# True facts that movies have taught you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811 "2011-01-24T17:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/161 "2011-01-26T10:10:31Z")
Hong Kong is an exotic location where everyone knows kung fu and businessmen in suits regularly putter around to their destinations in sampan water taxis there. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/162 "2011-01-26T10:19:08Z")
> [@Double\_Foolscap](#): > > If you’re smart, you’ll either be mentally disturbed or a douchebag… I cannot let this error go uncorrected. If you’re smart, you’ll be mentally disturbed AND a douchebag. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/163 "2011-01-26T11:33:15Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Actually… yes, if it’s a PIN. And the town they live in and where the factory is located, if it’s a no-numbers-required password. I’ve taught computer courses and helped people set up their accounts and I would say that first-time users choose their town over 90% of the time; an additional 5% use their SO’s name. I tell them to change it to something which doesn’t appear in their company file and stick a number someplace. It’s worse than that. If The Bad Guy can get a hold of your password hash list, and your office doesn’t have any kind of password requirements, I guarantee the badguys will be able to brute force 99%+ of your passwords. The software available to second guess your passwords is well written to take care of the obvious psychological tools used when a person generates a (bad) password. steelers1 BadKitteh Sn00kiePuddin995 1Kevin2Kathy3Joseph (Your kid’s names with numbers and/or punctuation in the mix) They know how you think. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/164 "2011-01-26T11:37:07Z")
Breasts clearly accumulate a great deal of dirt given how much time women spend washing them in the shower. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/165 "2011-01-26T11:37:15Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Being a good guy/gal means that God is secretly helping you even the odds, even if God isn’t mentioned. That’s why you can take on ten ninjas or zombies, most of whom will politely wait their turn to have their asses kicked, all by yourself. If you add good guys, this increases your odds even more, because two good guys can take on 30 bad guys, and three can take on 50 etc. I wonder if [Monster.com](http://Monster.com) has a category for: HENCHMAN - no previous experience necessary, uniform provided, 401k benefits to employees after 90 day initial introductory period. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/166 "2011-01-26T11:47:29Z")
Really bad things happen in cornfields. I’m surprised farmers are able to harvest their crops without dying. > [@Sampiro](#): > > Well, often once you fall in love with the other guy you’ll find out the husband has some skeleton in his closet that makes it even more okay. This one fact alone is why I don’t watch romantic comedies. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/167 "2011-01-26T13:29:37Z")
Law-enforcement agencies and research laboratories all have transparent wall-sized touch-control computer monitors. Touching any image on these monitors makes it enlarge and rotate. Some of the fancier agencies are even equipped with 3-dimensional mid-air projection technology, which is not made available to the general public. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/168 "2011-01-26T13:47:57Z")
If you’re a good guy you can launch your car off of a hill, cliff, or overpass 20 feet into the air at 90mph and nothing bad will happen to it, besides a few sparks shooting off the bottom. The car will remain airborne long enough for both passengers to yell “OH SHIIIIIII” before landing and resuming the chase No matter what you do all day your clothes will never look rumpled. Sometimes torn, sometimes smeared with dirt, but never rumpled or wrinkly. The FBI consists of two kind of agents: Super human law enforcement machines and stand-offish offical by the book jerks who will take over the scene and accomplish nothing. Whenever really creepy things start happening in a home, the husband will insist on investigating why blood is seeping through the floors or strange noises are coming from the attic despite his wife and family begging him otherwise instead of just saying “Hey, fuck this, we’re out of here” ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/169 "2011-01-26T15:13:35Z")
Bad guys are horrible shots. A hundred men with machine guns can’t hit our hero but our hero can tag a bad guy from a hundred yards with a single shot from a pistol. The whole thing seems so unfair. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/170 "2011-01-26T15:15:26Z")
High school dropout drug addicted whores can not only find a job on the first day out, but be running the company within a month. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/171 "2011-01-26T15:18:03Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > Bad guys are horrible shots. A hundred men with machine guns can’t hit our hero but our hero can tag a bad guy from a hundred yards with a single shot from a pistol. The whole thing seems so unfair. The hero is smart enough to run while being shot at. If you’re running, bullets can’t hit you. This is especially true if you have a partner and you yell “Cover me!” before you start running. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/172 "2011-01-26T15:19:53Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > High school dropout drug addicted whores can not only find a job on the first day out, but be running the company within a month. But only if they first go on a montage shopping trip to get some really classy business clothes. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/173 "2011-01-26T15:23:02Z")
If you’re a pizza delivery man or a plumber, you get more action in a week than Hugh Hefner does in a year. ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/174 "2011-01-26T15:26:31Z")
People can outrun explosions. Let the Wookie win. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/175 "2011-01-26T15:43:28Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Latin chanting is to be feared! If you hear it, flee immediately! No, that’s a lesson from real life. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/176 "2011-01-26T15:47:02Z")
> [@PlainJain](#): > > Really bad things happen in cornfields. I’m surprised farmers are able to harvest their crops without dying. Why cornfields? Because wheat doesn’t grow tall enough to turn the field into a visually-impenetrable jungle. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/177 "2011-01-26T15:49:20Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > Bad guys are horrible shots. A hundred men with machine guns can’t hit our hero but our hero can tag a bad guy from a hundred yards with a single shot from a pistol. The whole thing seems so unfair. Of course, a **lot** of these posts are covered on TVTropes. For this one, see [Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy) (“When only the bad guys suffer from [A Team Firing.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ATeamFiring)”) ---
**Author:** ![MOIDALIZE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@MOIDALIZE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MOIDALIZE)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/178 "2011-01-26T15:52:11Z")
Women just love being naked with one another. Locker rooms, slumber parties, summer camp… when they gather together away from the eyes of men, they will engage in naked giggling and conversation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/179 "2011-01-26T15:52:46Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Outside the ship there is none. Nevertheless, the gravity-planes of any two spacecraft that meet and hold station will align, as if they were submarines. This holds true even where it advantageously might not, as when Kirk is outwitting Khan by his superior mastery of 3-dimensional movement. Because [Space Is An Ocean.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsAnOcean) See also [Two-D Space.](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Two-DSpace) > [@](#): > > _His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking._ > —Spock, Star Trek II The Wrath Of Khan > > As far as most TV writers are concerned, space is flat, like a great big tabletop. A few who have actually seen an airplane fly allow that space may have a third dimension as large as five or ten miles high, but not much more than that. There’s just enough up-and-down to allow for dogfights between fightercraft and clever one-time-only attacks from above during battles between space warships. Otherwise, vessels approach each other as if they were floating on the sea and attempt broadside or bow-to-bow shots almost exclusively. > > Maneuvering is also shackled to the horizontal plane most of the time. Very rarely will sci-fi shows and writers take advantage of the lack of “up/down” in real space by having ships attack each other at odd angles or vectors, which would offer something visually and tactically fresh. Even outside of battle, when two ships approach each other, no matter where they come from, they will always be oriented the same way; you never see a ship flying “upside down”. (On rare occasions, an exception will be made for derelicts. Then again, upside-down derelicts can be found in the ocean, too.) > > Perhaps as a corollary to the above, two (or more) starships, when involved in a standoff situation, will inevitably position themselves literally nose to nose in classic stare-down posture. This can be justified depending on the ships’ weapons placements, but as often as not it’s just a metaphor for the situation. The flip side of this is that, when two friendly ships are together, they will always be traveling side by side — that is, shoulder to shoulder. Not unlike escorts, even when they’re not escorting. Abandoned ships may list visibly to one side as if sinking. The near-total separation spaceships have between yaw, pitch, and roll, and the path their inertia is carrying them on, is very rarely observed — “fighters” will nearly always be pointing in the precise direction they are moving in, as atmospheric planes are forced to. > > Needless to say, nobody will ever think of bypassing a planar asteroid belt or similarly hazardous feature by simply going above or below it. It’s also possible to wall off part of the universe by placing a barrier that spans the full ten-mile height from top to bottom. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811/180 "2011-01-26T15:55:04Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > High school dropout drug addicted whores can not only find a job on the first day out, but be running the company within a month. That’s because they have that ‘street-smarts common sense’. CEOs and board chairmen lack that trait. All it takes to run these companies is street-smarts common sense. Fancy business degrees and years of experience in the industry? Fuggedaboutit… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/true-facts-that-movies-have-taught-you/568811.md?page=10)