The GRAVITATIONAL SHIELD:
The hero, when being shot at, can generate an immense gravity field around his person that will increase the weight of any object that enters the field a million times. That’s why bullets shot horizontally at the hero will zip down to the ground instantly, instead of passing by him harmless (and effect-lessly), where they will emit a shower of sparks that looks like a firework going off.
Example: Face/Off, Die Hard, and other action movies.
Law of Heroic Circulatory System.
Most Heros Being shot will be hit in the Shoulder, Thigh, or Gut. Fortunately there are no major arteries in any of these areas, and the wound will be completely scabbed with 5 minutes.
The immaculate post-coital bed scene
After the most energetic and esoteric sex, either seen on screen, or impled by heaving bodies and appropriate music, the female half of the sketch will invariably wake up the next day without any suggestion of beard rash, complete with immaculate make up, perfectly arranged hair and a satisfied smile.
Cite: Every film in which the woman in question is not the villain. If she is the villain, she will look like a normal person when she wakes up.
That’s how you know she’s the baddy.
Curly chick just reminded me of another one it’s really a corollary to hers.
The Y-Front condom
Male actors can engage in a bout of energetic sex with the leading actress (or actor) and still keep their underpants on.
Oh goodie, it looks like mine haven’t been used yet…
The Obligatory Run Into Food Scene[sup]TM[/sup]
Whenever there is a car chase in a movie, at some point one or more vehicles involved in the chase will run into food. The food may be located on a fruit and vegetable pushcart, inside a grocery store, or what have you, but food will be hit.
[My favorite example is one of Jackie Chan’s “Police Story” movies (number 2, I believe) where the cars involved in a chase ran down the side of a hill and completely demolished an entire outdoor fruit and vegetable market.]
The Universally Synchronized Clocks[sup]TM[/sup]
Every clock in the movie is precisely synchronized. So, for example, if a particular event (the breaking of a curse, say) is supposed to occur at a specific time, the event will occur precisely when whatever clock the hero is closest to registers that time.
Synchronized Thunder and Lightning
In spite of the fact that EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET knows that there is usually a delay between a flash of lightning and the thunder that accompanies it, whenever lightning flashes in a movie there is always a simultaneous crash of thunder.
Barry
The Disaster Count-Down Voice
Whenever a malfunction causes a situation where a disaster will occur (such as a nuclear plant explosion), there will always be a computer voice to count down the exact second when the disaster will occur. And, of course, the voice is always correct (when I make my big budget action/adventure movie, the villains will be taken surprise when the facility explodes when the voice has only got down to 20 seconds remaining).
A corollary to this is that, instead of counting down in regular intervals (say, every 20 seconds), the voice will state however much time is remaining whenever the main character is on-screen.
Barry
** The Knowitall outsider**
In a crime movie If the main Character comes from outside of the local area he will prove himself twice as competent as the locals and if he is in another country all together his way of doing things will always prove to be better than the “We do things this way here” locals
sightings Die Hard / Shanghai Knights
Corollary: No matter how much blood the hero loses, he will always regain his complete physical strength within a few minutes, often within a few seconds. Likewise, injury and/or loss of blood does not affect his reflexes, coordination, sense of balance or clarity of thought. Physical pain, no matter how severe, is momentary and quickly forgotten in the urgency of the situation.
The Magic Medicine Cabinet
If you have one of those medicine cabinets that has a mirror on the door, if you open the door and close it again a bit later, a lurking killer will appear in the mirror.
The Human Echo
When you are talking on the telephone, the person on the other end will invariably have short-term memory problems, so you will have to repeat everything he says back to him: “What’s that? There’s trouble at the mill? How’s Mom? SHE’D DEAD??” etc.
The Random Pointy Object of Death
At the end of The Big Fight Scene™, the bad buy will be pushed, fall, or be thrown onto a random lethal pointy object. They will always land facing up with the pointy object poking through their chest and will usually be left hanging above the ground.
or
Fry The Bad Guy
Basically the same thing except that the bad guy ends up getting electrocuted.
When a character is in a hard situation when he/she has to tell a lie, quickly inventing a name, situation or whatever, he always finds a name in a text nearby.
Examples: Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects.
Spray the House with Automatic Fire
If a bunch of bad guys come to a house where the good guy is, they won’t sneak in and kill him with one or two shots. Instead they will stand outside in a line and spray approx 10,000 rounds into the house from fully automatic guns. A plate glass window will always shatter, and bullets will fly in through the walls from all directions. One of the bad guys guns will normally jam, and our hero will do a roll on the floor and take him out with one shot.
Examples: Hard to Kill, etc, and a similar scene appeared in Die Hard.
The Never say Goodbye on the Phone Rule
When ending a conversation on the phone, you should never say “goodbye” or “bye” or any variation of the above. Just put the phone down. If you are the hero or one of the baddies, you should also answer the phone with “yeah” instead of “hello”.
The Law of Sharing the Wealth
Upon buying something, you should never accept your change. Rather, you should walk off without it.
Not quite. As Mike Wong of stardestroyer.net pointed out, spiritual redemption is not equivalent to a legal pardon. The New Republic would have tried Anakin for war crimes, but they couldn’t find any handcuffs for his ghost.
The Mysterious Blue Forrest/Emergency Lights
When the main character is trudging through the forrest in the middle of nowhere, the forrest will politely backlight him/her from below with a bright but eerie-blue spotlight.
Also, when the main character loses power to all other devices, he/she will still be able to see thanks to the spooky blue emergency lights.
Cite: Many X-File episodes, The Core
Exception: Every Jackie Chan/Kung Fu movie ever made.
Oh, it’s not random. It’s the pointy object (or spinning saw blade, etc.) that you saw earlier in the scene.
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Any attempt by a character to sneak back into bed without awaking his/her bedmate will fail. Bedmate will simply open his/her eyes, but say nothing and look forlorn.