Most cringeworthy Movie Cliche.

[JSmith]

The montage...

JSmith

 

[Blumlein 88]

Movie trailers which begin with "In a world where..."

Connection: Hollywood Storytelling meets Critical Thinking - Kindle edition by Olson, Randy, Barton, Dorie, Palermo, Brian. Reference Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Connection: Hollywood Storytelling meets Critical Thinking - Kindle edition by Olson, Randy, Barton, Dorie, Palermo, Brian. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Connection: Hollywood...

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This book is pretty good about getting messages across effectively. They have a whole section on how Hollywood does trailers and it is all about "In a world where......" happens. There is a reason that is such a common way trailers are done.

 

[suttondesign]

Pausing speech for dramatic effect, esp. by genius bad guys, then raising an eyebrow while doing a slight turn of the shoulders.

 

[amirm]

How about this: five guys attack the hero yet they seemingly take turns fighting! Or the other extreme in stupid Matrix film where 1000 "Smiths" attack all at once.....

 

[Mnyb]

The villain always have a beautiful wife or daughter who is going to betray him with the hero

 

[Blumlein 88]

Tarantino definitely does it on purpose, there are tropes he likes and tropes he doesn't like, and he isn't very subtle about it!

Brings to mind Kill Bill vol 2 (both parts of which I hate even though I generally like Tarantino). The sword maker, Hattori Hanzo says:

I'm done doing what I swore an oath to God 28 years ago to never do again. I've created, "something that kills people." And in that purpose I was a success. I've done this, because philosophically I'm sympathetic to your aim. I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Recent Star Trek shows. They have these drawn out sequences to go into warp drive or to plot a course and go to warp. Show some fancy displays in a heads up version that floats in the air. Describe a few parts of what is happening. Heck the whole thing takes like 30-60 seconds just to go to warp. In the 1960s Trek, Kirk says, " lay in a course" and the ensign hits a couple buttons and vroom they were gone. How is this more advanced? A Klingon or Romulan warship would have blasted them while they were going thru this showy effort to make warp speed.

Maybe the captain can say, "Alexa, give me warp speed 6 to the Ryton system", and it just happens.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I guess it was part of being cool, but from the very first James Bond movie, it struck me as odd, that he is a highly trained, specialized secret agent, and on every mission he just tells everyone his real name. Bond, James Bond.

If you have never seen it, Casino Royale, from 1967 not the other one, is a treasure trove of secret agent movie tropes. One of the best comedies ever according to my opinion. One of those is they decide to rename all 00 agents James Bond to confuse the other guys.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Squealing tire sounds on dirt or gravel roads.

 

[boXem]

Parks the car in front of the destination in any city.

 

[Blumlein 88]

In the old Western movies, six shooters that hold more bullets than a Glock 17 without reloading. And in those days, gun slingers in the know would leave the hammer on an empty chamber for safety. So they were really 5 shooters.

While I'm at it, when people get shot in movies and it sends them flying thru the air or knocks them right off their feet.

 

[antcollinet]

The annoying movie sounds computers make in movies!

Why do computers in movies still make super annoying sounds?

You know what I'm talking about: the bleeps, the bloops, the whirrs, the buzzes.

mashable.com

Oh, yes - I'd forgotten that one.

 

[antcollinet]

Back on topic...
I can't stand it when when someone gets punched in the face five time, jumps out of second story window and falls on ground, gets right up, then gets hit by a car, slides off the roof, gets up again and runs after and catches the bad guy like nothing has happened.

Similarly anyone who can do the same after taking a bullet (in anything other than a graze.)

 

[Mart68]

firefight in which hero's pal gets shot, hero runs out to him, go through the whole extended 'Tell my wife I love her' routine whilst kneeling beside him making no effort to take cover, does not get hit despite the fact the buddy got hit the second he broke cover.

Taking cover in general - anyone who has been shot at knows you are chewing the dirt not casually kneeling behind a low wall with most of your body totally exposed whilst you discuss the situation at length with your comrades.

Armageddon timers that stop at 001 (exceptions - 'Goldfinger' where the timer stops at '007' and 'Galaxy Quest' where it carries on to 001 even though they have disarmed it because that's what it always did on the show).

Why are so many heroes retired FBI or CIA agents? Think of something else for once!

 

[DJBonoBobo]

Drinking alcohol to indicate depression (men: bourbon - whatever this is, some kind of whisky? -, women: red wine).

 

[jsilvela]

This has subsided, but in the 80's / 90's, the perfunctory sex scene. Basically always the same: blue neon light in the background, slow music, rivulets of sweat …
In recent times I hate the tacked-on showdown / final-chase scene in movies that didn't need it. Pixar is terrible here, e.g. the endings of Up, Coco, Wall-E.

And, in most action movies, uninspired action scenes. All boom / special effects. Very few movies go for skill or rhythm or genuine menace.

 

[restorer-john]

firefight in which hero's pal gets shot, hero runs out to him, go through the whole extended 'Tell my wife I love her' routine whilst kneeling beside him making no effort to take cover, does not get hit despite the fact the buddy got hit the second he broke cover.

Absolutely formulaic, but, nevertheless, we've come to expect it.

 

[restorer-john]

If you want all the classic cringeworthy tropes in one movie- it's either Team America World Police or Tropic Thunder.

 

[Mart68]

This has subsided, but in the 80's / 90's, the perfunctory sex scene. Basically always the same: blue neon light in the background, slow music, rivulets of sweat …

Yes, I always hit 'Fast Forward'. As you say it has subsided but has been replaced by the 'initmate dialogue' scence which I suppose is to try and develop a bit of depth to the hero's life and character, but just slows the pace to a standstill. Again, fast forward, you don't need to watch the scene to know what's being said and it's always irrelevant to the plot.

I follow the Don Siegal / Sergio Leone school which is to develop the character mostly with visuals.

I suppose you get to a certain age and you've seen it all done before, usually better. Maybe why the superhero stuff is popular with young adults? It's all still new to them.

 

[Mart68]

Looking at things through binoculars - enemy sighted on the horizon, hero gets his binoculars out to take a look, we see the view through the bins, it's exactly the same as it was with the naked eye.

You don't see that so much with modern films but common up until the 90s at least.