monique66
Active Member
- Joined
- May 11, 2004
- Messages
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A Funny List of Movie Cliches
All teenage boys have some kind of "do not enter or else" sticker or sign on their bedroom door.
Something very very bad always happens when someone says "How bad can it be?" or "Can things get any worse?"
The man, when breaking up with a woman, will always try to tell her that it’s not her, it’s him. However, the woman has already seen every single movie like this one and will be aware of this cliché, so she replies with something like “don’t give me that”.
While crossing wobbly old rope bridges, the hero will always state “don’t look down.” Then the female will say, “too late,” prompting the wooden board she next steps on to break and she falls through, and is left dangling high above a river that’s always full of hungry, man-eating crocodiles.
Any teen comedy usually ends with a prom no matter the time of year.
If the hero is running, the henchmen's' machine-guns will always give off sparks behind the heroes feet and never actually hit him
Heroes/villains, especially when wearing bulky, heavy, long black trench coats, can jump easily from rooftop to rooftop, always able to clear alleys ten to fifteen feet wide.
If a parent goes to their child's bedroom and they are already in bed asleep, the parent will approach the bed and say something kind to the sleeping child before brushing their hair into place and kissing them on the forehead.
If there happens to be a high-rise building in an action/disaster film, you can always expect an oblivious Hispanic janitor listening to salsa on his headphones.
Millions of deaths each year are preventable, but alas, the one person who can save them has their music up so high that it drowns out all top-of-lung, bloodcurdling screams for help.
Be extremely cautious around cremation urns, because somehow it's going to get knocked over.
If there is a dangerous man breaking into a house, only the mother and daughter will be home. The mother will then usher the child into a closet and tell her to stay there, and the closet will always have those blinds with little slits in them that the child can look through. The bad man will always approach the closet, but will never look inside before leaving.
Whenever a character is sneaking around in a movie set in the Middle Ages or in an Arab country, he always accidentally bumps into a bad guy who calls out “Guards! Guards!” About 25 guards jump out of nowhere and are carrying huge swords.
An alcoholic can always chug down a gallon of whisky without vomiting, getting really drunk, or burning their throat. He’ll chug it down, wince, and go “Aahhh!”
If there is about to be a huge disaster like an alien invasion or the world is about to be plunged into a new ice age there will always be a smart character who can see what’s going to happen well before it does, but is ignored and made fun of by everyone until its too late.
In a gunfight, the hero can hide behind any object even if it is very thin and no bullets will pass through.
In a movie with a Chinese bad guy, the guy ALWAYS hangs out in China Town and his hideout is ALWAYS in a Chinese restaurant.
If someone gets punched in the face and it gives off a large *thwack* sound, they usually remain conscious whereas if they are karate chopped in the back of the neck, they will be out cold for hours.
The hero may get shot in the arm at the very end.
If a number of people are knocked out with gas or otherwise, they will all wake up at approximately the same time
As soon as a beautiful actress makes herself ugly, plain, fatter or into a
man, she will win an Oscar
Whenever a character goes and meets someone at a bar, they order a
drink but always leave before they get it or don't drink it.
Women who get wet will always be wearing a white shirt.
In army films there is ALWAYS a character called Kawalsky.
You often see a white man in love with an african-american woman but
you never see an african-american man with a white woman (If there is,
there's always trouble surrounding it)
When the main character breaks out into song and dance, everyone around him/her
knows the song and dance perfectly and always joins in.
A customer's request to follow that car is never questioned by the cab driver.
If a chase occurs in New Orleans, it is always Mardi Gras at the time.
All teenage girls have pink telephones in their bedrooms.
All rumors described as superstitious nonsense will, without fail, turn out to be true.
If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
All kid's bicycles have bells.
A bad guy will always fall on something pointy when thrown from a high place, while an ordinary person who has nothing to do with the plot will fall on a car.
The father always goes against the cop's wishes and makes an attempt to pay the ransom.
In war, good guys have feelings for there comrades, while the bad guys tend to not notice their friends get shot.
Los Angeles is the disaster movie capital of the world. Whether it's earthquakes, volcanoes, freak asteroid showers or just bad luck, you can bet it's set in LA. Ironically, this is the place that all the movie producers choose to live.
If someone is shot in the forehead, a little hole will appear and a trickle of blood will come out of it.
The weak member of any gang will only die after he/she has performed a memorable act of courage.
High Schools are always either in the middle of a city or a car ride away from the beach.
A baseball hitting a flood light causes the entire grid of floodlights to explode and drop sparks straight down to the middle of the field.
When the hero thinks he has killed the monster he will never stab the monster again to insure it's death
A beautiful woman appears very interested in a very ugly man. Of course the man sees nothing wrong with this, but the whole female audience knows that she is up to no good and she is only using him as a means to an end.
A building that in real life would require several dozen carefully placed explosive charges for demolition, can in a movie be destroyed by a single bomb in a car trunk. This bomb will cause no damage to any other building on the block.
A bullet that has the power to blast the recipient six feet into the air does not have the power upon discharge to make the shooter even flinch.
A call comes into a big police station. A flunkey gets the call covers the mouthpeice with his hand and says, Detective #### I think it's the killer! The detective without looking at the phone, stabs his finger and somehow always hits the correct line to talk to the killer? Must be a slow night, only one line lit.
A car that crashes will always explode in a ball of flames, but not until the hero can pull the important passengers to safety, and yell, "Watch out! She's gonna blow!"
A car that drives under the trailer of a semi will be transformed into a comical, but otherwise fully-functional convertible. No passengers will be hurt by twisted metal, flying glass etc.
A car will always explode when shot at, unless the hero is driving it.
A character in emotional turmoil will often get the urge to have a bath. Once in the bath they will spend at least a minute staring into the middle distance after which they will always submerge their whole head in the water.
A character turns on the radio just in time to hear a special announcement or some important news item. Then turns the radio off.
A character will be gulping down milk, beer, or coffee while he is told exciting/incredible/shocking news, causing him to spit whatever he was drinking all over (in comedies, directly into the speaker's face).
A cigarette case/lighter in the shirt pocket will always block the bullet.
A competent knife thrower can work equally well with throwing knives, Swiss Army knives, butcher knives, table knives or swords.
A computer can be turned on by accessing it via modem.
A cup of black coffee/splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second.
A dying person's last words will always be coherent and significant.
A facial scar is likely to make you go insane and seek revenge for the rest of your life.
A female lead with feminist leanings will always despise a macho hero--until the first time he rescues her from certain death. She will then become totally conventional and dependent. Once she does this, the hero will become vulnerable and tell her about some tragic loss that will explain his belligerent attitude.
A fight will always end up in water, if any is available nearby.
A firefighters' truck, hearse or other slow heavy vehicle driven by the hero can outrun any regular car and police motorbike you care to name.
A four-mile-wide nickel asteroid (which would have a mass of about a trillion tons) can be destroyed -- literally destroyed, so that nothing remains -- by three airplane-mounted lasers.
A good chase ain't a good chase unless they run through a busy kitchen.
A good guy comes up behind a prowling and unsuspecting bad guy (or visa versa) and the former asks, Looking for something/someone?
A good person will always die in the presence of friends.
A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
A hero will show no pain even during the most terrific beating, yet he will wince if a women attempts to clean a facial wound.
A hero's finishing move is often ridiculously protracted - e.g. a running flying kick from 10 feet away - but the bad guy will never use that lead time to get out of the way. After being pummeled, his reactions have been so dulled that he can no longer defend himself even though he can see the blow coming from, well, 10 feet away.
A high school boy, no matter what he may look like, act like, or how strange he may be, always manages to capture the heart of the school's most popular girl.
A hollowed out bible can contain any weapon known to man.
A hysterical, screaming woman can always be immediately calmed down by a slap across the face from a man. Often the woman will then thank the man for slapping her.
A kid always knows more than an adult.
A kid can fend for himself even if his parents have gone to Paris, leaving him with no food, electricity, heat, money, etc.
A leap from a hotel roof is completely safe as long as you can land in the pool.
A librarian will always let you stay late.
A lost hand either comes crawling back, or a mad surgeon will replace it with one transplanted from an executed strangler.
A lot of car chases takes place either when children are going to or coming home from school thus holding up the chase at crosswalks.
A lot of cops twist a toothpick around in their mouths. The toothpick twisting cops usually tend to notice stuff.
A male character dressed as a woman (usually in comedies) is sure to be found attractive by another male, usually one of the bad guys or a police officer.
A malfunctioning or burnt light bulb usually means that someone is hiding in the room, ready to jump on our hero/heroine while he/she's busy hitting the switch or tapping the bulb.
A man can be talked into doing anything if a sketchy woman he has just met and who obviously has ulterior motives offers to have sex with him.
A message in Morse Code will start several seconds before someone actually interprets it; however, no information is lost, as the message actually begins when the interpreter starts to read it.
A mile-wide asteroid can mostly burn up in the atmosphere, causing it to do only a relatively small amount of damage (bursting a dam) when it strikes.
A million dollars in cash or cocaine will invariably take up exactly the amount of space available in your briefcase.
A monster can always sneak up on you, no matter how big or clumsy it is.
A mother will always find their teenage girl's diary while putting away laundry and it will always happen after the girl has had some life changing experience like a first kiss, although the mother has put away the clothes at least a thousand times before.
A movie teenager will always have a drainpipe situated next to his or her window. This drainpipe will be specially reinforced to hold their weight on escape.
A new law school graduate or burnt-out has-been will be asked to take on a career-making case and will flounder around at first due to lack of skill and training. But adrenaline and inspiration will kick in (generally accompanied by music from a swelling orchestra), which beats skill, training, and experience any day.
A normal 3.5 inch disk always contains a vast amount of data.
A person clinging to the roof of a vehicle will have superhuman strength and will be very difficult to shake off.
A person is placing a phone call to a company, such as Sports Illustrated. The phone at the other end is picked up, and the person PLACING the call says, "Hello, Sports Illustrated?", as if they are checking to make sure they called the right place. What this means is that at a major company, someone is answering the phone with hello and that's it. Not "hello, Sports Illustrated, can I help you?" or anything like that, just "Hello".
A person shot to death will immediately do just that - die. Their bodies do not flop and jerk around for a few minutes as the muscles contract involuntarily and sporadically as the brain dies a slow electro-chemical death (as with real gun-shot deaths).
A person watching security screens is always either sleeping or reading porno magazines.
A person will let go of his weapon on the THIRD time his hand is bashed against a railing.
A programmer or hacker will make fewer mistakes if a gun is pointed to his head.
A pudgy older star who's visibly falling behind his partner during a chase scene will catch up with him while the camera's looking away.
A pursued hero, with the bad guys just yards behind him, can jump into a shutdown helicopter, run through the twenty-five item startup checklist, engage and spin up the rotors, take off and be out of pistol range before the bad guys catch up.
A ringing phone is usually picked up within 3 seconds.
A river from a burst dam can exactly keep pace with a pickup truck for several minutes. It will then obligingly pause as the pickup truck turns around and goes in another direction.
A serial killer will cover the walls of his room with evidence (newspaper clippings, photos, etc.) of his crimes, even if he still lives at home with his mother. His mother will have no idea what is going on.
A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of RFK Stadium.
A slight blow to the head can cause total amnesia, but neither that nor a blow sufficient to knock a person unconscious is enough to cause concussion or other brain damage.
A snowglobe will normally be of emotional importance, often to a child and or childhood experience. It will fall to the floor at a necessary dramatic moment, in slow motion, and be smashed to smithereens.
A stand-in will eclipse a star on his/her first performance.
A sure indication that something of a paranormal sort is occurring is the explosion of every light bulb in the place, with showers of sparks.
A teenager who is in love with the older hero (>10 years or so older) will never have his/her affections returned by the hero. The hero will fob off the teenager politely and will thereafter play a father/mother role to them.
A villain will always commit murder right in front of the window when someone with binoculars is watching.
A virus causes your desktop to animate into a fuzzy image or a screen saver that tells you your screwed.
A wacky bunch of misfits inevitably pulls things together and wins the league championship.
A woman who fires a gun will always fire all the rounds one after the other.
A woman who gets fed up with the hero and says, I won't be here when you get back never carries out the threat.
A woman will regain her figure within days of giving birth.
Acid applied by the villain to the hero's brake lines never has any effect unless the car is heading down a steep, winding road. Cars at traffic lights have invulnerable brake lines.
Action heroes never face charges for manslaughter or criminal damage despite laying entire cities to waste.
Actors singing in the shower are always out of tune.
Adults siblings confront the issue of sibling rivalry once and for all only on holidays or at funerals, and only when a competitive situation comes up, like shooting baskets or giving mom a gift. After a lot of screaming, they claim to have always wanted what the other had: You're the pretty one! And you're the smart one!
After a car crash, no movie character ever sits and shakes for five minutes, or becomes incoherent with shock.
After a funeral, everyone leaves in black cars -- no one seems to use a regular car. Everyone is parked right next the funeral plot no one has to walk very far.
After a victim has been rescued by the police, he or she will always stand outside next to a police car, draped with a blanket.
After a violent storm has ended, the sun will immediately come out, flowers will bloom ,and a bird will begin singing.
After fleeing a monster, you will want to call for help from a public phone within ten feet of where you last saw the monster.
Aliens usually speak english and have same colloquialisms. planet.
All automatic weapons must be cocked in order to be fired, but bolt action weapons can fire two or three times without being cocked!
All alien planets have only one climate each, for example desert planets, ice and snow planets, jungle planets.
All aliens have single monolithic culture: one language, one religion, one outfit, one planet.
All amplifiers will emit smoke if they blow.
All beds have special "L"-shaped sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
All bomb makers adhere to a strict color coding scheme for the internal wiring of their bombs, and will always use the right color wire so that the know-it-all on the phone can safely explain to the idiot with the wire cutters exactly which wire to cut and in what order.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
All bombs must be made so that they have hundreds of wires, tick, and have a timer.
All cars seem to run on kerosene rather than gasoline (hence the copious black smoke when they burn).
All characters in a movie have their watches perfectly synchronized.
All characters in film or on TV dream as though they were operating a camera. No one dreams or has flashbacks from their own viewpoint, they always see the action as an outside observer.
All characters keep detailed news clippings of important events in their lives, particularly those events that must be painful to recall, such as the loss of the character's immediate family due to their own negligence.
All Clowns are evil, unless its a murder mystery set at a circus, and then they are simply victims of some maniac.
All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backwards.
All computer users, regardless of the character type, will either kiss the monitor, or say "I love you" repeatedly after the computer finishes some vital task, right before picking up a jacket and running out the door.
All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
All computers in movies are controlled only by keyboard only, no mouse.
All female reporters are gutsy and idealistic but all male reporters are cynical hacks and will lie cheat and steal to get a story.
All fights taking place on the edge of a canyon, tall building, or other high place require at least one bad guy to get plugged by a bullet, arrow, or other missile weapon, causing to fall, but keeping him alive enough to hear his scream of terror echo as he plunges to his doom.
All foreign exchange students come to America wearing the traditional clothes of their homelands. I guess they do this so that their temporary parents can identify them at the airport. (Honey, I don't see him. There he is. See the boy in the leiderhosen?)
All G.I.s know how to make a still out of a jeep radiator.
All geeky or nerdy characters are inherently subject to motion sickness or fear of some mode of travel.
All grenades are thrown with an overarm 'cricket style' movement and still manage to hit the target exactly
All hero divers, no matter how deep they go, may stay down for as long as they want, never run out of air (unless it's part of the story), and come to the surface as fast as they can swim or be pulled without suffering any ill effects
All hero news reporters are borderline alcoholics, divorced at least once, either childless or rarely in touch with their children, whom they mysteriously nonetheless profess to adore above all else. The hero news reporter counts his aged dad among his drinking buddies. His mother is referred to with teary nostalgia by the aged dad.
All home made alcohol, when first tasted, is required to be sprayed from the mouth in utter revulsion.
All important files are in handily named folders / directories easily found without searching.
All Italian restaurants have red & white checkered table cloths, large bottles of wine with wicker baskets encasing them on the tables or hanging from the ceiling, and a man with a moustache in a Chef-Boy-Ardee outfit who speaks in Italian-English.
All libraries are huge neo-classicalist revival buildings and have lions out front. Same thing with museums.
All loose ends are always tied up.
All medieval movie archers (like in Robin Hood films) have their quiver of arrows strapped to their backs rather than hanging from their sides.
All members of alien species wear the same outfits, including clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry. This makes them readily identifiable. Aliens who do not dress like aliens are hiding something. This may, in fact, be a consequence of the fact that aliens all have single, monolithic cultures: one language, one religion, one outfit, per planet.
All minorities possess mystical knowledge. If they wind up in a fight where their choice of method is either Western technology or some kinda mystical tribal thing, the fight cannot end until the former has failed them and the latter has been invoked.
All monitors display inch-high letters.
All mourners are dressed in somber black clothes -- suits, dresses and topcoats. If the deceased is a man the widow almost always wears a wide-brimmed hat, sometimes a veil and is always wears make-up. At the very least her hair will be done. Someone will have an arm around her, or else she will holding a child's hand. Unless she is a mother character and then wears a little pill box hat that went out of style in the sixties. Someone will always be wearing pearls. All the ladies will have nice earrings on. Men never cry, but sometimes there is a one camera shot of a female character dabbing her eyes with a hanky.
All movie babies are born HUGE, usually the size of the average two month old.
All movie mothers will prepare a breakfast every monring, usually consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, etc. Dad and the kids will invariably arrive at the table 30 seconds before Dad has to leave for the office and the kids have to catch the school bus. Each will have time only for a sip of coffee/juice and/or one bite of toast.
All movie women must be pulled along by their hands, even if the male puller is short & fat and the woman is a track star.
All movie women try to run in heels, never stopping to kick them off.
All movie wounds bleed, and the amount of bleeding is much more than that of a real wound of same size and severity.
All nerds will attempt to fight Irish-style (fists high, at or above their head) when insulted -- though their opponent will never accept the challenge.
All nuns seem to travel in pairs.
All people in dance clubs will enthusiastically dance to whatever music is currently playing.
All police are extremely incompetent and will do the most moronic things possible and die very quickly, unless they are part of a special unit.
All teenage boys have some kind of "do not enter or else" sticker or sign on their bedroom door.
Something very very bad always happens when someone says "How bad can it be?" or "Can things get any worse?"
The man, when breaking up with a woman, will always try to tell her that it’s not her, it’s him. However, the woman has already seen every single movie like this one and will be aware of this cliché, so she replies with something like “don’t give me that”.
While crossing wobbly old rope bridges, the hero will always state “don’t look down.” Then the female will say, “too late,” prompting the wooden board she next steps on to break and she falls through, and is left dangling high above a river that’s always full of hungry, man-eating crocodiles.
Any teen comedy usually ends with a prom no matter the time of year.
If the hero is running, the henchmen's' machine-guns will always give off sparks behind the heroes feet and never actually hit him
Heroes/villains, especially when wearing bulky, heavy, long black trench coats, can jump easily from rooftop to rooftop, always able to clear alleys ten to fifteen feet wide.
If a parent goes to their child's bedroom and they are already in bed asleep, the parent will approach the bed and say something kind to the sleeping child before brushing their hair into place and kissing them on the forehead.
If there happens to be a high-rise building in an action/disaster film, you can always expect an oblivious Hispanic janitor listening to salsa on his headphones.
Millions of deaths each year are preventable, but alas, the one person who can save them has their music up so high that it drowns out all top-of-lung, bloodcurdling screams for help.
Be extremely cautious around cremation urns, because somehow it's going to get knocked over.
If there is a dangerous man breaking into a house, only the mother and daughter will be home. The mother will then usher the child into a closet and tell her to stay there, and the closet will always have those blinds with little slits in them that the child can look through. The bad man will always approach the closet, but will never look inside before leaving.
Whenever a character is sneaking around in a movie set in the Middle Ages or in an Arab country, he always accidentally bumps into a bad guy who calls out “Guards! Guards!” About 25 guards jump out of nowhere and are carrying huge swords.
An alcoholic can always chug down a gallon of whisky without vomiting, getting really drunk, or burning their throat. He’ll chug it down, wince, and go “Aahhh!”
If there is about to be a huge disaster like an alien invasion or the world is about to be plunged into a new ice age there will always be a smart character who can see what’s going to happen well before it does, but is ignored and made fun of by everyone until its too late.
In a gunfight, the hero can hide behind any object even if it is very thin and no bullets will pass through.
In a movie with a Chinese bad guy, the guy ALWAYS hangs out in China Town and his hideout is ALWAYS in a Chinese restaurant.
If someone gets punched in the face and it gives off a large *thwack* sound, they usually remain conscious whereas if they are karate chopped in the back of the neck, they will be out cold for hours.
The hero may get shot in the arm at the very end.
If a number of people are knocked out with gas or otherwise, they will all wake up at approximately the same time
As soon as a beautiful actress makes herself ugly, plain, fatter or into a
man, she will win an Oscar
Whenever a character goes and meets someone at a bar, they order a
drink but always leave before they get it or don't drink it.
Women who get wet will always be wearing a white shirt.
In army films there is ALWAYS a character called Kawalsky.
You often see a white man in love with an african-american woman but
you never see an african-american man with a white woman (If there is,
there's always trouble surrounding it)
When the main character breaks out into song and dance, everyone around him/her
knows the song and dance perfectly and always joins in.
A customer's request to follow that car is never questioned by the cab driver.
If a chase occurs in New Orleans, it is always Mardi Gras at the time.
All teenage girls have pink telephones in their bedrooms.
All rumors described as superstitious nonsense will, without fail, turn out to be true.
If a large pane of glass is visible, someone will be thrown through it before long.
All kid's bicycles have bells.
A bad guy will always fall on something pointy when thrown from a high place, while an ordinary person who has nothing to do with the plot will fall on a car.
The father always goes against the cop's wishes and makes an attempt to pay the ransom.
In war, good guys have feelings for there comrades, while the bad guys tend to not notice their friends get shot.
Los Angeles is the disaster movie capital of the world. Whether it's earthquakes, volcanoes, freak asteroid showers or just bad luck, you can bet it's set in LA. Ironically, this is the place that all the movie producers choose to live.
If someone is shot in the forehead, a little hole will appear and a trickle of blood will come out of it.
The weak member of any gang will only die after he/she has performed a memorable act of courage.
High Schools are always either in the middle of a city or a car ride away from the beach.
A baseball hitting a flood light causes the entire grid of floodlights to explode and drop sparks straight down to the middle of the field.
When the hero thinks he has killed the monster he will never stab the monster again to insure it's death
A beautiful woman appears very interested in a very ugly man. Of course the man sees nothing wrong with this, but the whole female audience knows that she is up to no good and she is only using him as a means to an end.
A building that in real life would require several dozen carefully placed explosive charges for demolition, can in a movie be destroyed by a single bomb in a car trunk. This bomb will cause no damage to any other building on the block.
A bullet that has the power to blast the recipient six feet into the air does not have the power upon discharge to make the shooter even flinch.
A call comes into a big police station. A flunkey gets the call covers the mouthpeice with his hand and says, Detective #### I think it's the killer! The detective without looking at the phone, stabs his finger and somehow always hits the correct line to talk to the killer? Must be a slow night, only one line lit.
A car that crashes will always explode in a ball of flames, but not until the hero can pull the important passengers to safety, and yell, "Watch out! She's gonna blow!"
A car that drives under the trailer of a semi will be transformed into a comical, but otherwise fully-functional convertible. No passengers will be hurt by twisted metal, flying glass etc.
A car will always explode when shot at, unless the hero is driving it.
A character in emotional turmoil will often get the urge to have a bath. Once in the bath they will spend at least a minute staring into the middle distance after which they will always submerge their whole head in the water.
A character turns on the radio just in time to hear a special announcement or some important news item. Then turns the radio off.
A character will be gulping down milk, beer, or coffee while he is told exciting/incredible/shocking news, causing him to spit whatever he was drinking all over (in comedies, directly into the speaker's face).
A cigarette case/lighter in the shirt pocket will always block the bullet.
A competent knife thrower can work equally well with throwing knives, Swiss Army knives, butcher knives, table knives or swords.
A computer can be turned on by accessing it via modem.
A cup of black coffee/splash of cold water in face is enough to render the most inebriated person stone cold sober in a split second.
A dying person's last words will always be coherent and significant.
A facial scar is likely to make you go insane and seek revenge for the rest of your life.
A female lead with feminist leanings will always despise a macho hero--until the first time he rescues her from certain death. She will then become totally conventional and dependent. Once she does this, the hero will become vulnerable and tell her about some tragic loss that will explain his belligerent attitude.
A fight will always end up in water, if any is available nearby.
A firefighters' truck, hearse or other slow heavy vehicle driven by the hero can outrun any regular car and police motorbike you care to name.
A four-mile-wide nickel asteroid (which would have a mass of about a trillion tons) can be destroyed -- literally destroyed, so that nothing remains -- by three airplane-mounted lasers.
A good chase ain't a good chase unless they run through a busy kitchen.
A good guy comes up behind a prowling and unsuspecting bad guy (or visa versa) and the former asks, Looking for something/someone?
A good person will always die in the presence of friends.
A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
A hero will show no pain even during the most terrific beating, yet he will wince if a women attempts to clean a facial wound.
A hero's finishing move is often ridiculously protracted - e.g. a running flying kick from 10 feet away - but the bad guy will never use that lead time to get out of the way. After being pummeled, his reactions have been so dulled that he can no longer defend himself even though he can see the blow coming from, well, 10 feet away.
A high school boy, no matter what he may look like, act like, or how strange he may be, always manages to capture the heart of the school's most popular girl.
A hollowed out bible can contain any weapon known to man.
A hysterical, screaming woman can always be immediately calmed down by a slap across the face from a man. Often the woman will then thank the man for slapping her.
A kid always knows more than an adult.
A kid can fend for himself even if his parents have gone to Paris, leaving him with no food, electricity, heat, money, etc.
A leap from a hotel roof is completely safe as long as you can land in the pool.
A librarian will always let you stay late.
A lost hand either comes crawling back, or a mad surgeon will replace it with one transplanted from an executed strangler.
A lot of car chases takes place either when children are going to or coming home from school thus holding up the chase at crosswalks.
A lot of cops twist a toothpick around in their mouths. The toothpick twisting cops usually tend to notice stuff.
A male character dressed as a woman (usually in comedies) is sure to be found attractive by another male, usually one of the bad guys or a police officer.
A malfunctioning or burnt light bulb usually means that someone is hiding in the room, ready to jump on our hero/heroine while he/she's busy hitting the switch or tapping the bulb.
A man can be talked into doing anything if a sketchy woman he has just met and who obviously has ulterior motives offers to have sex with him.
A message in Morse Code will start several seconds before someone actually interprets it; however, no information is lost, as the message actually begins when the interpreter starts to read it.
A mile-wide asteroid can mostly burn up in the atmosphere, causing it to do only a relatively small amount of damage (bursting a dam) when it strikes.
A million dollars in cash or cocaine will invariably take up exactly the amount of space available in your briefcase.
A monster can always sneak up on you, no matter how big or clumsy it is.
A mother will always find their teenage girl's diary while putting away laundry and it will always happen after the girl has had some life changing experience like a first kiss, although the mother has put away the clothes at least a thousand times before.
A movie teenager will always have a drainpipe situated next to his or her window. This drainpipe will be specially reinforced to hold their weight on escape.
A new law school graduate or burnt-out has-been will be asked to take on a career-making case and will flounder around at first due to lack of skill and training. But adrenaline and inspiration will kick in (generally accompanied by music from a swelling orchestra), which beats skill, training, and experience any day.
A normal 3.5 inch disk always contains a vast amount of data.
A person clinging to the roof of a vehicle will have superhuman strength and will be very difficult to shake off.
A person is placing a phone call to a company, such as Sports Illustrated. The phone at the other end is picked up, and the person PLACING the call says, "Hello, Sports Illustrated?", as if they are checking to make sure they called the right place. What this means is that at a major company, someone is answering the phone with hello and that's it. Not "hello, Sports Illustrated, can I help you?" or anything like that, just "Hello".
A person shot to death will immediately do just that - die. Their bodies do not flop and jerk around for a few minutes as the muscles contract involuntarily and sporadically as the brain dies a slow electro-chemical death (as with real gun-shot deaths).
A person watching security screens is always either sleeping or reading porno magazines.
A person will let go of his weapon on the THIRD time his hand is bashed against a railing.
A programmer or hacker will make fewer mistakes if a gun is pointed to his head.
A pudgy older star who's visibly falling behind his partner during a chase scene will catch up with him while the camera's looking away.
A pursued hero, with the bad guys just yards behind him, can jump into a shutdown helicopter, run through the twenty-five item startup checklist, engage and spin up the rotors, take off and be out of pistol range before the bad guys catch up.
A ringing phone is usually picked up within 3 seconds.
A river from a burst dam can exactly keep pace with a pickup truck for several minutes. It will then obligingly pause as the pickup truck turns around and goes in another direction.
A serial killer will cover the walls of his room with evidence (newspaper clippings, photos, etc.) of his crimes, even if he still lives at home with his mother. His mother will have no idea what is going on.
A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of RFK Stadium.
A slight blow to the head can cause total amnesia, but neither that nor a blow sufficient to knock a person unconscious is enough to cause concussion or other brain damage.
A snowglobe will normally be of emotional importance, often to a child and or childhood experience. It will fall to the floor at a necessary dramatic moment, in slow motion, and be smashed to smithereens.
A stand-in will eclipse a star on his/her first performance.
A sure indication that something of a paranormal sort is occurring is the explosion of every light bulb in the place, with showers of sparks.
A teenager who is in love with the older hero (>10 years or so older) will never have his/her affections returned by the hero. The hero will fob off the teenager politely and will thereafter play a father/mother role to them.
A villain will always commit murder right in front of the window when someone with binoculars is watching.
A virus causes your desktop to animate into a fuzzy image or a screen saver that tells you your screwed.
A wacky bunch of misfits inevitably pulls things together and wins the league championship.
A woman who fires a gun will always fire all the rounds one after the other.
A woman who gets fed up with the hero and says, I won't be here when you get back never carries out the threat.
A woman will regain her figure within days of giving birth.
Acid applied by the villain to the hero's brake lines never has any effect unless the car is heading down a steep, winding road. Cars at traffic lights have invulnerable brake lines.
Action heroes never face charges for manslaughter or criminal damage despite laying entire cities to waste.
Actors singing in the shower are always out of tune.
Adults siblings confront the issue of sibling rivalry once and for all only on holidays or at funerals, and only when a competitive situation comes up, like shooting baskets or giving mom a gift. After a lot of screaming, they claim to have always wanted what the other had: You're the pretty one! And you're the smart one!
After a car crash, no movie character ever sits and shakes for five minutes, or becomes incoherent with shock.
After a funeral, everyone leaves in black cars -- no one seems to use a regular car. Everyone is parked right next the funeral plot no one has to walk very far.
After a victim has been rescued by the police, he or she will always stand outside next to a police car, draped with a blanket.
After a violent storm has ended, the sun will immediately come out, flowers will bloom ,and a bird will begin singing.
After fleeing a monster, you will want to call for help from a public phone within ten feet of where you last saw the monster.
Aliens usually speak english and have same colloquialisms. planet.
All automatic weapons must be cocked in order to be fired, but bolt action weapons can fire two or three times without being cocked!
All alien planets have only one climate each, for example desert planets, ice and snow planets, jungle planets.
All aliens have single monolithic culture: one language, one religion, one outfit, one planet.
All amplifiers will emit smoke if they blow.
All beds have special "L"-shaped sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
All bomb makers adhere to a strict color coding scheme for the internal wiring of their bombs, and will always use the right color wire so that the know-it-all on the phone can safely explain to the idiot with the wire cutters exactly which wire to cut and in what order.
All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
All bombs must be made so that they have hundreds of wires, tick, and have a timer.
All cars seem to run on kerosene rather than gasoline (hence the copious black smoke when they burn).
All characters in a movie have their watches perfectly synchronized.
All characters in film or on TV dream as though they were operating a camera. No one dreams or has flashbacks from their own viewpoint, they always see the action as an outside observer.
All characters keep detailed news clippings of important events in their lives, particularly those events that must be painful to recall, such as the loss of the character's immediate family due to their own negligence.
All Clowns are evil, unless its a murder mystery set at a circus, and then they are simply victims of some maniac.
All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backwards.
All computer users, regardless of the character type, will either kiss the monitor, or say "I love you" repeatedly after the computer finishes some vital task, right before picking up a jacket and running out the door.
All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
All computers in movies are controlled only by keyboard only, no mouse.
All female reporters are gutsy and idealistic but all male reporters are cynical hacks and will lie cheat and steal to get a story.
All fights taking place on the edge of a canyon, tall building, or other high place require at least one bad guy to get plugged by a bullet, arrow, or other missile weapon, causing to fall, but keeping him alive enough to hear his scream of terror echo as he plunges to his doom.
All foreign exchange students come to America wearing the traditional clothes of their homelands. I guess they do this so that their temporary parents can identify them at the airport. (Honey, I don't see him. There he is. See the boy in the leiderhosen?)
All G.I.s know how to make a still out of a jeep radiator.
All geeky or nerdy characters are inherently subject to motion sickness or fear of some mode of travel.
All grenades are thrown with an overarm 'cricket style' movement and still manage to hit the target exactly
All hero divers, no matter how deep they go, may stay down for as long as they want, never run out of air (unless it's part of the story), and come to the surface as fast as they can swim or be pulled without suffering any ill effects
All hero news reporters are borderline alcoholics, divorced at least once, either childless or rarely in touch with their children, whom they mysteriously nonetheless profess to adore above all else. The hero news reporter counts his aged dad among his drinking buddies. His mother is referred to with teary nostalgia by the aged dad.
All home made alcohol, when first tasted, is required to be sprayed from the mouth in utter revulsion.
All important files are in handily named folders / directories easily found without searching.
All Italian restaurants have red & white checkered table cloths, large bottles of wine with wicker baskets encasing them on the tables or hanging from the ceiling, and a man with a moustache in a Chef-Boy-Ardee outfit who speaks in Italian-English.
All libraries are huge neo-classicalist revival buildings and have lions out front. Same thing with museums.
All loose ends are always tied up.
All medieval movie archers (like in Robin Hood films) have their quiver of arrows strapped to their backs rather than hanging from their sides.
All members of alien species wear the same outfits, including clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry. This makes them readily identifiable. Aliens who do not dress like aliens are hiding something. This may, in fact, be a consequence of the fact that aliens all have single, monolithic cultures: one language, one religion, one outfit, per planet.
All minorities possess mystical knowledge. If they wind up in a fight where their choice of method is either Western technology or some kinda mystical tribal thing, the fight cannot end until the former has failed them and the latter has been invoked.
All monitors display inch-high letters.
All mourners are dressed in somber black clothes -- suits, dresses and topcoats. If the deceased is a man the widow almost always wears a wide-brimmed hat, sometimes a veil and is always wears make-up. At the very least her hair will be done. Someone will have an arm around her, or else she will holding a child's hand. Unless she is a mother character and then wears a little pill box hat that went out of style in the sixties. Someone will always be wearing pearls. All the ladies will have nice earrings on. Men never cry, but sometimes there is a one camera shot of a female character dabbing her eyes with a hanky.
All movie babies are born HUGE, usually the size of the average two month old.
All movie mothers will prepare a breakfast every monring, usually consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, etc. Dad and the kids will invariably arrive at the table 30 seconds before Dad has to leave for the office and the kids have to catch the school bus. Each will have time only for a sip of coffee/juice and/or one bite of toast.
All movie women must be pulled along by their hands, even if the male puller is short & fat and the woman is a track star.
All movie women try to run in heels, never stopping to kick them off.
All movie wounds bleed, and the amount of bleeding is much more than that of a real wound of same size and severity.
All nerds will attempt to fight Irish-style (fists high, at or above their head) when insulted -- though their opponent will never accept the challenge.
All nuns seem to travel in pairs.
All people in dance clubs will enthusiastically dance to whatever music is currently playing.
All police are extremely incompetent and will do the most moronic things possible and die very quickly, unless they are part of a special unit.
