There’s a forwarded e-mail going around that lists various unrealistic events found in popular movies (posted below in the extended entry).
Your mission: name just one specific movie where this actually happens.
Please don’t re-use examples from a previous comment – that just makes you look like one of those chittering hoot-monkeys from the DU who can’t speak unless it’s to regurgitate someone else’s talking point. If you don’t have a different one – or can’t think of an example – just skip it.
If you don’t want to play in the comments, feel free to just post the answers at your own blog and link back here. That way you have plausible deniability when you claim you came up with the answers all by yourself.
1) During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
2) All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets which reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.
3) All grocery shopping bags contain at least one loaf of French Bread.
4) It’s easy for anyone to land a plane, providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
5) Once applied, lipstick will never rub off – even while scuba diving.
6) The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. No-one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty.
7) If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition – even if you haven’t been carrying any before now.
8) You’re very likely to survive any battle in any war – unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home.
9) Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
10) If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor’s first concern will be the tourist trade or his forthcoming art exhibition.
11) The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.
12) A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.
13) All telephone numbers in America begin with the digits 555.
14) If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick’s Day parade – at any time of the year.
15) When paying for a taxi, don’t look at your wallet as you take out a bill – just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
16) Interbreeding is genetically possible with any creature from elsewhere in the universe.
17) Kitchens don’t have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.
18) If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
19) Word processors never display a cursor on screen but will always say: Enter Password Now.
20) Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning even though their husband and children never have time to eat them.
21) Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.
22) The Chief of Police will always suspend his star detective – or give him 48 hours to finish the job.
23) A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of Wembley Stadium.
24) Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.
25) Although in the 20th century it is possible to fire weapons at an object out of our visual range, people of the 23rd century will have lost this technology.
26) Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.
27) It is not necessary to say hello or goodbye when beginning or ending phone conversations.
28) Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
29) All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.
30) It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.
31) A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
32) If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
33) Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communication systems of any invading alien civilization.
34) It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts – your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.
35) When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
36) No-one involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock.
37) Police Departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
38) When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
39) Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds – unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
40) An electric fence powerful enough to kill a dinosaur will cause no lasting damage to an eight year old child.
For being FIRST!
1) Beverly Hills Cop
LOL, I was going to say the same for #1.
Ok, Harvey, I’m gonna have to do this on my own blog.
3) Something’s Gotta Give
34) Karate Kid
22) and 31): “Blue Thunder”
7) “Hardboiled”
oops I wasnt specific enough on some of them.
7. Exit Wounds
21. The Man With the Golden Gun
I love this, and I;m sorry, but this thing was floating around 9 years ago!
30) Any Kojak (not a movie in the theatres, but come on.. it had to have a movie of the week at some point, huh?)
6) Bruce Willis movies (Hostage and Die Hard 1&2)
12) Raiders of the Lost Ark
13) Last Action Hero!!
24) Do info-mercials about starving kids in Africa count?
34) Transporter 1&2
16) Interbreeding is genetically possible with any creature from elsewhere in the universe.
Wasn’t that kind of a running joke in the Star Trek series.
College dorm life, late 70’s.
10) If your town is threatened by an imminent natural disaster or killer beast, the mayor’s first concern will be the tourist trade or his forthcoming art exhibition.
The origional Jaws
9) Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
Hogan’s Hero’s, Even the Germans couldn’t speak German.
21) Cars that crash will almost always burst into flames.
NBC Dateline!
39) Any lock can be picked by a credit card or a paper clip in seconds – unless it’s the door to a burning building with a child trapped inside.
If you’re Dr. Who you don’t even need a credit card or paper clip. Just use the universal key. Opens any door in the known universe. Lucky time lords!
“32. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.” Newsies.
That doesn’t make me gay.
32 Blues Brothers would be a less-gay answer 🙂
35) When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
Three Stooges
WWF
“11) The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris.”
I’d like to add a corollary of sorts to that which reads:
11b) The Sydney Opera House can be seen from anywhere in Sydney
6) Sneakers
21) Groundhog Day- “He might’ve survived” boom “Well, no, probably not now.”
24)A Knight’s Tale- also had rayon clothes.
1, 6, 26 – Boondock Saints
Just wanted to add a few items to the list of movie absurdities.
1. Despite the speed of light being faster than the human eye can see, energy weapons will usually fire distinct, individual energy “bolts”. These bolts will travel more slowly than primitive projectiles propelled by combustion.
2. When confronting enemies who use permeable shield technology that is near-impervious to energy weapons but not to solid objects (i.e. bullets and metal fragments), those facing the shielded forces will not revert to more primitive forms of weaponry to defeat the shields.
3. Due to the highly advanced technology involved, all spacecraft are capable of burning in the vacuum of space.
Oh, and how could I forget:
4. At the beginning of their adventures nearly all heroes (movie and otherwise) are completely clueless about how to talk to other people in ways that will not A. Make the listener irritated, B. Cause the listener to imprison them, or C. Create an intense desire in the listener to kill the hero.
Whenever someone is shot by any firearm, the laws of physics are immediatly done away with (for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction) and the person being shot will fly through the air backwards several feet while the person firing the weapon will remain stationary…
16..Term was IDIC…Infinite Diversity….Infinite Combinations
In Space its always possible to hear
Dropping out of any Faster than light Speed is instantanous.
Amazingly all weapons have a built in extra reserve capacity, greater than the orginal magazines.
Snipers always hit their targets,ilregardless of ranges.
Horses can run at a full gallop, with rider all day, on the range and never lather, or get tired.
Dumb aliens capable of going great distances/Killing all humans are always killed by simple elements or virus’s
WWI, WWII Planes always flew 50 feet of the the deck to drop bombs, these planes could also resemble swiss cheese and still fly?
While modern aircraft take a single round and fall out of the sky
Soldiers who fell on hand grenades always where only lifted slightly off the ground and remained intact.
Police (or CTU) headquarters offices do not use flourescent lights. They use just a few desk lamps and create shadows in order to create drama.
Add:
Nobody in movies ever closes a door behind them when walking into a house, nor is ever seen to lock the door when leaving.
Aliens capable of building massive spaceships and invading other worlds always skulk around other planets in the buff.
“WWI, WWII Planes always flew 50 feet of the the deck to drop bombs, these planes could also resemble swiss cheese and still fly?”
Actually in WWII a lot of B-17 did run missions very close to the deck, especially in the Pacific. Low level bombing was a lot more accurate. A huge number of them did come back looking like Swiss cheese and had loads of casualties along with it.
Its much better to disprove this theory
40) could only be Jurassic Park, but where was the evidence that the electricity could kill a dinosaur. No dinosaurs died of electric fence wounds in that movie.
6) is disproved by Sneakers and Die Hard (the bad guys found Bishop and McLain in the vents)
9) Disproved by the Dirty Dozen
31) Die Hard with a Vengence (McLain only solved case when reinstated)
The other ones I can’t really think of other movies off the top of my head. Maybe later…
You know, I’m surprised this movie hasn’t already been mentioned:
4) Executive Decision. It was a pretty badass movie if you ask me, even if it was a little silly.
50-59 have been deleted for the sake of homeland security.
Just wnat to add a few.
1) All vehicles flying through space make noise even though they are in a vacuum.
2) Cars driven away by people in a hurry always squeal their tires, even on gravel.
3) Movie heroes trapped underwater will always be able to find an air pocket so they can continue breathing until they can get to safety.
4) Golfers in movies make beautiful shots even though their swings are awful.
5) Teenagers who commit crimes while tying to correct a preceived wrong (ie. working for a “good cause”) are never arrested.
In space:
1) The vacume makes sounds louder, because there is no air to get in the way.
2) Spaceships burn faster because there is no wind to blow out the fire.
3) Constant thrust = constant velocity.
I see that there is nothing here from Princess Bride, likely because that was a documentary.
It is amazing how these movie concepts get into your brain. I was once driving from Switzerland to Calais France. We decided to drive through Paris and see the Eifel tower. We figured we would just drive up to it as it is doubtless visible from anywhere in the city. Bad plan.
DocBrown – Heh. I tried doing that to the Sears Tower in Chicago once.
It’s not as universally visible as I thought 🙂
If I am not very much mistaken, all of these features can be found in the movie “Stripes”, which of course we all know garnered Bill Murray 17 Academy Awards.
Jack Bauer (along with most other action heroes) knows how to hit someone so precicely that they will instantly die or become unconcious immediately without a sound even if someone is sitting close to them in a quiet area. No one ever says Owwww! and needs a second hit.
If you need to erase all the data on a computer, simply shoot it anywhere. Even the monitor will suffice.