When somebody says “there’s absolutely NO way I’m wearing this pancake on my head!” he will very quickly be wearing a pancake on his head.
When the horror film teen girl bares her breasts, she won’t live to put her top back on.
When the defense lawyer enters a crime scene, he will discover a key piece of evidence to exonerate his client.
When the lead male and female characters can’t stand each other when they first meet, they’ll be porking by the middle of the movie.
When a cop holds his fingers to someone’s neck, he is dead and no attempt to resuscitate can be made even if that person was walking 20 seconds earlier.
When handcuffs are played with, the key will be unavailable.
When someone bullies or harasses the creepy girl, they will die a gruesome death.
Actually, I often see (and am annoyed by) scenes where one of the Good Guys is shot or stabbed in the gut and someone casually patches it up for them and they are fine. But ask davidm what happens when your intestines are perforated and leak into your coelum.
There are so many of these, but I love to see them subverted – something I don’t see enough of. I freakin’ hate Chekov’s Gun
I started a thread about this one:
“When someone crosses a rope bridge, that bridge is going to be cut down before the movie is over”
(To my surprise, this was actually only true about half the time. Sometimes the bridge is just there for “local color”)
"When the camera comes close to a sign reading something like “Danger! Explosives! that means it’s gonna blow up.”
(Classic case: “Danger: Explosive Bolts” on the Space Pod door in 2001)
“When someone makes a point of showing you his prized possession, especially if he or she speaks lovingly of it, then it WILL be trashed or stolen by the end of the film.”
“When someone tells you about a favored quirk, piece of dialogue, or music, that thing will be used as a signal or recognition cod later on in the film.”
“When someone reads the strengths and vulnerabilities f a legendary monster in a book, you can be sure that a.) the monster WILL show up and b.) you can take the book’s description as gospel.”
There’s an exception to that, though – for some reason, filmmakers like to show vampires violating at least one rule blatantly. I suppose they think that this puts the audience off their ease, but it’s only vampires – not werewolves or mummies or zombies. I’ve seen vampires pull stakes out of their own hearts, walk in daylight, or ignore the effects of crosses after we’d been told that they absolutely had to follow these rules. Vampires get a pass that other supernatural creatures don’t.
And CSI and Law & Order, If there is enough evidence to put the person away for twenty lifetimes in real life, the defendant will be set free on a technicality. And then have sex with and/or kill their attorney.
When a teacher is talking to a classroom, the bell will soon ring.
When a plan is explained in detail, it will go awry. When it is not explained beforehand, it will work as planned.
Similarly, if a person explains their plans for the future, you know that either these will be completely screwed up, or the person will die.
When the captain says “You’re off the case, turn in your badge and gun,” the detective is going to go out and solve the crime on his own.
Now, let’s be honest with ourselves. This one is absolutely true. Unless you’re a vampire or owl or something, a phone ringing in the middle of the night is NEVER a good thing.
Right, when we get one we generally say “holy shit, who died?”
If someone has a bag of groceries, it will be full with both celery and a loaf of French bread visible. It will also be a paper bag, never plastic.
If two people who are at odds get into an elevator together, the elevator will stall between floors. If a pregnant woman gets on the elevator with any other people, it will stall and she will go into labor, and the elevator will not be fixed until just after she gives birth.
Unless it’s a booty call: “U up?”
When children show up in a horror/crime/disaster/zombie movie, they are going to do something stupid and innocent people will die because of it. They will not show remorse or even recognize that they were to blame.
Corollary 1: When families go into witness protection, the teenage girl will miss her best/boy friend and get all the Federal marshals killed by getting in touch with the friend. She will not show any remorse or concern.
Corollary 2: When families figure out they are in a horror/crime/disaster/zombie situation, they would be smart to chuck their children off the nearest bridge on the way out of town.
And when that bell rings, the teacher will yell out something like “Make sure you read chapter 7 by next class!”
When a character has stumbled onto a conspiracy of some sort, no one will believe him except for one cop. That cop is in on it and will kill (or try to kill) the character.
When a guy is trapped in an elevator with no hope of rescue until the next morning, he’ll try to escape by forcing the doors open. He’ll fail, of course, but he *will *get them open wide enough so he can pee out into the shaft when he needs to.
If a beer is ordered in a bar, it will be undrunk.
May I present to you the Art of Art Frahm!
Don’t forget the carrot greens also poking out the top of the bag.
When two people are fighting near a swimming pool, we know that one of them will go in the swimming pool.
A guy walks into a bar. The bartender asks him, “what’ll you have”, guy says “give me a beer.” They never ask draft or bottle, ale or stout, IPA, what brand? In movieland a beer is just a beer.
In any investigations where a picture or image may be recovered, there are endless pixels within pixels, hell it is pixels all the way down. They can probably get down to the individual atoms.
Enhance sector B6, now enhance again I12, zoom in on the reflection off the door knob in N 32, Bingo! We have our killer.