CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
One can't help noticing actions, plot devices or sayings which come up time and time again in movies or series these days. Whether the writers think they're so cool that they must be used, or whether they've simply become part of the lazy lexicon, it's hard to say.
Here are three that I've noticed: Vomiting: I knew that contemporary society has lapsed into communal neurosis, but evidently we have become physically ill as well. In film we're lucky to have 30 minutes of screen time without someone upchucking. I've got to take this: Every time there is a cell phone/android in a scene, you can be sure this line will follow. Is there never a time where they don't have to take this? Maglite beams: Perhaps as a result of film makers raised on light sabers, hardly a film goes by without the use of the powerful flashlights spearing away in darkened scenes. Some times the action taking place at night doesn't even make sense, but for the desire to display the nifty Maglite. My personal favorite is when they could actually simply flip on the room light switch, but no, let's use these beams... Certainly there are dozens of current chestnuts. What are your favorites? ~Doc |
It actually started on television, but it's starting to creep into movies too...the phrase "You don't get to..."
|
Those are... a bit weird. I feel like “I got to take this” is just a normal, random phrase people just use. There’s no actual immediacy, it’s just... a thing we say and not at all what a cliche constitutes.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Hell, I'm wondering what movies Doc is watching where there's someone vomiting every 30 minutes.
|
Jonah Hill vomits a lot in Get Him to the Greek
|
Usually what vomiting is used for in a film is to show a persons extreme reaction to something that's so shocking or horrible that it makes them vomit. And by that way the film maker imparts on us the extremity of the situation. However it's so over used these days that it's lost it's power for me and often has the opposite effect as it causes me to heckle the tv and say, 'oh gawd! not another vomit scene'.:rolleyes:
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Could it be connected to the sheer volume of fillums spewed out nowadays? :shrug:
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
You're upset about "I've got to take this.." and not the character just hanging up without saying goodbye?
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
It's been said before, but damn it script writers/directors, have the actors finish the drink they just bought at the bar! Nobody spends $ for a drink only to take a tiny sip and then leave it setting on the bar a few seconds later.
|
Originally Posted by Citizen Rules (Post 1993242)
It's been said before, but damn it script writers/directors, have the actors finish the drink they just bought at the bar! Nobody spends $ for a drink only to take a tiny sip and then leave it setting on the bar a few seconds later.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Once it was realized that an actor could hold vomit material in his mouth & then spew it out, vomiting has been everywhere as the OP points out. First time I saw it it was Adriana in The Sopranos who puked all over the conference table when the feds convinced her she was heading for the slammer.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Sex scenes. The notion that a woman has an orgasm with a man she’s never had sex with before (even though that man appears to have no sexual prowess at all) is patently absurd. Drives me nuts.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
People who live in fabulous houses with room after room full of precious stuff & the house is spotlessly clean. But we never ever see anyone cleaning the house or the presence of a cleaning woman. So unrealistic.
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1993277)
Sex scenes. The notion that a woman has an orgasm with a man she’s never had sex with before (even though that man appears to have no sexual prowess at all) is patently absurd. Drives me nuts.
|
Speaking of sex scene cliches, it seems that most film urgent sex encounters are preceded by both of the participants trying to pull the other's clothes off. Don't they realize that it's much quicker to remove one's own clothes?..:D
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
It’s a cliche to be cliche.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Mobile phones have presented a challenge to most writers.
So they drop the 'Battery finished' or 'No range' thing to counter it. |
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1993276)
Once it was realized that an actor could hold vomit material in his mouth & then spew it out, vomiting has been everywhere as the OP points out. First time I saw it it was Adriana in The Sopranos who puked all over the conference table when the feds convinced her she was heading for the slammer.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
GulfportDoc may mean vomiting for supposed comic effect, as in "Pitch Perfect." I have never vomited like they did unless I was very ill. I hate the use of "You don't get to...," too. Also the overuse of the word amazing to describe ordinary people. It tells us nothing about the person described or why the speaker holds that person in such high esteem.
|
Originally Posted by GulfportDoc (Post 1993362)
Speaking of sex scene cliches, it seems that most film urgent sex encounters are preceded by both of the participants trying to pull the other's clothes off. Don't they realize that it's much quicker to remove one's own clothes?..:D
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1993879)
Then there’s the trope of the actress who doesn’t want to do nudity (which is fine) & who keeps half of her clothes on during sex.
|
I’ve noticed with Red Riding set in the late seventies, early eighties & now with True Detective season 3 that there’s a ton of smoking cigarettes. Yes, everyone smoked back then, but I find the constant puffing & exhaling a tad irritating.
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1993274)
Or the people who leave suddenly in the middle of a meal & throw random notes on the table to pay, supposedly, for their share.
|
Originally Posted by Chypmunk (Post 1993884)
Bothers me more when the nude actor/actress who is supposedly alone in a room with someone that they've just been intimate with gets up but feels a need to cover their nakedness before even leaving the bed. Just ain't natural.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
One that comes to mind, how in crime movies, the villain pleads insanity and the good guys are pissed cause apparently, being found insane and being locked in an insane asylum, is so much better than prison, that they feel that the villain is winning as a result.
|
Originally Posted by Chypmunk (Post 1993884)
Bothers me more when the nude actor/actress who is supposedly alone in a room with someone that they've just been intimate with gets up but feels a need to cover their nakedness before even leaving the bed. Just ain't natural.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
One that always kills me, and it seems to happen invariably, is that whenever someone needs to apply a bandage to a wound, they tear the bandage/shirt/cloth in half first.
|
Originally Posted by Sedai (Post 1994763)
One that always kills me, and it seems to happen invariably, is that whenever someone needs to apply a bandage to a wound, they tear the bandage/shirt/cloth in half first.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1994770)
Oh, what is wrong with that exactly?
Seems like a film cliche used for dramatic effect. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Yeah I guess so, I don't recall seeing this in any movies, so not sure.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1994796)
Yeah I guess so, I don't recall seeing this in any movies, so not sure.
Keep an eye out for it next time someone uses a bandage in a movie...Pretty soon, you start noticing that it happens every time there is a bandage scene. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Okay thanks :). One cliche I don't like seeing in movies is when the villain points a gun at a hostages head, and tells the good guy to drop their gun and the good guys actually do it, knowing the villain can just kill them and the hostage and win then.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Yeah, that reminds me of scenes where a villain holds a gun on someone and orders the person into a car. Doing that puts the villain in control of the situation. If you are around people, you are better off trying to get away. Those scenes only make sense (a little) if you are someone like James Bond and hoping to meet the head villain.
Tearing a strip from a shirt does allow you to tie it tighter around a wound, reducing the bleeding, but if the bleeding is profuse, you probably should use more than a strip. |
Originally Posted by WrinkledMind (Post 1993678)
Mobile phones have presented a challenge to most writers.
So they drop the 'Battery finished' or 'No range' thing to counter it. I tried watching a movie from 2018 yesterday, and it was so bad I won't tell anyone what it was (in an effort NOT to advertise it) |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
The mobile phone thing is tough, cause now anyone can call 911 wherever they are nowadays. How are writers suppose to work around that, unfortunately...
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1994949)
The mobile phone thing is tough, cause now anyone can call 911 wherever they are nowadays.
How are writers suppose to work around that, unfortunately?... |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
But not every story works as a period piece film though, unless the time period is thematically relevant though. Otherwise some stories set in period pieces would seem weird. For example it would be weird like a show like 24 for example, to be set in the 80s in order to get rid of the cell phone problem.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1994761)
Wouldn't it make more sense to just film the actresses from above the breast and up, so they don't have to throw a towel on or anything, and therefore it's more convincing? Why don't they just do that?
Monroe was amusing in The Misfits in her scene post-coitus with Gable. Director wanted to show her sitting up in bed with a sheet around her chest, but she kept exposing her breast to annoy him & ruin the shot, which wouldn’t pass the censor. |
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1995068)
I guess then it wouldn’t be so titillating.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I didn’t explain my point properly. It’s titillating to a man when a woman is wrapped in a towel or sheet because either of these coverings can slip & fall off.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
True. I'm not sure what I would prefer between things that titillate vs. realism. I read that in Casino Royale, originally in the scene when Vesper is in the shower, she was suppose to be in her underwear, but I read that Craig talked the director out of it, saying that the character would have hit the shower and not have bothered to get undressed. Is that more important, or seeing some underwear...
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Action/sci-fi cliche: Huge beam coming from the sky that's threatening to destroy the earth or send down aliens or whatever. I think I've seen it in about a dozen Marvel/DC films.
|
Originally Posted by Achoo42 (Post 1995526)
Action/sci-fi cliche: Huge beam coming from the sky that's threatening to destroy the earth or send down aliens or whatever. I think I've seen it in about a dozen Marvel/DC films.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I hate it when there’s a scene when cops/villains/whoever break into a house & descend into the basement without turning on any lights. Watching True Detective right now & it’s the same scene again. Light switches clearly visible in the basement, but, no, both cops use high-powered flashlights. Atmospheric, but makes no sense at all.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I haven't seen the show, but in other movies, when it comes to cops using flashlights at a crime scenes, I thought the reason why they do that is because they are not allowed to alter the crime scene, before photos are taken, or even after perhaps. Like in Seven they use flashlights in the opening crime scene, but I thought it was not to alter it?
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
How would flipping a lightswitch alter a crime scene? You could say that walking over a crime scene would alter it.
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1995636)
I hate it when there’s a scene when cops/villains/whoever break into a house & descend into the basement without turning on any lights. Watching True Detective right now & it’s the same scene again. Light switches clearly visible in the basement, but, no, both cops use high-powered flashlights. Atmospheric, but makes no sense at all.
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1995655)
How would flipping a lightswitch alter a crime scene? You could say that walking over a crime scene would alter it.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I actually thought of this this thread the last time I saw the James Marsden Taco Bell commercial. Those nail a lot of the cliches well enough to actually make an appealing real movie trailer haha
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Another cliche I have seen a few times, is that after a character is forced to kill another character to save himself, that character, from the killing then becomes brainswashed to become power hungry because of it, and wants to wreak future havoc as a result.
|
1 Attachment(s)
Two very tired old tropes appear in Ricky Gervais’s latest tv mini-series. (Bailed out about halfway through. Meh & predictable.)
First trope was the hooker with a heart of gold. Yawn. This goes back to at least GWTW. Second trope is the helpless male who cannot function without a woman to clean up after him. He cannot load a dishwasher, launder his clothes, tidy up after himself, etc., etc. Huge yawn. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
A trope I don't like seeing in action movies is when the good guy is about to kill the bad guy but then doesn't because of honor, and the bad guy is helpless, which is okay, but then as soon as the good guy turns his back a little the bad guy has to pull out a hidden gun or hidden weapon, and then the good guy just ends up killing them anyway. It just negates the point, like the writers wanted the good guy not to kill the bad guy, but they don't want the bad guy to live either and try to compromise as a result.
|
Another contemporary cliche that always gives me a sardonic smile is whenever a computer or laptop is used in a scene, especially when the characters are searching for something, they always sit down and furiously attack the keyboard, madly typing away. Don't they ever use the mouse?...:D
~Doc |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I never use a mouse, but I take your point.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Or another one is how a person will always cock their gun before shooting someone, and you wonder, why didn't they have it cocked before.
|
Watched a couple sci Fi space/save the world movies and noticed it's very predicable the lead male and the lead female will be the only ones to see the end of the movie 😠 they always kill off cool characters I like !! Just to be romantic or whatever yawn 😪
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
It’s weird in tv & movies when people make a date, but never ever mention a time to meet. In The Insider Al Pacino makes a date to meet a journalist in PJ Clarke’s (a Manhattan bar) the next day, but no mention of a time. In the following scene somehow they connect at the bar.
|
Originally Posted by Strangefilms9 (Post 1997651)
Watched a couple sci Fi space/save the world movies and noticed it's very predicable the lead male and the lead female will be the only ones to see the end of the movie 😠 they always kill off cool characters I like !! Just to be romantic or whatever yawn 😪
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1999148)
It’s weird in tv & movies when people make a date, but never ever mention a time to meet. In The Insider Al Pacino makes a date to meet a journalist in PJ Clarke’s (a Manhattan bar) the next day, but no mention of a time. In the following scene somehow they connect at the bar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qAQVccQtF0 |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Sizzling cigarette sounds. I first noticed that in The Crown...Now it's everywhere and it's very distracting. I never smoked but I don't think there's a sound of frying bacon when someone smokes.
|
Originally Posted by Citizen Rules (Post 1999160)
Sizzling cigarette sounds. I first noticed that in The Crown...Now it's everywhere and it's very distracting. I never smoked but I don't think there's a sound of frying bacon when someone smokes.
|
Originally Posted by Citizen Rules (Post 1999160)
Sizzling cigarette sounds. I first noticed that in The Crown...Now it's everywhere and it's very distracting. I never smoked but I don't think there's a sound of frying bacon when someone smokes.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1999172)
I've never seen The Crown but what other movies or TV shows does this happen in? Are they trying to make the person seem like they are sexually turned on while smoking but adding a sizzling sound, or what's the purpose?
|
Originally Posted by Saunch (Post 1993167)
Those are... a bit weird. I feel like “I got to take this” is just a normal, random phrase people just use.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1995550)
What if for the next Avengers movie, they don't have a villain who wants to destroy the world? What if the next villain's motivations are completely to steal money and be rich, and the Avengers have to stop him from stealing money? Would that be a more fresh premise, or do fans really need that end of the world beam cliche?
|
Things happening solely to get a certain reaction out of the audience. Just pointless scenes so random it hurts the film.
Death so you can feel sad Sex so you can feel more inclined to watch the rest of the film Twist Villain to trick you into thinking the movie's good Bullying so you feel bad for the lead (instead of just developing them as a likable person) Shock to cause controversy so more people go to see it It's that kind of dependency on emotional manipulation as opposed to story that turned me off of Attack on Titan. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I guess another one is how the police ask to search a place, or they will phone for a warrant, instead of just coming armed with a warrant to begin with.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Have you noticed how many car drivers in movies & tv keep looking at their passenger as they drive along for seconds at a time? I chatted with a bus driver today as we went along & he never once took his eyes off the road.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Another one I noticed in movies, including the recent 'Us', is families never have any guns around to defend their homes when they need them.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
What are you saying? That the average family should have guns in the home?
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Oh well I just hear of all these stories in the news where a homeowner shot an intruder, or scared them off with a gun sometimes, but I don't recall every seeing it in a movie accept for The Fugitive (1993). So I thought it was a lot more common in real life compared to the movies.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Another one I see once in a while is when a gang expects one of their new recruits might be an undercover cop, they ask him if he's a cop, like in The Departed (2006) for example. What makes them think the cop is going to break cover and admit it (shrug), so why ask?.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 2000772)
Another one I noticed in movies, including the recent 'Us', is families never have any guns around to defend their homes when they need them.
As a European that particular "cliche" has never bothered me because in here people (especially city folk) rarely have guns in their homes. And what comes to @Stirchley 's follow-up question, I personally feel that average families should have guns for protection because criminals are going to be armed anyway. I haven't held a gun since I was in the army (almost 25 years ago) put I'm pro-guns (and pro-self defense even through lethal means). |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Oh okay, it's just I read a lot of news story, where a homeowner had to defend their home with a gun, but I don't read near as many in the U.S. where the homeowner was unarmed and was killed by the intruder in comparison, unless maybe the ones where the burglars were armed, get more media spread for any reason?
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 2014533)
Oh okay, it's just I read a lot of news story, where a homeowner had to defend their home with a gun, but I don't read near as many in the U.S. where the homeowner was unarmed and was killed by the intruder in comparison, unless maybe the ones where the burglars were armed, get more media spread for any reason?
To me it seems obvious that stories with heroes (would-be victims fighting off the assailant) get more coverage. And concerning the gun ownership issue, as far as I know places like New York or California have really strict gun laws (pretty close to Europe) and majority of US films seem to happen in one or the other so lack of guns doesn't seem that surprising from that perspective either. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Sorry I meant homeowner instead of burglar, yes.
|
Originally Posted by pahaK (Post 2014536)
concerning the gun ownership issue, as far as I know places like New York or California have really strict gun laws (pretty close to Europe).
|
Another contemporary cliche of which there was a boring example in the movie from last night: In movies, why do seemingly every guy & gal have sex standing up against a wall, bumping away??? Most of those guys must be pretty strong, and the women must be pretty light!
Who says women aren't getting a free ride today? ~Doc |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Always think the same thing. Same with sex scenes in which the woman retains her bra. Nobody does that.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I've had sex with women while their bras were still on, am I one in a million for doing that?
Another cliche I'm getting tired of is a character is pointing a gun at another character, and a shot is fired... you think that character was the one who opened fire, but it turns out then suddenly someone else did. It's a cheap gimmick most of the time I think. |
I've noticed running jokes is a thing in comedies nowadays. It's always been present in them occasionally, but seems to be more so nowadays. Most of the time I don't think it's neccessary. Repeating a line that was funny the first time over and over doesn't make it any funnier, it's more like the opposite.
Even The Martian did this, where at first Mark's dislike of disco is mildly amusing, but when they still were using in the third act I was just going "Oh gimme a break, I get it already". |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Whenever one character says to their counterpart something along the line of 'Remember, we are in this together'. Just saw it last night again...as if there was any doubt that the two characters are suddenly not in it together.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Cutting away to reactions for fights. Both Godzilla non-Toho films.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Another one you see in movies, such as Seven off the top of my head, is whenever a cop wheres a wire, they will hit it to test it to see if it's working. As someone who has wired people for sound before, that's not good for the mic, and doesn't really test anything.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
One that just occurred to me after seeing it again, is why do guys always button their suit jackets when they sit up. Is that common?
|
It's common for gentlemen to unbutton their suit jackets while sitting in order to be more comfortable. Therefore when they stand up from a sitting position they re-button the jackets-- which is the way they were intended to be worn.
But like you, I've noticed that when an actor wants his character to be taken more seriously, or to seem more regal, he oftentimes buttons the jacket as a dramatic device. |
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Oh okay, I never really felt hardly any more comfortable unbuttoning it, but too each their own :).
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 1993879)
Then there’s the trope of the actress who doesn’t want to do nudity (which is fine) & who keeps half of her clothes on during sex.
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 2030751)
I find it much sexier to take off my gfs clothes and her take off mine, rather than take off my own, but is it just me?
|
Another one that tickles me, and it's seen relatively frequently in the past few years: A suspect is being tailed or surveilled, but the car containing the agents surveilling the suspect is parked only 50 feet away. When the suspect comes out of the house or car, he looks around, but NEVER notices the guys watching him from the other car..:D
|
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 2030751)
I find it much sexier to take off my gfs clothes and her take off mine, rather than take off my own, but is it just me?
<3 |
Originally Posted by ironpony (Post 1994796)
Yeah I guess so, I don't recall seeing this in any movies, so not sure.
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2000451)
Have you noticed how many car drivers in movies & tv keep looking at their passenger as they drive along for seconds at a time? I chatted with a bus driver today as we went along & he never once took his eyes off the road.
THIS ANNOYS ME TO NO END!!! Not you posting, but the character constantly pulling eyes from the road to the passenger. I mean for LONG spans of time, even during a rain storm. I always get thrown right out of the moment and wonder what the conversation must be during staging the shot because surely SOMEONE has to ask, "Hey. You know if I looked over for that long we'd run off the road and die, right?" Surely the actor, writing, or director is aware enough to question this. If not, then why not? Is there a union rule for this that actors must spend a minimum amount of time looking into other actors' eyes in recognition, else the studio gets a strike? |
Originally Posted by Sedai (Post 2031008)
I was watching The Matrix the other night, and during the scene where Neo is plugged into the chair while Trinity watches him (I believe he is fighting Smith in the train station), at one point he gets hurt in the matrix and he coughs up some blood in the real world as a reaction. Trinity grabs a bandage and tears it in half before applying it.
Another cliche is whenever a 'suicide' happens, and no one leaves a suicide note, or the note is unsigned, the main character thinks it's suspicious and that it's a set up. But it seems like a real reach to note have a note, or for the deceased not bothering to sign it in their desperate state of minds, seem like a set up. |
Originally Posted by GulfportDoc (Post 2031000)
Another one that tickles me, and it's seen relatively frequently in the past few years: A suspect is being tailed or surveilled, but the car containing the agents surveilling the suspect is parked only 50 feet away. When the suspect comes out of the house or car, he looks around, but NEVER notices the guys watching him from the other car..:D
|
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2031239)
Tony Soprano always spotted his tails a mile away. He would even drive out of his house & call to the feds in the parked car.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Another cliche is the whole you think the villain has just been killed but then he/she is still alive, and then is killed for real right after. It comes off as such a cheap gimmick though, especially in Fatal Attraction which just recently reminded me of the cliche.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
In practically every horror/thriller movie saying "who's there?" when investigating a noise in the house.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
I'd say the use of very shallow focus is becoming rather overused now. It can obviously be very effective but a lot of the time these days it feels like an excuse to not to anything else that interesting visually.
|
Re: CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES
Oh, yeah. Ironpony, I hate when the villain appears to be fatally wounded and then, a short time later, reappears, only to be fatally wounded again. It's like the writer is giving us a second death scene in case we weren't happy with the first.
|
All times are GMT -3. The time now is 06:12 PM. |
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright, ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
User Alert System provided by
Advanced User Tagging v3.3.0 (Lite) -
vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Copyright © Movie Forums