Movie Cliches

[Deleted]

ripley said:

Character A is under some kind of stress - either being attacked by a monster or being pulled into machinery when Character B stumbles in:

A: Do something!
B: What?!?
A: ANYTHING!!!!!

I'd like to see someone dance a jig or brush their teeth when told that. Just out of spite. Heh.

[marywebgirl]

I'd like to see someone dance a jig

You mean, pull an Ashlee?

[Ripley]

"My band attacked the wrong monster, and I didn't know what else to do, so I danced a hoe-down!"

[Deleted]

You know that cliche that whenever someone needs to make a phone call (no matter how obscure), they never need to look a number up in the phone book? Well, I just saw the exception to that rule. I was watching John Carpenter's Body Bags, this campy, goofy horror movie from 1993. Anyway, Stacy Keach is in one of the stories, and he has to make a phone call. He goes to the phone, picks up it, realizes he doesn't know the number and actually grabs the phone book. He didn't even automatically open the book to the right page on the first try - he had to flip through. Amazing.

[Deleted]

Oh, I love when I see "Movie Cliches" at the top of the page!

Here's one: In prison scenes (in comedies) there's often a big, macho looking prisoner who looks the hero directly in the eye and provocatively licks his lips or makes kissy noises. Get it? The threat of homosexual rape is amusing!

[shriekingeel]

The threat of homosexual rape is amusing!

It always bothers me when the hero tells the bad guy that "Bubba" is waiting for him, and that we as the audience are expected to find that funny.

Homosexual rape may be a fact of life in prison, but I don't get many big laffs from it.

[underjoyed]

I also just saw The Island and kept getting distracted by one of my pet-peeve cliches. It's wasn't just Scar-Jo's perfect makeup, it was her nails.

For those of you who haven't seen it, by the end of the movie, she and Ewan have fallen off at least seven buildings, each of which are several hundred stories in height. They've also been in forty-seven car chases, forty-seven car crashes, been shot at, tangled in nets and nearly blown up.

And yet when she puts her hands on Ewan's face for the big kiss, her nails? Still perfectly manicured. Not broken, not torn. Not a speck of dirt underneath them. Nail polish still immaculate. And instead of concentrating on the scene, I'm thinking: "how is this possible?" (Well, okay, first I'm thinking: "You lucky, lucky, lucky b****.") But seriously, when I get a manicure, I get chips in the polish within 24 hours, and that's just from going about my daily business (the majority of which involves pen-pushing). Apparently, in the movie-verse, nail polish - and fingernails themselves - are made out of titanium.

I also find myself distracted by the perfect teeth of the characters in historical dramas. The chances of anyone over the age of twelve having gleaming white (and a complete set of) teeth in, say, turn of the century New York or Elizabethan England or medieval Scotland are just nil. Hell, the chances of meeting anyone in the present day UK with a full set of gleaming white teeth are...well, let's just say I don't like those odds.*

*(Couldn't resist a spot of cultural stereotyping. Sorry. ::hands in passport::)

[shriekingeel]

Someday, someday, there will be a movie (other than Poltergeist) where thunderclaps and lightning flashes aren't simultaneous.

[Hamatron]

Whenever something is advertised as having a twist ending? There's a good chance that either a) the kid/fragile woman did it b) the main character is dead, so the POV is not what you think it is

[pepper67]

Apparently, in the movie-verse, nail polish - and fingernails themselves - are made out of titanium.

Along the same lines, when the female character wakes up in the morning with perfect make up. If you can't get the mascara off before you go to bed, you usually wake up with panda eyes (which look fine on pandas but don't suit me all that well).