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BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Jim Dixon Date: 12 Mar 02 - 03:47 PM Please continue at BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies II |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: SINSULL Date: 12 Mar 02 - 11:56 AM sorry - pteradactyls. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: SINSULL Date: 12 Mar 02 - 11:55 AM Little Hawk...are you saying that you are sexually attracted to horses? Be careful, guy. They kick and stand a lot taller than goats or llamas. Last night I saw Jurassic Park Three (or is it III?) and saw sweaty armpits on T-shirts. A broken rule. Of course, they made up for it by recycling every action scene from I and II. But the "good guy" saved the young boy and inexplicably but predictably survived being eaten by pteradactlys. In all, a giant (hee hee) yawn. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:50 PM Ha! You're absolutely right, Liz. Despite being born male (this time around), I have been amazed at the intelligence differential between males and females ever since first grade, men being on the lower end of the scale judging by their general behavior. I realized right away that human females, like horses, were a superior species, and have been attracted to them ever since! There's nothing like sheer admiration to provide strong motivation... :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Liz the Squeak Date: 11 Mar 02 - 07:38 PM LH - "The dumb cowpoke on the other hand runs toward the sound of gunfire, and never plays dead until he actually is dead. This results in a higher survival rate for horses, which is a fine example of natural selection at its very best, ensuring the continuance of the superior species". which is why cowpokes are always men, and never women.... we ain't that stupid! (*BG*) LTS - ducking and running for cover...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 11 Mar 02 - 02:15 PM The horse is just playing dead, T-boy. Horses are smarter than the average cowboy, so as soon as the shooting starts they do the smart thing and either run away or feign death, providing their rider is incapacitated. The dumb cowpoke on the other hand runs toward the sound of gunfire, and never plays dead until he actually is dead. This results in a higher survival rate for horses, which is a fine example of natural selection at its very best, ensuring the continuance of the superior species. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: GUEST,T-boy Date: 11 Mar 02 - 10:22 AM 1) If you shoot a cowboy, his horse falls over too (do they think we're stupid or what?). 2)If someone looks thru binoculars, they see two circular fields of view joined in the middle - real bins don't do that, you get one circle in 3-D. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Desdemona Date: 10 Mar 02 - 10:02 PM No-one ever actually eats, or attends to rudimentary household chores. Also, women routinely wake up with all their make-up on & their hair done! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Joe_F Date: 10 Mar 02 - 08:06 PM Everybody is too rich, and everything is too clean. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Mar 02 - 12:24 PM Little Hawk, What do you mean, "Lapsing into senility or dementia"some of us don't need to lapse! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 10 Mar 02 - 12:03 PM That's probably true, Soph. I might mention that I saw "The Time Machine" yesterday, and it's really quite a good movie with some interesting variations on the original story, and a lot of really beautiful scenes. I launched a separate thread on it, but absolutely everyone appears to be ignoring that thread for some reason...which is really quite odd (?). Perhaps I should have linked it with William Shatner to get their attention, although he's not in it. That usually seems to work around here. I have tried before to launch threads which no one would post to...but never with success. Now I launch a serious thread about a good movie, and NO ONE posts to it. I am beginning to think that the inhabitants of this forum are lapsing into senility, dementia, or both. :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Wincing Devil Date: 10 Mar 02 - 12:02 PM #1 Rule: The BAD GUY IS NEVER DEAD THE FIRST TIME YOU KILL 'EM!
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: sophocleese Date: 10 Mar 02 - 11:49 AM I thought they used sliding doors on space stations, fortresses, etc. because they're stronger and less easily forced than a hinged door. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Nigel Parsons Date: 10 Mar 02 - 11:38 AM Sliding doors may look futuristic, but they are not economic. A sliding door either slides into the wall (requiring thicker walls) or slides in front of a wall, making it unsuitable for hanging pictures, or positioning a boolcase etc., Our standard doors open onto the pathway over which the user will pass, and can then be closed without blocking space required for other purposes. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Penny S. Date: 10 Mar 02 - 11:31 AM Facts here. A man can punch through a glass panel in a front door and not be cut. Fortunately it wasn't my door. But he got away with it - in the wounding sense, so that particular cliche may be grounded in reality. For small panes, that is. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: GUEST,Pixie Date: 10 Mar 02 - 09:33 AM Women in B-grade action-adventure movies: a) always dress impractically for the trip b) wear clothes that suffer from severe shrinkage throughout the movie (ie: King Solomon's Mines, for those of us who have had to suffer even partway through the movie) so almost "all" is revealed in the "end"...... c) although these women may be "studious" types, they look like a Playboy center fold (please, no flack that beautiful, well-endowed women can be intelligent.....I happen to be one of them....just joking) d) have long finger nails, wear nine inch stilletos in the jungle, and their mascara never runs e)they sweat in only the most provocative places (suitably revealed by their incredible shrinking clothes) f)always look like they are in a post-coital state of deshabille after a disaster
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Liz the Squeak Date: 10 Mar 02 - 09:03 AM Whenever anyone is shown digging the garden (yard), they never have mud or soil on their shoes or hands.... Hollywood dirt don't stick. And they are always planting big lush bushes or leafy plants with lots of flowers in the sun, never trying to wrestle with a stick covered in thorns, in the March/November winds. I've even seen one film where the woman is gaily planting tulip bulbs... how do we know they are tulips? They are in flower! And they never have to shift 10lbs of cat poo out of the flower bed. People running down the streets away from the cops or after the baddies, never EVER fall over busted paving slabs, slip on drain covers, tread in dog poo, run into lamposts and bollards or tread in chewing gum. When they are seen going to the toilet, it doesn't make a noise! (Incidentally, it will be interesting to watch '24'... supposedly set in real time, how many times will any of them actually go to the toilet?) LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: C-flat Date: 10 Mar 02 - 04:24 AM Another thing that's always puzzled me is why, when the injuns attack, are they content to ride around the wagon circle being shot at instead of all rushing one point and getting it over with a fraction of the casualties! Sorry, I mean fatalities, injuns never get wounded, they die instantly whenever any part of their anatomy is hit by any projectile! There also appears to have been a great many whorehouses in the wild-west. Even the smallest, most remote settlement,that wouldn't see a stranger from one month to the next (and when they did they usually wrote a song about it) would have a whorehouse packed with girls hanging over the balconies awaiting the stranger! What do they do between punters? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: leprechaun Date: 09 Mar 02 - 10:17 PM Police in movies never have to spend hours writing reports. They get to slap confessions out of bad guys and the evidence never gets suppressed. Police are always rude and intimidating when they interview suspects. The boss is always an asshole. The hero detective's rank is lieutenant, but he gets to do field work instead of pushing paper. Movie police go alone into dark buildings full of bad guys, and back-up, tons of it, arrives after all the action is over.
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Mar 02 - 07:31 PM Yes, sliding doors are more expensive. Period. That's why you don't see too many of them. "Saving Private Ryan" should get a big hurrah here for violating one of those unwritten rules and showing some far off major explosions at night over Normandy...a silent flash of light, followed a second or two later by the distant reverberation of the explosion. This was realism rarely depicted in the movies. On the other hand, they kind of fell down on portraying the German army, I felt, in that they were shown constantly bumbling into ambushes and allowing themselves to be slaughtered...hardly typical of the Wehrmacht, generally speaking. But I've said that before. Which reminds me of another movie stereotype: The "bad guys" (be they Germans, Indians in movies of the 40's and 50's, or whoever...) routinely expose themselves to horrendous losses by ill-considered charges, losing scores or hundreds of their men to a handful of hunkered down cowboys or doughboys...while hundreds more always seem to be available to fill their places. In the meantime, the "good guys" lose 1 or 2 men...and are absolutely devastated about it. This fuels them with a raging thirst to exterminate hundreds more Germans or Indians, and they soon find the opportunity to do so. This, despite the fact that both WWII Germans and American Indians were ultimately outnumbered by their battlefield opponents on most occasions, and could hardly afford to throw their lives away foolishly. Mind you, I bet the Nazis' propaganda films were far more ridiculous even than Hollywood's, so we should be thankful for small favours, I suppose. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 09 Mar 02 - 04:32 PM Jim Dixon said: Space ships, space stations, and other futuristic environments always have sliding partition doors. Sometimes they even slide in a complicated way, opening up like an iris, for instance. (In real life, the technology for building sliding doors has been around for a long time. If sliding doors are clearly superior, as science fiction set designers have been telling us for years, why haven't all our doors been replaced by sliding doors by now?) At the risk of being a spoilsport in a good thread, we DO have the sliding doors in MANY applications. Grocery stores come immediately to mind. So why not in homes, you say? I'm sure sliding doors are more expensive to install than your garden-variety swinging door. And there's the cultural lag factor, that people like and expect what they are familiar with, what they grew up with, and so forth. If you're talking about the science fiction far future, you don't can afford to ignore that last one, and probably the first. Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: wysiwyg Date: 09 Mar 02 - 04:26 PM Cello music. Hear that under the action or dialog and death is very, very near. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Mar 02 - 04:26 PM Well, Coyote, I think you're on to something. These "unwritten" rules are a form of conceit...a habitual action that defies logic, but makes sense within the illogical world of film, and may even be reassuring by its repetition. If a car chase begins, we expect the cars to crash through the fruit stand, and are disappointed if that doesn't happen. Although we know that explosions are instantaneous and all-encompassing, we accept the conceit that the hero can see the onslaught and avoid it. It is a phenomenon akin to dreaming, where the environment contains a distinct and separate set of rules from waking life, but are consistent within themselves. We may be able to fly, but the method of our flying, however illogical, is consistant. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Coyote Breath Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:48 PM Yeah like Dante's Peak's pyroclastic flow! Check Mount St Helen for the real world! Ya know, even well made films seem to depend on these absurdities. If we see these hiccups for what they are, why don't the writers see them too? Could there be a sort of cultural mythology about interactive events? Something which, when we examine it, we see as silly but if we take it in as part of a broader picture, part of the entertainment, we don't notice it? like slang which we can usually understand because of context and jargon which is less understandable because we also don't know the context. Caught up in the story as we sometimes are, do we really notice these things or do we only "see" them upon reflection? Oh not the really clumsy stuff like having twenty rounds in a "six shooter" but some of the more subtle aspects? (It is a very cold and windy Saturday here in Missouri and I'm in the mood to "muse".) CB |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:06 PM The fireballs of huge explosions travel at roughly 70 miles per hour. Thus, victims have several seconds to stand terror-stricken as the fireball approaches, or conversely, to seek shelter in a tunnel or building. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Jim Dixon Date: 09 Mar 02 - 02:32 PM Private detectives are always smarter and more resourceful than the police. They are more effective at solving crime even though they lack the ability to obtain search warrants, examine confidential police files, question witnesses under oath, and so on. Any piano player can easily play and carry on a conversation at the same time. (My friend who plays piano calls this the "Dooley Wilson syndrome." DW played Sam in "Casablanca." She says people are always trying to talk to her while she plays.) Computers and electronic control panels always have an array of tiny lights that flash in a rhythmic, repetitive pattern. (Real life: even when computers did have rows of tiny lights, they didn't flash in this way.) Sound travels at the speed of light. Anyone who witnesses an explosion, cannon fire, etc., no matter how distant, sees and hears it at the same time. Lightning and thunder occur simultaneously as well. Electricity (or the lack of it) travels slowly. When an explosion takes out the power plant, the city starts going dark after a couple of seconds delay. If the entire city is visible in an aerial shot, block after block can be seen going dark like a row of dominoes falling. Space ships, space stations, and other futuristic environments always have sliding partition doors. Sometimes they even slide in a complicated way, opening up like an iris, for instance. (In real life, the technology for building sliding doors has been around for a long time. If sliding doors are clearly superior, as science fiction set designers have been telling us for years, why haven't all our doors been replaced by sliding doors by now?) No one ever has any inkling that a husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend is cheating on her/him until she/he accidentally walks in on them in the bedroom, finding them naked and "in a heap." Adultery is never discovered any other way. In a dark room, there will always be a small crack of light somewhere that will light up the actor's eyes. (Say, hasn't there been another thread on this topic? I'd swear I've posted some of these before but I can't find them.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: cyder_drinker Date: 09 Mar 02 - 02:12 PM Any computer monitor in use will project the displayed image onto the user's face. The world can always be saved by a computer geek, as every operating system - real or imaginary - has the command "UPLOAD VIRUS". A 650 MB CD-Rom takes less than 5 seconds to burn, and never has a buffer underrun. All computers, even if they have network cards, make the "modem noise" when they connect to the internet.
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Mar 02 - 01:46 PM Hmmm...seem to be experiencing double vision. I thought of one more detail. The bad guy who falls off a building onto a car never falls on the hood of the car, the trunk of the car, the fender of the car or any other part except RIGHT SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOF! He never misses the car entirely either. This is extraordinary. It's as uncanny as the ability of toast to fall buttered side down on the carpet. There is some mysterious force at work here... :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Little Hawk Date: 09 Mar 02 - 01:38 PM When bad guys in high places...like roofs, balconies, windows, 2nd floor railings, aircraft, skyscrapers, etc....get shot: They ALWAYS fall the whole way down to the ground (sometimes with a shriek, sometimes not). They NEVER simply collapse on some convenient horizontal surface where they are when hit. No sir! Even if it would require the skill of an Olympic gymnast, the shot cowboy will somehow loft himself over the railing, so he can fall all the way down to the barroom below, hopefully landing on a flimsy table and smashing it, thus breaking his back as well as getting shot. If the bad guy gets shot and falls off a building, he generally lands (with a sickening crash) on the roof of a car, which has been conveniently left there to receive him. REALLY, REALLY bad guys usually need to get shot at least 6 to 35 times, in rapid succession, before they finally die. This is so they can suffer enough to satisfy the audience's hatred of them before biting the big one. Their hundreds of underlings, on the other hand, are easily despatched with a single bullet each, which never wounds, but always, amazingly, hits a fatal spot. I wonder how the Romans handled this sort of thing in their plays? In a quite similar fashion, I bet. One more thing: There is NO world problem so big that the good old USA can't handle it by BLOWIN' SOMETHIN' UP REAL GOOD!!! This is true not only in the movies, but even in real life. One difference though...in the movies it's frequently a group of failures, rejects, and nonconformist weirdos (translation: jerks) who accomplish the BLOWIN' 'EM UP REAL GOOD...whereas in real life it's the well trained personnel of the US Air Force who do it. Real life is boring most of the time, let's face it. - LH - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Midchuck Date: 09 Mar 02 - 01:21 PM A guy can dive, or be punched, or even jump a horse, through a glass window with glass flying everywhere, and not have a single cut, much less be losing blood all over and pass out and die within a few minutes if he doesn't get immediate, massive, first aid, as you or I would. Peter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Mar 02 - 12:25 PM Before killing the hero who has been accused of the crime, the villain invariably confesses his entire role to the hero, allowing the hidden police to not only save the hero, but witness the confession simultaneously. When the detective gathers all the suspects together at the end of the mystery and outlines the crime, the guilty party ALWAYS confesses. The Mystery Wizard (Marple, Holmes, Poirot, Mike Hammer) is ALWAYS surrounded by bumbling, ineffectual cops who thwart the investigation, and may even accuse the MW of involvement. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: DonMeixner Date: 09 Mar 02 - 08:04 AM The bad guy always gets the drop on the good guy and instead of blowing him away yammers on about why the good guy is such a loser. The godd guy eventually recovers and in a case of incredible secod effort makes to ap the bad giy some how. Usually with the Bowie knife carelessly left under the couch. The plucky kid either saves the day or turns out to be one of "them". In "B" westerns the bad guys usually get shot in the hand at some point and are capable of lifting a 12 lLb. Walker Colt or a Dragoon pistol a few scenes later. The dependable Ford Wagon runs flawlessly until the guys from the Dawn of The Dead or Cujo is attacking. Don |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: RangerSteve Date: 09 Mar 02 - 06:45 AM Ancient Rome: Rich people have cultured British accents. Slaves have American accents. There are no working class people in ancient Rome. Car chases are always down hill. Especially in San Francisco. The drivers of cars that get hit are never injured. They just get out of their cars and survey the damages and throw their arms up in the air. No one pays for those damages. The chase scene always ends in a warehouse district. When someone realizes that his evil deeds are going to get him arrested and disgraced, as he gets ready to do the right thing and commit suicide, his stereo is playing the opening music to Carmina Burana, or something equally powerful. I have never heard on the radio:"We interupt this program for an important bulletin". In movies, this happens as soon as you turn the radio on. And in 14 years of law enforcement, no one has ever said "calling all cars". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: C-flat Date: 09 Mar 02 - 03:01 AM Warehouses and docksides are always full of empty cardboard boxes.If a car chase gets as far as the dock it will inevitably hit the water.When escaping an attacker/burning building always make for the fire stairs and head UP.Cowboys never need the toilet.Great observations in this thread! As Mickey Rooney might say..."Let's do the show right here!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: sledge Date: 09 Mar 02 - 02:06 AM Movie paramedics efforts usually seem confined to poking the victim a few time with fingers, followed by the announcement that said victim is dead. Sledge |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Lonesome EJ Date: 09 Mar 02 - 12:46 AM I love this stuff. Arnold Schwarzenneger can now play any role and no mention is made of his accent or weight-lifter physique. He usually has a name like "Ken Robinson". In World War 2 dramas, the Germans always speak with German accents, even when they talk to each other. Gay men are always loveably daft, but sincere. If the camera follows a woman as she walks to her car, she'll usually be attacked as she unlocks the door. If she does get inside, theirs a strangler in the back seat. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Bert Date: 03 Apr 01 - 09:05 AM Here's a real life story for ya Seth. When I worked in Saudi Arabia, we had one of our helicopters brought down by a kid throwing a stone. It hit the tail rotor and knocked it out of balance, they had to make an emergency landing. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: GUEST,Seth(really a member) from China Date: 03 Apr 01 - 09:01 AM If there is a car chase, look out if you have an outdoor vegetable stand, 'cause it's going down. Wouldn't it be great if the owner of the vegtable stand had a gun himself, so the next time a chase comes through his cantaloupes, he could shoot back! If you have a helicopter, and the lead character is not riding in it, you might as well give it up, because it's going down too, in some kind of fiery explosion. No way you can escape that one. I saw a movie where one was brought down with a .38 round! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Liz the Squeak Date: 03 Apr 01 - 06:06 AM There's never a wet patch to sleep in, they never need any KY jelly, no one ever farts in bed and they never have to stop to put a condom on.... Neither do they get those lovely slobbery body farts when two sweaty bodies part company. When they come in out of the perpetual torrential downpour, they dry out in a matter of seconds (like just stepping through the front door) and they never look like drowned rats with stringy hair and a runny nose. And their glasses never steam up. Never go back when someone says 'oh wait, I left something in my room' because you KNOW that there is something there that will hurt you..... LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: GUEST,Ickle Dorritt Date: 03 Apr 01 - 06:00 AM Everyone who eats in a restaurant never spills anything on the table cloth or down their front unless it is intrinsic to the plot. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Wolfgang Date: 03 Apr 01 - 05:30 AM If there is a scientific dispute, the minority position always turns out to be right. If a scientist disagrees on his own field of expertise with a lay person, say a farmer or a nurse, then inevitably the scientist is wrong. Rare exceptions are allowed if the lay person is a politician. Professors are either mad or continuously absent-minded. The first ones get killed (preferably by their own devices or creatures) the second ones get married (but are the last person to know that). Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: JudeL Date: 03 Apr 01 - 04:54 AM Cab drivers always know, exactly where to take people - they never have to check where on the street it is. Hero's also have that perfect sense of direction that lets them get exactly where they need to be even if they were dumped in the middle of a desert , with no map, compass, etc. conversely often the only reason the dizzy blond doesn't get killed by the baddie in the first 5 minutes is cos she got lost and wasn't where the killer expected her to be. Jude |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: sledge Date: 03 Apr 01 - 04:45 AM The spouse of a lead charecter if played by an unknown or little known actor is usually going to die, soon. Space ships make lots of noise, even in total vacume. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: M.Ted Date: 03 Apr 01 - 04:11 AM The minute that someone is alone in a parking structure, they are either beaten, run over, or both. Women wake up in full make-up, with their hair done. People always turn off the radio immediately upon hearing that the killer or psychopath has escaped. Even though twenty cars were wrecked and several bad guys were killed, no one knows about it except for the over the top detective's supervisor, who threatensto remove him from the case because he is "getting too emotionally involved"
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall) Date: 02 Apr 01 - 11:17 PM The lead characters will jump out of a plane, land in a river, wrestle a monster/crocodile/elf/alien , do 12 cartwheels through a tornado, and moments later, their hair will be perfect. Any woman rendered naked, will have her hair land perfectly so to cover her breasts and will stay covered, regardless of weather. Rich |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Peter T. Date: 02 Apr 01 - 03:31 PM When it snows in the city in any film it is white and puffy, and clumps adoringly. (And comes out of a machine) If it is winter, and in the city, there has to be a Christmas tree buying scene, which will be adorable (together), or dragging (apart). Policemen in interrogation scenes drink coffee out of styrofoam cups. They do not use their own favourite mug. When looking through mug shot files, the witness has to go through 8 hours and every book, and only in the last book, on page 350, is the person. Nobody ever works on the docks. They are always empty, and full of people getting killed. If the hero goes to see the owner of the bar/restaurant/ he is always in the back room. The hero always has to beat up someone to get into or out of the back room. The most important witness is always left alone for at least 15 seconds. In Westerns no one is ever seen putting on or taking off their spurs. They will often get off their horse wearing spurs, and go into the bar with them off, without any time in between. yours, Peter T.
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Bardford Date: 02 Apr 01 - 03:06 PM At some point in the movie, usually at the end, the misfit protagonist will be accepted by the cool/tough adversary: "Hey, kid...", pause,"You're okay." Also, a British film should have a crane shot at the end of the film as the credits roll - this shot will be a street scene, usually with a parade, dancing, jugglers and everyone in the cast. And it's not a Canadian TV movie unless Gordon Pinsent is in it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: wysiwyg Date: 02 Apr 01 - 02:24 PM The first time someone with an injury gets hugged in compassion, it will hurt the affected part and they will wince for more sympathy. After that, though, that part is insensible to pain. Mouths torn from domestic abuse never prevent the victim from smiling. No one ever seems to need their jaw wired after a fight, since that would preclude intelligible dialog. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: GUEST,petr Date: 02 Apr 01 - 01:59 PM no matter how badly the hero gets beat up in a fight (especially a western) he only winces later when a beautiful woman is cleaning his wounds. whenever theres a car chase theres always a donkey cart with vegetables and fruits asking to get knocked over. a cup of coffee or a splash of cold water in the face will render even the most inebriated character stone cold sober. actually theres a website www.moviecliches.com for all of the above. It reminds me of a James Thurber (I think) story where a lion pursues an antelope over a cliff and as they tumble down they burst into flames. Petr |
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Subject: RE: BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies From: Mrrzy Date: 02 Apr 01 - 01:41 PM If a woman throws up, even if it is clearly from food poisoning or something, she's pregnant. If anyone mentions 9 months, no matter how obstruse the context, somebody is pregnant, probably the lead woman. (This might be more true for TV than movie mysteries but it's a real rule on TV) - Ignore the clues, count the lines. The person with the most lines in the first 5-10 mn (or who has the spurious conversation that has nothing to do with either plot or character development) is going to be The Killer. This works for Matlock, Murder She Wrote (which taught it to me), Law & Order, In The Heat of the Night (show, not movie), Magnum PI, you name it. |