Movie Cliches that need to be Retired.

[PHArchivist]

One dialogue cliche' I'm really sick of is referring to your home or apartment as "me".

As in, two characters arrive at one of their respective apartments and the one who lives there says, "This is me..."

Good-****ing-god... sick

This is OLD and it is not "cool"... The first person who ever twisted grammar in this manner may have sounded slightly interesting, but now its old and stupid.

A house or an apartment or a condo is a physical object. It is YOURS, not "YOU".

So say it right - "This is mine..."

 

[Too Much Garlic]

One dialogue cliche' I'm really sick of is referring to your home or apartment as "me".
As in, two characters arrive at one of their respective apartments and the one who lives there says, "This is me..."
Good-****ing-god... sick
This is OLD and it is not "cool"... The first person who ever twisted grammar in this manner may have sounded slightly interesting, but now its old and stupid.
A house or an apartment or a condo is a physical object. It is YOURS, not "YOU".
So say it right - "This is mine..."

Never heard that one. Got an example where it is used?

 

[PHArchivist]

Never heard that one. Got an example where it is used?

Gosh - lots...

I think it was used in Fast Times At Ridgemont High when Mike Damone walks Stacy home from school.

I know it was in Six Days, Seven Nights where the Big Breasted Loon walks back to her bungalow with David Schwimmer.

Pretty sure it was used in Lethal Weapon 2 when Gibson walks the blonde chick back to her apartment.

Many others... I just don't have a finite list.

 

[p51]

In many TV shows and movies, all men follow under the following ratios:

• 40% gay
• 40% Jewish
• 10% caucasian heterosexual (but with severe issues)
• 10% "other" and those characters never do much in the plot

That, and the majority of all Americans live within driving distance of New York City.
I remember when I visited Europe for the first time, the locals couldn't get a grip on big North America really was. They thought Florida (where I lived at the time) was maybe a 2 or so hour drive to the Big Apple. I can only assume US movies and TV shows were to blame for that...

 

[Robot Monster]

But I love blinkys!!! :cry

OK, so there are some movie Cliches that I've noticed become really prevalent in the last 10-15 years. They were OK once or twice, but now are everywhere, here are my top 2 right now, feel free to contribute your own.

1. Blinky/Noisy secret Equipment. As seen on Goldeneye etc. Bond plants Remote Detonation mines. He activates them, they BEEP, and Leds start blinking, and they keep beeping. Human Beings are predators, they are attuned to Movement, changes in Lighting, and Sound. Having a covert device that blinks and beeps says "HERE I AM".

I love when the hero is setting the timer etc, on a bomb and it's beeping. Yeah, the bad guys won't notice BEEP every BEEP time BEEP I BEEP push BEEP a BEEP button BEEEEEP. And always with the LED Display, not LCD, LED. Of course this is Hollywood assuming we are so stupid that without Blinky blinky beepy beepy, we won't figure out what they just did.

2. The hero gets Kicked, Punched, or Picked up and slammed 30 plus feet into a wall or concrete post, and lies there with a WTF expression on their face. Pick an action film lately for this one.

Last month I was horsing around with my son, went long for a pass, wasn't watching and BAM went back first into a tree. I did NOT lie there with a WTF Expression. I lie there gasping like a fish til I got my wind back, which enabled me to roll around and groan on the ground for 10 minutes, Pick myself up, Limp to the house, down 2 tylenol and 3 advil, and go take a nap.

The blunt force to knock you 30+ feet would Break Bones, Pulverize Organs, and slamming your back into a post would Qualify you for SSD. But Nooooo, Our Hero just gets pissed off, and is a little more Cautious about round 2.

 

[StefTrooper]

For me it's the bit where the hero walks cool-ly away (usually towards the viewers) from the ginormous explosion.

Here's "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo


Sorry if this has been posted already!

 

[p51]

Here's "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqz5dbs5zmo

Hilarious!
One thing I leanred on active duty and being around a lot of stuff that went BOOM is that you always watch explosions as you need to track where the debris is coming down to avoid getting beaned by something!

 

[p51]

Another I noticed the other day, and I hope nobody thought of here already:
When ANY kind of airplane is diving or in trouble of any kind, it makes the sound of a WW2 Stuka dive bomber. That siren sound was a noise maker installed on the side in part to scare the poop out of people on the ground. A few people managed to record the sound during the war. Somehow over the years, that sound got attached to the concept of a airplane in distress. In fact, a diving airplane doesn’t make that sound at all, especially since there hasn’t been a stuka flying in over 60 years.

 

[CB2001]

Here's one, which actually helped me design a character who goes against this concept: All assassins are handsome men and beautiful women.

Seriously, think about it: The whole point of an assassin is to get close enough to their target to take it out. I think a handsome man like Brad Pitt or Matt Damon would be noticed. I know for a fact a beautiful woman like Angelina Jolie would be noticed before they could even get remotely close to even kill a target.

As I said before, I myself created an assassin-like character that goes against this concept. Borrowing the idea of how the Terminator originally was before James Cameron met Arnold. Originally, The Terminator was meant to look like an anonymous man. Someone who can walk out of a crowd, kill you for no noticeable reason and then disappear into a crowd without being noticed. That's exactly the perfect definition of an assassin. Someone like Arnold is noticeable due to his size.

Even better: all leads are attractive. Even those that appear somewhat "normal" are attractive (no, I don't mean the secretary looking geeky until she removes her glasses and lets down her hair thing). Example: Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Even after her character start off being a bit ugly, but after her character's make-over, though she looks plain and really average, she's attractive.

The Geek saves the school: Seriously, one geek saves the school by standing up to a bully during one day, everything is fine after that and yet he doesn't pay any ongoing consequence by the bully for standing up to him. Best example of this is the movie Three O'clock High. In real life, the nerd would have had his ass handed to him and the daily beating by the bully would have increased.

 

[terryr]

Of the old movies I've seen lately, it's true:

if a soldier shows a picture of his girlfriend he's going to die soon.

Two people pointing guns at each others faces will never shoot. They just yap at each other.

Any cute woman who gets kidnapped by a pack of scum never gets raped. They always have some lame reason to not do it.

We all know what real explosions look like from the news, and yet they keep on making those big colorful slo-mo fireballs in movies. And of course the hero can outrun it as it happens and get behind something.

 

[Solo4114]

Here's one, which actually helped me design a character who goes against this concept: All assassins are handsome men and beautiful women.

Seriously, think about it: The whole point of an assassin is to get close enough to their target to take it out. I think a handsome man like Brad Pitt or Matt Damon would be noticed. I know for a fact a beautiful woman like Angelina Jolie would be noticed before they could even get remotely close to even kill a target.

True. There's an episode of the show Brotherhood that actually deals with this. There's an assassin in that show (well, really a hitman) who has a wife, pet dogs, etc. and who basically looks like Karl Rove -- short, dumpy, balding, bespectacled. Nothing remarkable. The key is that he kills without remorse. The scenes involving him are REALLY disturbing, but the point is that he's just this regular guy who'd ring your doorbell AND YOU'D OPEN THE DOOR. If he killed someone, no one would be able to describe him particularly well.

I always liked the idea of the anonymous assassin. I mean, I get the concept of the "seducing assassin" who uses their looks to woo someone so that they can get in close, but I think Mr. Average would be far more effective.

Even better: all leads are attractive. Even those that appear somewhat "normal" are attractive (no, I don't mean the secretary looking geeky until she removes her glasses and lets down her hair thing). Example: Nia Vardalos in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Even after her character start off being a bit ugly, but after her character's make-over, though she looks plain and really average, she's attractive.

So true. Everyone in Hollywood is beautiful, unless they're PURPOSELY ugly (IE: Michael Berryman) and get jobs because of it. Nobody is average. You're either a sideshow act, or a knockout. Everyone else is an extra.

 

[aron42486]

I got one.

Scene: Someone holds a lighter up to the fire sprinklers in a building and they all go off spraying clear water everywhere, yea that doesn't happen.

I used to install those sprinkler systems in buildings. First, the water is never clear. Those pipes are mildly treated iron, and iron rusts with water just sitting inside of them, turning it a murky brown color. The water rarely gets changed, someone might flush the system every 5 years, but that still doesnt get out all of the nasty brown water in those pipes. Tip: If you ever need to set off fire sprinklers, DO NOT look up or open your mouth.

Second, I hate that people think that if you set off one sprinkler then they will all go off. The systems are designed to contain a fire, so only the ones exposed to temperatures over 155 degrees will go off. Think about it, if a small trash fire started in an office closet and the entire system went off, all computers, electronics, carpeting, drywall, etc. would be ruined and need to be replaced. Holding a lighter to a sprinkler head will just get you wet, no one else.

Pretty much the only systems that will set everyone sprinkler head off are those in nuclear power plants, cause trust me, you do not want even a small fire in a power plant.

 

[Krel]

Borrowing the idea of how the Terminator originally was before James Cameron met Arnold. Originally, The Terminator was meant to look like an anonymous man. Someone who can walk out of a crowd, kill you for no noticeable reason and then disappear into a crowd without being noticed. That's exactly the perfect definition of an assassin. Someone like Arnold is noticeable due to his size.

James Cameron wanted Lance Henriksen to play the Terminator. He took Arnold because the producers wanted him because it got the film a bigger budget and allowed them to film in California rather than Canada.

There was an episode of "Peter Gunn" where someone was killing off mob figures. It turned out to be Howard McNear, he played Floyd the barber on the Andy Griffith show. He got away with the murders because nobody looked twice at him.

David.

 

[terryr]

Donald Sutherland in Eye of the Needle was another good bland hitman. He'd smile friendly as he kills you.

But yeah, most hitmen have a cool long leather coat with cool shades and a cool attitude and a cool strut and a cool gun that they always use. Coooool.

 

[themanwoaname]

using actors that were in the original thing as a cameo in the update/re imagining. or cameos in general.

everytime i hear someone say adam west should be in the nolan bat world, i want to strangle a pillow case full of kittens.

a prime example would be the mostly unpopular starsky and hutch, i enjoyed it, until the original starsky and hutch came in and gave over the keys to the new torino. or lou ferrigno in BOTH hulk movies.

it takes away from what the movie is, if people see that, they laugh, or focus on that, and not the actual movie itself. they can make a hulk movie with out lou ferrigno, you know?

passing the torch isnt cool, if its not apart of the story; its stupid.

 

[darthgordon]

Pretty much the only systems that will set everyone sprinkler head off are those in nuclear power plants, cause trust me, you do not want even a small fire in a power plant.

Chemical plants too! And believe me, that is a sight to see when they set them off.

 

[ghostryder]

A "But Then I'd Have to Kill You" Supercut

 

[p51]

I just thought of a few more:
· At a high school prom, everyone knows how to dance well.
· Someone with no experience with explosives can disarm a bomb made by an expert. Apparently, you don’t really need EOD guys because it’s so simple to cut that one color wire that renders the bomb inert.
· When trains hit something, they NEVER come to a stop afterward even though federal regulations require them to stop. You can stop even a heavy freight train at full speed in less than a mile or so, movie trains just keep on going…
· The nerdy guy in the high school movie does something awesome and wins the heart of the cheerleader. Sweet, but how come she never turns out to be a moron with no redeeming qualities other than being a hottie? It’s the “Handsome Prince” scenario in reverse!
· In every war movie, the guy carrying the crew-served weapon is always slightly psychopathic and loves shooting people with it.
· At subway stations, people jump over the turnstiles all the time and there are never transit cops around to stop them.
· Hackers can break into anything while you wait. Need to read the CIA’s lists of covert agents or the President’s e-mail? No problem, he’ll get it for you in two minutes!

 

[Yellowjacket]

The sound of metal scraping metal when someone draws a sword. I cringe every time. I will always cringe. I hate that one.

 

[Solo4114]

The sound of metal scraping metal when someone draws a sword. I cringe every time. I will always cringe. I hate that one.

I cringe doubly when it's a katana drawn from a BAMBOO SCABBARD.

/facepalm


Along the same lines (apologies if this has been covered), the practice of cocking guns all the time and/or racking shells in pump action shotguns. Just ONCE I'd like to see someone use a pump action shotgun and have a shell ALREADY racked at a very tense scene, so that at the moment where you think they'll dramatically rack it for the "chack-CHOCK" sound effect (to act as punctuation on their "You're dead meat" statement), they could just turn the gun on the person and pull the trigger.

If it were real life, do you have any idea how many live shells would just be scattered all over the floor of moviedom? For that matter, doesn't cocking an automatic pistol with a live round in the chamber cause the slide to lock back, at least on some pistols?


I think this practice originates with flintlock pistols and percussion revolvers. With a flintlock, moving from half-****** to fully ****** means business. Same thing with a single-action revolver. With a double-action one, it's SLIGHTLY less menacing. But with automatics, jacking the slide back...what's that serve to do? ESPECIALLY when you aren't loading a fresh magazine AND have just been in a big firefight??!