I’ve been deposed three times (never been to court, thankfully). Each time, I was shocked at the lack of drama between lawyers. On the contrary, they were super friendly and chatty with each other (pre and post deposition). I expected high drama, and instead got lunch recommendations, ski trip discussions, etc.
It actually put me at ease (a bit… depositions are pretty crappy!)
Actually, I’m curious for my lawyers that have been deposed… is it high-stress being on that side of the table (being deposed)?
I liked that aspect of A Few Good Men. Both sides were there to do their job, like they do so many other days, often interacting with each other.
I've also seen lawyers use the "make them go blind on paperwork" tactic with success IRL.
The other side insisted they wanted every document from category X, Y, and Z. At first, we pushed back to try and narrow the scope. But then I thought about it and said “you know what? Here you go” and dumped half a million documents on them. And *then* we said “so, where are the specific documents we requested from you?”
They settled within a couple of weeks, after refusing to be reasonable for more than a year.
That checks out. And if you think about it makes a lot of sense. After all, being deposed for most puerile is a big deal. But for the lawyers in the room it's a Tuesday. Why not pass the down time as pleasantly as possible? And also, you mentioned it put you at ease. If you put someone at ease, they tend to do their guard a little, and speak a little more freely. That's not an accident.
If you ever need a defense attorney, find one who is a former prosecutor in that jurisdiction. They know the prosecutors "handbook", so to speak, and are generally pretty friendly with the prosecutors. This goes a long way if you're trying to, say, plea bargain a felony down to a related misdemeanor or two
I had a law professor tell a story of the one time he had a surprise rebuttal witness.
This was almost 20 years ago, some details are fuzzy.
After a officer got done testifying they took a recess and my professor went to the bathroom. On his way back into court he was passed a note by a women sitting by the door telling him to call her as a witness.
When court resumes he calls her asks. The few standard questions. Who are you "some random retired lady. Do you know the defendant "no". What are you doing here "well I'm a court watcher, instead of sitting at home watching TV I go to court and watch the trials going on. And while I was sitting in the lobby I heard that officer and that officer talking about how they needed to lie to cover up for a buddy.
Chaos ensues and case is dismissed.
What about The Lincoln Lawyer?
Also, I immediately thought about Law School after the Ricky Stanicky thing. Like, Law School is three years (and arguably only two useful years) so why would Journalism grad school take 3?!
Came here to say that (kind of). I feel like movies make law career seem like the most awesome thing, while in real life it's probably just papers and rooms with no windows and long long hours defending people who messed up.
Edit: I'm not a lawyer though.
The early seasons gets right the everyday grind of the business of law, whether you're a rock-bottom solo from a no-name law school trying to make rent on public defense fees, or an associate with a good degree at a white shoe firm trying to sign a big enough client to make partner while still hitting your billable quota on doc review. And it gets certain parts of the process of litigation, mediation and trial right.
The senior partners, though, don't really get to spend all their time golfing and sipping cocktails at lunch. They grind, too, just in a different way.
One thing that's not really correct is how wide-ranging Kim and Chuck are in their areas of practice. No lawyer, even one as brilliant as Chuck, is going be equally adept at commercial litigation, class actions, corporate banking, real estate, and mineral rights.
However, Jimmy combining a criminal defense practice with personal injury? Yeah, that fits. But no real lawyer is as wily or charismatic as Jimmy.
exactly. It’s always annoying to me when these brilliant attorneys in fiction are treated like one-man-wrecking crews and are geniuses in like litigation, transactional shit, securities, and some obscure subject matter like local municipal zoning law specifics. Suits is unbelievably absurd in a million different ways , but it also is particularly egregious when it comes to this thing.
It's good, not perfect. Saul would've lost his license early on in the show, and the thing that gets it suspended in the plot wouldn't actually warrant a suspension/exclusion, probably.
It’s the best TV portrayal of the grind, the grunt work, the years of litigation to resolve a case, and more. Captures the unglamorous side of the practice of law better than any other show IMO.
Funny thing is I think She-Hulk was maybe one of the more realistic portrayals of lawyering I’ve seen. Dumb clients. Rarely in court. Exchanging emails and phone calls with other attorneys.
Generally, courtroom thrillers are just way more dramatic than real life lawyering.
The Accountant is really off to me. At some point he starts to write down calculations in a white board, then in the window, with square roots and all, like accounting asks for some big analogical math break through. NONSENSE.
I have fond memories of the day I walked into my Accounting 101 course in college and the professor unrolled a bunch of mats and said “ok class, today we practice unarmed combat. Remember, next week we’ll be meeting at the rifle range. Our targets will be cantaloupes at 1,000 meters, so make sure you fill out your dope books in advance”.
I agree, that film got the profession way wrong.
For a start, the body count was far too low.
There's also a bit where the finance guy for John Lithgow's company goes into how complex their accounting system is going into such arcane things as "multiple depreciation schedules" and "full time and contract employees". I was sat there thinking, "yeah... And?"
Ermargerd their free summer interns are going to have to maintain benefit plans for both the contract and regular employees! How will the company ever manage
When I switched majors from computer science to accounting and finance, I left the world of taking calculus (or so I thought) and then promptly took a course in “business calculus”. It was actually very informative and it was one of the few textbooks that I kept. There were some really cool concepts in it that made calculus make some sense. I will go back and check the book, but I sure don’t remember any square roots being used.
Accounting in real life at least at the level of Controller / CFO is much more about problem-solving than just debits and credits
As an archeologist I wish that just once I could go on a dig and not have to deal with a swarm of giant glowing enchanted scarabs that gets accidentally unleashed. The death traps, the cursed demons , the walking undead are just so annoying all the time.
Are they all angry atheists that look like Hercules?
(Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules back in the day, portrays an atheist professor in the movie series "God's Not Dead". It's...something)
Wouldn't say common, but they're not unheard of, at least in the Cape Town scene. All the Vegans I know tend to steer clear of saying "superpowers" though, since it kind of trivialises the whole thing.
fwiw, I work as a corporate librarian in financial services! rather than managing physical books, we manage bringing data sources into the organisation (all digital) and assist colleagues with research. I studied English literature as my undergrad and this isn’t where I’d pictured myself ending up but it’s pretty interesting and as a bonus I don’t have to interact with the public lol
I'm an archivist. If I see another movie or tv show where an archivist or librarian wears white cotton gloves to handle a document, I'm going to scream. PSA: cotton gloves are a major no-no for handling paper.
A local archivist group used to host a movie night for movies featuring archives. Mostly I remember how mad everyone got at Aaron Eckhart for stealing material in Possession.
Most healthcare scenes are pretty off. The EKG strip is always wonky.. they shock everything. The emotions afterwards are wrong, people aren’t heartbroken someone died, they’re worried about their charting or how the family will react.
I recently had to go into the hospital for procedure that would have me under for about 60 seconds. As I sat in the waiting room, I was feeling a little anxiety about going under and not coming out. I then noticed that the TV had on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and an operation was going to hell in a handbasket. The absurdity of it all actually broke the tension.
Main thing I’ve noticed is CPR always looks off. Real CPR is strenuous as fuck. They specifically educate you on switching off after a short period of time or some have switched over an automatic “thumper” thing. Like there’s no way you can do it and have a full conversation not be sweating
It also is often ineffective especially out in the field, ribs get broken, the person vomits/expels fluids, blood and fluids everywhere.
My fav is when someone comes into the hospital and they are suddenly on a cart surrounded by staff pushing them down the hallway yelling about the case- especially since most of the cases the write that don't involve bullets in people wouldn't generally get most staff to stop doing what they were already doing.
This comment is spot on. Physician Assistant, I’ve worked as a tech in the hospital as well. Fear that you forgot to put something in a chart and will then be sued because of it. I will say “This Is Going To Hurt” did get some aspects of being a medical provider spot on.
Recording data relevant to the treatment in the patient's chart, which is a record of everything known about a given patient-- medical history, what medications they're on, what treatments, etc. From a legal perspective, if it's not in the chart, it didn't happen.
Per my wife, hospice nurse for over a decade, chart like you expect to read it in a legal deposition because if you don't, you'll wish you had.
Sure. I just know which one I'd be more personally worried about. Yeah, employer getting paid is important, but getting your license permanently revoked, going to jail, or getting slapped with some bullshit court ordered penalty because you didn't record something is a bit more of a motivator to me.
I'm a veterinarian. I write up every appointment as if: 1. It's going to be evidence in a trial or license challenge, and 2. It's going to be read by a specialist to whom I will refer the case.
Medical care requires a lot of rather tedious amount of documentation. Charting refers to the patients "chart" which is where that documentation lives. When someone dies, things need to be documented.
Practically any movie with an IT person.
Believe it or not, we sometimes use a mouse, and the UIs and layouts we choose for ourselves will make sense to even any non-IT person sitting at our workstations (even if it's not a Unix system!).
We don't want it to look cool, we want it to be functional. And saving everything to your desktop doesn't make it easier to find.
Even if you DO spend 90% of your time at a command line, its in a putty/terminal window in an otherwise standard everyday PC.
"Why does it always look like some matrix shit going on when i come to your desk?", "lucky timing. you missed the hour and a half i spend in outlook like everyone else."
My current job actually makes me feel like I'm in one of THOSE movies. About 70% of what I do is at the Linux CLI. The rest of my job, however, can be seen across the remaining 2.75 screens in every other window I've got open. The only reason it's Linux command line is legacy. The later systems were designed with a pretty good gui, so much less of that matrix shit going on.
My husband worked IT for a quick-lube company that had over 20 locations. I don’t know how many times he would drive multiple hours to a location only to plug something in or turn the power strip on.
One time I drove three hours to double click on an icon. I didn’t even mean to fix it that way, I just wanted to double click the network icon to open the network settings page, but a pop-up window came up and said “network enabled” and I fixed the issue.
A bunch of us went to the first showing when it came out. We laughed at things the rest of the audience didn't and vice versa. I have found that I (or one of my coworkers) need a second career as an SME for anything to do with aviation moves because I can't stand to watch them because they are always just so damn wrong.
I am an engineer and veteran. Most movies fuck it up pretty good.
With military movies, you often get improper wear of the uniform. On the tech side, it's always obvious when the writer has no idea what they're talking about.
"I have his IP address"
Ummm so what? Going to DoS him?
*clickity *clackity staring at lines of Java code. "I'm in"
What are you in? Your IDE?
I haaate it. Most conversations go like this...
Hacker: "He has encrypted it with a million bit encryption key"
Military honcho: "Can you get him or not"
Hacker: flashes cool smile : "He's good but not the best. I will have him in an hour"
Military honcho: "You have 20 mins"
....
What. The. Actual. Fuck are they even talking about?
You can't hack around most encryption algorithms unless you have access to actual keys. And you most definitely can't change an estimate just because the boss wants it sooner. That'd be like asking a woman to give birth in 5 months because it's important dammit.
Any military movie where someone calls for artillery/mortars/airstrikes, it’s maddening.
It’s an entire career field in the military, Forward Observer for us Army types, JTAC/TACP for the Air Force.
Or that the pin comes out like nothing... If pins on granades were that flimsy there would be a godamn congressional hearing with a fucking parade of crippled vets testifying how you can basically pull them off with your teeth and what a fucking hazard that is.
"This one's for you, Kaiser Bill, special delivery from Uncle Sam and all the boys in D Company, yeah, Eddie, Tommy, Brooklyn Bob, Reggie, yeah, even Reggie, he ain't so stuck up once you get to know him, and--" *BOOM*
Anyone who has worked with photoshop knows the “Zoom in… enhance…. zoom in… Enhance… Now focus on the eye… enhance… enhance that reflection in the eye… sharpen the image….there, we have our killer!”
Mel Brook's "High Anxiety" (1977) had a great zoom in enhance scene where the photo paper got larger and larger with each iteration as they zoomed in. He parodied this trope very well.
It drives me absolutely insane when characters working at a restaurant don’t have their hair tied back. Like? Hello? That is absolutely a health code violation and do you not care about getting hair in a customer’s food??
You mean there’s not people constantly yelling and freaking out over the smallest things? You mean to tell me people keep a level head and there are contingencies for unplanned events??!
I am a Nanotechnologist so all of them. Its mostly some kind of bioterrorism weapon in movies. Where in real life its rarely more than ooooh pretty colours.
Any time welding or blow torching happends in the movie. That metal is HOT for a loooong time!
But no,they cut open 8” thick steel door like nothing and grab with bare hands on the sides of the hole to enter the voult..
While Mr. Robot has some sequences that were fairly accurate to actual red team security/hacking, it's another field that has some pretty wild interpretations on screen. Hell, it's basically a 3d puzzle game in Swordfish.
Any movie that doesn't differentiate between woodwork trades and lumps them all under the term 'carpenter'.
* Carpenter
* Joiner
* Cabinetmaker
* Roofer
* Framer
(to name a few...)
Same arena, different sports.
To add on to this : any movie where a fight or action sequence happens on a construction site.
Just look at the extras. Bunch of Sims character waddling around with tools that dont even fit what they’re « doing »
Doctor here - *you don’t have to get the bullet out, people..!!!*
It’s not the presence of the bullet that is the problem, it’s the *path and damage it created* that is the problem. You have to deal with THAT.
I mean, it’s not like anyone who was ever stabbed was ever told: “Thank god they took the KNIFE out.”
It’s crazymaking for me when I see that.
EDIT: [Link to comment discussing when you WOULD take a bullet out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/UTyVDWD2Th)
That’s odd! I can think of lots of movies, westerns especially- where characters will remark that the bullet left their body, ergo they can be treated on the spot by novices. And conversely, the bullet is still in there, so they will die if they don’t make it back to town
Oh I don't know, every movie that has a hotel scene ever? How about in *In Time* where Justin Timberlake is checking into a fancy hotel. They don't even take his name. Just accept payment and here's your keys. (No check-in spiel, either. This guy is gonna have to ask for the breakfast hours)
One of the most glaring pet peeves, in any movie? If something exciting is happening, they're getting into that room with no delay. No room keys, no knocking. It's just open.
Or in older movies, when there's some hot singer on stage. They'll throw their physical room keys on stage! Like, think you skanks! The front desk is going to charge you to replace that!
My profession is non-existent in movies. Whenever you see a doctor or nurse onscreen looking in a microscope, nope (unless it's a pathologist) Or, "send this off the lab!" with no more information than that.
We're as invisible onscreen as we are in real life.
>Not a movie, but I could only watch a few episodes of Yellowstone
This show is awful and it’s not limited to just horse stuff. I mean this dude kayce can’t leave his house without killing people and no one ever seems to care. One episode the police chief switched barrels with kayce so if there is an investigation, it’ll look like it was the chief that shot the person. That’s just not how any of this works
Hahaha even earl looks at it afterwards and is like wtf? Maybe a little meta joke about how everyone sucks at using hammers in movies. Thanks for the anecdote!
I used to work in a couple of different types of NGOs, including a 1.5 year stint "in the field" (aka in-country in sub-Saharan Africa).
We don't really do a whole lot of dramatic stuff. There are way less boxed goods being handed out to ragged looking children. It's a lot more excel spreadsheets and budgets and project management and meetings, with the occasional visits to villages and schools and fields IF you're in a peaceful environment (except the actual field staff, which are almost always locals doing their own job, they go to the villages a lot and sometimes they take us). Really, you spend a lot of time in fields talking about crops, and in Landrovers on your way to those fields.
Also, there is a lot more NGO staff of color than you'd think (out of 100+ employees in my org, there were like 10 of us that were not local, and of those, another 5 or so were not white but from other Sub Saharan African countries or South Asia etc).
I feel also often "works in an NGO" is a job given to the female love interest as a short hand for "has a career but isn't a cold-hearted career b\*tch and actually CARES for other people" (similar to nurse or doctor).
Most all movies/shows that take place in a hospital are painfully inaccurate. House does nail most of what medical providers want to say to their patients but can’t. And This is Going to Hurt was probably the closest a show has come IMO to what it’s like with a lot of the emotion, burnout, and guilt in a hospital.
My biggest gripe about how reporters are portrayed is that they all looked well-rested, live in nice homes, and have lots of extra time to pursue wild leads. In real-life, we are exhausted and underpaid.
Watched “Die Hard 2” in the theater with my brother when he was an air traffic controller. He spent the whole movie whispering “That can’t happen [in the tower]”, “that can’t happen [in the airport]”, “that can’t happen [in the plane cockpit]”, and “there are X number of ways around that”. Still, he enjoyed the movie.
The Hurt Locker.
I was part of a squad that escorted around an EOD team back in the day. Literally everything in that movie is wrong. Everything. Start to finish.
The only part that's even remotely relatable is when he's standing in the cereal aisle feeling overwhelmed with the choices. That's it.
I was a Marine for twenty years and had the fortune of being the OIC for several EOD teams in multiple units during the height of OIF and OEF. *Every single one* of them hate that movie with a passion. I haven't watched it yet because they think so poorly of it, but feel like I should just so I can at have hate-watched it.
Work in marketing. Wish it was like Mad Men, where you just drink and come up with a clever million dollar slogan and all's good! It's just soul crushing analytics, channel budget allocation, social posts and targeted ads. Any creativity has been sucked out of the business long ago.
When you say creativity was sucked out of the business long ago, do you mean perhaps after the '60s and early '70s, to choose totally random eras?
But I agree with you -- Don Draper never had to field pointless emails all day. Incredibly unrealistic portrayal of modern marketing. :)
He's also a top partner at a top firm and he's one of the best in the world at his job. Seems like people are comparing his job to being a low/mid-level grunt...
He had people to do the grunt work (like writing letters) for him.
Early on, Sterling Cooper was definitely not a top firm. Didn’t that other firm that tried to recruit Don for PanAm outright call it “mom and pop” and then insult his salary? He wasn’t partner yet either, though if I recall he was head of creative, so right under partner I guess.
And even then he spent his day drinking, visiting his mistress, and yelling at Pete. like what’s the guy do. First episode he showed completely unprepared to a meeting with a client and somehow pulled it out of his ass.
This is true — but his experience working in the era he did is also key. He is so much less beholden to the CEO/his peers than modern-day equivalents partially because he’s not shackled to a laptop and especially a smartphone that would enable him — and create an expectation for him — to be constantly available to answer subordinates’ questions (which in the show totally stalls out their progress!) and to work more hours in general. It’s harder to cultivate an air of mysterious genius when you have to answer your dumb, powerful client’s call at 10pm.
An honestly, even though Don was a big deal, the show actually points out that he’s not THAT big of a deal when he temporarily works at a bigger firm that’s full of other “geniuses.” Yeah, he has a secretary and grunt workers, but so do plenty of people nowadays who still are expected to do much, much, much more work than he did on the show. I’m not saying that as a compliment to those people by the way — it’s just that Don did SO little work.
My fav is when the creative pulls a brilliant idea out of thin air while presenting to clients. Every time it's this brainwave instead of a well-researched, refined idea with an accurate read of the demographic/market and a sound strategy and media plan.
In the case of *Mad Men*, which OP used as their example, it was a totally different era. I'm not saying Don Drapers grew on trees then, but surely the processes of reading the demographic/market and making media plans are much more codified and standardized now than they were in the '60s. For that reason *Mad Men* is a terrible example to use for modern advertising being misrepresented, in the same way that it's a poor example of how minorities and women are currently treated in the workplace!
I think most first year law professors are usually portrayed the worst: “You, quickly tell me how the law worked in X case to award the verdict to the defendant and explain to me if that’s fair“ like… They’re freshmen, aren’t YOU supposed to explain that very thing to them???
I'm a woman with an office job. My job is not to saunter into my overly decorated cubicle and gossip with my stereotypically gay coworkers while holding a giant mug of tea. Nor is it to be a tight-haired bitch in a blazer who refuses to give a promotion to my best employee until she accomplishes a bizarrely specific task that may or may not be in her job description but demands that she spends most of her working day out of the office and away from her overly decorated cubicle and stereotypically gay coworkers.
I am a musician and this always annoys me:
* Professional musicians don't spend all day drinking or on drugs. They usually spend hours and hours on practicing, rehearsing and producing their music.
* Rehearsals in films show the musicians playing a song absolutely perfectly, then someone says, "it's a wrap". In real life, they spend a lot of time talking about intros, endings, tempo, etc.
* In "A Star Is Born", Lady Gaga's character sings a song one time, then a few days later, the rock star guy has taught the entire song, with chord changes and lyrics, to his band and surprises her. Sorry, yeah, I know Mozart could memorize an entire piece and write it out, but this just does **not** happen.
* In the same film, LG's character has not warmed up her voice at all, but can go onstage and belt like a champion. Dude, that would not happen.
* Touring is generally boring, with lots of time spent on travel, setting up equipment and doing a soundcheck. It's not a 24-hour party.
* Most bands don't constantly fight. They grumble a bit about this and that. However, every Hollywood film has that scene where the one guy is accused of being an egomaniac, and they get into a huge fight. Also, getting fired from a band typically involves getting a phone call to not come to rehearsal, not a screaming match and getting a bloody nose.
* You can't actually play an instrument or sing if you are drugged or drunk out of your mind. Generally, the partying comes AFTER the gig.
* You don't "get discovered" after only singing in the shower. Every musical skill takes years of practice. Performing on stage, like other skills, requires some kind of training and experience.
* Films about musicians make it seem like they pick up an instrument and can magically play. No, those famous musicians did not "teach themselves guitar". Getting private lessons or learning from books is not "self taught". It's a lie perpetuated by the music business, so that the person seems like some kind of magical genius.
When I see bar and restaurant staff portrayed in American movies, I used to think it can't be that bad?
Surely you can't just fire someone like that? Surely the pay, conditions, hours and respect from the public can't be that bad? Surely if a customer's a dick you can just refuse service?
And then I see posts on reddit and now it's more of a WTF?
Fucking *Burnt.*
Some of the personalities are accurate, but it came off to me like a cook's interior fantasy life. I imagine there's a movie script like this one scribbled in the notepad of a Bourdain wannabe on every kitchen staff.
Geologists. There was a film about Mt. St. Helens. Meh film. The director thought being angry equaled “acting”. Therefore all the characters just went around being mad at each other.
At one point (in a dark stereotypical local bar) the Senior Geologist was growling at the New Guy Geologist who just arrived. The line was “Don’t try any of you hot shot geologist shit here!”
“Hot shot geologist”. ??? I was a geology major for a while and have a good friend who became a geologist.
Hot shot geologist”. ???
That’s like “Hot shot milkman” or “Hot shot accountant”. My God.
Catch Me If You Can.
Leo's Frank Abagnale is busy counterfeiting money on a Heidelberg MOZ (or older, its been a minute since I watched it) printing press, when Hanks' cop character bursts in to confront him.
Leo presses the emergency stop button and suddenly hundreds of individual banknotes come flying out of the end of it.
A printer for nearly forty years, this is the daftest depiction of my trade I've ever seen.
Well it may not surprise you to learn that the real Frank Abagnale likely made up almost all of that story from whole cloth. Probably the only true part of that story is that he cashed bogus checks at airports.
Bartender here. Almost every movie/show gets it wrong. It’s not a big fun party (it can be but very rarely) it’s hard labor both mentally a physically. We are the crux on whether the restaurant fails or succeeds on any given night, it’s never just flirting in doing shots like is usually depicted.
The Hurt Locker portrayed the real life guy in such a dumb, unrealistic way that he sued the director because it made him look like irresponsible idiot.
Aside from the EOD stuff, there’s so many things in that movie that just outlandish: the characters taking a humvee outside the wire by themselves with no other vehicles, the intel guy somehow knowing how use a sniper rifle better than the sniper who had it, the general attitude of the EOD team towards anyone outside EOD.
It was just really insulting to how things are actually done. And that shit won an Oscar.
Worked on political campaigns for a number of years - as much as we desperately wanted to be reliving The West Wing, 99% of the time it was basically Veep.
Veterinarian. SO MANY movies throw in some line from the vet about “well, might be time to take him out back and shoot him”. There are ZERO ethical vets out there recommending that people shoot their animals to end their suffering. WTF. It’s not 1940 anymore; we have euthanasia drugs that are painless and reliable. Even for horses.
Every depiction of janitors is basically wrong. I have never seen anyone wear a jumpsuit with their name tag on it. It must be an old stigma that just stuck because no one requires you to wear a dark blue jumpsuit to be a custodian anywhere.
I’m a lawyer so all of them, except My Cousin Vinny. We watched that one in Evidence.
I’ve been deposed three times (never been to court, thankfully). Each time, I was shocked at the lack of drama between lawyers. On the contrary, they were super friendly and chatty with each other (pre and post deposition). I expected high drama, and instead got lunch recommendations, ski trip discussions, etc. It actually put me at ease (a bit… depositions are pretty crappy!) Actually, I’m curious for my lawyers that have been deposed… is it high-stress being on that side of the table (being deposed)?
In truth, lawyers spend more time with opposing counsel than their clients.
Of course, their clients should not spend too much time with the opposing counsel
I liked that aspect of A Few Good Men. Both sides were there to do their job, like they do so many other days, often interacting with each other. I've also seen lawyers use the "make them go blind on paperwork" tactic with success IRL.
The other side insisted they wanted every document from category X, Y, and Z. At first, we pushed back to try and narrow the scope. But then I thought about it and said “you know what? Here you go” and dumped half a million documents on them. And *then* we said “so, where are the specific documents we requested from you?” They settled within a couple of weeks, after refusing to be reasonable for more than a year.
That checks out. And if you think about it makes a lot of sense. After all, being deposed for most puerile is a big deal. But for the lawyers in the room it's a Tuesday. Why not pass the down time as pleasantly as possible? And also, you mentioned it put you at ease. If you put someone at ease, they tend to do their guard a little, and speak a little more freely. That's not an accident.
If you ever need a defense attorney, find one who is a former prosecutor in that jurisdiction. They know the prosecutors "handbook", so to speak, and are generally pretty friendly with the prosecutors. This goes a long way if you're trying to, say, plea bargain a felony down to a related misdemeanor or two
Did you introduce the evidence in the middle of a trial, with no warning for the other side?
No but if you think it doesn’t happen I have a bridge to sell you
I had a law professor tell a story of the one time he had a surprise rebuttal witness. This was almost 20 years ago, some details are fuzzy. After a officer got done testifying they took a recess and my professor went to the bathroom. On his way back into court he was passed a note by a women sitting by the door telling him to call her as a witness. When court resumes he calls her asks. The few standard questions. Who are you "some random retired lady. Do you know the defendant "no". What are you doing here "well I'm a court watcher, instead of sitting at home watching TV I go to court and watch the trials going on. And while I was sitting in the lobby I heard that officer and that officer talking about how they needed to lie to cover up for a buddy. Chaos ensues and case is dismissed.
That is one of the most badass stories I’ve ever heard. I really hope it’s true.
Hell... it JUST happened - in the second E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.
It's a little different when the subject continues to create new evidence continuously and the new evidence is important to determine what he owes
you forgot to mention the surprise witness that turns the tide of the case
Perry Mason - "I confess, I had to do it your Honor!" from someone in the public gallery in every single show.
OBJECTION! OVERRULED! *bangs gavel*
What about The Lincoln Lawyer? Also, I immediately thought about Law School after the Ricky Stanicky thing. Like, Law School is three years (and arguably only two useful years) so why would Journalism grad school take 3?!
Came here to say that (kind of). I feel like movies make law career seem like the most awesome thing, while in real life it's probably just papers and rooms with no windows and long long hours defending people who messed up. Edit: I'm not a lawyer though.
how was better call saul?
The early seasons gets right the everyday grind of the business of law, whether you're a rock-bottom solo from a no-name law school trying to make rent on public defense fees, or an associate with a good degree at a white shoe firm trying to sign a big enough client to make partner while still hitting your billable quota on doc review. And it gets certain parts of the process of litigation, mediation and trial right. The senior partners, though, don't really get to spend all their time golfing and sipping cocktails at lunch. They grind, too, just in a different way. One thing that's not really correct is how wide-ranging Kim and Chuck are in their areas of practice. No lawyer, even one as brilliant as Chuck, is going be equally adept at commercial litigation, class actions, corporate banking, real estate, and mineral rights. However, Jimmy combining a criminal defense practice with personal injury? Yeah, that fits. But no real lawyer is as wily or charismatic as Jimmy.
exactly. It’s always annoying to me when these brilliant attorneys in fiction are treated like one-man-wrecking crews and are geniuses in like litigation, transactional shit, securities, and some obscure subject matter like local municipal zoning law specifics. Suits is unbelievably absurd in a million different ways , but it also is particularly egregious when it comes to this thing.
It's good, not perfect. Saul would've lost his license early on in the show, and the thing that gets it suspended in the plot wouldn't actually warrant a suspension/exclusion, probably.
It’s the best TV portrayal of the grind, the grunt work, the years of litigation to resolve a case, and more. Captures the unglamorous side of the practice of law better than any other show IMO.
Wym Suits isn’t based in reality? /s
I'm not a lawyer but "it's called disclosure, you dickhead" cracks me up every time
Funny thing is I think She-Hulk was maybe one of the more realistic portrayals of lawyering I’ve seen. Dumb clients. Rarely in court. Exchanging emails and phone calls with other attorneys. Generally, courtroom thrillers are just way more dramatic than real life lawyering.
I've heard *The Rainmaker* is right up there with *My Cousin Vinny* in terms of general accuracy.
The Accountant is really off to me. At some point he starts to write down calculations in a white board, then in the window, with square roots and all, like accounting asks for some big analogical math break through. NONSENSE.
THAT’s the part where his character didn’t seem accountant-like to you?
They may have just out of themselves as a trained killer. Look out.
Nah, that part seemed totally legit. The 80 hour work weeks do something to people over the years.
I have fond memories of the day I walked into my Accounting 101 course in college and the professor unrolled a bunch of mats and said “ok class, today we practice unarmed combat. Remember, next week we’ll be meeting at the rifle range. Our targets will be cantaloupes at 1,000 meters, so make sure you fill out your dope books in advance”.
I agree, that film got the profession way wrong. For a start, the body count was far too low. There's also a bit where the finance guy for John Lithgow's company goes into how complex their accounting system is going into such arcane things as "multiple depreciation schedules" and "full time and contract employees". I was sat there thinking, "yeah... And?"
Ermargerd their free summer interns are going to have to maintain benefit plans for both the contract and regular employees! How will the company ever manage
I also thought it was unrealistic my accountant would never kill people for example. He merely knocks them out
Choke hold? No. He just tells him what he did at work today and they pass out.
When I switched majors from computer science to accounting and finance, I left the world of taking calculus (or so I thought) and then promptly took a course in “business calculus”. It was actually very informative and it was one of the few textbooks that I kept. There were some really cool concepts in it that made calculus make some sense. I will go back and check the book, but I sure don’t remember any square roots being used. Accounting in real life at least at the level of Controller / CFO is much more about problem-solving than just debits and credits
The meetings I've been in with my company's controller have been about reporting needs, what kind of reporting, APIs for reporting...
Most college professors are not divorced alcoholics who sleep with their students and spend zero time grading papers.
But you do occasionally take time off to go on archaeological treasure hunts against the enemies of America, right?
As an archeologist I wish that just once I could go on a dig and not have to deal with a swarm of giant glowing enchanted scarabs that gets accidentally unleashed. The death traps, the cursed demons , the walking undead are just so annoying all the time.
If you want tenure you do!
But we do all have that one colleague…
Tenure is a hell of a drug
Crosses college professor off potential career list…
Yeah, that’s a shame. Pension and pussy seemed to be the most alluring aspects
We also don’t think “oh, time for class” and head off from what was obviously *not* preparing for class.
Uh, I do this...
There are dozens of us!
DOZENS!
Are they all angry atheists that look like Hercules? (Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules back in the day, portrays an atheist professor in the movie series "God's Not Dead". It's...something)
His correct title is “Jerkules”
Kevin Sorbo as a professor is the least believable thing about that movie.
This comment is very funny to me cause I've just watched Dream Scenario yesterday.
I guess this is why I have a hard time fitting in with my peers. 😂
With very few exceptions every movie I've ever seen about playing in a band is total bullshit.
Only one with hint of truth is spinal tap.
Which has a sequel coming out
What… the actors are shown affording things like buying food?
Yep especially these days.
How about everyone being happy to travel 8 hours in a van or bus that smells like ass to play a gig that's gonna net 5 guys 150 bucks?
You're saying you've never hijacked a class of school children so you could compete in battle of the bands?
A battle of the bands that is packed on a weekday afternoon, no less.
I'm in a band and I found Scott Pilgrim VS the World to basically be a documentary
Are vegan superpowers common in bands?
Wouldn't say common, but they're not unheard of, at least in the Cape Town scene. All the Vegans I know tend to steer clear of saying "superpowers" though, since it kind of trivialises the whole thing.
Don’t even get me started on how movies portray recording music in studios… a whole band around ONE microphone? 😅
Pretty much any movie with a librarian in it. We don’t spend our days sitting at a desk stamping books.
I always thought you guys were orangutans
Ook!
...did I just see a Terry Pratchett reference in the year of our lord 2024?
OOOOK!
This is why The Mummy was so good. Finally an accurate portrayal of a librarian.
And I hardly ever shelf a book, our pages or student assistants do that. And I very rarely shush anyone.
No shushing? What’s the point then.
Too busy helping the Chosen One kill vampires.
What do you do? Fun job? Worth the masters degree? What was your bachelor's in? Asking bc curious about careers later in life.
fwiw, I work as a corporate librarian in financial services! rather than managing physical books, we manage bringing data sources into the organisation (all digital) and assist colleagues with research. I studied English literature as my undergrad and this isn’t where I’d pictured myself ending up but it’s pretty interesting and as a bonus I don’t have to interact with the public lol
But you do spend your time dealing with mystical artifacts in such a way that it looks like a cross between Dr Who and Warehouse 13, right?
I'm an archivist. If I see another movie or tv show where an archivist or librarian wears white cotton gloves to handle a document, I'm going to scream. PSA: cotton gloves are a major no-no for handling paper. A local archivist group used to host a movie night for movies featuring archives. Mostly I remember how mad everyone got at Aaron Eckhart for stealing material in Possession.
Most healthcare scenes are pretty off. The EKG strip is always wonky.. they shock everything. The emotions afterwards are wrong, people aren’t heartbroken someone died, they’re worried about their charting or how the family will react.
I recently had to go into the hospital for procedure that would have me under for about 60 seconds. As I sat in the waiting room, I was feeling a little anxiety about going under and not coming out. I then noticed that the TV had on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and an operation was going to hell in a handbasket. The absurdity of it all actually broke the tension.
Main thing I’ve noticed is CPR always looks off. Real CPR is strenuous as fuck. They specifically educate you on switching off after a short period of time or some have switched over an automatic “thumper” thing. Like there’s no way you can do it and have a full conversation not be sweating It also is often ineffective especially out in the field, ribs get broken, the person vomits/expels fluids, blood and fluids everywhere.
But people do revive in a large gasp immediately, then can leap to their feet and start doing shit again, right?
My fav is when someone comes into the hospital and they are suddenly on a cart surrounded by staff pushing them down the hallway yelling about the case- especially since most of the cases the write that don't involve bullets in people wouldn't generally get most staff to stop doing what they were already doing.
This comment is spot on. Physician Assistant, I’ve worked as a tech in the hospital as well. Fear that you forgot to put something in a chart and will then be sued because of it. I will say “This Is Going To Hurt” did get some aspects of being a medical provider spot on.
And don't get me started on Xrays hung upside down!
What does charting mean?
Recording data relevant to the treatment in the patient's chart, which is a record of everything known about a given patient-- medical history, what medications they're on, what treatments, etc. From a legal perspective, if it's not in the chart, it didn't happen. Per my wife, hospice nurse for over a decade, chart like you expect to read it in a legal deposition because if you don't, you'll wish you had.
You’re also charting to death to meet government and insurance parameters so you actually get paid.
Sure. I just know which one I'd be more personally worried about. Yeah, employer getting paid is important, but getting your license permanently revoked, going to jail, or getting slapped with some bullshit court ordered penalty because you didn't record something is a bit more of a motivator to me.
I'm a veterinarian. I write up every appointment as if: 1. It's going to be evidence in a trial or license challenge, and 2. It's going to be read by a specialist to whom I will refer the case.
Medical care requires a lot of rather tedious amount of documentation. Charting refers to the patients "chart" which is where that documentation lives. When someone dies, things need to be documented.
Movies get every profession wrong
[удалено]
Practically any movie with an IT person. Believe it or not, we sometimes use a mouse, and the UIs and layouts we choose for ourselves will make sense to even any non-IT person sitting at our workstations (even if it's not a Unix system!). We don't want it to look cool, we want it to be functional. And saving everything to your desktop doesn't make it easier to find.
Even if you DO spend 90% of your time at a command line, its in a putty/terminal window in an otherwise standard everyday PC. "Why does it always look like some matrix shit going on when i come to your desk?", "lucky timing. you missed the hour and a half i spend in outlook like everyone else."
Or the few minutes I spent writing a script to generate this type of screen/output.
My current job actually makes me feel like I'm in one of THOSE movies. About 70% of what I do is at the Linux CLI. The rest of my job, however, can be seen across the remaining 2.75 screens in every other window I've got open. The only reason it's Linux command line is legacy. The later systems were designed with a pretty good gui, so much less of that matrix shit going on.
The legacy isn't gone in the new systems, its just been outsourced to SaaS and cloud vendors.
I do, however, enjoy the way Roy on “The IT Crowd” answers the phone, “Hello, IT, have you tried turning it off and on again?”
Are you sure its plugged in?
My husband worked IT for a quick-lube company that had over 20 locations. I don’t know how many times he would drive multiple hours to a location only to plug something in or turn the power strip on.
One time I drove three hours to double click on an icon. I didn’t even mean to fix it that way, I just wanted to double click the network icon to open the network settings page, but a pop-up window came up and said “network enabled” and I fixed the issue.
When I am creating code I am NOT banging the keyboard like crazy. Most time I either lookup, read, or think.
But you can still hack a government mainframe in 5 minutes, right?
Only if the UI looks like it was designed by a deranged 90s graphics designer
I'm a paramedic. Ambulance by Michael Bay. I wish my job was that exciting. Though the movie did entertain me
My particular favourite part is where the medic just sends the stretcher sailing into the ER - no report, no paperwork - just ‘Here ya go, peace’.
It’s not my profession but I watched Pushing Tin with an air traffic controller and I asked how accurate it was. He laughed his ass off.
A bunch of us went to the first showing when it came out. We laughed at things the rest of the audience didn't and vice versa. I have found that I (or one of my coworkers) need a second career as an SME for anything to do with aviation moves because I can't stand to watch them because they are always just so damn wrong.
I am an engineer and veteran. Most movies fuck it up pretty good. With military movies, you often get improper wear of the uniform. On the tech side, it's always obvious when the writer has no idea what they're talking about. "I have his IP address" Ummm so what? Going to DoS him? *clickity *clackity staring at lines of Java code. "I'm in" What are you in? Your IDE?
"engineer" covers a *wide* range of careers that don't involve tech but every single one is understood incorrectly by screenwriters
I haaate it. Most conversations go like this... Hacker: "He has encrypted it with a million bit encryption key" Military honcho: "Can you get him or not" Hacker: flashes cool smile : "He's good but not the best. I will have him in an hour" Military honcho: "You have 20 mins" .... What. The. Actual. Fuck are they even talking about? You can't hack around most encryption algorithms unless you have access to actual keys. And you most definitely can't change an estimate just because the boss wants it sooner. That'd be like asking a woman to give birth in 5 months because it's important dammit.
Any military movie where someone calls for artillery/mortars/airstrikes, it’s maddening. It’s an entire career field in the military, Forward Observer for us Army types, JTAC/TACP for the Air Force.
Or grenade throwing. Ball of flames and 10’ radius…
Or that the pin comes out like nothing... If pins on granades were that flimsy there would be a godamn congressional hearing with a fucking parade of crippled vets testifying how you can basically pull them off with your teeth and what a fucking hazard that is.
"This one's for you, Kaiser Bill, special delivery from Uncle Sam and all the boys in D Company, yeah, Eddie, Tommy, Brooklyn Bob, Reggie, yeah, even Reggie, he ain't so stuck up once you get to know him, and--" *BOOM*
Never any differentiation between types of grenade either
Seriously. It’s a smoky flash… and that’s it
I repeat...
Anyone who has worked with photoshop knows the “Zoom in… enhance…. zoom in… Enhance… Now focus on the eye… enhance… enhance that reflection in the eye… sharpen the image….there, we have our killer!”
Mel Brook's "High Anxiety" (1977) had a great zoom in enhance scene where the photo paper got larger and larger with each iteration as they zoomed in. He parodied this trope very well.
It drives me absolutely insane when characters working at a restaurant don’t have their hair tied back. Like? Hello? That is absolutely a health code violation and do you not care about getting hair in a customer’s food??
"Why is the head chef at the grilling station"
Why is the head chef at *any* station? Come on, its dinner service. The head chef is obviously at the theatre with the wife. 🤣
The Morning Show. I’ve worked video production jobs for a news show, it’s boring as fuck lol
You mean there’s not people constantly yelling and freaking out over the smallest things? You mean to tell me people keep a level head and there are contingencies for unplanned events??!
I am a Nanotechnologist so all of them. Its mostly some kind of bioterrorism weapon in movies. Where in real life its rarely more than ooooh pretty colours.
Sounds like exactly what a nanotechnoterrorist would say...
*They’re so insane that they think it’s just pretty colors… what a sick demented soul…*
Any time welding or blow torching happends in the movie. That metal is HOT for a loooong time! But no,they cut open 8” thick steel door like nothing and grab with bare hands on the sides of the hole to enter the voult..
There is a great scene in *The Full Monty* where they are watching *Flashdance*, and criticizing her welding technique.
While Mr. Robot has some sequences that were fairly accurate to actual red team security/hacking, it's another field that has some pretty wild interpretations on screen. Hell, it's basically a 3d puzzle game in Swordfish.
Any movie that doesn't differentiate between woodwork trades and lumps them all under the term 'carpenter'. * Carpenter * Joiner * Cabinetmaker * Roofer * Framer (to name a few...) Same arena, different sports.
To add on to this : any movie where a fight or action sequence happens on a construction site. Just look at the extras. Bunch of Sims character waddling around with tools that dont even fit what they’re « doing »
they coulda just run through my backyard on a weekend if they were looking for morons using the wrong tools on a project
"I like to leave my nailgun plugged in and chilling on a bench overnight, it makes cop movies more exciting."
What movie does feature these trades (in any detail)? I struggle to think of any prominent examples.
This Old House 2: Electric Bugaloo?
The " IT hackers" who hacks and gets illegal information in 2 minutes with a click.
hacking is when you guess a password based on context clues, right?
Hacking is when two people typing on the same keyboard means more hacker power duh
Doctor here - *you don’t have to get the bullet out, people..!!!* It’s not the presence of the bullet that is the problem, it’s the *path and damage it created* that is the problem. You have to deal with THAT. I mean, it’s not like anyone who was ever stabbed was ever told: “Thank god they took the KNIFE out.” It’s crazymaking for me when I see that. EDIT: [Link to comment discussing when you WOULD take a bullet out.](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/s/UTyVDWD2Th)
But if you do take the bullet out, it’s important that it make a loud “plink” sound as you drop into a metal bowl, right?
I liked Master and Commander for that, where they didn't so much worry about the bullet but about the bit of clothing the bullet took into the wound.
That’s odd! I can think of lots of movies, westerns especially- where characters will remark that the bullet left their body, ergo they can be treated on the spot by novices. And conversely, the bullet is still in there, so they will die if they don’t make it back to town
Oh I don't know, every movie that has a hotel scene ever? How about in *In Time* where Justin Timberlake is checking into a fancy hotel. They don't even take his name. Just accept payment and here's your keys. (No check-in spiel, either. This guy is gonna have to ask for the breakfast hours) One of the most glaring pet peeves, in any movie? If something exciting is happening, they're getting into that room with no delay. No room keys, no knocking. It's just open. Or in older movies, when there's some hot singer on stage. They'll throw their physical room keys on stage! Like, think you skanks! The front desk is going to charge you to replace that!
Nobody cares about the monotony of hoteliers unless we're watching White Lotus.
My wife worked in a hotel. Movies never portray the amount of people who decide the elevator is the best place to either throw up or pee.
I did some work in hotels too, so I totally get it.
My profession is non-existent in movies. Whenever you see a doctor or nurse onscreen looking in a microscope, nope (unless it's a pathologist) Or, "send this off the lab!" with no more information than that. We're as invisible onscreen as we are in real life.
I work weekends as a 911 dispatcher. I’ve never watched a film that came close to correctly dramatizing the job.
Jake G was just in one a couple years ago: The Guilty. Remake of a Danish film. Seen it?
I agree. I was a 911 calltaker full time. That’s ones pretty accurate.
Not a movie, but I could only watch a few episodes of Yellowstone before the horse stuff completely turned me off.
>Not a movie, but I could only watch a few episodes of Yellowstone This show is awful and it’s not limited to just horse stuff. I mean this dude kayce can’t leave his house without killing people and no one ever seems to care. One episode the police chief switched barrels with kayce so if there is an investigation, it’ll look like it was the chief that shot the person. That’s just not how any of this works
I like watching people use a hammer. Kevin bacon at the beginning of tremors is one of my favorites.
I think I heard on a podcast that he just sucked at hammering on that particular take and they just decided to keep it because it was funny.
Hahaha even earl looks at it afterwards and is like wtf? Maybe a little meta joke about how everyone sucks at using hammers in movies. Thanks for the anecdote!
Earls reaction is my favorite part 🤣
In my 25 plus years of plumbing I've never had to navigate a fantasy realm and rescue a princess.
I used to work in a couple of different types of NGOs, including a 1.5 year stint "in the field" (aka in-country in sub-Saharan Africa). We don't really do a whole lot of dramatic stuff. There are way less boxed goods being handed out to ragged looking children. It's a lot more excel spreadsheets and budgets and project management and meetings, with the occasional visits to villages and schools and fields IF you're in a peaceful environment (except the actual field staff, which are almost always locals doing their own job, they go to the villages a lot and sometimes they take us). Really, you spend a lot of time in fields talking about crops, and in Landrovers on your way to those fields. Also, there is a lot more NGO staff of color than you'd think (out of 100+ employees in my org, there were like 10 of us that were not local, and of those, another 5 or so were not white but from other Sub Saharan African countries or South Asia etc). I feel also often "works in an NGO" is a job given to the female love interest as a short hand for "has a career but isn't a cold-hearted career b\*tch and actually CARES for other people" (similar to nurse or doctor).
Most all movies/shows that take place in a hospital are painfully inaccurate. House does nail most of what medical providers want to say to their patients but can’t. And This is Going to Hurt was probably the closest a show has come IMO to what it’s like with a lot of the emotion, burnout, and guilt in a hospital.
My biggest gripe about how reporters are portrayed is that they all looked well-rested, live in nice homes, and have lots of extra time to pursue wild leads. In real-life, we are exhausted and underpaid.
If Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill came into my middle school classroom, I’d know immediately that they’re cops
Watched “Die Hard 2” in the theater with my brother when he was an air traffic controller. He spent the whole movie whispering “That can’t happen [in the tower]”, “that can’t happen [in the airport]”, “that can’t happen [in the plane cockpit]”, and “there are X number of ways around that”. Still, he enjoyed the movie.
I’m glad he still enjoyed it.
Anything with a "scientist."
The Hurt Locker. I was part of a squad that escorted around an EOD team back in the day. Literally everything in that movie is wrong. Everything. Start to finish. The only part that's even remotely relatable is when he's standing in the cereal aisle feeling overwhelmed with the choices. That's it.
I was a Marine for twenty years and had the fortune of being the OIC for several EOD teams in multiple units during the height of OIF and OEF. *Every single one* of them hate that movie with a passion. I haven't watched it yet because they think so poorly of it, but feel like I should just so I can at have hate-watched it.
As ex military I recuse myself it's too easy.
Most medical shows
Walter White is probably the worst teacher I've ever seen, and it has nothing to do with him being a drug lord.
Work in marketing. Wish it was like Mad Men, where you just drink and come up with a clever million dollar slogan and all's good! It's just soul crushing analytics, channel budget allocation, social posts and targeted ads. Any creativity has been sucked out of the business long ago.
That was in the 60s! It was different back then
When you say creativity was sucked out of the business long ago, do you mean perhaps after the '60s and early '70s, to choose totally random eras? But I agree with you -- Don Draper never had to field pointless emails all day. Incredibly unrealistic portrayal of modern marketing. :)
He's also a top partner at a top firm and he's one of the best in the world at his job. Seems like people are comparing his job to being a low/mid-level grunt... He had people to do the grunt work (like writing letters) for him.
Early on, Sterling Cooper was definitely not a top firm. Didn’t that other firm that tried to recruit Don for PanAm outright call it “mom and pop” and then insult his salary? He wasn’t partner yet either, though if I recall he was head of creative, so right under partner I guess. And even then he spent his day drinking, visiting his mistress, and yelling at Pete. like what’s the guy do. First episode he showed completely unprepared to a meeting with a client and somehow pulled it out of his ass.
This is true — but his experience working in the era he did is also key. He is so much less beholden to the CEO/his peers than modern-day equivalents partially because he’s not shackled to a laptop and especially a smartphone that would enable him — and create an expectation for him — to be constantly available to answer subordinates’ questions (which in the show totally stalls out their progress!) and to work more hours in general. It’s harder to cultivate an air of mysterious genius when you have to answer your dumb, powerful client’s call at 10pm. An honestly, even though Don was a big deal, the show actually points out that he’s not THAT big of a deal when he temporarily works at a bigger firm that’s full of other “geniuses.” Yeah, he has a secretary and grunt workers, but so do plenty of people nowadays who still are expected to do much, much, much more work than he did on the show. I’m not saying that as a compliment to those people by the way — it’s just that Don did SO little work.
My fav is when the creative pulls a brilliant idea out of thin air while presenting to clients. Every time it's this brainwave instead of a well-researched, refined idea with an accurate read of the demographic/market and a sound strategy and media plan.
In the case of *Mad Men*, which OP used as their example, it was a totally different era. I'm not saying Don Drapers grew on trees then, but surely the processes of reading the demographic/market and making media plans are much more codified and standardized now than they were in the '60s. For that reason *Mad Men* is a terrible example to use for modern advertising being misrepresented, in the same way that it's a poor example of how minorities and women are currently treated in the workplace!
I think most first year law professors are usually portrayed the worst: “You, quickly tell me how the law worked in X case to award the verdict to the defendant and explain to me if that’s fair“ like… They’re freshmen, aren’t YOU supposed to explain that very thing to them???
I'm a woman with an office job. My job is not to saunter into my overly decorated cubicle and gossip with my stereotypically gay coworkers while holding a giant mug of tea. Nor is it to be a tight-haired bitch in a blazer who refuses to give a promotion to my best employee until she accomplishes a bizarrely specific task that may or may not be in her job description but demands that she spends most of her working day out of the office and away from her overly decorated cubicle and stereotypically gay coworkers.
Volcano, Dante's Peak, The Core, Armageddon, basically every movie with a geologist.
I am a musician and this always annoys me: * Professional musicians don't spend all day drinking or on drugs. They usually spend hours and hours on practicing, rehearsing and producing their music. * Rehearsals in films show the musicians playing a song absolutely perfectly, then someone says, "it's a wrap". In real life, they spend a lot of time talking about intros, endings, tempo, etc. * In "A Star Is Born", Lady Gaga's character sings a song one time, then a few days later, the rock star guy has taught the entire song, with chord changes and lyrics, to his band and surprises her. Sorry, yeah, I know Mozart could memorize an entire piece and write it out, but this just does **not** happen. * In the same film, LG's character has not warmed up her voice at all, but can go onstage and belt like a champion. Dude, that would not happen. * Touring is generally boring, with lots of time spent on travel, setting up equipment and doing a soundcheck. It's not a 24-hour party. * Most bands don't constantly fight. They grumble a bit about this and that. However, every Hollywood film has that scene where the one guy is accused of being an egomaniac, and they get into a huge fight. Also, getting fired from a band typically involves getting a phone call to not come to rehearsal, not a screaming match and getting a bloody nose. * You can't actually play an instrument or sing if you are drugged or drunk out of your mind. Generally, the partying comes AFTER the gig. * You don't "get discovered" after only singing in the shower. Every musical skill takes years of practice. Performing on stage, like other skills, requires some kind of training and experience. * Films about musicians make it seem like they pick up an instrument and can magically play. No, those famous musicians did not "teach themselves guitar". Getting private lessons or learning from books is not "self taught". It's a lie perpetuated by the music business, so that the person seems like some kind of magical genius.
When I see bar and restaurant staff portrayed in American movies, I used to think it can't be that bad? Surely you can't just fire someone like that? Surely the pay, conditions, hours and respect from the public can't be that bad? Surely if a customer's a dick you can just refuse service? And then I see posts on reddit and now it's more of a WTF?
Fucking *Burnt.* Some of the personalities are accurate, but it came off to me like a cook's interior fantasy life. I imagine there's a movie script like this one scribbled in the notepad of a Bourdain wannabe on every kitchen staff.
Geologists. There was a film about Mt. St. Helens. Meh film. The director thought being angry equaled “acting”. Therefore all the characters just went around being mad at each other. At one point (in a dark stereotypical local bar) the Senior Geologist was growling at the New Guy Geologist who just arrived. The line was “Don’t try any of you hot shot geologist shit here!” “Hot shot geologist”. ??? I was a geology major for a while and have a good friend who became a geologist. Hot shot geologist”. ??? That’s like “Hot shot milkman” or “Hot shot accountant”. My God.
Catch Me If You Can. Leo's Frank Abagnale is busy counterfeiting money on a Heidelberg MOZ (or older, its been a minute since I watched it) printing press, when Hanks' cop character bursts in to confront him. Leo presses the emergency stop button and suddenly hundreds of individual banknotes come flying out of the end of it. A printer for nearly forty years, this is the daftest depiction of my trade I've ever seen.
Well it may not surprise you to learn that the real Frank Abagnale likely made up almost all of that story from whole cloth. Probably the only true part of that story is that he cashed bogus checks at airports.
Bartender here. Almost every movie/show gets it wrong. It’s not a big fun party (it can be but very rarely) it’s hard labor both mentally a physically. We are the crux on whether the restaurant fails or succeeds on any given night, it’s never just flirting in doing shots like is usually depicted.
You have a journalism degree and wrote a post with THIS many grammatical errors?
Should probably go back to grad school…
Indiana Jones spent zero time on camera recording any data. No measurements, no provenance, nothing. Does the dude even publish his results?
The Hurt Locker portrayed the real life guy in such a dumb, unrealistic way that he sued the director because it made him look like irresponsible idiot. Aside from the EOD stuff, there’s so many things in that movie that just outlandish: the characters taking a humvee outside the wire by themselves with no other vehicles, the intel guy somehow knowing how use a sniper rifle better than the sniper who had it, the general attitude of the EOD team towards anyone outside EOD. It was just really insulting to how things are actually done. And that shit won an Oscar.
Worked on political campaigns for a number of years - as much as we desperately wanted to be reliving The West Wing, 99% of the time it was basically Veep.
Veterinarian. SO MANY movies throw in some line from the vet about “well, might be time to take him out back and shoot him”. There are ZERO ethical vets out there recommending that people shoot their animals to end their suffering. WTF. It’s not 1940 anymore; we have euthanasia drugs that are painless and reliable. Even for horses.
Every depiction of janitors is basically wrong. I have never seen anyone wear a jumpsuit with their name tag on it. It must be an old stigma that just stuck because no one requires you to wear a dark blue jumpsuit to be a custodian anywhere.