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Film cliches you want to fuck off

Started by popcorn, September 25, 2017, 01:48:30 PM

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Icehaven

Someone's giving a speech at an awards ceremony or wedding or similar, and they get to the part where they're thanking people, and someone in the audience will be expecting to get a mention and getting all prepared to smile and wave, but the speech ends and they haven't been named, and they look all crestfallen as the crowd applauds the speaker. Extra points if the speaker then says ''Oh, I almost forgot to thank...'' but it's someone else, and extra extra points if that's someone the disappointed unmentioned person dislikes.

kalowski

Nerdy tech guy in action film pulls out lots of hi-tech equipment. Action hero says, "Can you pick up the ball game on that?" or similar.
Bonus point if nerdy guy surprises everyone by using said hi-tech equipment to open a door.

Double bonus points if nerdy guy is struggling to open a door with hi-tech equipment and hero shoots door open with gun. ("Or you could do that..." utters nerdy guy.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: lipsink on August 16, 2019, 11:48:55 AM
Parent embarrasses their kid when they're dropping them off at school. Shots of the girl/guy the kid fancies seeing this.
Happened in "Blinded by the Light", which I saw last week. An enjoyable enough flick (probably helped by my being a fan of Springsteen), but I did roll my eyes at that part.

lipsink

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on August 16, 2019, 03:26:46 PM
Happened in "Blinded by the Light", which I saw last week. An enjoyable enough flick (probably helped by my being a fan of Springsteen), but I did roll my eyes at that part.

That was what made me post this! Had its moments that film and Goodness Gracious Me man was great. But I just couldn't get over the cringe factor of a lot of the music moments.

Another big cliche in the film is the lead character reading a speech/performing in front of a crowd and they stop suddenly when someone appears (the dad) that they'd fallen out with and didn't expect to show up.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: lipsink on August 16, 2019, 03:45:30 PM
That was what made me post this! Had its moments that film and Goodness Gracious Me man was great. But I just couldn't get over the cringe factor of a lot of the music moments.
The 'Thunder Road'/'Born to Run' moments where they're dancing and whatnot are a tad naff, yeah, but I brushed them aside as quasi-fantasy kind of moments. He also must have had the world's best headphones in 1987 to block out the noise of a big-fuck off storm and the music in that dance event he went to with his sister.

I went with the wife, who is Iranian, and she asked about the stuff with kids pissing through the letterbox, people spitting at Asians, whether that kind of thing really happened or not. It was a strange film in that respect: over-the-top bombast (appropriate to the music, really) coupled with bits of fairly harsh social realism. Enjoyable enough stuff, six out of ten performance for me, Clive.

lipsink

Yeah, the really sad, bleak stuff like that letterbox bit and the dad character stuck with me afterwards and made me think it really wasn't as bad as I'd decided initially.

True about the headphones though! Also. Where the fuck did Rob Brydon's character disappear to halfway through the film?

beanheadmcginty

Lead character returns to place they haven't been since they were a teenager and instantly retrieves an old joint that has been sitting in a hiding place since then, cue smoking scene. First saw this in Grosse Point Blank but it's definitely cropped up multiple times since.

#1657
Quote from: beanheadmcginty on August 17, 2019, 10:44:29 AM
Lead character returns to place they haven't been since they were a teenager and instantly retrieves an old joint that has been sitting in a hiding place since then, cue smoking scene. First saw this in Grosse Point Blank but it's definitely cropped up multiple times since.

Or finds a love heart with their name and that of their former love's, carved on a wooden bench or tree.

Tombola

Slightly intimidating matriarchal figure: "Just us girls together eh!"

olliebean

"Everything is connected" or "It's all connected" or some variation. This has turned up in several things in the last couple of years, I think the first time I noticed it was Dirk Gently but I don't think that was the first occurrence.

I mean explicitly stated in so many words, not just as an unspoken premise.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Character starts to nervously read a speech from extensive notes - we've probably seen them anxiously writing/rehearsing this speech earlier in the piece.

Their mouth dries, they look up at the expectant audience for a beat, their expression changes and they throw away the notes to give an honest, unfiltered speech, off the cuff and from the heart. The crowd adores it.

neveragain

Quote from: Tombola on August 17, 2019, 12:29:49 PM
Slightly intimidating matriarchal figure: "Just us girls together eh!"

Wonderful choice.

kalowski

Quote from: Sexton Brackets Drugbust on August 17, 2019, 12:47:06 PM
Character starts to nervously read a speech from extensive notes - we've probably seen them anxiously writing/rehearsing this speech earlier in the piece.

Their mouth dries, they look up at the expectant audience for a beat, their expression changes and they throw away the notes to give an honest, unfiltered speech, off the cuff and from the heart. The crowd adores it.
Good thing about this is that it's been subverted many times. EG Rowan Atkinson: "I said to myself, 'The last thing I want to do today is forget my speech,' and the last thing I did do today was forget my speech."
Not quite the same, but a good example of an impromptu speech going very badly.

zomgmouse

Someone who's never smoked before tries to smoke and coughs a lot, prompting the group of people who offered the cigarette/pipe to laugh

Quote from: olliebean on August 17, 2019, 12:35:20 PM
"Everything is connected" or "It's all connected" or some variation. This has turned up in several things in the last couple of years, I think the first time I noticed it was Dirk Gently but I don't think that was the first occurrence.

I mean explicitly stated in so many words, not just as an unspoken premise.

Hardly fair to cite Dirk Gently as an example of this when its entire central conceit is specifically "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things"

olliebean

Quote from: zomgmouse on August 18, 2019, 01:17:21 AM
Someone who's never smoked before tries to smoke and coughs a lot, prompting the group of people who offered the cigarette/pipe to laugh

Hardly fair to cite Dirk Gently as an example of this when its entire central conceit is specifically "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things"

Fair point, although it did start to annoy me the way "Everything is connected" kept being repeated in the recaps like a catchphrase. And especially when I started to hear it in other things too.

Icehaven

Quote from: olliebean on August 17, 2019, 12:35:20 PM
"Everything is connected" or "It's all connected" or some variation. This has turned up in several things in the last couple of years, I think the first time I noticed it was Dirk Gently but I don't think that was the first occurrence.

I mean explicitly stated in so many words, not just as an unspoken premise.

Those exact words, (and "we don't have much time") are absolutely done to death in series 2 of Dark, although it's dubbed/subtitled from German so it might be lazy translation sometimes. Yes the interconnectedness of everything is a prominent theme, but they don't have to keep actually saying it.

olliebean

Anything about zombies that has the letter "Z" in the title (on its own, not as part of a word). There's probably only been a couple but it still feels really overdone.

Also, while I think of it, any movie title that substitutes a number for a letter.

purlieu


olliebean

"Se7en" is a decent film, but that "7" in the title can fuck off.

EOLAN

Quote from: Sexton Brackets Drugbust on August 17, 2019, 12:47:06 PM
Character starts to nervously read a speech from extensive notes - we've probably seen them anxiously writing/rehearsing this speech earlier in the piece.

Their mouth dries, they look up at the expectant audience for a beat, their expression changes and they throw away the notes to give an honest, unfiltered speech, off the cuff and from the heart. The crowd adores it.

Chappaquiddick (mysteriously renamed The Senator) had a good bit where Ted Kennedy plans to go off-script to win the hearts of the public.

I suppose for this film; not sure if it is a cliché, but films mysteriously changing their names.

Berthas Fat Leg

Some detectives need some vital information from a person who is now in a mental asylum. Before they can get the last bit of tantalising information, the mental patient goes even more mental, and one of the nursing staff intervenes and says 'ok that's enough!'

Blumf

Quote from: olliebean on August 20, 2019, 10:27:50 AM
"Se7en" is a decent film, but that "7" in the title can fuck off.

Was that the first film to try that on with the title?

FredNurke

Quote from: olliebean on August 20, 2019, 10:27:50 AM
"Se7en" is a decent film, but that "7" in the title can fuck off.

Maybe 'Sesevenen' didn't fit on the posters.

mothman

Quote from: EOLAN on August 20, 2019, 10:52:08 AM
I suppose for this film; not sure if it is a cliché, but films mysteriously changing their names.

Whole other thread, really.

Fat Man and Little Boy + "It sounds like a comedy, Americans will be confused" = Shadow Makers

The Madness ofGeorge III + "Nobody's seen The Madness of George OR The Madness of George II, Americans will be confused" = The Madness of King George

My Posse Don't Do Homework! + "It sounds like it has black people in it, Americans will be racist" =Dangerous Minds

Gulftastic

The first Harry Potter got another name in that there America.

And I remember reading that 'Licence To Kill' was going to be called 'Licence Revoked' but test audiences were confused by 'revoked'.

purlieu

This Side of Truth + People won't know what that means = The Invention of Lying

mothman

The Vengeance of Khan + The Revenge of the Jedi = The Wrath of Khan + The Return of the Jedi

Work that, and you get Vengeance + Revenge = Wrath + Return. So in a nutshell, when you seek revenge, do so twice (digging two graves, you know) and then go home feeling cross... I don't know where I was going with this.

Quote from: Berthas Fat Leg on August 20, 2019, 11:01:35 AM
Some detectives need some vital information from a person who is now in a mental asylum. Before they can get the last bit of tantalising information, the mental patient goes even more mental, and one of the nursing staff intervenes and says 'ok that's enough!'

Collapsing in manic laughter, especially if they've had their mind warped by the big baddy that the cops/FBI/Batman are trying to find.

Quote from: Berthas Fat Leg on August 20, 2019, 11:01:35 AM
Some detectives need some vital information from a person who is now in a mental asylum. Before they can get the last bit of tantalising information, the mental patient goes even more mental, and one of the nursing staff intervenes and says 'ok that's enough!'

Could also be physically ill/injured character who dies before crucial revelation.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on August 21, 2019, 06:36:18 AM
Could also be physically ill/injured character who dies before crucial revelation.
The second Naked Gun film took the piss out of that quite well.

"All right - who else is almost dead?"