Goofs : All time greatest clichés part 2

the ICS.
indestructable car syndrome. The hero's car will always survive whatever sort of dangerous and terminal damage they face. Even lava in Dante's Peak and gale-force winds in Twister.

Also, anyone notice that the guy named jack always dies?






it's not hip hop. it's electro.

I get miffed when they have the white person save the day or empower non-white characters who couldn't do it themselves. Non-whites usually are black/Hispanic inner-city kids, noble Native Americans, primitive islanders, traditional and honorable Asians.


Ah. Fresh victims for my ever-growing army of the undead.

"Also, anyone notice that the guy named jack always dies?"

Not in 24!!!



Jack Bauer eats babies.

Drug dealers/mobster chiefs always live in luxury mansions full with paintings, sculptures and prostitutes. They have some wierd scar, gold bracelets and sunglasses. It is common that they manage a nightclub. Also, despite being inside the city, there is always black bodyguards around them heavely armed with kalashnikov rifles.


Corolary: If that crime chief is russian, he will always be a ruthless bloodthirsty ex-military. Also if his subordinates make a job with some mistake, he gets angry and kills his colleage in some impressive way (cutting his throat) without his leadership being questioned.

The good-guy, at the end of an action movie, is seated at the back door of an open ambulance, while paramedics do a stitch in his head.



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Check my IMDB Rating List!
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=13068630

You can see this recently in the Last House On Thee Left(2009) trailer. Whenever a character explains something in a cheesy line, that the other characters are obviously aware of, which is only used to inform the audience, like:

"This is the only way to ___________"
or
"Can you guys believe I didn't know you until yesterday"

This one doesn't happen very much anymore but I do still spot it. A person walks in on a dead body and rushes over to it. There is blood everywhere and a weapon sitting on the bed/table/floor. The person then picks up the weapon and looks at it. Now that their fingerprints are on the weapon and they are a suspect. He may also cradle the body and cover himself in blood.
A variation that happens is the person picks up the weapon and stares at it and now someone pokes their head in and sees them holding the weapon and the dead body.

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There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those that don't.

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If someone finds a skelaton of somebody who was murdered, the skelaton is ussually in a defensive position. the bones would be strewn all over the ground (Check out the DooM movie)

2 Soylent 2 Green... opens everywhere Friday

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A person walks in on a dead body and rushes over to it. There is blood everywhere and a weapon sitting on the bed/table/floor. The person then picks up the weapon and looks at it. Now that their fingerprints are on the weapon and they are a suspect. He may also cradle the body and cover himself in blood.
A variation that happens is the person picks up the weapon and stares at it and now someone pokes their head in and sees them holding the weapon and the dead body.

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I HATE that. SO so much. Me watching any of those scenes 
Double Jeopardy (1996) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0150377/ comes to mind immediately.

As of this far into the thread, you have won in my eyes.

Good post.

Or how about when someone is hiding from someone, and then all of a sudden an axe comes bashing through the door, or a gun blows a hole in it. It always happens.

The fight between the opponents is well defined where each side takes turns punching. The good guy often takes a beating until he gets angry or until he comes to a personal revelation. The bad guy takes his beating until he cheats or reveals a secret that devastates the good guy. But eventually the good guy gets the upper hand and delivers a grand move in slow motion. The camera shoots it happening several times from several different angles.

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There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those that don't.

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In the old serials from the thirtys, fourties and fifties, the good guy's hat always stayed on during these fights.

Characters can have a complete arsenal at their disposal, but it always, always comes down to mano-a-mano -- the one good guy and the one bad guy in a fist fight.

Also, bad guys are always bad shots. Six bad guys can be shooting at the unarmed hero/innocent/protagonist and their bullets will hit the metal stairway, go astray, miss by inches, etc. But the good guys -- one shot and bam you're dead.

Any war movie that has Navy ships in it...They always begin messages on the address system (called the 1MC btw)with "now hear this, Now hear this". In all my years aboard Navy ships, I have never once heard an announcement begin with those words. Never.

Also, whenever there is some exotic port of call or just a whole lot of bars around there is usually a sailor or two or five getting drunk and chasing women.
OH wait that one is true!!! Sorry!! 8-)

They never seem to mess up their hair.

One of my least favorite cliches is the one in which cops hold a suspect and try to sweat out a confession 'before his fancy mouthpiece arrives'. The lawyer shows up, and reveals (to the astonishment of the suspect and the consternation of the cops) that unless they charge his client, he is free to go.

I keep wondering - hasn't the suspect watched enough movies to skip the lawyer and astound the cops with his legal acumen on his own? Sharon Stone does it in Basic Instinct, and even that is ludicrous. WOW! She knows her rights! Astonishing!

It's just lazy writing, and we've seen it a billion times. Come up with some new "how to get the suspect to confess" scene.

Some other quick cliches that must go:
- movie opens with a car driving along a road to its destination
- movie opens with the lead waking up in the morning
- a scene around the end of act II involves the lead and someone else having coffee and discussing the issues of the plot

These really should not be hard scenes to avoid, yet time and time again - there they are.


"I'm just a guy keeping his hands in his own pockets."

Oh this one is done to DEATH: when a man and woman (who are either strangers or dislike one another) suddenly find themselves face to face, up close, and they lock eyes and seemingly both say to themselves "Kiss me!!" Its so predictable, and I almost expect to see the cartoon stars twinkle in their eyes.

1. If your blonde your gonna die
2. If you investigate a strange noise your gonna die
3. If a cat jumps out and scares you, your about to die
4. Clowns are ALWAYS evil
5. If you have sex your gonna die
6. If you do drugs your gonna die
7. Never try and escape by running up the stairs
8. Trees can rape people
9. People that wear masks are nuts
10. If you notice a kitchen knife missing RUN!
11. All work and no play makes Jack a homocidal maniac
12. Hillbillies are cannibals
13. In space no-one can hear you scream
14. Even if youve shot, burned, electrocuted and beheaded the killer they will still come back
15. Wax museums = death
16. Avoid Texas (and chainsaws)
17. The boogeyman is real
18. So is the tooth fairy (but shes evil)
19. If the phone line goes dead you better run
20. If the electricity goes...well you'd better run then too
21. Nightmares can kill you
22. Insane asylums are easy to break out of
23. If you go skinny dipping your gonna die
24. Bullying some-one is wrong and you will die
25. Chanting in front of a mirror is just asking for it
26. NEVER road trip across america its just asking for a crazed hillbilly or homicdal maniac or even a weird supernatural monster to com kill you and all your little friends!
27. never go hitchiking in the australian outback.....and never go back for your friends unless you want to be chased and caught by the killer

LOL @ the baguette sticking out of a paper bag (with the occasional carrot, etc). Who the hell packs their groceries like that?

1) In every cheesy movie, the "Jock" type always wears their Jockish school jacket, almost to tell us about his character what the lame script can't. There is also the Cheerleader, who wears her Cheerleading outfit (often undirtied, unwrinkled, etc.) that always blue, has a horn in the front, with some obscure logo to the left.

2) The fact that people ambush a villain from behind, hit him once in the head (incapacitating the villain and giving the perfect opportunity to kill him), but then they run away, allowing him to get back up and chase them again, and also while leaving his knife / other weapons for him to pick up again. wtf?

If someone cuts the phoneline theyre always on the phone when it happens, they never need to make a call after it happens or not even know its been cut till its too late

Honour, Duty, Glory, Combat, Victory

If a couple are in a healthy loving relationship at the start of the movie, and remain that way for at least a third of the film, one of them is hiding something sinister.

"A big bushy beard."

Anyone who suffering a physical deformity is automatically bonkers too.

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I'm writing all this down in my memoirs so if I grow up twisted & warped, the world will know why.

If you open a refrigerator at night, when you close the door, someone will be standing behind it.

After one closes their doors they are never torn down or replaced with another building. They are just abandoned. All the paperwork and equipment are left behind. Then former inmates or crazed former workers move into them. Of course murder and mayhem then ensue.

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There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those that don't.

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re passage of time measured by facial growth -- even though the characters are in a desperate situation, somehow they apparently manage to shave regularly, so they maintain their 'one-day-not-shaving' growth indefinitely!!

Baby, I don't care!

I am waiting for the measuring of time by "growth of leg hair".
That'd be a screamer for once. :D
Oh, or wait. Picking of grey hairs.
Hmmm. Picking of nose hair?
Why hair in the first place? Why not cutting nails? Or, say, simply the good, old-fashioned calendar pages flying by? No, wait. That has been done before... oh, we're doomed. Almost everything has been done at least once. Time to pack up and hitch a ride to another planet. ( Wait, didn't I hear that one before? )

A worker in a Chinese Food Restaurant who walks out back into an alley with an apron on almost always gets killed.

1. When there's a funeral, there's always a man that watches it from a distance.
2. In every action movie, no matter how many guns are in it, in the end there must be a bare hands fight.

Two more:
When the bad guy almost kills the hero he says some "goodbye" line, loads his gun/lifts the axe in the air, then gets shot. After a few seconds we see the shooter and say "Oh my god he's still alive" or "He's a good guy after all" or something like that.

Another thing which is not exactly a cliche but something annoying that happens a lot is when two people are talking in a room, especially when one of them is threating the other, at some point he will walk behind him and the other guy won't turn around he will keep facing the camera and the first guy will usually get close to him from behind and whisper. Anyone noticed this? Doesn't it look funny and over-dramatic most of the times?

The main bad guy in war movies always has 100% accuracy. While his comrades struggle to make kills and get mowed down themselves, every one of his shots seem to strike a target.

In the end, he meets his demise and his comrades don't seem to care.

Can't believe people missed this one: When in an actionmovies something has been hijacked, like a train plane or anything, or something terrible happens... and everything seems to go to hell... when the "hero" saves it all... in the room with all the engineers and generals and all... they start applauding!!! but the worst thing is the 'shake-hands-move'. "may I congratulate you, dear general, although the (hero) did everything and we were busy being scared?" "Why yes you may HAHA!!".

Also notice how there is always at least one person in that room that isn't enthousiastic but sinds with his head on his hands and just sighs...

happens all the time!!

Awaiting:

Transformers (2007)

^^^^^ To expand on this, whenever there is a national crisis, Americans gather around the White House with candles. When the crisis is resolved at the end, then all start clapping and celebrating.

The guy who isn't happy is always an overly trigger happy Secretary of Defense.

What really gets me in films is the SEX scenes.

In the old days of black and white the lovers would kiss and the the picture would dissolve away and we would maybe see a steam train roaring through a tunnel. Nice and simple. We could imagine the rest.

Nowadays we have to endure totally unrealistic sex on screen.

No one in film ever asks their partner to use a condom (except in "Grease" Rizzo to Kenickie)

The Man always get an instant erection with no manual help from himself or the woman.

There is never any discussion about whether the woman is on the pill.

There is never any arguement as to who will be sleeping on the wet patch.

Nobody ever says "Is it in yet?" The man enters perfectly smooth every time.

Nobody ever says "No not there, down a bit".

There is never any realistic noise that can sometimes happen during sex.

There is never any dirty talk during sex.

No one ever needs any lubrication.

Nobody ever catches a STD.

Women always orgasm.

The man is always ready to do it again two minutes later.

They always cum at the same time.

"There is never any arguement as to who will be sleeping on the wet patch. "
LOL!!! so great

Jesus! Did I just say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?

^^ Hilarious!!

anyway this is probably here somewhere but it always happens..

In an action movie usually near the end, the main tough guy beats up a bunch of nameless extras, then more are about to attack but then the tough guy looks at them they look at eachother and then they run the other way, too scared of him to fight

Most DEFINITELY mentioned but:
The female who has NEVER handled a gun and has led an innocent life always has a dead-on shot when dealing with a weapon for the first time while ALSO being deep in action (meaning she has like one second to aim her shot)

Very true!

I hate, hate, HATE the cheerleader cliches. What about wearing cheesy uniforms and waving pom poms makes you a bitch?

There's also one movie/TV cliche that really bugs me. Say character A has a something big to tell character B, usually a confession of love or something similar, as character A begins to talk, character B does as well, and character A says "no, you go first", character B then says something that makes character A not want to say what he was going to say, for example "character C just asked me to marry him!", and then after character B has finished talking, they'll say "Oh, what was it that you wanted to tell me?" and character B will either say something completely different, such as "You're new hair cut looks nice on you" or simply "Nevermind".

Yeah I hate that one too.

If a boy loves a girl he has to buy her a snow globe apparently.

The sighing person is most probably the network administrator/tech advisor/younameit, who saw it all coming from a mile off, but nobody listens to him ever, and by the way, he's been put off his long-overdue promotion and, really, has not had "any" for at least three years, and now the hero is snogging his secret workplace crush. I'd sigh, too.

2 elements: hydrogen and stupidity. And between them... mayhem!

Don't forget, when the hero cop finally defeats the mobster that the department has been building a 20 year case for, the office throws a party for the cop the next morning. The secretary then hands him a glass of champagne and he thanks her for it. She of course replies with "NO, thank you". Such bullsh*t

"There will be a reckoning you will not live long enough to never forget." - The Way of the Gun

In action movies every technical problem can be solved by shooting it. It acts as the ultimate key. Elevator door won't open? BANG BANG! Voilà! Immensely complicated nuclear device is about to go off? BANG BANG! Voilà! It shuts down. Oh no! What's the code to open this safe? BANG BANG! Voilà!
A similar approach to fixing problems is the hit or kick. Car won't start? KICK KICK! Voilà! Computer won't give you the answers you want? PUNCH PUNCH! Voilà!

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There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those that don't.

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I found this list on a webpage and thought I'd drop it in here.

40 Things That Only Happen In The Movies
Did you ever notice that certain things only happen in the movies, but never happen in real life? For example:

1)It is always possible to find a parking spot directly outside or opposite the building you are visiting.
2)When paying for a taxi, donÂ’t look at your wallet as you take out a note. Just grab one out at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
3) Television news bulletins usually contain a story that affects you personally at the precise moment itÂ’s aired.
4) Creepy music (or satanic chanting) coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.
5) Any lock can be picked with a credit card or paperclip in seconds. UNLESS itÂ’s the door to a burning building with a child inside.
6) If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
7) All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red digital displays so you know exactly when they are going to explode.
8) Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to learn to speak German. Simply speaking English with a German accent will do. Similarly, when they are alone, all German soldiers prefer to speak English to each other.
9) Once applied, lipstick will never rub off. Even while scuba diving.
10) The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.
11) Any police officer about to retire from the force will more often than not die on their last day (especially if their family have planned a party). (Caveat: Detectives can only solve a case after they have been suspended from duty).
12) Getaway cars never start first go. But all cop cars do. (They will also slide to a dramatic stop in the midst of a crime scene).
13) If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.
14) On a police stake-out, the action will only ever take place when food is being consumed and scalding hot coffees are perched precariously on the dashboardÂ…
15) All grocery shopping involves the purchase of French loaves which will be placed in open brown paper bags (Caveat: when said bags break, only fruit will spill out).
16) Cars never need fuel (unless theyÂ’re involved in a pursuit).
17) If you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts, your opponents will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around you in a threatening manner until you have defeated their predecessor.
18) If a microphone is turned on it will immediately feedback.
19) Guns are like disposable razors. If you run out of bullets, just throw the gun away. you will always find another one.
20) All single women have a cat.
21) Cars will explode instantly when struck by a single bullet.
22) No matter how savagely a spaceship is attacked, its internal gravity system is never damaged.
23) If being chased through a city you can usually take cover in a passing St PatrickÂ’s Day parade - at any time of the year.
24) The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. Nobody will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.
25) You will survive any battle in any war UNLESS you show someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
26) Prostitutes always look like Julia Roberts or Jamie Lee Curtis. They have expensive clothes and nice apartments but no pimps. They are friendly with the shopkeepers in their neighbourhood who donÂ’t mind at all what the girl does for a living.
27) A single match is usually sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.
28) It is not necessary to say “Hello” or “Goodbye” when beginning a telephone conversation. A disconnected call can always be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying “Hello? Hello?” repeatedly.
29) One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once (this is known as StalloneÂ’s Law).
30) When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in you room will still be visible, just slightly bluish.
31) Plain or even ugly girls can become movie star pretty simply by removing their glasses and rearranging their hair.
32) Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their enemies with complicated devices incorporating fuses, pulleys, deadly gases, lasers and man-eating sharks.
33) All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her.
34) Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
35) During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
36) You can always find a chainsaw when you need one.
37) Most musical instruments (especially wind instruments and accordions) can be played without moving your fingers.
38) In Middle America, all gas station attendants have red handkerchiefs hanging out of their back pockets.
39) All teen house parties have one of every stereotypical subculture present (even people who arenÂ’t liked and would never get invited to parties).
40) Trucks use their horns at random (no hang on, that happens in real life too!).

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There are only 10 kinds of people. Those who understand binary and those that don't.

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If ever there is an attempt on the life of the hero, he will end up in a private hospital room with an armed uniformed police officer standing guard outside the door.

However the assassin will always turn up at the hospital room, dressed in a police uniform, to take over the shift of the real policeman. The dialogue between the two usually goes something like this:

REAL COP: Hey you're early.
ASSASSIN: Yeah no problem, you get off home , I've got it covered.

It never occurs to the real cop that he has never seen this other cop before.

We will then see the hero's partner putting two and two together and realising that the hero is in danger. He will then make a mad dash to the hospital.

Cut back to the hospital room and the assassin will still not have shot the hero because they have to have a long drawn out conversation about who is behind everything that has happened. And of course give time for the partner to arrive, which he does in super quick time, to try to thwart another attempt on his parners life.

The fact that he arrives just a second to late doesn't matter because the hero had a gun all along under his bedsheet and has killed the assassin himself.

I forgot to put down this cliché that really pisses me off. Everytime I see it, I want to punch the TV.

Character downs the villian - unconscious or whatever.

Character says something dramatic about the trouble that the villain caused for him or other people.

Character uses a knife of all things to finish him off.

Just when the character is about to stab him and has the knife raised in the air, the villain was faking it all along and stabs him in the stomach. He dies.

Absolutely annoying. Find more original ways to kill characters.

An addendum to number 23...unless it is in New Orleans or Rio, then it is a Mardi Gras or Carnivale parade.

Another one for war / action movies: The main villain always kills characters close to the hero, often razing villages or killing his family members. In the end, the villain and hero meet face to face in one final battle that will eventually turn into hand to hand combat. Other fighting clichés listed will also apply. This is usually because the hero and villain are both out of bullets, or they want to fight "honorably."

Also, when the war is on American soil (American Revolution movies, etc,) there is always a fixation on one village, which will inevitably get razed. The main villain does this to avenge the hero, bring him out into the open, or because he is just plain crazy.

Whenever the bad guys are making their escape in the car, the police always shoot the windows and never the tires, as if dramatic effect will slow the car down.

"There will be a reckoning you will not live long enough to never forget." - The Way of the Gun

at a bar, people ask for "a beer" as opposed to a specific type, same goes for cigarettes.

people always have a huge bucket of popcorn when they go to the movies

waiters and waitresses are unrealistic and nervous

a robbery is NEVER successful, even when done by professionals with months of planning and preparation

people ALWAYS use a ZIPPO lighter to light a cigarette though they are the most expensive type of lighter

a character always throws a cigarette away long before it is finished

always on crowded streets, like scenes in New York, the main character and his friend are talking on the streets while walking, but nobody else on the street seems to be having a conversation

nobody ever has a phone or calls 911

a street at night is ALWAYS empty, even in an urban area

nobody ever listens to the radio in the car

people never have more than 1 beer at a bar

finally...

When characters introduce eachother for the first time, and it's a guy and a girl, the guy will say something like "Hey I'm Mike" and the girl will say "I'm Connie" and the guy will then say "Well Connie....."

In Mexico is the Day of the Dead, in China it is New Years.

I eat.