If I had a nickel for every time a baddie was hiding in the backseat, I could escape my backseat killer by smacking him in the head with a heavy bag of nickels.
For some reason in a good amount of movies, whenever an African-American character tells another character to 'kiss my ass', they feel the need to mention that their ass is black for some reason, but maybe I am not getting it?
Those are... a bit weird. I feel like “I got to take this” is just a normal, random phrase people just use. There’s no actual immediacy, it’s just... a thing we say and not at all what a cliche constitutes.
If I had a nickel for every time a baddie was hiding in the backseat, I could escape my backseat killer by smacking him in the head with a heavy bag of nickels.
I have a bag I always bring to work, that I always throw in the back seat after my shift is done. So the first thing I do when I walk back to my car is open one of the back doors.
I always wondered what the villain's plan would be if that happened.
Is it possible for anyone to die in a series or film where there's not a pool of blood seeping out around the body?
It's now such a hackneyed cliche that I'm surprised directors still use it. I swear, if a guy dies of a heart attack they'll still show him laying in a pool of blood...
In the Joan Crawford movie Strait Jacket, Crawford plays an axe murderess and there’s not a speck of blood on display during the entire movie
Corax touched on two of the main reasons, I guess. Two grown men grappling naked in a Victorian living room with their balls a-swinging. If you can't see the humor in that, I can't help you. Juxtapose that scene with the Borat nude wrestling scene
Doesn't mean there couldn't be other subtexts as well at the same time.
I literally had to turn away from the screen during this scene the first time I saw the movie
Our hero needs to project BDE so that we, vicariously feel "bigger" ourselves. Negotiations carry the implication of compromise and compromise makes us feel "smaller" (the antithesis of BDE). When our hero faces a negotiation where the other party holds the high cards, or at least appears to, compromise or capitulation seems inevitable (i.e., prudence wins). And this is why it feels so good when our protagonist doesn't back down, when they go "all in" at the poker table, when they escalate. It feels good, because this isn't something sane people do in real life (even though we want to).
EXAMPLES
True Romance
Clarence "negotiates" with Drexel by handing him an empty envelope.
Clifford negotiates with Vincenzo in a dialogue about "pantomimes" which drifts into a "history lesson" about lower Italy. In effect, the message in both cases is, "I'm not giving you a damned thing."
The Godfather II
It is interesting to note that overt racism is card played in all of these examples. Drexel dismisses Clarence as a "white boy." Clifford disparages Italian "blood" by asserting that it is tainted by their Moorish conquerors. In Godfather 2, the senator expresses contempt against Italians as not being "real Americans." The invocation of race in these instances is an escalation, a demand put honor, you will either fold or push all your chips in. Clifford baits Vincenzo to go all in
WARNING: "Uh, like spoilers or something..." spoilers below
baiting Vincenzo into killing him before he can be tortured into betraying his son.
baiting Vincenzo into killing him before he can be tortured into betraying his son.
Thus we have a curious example of "noble" race-baiting. In the example of Godfather 2, our hero is the Italian, so the function of the scene is one of honor. The Senator's bluff is called, his casual racism is rebuffed.
During these decades race was a sort of "force-field" issue, speaking to the cultural coding of the age. I suspect that we should keep an eye out for the terms the substitute in from decade to decade to see how our ultimate terms shift. A few hundred years ago, for example, I suspect that the ultimate insult our hero would have to suffer would be an insult to his religion. Unforgiven offers us the example of the Patriotic absolute when English Bob mocks the majesty/sovereignty of a mere president (he offers the insult to assert his dominance--Little Bill comments about this as he asserts his own dominance when they square off in Big Whiskey -- "Still talkin' about the Queen on the 4th of July!?!?!").
I'm finding it amusing that a video from a major porn site was shared in this thread last year and is still in the thread. Not that it bothers me though.
I'm finding it amusing that a video from a major porn site was shared in this thread last year and is still in the thread. Not that it bothers me though.
It's technically not actual porn (it's the naked fight in Borat), but the watermark for the video of aznude.com is an actual porn site, meaning the video was taken directly from the site.
Instead of having the actors do what they were hired for, modern films often opt for the cheap pulling-at-the-heartstrings music video sequences, usually accompanied by a poignant Lana Del Rey style ballad (or a ballad conversion of a classic pop tune, as it happens in almost every modern trailer).
Jump-scare ghosts screaming, mouth wide open It ALWAYS looks exactly the same. In a funny way they kind of upstage the screaming that the victim is supposed to do
My third current cliche is the superhero battles with electric powers shot from their hands. So lame and boring to watch.
Instead of having the actors do what they were hired for, modern films often opt for the cheap pulling-at-the-heartstrings music video sequences,
I have noticed that this music is cheaply coded. If you're supposed to be sad, it is almost always piano instrumentation with gentle tinkling of the keys/notes. It's always cheap. It's always saccharine. It always sounds the same.
I think your idea here is worthy of it's own thread. When does the non-diegetic (e.g., music narration) move from valuable supplement / collaborative element, to lazy crutch? When does it become a cheat? Jaws without John Williams is less a horror film and more of a fantastical fishing expedition. On the other hand, Ladyhawke is violated by endless intrusive sh***y 80's synths. Hard to say where to draw the line, but you're right.
Jump-scare ghosts screaming, mouth wide open It ALWAYS looks exactly the same. In a funny way they kind of upstage the screaming that the victim is supposed to do
This seem to start with age of CGI. I recall this gag at the end of The Mummy (Brendan Frasier comedically screaming back at the ghost warriors).
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