And yet it’s amazing the number of strippers who are still wearing at least a bikini while in the middle of their big number on the stage…
-Joe, wants battery-operated tassels
Ugh, I’m with you here. The worst offender of all time as far as I’m concerned is The Shadow where Shiwan Khan has Lamont dead to rights, with Lamont lying on the rotating floor and fighting with the grumpy knife who seems to be totally on Khan’s side. Does Shiwan Khan finish him off right then and there with some sort of Tibetan psionic weapon? No-o-o-o-o! He basically starts monologing and tells Lamont how to defeat the Evil Plan For World Domination ™.
And Lamont figures it out!! In less than 20 seconds, he masters the crucial step which stumped him for the past however many years, including all the time he spent with the Tulku. 30 seconds later, he’s crushed and contained the Khan who had basically owned him up until that point in the story. It took a passably watchable movie and ruined it for me (OK, I still enjoyed it, but still . . .).
The tango would never have become popular if the dancers only had this one tune to dance to, as good as it is. (Scroll down to the bottom.)
It was cute in True Lies, the first time it was used in that movie. By the time of the Mr. and Mrs. Smith trailer, it was an eye-roller.
So many to choose from…
…the ‘maverick’ cop chase / rampage through the city that destroys a few dozen cars, shop fronts, plate glass windows, fire hydrants etc. but it’s somehow all excused and taken care of and everything’s OK because 90 minutes later he apprehends the bad guy.
…bunch of bad guys all surrounding the Hero, supposedly trying to off him, but they conveniently only attack one at a time so that Hero can deal with them in a neatly choreographed, utterly stupidly implausible way.
…in sci-fi or fantasy, the ‘shape-shifter’ whose ability ignores any problems that might arise to do with density, mass or the preservation of matter, and dumb schtick such as ‘Because I can visually resemble you, I can also do your voice, assume your exact personality and mannerisms and refer to knowledge that only you would have in your head’.
…sex scenes in general release movies that are all pointlessly sanitised and where the direction and camerawork are guided mainly by the actors’ contracts and the clauses that stipulate ‘no naughty bits’. I sometimes wonder if movies are made by sniggering teenagers who’ve only just read their first skin mag. Can we all just GROW UP?! Sex is normal, natural, healthy, usually enjoyable, usually fun and sometimes a bit messy (in a nice way). Either don’t put sex in the movie, or do it properly, hire actors who are prepared to take their clothes off, and film it at least a little more realistically. It doesn’t have to be porn to be at least in touch with reality. Main offender here being the James Bond movies, which all feature sex scenes without any sex in them.
…bright, clear LED readouts counting down on bombs and suchlike. This idiotic ploy, which is entirely divorced from reality, is still being used in otherwise relatively intelligent movies.
…ageing, 50+, weedy, grey, not-good-looking leading man proving irresistibly attractive and alluring to the 24 year old supermodel-hyphen-actress because she wants the break in movies and he needs the added marketing collateral.
…fistfights featuring dozens of straight slugs to the jaw. No-one, even a skilled, tough, hardened street fighter can take more than two or three of those and still stand up, let alone fight. Also, the guy delivering the punch will feel serious PAIN in his fist and hand.
…hacking into ‘sophisticated’ national security computer networks in 30 seconds or less or by a lucky guess of a password. Puh-leaze.
…casual reference to technically impossible feats such as ‘can you just zoom in on that pixel and clear up the image… hey!.. now we can read the licence plate!’. Not even 10 year olds fall for this crap, so why write it in?
…the montage sequence, wherein it only takes x days or weeks to achieve Olympic levels of fitness / read sufficient books on relevant case law to become an expert / become a top-flight dancer / make a world-shattering scientific discovery … all in a beautifully choreographed way, set to suitable music, and for those days/weeks the character obviously has nothing else to do such as go shopping or pay the rent or take out the garbage or see friends or do their job or answer the phone or wash the dishes because life and the world just gets put on hold while they achieve this amazing personal transformation. I hope the brilliantly satirical ‘montage’ sequence in ‘Team America’ has killed this cliche for good.
…actors using musical instruments making hand movements that aren’t even remotely close to reality. I’m not saying Mr Leading Man has to learn to play guitar (which takes a few years). I’m saying for the money he’s paid, he can at least spend a week learning to move his hands in a realistic way.
…slow-moving, lumbering monsters. Why be scared? If they’re that slow and lumbering, just run a little ring around them and escape back the way you came.
…the villain who has been trying to shoot the Hero for the best of the movie, always just narrowly missing, but than at the end has the Hero helpless, trapped, three feet away and unable to defend himself… and does the villian shoot him? No. He explains his plans and talks us all to sleep.
…supposedly scary, creepy, suspenseful scenes that are only scary, creepy or suspenseful because they’re shot in near-total darkness. This is a sign that the director is devoid of ideas! Hitchcock didn’t have to rely on 90% darkness. Either you want us to think your characters are terminally stupid (in which case why do we care what happens to them?) or they would turn on the light!
And so on.
Here are a couple of my least favorite clichés:
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When all of the evil supervillian’s minions get killed, they die instantly. Maybe they’ll cry out in pain, but they die without much of a speech. Then, when the evil supervillian dies, he gets a nice long speech before he dies, no matter how much damage has been done to him. Actually, the worst case is in Homer’s Iliad in the scene where Achilles and Hector face off. Hector takes a spear through the neck, but he still manages to ask Achilles (over the course of several lines) to let him be buried honourably. Achilles refuses, and Hector responds, THEN he dies. With a spear through his neck!
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Random love stories, as discussed by JoeSki.
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I’m going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Evil supergeniuses have no imagination.
Actually, as someone who spends a whole lot of time dealing with digital surveillance video…yes, people do fall for it. They expect a $200 camera to be able to surveil an entire parking lot AND read the license plates of any cars leaving from the far end of the lot.
I blame 24 and CSI.
-Joe
The reading of the verdict. In movies, it’s a simple, painless procedure: “We find the defendant NOT GUILTY”. In reality, it’s usually a long arduous procedure almost always involving multiple counts, and phrases such as “upon our oaths unanimously” or “as described in the indictment”, or “In violation of penal code 2376b”, often with some guy coughing in the background.
24 isn’t even consistent about this. One episode, Edgar will say, “Sorry Michelle, there’s no way to get a clear shot, the camera was too far away,” and two “hours” later, Chloe will be able to clear up a satellite image enough to compare a person’s face to the facial structure database.
The new show “American Dad” just covered about 6 of these cliches, including:
The perp is about to pull away from being stopped the law when the lawman turns around and says, “wait a minute.” With fear in his eyes, the guy says, “yes, officer?” and grips an implement (conviently out of view to the lawman) with which to dispatch said lawman. The officer says, “You forgot your wrench/license/photo.” and hands it to the guy and lets him go. Perp loosens his grip on said implement and goes off.
Woman is advanced in pregnancy and is walking along (or sitting, or whatever) normally. Suddenly, she gasps and clutches her abdomen in extreme agony. Moments later, a baby is born. Even more amazing, the “newborn” appears to be several weeks old.
How about the genius evil supervillain who is repeatedly and easily outwitted by a hero who is brighter than average, but clearly no genius? Khan, I’m looking at you! Blofeld, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!
Actually, the 1986 movie “Manhunter” wittily addressed this point. Evil genius Hannibal Lector tells FBI profiler Will Graham, “You’re bright, but hardly a genius. I don’t understand how you managed to capture me.” Graham responds, “I have a huge advantage over you. I’m sane.”
Like Jiminy Cricket?
I just can’t understand how any movie can have a car chase in it anymore. Didn’t The Blues Brothers manage to kill that cliche?
But then again, I think the Simpsons should have killed the ‘car/truck/wheelchair/bicycle crashing and immediately bursting into flame’ cliche, too, so what do I know?
Maybe a better thread is, “Are there any cliches that have ever been successfully ridiculed out of existence?”
Anyone who goes on-line will put a phrase into a search engine and instantly get the exact information they are looking for, no matter how obscure it is. I wish I had that seach engine on my computer.
But the undercurrent, at least in the book Red Dragon, is that Lector is trying to get Graham to believe that they are more alike than Graham would care for. The implication is that Graham caught him because Graham *thinks *like him.
Nitpick. I think the dialogue is:
Lecter:" Then, by implication, you’re smarter than me, since you caught me."
Graham;" No, I had certain advantages."
Lecter: “What advantages, Will?”
Graham: “You’re insane.”
Lecter: (beat) “Sleep much, Will?”
I have no qualms about the “clutching in agony, seconds later a baby is born” part, but do you reallt nitpick the fact that they have to use an infant a few weeks old instaed of a fresh-from-the-womb baby? Should movie studios hire several pregnant women wityh due dates as close as possible to the day of filming the birth scene in the hopes that oen will have their child a few days before?
Yeah, you’re probably right, but they could have some stock footage of a newborn to splice in there.
Perhaps the oldest and stupidest cliche in all action/ horror movies is, the protagonists never get help. They take the fate of the country/ human race/ life on planet Earth upon themselves. Or they do try to warn the authorities of, say, the pod aliens, but do it so stupidly that they are certain to be ignored.
Which leads me to the #2 stupidest cliche: The Deadliest Menace in the World is invisible to 99.999% of the population. The hero, his girlfriend, his best buddy and- maybe by 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the movie- one sheriff’s deputy know about the Deadly Menace. Which leads me to…
Third stupidest cliche: Proof that weird shit is going on is completely ignored. So corpses are found drained of blood with bite marks on their necks? People are reporting giant bats flying across the night sky? And a cloaked suspect survives 200 rounds of assault rifle ammo and escapes by jumping 20 feet vertically over a wall? Why, it must be public hysteria and a serial killer wearing body armor and springs on his feet, of course!
I loved the recent Sci-Fi channel movie Chupacabra, where the captain of a cruise ship, played by John Rhys Davies, is faced with a ravenous monster aboard his ship. So he radios for help and tells the authorites to send a commando team because he has “terrorists” aboard.
“I have something to tell you.”
“Oh, I have something to tell you too.”
“Oh, you go first.”
“OK…<important blather>…Now what was it you had to tell me?”
“Never mind, it wasn’t important.”
L&O-SVU got around the generic “I’ll have a beer” on a recent re-run with “Beer, domestic, bottle.”
The one that was really cool at not resorting to stereotype (but nodding toward it) was “The Deep End”. Tilda Swinton was leaning over a reclining Goran V and they had the shot with their mouths poised just like a “suddenly their eyes meet and they kiss” moment but they avoided it completely.