Consider What Would Toto Watch? an open forum for ranting about movie cliches. It’s good for the soul, and should any creative types drop by they might be too embarrassed to keep using these stale devices.
I’ll start with two quickies I’m sick of seeing, but feel free to send me others that get under your skin.
- The Grrrl Power Sing-a-long: Haven’t endured this one in a while, but it makes me wanna poke out my eyes - and ears - when I do. It’s that bonding moment in romantic comedies or chick flicks when the cast gathers to lip synch a song. They’ll belt out a few bars, then grab the nearest hairbrush and start singing into it. Gag.
- The Slow Picture Pan: This usually happens early in a film when the director wants to give us a whole bunch of information and is too lazy to hire a narrator. We get a slooooow pan of a person’s mantle which is stacked with family photos. Whenever I watch these lazy snippets I think, “did the actors hand over some family snapshots for the studio to photoshop?” It takes me right out of the movie.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Grofe 09.30.08 at 11:47 pm
Right on both of those.
How about, when a group of though guy actors walk shoulder to shoulder in slow motion towards the camera? The DP should be fired immediately for agreeing to make that shot.
And at the end of a horror trailer, when they try to give you the illusion that all is well, until the monster or killer bursts into the frame at the last split second. Ugh! I didn’t see that coming!
cftoto 09.30.08 at 11:51 pm
Good ones, Grofe. The whole ’slo-mo’ shot selection should be used only in extremely important situations.
Today’s horror trailers are nearly as lame as the movies they advertise.
jic 10.01.08 at 2:13 am
In any sci-fi or action movie involving huge automated security doors, destroying the control panel does whatever you want it to. Need it to open? Shoot the control panel. Need it to close? Shoot the control panel. Need it to stay locked? Shoot the control panel.
How about in any serial killer, horror, or crime movie where the perpetrator’s identity is supposed to be a mystery, and they give it away either by making a huge fuss of a minor character (of course the killer was Dave the delivery guy! He got a close-up every time he appeared!), or by casting a character actor who specialises in psychos as an apparently friendly and helpful guy. Sometimes they do both at the same time.
Paulman 10.01.08 at 4:58 am
I thought the slow pan in Roger Rabbit was handled well. It unloaded a lot of exposition about Eddie’s past and place in the world without too much pain.
opus 10.01.08 at 5:02 am
1. The fruit cart/stand/truck that get’s hit and destroyed in every car chase.
2. The uber villan telling the hero his grand scheme to destroy the world just before he attempts to kill him.
3. The hero, who if he can fly one type of plane is capable of flying every other type of aircraft.
4. Anti-heros
5. Wimpy, wacky, smart mouthed comic side kicks that every animated film hero has.
Too many to list so I’ll stop there.
K 10.01.08 at 6:05 am
1. The 120 pound women who physically beats up/out sword fights/kung fu drop kicks muscular 250 pound male thugs. Usually with smart ass comments.
2. The obnoxious jerk, fool, moron or psycho who is wearing or tattooed with a Christian cross scene.
3. The ultra brilliant scientist/hacker/engineer who predictably just happens to be a member of this year’s featured victim class.
4. The villian who turns out to be (SHOCK!) the evil greedy capitalist exploiter.
5. Lawyers as the good guys.
I could go on and on.
Ken Bendor 10.01.08 at 1:01 pm
Spoof movies that take great pains to greet the people they’re spoofing by name (”Hey, it’s Dr. Phil/Amy Winehouse/Rocky Balboa, etc.”), killing any chance the bit had being funny; makeover/shopping/fashion show montage scenes, set to a recent pop/hip-hop smash hit; movies named after pop songs from decades ago (My Best Friend’s Girl being the most recent offender); the magical password guesser who can figure out secret codes quicky & w/little difficulty; the noble, all-knowing black character in a movie otherwise filled with white people (aka The Magical Negro)- Dakota Fanning is in two of these movies this season!
cftoto 10.01.08 at 1:55 pm
Great additions, all. Love the shopping montage cliche … “Sex and the City” may have re-energized that one. Yeah, today’s female characters can take down a man twice his size with one tiny fist.
And movies named after great pop songs — classic.
Don Sucher 10.01.08 at 5:15 pm
Oh, and how about the ‘what should I wear?’ montage. It’s been used in so many films that it excites a gag reflex in anyone who yearns for originality of thought and concept. Perhaps the worst example was in Joel Schumacher’s in many respects charming “Cousins.”
cftoto 10.01.08 at 5:57 pm
Even solid films can be undone by the dreaded movie cliche, Don. Good addition to the mix!
jic 10.02.08 at 3:19 am
Remember in the mid-’80s to early-’90s when low-budget action movies started having female characters who could fight, and the actresses they cast were all bodybuilders and martial arts experts? Casting directors seemed to know that if you are going to have a woman kicking the asses of men who were supposed to be trained fighters in good condition, she better look up to the job. Even in big-budget stuff, they seemed to realize this. Think about Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. She had the body of a woman who had spent years training to fight. Now compare her to Lena Headey in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Lena is great, but I think I could probably touch my thumb to my middle finger around one of her biceps.
Of recent movies, I was probably most impressed with how they did Jennifer Garner’s fight scene in The Kingdom. She didn’t defeat the huge guy she fought by just beating him up, but won by being more skilled, more determined, and more vicious. I also liked Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s (less realistic) fight in Mr. & Mrs. Smith: he used strength, she used guile (I still don’t really think she looked up to doing most of what she did in that movie, though). Lastly, I’ll mention Jessica Biel in Blade: Trinity: Again, the fights in that movie weren’t realistic, but look at the size of her arms!
jic 10.02.08 at 4:27 am
Here’s a good one: unless a movie is about FBI agents, they are always portrayed as arrogant, meddling incompetents who get in the way of the real cops.
Also, CIA officers are usually the bad guys, even in movies where the hero is one. Also, they are usually referred to in movies and TV as CIA agents.
That reminds me: over the last few years, TV shows have been full of ‘Homeland Security agents’. No such thing.
cftoto 10.02.08 at 4:44 am
You’re en fuego, JIC … good stuff! Screenwriters love to pigeonhole authority figures.
Don Sucher 10.02.08 at 11:59 am
If a character is a blank slate - i.e., a person without a commonly perceived stereotype - then the story teller has to spend time telling us just who and what he or she is. Stereotypes, OTOH, allow a writer or director to save screen time for the more important picture elements: Kick fights, sex and blowing things up. ;)~