Girls who wear glasses always tell the truth.
Boys who wear glasses always tell lies.
This is the only Ebert rule that was not an obvious cliche to me. What are some instances of this to back it up?
(In addition, of the the online texts of Ebert’s rules that I could find, none of them had a “Harry Dean Stanton” rule. Whence that rule?)
Could you post the location of that list. I can’t find it from Ebert’s Movie Review site.
I thought it was “Girls who wear glasses will remove them to reveal a beautiful woman underneath.” And they never seem to need their glasses after they take them off, so the question is why do they wear them in the first place?
In any case, the first rule seems a corrolary of mine.
The iron-clad test of the second rule is to map the career of Michael Caine, who sometimes wore glasses and sometimes did not.
The Rules
http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/6174/film_law.htm
http://www.sonic.net/~paul/humour/msg00240.html
http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~jhirning/humor/theatre.html
I think the rule applies specifically to children with specs.
But my experience has been that your girls-with-glasses rule holds in real life, RC.
I always liked girls with glasses because when they take them off it means a green light. Especially if it’s in a parked car. 
Here’s the link (that I found): http://www.sun.ac.za/forlang/bergman/tech/glossary/e.htm. You’ll have to click on “glossary of movie terms” to open up a pop-up window revealing Ebert’s rules.
sorry. i’m an idiot, Twatty. Apparently, I’m so myopic that I couldn’t read that you posted three versions of the rules yourself.
:dubious: You talkin’ to me?
The Harry Dean Stanton rule is in Mr Hand’s link.
Michael J. Pollard was included in that rule by Siskel but not by Ebert because of “Little Fauss and Big Halsy.”
Ah. So Jonathan Lipnicki clearly disproves the rule.
The gung-ho rookie rule:
Whenever a gung-ho rookie is introduced early in a cop film, he will die about half-way into the movie thereby giving the hero cop an even better reason to find the bad guys. (see Leathal Weapon 3)
Since no one is bothering to answer the original question, here’s another good one
Applies even to old, bald Starfleet officers when the farm is a vineyard. 
The variations of this are that good guy says “Hey, Cody”, and the bad guy will whirl around stupidly while good guy shoots bad guy or wrestles the gun from him.
Variation 2: good guy says “Hey, Cody”, and bad guy says “You don’t expect me to fall for that, do you,” at which time Cody will get the drop on the bad guy.
E3
The Curtains-Clothing-Classic Correlation:
Any movie in which a character makes clothes out of old drapes will become a classic.
This reminds me of a classic: the Evil Overlord List.
I only know of one example of this. Care to name any others?
Gone With The Wind, The Sound of Music…
The clothes-drapes thing always makes me think of that old Carol Burnett GWTW spoof. “I saw it in the window and just couldn’t resist!”