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Film cliches you want to fuck off

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Dex Sawash


Tight shot of car door opening and you see legs and feet and then a pull-back reveals
Spoiler alert
a person!
[close]

EOLAN

People in a bar or a busy restaurant talking to each other at a regular intimate tone, or even hushed tones. Particularly see a lot in American films/shows whereas I do think in Britain/Ireland you will have the character being made go outside if need a one to one clear chat.

JaDanketies

I'm glad there's hardly any smoking in movies these days. Loads of scenes back in the day where someone would light a cigarette, take a drag, say something dramatic or sexy, and then put the fucking cigarette out in an ashtray after only taking one bloody drag. Was moaning about this watching Jackie Brown the other day.

Cigarettes are a continuity nightmare anyway and I can't help myself from noticing them. "She was practically at the cork on the previous camera angle and now she's got a full cigarette! WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE. And the ice-cube in his whiskey glass has barely melted here, but two seconds later it's just ice-water!"

El Unicornio, mang

Particularly if someone else gives them the cigarette. At today's prices that's like giving someone a quid and them throwing it down the drain.

Food/drinks being left untouched has probably been mentioned. Noticed Maddy Ferguson ordering a cherry Coke on Twin Peaks the other night and didn't even take a sip.



Also people sipping from empty cups. We can tell there's no liquid in there, you're not fooling anyone.

notjosh

Quote from: Mr Trumpet on April 14, 2021, 04:47:57 PM
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

Isn't that pretty much the entire plot of The Conversation and Blow-Out?

olliebean

It occurred to me the other day whilst watching yet another iteration of the person-backing-into-the-street-while-talking-gets-hit-by-a-bus/truck/other-large-vehicle, that I've never once seen any sign of the vehicle attempting to veer, slow, or stop, before or after hitting the person. Are all drivers of large vehicles in the States basically serial hit-and-runners?

JesusAndYourBush

People climbing up some sort of sheer drop they've fallen down, and the first thing you see is their hand, and they're holding something in their hand.  It'd be difficult enough anyway without doing it with one hand basically out of action.  Happened in the last Harry Potter film (guy was holding a wand), and it's in one of the Indiana Joneses (holding one of the glowing rock things.)  Can anyone think of any more?

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.

Also sometimes they rewind the tape a lot, even though the bit they want to hear just happened seconds ago, so you hear them rewinding it way too far but still manage to hear the bit they heard literally seconds ago when they hit play.

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.

Ooh I dunno about that.  When I look stuff up in books I'm often 1 or 2 pages away from the thing I'm looking for an uncanny number of times.  The other day I was looking something up in a book with 1250 pages and when I opened the book I was one page away from the thing I was looking for.

Tombola

"Listen, we don't have much time..."

Sebastian Cobb

Scene of someone smoking a tab pensively and someone who isn't a smoker takes the tab out their hands and has a drag and hands it back to them.

Brundle-Fly

Might be a bit triggery for anyone eating while they're reading this thread

Spoiler alert
A tasty dish is served and the person starts eating it, they look down and it's suddenly teeming with maggots/ mealworms or cockroaches.  They naturally spit out the food in horror.  When they look at the plate again, it has miraculously returned to being a normal edible meal.

Talking of maggots, in C.S.I/ thrillers when a room has a dead body covered with the critters, you often hear the sound of a buzzing fly to indicate rotting flesh. Apparently, both stages of the insect (larvae/ fly) would not occur at the same time according to experts.

Oh, and another cliche in this situation is when the officer finds the victim/ horrible clue, (usually covering their mouth with a hanky) they nearly always say, "Hey boss, I think you better take a look at this. It ain't pretty."
[close]

mothman

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 18, 2021, 09:48:50 PM
Spoiler alert
Oh, and another cliche in this situation is when the officer finds the victim/ horrible clue, (usually covering their mouth with a hanky) they nearly always say, "Hey boss, I think you better take a look at this. It ain't pretty."
[close]

Ooh, a new wrinkle on:

Quote from: mothman on September 25, 2017, 05:20:51 PM
"Captain [or whatever] - you gotta come see this."

No, what I gotta do is wait for you to state clearly what exactly it is you've discovered and why it is important, making allowances for any natural scepticism I or others might have regarding any potential implausibility said reporter discovery might engender

Frankly, it's pretty irresponsible of the officer, just saying "it ain't pretty" hardly constitutes a sufficient content or trigger warning.

Sebastian Cobb

Someone bribing someone else into doing something or going somewhere with them using tickets to some sports game.

famethrowa

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 20, 2021, 07:12:13 PM
Someone bribing someone else into doing something or going somewhere with them using tickets to some sports game.

Knicks!? what is that

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 20, 2021, 07:12:13 PM
Someone bribing someone else into doing something or going somewhere with them using tickets to some sports game.

Or Bruce Springsteen tickets? (or Hootie & The Blowfish, if it's Friends)

Icehaven

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 20, 2021, 07:12:13 PM
Someone bribing someone else into doing something or going somewhere with them using tickets to some sports game.

This was mentioned in the American sitcom punchline/clichés thread too. You'd think sports tickets must be like rocking horse shit in America such is their apparent rarity in films and TV, but I was watching Aerial America a few weeks ago and they were showing a college football ground, and apparently it had more seats than the entire population of the small city it was in, so maybe it's just places like New York.

Fr.Bigley

Quote from: icehaven on April 21, 2021, 01:13:39 PM
football ground, and apparently it had more seats than the entire population of the small city it was in

This will be Wrexham FC in a few years. Wrexham an honorary member of the MLS.

Ferris

Quote from: icehaven on April 21, 2021, 01:13:39 PM
This was mentioned in the American sitcom punchline/clichés thread too. You'd think sports tickets must be like rocking horse shit in America such is their apparent rarity in films and TV, but I was watching Aerial America a few weeks ago and they were showing a college football ground, and apparently it had more seats than the entire population of the small city it was in, so maybe it's just places like New York.

That'll be Michigan stadium (record capacity 115k) in Ann Arbor, MI (population 113k). And they fill it for big games too, had some friends go down for a game and it's madness apparently.

Re: tickets for North American sports - any old chump can get tickets to watch the Yankees play, but it'll probably be up in the bleachers against the orioles or some shit[nb]lovely detail in The Wire where Bunk and McNulty are watching the O's, but they got tickets against the historically woeful white sox (so, cheap tickets), and are sitting in the bleachers but behind home plate (so, cheap tickets but not the absolute cheapest ones in the ballpark which would be way out in the outfield). It's a working man's seat.[/nb] (MLB teams play 162 games a season and are at home for 1/2 of those, same for the NHL and NBA with their 82 (?) game seasons), the quantity of tickets available means they're not all that. 20k cheap seats x 81 home games = a lot of spare tickets. I used to go to games on a whim when I worked downtown.

The '90s TV show desire was for good seats/tickets; either well situated or for a "big game" (Super Bowl, World Series, NBA finals, rose bowl etc etc). Doubly so because it was a period of New York sports team dominance so there were lots of these big games going on - going to one of those games is a once in a lifetime event and tickets are priced accordingly.

I'm going off Canadian prices - a seat in the bleachers against a "who gives a fuck" team mid-season for the Jays would be $4 a pop. Same seat for a big game (post season or something) would be $500 a go, and a "good" seat down by home plate would be 10s of thousands. There's so few of them in so few "big games" the prices become astronomical.

The well situated ones would also likely be corporate seats, so you'd have to know someone who knows someone to get down there[nb]I've had corporate seats twice in my life and they're fairly terrible. You can yell at a player and be certain they heard you if that's your bag (it's not mine), but your view is shit and the beer vendors are miles away - I massively prefer the cheap seats so you get a real feel for the majesty of the game and can nip for a piss whenever you fancy[/nb] and really pull some favours if those seats were in the playoffs or something.

Mobius


Echo Valley 2-6809

Any scene with horses, even if they're in the background, will have the sound effect of the noise they make where they sort of expel air from their mouth and vibrate their lips. Don't know if there's a name for it, but it's always put on the soundtrack way too many times when they don't do it that often in real life.

St_Eddie

Quote from: Echo Valley 2-6809 on April 21, 2021, 10:04:14 PM
Any scene with horses, even if they're in the background, will have the sound effect of the noise they make where they sort of expel air from their mouth and vibrate their lips. Don't know if there's a name for it...

Whinnying.

Echo Valley 2-6809

I don't think so. Whinnying and neighing is more of a cry from the throat. This is more of a "I'm contented and relaxed" sound from the nose and lips.

It's always ridiculously dubbed in repeatedly when there's a horse somewhere in the scene.

Mr Banlon

Quote from: Echo Valley 2-6809 on April 21, 2021, 10:04:14 PM
Any scene with horses, even if they're in the background, will have the sound effect of the noise they make where they sort of expel air from their mouth and vibrate their lips. Don't know if there's a name for it, but it's always put on the soundtrack way too many times when they don't do it that often in real life.
Eagle sound effect they use in movies : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdFxnbZtu1I
The noise they actually make : https://youtu.be/Wy_9b58o99Y?t=32

Mobius


Dex Sawash


Echo Valley 2-6809

Quote from: Mobius on April 22, 2021, 02:46:49 AM
isn't that horse thing 'braying'

No, that's donkeys and posh people.

Quote from: Dex Sawash on April 22, 2021, 03:55:38 AM
Snorting is the horse beatbox noise

https://youtu.be/Ow8nC9TRfJM

That's more or less it, thanks. I wouldn't have described it as snorting because I thought the lips were involved as well, but I don't know.

Magnum Valentino

Quote from: Echo Valley 2-6809 on April 21, 2021, 10:04:14 PM
Any scene with horses, even if they're in the background, will have the sound effect of the noise they make where they sort of expel air from their mouth and vibrate their lips. Don't know if there's a name for it, but it's always put on the soundtrack way too many times when they don't do it that often in real life.

I think a version of this was one of the earliest things I remember reading in this thread, the fact that a cat onscreen is usually dubbed with a gentle meow, and a bicycle passing through the frame is usually accompanied by the sound of a bell. Same with car tyres screeching regardless of vehicle speed.

There's a suggestion there that either foley/sound mix guys feel compelled to do this because it's just the done thing (see also: the last 88 pages), OR a deeper psychological thing where the brain doesn't recognize the visual unless accompanied by the sound as a reinforcement. Similar to the cutting in HK action films, there's a psychology behind seeing the strike twice in fight scenes, even though you don't notice it twice.

This is a stupid thing to do given that it's not IMPORTANT that there's a bike passing through the shot, or a cat lazily dandering across a path. We don't need to hear everything we see.

Why can't we hear the dialogue between every customer in the cafe in the background of your breakup scene? Because it would be distracting and sound fucking awful is why.

Fambo Number Mive

When someone is rung on a phone, it only rings once and is then silent before the character answers it. Also happens in television.

Icehaven

Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on April 22, 2021, 09:48:38 AM
When someone is rung on a phone, it only rings once and is then silent before the character answers it. Also happens in television.

And when people finish phonecalls they often just hang up without even saying goodbye at all, never mind with both people going ''Bye, bye, byebye, g'bye, bye...'' which is how most real calls end.

oy vey

And building on that, let's face it - every conversation in movies is super clean and unrealistically smooth. My phone conversations usually end like "bye b'bye bye... oh wait a sec what about... fuck he's gone."

Why isn't there more real conversation like "yeah I was just going to... oh sorry you were say... okay you speak first." Again that's most of my day.

kalowski

Quote from: oy vey on April 22, 2021, 06:51:55 PM
And building on that, let's face it - every conversation in movies is super clean and unrealistically smooth. My phone conversations usually end like "bye b'bye bye... oh wait a sec what about... fuck he's gone."

Why isn't there more real conversation like "yeah I was just going to... oh sorry you were say... okay you speak first." Again that's most of my day.
I love those early Altman films where they do seem to genuinely speak over each other and across each other, like MASH and Nashville.