]

You’d think they would at least fill those covered paper cups with something of equivalent weight so that the actors have something to actually respond to.

I can completely understand not leaving them full of coffee though - one spilt coffee equals instant scheduling nightmare as you’ve just wrecked a set of clothes, got coffee all over the props etc etc. On a cheap, conveyer-belt production system for a serial TV program that would be an enormous pain.
posted by pharm at 6:38 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Count me as another person curious as to why someone in Hollywood is not selling solid silicone cup-shaped inserts for weight. I mean, a set would only have to have, what, 5 or 6 of them that could be reused over and over again? Is this my million dollar idea? (Ha ha just kidding, clearly nobody who is in charge cares about the cup acting.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:42 AM on May 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

I find starbucks to be pretty unrealistic in reality.
posted by adept256 at 6:44 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Myles McNutt is an assistant professor of communication at Old Dominion University

One of the very few things more irritating than someone who won't shut up about their pet peeve is an academic who won't shut up about their pet peeve.
posted by dersins at 6:46 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Came for Barry Burbank; was disappointed.
posted by Mayor West at 6:48 AM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

About halfway through I started trying to develop, in my head, a prop coffee cup that would provide not only the required heft, but also the sloshing motion of a liquid in a container being waved about because handling coffee is not just about holding something with weight but also trying not to spill it - sure movement through space matters but so does orientation- and then it got to the part about the Interlocking Adjustable Coffee Cup and maybe i'm wound a little tight these days after all.

gyroscopes
posted by logicpunk at 6:48 AM on May 10, 2016 [23 favorites]

I have never noticed this phenomenon before, but now I think I'm never not going to see it again. Thanks, friend.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:53 AM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Due to shoddy editing (or greater conspiracy), this background character in Sex in the City 2 slams a lot of coffee in four seconds. This became very amusing for the two comics behind the Worst Idea of All Time podcast, who watched Sex and the City 2 every week for a year.
posted by little onion at 6:53 AM on May 10, 2016 [14 favorites]

About halfway through I started trying to develop, in my head, a prop coffee cup that would provide not only the required heft, but also the sloshing motion of a liquid in a container being waved about because handling coffee is not just about holding something with weight but also trying not to spill it - sure movement through space matters but so does orientation- and then it got to the part about the Interlocking Adjustable Coffee Cup and maybe i'm wound a little tight these days after all.

Just make a lid that doesn't have a hole in it.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:54 AM on May 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Or you could just put water in it...


As for the OP's bugbear, NCIS is terrible for this, although I do recall one episode where they lampshaded it when two characters (I think McGee and DeNozzo) have a discussion about "fake drinking" from their (empty? full?) cups while on stakeout.
posted by Nice Guy Mike at 6:56 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Or you could just put water in it...

You'd still have the potential for accidental spillage. Some sort of sealed system is probably called for. Ideally, something that allowed the prop people to fill the cup with actual hot fluid to allow for that "goddamn sleeves don't insulate the heat" effect.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:59 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was prepared to be annoyed by the pedantry, but the shot from Supergirl reminded me of how terrible the carrying of Cat's coffee by Kara looks in that. They could probably do better with no cup at all and just teaching her good mime.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:04 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I propose the use of a small rubber hot water bottle.
posted by brennen at 7:08 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

They could probably do better with no cup at all and just teaching her good mime.

I am reminded of this scene from Modern Family, where Phil and Gloria have landed roles as extras in a TV commercial and manage to wreck the shoot with their over-performing and Gloria actually mimes drinking a cup of coffee.
posted by briank at 7:11 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I have never noticed this phenomenon before, but now I think I'm never not going to see it again.

I'm proposing an inverse phenomenon: the idea that the cup is empty and exhibits unnatural mechanics is now so firmly embedded in your brain, you are rejecting perfectly plausible cup acting just because you can't see if the cup is full or not.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:16 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

As he points out in the video: there are DOZENS of people bothered by this, and goddammit now I'm also one of them. Thanks, Alonzo, the hole in my heart that can only be filled by shaking my fist at something insignificant just got a little less empty today. I'm going to make that hashtag trend as hard as it is for those actors to pretend there's liquid in those cups.


Just make a lid that doesn't have a hole in it.

Fun fact: most of those prevalent coffee lids designs are for foamy drinks where the liquid isn't all the way at the top. Drip coffee (which I usually get) seeps out of the edge of the cup under the lids very easily, especially at the border of where the cup's body joins to form the circle. That little ridge provide just enough space for coffee to leak all the time. If you don't believe me you can ask my car, my hands, and multiple items of clothing. Sure, I could ask them not to fill it all the way to the top, but then I don't feel like I'm getting my $3 worth.
posted by numaner at 7:28 AM on May 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

Thanks, Alonzo, the hole in my heart that can only be filled by shaking my fist at something insignificant just got a little less empty today.

SHAKE HARDER, BOY!
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:36 AM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

"While I traced my first mention of this particular objection on Twitter back to 2012, it emerged most significantly in 2014, when a quick succession of examples led to my decision to start tagging them with #EmptyCupAwards. The following eighteen months or so have turned the #EmptyCupAwards into something of a performance art piece, as I’ve used Instagram to document examples of bad cup acting on television."

Gore Vidal famously scoffed at the "scholar-squirrel"—"How does a scholar differ from a scholar-squirrel? The squirrel is a careerist who mindlessly gathers little facts for professional reasons. I don’t in the least mind this sort of welfare for the “educated” middle class. They must live, too." His corpse must be spinning in its grave at the instance of an academic who counts empty cups.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:37 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Last Week Tonight did this this week during the skit at the end about bad popular science. The "scientist" reveals that he was holding a cup of coffee behind his back the whole time and take a big gulp. I dare you to try that in reality. They get a free pass because John drank an entire Bud Light Lime in one go on camera, and it wasn't a prop. That's really committing to the bit.
posted by adept256 at 7:37 AM on May 10, 2016

My related pet peeve is that the kinematics are completely wrong whenever someone on screen picks up something heavy like a wrench, bat, hammer, pry bar, tire iron, etc. that they intend to use as a weapon. They are clearly flinging it around like it's the latex prop that it is. Sometimes they aren't even swinging it violently, but you can just tell from the way it moves in their hand that it's got nowhere near the heft it's supposed to have.

(Also, the call sheet shown in the video was for Flower Girl, apparently a 2009 Hallmark tv movie. In case you were curious, like I was.)
posted by Rhomboid at 7:38 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

The most infuriating thing on television is definitely its failure to address systemic issues with representation, but SEO gonna SEO.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:38 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

drank an entire Bud Light Lime in one go

This was the pre-game routine for a beach volleyball team I played on for a few years. We sometimes went entire seasons without winning a single game. I can't imagine why.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:42 AM on May 10, 2016

Oh and speaking of bogus science, anything STEM on TV is always boiled down to idiot level. Computer interfaces that look like they're from an xbox game. Instantaneous DNA test results. 4 terapixel smartphone cameras (ZOOM IN, ENHANCE!). That's way more off-putting than fake coffees.
posted by adept256 at 7:45 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

The most infuriating thing on television is women going to bed and waking up with elaborate, perfect make-up.
posted by Mavri at 7:46 AM on May 10, 2016 [21 favorites]

"I have never noticed this phenomenon before, but now I think I'm never not going to see it again. Thanks, friend."

People just hang-up the phone on each other in film and television. That's my can't-unknow-this maddening thing.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:47 AM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm another one of those people who's driven crazy by this. Whenever I've directed a show with drinking in it, I've tried to make sure the vessels are opaque so that we can put something of weight inside. I'd rather have silver champagne flutes than clear if it helps the actors.

Story time: Many years ago, I was in a show set in the Raffles Hotel Singapore, where the Singapore Sling was invented. In one scene we were all on stage singing and holding glasses of pink liquid. One of the other chorus girls was also acting as prop mistress. Back in the wings one night she was trying to get all the glasses emptied before our next entrance, and she thrust three full glasses into my hands and said, "Here, drink these, quick!"
I said, "What's in them?" "JUST DRINK THEM!" she hissed.
To this day I have no idea what was in those glasses. It tasted kind of like Alka-Seltzer, tempera paint, and Sweet'N Low.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:48 AM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

My related pet peeve is that the kinematics are completely wrong whenever someone on screen picks up something heavy like a wrench, bat, hammer, pry bar, tire iron, etc. that they intend to use as a weapon. They are clearly flinging it around like it's the latex prop that it is.

One of the many reasons I love L.A. Confidential is that the weapons seem to have a more realistic heft to them in that film. My father-in-law owns a service revolver that belonged to his grandfather that he let me see once, and all I could think of when I held it in my hands were (a) damn this thing is heavy and (b) this would be a great gun for Bud White.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 7:48 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

They get a free pass because John drank an entire Bud Light Lime in one go on camera, and it wasn't a prop. That's really committing to the bit.

In a fairly recent Colbert bit, he was required to bite into a potato. While crunching away, he said, "...in rehearsal, this was baked."
posted by praemunire at 7:54 AM on May 10, 2016 [12 favorites]

Fun fact: in the parking garage episode of Seinfeld, Kramer bought an air conditioner, and he then carried around the box while they were searching for the car in the garage. Michael Richards insisted that the box be filled with an actual air conditioner, since it always shows when a big box (or grocery bag, or cup) is actually empty on TV
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:59 AM on May 10, 2016 [13 favorites]

Empty suitcases, yeah. Especially when they are supposed to be filled with gold.

Can we add flat glass lenses on eyeglasses? Neutral spherical lenses are possible, you know.

But extra credit to Kramer in that Seinfield episode in the parking garage, where he is running around carrying an air conditioner, and you can tell that it's a real full-weight air conditioner.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:00 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

A lot of times onstage, if we don't want real drinking out of a coffee cup, we can add heft and sloshiness with a small (capped) water bottle that's held in place with some padding. Works wonders.
posted by xingcat at 8:07 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

My mom's favorite observation while watching TV: "That woman did not just have a baby."
posted by bigbigdog at 8:07 AM on May 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

My mom's favorite observation while watching TV: "That woman did not just have a baby."

Ours is "Jesus Christ, that woman just gave birth to a six-month old baby!"
posted by Etrigan at 8:08 AM on May 10, 2016 [21 favorites]

Fun fact: most of those prevalent coffee lids designs are for foamy drinks where the liquid isn't all the way at the top. Drip coffee (which I usually get) seeps out of the edge of the cup under the lids very easily, especially at the border of where the cup's body joins to form the circle. That little ridge provide just enough space for coffee to leak all the time. If you don't believe me you can ask my car, my hands, and multiple items of clothing. Sure, I could ask them not to fill it all the way to the top, but then I don't feel like I'm getting my $3 worth.

Always rotate the seam! Put it at the back of the cup and you'll never get dripped on again!
posted by leotrotsky at 8:14 AM on May 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!
posted by Going To Maine at 8:21 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Always rotate the seam! Put it at the back of the cup and you'll never get dripped on again!

I do! But a car's cup holding doesn't know to tilt the cup forward like my hand knows! WTH automakers get on that shit!
posted by numaner at 8:23 AM on May 10, 2016

People just hang-up the phone on each other in film and television. That's my can't-unknow-this maddening thing.

This bugs the ever living shit out of me, especially when the villain is all "You know what I have, come alone or consequences" and they just hang up and I'm like "WHERE AND WHEN AND LOGISTICS???"
posted by numaner at 8:25 AM on May 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

I love that episode of Seinfeld where they're in the parking garage, and you can tell that Kramer is carrying around an actual air conditioner inside that box.
posted by slogger at 8:25 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer has a box with an A/C unit in it, and you can tell that it's actually heavy. Anyone else remember that?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:28 AM on May 10, 2016 [18 favorites]

Cups of water do this for me, too. You know, scenes at a water cooler where someone is clearly waving around an empty cup.
posted by tavella at 8:30 AM on May 10, 2016

Anyone else remember that?

I think slogger and StickyCarpet did!
posted by andrewesque at 8:30 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

solid silicone cup-shaped inserts for weight

Better than solid, it should be sealed, liquid-filled inserts. That gives the actor both weight, and sloshing, without the danger of spilling.
posted by fings at 8:38 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

This bugs the ever living shit out of me, especially when the villain is all "You know what I have, come alone or consequences" and they just hang up and I'm like "WHERE AND WHEN AND LOGISTICS???"

One of my most-favorited comments here on MetaFilter is on this subject. It's part of a really fun 2010 thread about things that only happen in movies.
posted by not that girl at 8:39 AM on May 10, 2016

My thing is when they time-reverse shots. WHY? They think that we won't notice that the smoke is going down into the fire? Or that the water is jumping from the pool back up into the fountain? Or that EYE BLINKS DON'T WORK LIKE THAT?!?!? You see this in everything from two-bit ads to Major Motion Pictures™. It's so common and so glaring once you know about it (my sincere condolences) that I wonder if it's the editor's version of the Wilhelm scream.
posted by steveminutillo at 8:44 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Being a USAF brat, I'm continually annoyed at the don't-give-a-shit levels usually applied to aircraft in movies. "Scramble two F-16's out of March!" someone shouts in a movie set in greater LA... and they cut to stock footage of three or more F-106s whose tail fins say NEW JERSEY in large friendly letters. This was especially annoying watching Red October last night because they were trying to give a shit until this poor sonofabitch is trying to land his injured F-14 when it suddenly transforms into a decades-old F9F Panther so understandably enough he crashes it, because that's gotta be disconcerting.

But I will make room in my heart to also hate Empty Cup Syndrome.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:48 AM on May 10, 2016 [30 favorites]

My work firewall is blocking the video so I can't verify...it's entirely made of clips from Gilmore Girls, right?
posted by anthom at 8:53 AM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

Your conclushionsh are all wrong, ROU_Xenophobe!
posted by Chrysostom at 8:53 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

...it's entirely made of clips from Gilmore Girls, right?

Well, that, and NCIS.

And the soundtrack is nothing but the slurpy-straw sound from Weeds.
posted by Wild_Eep at 8:56 AM on May 10, 2016

One of the very few things more irritating than someone who won't shut up about their pet peeve is an academic who won't shut up about their pet peeve.

Myles (whom I have interviewed as a grad student) is a longtime blogger and critic for the AV Club, and has only been a professor for a few years. He is also Canadian. Like, not even from Toronto. So he's pretty cool, eh.
posted by St. Hubbins at 8:57 AM on May 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

The worst is when someone standing thrusts a coffee cup at someone sitting down and abruptly stops, it goes beyond simply weird to looking like they're deliberately trying to hurt them. Especially when it's a victim of some horrible crime sitting recovering in a cop car, and the supposedly kindly officer comes over like "oh hey sorry about all the hyper murder POW MAYBE THAT'LL HELP YOU FORGET".

Truly simulating a drink gets much more complicated than adding a sealed container, as he points out in the footnotes:

The fact is that you don’t drink a full cup of coffee at the same angle as you drink an empty one, but that angle is controlled by the flow of liquid, making it an even bigger acting challenge than creating the impression of weight.

So you'd need to be syringing it out between cuts or somehow invisibly subliming mass off during long shots.
posted by lucidium at 8:58 AM on May 10, 2016

So basically they just have to remember how much they have supposedly drank at each point of the scene and act like they have the appropriate amount.

Who wants to help me kickstart Acting With Coffee, a class to teach actors how to drink empty cups?
posted by numaner at 9:01 AM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is especially egregious on Elementary, which is otherwise a fine program. I don't understand how Sherlock and Watson can't deduce that their cups are obviously empty...
posted by biscotti at 9:02 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

This has always bugged me but not as much as Kyra Sedgwick chewing, pretending to binge on junk food sweets, but literally counting the microseconds until she can spit those fucking calories out of her mouth on the Closer.
posted by crush-onastick at 9:18 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

I propose the use of a small rubber hot water bottle.

Oh, that's your answer for everything!
posted by Paul Slade at 9:18 AM on May 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

I believe "join the Coast Guard" is the answer for everything.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:20 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

STEM on TV is always boiled down to idiot level

We've been irony watching CSI:Miami reruns for the really astounding level of impossible STEM, plus stylized acting (tip my shades and grimly stare at "H") and weird HD lens effects.
I love the science music too.
As for the empty coffee cups, I don't think I've ever seen a Castle that didn't serve them up since it's a running bit: Castle shows up at the crime scene with empty cups for he and Becket.
I used to groan, but now my partner groans because she's heard me always groan.
D'oh.
posted by Alter Cocker at 9:21 AM on May 10, 2016

My peeviest peeves are (1) the phrase "what do you want with/from me?" and (2) scene set by passing 18-wheeler doppler effect horn blast for no reason.
posted by schoolgirl report at 9:26 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

People just hang-up the phone on each other in film and television. That's my can't-unknow-this maddening thing

And starting the conversation before the phone is even up to their face!

Also, give 9 out of 10 actors a prop gun, and before the scene's over they'll be gesturing with it as if it were an ostrich feather fan.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:33 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

solid silicone cup-shaped inserts for weight

Better than solid, it should be sealed, liquid-filled inserts. That gives the actor both weight, and sloshing, without the danger of spilling.

OK, if no one else will say it then I will: just jam a cheap, down-market silicone breast implant into one of those two-dollar reusable cups that Starbucks is hawking at the checkout counter these days.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:38 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Two pet peeves here and they're both prevalent on the current background noise show, NCIS. The minor, a character who jumps in on a conversational exchange that started while they were out of the room, and the major, OMG there's a lot of eating while talking. I miss huge chunks of exposition because the characters are having a meal while discussing the plot.
posted by Wetterschneider at 9:42 AM on May 10, 2016

My bugaboo is the "heavy" paper bag supposedly chocked full of groceries..except its not.

There are usually two of them, one in each arm. They look like they have stuff but no way is this true as anyone who ever carried a bag full of groceries can assert.

I say to maintain their "full" shape they are stuffed with newspapers.

Seinfeld was a culprit in these supposedly heavy paper grocery bags.

Always bugs me.
posted by Tullyogallaghan at 9:47 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Seinfeld was a culprit in these supposedly heavy paper grocery bags.

Surely all his grocery bags were filled with nothing but lightweight boxes of cereal.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 9:49 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Previously.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:51 AM on May 10, 2016

Actually I'm pretty sure Michael Richards insisted that the paper bags be filled with air conditioners.
posted by loquacious crouton at 9:52 AM on May 10, 2016 [27 favorites]

I say to maintain their "full" shape they are stuffed with newspapers.

And one baguette.
posted by Etrigan at 9:53 AM on May 10, 2016 [10 favorites]

People just hang-up the phone on each other in film and television. That's my can't-unknow-this maddening thing.

My gran is certain This Is How Americans Talk To Each Other On The Phone and thus you guys are the rudest people on earth (according to an 80-year-old Danish woman). She's also taken with how big New York apartments are and why I don't just move there because spacious apartments are plentiful there.

I've tried talking to her about critical media consumption, but eh.
posted by kariebookish at 9:57 AM on May 10, 2016 [21 favorites]

I've been binge-watching House over the past couple weeks (protip: don't. It doesn't hold up and the formula is way too obvious, and btw it's not just never lupus it's never scleroderma either so stop suggesting it, also more people puke blood on that show than you would believe. Anyway) and the empty coffee cup has been driving me BUGFUCK.

I also hate watching people cook on TV because AAAUHDL:UDHFLIUHFDOIehL:DFbhQJWKDb>:KJQWnbDJKLQWD93du)9DH3hukjln.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:04 AM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

There's a great story about an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry insists that a box that was supposedly hiding Kramer actually be filled with Kramer instead of nothing and they thought it's a show about nothing it should be fine but he insisted and became rich and made a movie about Slugs called SlugMovie.
posted by lazaruslong at 10:05 AM on May 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

Oh and playing musical instruments. FFS, it is NOT HARD to mime playing one (the most egregious example for me was Data playing the violin on ST:TNG). HEY SCRIPTWRITERS: unless you can actually train the actor to do X or they already know how to do X (e.g. Hugh Laurie being able to play piano), how about making them do something else.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:07 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Myles, for what it's worth, is very much a hybrid critic/academic. To my knowledge, he's the only professor who comes to press tour in the summer (what you may see on Twitter as TCA) and asks questions and actually talks to people who make television at the same time people who are full-time critics do. He's kind of what you want an academic to be if you don't like academics who get too far away from their work. So this is less like a professor who only cares about professor things and more like a critic who, like anybody else who watches a ton of television for work, becomes obsessed with a tiny thing. He knows deep down that it's a weird obsession. Believe me.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 10:09 AM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

And one baguette.

Better than celery!
posted by tavella at 10:10 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I say to maintain their "full" shape they are stuffed with newspapers.

And some celery.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:13 AM on May 10, 2016

Dammit!
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:13 AM on May 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

They get a free pass because John drank an entire Bud Light Lime in one go on camera, and it wasn't a prop. That's really committing to the bit.

In a fairly recent Colbert bit, he was required to bite into a potato. While crunching away, he said, "...in rehearsal, this was baked."

Chris Elliott tests dog food
posted by Thorzdad at 10:18 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Thanks, Alonzo, the hole in my heart that can only be filled by shaking my fist at something insignificant just got a little less empty today.

SHAKE HARDER, BOY!

Just, without a full cup of coffee in your fist.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:21 AM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Boat scenes drive me batty. Take the most recent Game of Thrones episode. They show the trip Gilly and Sam are taking by ship and I mean we're talking 20 foot seas here. No fun. And sure Sam is sick but the lanterns are just gently rattling, swaying. THE LANTERNS SHOULD BE FLYING ACROSS THE CABIN HAVE YOU NEVER BEEN IN 20 FOOT SEAS BEFORE NOTHING STAYS PUT AND IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE THAT!
posted by danapiper at 10:34 AM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

Can we add flat glass lenses on eyeglasses? Neutral spherical lenses are possible, you know.

And they're always impossibly clean.
posted by clorox at 11:16 AM on May 10, 2016

TV would be so much better if they just fixed this coffee thing.
posted by mazola at 11:22 AM on May 10, 2016

What's the deal with TV coffee?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:25 AM on May 10, 2016 [9 favorites]

some of them have air conditioners inside
posted by numaner at 11:27 AM on May 10, 2016 [8 favorites]

A fake cup of decaf is like this, but a fake cup of regular coffee is like that. AmIrite?!
posted by wenestvedt at 11:28 AM on May 10, 2016

One time I was on set and rehearsing a scene a dozen times over (the director liked to do that and we had only enough in the budget for one take or fewer) and I was supposed to be drinking coffee, so I mimed having a cup. When it came time for the actual shoot, I held out my empty hand asking for a refill. Some of the crew laughed, but I would have sworn I had been drinking coffee the whole time.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:33 AM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

What bugs me is that they (most of the time) get cigarette lengths right.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 11:41 AM on May 10, 2016

I was supposed to be drinking coffee, so I mimed having a cup. When it came time for the actual shoot, I held out my empty hand asking for a refill. Some of the crew laughed, but I would have sworn I had been drinking coffee the whole time

When I was playing Popilius in Julius Caesar, I somehow formed the impression that he was just the sort of guy who would always have a drink in his hand. So I just walked around with my right hand in that position; I don't know if anybody noticed it or not. When the other Senators got all stabby stab stab I would drop my right hand and once or twice, I *did* kind of expect to hear of my wine cup hit the floor.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:44 AM on May 10, 2016

Comedians in Cars Acting with Coffee
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:50 AM on May 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

Fun Fact, Larry Kramer on the Seinfeld Show used to have his coffee air conditioned before shooting so that it would not be too hot, and now you know "the rest of the story"
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:38 PM on May 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

What about all those empty mugs on talk shows?
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:22 PM on May 10, 2016

What about all those empty mugs on talk shows?

They have tiny teleprompters in the bottom.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:40 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I usually assume they're full of vodka.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:49 PM on May 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

Tiny drunk teleprompters.

Which, incidentally, is the name of my new band.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:52 PM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

does anyone else remember the episode of box where air conditioner insisted his kramer be fill with sinfeld
posted by DoctorFedora at 3:40 PM on May 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

OK, if no one else will say it then I will: just jam a cheap, down-market silicone breast implant into one of those two-dollar reusable cups that Starbucks is hawking at the checkout counter these days.

That's your answer to everything, and, quite frankly, I don't think US creditors will accept it as a credible debt renegotiation tactic.
posted by howfar at 4:36 PM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I hate empty coffee cups the worst of anything happening onscreen any time I see it. I hate it more than the fake baby in American Sniper which I never even saw. Just put some black water in it, Jesus.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:59 PM on May 10, 2016

Tyrion's wine cup kept magically emptying and refilling itself this week on Game of Thrones, but it's probably a magic cup.
posted by Hazelsmrf at 5:19 PM on May 10, 2016

This has bugged the shit out of me forever. I watched an old COLUMBO the other week, in which he walked down a hallway drinking coffee he'd brought to the crime scene in a Thermos, and you could hear him slurping actual liquid.

Because Peter Falk was a goddamn pro.
posted by old_growler at 7:19 PM on May 10, 2016 [15 favorites]

man, i can't even see the difference.
posted by rebent at 7:49 PM on May 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Because Peter Falk was a goddamn pro.

So much so that he could even manage to walk down a hallway slurping actual liquid (not to mention serpentining) with one eye!
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:25 PM on May 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

Your conclushionsh are all wrong, ROU_Xenophobe!

Mosht thingsh in here don't react well to gridfire incursion...
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:59 AM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh and playing musical instruments. FFS, it is NOT HARD to mime playing one (the most egregious example for me was Data playing the violin on ST:TNG). HEY SCRIPTWRITERS: unless you can actually train the actor to do X or they already know how to do X (e.g. Hugh Laurie being able to play piano), how about making them do something else.

No kidding and oh, remember when that fake Algolian obviously didn't know how to play Algolian ceremonial chimes

Boy, I bet his face was red later in the commissary
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:21 PM on May 11, 2016 [3 favorites]

Tyrion’s wine cup kept magically emptying and refilling itself this week on Game of Thrones, but it's probably a magic cup.

A wizard did it.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:13 PM on May 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

In defense of NCIS I have to say that Pauley Perrette (Abby) says on her Twitter account that when she's drinking Caf-Pow, there's cranberry juice in her cup.

But the two-people-typing-on-a-keyboard thing? Pfft.
posted by IndigoRain at 4:18 AM on May 14, 2016

The most infuriating thing on television is women going to bed and waking up with elaborate, perfect make-up.

Erica Kane used to climb out of bed in the morning wearing high heels (in addition to the perfect hair and makeup).
posted by fuse theorem at 6:52 PM on May 24, 2016 [1 favorite]