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Sunday, 20 January 2008
Not in My Movie
Filmic clichés – how I loathe them.
So, in that spirit, here is Journalism Cliché Number One – The Easy to Digest Soundbite List for Morons.
Yes, it's Ten Things I Hate About Movie Cliches – a decidedly uncomprehensive list of the lazy, irritating filmmaking semiotic tricks (we know it, so we're going to [mis]use it) you will never see in a movie of mine.
1. Throwing up in the toilet. Why, in the name of God, would anyone want to put their head in a toilet when they feel sick? Would you? Yes, it maybe has the dubious benefit of being easier to flush away, but are you really thinking that rationally when you're hungover/poisoned/dying? People shit and piss in toilets. They smell. Intelligent people do NOT stick their heads down toilets. End of conversation.
2. Blue lights during sex. Okay, where are they – the blue lights? I mean, every Hollywood film has them, so where do people get them? Hotel rooms, Midwestern bedrooms, barns, offices – doesn't matter where they are, as soon as those clothes come off the blue lights come on. Stop it already. Enough.
3. Washing down drugs with booze. I'm not talking cocaine here, I'm talking headache tablets or painkillers that the hero falls back on when he loses an arm or two. Can you begin to imagine how you'd feel with four paracetamol and a triple whisky gurgling around inside? Yeah, unconscious or puking – neither of which would spruce you up to go on fighting.
4. Even more drugs. We're talking quantity issues here. Heroes never ever take the 2 or 3 tablets as prescribed on the bottle. In fact, have you ever seen a hero actually read a label? They always knock the lid off (usually with their teeth or their one remaining foot) and empty maybe ten tablets into their hand, which they then proceed to swallow dry. Have you ever tried swallowing ten tablets dry? Come to that, have you ever taken ten Paracetamol and not had to have your stomach pumped? Some of them even do it repeatedly in one movie. Are they taking painkillers designed for very small rodents?
5. Somersaulting when you can jump. Okay, I know this is part of that whole fun thing you martial arts fans go for, but Christ, it's so overdone. Nowadays even fire-fighters leap backwards out of tall buildings to save the cat. It spoils pacing, and don't even start me on believability: "Oh, no, a man with a machine gun, I must run away, but not before I do a triple somersault off this balcony…"
6. Paper disguised as money. How many films? Come on, honestly, count 'em. Yeah, you can't, can you? How many otherwise really scary shaved & tattooed or sharp-suited & slimy gangsters have you seen conned by the old $700,000,000 in one-real-bill-on-a-pile-of-blank-paper trick? My cat knows when I'm pulling a fast one. (No, this really is expensive Sheba. It just happens to be in a jumbo-sized own brand tin.)
7. Fly-wire rigged jumping, fighting, leaping, kicking, bullet-dodging. Like lighting your own farts – fun the first time, but after that? Might be original if they used it for an inventive sex scene, or an underwater ballet, but otherwise, sick, sick sick of it. Give me fight scenes a la Brick any day.
8. Serial killers who keep pretty journals. Yes, we know they're nuts, and, yes, we know crazy people write bizarre things in their journals. Reality check – some of them are barely literate, actually, but you wouldn't know that on Planet Hollywood. No, there they keep notebooks worthy of Leonardo Da Vinci, with miniscule mirror-writing and detailed collage-work and superb graphic art. Hell, they ought to give up the mass killing and take up batik and macramé – give that creative urge an outlet.
9. People who take energy saving too far. Yes, you know what I'm talking about – the chronic misuse of light-bulbs. Nobody bloody switches them on. What is wrong with these people? They go into the dark, scary, dangerous house/basement/crypt where there is a serial killer/zombie/angry stalker, AND a light. But do they ever use it? No. It's not that I object to Dark is Scary, it's just that if you want to use dark at least give us a plausible reason for it so that we're not sitting there shouting, "Turn on the fucking light, you idiot."
10. Computer nerds who save the day. The only reason we get these fantasies in movies is because Hollywood is overrun by computer nerds making homages to other computer nerds. Computer nerds never save anything. No, trust me, they don't. Even the rare bright ones are incapable of having a conversation, never mind overriding NASA. The idea that any of them could have the wits to 'save' anybody belongs in the same league as them winning the girl by force of personality. Besides, most of them really fancy the square-jawed hero anyway.
Right, that's it. I could give you more, but I won't. Cliché of Journalism Number Two – people are too stupid to handle lists of more than 10 items.
Next blog, Wanky Hitchcock. Don't know what it's about yet, but I just love the title. (Thanks be to Jodie.)
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21:39 Posted in Blog , Books , Film , Leisure , Shopping , Web | Permalink | Email this
Comments
Well finished Danny Vol 2 last night-gone through the usual array of emotions whilst reading it, like with book 1-with the heart breaking journey of Danny throughout I can honestly say i never saw my own euphoria coming at the end but there it was-what a surprise!
I cannot believe me and Jodie even had the conversation on how we could raise awareness of the book-its fucking amazing and I cannot believe every household doesn't have a copy. I think they should abolish the bible in bedside drawers in hotels and exchange for a copy on Danny I and II.
I am going to write a review but I have never done one before (I have only read about 20 books in my life, yes my sister is disgusted, shes read about 20,000) so I don't know what it will be like. I will post it on here first, if thats ok? please feel free to take stuff out, then I'm not sure what I do, do I put it on Amazon or something? or leave it here?
Posted by: Jill | Friday, 01 February 2008
Jill, I cannot agree more (about the bibles), and if I could think of a way to get DANNY into everyone's hotel room I'd do it.
Feel free to post your reviews on here first (and then go public). But I won't edit them. Not because the work is so gruelling and I am so exhausted with creative strain, but because whatever you have to say will come from you, warts and all - and that's what I want.
Just comparing Jodie's revew on Amazon with Jen's on here, they are poles apart. Jen's is intellectual and penetrating. She sounds as if she's thought and thought about what she wants to say, mulling it over till she gets exactly Le mot juste.
Jodie's sounds as if she wrote while running, in a white-heat of excitement and enthusiasm to share.
What they do both have, however, is a unifying passion. No matter how disimilar they are they sound as if both of them really believe every word they say - Jodie from deep in her heart and Jen from deep in her soul.
You couldn't ask for more, and I'm sure that's exactly what you will produce.
Just tell us all what you feel. What you loved and loathed. How you felt it. Why you felt it. Why you hated/loved/adored/feared feeling it. Give people a little bit of yourself and everything else pales into insignificance.
Now knock yourself out.
Posted by: Chancery Stone | Sunday, 03 February 2008