Monday, May 05, 2008

Awkward moments in movies

Isn't it funny how when somebody in a movie needs to draw blood, they will always drag a knife across their palm? It's pretty much the dumbest place you can choose. Either you'll have to bandage the hand into uselessness, or it will take weeks to heal because it will spring up every time you use the hand.

Also when somebody walks into a room/apartment which they know has an armed killer in it, they never look behind the door they walk through.

And the body outlines on the floor. (And in certain movies, on the walls and the ceiling...) It's not done in real life.

Writers have this tendency to sit there in isolation and try to think up stuff. L. Ron Hubbard wrote this great article (the idioms and the numbers are a bit outdated, but heck, it's seventy years old) back in his pulp fiction days, about how one day of research in the real world (the Boeing aircraft plant) not only made his stories much more realistic, but also gave him material for a couple more stories he wouldn't have come up with otherwise.

OK, Hubbard had a huge ego, and he was always trying to appear larger than life, and the scientologists are continuing that tradition. But he was a very good writer, most of the time. And some of his articles are very helpful for writers.

18 comments:

Bert said...

Other examples include tracing a phone call: ever since telephone networks migrated to digital in the late '70s, there is no such delay (with caller ID, you know who's calling even before you pick up).

Same goes for detecting a phone tap: the computer that routes the call is simply instructed to make a digital copy along the way, how could one ever detect this?

For my part, I always have been annoyed by endless electrical explosions. Don't writers use circuit breakers at home? High power lines that remain live forever once on the ground. The villain that ends up roasting for several seconds when thrusted against an electrical panel. The starship's bridge that lights with fireworks at every occasion.

And I'll skip over all the wonders accomplished by computers (and the associated nerds).

I once had a conversation on the topic with a lawyer and a doctor, and they claim that legal and medical stuff is seldom any more credible.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Right you are.

Cars always explode like a fireworks factory after crashing.

And a hacker can use the Internet to hack into *anything* which uses electricity.

Anonymous said...

I think this topic was discussed at lenght here before.

Basically, you are generalizing based on a subgenre of films - those produced by Hollywood studios.

Good films don't have awkward moments.

Anonymous said...

You guys have got to be pretty dumb if you think any of this is news.

Here's a good rule of thumb: Anything you've figured out, everyone else already knows.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yup. Nobody should ever say anything, because somewhere, sometime, it's bound to have been said before.

Bert said...

"Basically, you are generalizing based on a subgenre of films - those produced by Hollywood studios."

Not all Hollywood films are poorly researched and/or written (although many are).

"Good films don't have awkward moments."

For one, what you consider to be a good movie may be boring as hell to many others. And vice-versa. Also, many a critically-acclaimed small-budget independent movie contains such clichés.

"You guys have got to be pretty dumb if you think any of this is news."

The only reason I still discuss the topic is precisely because these observations are so old and yet they still apply. Makes me wonder: is it that screenwriters are slow learners or lazy, or is it that they figure that with you as an audience, anything goes?

"Here's a good rule of thumb: Anything you've figured out, everyone else already knows."

Like the fact that you have the IQ of a frying pan, but a more pathetic life?

I take it back: at least, my frying pan is useful, and I never heard it dispense inanities such as your posts.

Anonymous said...

Bert, how long is going to be before your rage causes you to pull a Columbine-style shooting? Probably not very long. Whatever shithole country you call home, I'm hoping it's far away from me.

Anonymous said...

"For one, what you consider to be a good movie may be boring as hell to many others. And vice-versa. Also, many a critically-acclaimed small-budget independent movie contains such clichés."

I didn't say anything about budget or critical-acclaimedness. I said good films don't have them. Put another way: if a film has such clichés, it's not good.

What totally baffles me is how people bother to watch crappy Hollywood movies even after discovering they are so poorly written and directed. When it's cliché after cliché and a completely predictable plot (since it's always the same), how do you guys manage to stay awake?

Bert said...

"Bert, how long is going to be before your rage causes you to pull a Columbine-style shooting? Probably not very long."

And what's going to push me over the edge? You and your Reader's Digest psychology? You could could be amusing, if you weren't a constant reminder of how pathetic some people can be...

"Whatever shithole country you call home, I'm hoping it's far away from me."

That hope is mutual. But since only an American would automatically assume that a foreigner comes from a "shithole", we're not about to meet, and you can definitely sleep in peace.

Mind you, that is if you can sleep at all, with all the "Columbine" episodes that occur in your own backyard... must be triggered by the overabundance of blessings that come to citizens of your wonderful country.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, Bert, your Readers Digest psychology has failed you - I do not live in the United States.

You're wrong about everything else, too.

The reason I suspect you live in a poor, violent country is because it's another factor in why every opinion you've ever expressed and anything you ever say here makes you seem such an unpleasant, unhappy person filled with impotent rage.

I guess I can dismiss 90% of what you say based partly on your blind anti-American hatred and on the fact that I am not one of those Americans.

You really do need help. You'll try (I emphasize the word "try") to make some quip or turn it around in some other way, but the truth is obvious to everyone.

Anonymous said...

TTL wrote:

What totally baffles me is how people bother to watch crappy Hollywood movies even after discovering they are so poorly written and directed. When it's cliché after cliché and a completely predictable plot (since it's always the same), how do you guys manage to stay awake?

Maybe you could mention some titles. What is predictable and boring to one person is not so to another. I don't see that many movies, but you never know...

Anonymous said...

Eolake wrote:
Isn't it funny how when somebody in a movie needs to draw blood, they will always drag a knife across their palm? It's pretty much the dumbest place you can choose.

Depends how deep I guess - when Liam Neeson does it in Rob Roy it's clearly only deep enough to just barely break the skin.

Anyway it's really only one of the dumbest places - I could think of a few that would be worse! ;-)

Bert said...

"I do not live in the United States"

That doesn't mean much, coming from you. Actually looks like careful phrasing to me. Which of course you will deny. But don't bother, I'll unsubscribe to this thread anyway.

Bah. I guess everybody gets annoyed by a fly every once in a while and makes a fool of himself trying to swat it. My apologies to the rest of you for falling into that asshole's tactics. But just how pathetic can one become, to haunt places like this, crapping on everyone? Mind-boggling.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

"The reason I suspect you live in a poor, violent country is because it's another factor in why every opinion you've ever expressed and anything you ever say here makes you seem such an unpleasant, unhappy person filled with impotent rage."

Sweep before your own doorstep first, my friend.
---
TTL: You never enjoy a Hollywood movie? Sure, sometimes they're dumb, but sometimes not, and much of the time they are very entertaining. And sometimes really good.

Anonymous said...

You never enjoy a Hollywood movie? Sure, sometimes they're dumb, but sometimes not, and much of the time they are very entertaining. And sometimes really good.

When it comes to movies, sometimes I'm in the mood for something dumb but entertaining. Especially when it comes to comedies.

Bert - don't unsubscribe, just don't read anything under "anonymous."

Anonymous said...

bert, what a shame if you didn't post. I look for your intelligence, the other guy I don't even read. I wouldn't even bother responding.

Laurie from New York

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure I've said something like this in another post, but I've never let stuff like that bother me personally. Realism isn't the most important thing I look for in a story.

Anonymous said...
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