There was once a time when movies were dependable: you got a hero, a villain, a love interest and a story that strode confidently from outset to resolution, with some carefully plotted tension along the way and some character development, if we were lucky. Sadly, the advent of post-modern and self-consciously obtuse cinema meant that film-makers consciously railed against the acceptable principles of film-making, and started messing with the formula. Plots were chopped up and reformatted in entirely the wrong order, characters came and went without so much as a whisper of development or explanation and the idea of monotone presentations of good and evil evaporated. Thank God then that film-makers retain an eye for detail - the influx of ostentatious creativity and consciously atypical story-telling meant that detail and continuity became even more important, as films lost their anchors to the outside world, and we all had to judge them by internal signposts. Or we would, if film-makers weren't so flaming casual about the need to commit to their own stories and pay attention to what they are actually committing to the screen. They'll leave plots dangling, ignore logic or the laws of physics in the hope that we won't notice, and sometimes they achieve their dastardly goals. Because, frankly, the history of cinema is bursting at the seams with classic movies with giant plot holes and inconsistencies that most of you will never have thought to spend the time or the effort picking at. Luckily for you, around these parts, that's exactly what we like to do...
Honourable Mention
Khan Knows Chekov (The Wrath Of Khan) It's not quite gaping, but it infuriates every time Wrath Of Khan appears on TV. How is it that dastardly Khan recognises Chekov before he slips a puppet-master eel baby into his ear, when the two didn't meet the first time Khan appeared in the original series? Chekov wasn't there, so greeting him with familiarity was bound to pose some questions, especially among people with way too much time on their hands...