Empty mobile commercial coffee cups in movies/sitcoms

Conversely, why do police/investigators/mystery hunters of various sorts never, ever turn on the lights but insist on bumping around in the dark with flashlights. Turn on the lights. Especially in that warehouse-sized cavernous deep basement. Just flip the switch. Makes things so much easier, safer.

 

Probably the only correct place on it.

 

You are absolutely right. I hate it when actors pretend to drink coffee from cups that are obviously empty. They do this all the time. If it were me as a director, I'd at least fill the cup with water and have them drink something and give the cup a little weight.

I believe there is an "Idiot Character Rule" in some films, which Ray Bradbury talked about years ago when he reviewed the movie Alien. He said, "so you have an incredibly hostile, dangerous small alien that has already killed one crewmember and has acid for blood. What do you do? If you're smart, you stick together and come up with a good plan to protect yourself. But the idiot characters split up, go to remote parts of the spaceship, go into rooms that are very dark, and they each get picked off, one at a time, by the now-gigantic alien." So too many movies hinge on the characters acting like idiots.

 

I guess we need more space on our coordinate on the spectrum for vidiot.

 

A good actor should be able to mime the motion of coffee drinking without using the cup as a prop.

 

Invisible cups being handled respectful of Newtonian laws I have no problem with.

 

Naw, there's a difference in weight between an empty cup and one filled with coffee. I have the same problem with people who "pretend" that a package or a prop is very heavy, when it's clear they're faking it and it's as light as a feather. It never looks real.

 

OUCH!

 

Also, she's soldering the component side of the board.