Let's Retire These Movie/TV Plots!

[Chasseur]

Good bureaucrats/bank robbers/spies against money- and power-hungry cops, police captains, etc.

Ya know I'd actually pay to see that, in particular if the good guys were played by those actors like Tom Wilkinson, JT Walsh, etc. who always get typecast as the "fat, middle aged bad guy, in position of power/bureaucrat" and the bad guys are young and handsome annoying actors who always play heros/cops/sports players "who don't play by the rules."

 

[Diamondback]

Good bureaucrats/bank robbers/spies against money- and power-hungry cops, police captains, etc.

Sounds almost like the premise of Heffernan's The Dinosaur Club (a good book that'd make a great movie, complete with a nice action/adventure finale): bunch of loyal, reliable old hands targeted for pinkslip (the "Dinosaurs") so the new guys in management can raid their pension funds decide to strike back; it's been described as "a grown-up Revenge of the Nerds". I heard rumblings that film rights had been bought, but it seems to be stuck in Development Hell, and I can't even find a source for copies of the original novel anymore... (it's about ten years old, and when I like a book I try to keep at least one spare copy on-hand)

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Ya know I'd actually pay to see that ...

You can pay to see Public Enemies, then.


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[Chasseur]

Uh, I did and I still want to get my money back not to mention my time...

 

[Dr Doran]

1.) "Carmina burana" by Karl Orff played every time people ride horses in a battle scene, or a volcano goes off, or anything dramatic involving the fates of lots of people happens.

Or instead of "Carmina burana" something very similar, a theft in fact, with choral lyrics in Latin and a sweeping dramatic tone.

2.) People puking, with the audience seeing the puke. This. Has. To. Stop. Now. We really do not need to see the actual vomit exiting the mouth. We never did need to see it, really; but it was shocking once and thus effective. Now it's just repellent and kills any possibility of a romantic mood between yourself and the person with whom you are seeing the movie. Unless you both have vomitophilia. (Which I do not.)

Have I or someone else already mentioned those? If so, sorry -- I don't want to re-read this entire thread AGAIN.

 

[John in Covina]

I have never watched any of the "Saw" movies but a recent review by a small time movie critic said that there is no need for a series of these films, they have lost all meaning.

 

[Diamondback]

Well said, Doran and John .:eusa_clap

Do we really have to see, every time somebody gets cut, the individual spurts of blood from every single punctured artery, vein and capillary, in such, ah "loving" detail?

 

[Dr Doran]

I have never watched any of the "Saw" movies but a recent review by a small time movie critic said that there is no need for a series of these films, they have lost all meaning.

... but as plots go, the plot of the first one was quite original. And the dénouement was completely unexpected. I mean completely (the identity of Jigsaw). The second one also had plot twists that were utterly surprising (the identity of the female drug addict); the third did as well, two in particular that are only revealed at the end (the connection between the two victims and the independent nature of Jigsaw's right-hand-woman). The fourth delved into the former married life of the killer and that was quite interesting and explained his difficult-to-stomach proclivities rather interestingly.

The Saw movies are really only suspense movies -- with exaggerated gore.

A gore film is, in my lights, a good film if you can fast-forward the disgusting parts and come away with an original, non-trite story. At least the first Saw film does this. And the first Hostel film does this, too: I showed it to my wife, who hates gore and horror, but I fastforwarded the gross stuff, and she found the plot quite fascinating.

But persons with a highly negative view of gore will not like such films no matter what, I think. And it is true that gore is an objectively, profoundly, truly disgusting thing, like smoking cigarettes -- but I still indulge in both.

 

[Lady Day]

Holocaust movies.
Well, not *stop* but a definite slow down is needed. There are like 4-6 holocaust related movies a year. And it seems the stories are becoming not about the horror of what happened, but about making it morph into an action/thriller/gore movie as much as they can. :eusa_doh: As far as Im concerned, the genera (because it appears to be one now) peaked with Schindler's List and no film has even come close.

More films about WWII sure!

As far as the vomit, *yes* we must end that. The sound of it is enough, seeing it is just not funny and beyond gross.

The Saw movies are silly. I tried to watch the 3rd one and turned it off 7 min in, it was that unwatchable. Not because of the gore porn (because taking a visual effects class, all I see when they do that is 'man, how did they rig that guy?') but because there is no story whatsoever!

LD

 

[Lady Day]

And the first Hostel film does this, too: I showed it to my wife, who hates gore and horror, but I fastforwarded the gross stuff, and she found the plot quite fascinating.

But persons with a highly negative view of gore will not like such films no matter what, I think. And it is true that gore is an objectively, profoundly, truly disgusting thing, like smoking cigarettes -- but I still indulge in both.

So you can watch someone get their ankles cut open on screen, but seeing vomiting is just where you draw the line? lol

LD

 

[Dr Doran]

So you can watch someone get their ankles cut open on screen, but seeing vomiting is just where you draw the line? lol

LD

Achilles-tendon-cutting occurs in movies of a specific sick genre, for which you have already (on some level) made a contract with the director to appreciate it as a feature of that particular gross genre.

Puking occurs in normal films when you aren't prepared and that's nasty. My problem is also that it has become too trendy. Thank goodness, ankle-cutting is still a minority taste in cinema.

 

[John in Covina]

There's gore and there GORE.

Some time back I had heard some people say that the film "The Devil's Rejects" was a good gore film. I went to see it at the theater and did not like the film very much at all, but there were a few good scenes and some surprises.

What really disturbed me was there were 2 teenaged boys sitting in the back of the theater that laughed and clapped when the bad guys did all of the torturous things to their victims, it was disheartening that they were actually rooting for the bad guys! Yikes!

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Or instead of "Carmina burana" something very similar, a theft in fact, with choral lyrics in Latin and a sweeping dramatic tone.

Blame John Boorman. His 1980s film, Excalibur, was the first to blatantly rip off "Carmina Burana" via a cheesy substitute score.


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[Marc Chevalier]

You can pay to see Public Enemies, then.

Uh, I did and I still want to get my money back not to mention my time...

Ditto! lol

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[LizzieMaine]

So far as "gore films" are concerned, the whole genre reminds me of that kid who sat in front of me in the third grade and covered his Big Chief tablet with drawings of stick-figure people being sliced, diced, exploded, impaled, and eaten by dinosaurs. Some people clearly never outgrow that stage.

Not that there isn't a place for violence in films, or even gruesome imagery -- one of the most effectively-shocking scenes I've ever seen in a movie is the bit at the very end of "Public Enemy" where James Cagney's beaten, mutilated corpse topples into his mother's doorway. The scene wouldn't have been half so effective if he'd been killed by lethal injection instead of being worked over by goons with tire irons and blackjacks. But it wasn't a gratuitous shot, and it's effective because the violence is *implied* -- you never see Tom Powers being brutally killed, you just see the result.

But to just throw slop and gore into a picture because you *can* and you know that there's yucks out there who'll pay $8.50 to sit there in the dark and lap it up, is, well, symptomatic of something in our culture that we'd be better off without.

 

[Lady Day]

Its like when they finally reveal the monster in a horror movie, your imagination is *always* scarier than what they come up with.

LD

 

[LizzieMaine]

Its like when they finally reveal the monster in a horror movie, your imagination is *always* scarier than what they come up with.

LD

Exactly. That's why radio horror is the most effective horror there is.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Its like when they finally reveal the monster in a horror movie, your imagination is *always* scarier than what they come up with.

LD

Exception: the space monster in Alien was even scarier than I'd imagined.

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[Chasseur]

Lady Day mentioned a moratorium on comic book movies, how about one for sports movies?

You know the ones with a premise and plot about as predictable as a country-western song. What is magic about this is that this formula works for both team sports and individual ones (football, golf, baseball, basketball, etc.)

(1) Underdog guy who is either a has been or "missed his big chance" (or for variety's sake this can also be the underdog team with the same issues);

(2) Now has "one last chance" to make the big play and win the season/title/cup/etc.

(3) and in so doing either win back the girl he loved and lost or win the love of the girl who never noticed him before...

(4) Option: if this is a team movie then we have to have the usual suspects: the young and talented player who is "wild and out of control," the veteran player "back for love of the game and one last chance," some sort of ethnic/racial tension between one more or more players (which will of course be all worked out by the end of the movie), etc. Alternatively this group can also be nicely inserted as the squad/crew into most war movies...

 

[Carlisle Blues]

The Inner-City Savior is the Mother Theresa of the streets. Relying on his or her magnanimous nature and ability to kick it with the youth, the savior inspires the kids to put down the guns and knives and pick up pencils.

Blackboard Jungle 1955
To Sir, with Love 1967
Class of 1984 (1982),
The Principal (1987),
Stand and Deliver (1988),
Lean on Me (1989)
Dead Poets Society (1989),
Class of 1999 (1990),
Dangerous Minds (1995),
The Substitute (1996),
One Eight Seven (1997),
The Emperor's Club (2002)
Freedom Writers (2007), and
Hamlet 2 (2008).