It’s part of WWTW’s mission to point out movie cliches and, hopefully, shame film studios to stop using them.
So, in no particular order, here are some more cliches deserving to be deep sixed.
- The redneck beer grip: Want to make a character look either tough or as if he just stepped out of a honkytonk bar? Make him drink a beer bottle with his index finger wrapped around the bottleneck. It’s shorthand for, “this guy means business and definitely didn’t go to Yale or Harvard.”
- Conflicted hit men: Whatever happened to movie assassins who take pride in their work? Lately, every hit man is dealing with an existential crisis, and we’re left with the emotional fallout. Even uber tough guy Jason Statham succumbs to the trend in the new film “The Mechanic.”
- Super-duper twist endings: What does a screenwriter do after hitting the save button on a thorough unremarkable script? He or she goes back and adds in a nonsensical twist ending to make the story seem edgy and cool. The end result is often terrible, but put enough of a twist on it and you’ll trick a few movie goers into thinking it’s “deep.” Consider last year’s “Repo Men” as a prime example.
- The hot high school chick shuffle: I didn’t go to any swanky high school, but I’m pretty sure the hottest female students didn’t commandeer the halls in unison, dismissing lesser mortals in their wake. “Mean Girls” nailed this move. Everything since then has been a faded copy.
- Slow motion gone wild: Slow motion can make a great scene even better. But it can also make an ordinary shot look foolish. Stop with the slow-motion overkill on people walking, talking or doing other basic activities. Save it for the kill shot, or that final upper cut which floors the smug champion.
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And let’s not forget the old classic: The girl/woman (alone in the house, naturally) goes to the medicine cabinet – and we see only her reflection in the mirror….she opens the medicine cabinet….she takes the aspirin/pills/whatever……she then closes the medicine cabinet……and now we see the psycho/slasher in the reflection.
(The same thing also happens when the hero/heroine opens a refrigerator door…..no one is there when they open it……but when they close it the creepy person suddenly appears.)
Or how about the creepy little girl character who speaks very cryptically, stares at the hero/heroine throughout the flick, or is often overheard talking with an unseen character…….but in the end we find that she’s quite sane and there’s some completely unknown force/spirit who’s responsible for all of the prior evil that’s taken place.
(Same creeply little girl can also suddenly appear in medicine cabinet mirrors or behind fridge doors as well….)
Some good examples here.
The one I got real tired of in the 70s and most of the 80s was a moving car hits a parked car in the rear. The moving car then jumps over top of the parked car, flipping in the process. The parked car never moves. This got real old real fast.
And Hollywood’s fascination with the “F” word. If not for that, there would be little or no dialogue coming out of Hollywood. Tiresome.
@jic
Suspension of disbelief is what bad film makers rely on. I was using that as an example, but I can quote a lot of other movies that show people dying from an arrow to the torso and immeditately die. Its BS pure and simple no matter what the genre of the movie.
Don’t forget “Walk Away From The Explosion.”
I know you didn’t invite us to add ours, but I can’t resist! The following are some action movie cliches that have to go:
People just the right distance from explosions that it actually propels them through the air fairly unscathed;
The slo-mo scene where characters walk calmly and coolly away from explosions as if to say “I just blew all this stuff up, and it will totally ruin my swagger if I act natural” – it’s just so affected and tired;
The good guy and the bad guy seeing each other from some distance, exchanging sarcastic remarks and then running at each other full speed to the EPIC clash. Don’t they know that sarcastic exchange is supposed to happen during the EPIC battle?!
Shaky camera during the fight scenes to make it look more EXTREME. The best fight scenes are those that are clearly shown, and that actually slow things down. Fast doesn’t mean suspenseful or intense.
Wire-Fu. Ditch with wires! Watch any Bruce Lee movie or earlier Jackie Chan and marvel how cool it is. No wires.
CGI: Special effects are no longer special. We are so inundated by them in action movies that we are numb. Aldous Huxley’s “Feelies” in the book Brave New World is ever more prophetic.
Darkness does not equate with coolness. Nerds everywhere will say “That movie was so cool, it was so dark.” Nerds, c’mon. Hollywood seems to be listening and now everything has a dark, bleak tone, and it’s getting old.
And one thing superhero movies are forgetting is how cool it is to see a superhero hunt down some random thug, and watching the thug get his due. Instead, superhero movies always focus on EPIC battles between other superheroes.
– Somebody is fleeing on foot from an auto and they choose to run down the middle of the road (the car’s natural habitat.)
– When a male and female have to flee together on foot the female will be incapable of running without the male holding onto her arm.
– If the lead character in a comedy is a single female she has to have a gay male best friend.
– To go with the French bread cliche; if anyone drops or spills a grocery bag oranges MUST come rolling out (nobody places them in a produce bag.)
– When a character pays a cab fare he shoves money at the driver and never waits for change.
– In a rom-com when the two leads despise each other this is the cue they will become lovers by the end.
– Whenever a spouse is about to cheat a close-up of a “happy” photo of the couple is shown. If it is a wedding picture then it is likely the other spouse will die soon.
– During a mass tragedy or disaster it always becomes more devasting when the camera focuses on a child’s stuffed animal left behind.
– Following any apocalypse the landscape will feature metal-drum fires and random tires strewn about.
Whoops, sorry about the repetition (explosions and shaky cam). But here’s a couple more:
Also, getting shot multiple times… still standing… gyrating at each shot… still standing… then the last shot… and he’s down! Also, getting knocked backward and through the air at a gunshot; shooting at the ground on a trail or puddle of fuel to light a fire (no ricochet!?); sparks when shooting concrete, asphalt, or pretty much every surface.
“I know my rights. I want my phone call.”
As said by Neo, the Joker, and anyone held in a police station who needs to say something that shows they haven’t been cowed by the bullying cops who arrested them.
This cliche is so pervasive that real-world people think that there actually is a right to one-and-only-one phone call that is constitutionally guaranteed to every arrestee in America.
@jic
Busted! It’s funny because that’s exactly the show I was thinking of. In spite of that, my wife and I love Castle. I can tolerate that cliche because I get so engrossed in watching Stana Katic. Hey, that’s another cliche, the overly hot police officer/detective!
I hate the cliche movie job with architect being at the very top!
Sure you can abuse it, but it’s essential to the enjoyment of many movies. Or did you hate Ghostbusters because there’s no such thing as ghosts?
Undoubtedly. Shame you chose a movie involving magical creatures as your example, though.
@mdh
I love that show too, but EVERY FREAKIN’ EPISODE he solves the case because of an offhand remark by his daughter. He could save everybody a lot of time just by calling her for a chat from the crime scene.
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