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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

Having a large red digital alarm clock by your bed so the audience can see the time.

mothman

... Then the alarm goes off and the bed's occupant flails around trying to find it and shut it off. Most people IRL just know by muscle memory where it is.

Icehaven

Long shots of the back of a head meaning "arty".

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: mothman on April 06, 2021, 11:54:20 PM
... Then the alarm goes off and the bed's occupant flails around trying to find it and shut it off. Most people IRL just know by muscle memory where it is.

I liked it in MBB when the cheerful local radio dj comes on and Gary just picks it up and thumps it so hard the batteries fall out the back.

purlieu

Mr Bean putting it in his glass of water (and later hanging it up to dry) is also good.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: icehaven on April 12, 2021, 11:03:10 PM
Long shots of the back of a head meaning "arty".

I'd argue that Mad Men got away with this. Lingering shots of the back of Don Draper's head were one of its reliable signature moves.

chveik

depends really. it's done very well in Seconds (John Frankenheimer)

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Those shots in Mad Men were almost certainly a deliberate nod to Seconds and other 'existential' '60s films.

kalowski

Quote from: Magnum Valentino on April 06, 2021, 02:46:34 PM
An example from Breaking Bad that's everywhere.

Skyler and Walt are having an argument about various things, while Walt is sporting a bruise on his cheek.

The argument slows down a bit.

Skyler: "Frozen peas".

Walter: "What?"

Skyler: "For your face, the swelling".

I hate this insistence of a character saying something that is guaranteed to elicit 'what?' as a response. Just say "you know, some frozen peas would really help with that."

Like I say, this is ready common but I can't think of any other example at the moment.
Very good. This trope turned up in Your Honor the other day.
"The penalty for fighting in school is expulsion.'
"Donuts!"
"Pardon"
"My law professor said cast iron rules are like donuts. They have holes in them."

It always reminds me of this
"Penguins don't come from next door, they come from the Antarctic."
"Burma!"
"Why did you say 'Burma'?"
"I panicked."

Norton Canes

Eighty seven pages in I guess this must have been mentioned already, but...

In sci-fi when they flash up one or two brief sentences right at the start of the film to explain a huge and plot-crucial way in which the planet or the human race has changed


2106.
AFTER A GENETIC RESEARCH DISASTER, HUMANS NOW GROW RASPBERRIES OUT OF THEIR FACES.
AND CATS CAN DRIVE.


Obviously it gets the salient information across in a succinct manner and I get that if it was conveyed via dialogue it would be a massive clumsy exposition dump but still, find some way of letting us know in the film.

olliebean

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 13, 2021, 10:01:32 AM
Eighty seven pages in I guess this must have been mentioned already, but...

In sci-fi when they flash up one or two brief sentences right at the start of the film to explain a huge and plot-crucial way in which the planet or the human race has changed


2106.
AFTER A GENETIC RESEARCH DISASTER, HUMANS NOW GROW RASPBERRIES OUT OF THEIR FACES.
AND CATS CAN DRIVE.


Obviously it gets the salient information across in a succinct manner and I get that if it was conveyed via dialogue it would be a massive clumsy exposition dump but still, find some way of letting us know in the film.

Similar to that (and not limited to SF), the film starting with a voice-over filling in backstory. I can get on board with voice-over as a stylistic choice that carries throughout the film, if it's well done, but not when it's just "here's some stuff you need to know before we start, that we couldn't be arsed to write into the story."

mr. logic

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on April 12, 2021, 11:44:24 PM
I'd argue that Mad Men got away with this. Lingering shots of the back of Don Draper's head were one of its reliable signature moves.

Interestingly, David Chase explicitly banned shots of the back of a character's head in The Sopranos. That Difficult Men book speculates that maybe the very opwning shot of Mad Men may have been Weiner playfully thumbing his nose at his old mentor.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: Norton Canes on April 13, 2021, 10:01:32 AM
Eighty seven pages in I guess this must have been mentioned already, but...

In sci-fi when they flash up one or two brief sentences right at the start of the film to explain a huge and plot-crucial way in which the planet or the human race has changed


2106.
AFTER A GENETIC RESEARCH DISASTER, HUMANS NOW GROW RASPBERRIES OUT OF THEIR FACES.
AND CATS CAN DRIVE.


Obviously it gets the salient information across in a succinct manner and I get that if it was conveyed via dialogue it would be a massive clumsy exposition dump but still, find some way of letting us know in the film.

Who doesn't slide forward in their seat when this pops up




Quote

Turmoil has engulfed the

Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to outlying star systems is in dispute.

Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo.

While the Congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the Supreme Chancellor has secretly dispatched two Jedi Knights, the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, to settle the conflict....

mothman

I remember Event Horizon dumping a whole load of irrelevant "colonisation of the solar system" text at the start when all we needed to know is that the EH was an experimental star drive ship that vanished, and the Lewis & Clark is a space ambulance.

Cuellar

I saw on reddit the other day that apparently Event Horizon was partly meant to be a 'prequel' to the whole Warhammer 40K thing:

QuoteScreenwriter Philip Eisner acknowledged that Warhammer 40,000 influenced the story. In the fictional setting of Warhammer 40,000, starships travel the galaxy by passing through "the Warp", which is a parallel dimension where faster-than-light travel is possible, similar to "hyperspace" in the Star Wars setting, but is also inhabited by evil spirits which are liable to infiltrate the ship and possess the crew if said ship isn't properly shielded. Fans consider Event Horizon to be an unofficial prequel to Warhammer 40,000, when humankind discovers the Warp and learns of its dangers the hard way.

So the 'colonisation of space' thing is sort of relevant. Ish.

mothman

Nothing to do with film cliches, but just thought of a link between Event Horizon and - heh - recent events. I saw EH with some friends in the cinema in London when it came out in August '97. On the train home afterwards we were talking about the royal family's recent travails and concluded that what they really needed to regain public sympathies was a good old proper royal funeral. The Queen Mum, maybe, or even Phil. Well, guess what news we woke up to the next day? And here we are now 24 years later and he's finally carked it.

Sorry, an utterly unenthralling anecdote there.

One thing that has always annoyed me - when someone is listening to a recording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind the tape to the exact point in the recording they need to listen to

Starlit

Quote from: Dave The Triffids on April 14, 2021, 08:43:21 AM
cording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind th

Totally. It never happens like that in real life.

olliebean

Quote from: Dave The Triffids on April 14, 2021, 08:43:21 AM
One thing that has always annoyed me - when someone is listening to a recording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind the tape to the exact point in the recording they need to listen to.

Has this ever been set up? I'm sure I've seen something where the joke was that they had to spend ages winding the tape back and forth trying to find the right spot.

notjosh

Quote from: Dave The Triffids on April 14, 2021, 08:43:21 AM
One thing that has always annoyed me - when someone is listening to a recording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind the tape to the exact point in the recording they need to listen to.

They'll also replay one section of it over and over, sometimes ending by looping a single word, and it won't be till the 4th or 5th repeat that the implication finally sinks into their head. I Robot is one instance I can remember, which also combined the cliche of an unrelated word setting someone off on an inspired train of thought like this.

Mr Trumpet

I'm not sure any films would be improved by a character awkwardly winding a tape back and forwards in a halting effort to find the right bit

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Dave The Triffids on April 14, 2021, 08:43:21 AM
One thing that has always annoyed me - when someone is listening to a recording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind the tape to the exact point in the recording they need to listen to.


El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Dave The Triffids on April 14, 2021, 08:43:21 AM
One thing that has always annoyed me - when someone is listening to a recording (usually old-school tape or dictaphone) and they hear something interesting/shocking, they always manage to rewind the tape to the exact point in the recording they need to listen to.

Same thing with finding the right page in a book, name in a phone book, etc. Although actually showing the reality of these things would be more tiresome, I think.

One I've always hated is when someone says to a character "you look pale" but they never actually make any effort to make the person look pale.

Kudos to The Flight Attendant for subverting the "woman inexplicably leaves underwear on when having sex so the actress doesn't have to do a nude scene" trope that I brought up many, many pages ago.

Spoiler alert
Kaley Cuoco wakes up after a night of utter debauchery to discover the bloke she'd been with has been murdered. She gets out of bed in her bra and pants which looks like the usual attempt to show sexy times without any nudity, however it's later revealed that she got up in the middle of the night, got dressed and went out. She's wearing her underwear because she didn't take them off again in her drunken stupor when she got back into bed.
[close]

Magnum Valentino

A criminal listens to another criminal who's pitching something to him and reacts with amusement, turning around to smile at his cronies with a look that suggests "can you believe this guy?" and usually repeating one or two of the first criminal's phrases under his breath.

Breaking Bad has at least two examples of this, during Walt's meetings with Tuco and Declan, but it's everywhere.

neveragain

Quote from: olliebean on April 14, 2021, 04:10:23 PM
Has this ever been set up? I'm sure I've seen something where the joke was that they had to spend ages winding the tape back and forth trying to find the right spot.

Seinfeld did, when George was secretly recording his workmates.

lipsink

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on April 14, 2021, 05:04:45 PM
Same thing with finding the right page in a book, name in a phone book, etc. Although actually showing the reality of these things would be more tiresome, I think.

One I've always hated is when someone says to a character "you look pale" but they never actually make any effort to make the person look pale.

Yeah, same with "You're blushing!"

olliebean

Quote from: olliebean on April 14, 2021, 04:10:23 PM
Has this ever been set up? I'm sure I've seen something where the joke was that they had to spend ages winding the tape back and forth trying to find the right spot.

Dammit, too late to edit. I meant "sent up."

Mobius

When people turn the telly on and immediately, a news story starts about the main character / crime the film is based around.

Saw it recently in the very good "Good Times" where Robert Pattinson's character turns the telly on, and there's instantly a news report about him being on the run for a bank job

Arrested Development send this cliche up pretty well, where the guy turns the telly on then sits there for ages saying '..i'm sure it'll be just after this ad break'

neveragain