CURRENT MOVIE CLICHES

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One cliche in 80s action movies, involving druglords, the filmmakers feel they always had to have a character explain what a Columbian neckie was.

And ninja movies always had to explain what ninjas are, "Look, few people know about these super-secret Japanese assassins."



Action cliche: the heroes realize there's a bomb in the building or in the tunnel, so they start running in slow-mo and run just far enough so that the wind from the blast propels them to safety. That was cool the first 10,000 times I saw it...



A great moment of being "literally figurative." Viggo felt naked and vulnerable because he was naked and vulnerable. This is was an instance of appropriate nudity in a film. It had a point and heightened the moment. Great scene.
Similar scene (maybe the first ever) in Women in Love.
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Similar scene (maybe the first ever) in Women in Love.
Back in the 70s, I took a college class called "History of Love". I think the professor called it that so he could attract a lot of students, because the first day it was overflowing, but when they realized within a day or two that he was going to demand work from them and lots of reading and study, the class numbers soon thinned out. It was a survey in the Program of History of Ideas (a sub-department of the History Dept.) of the idea of love from Plato all the way to the present. The Prof used films occasionally, and one day he screened the entire film Women in Love in the class. It was funny to think in the 1970s of these freshmen and sophomores sitting there watching two men completely naked with their dicks and balls bouncing around grappling and wrestling in a Victorian living room knocking over lampstands and end-tables LOL. I don't recall any sense of vulnerability in that scene, to me it was comical.



Back in the 70s, I took a college class called "History of Love". I think the professor called it that so he could attract a lot of students, because the first day it was overflowing, but when they realized within a day or two that he was going to demand work from them and lots of reading and study, the class numbers soon thinned out. It was a survey in the Program of History of Ideas (a sub-department of the History Dept.) of the idea of love from Plato all the way to the present. The Prof used films occasionally, and one day he screened the entire film Women in Love in the class. It was funny to think in the 1970s of these freshmen and sophomores sitting there watching two men completely naked with their dicks and balls bouncing around grappling and wrestling in a Victorian living room knocking over lampstands and end-tables LOL. I don't recall any sense of vulnerability in that scene, to me it was comical.
Comical in what way?



Comical in what way?

It sounds like that Victorian living room is prim and proper and that the naked wrestling with "flopping" is not, offering a contrast of high and low. And it may be comical that aggressive masculinity was undercut by the flopping and clumsily knocking over furniture.



Or perhaps it was something else?



It sounds like that Victorian living room is prim and proper and that the naked wrestling with "flopping" is not, offering a contrast of high and low. And it may be comical that aggressive masculinity was undercut by the flopping and clumsily knocking over furniture.



Or perhaps it was something else?
I don’t think it could be further from comical. Lawrence, at least, didn’t write it that way.



Comical in what way?
Corax touched on two of the main reasons, I guess. Two grown men grappling naked in a Victorian living room with their balls a-swinging. If you can't see the humor in that, I can't help you. Juxtapose that scene with the Borat nude wrestling scene



Doesn't mean there couldn't be other subtexts as well at the same time.



Two grown men grappling naked in a Victorian living room with their balls a-swinging.
You do seem fixated on it. Gonna leave it at that.



You do seem fixated on it. Gonna leave it at that.
Me being fixated or not is not relevant to the discussion.



This is why we can't have nice things, like naked wrestling in the living room.



I know this thread is CURRENT movie clichés, but how about clichés that can no longer apply to a movie that takes place in modern times?

How about whenever anyone on the run (be they a fugitive, an escaped convict, a time traveler or a human looking alien who needed to ditch his spacesuit) needed a change of clothes that would let them blend in to the local society? Why, they'd simply steal clothes off a clothesline - and in older times, clothes drying outdoors were virtually everywhere for the taking. One very cliched aspect of this cliche is I never remember seeing a character remain without a change of clothes because the pants they stole were 3 sizes too small.

A similar cliche is when a person (usually a protagonist) would steel a soldier or guard's clothes to disguise themselves as the enemy... you never saw the hero have to go through knocking out 3 or 4 guards just to find a pair of boots or pants that fit... they always fit the first time... and usually perfectly at that.



You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.
A similar cliche is when a person (usually a protagonist) would steel a soldier or guard's clothes to disguise themselves as the enemy... you never saw the hero have to go through knocking out 3 or 4 guards just to find a pair of boots or pants that fit... they always fit the first time... and usually perfectly at that.

Except in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The non-fitting uniform scene starts at about 2:40 in this clip:

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Is there no truth in beauty?


It is a cliche that villains will be ugly and disfigured. But is this an evil that needs to be governed by sensitivity readers?



Is there no truth in beauty?


It is a cliche that villains will be ugly and disfigured. But is this an evil that needs to be governed by sensitivity readers?
You could say that Hud had some villainous qualities (eg, he tried to rape the help), but he’s not ugly & disfigured. Quite the opposite.



Another outdated cliche = cut the phone lines or rip the phone cord from the wall.
A standard practice of bad guys when invading a home or office to make sure their victims couldn't call out for help.

All that is obsolete in the age of cell phones.



Another outdated cliche = cut the phone lines or rip the phone cord from the wall.
A standard practice of bad guys when invading a home or office to make sure their victims couldn't call out for help.

All that is obsolete in the age of cell phones.
Now everyone dumps the phones into the toilet.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but modern phone landlines have a quick-snap connector head at the end of the wire that snaps into the phone line jack in the wall (and also into the phone itself).

If it's pulled from the wall and the head doesn't break, it's just a snap to plug it back in, but in olden times before these existed, I think that pulling a phone line from the wall meant you had to re-splice the wire to reconnect it (although I could be wrong since the technology is before my time).

Basically, the idea is if a bad guy in an old movie pulled the phone cord from the wall (usually done dramatically) then it was quite the extensive process to reconnect it (as opposed to just snapping a connector back into the jack).



Another outdated cliche = cut the phone lines or rip the phone cord from the wall.
A standard practice of bad guys when invading a home or office to make sure their victims couldn't call out for help.

All that is obsolete in the age of cell phones.

Axe Murderer: I've cut the phone lines, Nancy!


Nancy: What's is a phone line?



Nancy proceeds to livestream with 911 on the line and a flashlight app clearly illuminating the bad guy as police are dispatched to her cell location.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but modern phone landlines have a quick-snap connector head at the end of the wire that snaps into the phone line jack in the wall (and also into the phone itself).

If it's pulled from the wall and the head doesn't break, it's just a snap to plug it back in, but in olden times before these existed, I think that pulling a phone line from the wall meant you had to re-splice the wire to reconnect it (although I could be wrong since the technology is before my time).

Basically, the idea is if a bad guy in an old movie pulled the phone cord from the wall (usually done dramatically) then it was quite the extensive process to reconnect it (as opposed to just snapping a connector back into the jack).
Yes, a modern phone landline (cordless, I presume) works as you describe.