Movie Cliches That Drive Me Nuts
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 ส.ค. 2022
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In rom-coms, when the guy has a female friend he always listened to, carried her books in high school, slept with, helped her in her worst moments, slept with, call themselves at 3 am, watched TV together, slept with, but he has a secret: he’s in love with her, and she has no idea.
People being able to open their eyes underwater and seemingly be able to see clearly drives me nuts. Especially saltwater. How are the actors eyes not on fire?
Even worse than that is when they surface and NEVER RUB THEIR EYES! They can just SEE without wiping out the fluid that was all over it! I have never gotten out of water (salt, fresh, chlorinated) without having to wipe my feckin' eyes clear so why don't they?!
Agreed. Always thought about this in flood/disaster situations in films as well, when the water would clearly be full of debris, particles, bacteria, sewage, etc. Yet people are swimming around underwater seeing everything clearly.
*stupid nervous voice* "Uh guys... You're gunna want to see this..."
When the villain tells the hero some variation of "we are not so different, you and I." Most hackneyed line in film history
Great point. A good movie will show the audience that the hero and villain are not so different instead of saying it. Never tell what you can show.
Yess! I hate the miscommunication trope.
Everything gets taken out of context and as the character tries explaining the situation the other character just goes “ No Stop I’ve heard all I need to hear I’m leaving” like please just keep explaining it y’all will be okay and save us another 45 minutes where y’all make amends anyway
YES! It makes a stupid conflict out of nothing when there really doesn't need to be one
Wasn't this EVERY episode of Three’s Company?
When characters are in a vehicle, cruising along, and the driver takes his/her eyes off the road for a ridiculous amount of time. Half the time they end up crashing or hitting something, which is no wonder.
When the wife dies at the beginning of the movie and they show a montage of how amazing she was, always a clip of them being playful under white covers in bed
• Cat jump scares (including, of course, those involving cats who have apparently been shut inside closed cupboards, cabinets, or closets, for... reasons)
• Previously operational vehicles suddenly refuse to start as soon as the killer/threat is closing in
• The villain misses a clear opportunity to take out the protagonist(s) due to his/her own need to pause for a bloviating, self-congratulatory monologue; this is often followed by the bonus cliché in which said villain, once through grandstanding, finally raises his/her weapon to take the shot, and initially appears to have done so, only for it to be revealed that he/she has instead been dispatched by the perfectly synchronised gunshot of a hitherto unseen offscreen character who has conveniently turned up to save our hero(es) in the nick of time
Yep
Villains who won't shut up are the perfect way to make me hate your movie. If they're really trying to be a threat then they should be threatening instead of just talking about how threatening they are
Josh Matthews, of the Learning About Movies channel, did a video essay on the third one ("The Talking Killer")
Funny you mention cats given your user pic...
@@rabenmacht3396 Now, that's what I call 'black humour'.
Characters drinking whiskey like its juice when they're stressed or in a crisis. And it doesn't have any effect on them.
The beer one is an easy fix. Just have the character say a specific type of beer rather than a brand. For instance:
"Lager on tap."
"Darkest stout ya got."
"Can I have like a quadruple IPA?"
"Your cheapest light beer, please."
"Got any brewskis with an overly complicated name?"
Or even better yet...
"Give me a beer. I don't give a shit what it is.'
"Gimmie the nasty beer in a dirty mug."
Not a cliche, but drivers in a busy city pulling into an empty parking spot right in front of their destination.
😂😂good one
When the villain has the main character at gunpoint and is about to kill them but decides to give a 10 min speech and at the end of the speech they get ready to actually kill the main character but suddenly dies by getting shot by the main character’s sidekick
If no one has mentioned this already.
Character switches on TV and the news or a pivotal revelation just HAPPENS to be starting, not halfway through, news just happens to start when they flick the channel on.
A doctor performs CPR on a patient. It becomes clear to the audience and the rest of the characters that the patient is no longer in the land of the living. The doctor keeps banging on his/her chest screaming something like: "Come on, don't die on me". A colleague puts a hand on his shoulder(it is normally a man)and says something like: "Elliot...it's over...she's gone...you did all you could." It's probably a TV rather than a cinema trope but it's so cringe...Although, I'd like that doctor to go to bat for me in real life.
That one is the worst old hat trope ever
A scene in the movie "The Wave" captures this cliche perfectly. And another in "The Abyss". These scenes didn't involve a doctor, but cliche nonetheless.
@@toddhill7483 the Abyss is the only movie where I like it, the acting was amazing
even worse is when said patient miraculously starts breathing again
From a horror movie perspective, it always annoyed me when after a vampire feasts on his victim, he/she always looks to the camera with blood dripping from their mouth. If blood is such a valuable and hard to get "food", why waste it like that?
I hate when you see high school movies were
everyone is 30 years old and no one has acne.
Someone is dating, and there's a montage with quick cuts of the character meeting over-the-top loser after loser. The technique might also be used when someone is conducting interviews for a job or a service. We get the montage of nutjobs applying for the position.
Also, the dressing room montage. “Look at me wearing all these goofy and inappropriate clothes!” Never funny.
I guess you didn't answer my cliche of the bad guy coming back to life for a bigger death.
Instead of getting away after being shot or dropped from a helicopter, the villain drags himself to the heroe’s home to start a knife fight.
Or the cliché of people dying too easily. A hair dryer in the tub probably isn’t going to kill you. In real life, people get struck by lightning, pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and proceed on their way.
Car won't start for numerous times, and finally when the bad guys would catch the good guy driver, the engine is suddenly working again.
I agree with the needle drop trope but when Scorsese has done it, it's genius. He kind of invented it. Regarding eating and drinking in films, I also hate when they order something and then have to leave it due to some dramatic thing happening elsewhere. Unless someone is dying, I'm finishing my meal that I just paid good money for.
I HATE that most of the conflicts in 90% of the American romcoms is the woman saying "YOU LIED TO ME!!".
I am also sick of that scene where two men (the protagonist and sometimes the antagonist or just a secondary character) are arguing and a female character that is watching them says "Can you stop measuring your penises??" Or a metaphore like that.
Or that scene where a character is saying a quote of the Bible or just a Shakespeare play... and another character that has just met finishes that quote. Really? THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. That's how the writer tells us those characters read a lot. Really? That's the opposite of that. If you read many books, you don't have time to memorize long fragments of one book.
The hero always manages to defuse the bomb exactly one second bevor detonation. Every single time. I mean, it would still be suspenseful if the timer shows 0:02
The rocks that fall blocking the way characters just came from, forcing them to move on, or separating characters from each other.
Here's one that bothers me, when there's a character involved in a life-threatening situation and that person says, "I didn't sign up for this!" Ugh! It's grating to my ears!
Computers that make a loud noise when a key is pressed. Drives me nuts (as it would the character if they really had this feature turned on)!
- Characters who can hear perfectly well after a shootout instead of having terrible earache for a couple of days
- Sex scenes that are sensual and erotic and elegant instead of being full of weird smells, sharp pains, and the occasional queef
- Secretaries telling the protagoinist that 'Sir, you can't go in there!' a moment before the protagonist barges into a boardroom or office to give the smug/corrupt executive a piece of their mind
- High schoolers portrayed by actors who are clearly well into their twenties
😂😂
Shootouts and car chases that destroy entire city streets, that somehow don't end with the protagonist's face plastered over the front page of every newspaper.
For the last point, there have also been actors in their 30s who were asked to portray teenagers.
I think in X Files episode Rush 29 year old actor Scott Cooper, playing high schooler, calls Gillian Anderson character, 31 at the time, an old hag or something like that. Though X-Files was pretty self aware so it was most likely a joke. @@grahamdamberger7130
Eating Chinese food out of carton with chopsticks! Even though they have well stocked cabinet with plates and cutlery
I can't even stand the word "stir fry", made up by Anglo-Americans to socially segregate Asian food.
Other European languages simply call them "sauté" because they aren't any different at all from European oil and heat tossing as a cooking technique.
Especially since the rice and the toppings are usually in separate cartons. You'd have to use plates, or at least unfold the cartons into their own ersatz plates.
Movies do that intentionally because that way they don't have to show partially eaten food or worry about consistency issues when reshooting scenes.
Creedence, Hendrix or Buffalo Springfield because there is a helicopter, and its alwasy the same shot, usually with the sun in the background
Yeah, that's pretty Gumpy
The mirror thing I have cringed at since before I knew the word, the shower thing however... I have done it several times, mostly while on acid LOL
I get annoyed when movies never show their characters eating or drinking at all. I'm not saying every movie has to be Ratatouille in terms of reverence for food, but even just incidental eating sets a believability standard for me. I think that's something the MCU does quite well, actually. Like, I have to believe these muscly people eat at some point, oh and there they are eating, and it's not a big deal, and we move on.
Christopher Nolan found dead in a ditch
I love Big Kahuna Burger scene from Pulp Fiction, almost every Tarantino movie scene has good food scenes. Also Pine Barrens episode from The Sopranos had amazing writing for the importance of breakfast.
Jack Bauer saved the world a half dozen times over, and never so much as ate a protein bar for 24-hour stretches.
Disagree. Do we need to see characters taking a dump too? Most viewers just assume these regularities are happening off camera.
@@manuag3886 We see characters taking a dump in every single Kubrick movie!
I’ve seen this cliche’ done so many times and I can’t stand it. It usually happens in a sci-fi/fantasy story where someone causes the entire narrative to rewind to back to the very beginning and everyone has lost their memories of the prior events. It’s a “everything is circular” idea that I’ve seen done to death! Plus, it feels cheap to me as an audience member in that everything I just saw didn’t matter and that the characters didn’t actually experience or recall the events that transpired.
Not really a cliche per se, but I hate the way characters in films *always* (a) swallow pills dry, without water or anything else to wash them down; and (b) end phone calls by just hanging up instead of saying "goodbye" or "Talk to you later" or anything else that people normally say to acknowledge the end of a phone call before they hang up the phone.
Thank you for providing us with great content. I enjoy all your videos because im the biggest movie buff and your questionnaires rock. Keep up the great content.
What is cliche about High school movie prom dances is moreso when they are still playing 80s songs. Even nowadays.
It's because the 80s had the best music of all time.
@@rong2912 the 80s is my least favorite music era lol
@@sprawlz6466 Bro I can't even understand you haha. Best of everything. Best of punk, best of hip hop, best of new wave. Forget all the cheesy pop hits.
@@rong2912 I don't really like punk lol, and idk hip hop hit its peak in the late 90s early 2000s for me. But 80s hip hop is probably the only 80s music I like. I'm more a fan of the experimental bands in the 60s and 70s
@@sprawlz6466 A lot of good bands from the late 70's
Person A: " I love you"
Person B: literally anything other than I love you
As far as staring into the mirror that brought Michael Rooker in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer to mind. I think it was even used as the poster for the movie. I thought it was _very_ effective and didn't bring me out of the experience at all.
Also:
"Avoid cliches like the plague." - William Safire: Fumblerules
unpopular opinion: cliche isn't inherently bad or a sign of lazy writing etc. It's all about how they're executed. It's impossible to write a story with 0 cliche. There's a line from Umberto Eco's review of Casablanca: a single cliche makes us laugh, a hundred (in tandem) makes us weep. Chances are, the most moving films/scenes you know of not only use some number of cliches but the cliche is instrumental to its effect - like everything, it's all about HOW it's used
Also the person who said scintillating conversation between strangers b/c in reality everything is awkward: sounds like you never experienced chemistry with someone. 'Washing yourself clean of your sins' - water is a powerful symbol, the idea of purification is central to Christian ritual and therefore part of your cultural consciousness if you're a Westerner and for sure some analog exists in your own culture if you're not. A lot of these things are resonant simply b/c they are truthful.
I think of it in terms of information density. A set piece cliché (like the prom at the end of the high school movie) banks on the viewers’ familiarity with certain narrative conventions in order to avoid overloading them with narrative or expository information. You have clichés that manage to cover their own tracks (experimental and arty cinema can be shockingly conventional when you scratch the surface) and referential, in-on-their-own-joke clichés (which, in the late '90s, became a cliché in their own right,) and then you have the simple pleasures of a familiar cliché done right. Not all cinema is meant to challenge, some of it is meant to be comfort food, and I have great respect for a movie that executes its own clichés with style and grace, while never sliding off into pandering.
Don't forget that iconic food-eating scene from "Return of the King".
This isn't a cliche as such, but it annoys me that whenever anyone in a film or on TV is talking on the telephone, they never say goodbye at the end of the conversation, they just hang up. If someone did that to me in real life I would think they were either very rude or really pissed off.
“It was all a dream,” lol. I don’t mind this one, I just hate when the dream sequence is TOO long
Oh my goodness, you read my comment!? I am truly honoured! 😅
How about the teenage girl that stomps her feet towards her room, and slams the door shut. Usually due to some benign disagreement by parents such as not being allowed to wear a certain outfit, only to have a resolution at the end and have a conversation with parents that they were right all along. This is morso an issue with teens having no development in movies/shows and being written off as one dimensional.
My cliche that drives me nuts is the romance that takes off and is the perfect "honeymoon " phase then some sort of turmoil separates the two and there is usually some contemplative sad music montages happens then one of the people goes and apologizes or declares how much they love that person..... then happy ending.
What about the scene where the woman is deadpan and un-responding during sex to show us she's unfulfilled and will thus find a new partner before the credits roll?
but we love amelie for that reason...
@@user-lr8pk7un1x That one is a bit different, as she finds it funny.
Interesting channel !!!
When some girl gets pregnant:
“How did that happen?”
Tarantino got the eating thing from Sergio Leone
Awesome hun
Cliches are a way to say what you mean and mean what you say......Jimmy Buffet
How much has Hollywood corrupted people's expectations for a relationship in the real world? How many people have would up single and alone waiting for that special someone only found in films?
Great channel. Have you ever done a review on the movie “The Skulls” ?
SNL did a skit with Pete Davidson and Kristen Stewart were they meet at a coffee shop and start talking. Pete's character asks her if she wants to go out for dinner and she says yes. He says I'll pick you up at your place at 7:00 PM but when she leaves he realizes he only knows her first name, Claire, and he doesn't know her phone number or where she lives. So the whole skit is making fun of when people meet in movies and never exchange any information other than their first names.
Aubrey Plaza
young Bebe Nuewirth
*Anna Kendrick* is *a failed Aubrey Plaza* : she has all of the spunk, yet *none of the charm!*
That occurred to me before, too
I didn't think the filmmaker pays for product placement , they pay you, sort of the whole idea.
When people don't explain themselves in movies to the frustration of the other characters just to drive up the tension.
The prophesy on the cave wall.
Miscommunication: every episode of 3’s Company.
I have to agree when a cliche “hits the beat” just right it can still always be really good. Its funny the eating thing came up, not a cliche but a quirk of mine is smoking in movies. I probably only notice because i smoke but with there being almost no smoking in movies nowdays most of the time when there is the actor is being really awkward with the cig and sometimes taking weird little fake puffs. It takes me out of the moment, its like i can se on the script “line… *puffs cig* impactful line…” . Smoking is so uncommon in movies now it can just be so obvious that a character was intentionally written to smoke to add to whatever edgy trait is trying to be conveyed instead of just seeming natural to that character.
Deepfocus: I've always felt that the team of Wes Anderson & Mark Mothersbaugh were masters of the "needle drop" method, especially in Wes' earlier movies. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, if possible. In the case of Wes Anderson, he actually made the needle drop more than just a trope or cliched-distraction, it was a building block of his movies, oftentimes adding serious weight to some of the scenes. Would you agree with this? Or am I overstating the significance of it all?....
When two people are having an affair and are caught kissing by the jilted party, but that person is watching from an unseen vantage point. Its like the most soap opera cliche out there.
Or in a sports film where our team is getting whooped in the big championship game and at half time the coach gives the PERFECT pump you up speech about what it means to be a man, about winning and life etc etc.
Cheap jump scare as a misdirect before the real scare
When characters your age are expected to be liked just because they are your peers LOL Like no that is YOUR perception of your audience but I like RANGE in characters no matter the age lol
No one believes the protagonists ramblings/ warnings, usually because whatever is happening has started to affect said protagonists mental health
Edit they also either have a crazy person's messy notice board/ spidergram on the wall or page after page of scribblings of evidence
I hate the spy that turns double spy. Like Avatar when the main character falls in love with the culture of the planet and grows attachment to the village. Then the 3rd act happens where the villagers find out the secret about the spy which then he goes "wait, I can explain!"
Also some movies feature a handgun with infinite size of bullets holder that one can fire twenty five times without reloading.
@@wu-khyon4248 "bullets holder" : "magazine" for smarties, "cartridge" for dummies.
"there's no time to explain"
Really? None at all?
Shit man, I wrote a script with that after shower scene, this is so painful, the guy even starts singing to himself, I feel so corny 🌽
Carrie had the best prom scene ever.
Does drive make you nuts?
A prom cliche done really well is the ending of the pilot episode of Freaks and Geeks
I think I saw every one of these cliches in Arcane, even though fans always rave about how that show doesn't use cliches.
How come nobody is annoyed by THE COVER THE LOVED ONE WITH BLANKET SCENE? It's so trite... It's like the director is going: "how can I tell that the protagonists care about each other? Oh, I will make one be asleep on the couch so the other covers them with a blanket, brilliant! I am so original". I hate that so much.
When midnight madness starts to get to you doesn't matter what you say doesn't matter what you do.
I think the person at 4:00 doesn't realize that we are talking about cliche's that only appear in movie-verse. Also ones that are over-used. The only things these cliches "communicate" to the audience is that they are watching a movie by a hack, or at least by an uncreative director.
Before I even watch, I'll say A Breakdown in Communication.
I hate it. I freakin' hate it so much!!!
Every time in an action movie when a character says, "There's no time to explain" when there is. It's like, can you not walk and talk at the same time?? Meat head.
Every romance movie where the main characters fight, break up, and it leads to that sappy, mopey montage of them walking past places they used to go, and stuffing their face with ice cream, and staring wistfully at the phone. I hate them both! They deserve to be miserable if they can fail so badly at just Talking and Listening to each other.
And every comedic It's Not What it Looks Like when it's either EXACTLY what it looks like, or could be cleared up in 2 seconds if the MC wasn't such a neanderthal.
All of these were probably fine the first 20 times they were done, but I am a grown ass woman now and if I see it one more time One of us is gonna be put on Ativan.
Someone should watch Love Affair (1939) or The Lady Eve (1941) if they want their “meet cute” pet peeve shattered.
"The people were the monsters all along"
miscommunication ... three's company syndrome
When the president says: “may God have mercy on us all.”
I got a ticket for the long way ride, when I'm gone WHEN IM GONE you're going to miss me when I'm gone, you're going to miss insight thoughts you're going to miss my little jokess- deepfocuslens you're going to miss me when I'm gone 😢
Dude, you're the greatest comment section critic of all time, don't leave us!!!
@@jessebarajas7972 you really think so barajas? 🥺
People eating Chinese food with chopsticks. Never in my life have I eaten Chinese food with chopsticks. And I don't know anyone who does.
When their is a really emotional scene in a film or TV show and then a sad pop song starts playing, takes me out of the moment. Find that to be lazy than just using a melancholic piece of music that goes well with the overall soundtrack.
Best example of a music cliche done well is Britney Spears in Spring Breakers.
Not a cliché but a pet hate that drives me nuts. Why is red wine in film & tv always light red when it’s actually closer to black ?
Cliches make for great satire.
But poor writing that tries to pass itself off as "satire", just to save face, is also a cliché.
When people are having sex and someone walks in on them. Do people not know how to lock a door? Or maybe have sex when no one else is around?
Even worse when the two people doing it are teenagers (could be two boys, a boy and a girl, or two girls), and a parent of one of them walks in. Normally, teenagers really shouldn't do that, as they are both still minors, unless they are both 18 or 19.
Movies where the kids are smarter than the adults. When was the last time you went to a kid to ask their advice on anything?
When the fkn car won't start in a horror film. Ugh, so annoying!
The gross dinner scene that implies a character or group of characters are disgusting and evil.
The killing of an animal to foreshadow darker things to come, and because animals dying causes a greater emotional impact than killing a man does :D.
I mean, those both work well when they're carefully thought out.
Criminals planning their heist in a diner or restaurant. Wouldn't you want, uh, someplace more private?
🙏🙏🙏
Watch Midnight Madness
I hate it when movies use kids or cute animals as a way to manipulate emotions out of audiences.
I think it's pretty cheap to have your hero and villain screw the same woman (Cowboy Bebop could have left it out). And it's so cheesy when that information is spewed onto the screen for ham-fisted effect at the most "importune" moment (although, in Death To Smoochy it's humiliatingly hilarious). Or there's rape involved with or without an illegitimate child. That's literally soap opera melodrama (My friend was dismayed when I judged The Boys for this vacuous offense). And regarding the music choices: are we actually expecting senseless mediocrity to have the creative vision of a polymath? Strange expectations, to say the least. Another cliché that's even more stale, is when all the superheroes combine powers at the end of the movie to defeat the enemy. Like, come on. I've seen Power Rangers and Dragonball Z before. Please, try harder than that. And then the hero sacrifices himself for the final f*****g tear jerker. Like, f**k superman. And gtfo of here, robert downey jr. You were annoying af and now you're dead. Who gives a s**t. Way to make a buncha stupid children and man children cry, marvel. But the worst one, for me, has got to be the "it was only a dream" (sorry Wizard Of Oz). Which also extends to "it happened in another dimension," or "there was a wormhole," (sorry Donny Darko) or any "time loop" "time travel" BS. It's all renders the story utterly meaningless (face it, the story in T2 makes no sense, it's just fun). A twist can only do two things for a story. It can enlarge it for great surprising dramatic effect. Or it can cause the story to fold onto itself in the cheapest most degrading way possible. If you're not a voracious reader, and you want to write stories, I suggest doing what Hitchcock did and simply "avoid the cliché." That's how we got wooden Cary Grant in North By Northwest nearly murdered in an open field by an airplane pilot in the middle of the day, instead of in a dark alley in the middle of the night.
1. Superhero landings. So illogical, so cringe.
2. The animated beast that compulsively has to go through every roar and motion of its real counterpart when it's introduced, whether or not it's motivated in the scene, just so the animator can show their boss that they indeed know how that beast sounds and moves. And the part where the beast is clearly faster than the protagonist and acting like it's hunting them down, but then switches to slow motion when it catches up with the hero... ...and starts to roar again, FML.
As a European, all I ever order is "a beer", meaning "whatever tap lager is your default". Would this not work in the US?
It would be like going to a restaurant and saying "give me a food". The waiter would probably stare at you like an alien.
@@LobsterPuncher Yeah, or going into Starbucks and asking for 'a cup of coffee'. Not only gauche, but actually illegal in several states.
@@LobsterPuncher "Take us to your prez-ee-dent...uh... KLEEN-TOHN."
- Kang and Kodos in "The Simpsons".
I think “Gimme a beer” could be effective if communicates that the character is a regular at the bar, whose drink of choice is already known to the bartender. I also think that we’re dealing with older movies, dating from a time before every abandoned American textile mill was crammed full of craft breweries.
Restaurant and food scenes in movies and tv shows are a problem - I would rather see them not eat than nibble on their food like little birds, it's like who eats like that. I once saw a movie and it seemed more important for the actors and the director, to act as they were in an acting workshop than to actually show people having dinner - just ridiculous.
The Wilhelm scream
Maggie please do twin peaks now that we’re talking about cliches !!!
I hate third act breakup
Biggest cliches in movies these days are the black guy that's smarter than all the white guys or the 100 lb woman that can beat up ten men at a time. Big surprise she didn't touch on those.
Also the makeover of the ugly duckling... Or the "try on different clothes montage" with upbeat music in the background, in most teenage movies or rom coms.. It has become so boring.