Reply #86: "Is he....?" [View All]

[quiet.american]

1. Just say it, "Is he dead?" They ALWAYS stop before saying the word, "dead." WHAT is that about?

2. "I'm at 555-" Why bother to make everything as true to life as possible, and then enter the extremely fake "555" pre-fix? Yes, I know there's a rule about putting real numbers on the screen, and there should be, but somebody needs to come up with creative ways to work around this creaker.

3. The cop's longtime girlfriend or wife always resents that he's married to his job, even though they've been together forever. She invariably walks out and takes the kids, leaving him in an empty, lonely home eating out of a just-opened Dinty Moore stew can. And this usually happens just after the master criminal has slipped through his fingers and he's been put on suspension by his lieutenant/captain.

4. In the movies, men always make long romantic speeches and say "I love you," to the woman first. Pure fiction. :)

5. When characters in movies get fired, they never seem worried about where the next rent check is coming from. And somehow, they always have enough money in the bank at the time to pay the rent and take a Caribbean vacation, buy new clothes, go out for dinner, etc.

6. Speaking of which, somebody else mentioned it -- unemployed/marginally employed characters can always afford an apartment which would cost at least $1700 a month anywhere in the States, and probably closer to $2500 a month, and it's no prob.

7. No matter how humble the character, they always have perfect teeth and manicured nails.

8. The voice of the one guy who does all the voice-overs for trailers, and the copywriting of the apparently one guy who does all the trailers, has grated on my nerves for years. "In a world...where up was down... and wrong was right... the rules...are about to change...." Cut to fast edits, yadda, yadda, yadda.

9. One last thing: when a guy's girlfriend catches him in a compromising position with another woman and dashes off, with him running after her and shouting, "Wait! Tiffany! It's not what you think!," the guy is always in the clear. In real life, it's usually exactly what she thinks and worse.