Movie/TV clichés

[Hot Pepsi]

There’s no time to explain. Just get on the damn plane now.

[treibeis]

I had a movie / TV cliche to share with you all, but I see you're busy. I'll come back later.

I also had one, but three words into my announcing it, my phone rang, I answered it, my face dropped, I hung up, shouted, "The basement! It was the goddamned basement!" and then ran out of the room without telling anybody where I was going and why. Whereupon somebody at a desk, eating a pastrami sandwich and then drinking from a paper cup before finishing chewing, looked towards the door I'd just slammed, shrugged their shoulders and said, "Goers gonna go".

[Patrick Thistle]

I had a movie / TV cliche to share with you all, but I see you're busy. I'll come back later.

Nooooooo, that piece of information was crucial to avoiding a silly misunderstanding / identifying a red herring and the whole episode could have finished 20 minutes earlier

[pebblethefish]

I had a movie / TV cliche to share with you all, but I see you're busy. I'll come back later.

[Patrick Thistle]

I've seen two adults on that lavatory (not at the same time). The bloke looked at the piece of bog roll after he'd used it, the woman didn't.

Difference between going number 1 and going number 2

[Jah Womble]

When you look out of my goddaughter's father's kitchen window, you can see the neighbours in the ground-floor flat across the yard when they're on the lavatory. He's informed them about this and suggested they put up some blinds or something, but they haven't. It clearly doesn't bother them.

I've seen two adults on that lavatory (not at the same time). The bloke looked at the piece of bog roll after he'd used it, the woman didn't.

Egad. Never had that problem, although some years back, the old Irish boy upstairs from one of my previous flats used to tell me in excited detail about the sexual predilections of the young couple opposite his gaff, who appeared to be classic exhibitionists. ('I tell ye, ye can see the feckin' lot!')

The angle didn't quite work for yours truly or the ex in our downstairs property. (But we'd have been too busy tending to our own business anyway. As indeed it were.)

[Sean of the Shed]

I've seen two adults on that lavatory (not at the same time). The bloke looked at the piece of bog roll after he'd used it, the woman didn't.

Well of course you do. How would you know if you've drawn an ace if you don't keep looking at the cards?

[G-Man]

That should stir the appetite. Linseneintopf... Mmmmmmm.

[treibeis]

But since I have had the opportunity to get to know the property next-door well (see the "Meddling neighbours" thread), I have discovered one vantage point from that property from where our neighbours might have had a good view.

When you look out of my goddaughter's father's kitchen window, you can see the neighbours in the ground-floor flat across the yard when they're on the lavatory. He's informed them about this and suggested they put up some blinds or something, but they haven't. It clearly doesn't bother them.

I've seen two adults on that lavatory (not at the same time). The bloke looked at the piece of bog roll after he'd used it, the woman didn't.

[G-Man]

Americans never close their bloody curtains at night. (Or are at least depicted as never doing so.) How anyone can sleep with all that light - street lamps, the moon, whatever - pouring through the window is completely beyond me.

That was a plot hole in an episode in The Shield which we rewatched (for the third time; great series). A detective is set up by nasty colleague to go to the house of a pretty cop, bottle of wine in hand, in the expectation of a romantic rendezvous. But she doesn't answer the door, so the detective looks through the window, facing the street, which conveniently has its curtains only half-drawn. And through the window he sees cute cop having sex with another cop -- exactly what the setter-upper wanted him to see.

But how would that setter-upper have known (a) in which room his colleagues have sex, and (b) whether they draw the curtains close when they do have sex in the room facing the street. Well, (b) might be answered by this thread. Americans don't close curtains*, even when they have hot sex in the frontroom.


* I also didn't always close curtains when having sex, but it's not really possible to look into my bedroom from the street. But since I have had the opportunity to get to know the property next-door well (see the "Meddling neighbours" thread), I have discovered one vantage point from that property from where our neighbours might have had a good view. Ah well, I hope they admired my technique, if they used it to spy on me.

[treibeis]

My bedroom has pulldown blinds, which I keep closed 24/7 because the windows face the street.

In the North American films I've seen, blinds only remain permanently closed when they conceal either the body of somebody who died months ago (possibly with their face in a bowl of soup) or a group of young computer cracks who are planning to overthrow something.

[Hot Pepsi]

I was watching a film the other night that reminded me of one my biggest movie/TV bugbears, which may have been previously mentioned on this long-running thread*.

Americans never close their bloody curtains at night. (Or are at least depicted as never doing so.) How anyone can sleep with all that light - street lamps, the moon, whatever - pouring through the window is completely beyond me.

(*As indeed it was, by yours truly - back on page 24, just the four years ago.)

Michael and Kay Corleone closed the curtains. Fortunately she recognized that somebody had opened the curtains shortly before the hail of gunfire.

My bedroom has pulldown blinds, which I keep closed 24/7 because the windows face the street.

[Jah Womble]

I was watching a film the other night that reminded me of one my biggest movie/TV bugbears, which may have been previously mentioned on this long-running thread*.

Americans never close their bloody curtains at night. (Or are at least depicted as never doing so.) How anyone can sleep with all that light - street lamps, the moon, whatever - pouring through the window is completely beyond me.

(*As indeed it was, by yours truly - back on page 24, just the four years ago.)

[Nurse Duckett]

We have a chest freezer in the garage, despite having no sideline in murder.

We too. We mainly use it for storing bulk "on offer" buys of major food groups such as sesame seed bagels and mini-Magnums; it also came in handy recently for freezing Mrs D's mushroom wellingtons in preparation for Xmas Day.

[G-Man]

We have a chest freezer in the garage, despite having no sideline in murder.

[Hot Pepsi]

When/where I was growing up, everyone I knew had a chest freezer in their garage or basement.

In addition to storing murder victims' remains, they were used used to store food that would not fit in the kitchen freezer before a big party or holiday. Someone, usually the Mrs. of the house, would make a shit-ton of food weeks in advance and then thaw it out in the days leading up to the party.

As a kid, I also assumed that the freezer just came with the house because they were so large that the only way I could imagine them arriving there was if the house was built around them. My dad told me - fairly recently - that was not the case and somehow he and my mom got the thing down the steps in the 70s. I don't remember that.

In those days, it was also common to borrow neighbors' freezer space if one was preparing for a big gathering. We did that a lot.

My parents now have one in their garage. They load up on stuff at Sam's Club in Dover and put whatever does not fit in the kitchen there. I suspect Sam's Club/Costco has helped the big freezer market.

In my experience, every chest freezer eventually has a catastrophic failure that entails water all over the basement floor.

[ad hoc]

My mum has a chest freezer.

[San Bernardhinault]

Chest freezers are pretty impractical for storing food - usually resulting in the things at the bottom living at the bottom for years before getting thrown out rather than getting eaten - so if you did have a chest freezer you'd probably only buy it for that one reason.

[Sits]

In thrillers, crime drama or horror, a chest freezer serves one purpose, and one purpose only.

[Patrick Thistle]

That's only said about certain places and I think there's a correlation with it not necessarily being obvious to an observer. It's basically saying "this place looks like a shithole but..."

[Sits]

We really enjoy the series Ambulance (the one narrated by Christopher Ecclestone) but it has its very own cliche.

Each series is set in a particular region, and there is a good chance that you will hear on a regular basis something along the lines: “People in [Liverpool/Manchester/Newcastle etc.], they’re the best people in the world. They look out for each other, you’re never alone.” And so on.

Got to admit, I would never say that about Sydney and I don’t think I would have said it about Maidenhead either.

[Hot Pepsi]

I’m not sure.

There was an ok parody.

[Snake Plissken]

They've got to have had a completely self-referential one where the two fall in love on the set of a Christmas movie, surely?

[tee rex]

I wonder how lucrative is the life of a Hallmark actor. If it's reasonable enough it provides the dual benefit of decent cash and almost total anonymity.

Do they employ many 59yo English men?

If you check out the casts for many of these films there are a lot of familiar names, or rather familiar faces (and I'm really not a movie buff). Guests on many popular TV shows. I suppose the repeat fees for one-off episodes of CSI don't pay for kids' college.

(Edit: For example, if you ever wondered whatever happened to Rachael Leigh Cook*, the answer is Hallmark)

*I may be projecting here ...

[G-Man]

The only visitors from out of town who can find love are male executives from evil mega corps who’re intent on shutting down the small artisanal businesses run by local women and who’re desperate to get back to the bright lights but who learn the true meaning of small town existence after some incident renders them incapable of returning that weekend.

We put on a Hallmark movie last year, saying that it would be a slightly ironic Christmas tradition to start, the levity being inserted by our mock surprise at plot twists you can spot a mile off. The plot of the movie was almost exactly that, only the artisanal business was a restaurant (or olive oil makers or somesuch enterprise) run by a kind family of some Mediterranean ethnic background.

You'll be relieved to learn that the restaurant (or olive oil makers or somesuch enterprise) was saved from the Capitalists, and the big city guy found love with the decent girl who wanted to save the restaurant (or olive oil business) -- though not after some revelations of duplicitous behaviour and misunderstandings that nearly resulted in there being no happy ever-after. I think it didn't snow when they kissed. So no cliché there.