CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES

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The cliche movie "slap" is the one that connects with a ringing SMACK! When Will Smith hit Chris Rock IRL, however, all we heard was a thud. Also, the slapper generally throws a haymaker telegraphed days before the arrival of the hand. If damage is done, it will be a split-lip with just one tasteful streak of blood. The bloodied nose is rare, reserved for the lowest of villains who don't deserve to look cool in their distress. Myself, I prefer the aesthetic of the classic backhand, but again, it must be stressed, smacking is indeed B-A-D, bad.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I am not familiar with this specific pattern, but the inaccessible witness thing is common enough. Seems like there is always an argument about the dangers of using "medicine drug" to bring the person back to consciousness.
Well one movie I can think of is Prisoners (2013), which I will give a SPOILER for:

WARNING: "SPOILER" spoilers below
Two young girls are kidnapped, and one escapes. But she can't answer any questions in the hospital bed because she is either sedated or she is too tired and has to sleep. But there is another kidnapped girl who didn't escape, and the clock is ticking on her. Could the police get a court order to wake the girl up, since there is another life still on a clock? It just seems to me if she wasn't sedated and sleeping the police could just go in there with exigent circumstances and wake her up and get her to answer the questions, no? But they don't.



I’ve mentioned the tired old thing of leaving keys under flowerpots. It’s so ridiculous. Especially when several pots have to be examined before finding the key. Who would leave a key outside like that? Even our spare set of keys is well-hidden in the backyard. I would defy anyone to find them. Not that it would help them since even opening a door slightly will trigger our external alarm.
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I’ve mentioned the tired old thing of leaving keys under flowerpots. It’s so ridiculous. Especially when several pots have to be examined before finding the key. Who would leave a key outside like that? Even our spare set of keys is well-hidden in the backyard. I would defy anyone to find them. Not that it would help them since even opening a door slightly will trigger our external alarm.
At my old rental house, I put a nail in the top of window frame next to the side door - on the nail I placed the spare key (with the hole at the top of the key going over the nail so it could not blow away). I really had to stretch to reach it (and always made sure no one was watching when or if I had to get it) - this meant it was high up and couldn't be seen from the ground or the side-door stoop.



I’ve mentioned the tired old thing of leaving keys under flowerpots. It’s so ridiculous. Especially when several pots have to be examined before finding the key. Who would leave a key outside like that? Even our spare set of keys is well-hidden in the backyard. I would defy anyone to find them. Not that it would help them since even opening a door slightly will trigger our external alarm.

How about the key hidden in the car visor thing? Does anyone do this? Am I crazy?



Why did 89% of the movies made in the 70's have to include a female topless scene?
How about the key hidden in the car visor thing? Does anyone do this? Am I crazy?
Can’t comment as I don’t drive.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
One cliche more recent I am getting tired of is they show two people just casually talking and then smash cut to the next scene and all of a sudden they are banging. I wonder how did we get from here to there exactly, and would like to see more of the seduction process as to how it happened. Older movies show this process a lot more often, but a lot of modern ones skip over it for some reason.



One cliche more recent I am getting tired of is they show two people just casually talking and then smash cut to the next scene and all of a sudden they are banging. I wonder how did we get from here to there exactly, and would like to see more of the seduction process as to how it happened. Older movies show this process a lot more often, but a lot of modern ones skip over it for some reason.

There was a time when films would show a character leaving their home, driving to another location in their car, walking up to the building, opening the door, etc. Today, we just cut to the next scene. The grammar of filmic storytelling is evermore enthymematic. We've been there, done that, and seen it. Part of efficient storytelling is knowing how much can be left out without the story becoming confusing.



As for sex, we all know where our characters are heading, so I guess they're just expediting the narrative. My question is "Why am I being shown this at all?" How does this formation of the beast with two backs advance the plot, develop the characters, unpack the themes, etc.? It is exceedingly rare that seeing simulated sex between two characters on film does little more than offer meat. I tend to feel embarrassed for the actors and wonder how their parents feel about it.



I suspect that this process of truncation "(a little less conversation and a little more action please") may have been accelerated by the consumption of other media (sounds like "Corn-Hub") which has accelerated considerably with the advent of "gonzo" which stripped the narrative out the genre. It's kind of pathetic to think of major studios and streaming attempting to compete with the ocean of hard core content. Why ape base content with which you cannot really compete?



I'd rather see just about everything but the barnyard act. Want to be subversive and sexy? Show the stuff you're talking about. Get us to invest in how these people fall for each other.



One cliche more recent I am getting tired of is they show two people just casually talking and then smash cut to the next scene and all of a sudden they are banging. I wonder how did we get from here to there exactly, and would like to see more of the seduction process as to how it happened. Older movies show this process a lot more often, but a lot of modern ones skip over it for some reason.
I must have said this before, but what’s with the simultaneous orgasms with someone they met 30 minutes ago? Most women won’t orgasm with someone on the first go round & I highly doubt a simultaneous orgasm occurs under the same conditions. This always annoys me in movies.



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How about the key hidden in the car visor thing? Does anyone do this? Am I crazy?

Where I live (the middle east) nobody has ever done it, nobody is doing it and nobody will


I'd be interesting to hear what people from the states have to say about that
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Where I live (the middle east) nobody has ever done it, nobody is doing it and nobody will


I'd be interesting to hear what people from the states have to say about that
We just leave the keys in the ignition, that way the insurance company buys us a new car every few years when the old crappy one gets stolen.



Not quite a cliche and not quite current, so off-topic, but the pattern of the apparent hero/leader being eliminated early in the story to establish stakes. Steven Seagal in Executive Decision (1996), Wayne Robson in Cube (1997), and Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea (1999).



Not quite a cliche and not quite current, so off-topic, but the pattern of the apparent hero/leader being eliminated early in the story to establish stakes. Steven Seagal in Executive Decision (1996), Wayne Robson in Cube (1997), and Samuel L. Jackson in Deep Blue Sea (1999).
...and John Wayne in The Cowboys (1972).



...and John Wayne in The Cowboys (1972).
Star Trek II is arguably the inverse of this pattern, audiences went into the theater in "hoes mad" mode, because they'd heard Spock was going to die, but after he was "killed" in the simulator at the start, the stakes were somehow deflated, which made his death at the end hit that much harder. I recall listening to Nicholas Meyer talking about this as something he'd "done on purpose," but I suspect it was more of a happy accident, but it all fits together with the film's themes of death, aging, loss of control, and rebirth/creation. Sometimes you get lucky and it all clicks.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I must have said this before, but what’s with the simultaneous orgasms with someone they met 30 minutes ago? Most women won’t orgasm with someone on the first go round & I highly doubt a simultaneous orgasm occurs under the same conditions. This always annoys me in movies.
Yes that's a good point too. I'm guessing it's the same way for a lot of guys as well.



Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
I came across this movie trope which I found interesting:



The video essay talks about how movies have this 'male fantasy' where the leading man character finds a woman who has had no prior lovers or men in her life, so the leading man gets to be her first experience, and how he doesn't have anyone that he has to measure up to as a result.

Are there any movies that do the opposite though, where the woman character has had a lot of experience with past lovers, and the leading male ends up being better than all of them in the end?



^Not a movie, but the best example of that I can think of would be what happened with Podrick on Game Of Thrones, where he's a virgin who's given a night with three extremely experienced, "elite" (for lack of a better term) prostitutes, but he ends up being so inexplicably amazing in the sack, that they actually don't want to take any payment for the night's work, since he was apparently just that good.



The video essay talks about how movies have this 'male fantasy' where the leading man character finds a woman who has had no prior lovers or men in her life, so the leading man gets to be her first experience, and how he doesn't have anyone that he has to measure up to as a result.

That is "the" male fantasy. Give a man the option of a virgin or non-virgin for a true romantic mate, hold other variables equal (e.g., beauty, age, wit), and the man will pick the virgin. Men have rushed to poles and peaks, just to say that they were first. Darwin only published because someone else was about to be first. Newton and Leibniz clawed at each other to be known as the first to develop calculus. Suicide bombers are promised virgins on the other side.






Movie Forums Squirrel Jumper
That is "the" male fantasy. Give a man the option of a virgin or non-virgin for a true romantic mate, hold other variables equal (e.g., beauty, age, wit), and the man will pick the virgin. Men have rushed to poles and peaks, just to say that they were first. Darwin only published because someone else was about to be first. Newton and Leibniz clawed at each other to be known as the first to develop calculus. Suicide bombers are promised virgins on the other side.




I can see where our guy would be pressured to be the first in real life so there there's no other competition, however in the movie you can write it so the guy beats all the competition so I thought it was more flexible in the movie universe therefore.



As for sex, we all know where our characters are heading, so I guess they're just expediting the narrative. My question is "Why am I being shown this at all?" How does this formation of the beast with two backs advance the plot, develop the characters, unpack the themes, etc.? It is exceedingly rare that seeing simulated sex between two characters on film does little more than offer meat. I tend to feel embarrassed for the actors and wonder how their parents feel about it.

I suspect that this process of truncation "(a little less conversation and a little more action please") may have been accelerated by the consumption of other media (sounds like "Corn-Hub") which has accelerated considerably with the advent of "gonzo" which stripped the narrative out the genre. It's kind of pathetic to think of major studios and streaming attempting to compete with the ocean of hard core content. Why ape base content with which you cannot really compete?

I'd rather see just about everything but the barnyard act. Want to be subversive and sexy? Show the stuff you're talking about. Get us to invest in how these people fall for each other.
I very much feel this. I don’t mind sex scenes at all, but I do always wonder why these people are even interested in each other, how they got to that point. Then it gets all philosophical and people suggest ‘no one knows what makes anyone attractive’, but I’d have liked to see the minutiae spelled out in films, E.g. ‘Jack finds Jill sexy because of her sense of humour.’

Anyway, I guess I wouldn’t know as I have a terrible relationship with most ‘romantic’ films. Some I can acknowledge are good and technically impressive, but I don’t get the genre appeal and am never interested in what happens, because as you said, we know everyone will kiss, ****, break up, potentially make up (depending on the genre), and I do think it’s about that - I’d argue the most interesting thing is how they got to that point, the seduction, or even just the decision, Given variables XYZ, I want to pursue this with this person. But then, it’s such an esoteric question that I don’t blame filmmakers for ignoring it.

The ‘truncation’ and so-called need to be ‘efficient’ in plotting isn’t something I particularly get, either. In terms of ‘unpacking plot and developing character’, well, until we could call it that, did we even know that that’s what sex scenes/any other scenes were doing, it was all much more intuitive, wasn’t it? I just always find it very funny that people argue in all seriousness that a shot of the ‘weeping letter’ in Casablanca (where plot is literally written down) is narratively significant but a sex scene apparently doesn’t ‘advance the plot’ (though it’d likely be something like ‘Man becomes infatuated with woman, manipulated by baddies and compromised and betrayed from his association with her…’) blah, blah, blah. No Kubrick, but it’s a plot.

I think it’s a bit like different standards for different things.

I very often wonder why all sorts of things are needed in a film, and it seems to be that sex scenes are always isolated as the ‘unnecessary’ bit, yet the random childhood flashbacks, meaningless dialogues with strangers on the tube or are always helpful in advancing the plot and building up characters. I never feel like I get the logic there.