This is a problem I’ve been wrestling with from about 2000 on — not hearing loss; my hearing’s as acute as ever — it’s the crappy mixing of sound that movie makers are giving us.  Foley guys are getting very creative with the digital sound effects, and yes, they’re cool — but let’s face it, you don’t hear people’s eyelashes swooshing through the air…not even Lady Gaga’s.  And the sound mixers — not only are the special effects too bloody loud, so is the incidental music.  It doesn’t get my blood flowing when there’s a rousing overture played at 200 decibels…it works better if you’re not bleeding from the ears.

Also, what is with male actors and not enunciating? Speak the hell up, guys! Important dialog should not be something you need to wait for the DVD release and close captioning to catch.  It was shit when Brando did it, it’s shit when all the trendy actors do it.  Part of acting?  Getting the lines across.  It’s not mysterious or brooding; it’s f#@$ing annoying.  You don’t have to backbench it like Patrick McGoohan used to (hey, Pat…the mike is three feet over your head; dial it back to five [or is that Six?]…), but don’t assume we’ve all got bat-like hearing, Christian Bale.

It’s particularly bad in the summertime, when I’ve got the swamp cooler and fan going to keep my desert-placed house down to a reasonable temperature; the white noise of the fan is usually right at the frequency of the average male voice.  The crappy sound mixing doesn’t help matters.

Den of Geek is complaining about the same thing.