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Common or lazy cliches in Hollywood films

Started by Saucer51, March 06, 2011, 09:25:52 PM

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kidsick5000

Quote from: CaledonianGonzo on April 03, 2011, 07:26:08 PM

He's the inspiration behind this idea I have for a story about some regular guy who just happens to have huge action set pieces from famous films happen around him. But without staring at his wine.

izzy

In action movies, nobody ever runs out of bullets in a gun fight.

Unless... it serves the effect of a "person pulls the trigger, gun clicks uselessly - uh-oh" turn of events. In that case, if it's a bad guy this is the point where the good guy can finally shoot him. If it's a good guy, he'll try to reload the weapon frantically, while the antagonist is coming closer anc closer, and will succeed and shoot him at the very last second.

lipsink

I noticed in Inception last night they had this cliche:

Character 1 does something unexpected


Character 2: "What are you doing?"

Character 1: "Improvising!"

MuteBanana

The hero's ex-wife's new husband is always a total arse that you wonder how bad was the hero to push her into his arms.

"This guy?!"
"He's good to us. He doesn't go out every night chasing hurricanes."
"He looks like my Dad!"
"Have you even seen your Father lately?"
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"Everything!"

Etc.


Retinend

"that's the point, it doesn't do anything!"


Blumf

Roofs are designed, as standard, to carry tons of weight bouncing around on them.

katzenjammer

Watched the new Tron film today, it's full of em.  One that stood out was that thing where a character says 'I need you to do something for me' or 'I need to tell you something' then there's a cut away to a different scene and we only find out what the something was about ten minutes later.  Zzzzzz  so lame


Where is my motorbike/some expensive supercar?

Abruptly cut to said vehicle being driven very fast by another character without permission while hard rock music plays

Ash

When a character lies underwater in the bath and opens their eyes (either to come face to face with someone/thing looming over them, or just to show how angsty they're feeling) despite the fact I have never met anyone who does this in real life. Wouldn't it hurt? Warm, soapy water in your eyes?

The Tourist

The British villain thing really is ridiculous most of the time. An hour or so of stuff blowing up in an American city, with Americans shooting at other Americans over the safety of America, then it turns out it's all being orchestrated by some posh English fella who has no discernable reason to be there, other than the fact that he's English and therefore an evil megalomaniac.

Also, any time the main character goes back to their home town, nobody has moved on, and they're all living depressing lives. The hot couple from high school are still together, but they're significantly less hot now, and they hate each other. Usually the man almost made the NFL or something, but didn't quite, and now works in a factory or on a building site. The main character's best friend ends up giving him a speech to the effect of: "There's nothing here for you man. It's too late for me, but you should get out while you still can."

mycroft

A science-fiction character is exploring a newly-discovered room full of either developing clones or people in suspended animation. He gingerly moves in closer to one to get a better look... And its eyes snap open! There then follows a scene in which the character barely escapes (if he's the main character) or is murdered (if he's a supporting one).

On the subject of murder, another cliche would be a person being dragged screaming by their feet away from the camera, often while looking directly into it, into the shadows. Saves on the effects for showing a killing, I suppose.

Gulftastic

Up-tight men just need a bohemian woman to show them the beauty of life. Then they can quit their high-powered job, and go sell shit on a beach somewhere.

Nobody Soup

"I like to come here sometimes..."

as romantic leads steal away to an apartment roof or cut a date short to look at a wind farm.

Noodle Lizard

A friend and I used to make lists of these.

- A man and woman lie in bed after doing the horizontal mamba.  The sheet will always be L-shaped, exposing the man's chest and yet covering the woman's breasts.

- Similarly, nobody seems to suffer from morning breath.

- A man will take a severe beating in his stride, and will only wince later when the woman is tending delicately to his wounds.

- Shots of technology (a character receiving e-mails etc.) never correlates with any real available system of the time.

- Native Americans are incapable of saying anything which isn't profoundly wise.

- Nobody ever has to wait for a train or other form of public transport.  Similarly, taxis are always easy to hail down, unless the conversation the couple (usually) are having requires it not to work straight away.

Eh fuck, there's loads.


Utter Shit

Quote from: The Tourist on April 18, 2011, 10:40:59 PM
The British villain thing really is ridiculous most of the time. An hour or so of stuff blowing up in an American city, with Americans shooting at other Americans over the safety of America, then it turns out it's all being orchestrated by some posh English fella who has no discernable reason to be there, other than the fact that he's English and therefore an evil megalomaniac.

Also, any time the main character goes back to their home town, nobody has moved on, and they're all living depressing lives. The hot couple from high school are still together, but they're significantly less hot now, and they hate each other. Usually the man almost made the NFL or something, but didn't quite, and now works in a factory or on a building site. The main character's best friend ends up giving him a speech to the effect of: "There's nothing here for you man. It's too late for me, but you should get out while you still can."
Is that a cliché of Hollywood films in general or just the exact story of Good Will Hunting?

Utter Shit

I don't want to step on Kevin Bridges' toes here, but a cliché of Hollywood films is the ludicrously extravagant and 'awesome' party held by the cool kid at school, or alternatively foisted on the rich kid that no one likes, in which case the house will get trashed. The parties will always have an endless supply of alcohol, which will be split three ways between casual drinking, excessive drinking games, and forced into animals. There will be an incredibly well-rehearsed ban playing on a sound system that is literally perfect. Upstairs, there will be one unspecified bedroom that it is fine to have sex in, one locked-off room (the host's) that someone is passed out in, and one 'forbidden' bedroom belonging to the parents. The experienced couple will fuck in here - the virgins will have unsatisfactory sex in the remaining room.

I may as well step on Bridges' toes actually, as he makes the point better than me when he says that on this side of the water, house parties tend to be "much more tense affairs".

Dead kate moss

First line of the new Batman trailer... 'There's a storm coming.' Wow, you mean figuratively? I've never heard that line in a movie before.

If you meet someone in real life you might say 'Hi, I'm Mike' and the other guy will say 'Hey, I'm Tom.' Except in movies people will invariably give their full name, especially if it's accidentally important to the to the other person - 'I'm John... John Connor.'

Locked doors are easily kicked open, though it usually takes two attempts.

Everyone likes sport(s). 'Tickets to the game' are always highly prized (more true on TV possibly).

Seat-belts do not exist.

Utter Shit

This is all reminding me of the bottle episode in series 6 of Men Behaving Badly where Tony wonders about the things you NEVER see in films, for example people walking into a room and forgetting why they came in, or someone walking into a room and getting their pocket caught on the door handle. Probably a good idea for a fun thread, that. Everyday things you never seen in movies.

holyzombiejesus

I like it when the hero, usually looking a little bit straight or square, has to investigate a crime that took place involving a local gang of punks or a rock club. Our hero enters the venue and has a stand off with the punks/ rockers and is roundly mocked for having short hair or a shirt; the greboes will then, foolishly, attempt to beat up Mr Square, usually with the help of a flick-knife. BIG mistake! Mr Square then rounds on the leader of the rockers/ king punk and kicks his fucking face in, usually ending up with king punk in an arm lock or unconscious. Mr Square will then say 'any of you other punks fancy a go, I'd be happy to oblige' but the punks will all go 'no way man' and back off. Mr Square then completes his enquiries and goes back to the office with not a scratch on his beautifully groomed body. Alriiiiiight!

Oh yeah, when Mr Square enters the club, there will be a band playing. They'll be called something like 'The Sick Babies' and will have a keyboard player.

One that I am past the point of finding funny is this one which seems to happen in every film involving supernatural beings: There will be one character who is incredulous long after they've seen the evidence with their own eyes. This person has apparently never come into contact with any kind of fiction or superstition in their lives, so if they see a walking corpse feasting on brains in broad daylight, the word "zombie" will never occur to them.

"He looked so pale and diseased... he... he wasn't himself... and what he was doing to that man... eating him... eating his brains! I tried to make him stop but he tried to bite me. And those people in the street, they've all turned the same way. What in God's name is going on here?"

"Face it, Bob. He's a zombie. They're all zombies."

"ZOMBIES? That's CRAZY! Have you lost your mind?"

Dead kate moss

QuoteI like it when the hero, usually looking a little bit straight or square, has to investigate a crime that took place involving a local gang of punks or a rock club. Our hero enters the venue and has a stand off with the punks/ rockers and is roundly mocked for having short hair or a shirt; the greboes will then, foolishly, attempt to beat up Mr Square, usually with the help of a flick-knife. BIG mistake! Mr Square then rounds on the leader of the rockers/ king punk and kicks his fucking face in, usually ending up with king punk in an arm lock or unconscious. Mr Square will then say 'any of you other punks fancy a go, I'd be happy to oblige' but the punks will all go 'no way man' and back off. Mr Square then completes his enquiries and goes back to the office with not a scratch on his beautifully groomed body. Alriiiiiight!

Oh yeah, when Mr Square enters the club, there will be a band playing. They'll be called something like 'The Sick Babies' and will have a keyboard player.

The above would be a great one to subvert - especially as 'punk rockers' aren't usually violent thugs. The hero could enter the scary-seeming club only for all the punks to say 'a murder? Oh no, that's awful. Ask around, by all means.'

It's also funny how often a punky-alternative hottie chick will find the square guy attractive, and if she does have an alternative-punk bf he will be a violent meat-head type, never nice or cleverer than Mr Square.

Dead kate moss

Quote from: Default to the negative on May 02, 2012, 03:12:21 PM
One that I am past the point of finding funny is this one which seems to happen in every film involving supernatural beings: There will be one character who is incredulous long after they've seen the evidence with their own eyes. This person has apparently never come into contact with any kind of fiction or superstition in their lives, so if they see a walking corpse feasting on brains in broad daylight, the word "zombie" will never occur to them.

"He looked so pale and diseased... he... he wasn't himself... and what he was doing to that man... eating him... eating his brains! I tried to make him stop but he tried to bite me. And those people in the street, they've all turned the same way. What in God's name is going on here?"

"Face it, Bob. He's a zombie. They're all zombies."

"ZOMBIES? That's CRAZY! Have you lost your mind?"

Equally, say a straight character finds himself faced with vampires or werewolves, and coming to terms that they really exist. He will ask if they really drink blood or whatever, and at some point ask a 'dumb' question - 'Can you turn into bats?' or 'what about silver bullets' and the vampire or vampire expert will laugh and say he's seen too many movies or this isn't the movies. Hey, everything about you is from and in the movies, how is anyone supposed to know where the line stops?

#54
Women will always be saved from a rape at the last minute. Recent examples are the Book Of Eli and Taken. Taken has one of the most compromising instances of this cliché because the subject of the film is trafficking and systematised rape. Literally dozens of unnamed foreign girls are forced into sex during the events of the movie but Liam Neeson's daughter, prized by her kidnappers for her virginity and by the film's writer for being an American, is spared from the grimy brothels so that she can be sold as a delicacy to a sweaty Turkish millionaire. Neeson bursts in mere seconds before the dirty deed is done, allowing us to breathe a sigh of relief and not really have to face the harsh realities that the film purports to shed light on.

Jerzy Bondov

Somebody mentioned this one on a podcast (Comedy Bang Bang maybe?) and since then I've not stopped noticing it. When a detective visits a person at their place of work in order to ask them about a murder, that person always continues to do their work while the interview is conducted. Often they are stacking crates or filing paperwork. 'Bob's dead, huh? Yeah I knew him, although not well enough for the news of his untimely death to interrupt my working day for even one second'

billtheburger

Funerals filmed with blue filter on rainy days.


holyzombiejesus

Quote from: billtheburger on May 02, 2012, 04:17:57 PM
Funerals filmed with blue filter on rainy days...

...with someone lurking under an umbrella, by a tree in the background. The person closest to the deceased will loiter by the graveside thinking that they're alone but then the lurker will approach from behind, announcing themselves with a comment like 'I knew him, you know. Back in high school.'

Dead kate moss

Nobody ever gets cremated either. Cremation only exists when a character is trapped alive in a coffin about to go into the furnace.

Dead kate moss

Oh wait, or like in The Big Lebowski when something will go wrong with the disposal of the ashes.