BS: only in the movies

Subject: BS: only in the movies
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 01:13 PM

stuff that happens only in movies

I'm SURE there are others.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 01:27 PM

If you're the woman protagonist and you're running away from the bad guy, you're obligated to fall down at least once. This also happens with minor female characters who are the monster-fodder of the film, etc.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 02:41 PM

Ah, I remember that movie well! Thanks for the giggle.

When a woman is being stalked from room to room by an intruder, why the aitch doesn't she flee the house? Doesn't she have neighbors? Or are all murders committed in a remote house in an isolated region?

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 02:42 PM

"If you're the woman protagonist" and you're running away WITH the good guy, you're required to wear a short dress, hold his hand and say "I can't go on any longer!".

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 02:44 PM

In cowboy-hero movies, the shots don't ring out until the hero finishes the opening song as he rides along, accompanied by the orchestra.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 02:47 PM

Only in the movies can you tell a preacher joke to a preacher and he laughs like he really means it.

BTW we had at least one thread on this movie stuff.....

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: The Walrus
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 02:59 PM

1) Muzzle loading weapons can be loaded (off screen) at the run (see Last of the Mohecans).
2) No weapon ever runs out of ammunition unless
a: It is important to the plot or
b: There is another source of weaponry handy (see Guns-as-disposable-razors in listing)
3) Everyone uses the same calibre and all handgun magazines are interchangable.

W

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 03:09 PM

It happens in books too. Wasn't it Ernest Thompson Seton (Ernest Seton Thompson?) who wrote about the protagonist diverting a stream so he could ascertain which way the villain had fled? The bootprints were still there. Fortuitously.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 03:18 PM

In costume flicks set in medieval times, knights wear plate armor before it was in widespread use (chain mail was the armor of choice until well after the Crusades). When they get into a sword fight, after the first brief exchange of blows, they throw away their shields and either go at each other handling heavy broadswords (which look oddly like they're made of aluminum rather than tempered steel) like modern, lightweight fencing sabers, or like a couple of gorillas armed with baseball bats.

Rioting peasants are also armed with broadswords, despite the fact that a halfway functional broadsword cost the medieval equivalent of the price of a small SUV.

In costume flicks set in the eighteenth century, two duelists will go at each other with French smallswords as if they were modern lightweight fencing sabers despite the fact that the French smallsword did not have a cutting edge, only a sharp point. Also, despite the fact that they use only cuts and slashes (with a weapon having no cutting edge) the fatal blow is invariably a thrust with the point, in which the blade goes through the victim like a shish-kabob skewer, encountering no bones.

And in more recent times, when the hero disables the nuclear bomb, the timer (with its big, red digital read-out) stops with one, or at the very most, two seconds to go.

Whew!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:33 PM

The original site mentioned by Bill D is made up of material stolen from Roger Ebert's website - click on the Movie Glossary - he's got hundreds of these things.

I'd like to add that when someone is playing his or her stereo, the music usually fits the mood of the scene.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:41 PM

when someone picks up an instrument and improvises a song everyone else picks up an instrument and already knows the tune and the chords.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Peace
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:44 PM

Glocks fire a minimum of 93 rounds. Awesome firearm.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:46 PM

In any action movie, the hero injures the bad guy, and never, ever, checks to see if they are alive or dead.

All the hero has to do to overcome being shot in the leg is to limp slightly. ( or wince whilst using injured arm etc) They can still catch the healthy bad guy....

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Celtaddict
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:51 PM

No matter where a chase scene originates, at some point they must go through an open street market, upsetting a fruit stand which invariably stocks only spherical fruit.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Peace
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 06:55 PM

When cars involved in high-speed 'chases' hit oil drums, the drums are always empty.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 08:40 PM

Our Hero and Dastardly Villain, in the course of a punch-up, sock each other bare-knuckle style, break chairs over each others' heads, and somewhere in the choreography they crash through a banister railing, land on the flight of steps a half-story below, still punching, kicking, biting, and gouging. When they reach the bottom of the stairs (having tumbled down three flights), Our Hero manages to land a round-house punch, knocking Dastardly Villain unconscious.

Now, were this sort of mayhem to happen in real life, the fight would have lasted about one-twentieth of the time, and even without tumbling down stairs, they would have wound up in hospital beds with their jaws wired shut, all four limbs in casts and traction, with tubes plugged into various bodily orifices, and wires coming out of everywhere and connected to a whole bank of monitors.

Instead, Our Hero gets up, wipes a small trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, and snaps the cuffs on Dastardly Villain.

Any number of movie and television heroes, Magnum P. I., Mannix, Spenser, you name it. But not Columbo. All brain work. I especially liked it when Jim Rockford (James Garner) would sock someone in the jaw, then dance around holding his punching hand and going "OW! OW! OW!" Later, you'd see him with an ice-bag on his hand.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Oct 05 - 11:44 PM

BS: Unwritten Rules of the Movies

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: artbrooks
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 12:12 AM

The hero fires an automatic weapon, like an M-16, an Uzi or an M-60 machinegun, offhand, one handed, and on full automatic...and always hits whatever he is shooting at. On the other hand, the bad guys can fire thousands of rounds (also on rock-and-roll) and it is guaranteed that every one will land two feet from the hero's heels.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 01:07 AM

Don, you beat me to it. I was thinking about this thread earlier today, and telling the kids about The Rockford Files. If someone got punched, someone got hurt, it was that clearcut.

I brought home some movies from the library last week and tonight I got the kids to sit down and watch The President's Analyst. It's always nice when an old favorite of mine turns out to be pretty funny for my kids, in this case, nearly 40 years after it was made. There is a sequence where Dr. Schaefer is in the grassy field with the hippy chick and they are surrounded by secret agents and spys trying to catch or kill him. At the end of the scene the camera pulls back and the field is littered with bodies and paths along which each agent had crawled. It's a great farce, but at least fatal acts are indeed fatal, they don't simply serve to slow charcters down.

For What It's Worth.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 01:40 AM

Ancient Romans spoke English with the American version of a British accent.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 05:00 AM

Most puzzling of all, no one ever has to go for a shit or a piss.

Very curious.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 05:02 AM

And how do American film stars manage to have sex fully clothed ?

eric

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: frogprince
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 01:46 PM

bathtubs always have a totally opaque "head" of bubbly foam.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Wesley S
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 03:55 PM

People who've hated each other since they first met will suddenly stop - look into each others eyes - and kiss passionately. And then....

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 05:14 PM

I've never been able to understand why, when it's apparently the best sex ever, the woman still has a perfect coiffure and pristine makeup, the man never just farts, rolls over and starts snoring, and neither of them reach for the tissues or start scrabbling for the condom....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Elmer Fudd
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 05:24 PM

LOL! Also women wear bras when they make love, wrap a sheet around themselves when they get out of bed, and men suddenly jump up immediately after shagging wearing underpants.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 05:41 PM

And how come pregnant women in the movies never have morning sickness all hours of the day, wear designer label, snug fitting fashionable clothes, don't have to pee every 20 minutes and can bend over to pick up anything they drop on the floor.

And how come, when their "waters break", there is never any liquid or evidence of liquid? A woman can have her waters break in the back of a taxicab and the driver will just roll his eyes and sigh and never charge for the journey (or cleanup)?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: John O'L
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 10:01 PM

In every city in the world there are people in skyscrapers waiting for any excuse to climb out a window and walk along a very thin ledge which the architects have obviously put there for that specific purpose.

(Every one of these ledges has just one loose brick incorporated into its construction.)

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: The Walrus
Date: 10 Oct 05 - 10:35 PM

If any character has lost a hand, it is usually the left and that arm is at least 4 - 5 inches longer than the 'normal' arm, unless said amputee is fitted with an artificial hand (always in a black or brown leather glove).

There is little difference in damage done by a .22" rifle bullet, a 7.62 mm rifle bullet, or a .75" musket ball hitting the hero (esp if hit in a limb - just hold the wound until it can be bandaged and get on with the action, limping as necessary).

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 07:44 AM

The hero can drive a car off a ramp, leap over a 75 feet wide stream, and land on flat ground without damaging the car.

I did a bit of rally cross years ago, and we had to weld a hefty metal strap across the front wings to stop them springing loose over bumps in the surface.

Also they can crash a car into the rear of a pickup, and drive on with the radiator undamaged, and the fan still working.

Someone please tell me, where can I buy one of these indestructible autos?

DT

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: GUEST,clogger
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 08:06 AM

When the villan "interfeers " with the electrical supply box there is an awsome pyrotechnical display and he just shades his face with his arm and carries on........ not even american units should do this!
In medieval battle scenes everyone has a broadsword, there are no pesants and "Knights" wade into the enemy hoards without any of them killing the horse.
No-one knows how to use a longbow but can shoot an arrow 1/2 a mile with pinpoint accuracy.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 08:44 AM

Modern Kilts ( ie army pattern, or Feleidh leag), in modern colours regularly turn up in things set pre 1745...

Archers soak their bow-strings, and carry on regardless.

No-one ever clears their gun barrel after having carried it through the river either.

Subject: RE: BS: only in the movies
From: The Walrus
Date: 11 Oct 05 - 02:20 PM

The hero and villain are fighting hand-to-hand, breast-to-breast, each has the the others hand in a grip (probably keeping a weapon away), grunting, snarling and straining at each other in a "fight to the death" and yet neither has the wit to either head butt the other or put the knee into the other's crotch. Am I the only one who finds this odd? (or do I just naturally gravitate towards "fighting dirty"?)

On the subject of weapons (see Bunnahabhain's post above):
Wet gunpowder still works (unless it's important to the plot that it does not), likewise flintlocks work every time (again, unless failure is important), flints never need changing, ammunition never gets mis-loaded and nobody EVER has a hang fire discharge.

W