There was an episode of CSI: Miami in which one member of the team got shot in the face with a nail gun, and the nail was embedded in his eye socket. Ouch! 
Nail guns have a safety that requires them to be pressed up against something to shoot. You can’t just fire away at someone across the room unless you disable the safety.
Not sure how much damage it could do to if you did that. I don’t think the nail would embed itself very far unless you actual have it pressed up against something. I’m sure plenty have people have accidentally shot them selves in the leg or whatever. That would be very easy to do. And very nasty.
I can tell you that the nail can go as much as 3” below the skin, based on a limited sample size.
Police have charged a 19-year-old man after he allegedly shot two men with a nail gun while driving on the M1 Motorway on the NSW Central Coast on Monday.
I found a variation of that this morning. Was watching an old movie, from 1943, and a man walks up to a kiosk and says, “Gimme some cigarettes.”
There was an exchange in *What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?" when Mary Steenburgen goes to the convenience store and asks for “something with menthol in it.” I was expecting the clerk to hand over some Hall’s cough drops, not a pak of Kool cigarettes. Just me, or lousy writing?
I used to think that was just a daft movie cliche to indicate a Really Bad Dream, until one night, while having a really bad dream, I did just that.
If I did it, it is safe to say millions of people have done it.
Maybe it was an extremely backhanded reference to the scene in Back to the Future where Marty orders “something without any sugar in it”? (Steenburgen having co-starred in Back to the Future Part III three years earlier)
Also, Clerks.
I was watching a clip from something called “Cross of Iron”…and they kept showing this very old German soldier, then I realized that was James Coburn and he’s the lead. CORPORAL in rank.
Sergeant. Sgt Steiner. “Good kill!”
I liked the T-34s.
That was the clip I was watching. With the T-34s
In that time period, cough/cold medicine would be on the shelf: she would not have to ask the clerk for cough drops but would for cigarettes.
Small town, frequent customer, known smoker. Seems logical to me.
Easy deaths when needed. For example, an episode of The Blacklist where one of the protagonists is being yelled at, and in frustration slaps the person, who then trips backwards, falls and hits her head and dies instantly. I’m pretty sure that show has used the ‘someone falls over and hits their head and dies’ trope multiple times.
I mean, of course people can die that way. Falls are a common form of accidental death (usually from a height, though). Bob Saget apparently fell in his hotel room and died. But it’s rare.
The fact that it occasionally happens means it’s now a go-to technique whenever someone in a show needs to die easily, or die in a way that implicates the protagonist without showing them as an intentional murderer.
Not if you live in Russia!
Two more little TV tropes:
TV weddings- their are only two ways a wedding happens on TV:
-
Everything goes wrong (people go to wrong church, ring is lost etc), but the wedding comes out okay as the two are in love.
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The wedding is perfect in every way, but never happens ( bomb, shooting, cold feet, whatever). A make up ceremony, which is minimalist happens later.
There is a big bad suspect or two or ten in a building, so there is a raid
- A bunch of dudes in full tactical gear- no perps.
- Just the two detectives/agents- shoot out.
Since you mentioned weddings, the groom smashing the cake in the bride’s face, and everyone thinks it’s funny.
I have NEVER seen that done, although I know of a few people who did it, and yeah, the marriage didn’t end well.
Happened at the wedding for my Mom’s second marriage.
To say it didn’t end well would be an understatement.
Also, this: