Movie Clichés
Before I go to a movie now, I ask
A) Does it have car/motorbike/boat/plane chase in it?"
B) Does it have a heroine/hero living in a house in the wilds, who is being chased by some baddie, hears noises in the middle of the night, turns on lights and goes OUTSIDE, leaving the doors open, to investigate?
I hate movie clichés. It fair does me head in, so it does!
We have become used to lots of fast furious action, special effects and gadgetry in our theatre, movies and tv, to the extent that we find it difficult to watch something where we have to concentrate on nuances to elicit enjoyment. I do like gadgetry, but I expect it to work first time! I watched a James Bond movie on tv the other night (the one with Halle Berry) and with all the state of the art equipment Bond kept shooting the same baddie over and over and missing – if the gadgetry is that technologically perfect why didn’t it work first time, eh? I guess it would make the movie shorter! (My lust interest thinks I'm a total philistine!)
If Shakespeare, Dickens, Beckett were submitting their work to-day, I don’t believe they would get published, without sticking in all the clichés to make the work “marketable”, if indeed at all.
Before I go to a movie now, I ask
A) Does it have car/motorbike/boat/plane chase in it?"
B) Does it have a heroine/hero living in a house in the wilds, who is being chased by some baddie, hears noises in the middle of the night, turns on lights and goes OUTSIDE, leaving the doors open, to investigate?
I hate movie clichés. It fair does me head in, so it does!
We have become used to lots of fast furious action, special effects and gadgetry in our theatre, movies and tv, to the extent that we find it difficult to watch something where we have to concentrate on nuances to elicit enjoyment. I do like gadgetry, but I expect it to work first time! I watched a James Bond movie on tv the other night (the one with Halle Berry) and with all the state of the art equipment Bond kept shooting the same baddie over and over and missing – if the gadgetry is that technologically perfect why didn’t it work first time, eh? I guess it would make the movie shorter! (My lust interest thinks I'm a total philistine!)
If Shakespeare, Dickens, Beckett were submitting their work to-day, I don’t believe they would get published, without sticking in all the clichés to make the work “marketable”, if indeed at all.
posted by SheBah at 2:48 AM
18 Comments:
That's why I always say that in any book I write none of my 'heros' will have a clue how to fight. Most people don't. Spend an amusing half hour sitting on a wall watching two drunk fellas trying to fight and tell me I'm wrong. It is hilarious. Slap, slap, miss kick, roll in much, get up, fall, slap, tear jumper, slap, fall down, miss, fall down.
I remember reading a thriller a few years ago where the hero THREW DOWN HIS FULLY WORKING GUN to 'fight' with two-not one but two- baddies.
I was screaming, why? why not just shoot the fuckers, or at least tie them up, you had a gun, you had a gun, you could have just said put your hands up, you had a fucking gun...
Then I stopped reading that book.
Films, like popular music, are beginning to turn me right off. Time was I would happily sit in front of a special-effects-laden spectacular all agape at the cleverness of the back-room team. Nowadays I vote with my feet in protest at the spiraling increase in a)cost b)gadgetry c)use of computer graphics to replace just about everything. Frankly, I don't care anymore if Bond misses, gets shot, eaten by sharks and mashed up into small pieces by a portable ice crusher...rant rant grumpy old bastard rant grump rant.
S.B., the only decent movies contain epic cavalry charges punctuated by the occasional bare breast. But then I'm an American and we're all cowboys.
Cheers.
P.S. I finally got your link up on my template with a post about you to follow in my copious free time.
RS
I like train scenes in movies because there are so many options. You can sneak into someone's sleeper cabin, eat soup with the bad guy, run along the top or even jump off. James Bond is really a train man, but they've made him a slave to hi-tech gadgets.
Wet wet wet? Falls down laughing. Then remembers Marilian, stops laughing, thinks about WWW again and laughs some more.
That's exactly why I hated King Kong. Actually got up, left the theater for a bit, played an arcade game, came back.
I didn't miss a darn thing, since the entire movie is made up of stitched together action cliches.
Here's a cliche I hate:everyone is freakin' beautiful, but they just need to have a homely/gay friend help them let their hair down, get some new clothes and possibly put on makeup.
What are you saying SafeT?
Safe T - and the role is always played by that Aussie actress who was in Muriel's Wedding...Toni Collette
And in the car chase, how come they can drive into, over, under obstructions, smashing the car as they go and the car just keeps going - most cars seize up if you hit a plastic gate.
I like to tease my husband and his predilectiion for Bond movies by saying I won't watch them as they exploit women.
I believe Shakespeare wrote the original screenplay for Lethal Weapon 4 and they turned it down - the philistines!
Please feel free to delete this comment as it's off-topic, SB, but it's in reply to your comment on my blog. I didn't try any of those things - deleting cookies, history etc - and got busted. The repercussions aren't too serious, it seems, but I've kept a low profile nonetheless.
Ah, Footsie, sorry to hear that, hope life gets back to normal soon.
Hi SB. I've changed the link to your site on my blog and on Blunt Cogs to SheBah. I noticed that you don't actually have a link here to Blunt Cogs. Is this an oversight or something you're faintly embarrassed to be associated with?
Kim - I tried to link blunt cogs with the info you gave on the site to get a picture - it is showing on my template, but doesn't show on the site, so I am doing something wrong! I will link it just with the web address. I love Blunt Cogs, it's my first click of the day to see what new, absurd, delicious ideas you've come up with!
Ok, I think I see what the problem is.
Get rid of the [!-- just above it and the --] below it, and remove the bit that says "This is a paragraph of text that could go in the sidebar." then it should work (I've had to put square brackets above as blogger comments won't allow me to put in angular ones, so I hope you know what I mean)
Hey Sexy SheBah Beauty.... you have been reborn on blunt cogs! Hope you like it!!
Binty - I love it - and your blunt cogs contributions are always excellent!
......eeeeeeeeeeeeee..............
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