Dumb Movie Cliches (1 Viewer)

[DaveGTP]

I hadn't thought of that one!! That's a good one.


The lean-over-the-guy-that-may-or-may-not-be-dead one is a good one. I would empty a couple extra bullets into their head (or throw heavy things at them) to make sure. And if it's an undead or something that doesn't die, I sure wouldn't be leaning over it to see if it was dead (duh).

 

[Blaine Skerry]

Why do evil geniuses have such stupid henchmen?

The hopeless situation, usually in Star Trek that's saved by "What if we reverse the polarity. . ."

 

[Brent Bridgeman]

Someone turns out a light in a room at night and at the same instant a blue light comes on, giving plenty of illumination to that room.

A car spins it's tires on a dirt road and you can hear them squeal.

 

[EricW]

i read once you can't tell if it's cocaine by tasting it.

 

[Jacinto]

"He may be a (insert cheesy descriptor like 'loose cannon'), but he's the best chance we've got..."

 

[Joe Schwartz]

Point-of-view shots through binoculars always show two circles that meet in the center, instead of a single circle. (Have these filmmakers ever used binoculars?)

 

[Jack Shappa]

If mom isn't around, Dad has no fucking clue how to run a household or discipline his smart-ass kids...

Racial ones still abound...

White guys have no rhythm... Tries to fit in with black crowd by making ass of himself...

Black women are sassy, yet wise and with a heart of gold...

Asian guy is either a geek, or kung-fu master

Terrorist group leader always some Euro-trash snob with utter disdain for scrappy American hero...

Ever notice how if there's a computer expert they often make it a black guy? What will the Asians do now?

Seems like every group has to be perfectly racially balanced. I'm frankly stunned Peter Jackson wasn't forced to mix in a few black Elves, Asian humans, etc.

- Jack

 

[George_W_K]

When the hero holds his gun on someone and seemingly talks about how this person did some kind of wrong in their past, only to be joking the whole time as they are best friends and give each other a big hug as they haven't seen each other in a long time. Of course, this friend is offed later.

 

[Yousaf]

The best police detectives are seemingly always "loose cannons". New phrase time, people!

 

[Herschel]

Whenever a character is talking on the phone, and the person on the other end hangs up, you hear the dial tone right away. And then you have the movies where the actor goes "Hello? Hello? Are you still there?" while we hear a dial tone, making them look like an idiot.

Big red LEDs for bombs. And they'll never turn it off with 6 minutes to spare or anything, it has to be a second or two.

Then there are the people that get shot with a gun, and are thrown backwards through a window or something. Yet the person shooting doesn't show any effects of recoil, so somehow "every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction" sometimes gets the day off.

Computer displays that sound like a printer when they're printing text. This goes along with the computers that print out text super slowly.

Everyone's computer passwords in movies are always some word that's easily guessed. No one ever uses remotely safe passwords ("I tried 'Joshua' and 'Rover', what else could your password have been?" "It was 5bzeA.9R, of course...")

In movie chess games that are supposedly between two people who are pretty good players, one player will somehow never notice a mate coming up in the very next move until the opponent makes the move and says "checkmate." And even then they have to stare at the board for a while because they don't believe it. (Just saw this a few days ago in The Thing).

Aliens that are obviously descended from Earth-based creatures, with 2 eyes, a mouth, 2 ears, 4 limbs, etc.

Feedback every time someone walks up to or starts talking into a microphone.

Dramatic lighting and mostly dark rooms in so many places where you would really be seeing bright florescents everywhere.

 

[JerryDean]

When being chased by the bad guy the hero/heroine can never get the keys in the ignition or when they do the car won't start.

Why when a space ship gets hit by an enemy ship it seems like steam pipes burst with ...steam! Are all these space ships of the future steam powered?

Why don't zombies eat each other?

Why do nuclear weapons always have a numerical keypad on them? Is this so users can enter their pin number?

In the movie Independance Day what cable did they use to hook up the Machintosh ibook to the alien computer? Is there some usb cable standard for aliens?

 

[Holadem]

Re:ID4, How is that a cliche?

--
H

 

[Jack Shappa]

People will knock on a door and walk away after like 2 seconds assuming no-one is home, yet they'll let the phone ring like 30 times while the person on the other end agonizes over wether or not to answer it...

- Cryo

 

[RobertR]

Streets shown in night scenes are almost always wet.

 

[Jefferson Morris]

Dammit, I was sure I'd be the first to mention this one, but there it is in the third post to this thread.

Anyway, it's worth repeating. Plenty of otherwise good films fall prey to this ridiculous cliche. I, for one, have never, ever sat straight up in bed after a nightmare. Somebody needs to put a full-page ad in Variety begging filmmakers never to indulge in this one again.

And I'll add one - people having conversations while walking briskly down halls in offices, buildings, whatever. No doubt this is done to inject "movement" and a sense of dramatic urgency to the scene, but in my experience, very few people do this. TV dramas like The West Wing are terrible offenders in this department.

--Jefferson Morris

 

[WillG]

The sent the signal wireless with an transmitting antenna mounted on the outside of the ship. How plausable? I'm guessing, not very. But that was the explaination.

 

[KatieL]

Car chases through busy kitchens.

Car chases that demolish fruit stands, leaving fireworks of pears, peaches, grapefruit

 

[Jason Walstrom]

Whenever someone is leaving by Train in a movie an overused gag is the person saying goodbye on the outside of the train running to keep up to say they love them and goodbye and the person almost always runs into a pole or some obstruction to great comic relief.

In alot of Chick flicks the whole 'TRYING ON OUTFITS' routine happens way too often, Not to mention a bunch of women all singing together. And come to think of it they always work in at least one pratfall for the woman of the story, whether it be, Sandra Bullock, Kate Hudson, Britany Murphy, Jennifer Garner etc. they fall on their ass at least once in the flick.

 

[Jeff Pounds]

How about:

Bad guy who shows how really bad he is by killing various henchmen / underlings.

 

[JerryDean]

Sorry I didn't know that aliens used the Apple Air port wireless adapter.