Five Things That Never Happen In Movies

Yes, hello good (insert local time of reading here) and welcome to the latest of my frequent and florid five-o-things.

Today one of the things that has been floating around in what little of my brain that remains has been a list of things that never happen in films that you would expect to happen in real life.  I'm sure that you, my ever patient reader, will think of many others that I have left off - these are literally the first five that jumped into my head.

#1: No one ever pays a taxi driver
You and I have an entirely different experience of public transport to people in films.  They can always park right outside the place they are going, whereas we get to park in a badly lit garage where muggers business cards are on the walls, their car always starts first time and never has frost on the window, they never stand for twenty minutes in the rain at a vandalized bus stop only for the bus to drive straight past them, the lift is always at the right floor for them to hop on immediately without all that painful need for small talk that the rest of us have to dredge up from the bottom of our brains, when they whistle for a cab it always pulls up straight away, or within a few seconds and no one, ever pays the driver at the other end.

Indeed they leap out of the taxi without a care in the world with no evidential pause during which they could have even vaguely conceivably flung their small change at the driver like an Olympic athlete on heat - and what's more the driver, unless the movie is Taxi, cheerfully heads off on his way as if actually earning money is one of the downsides of another wise pleasant day of driving around the city endlessly picking up total strangers

Also - whilst we're on the subject of public transport I've never seen any movie where the star had to stand or sit in the corridor for two hours having paid £100 for the privilege

#2: No one ever goes to the toilet
Unless it is to pursue an assailant or get beaten up.  This never happens on TV either - for seven years the crew of the Starship Enterprise trawled the depths of space, "boldy going" without ever actually revealling where on the Enterprise it was that they went.  My personal theory is that they didn't have a specific bathroom and that it was either extracted from them whenever they "beamed up" (another reason why no one can scream in space) or else they simply called "computer: toilet" and one appeared out of the wall

#3: Time never obeys its own rules
Take any scene where a bomb is counting down: the villain sets the timer to four minutes and the countdown begins - twelve minutes later in the film the hero deftly defuses the bomb with two seconds to spare - or else escapes leaving it to explode long after the timer went off.  Presumably villains try to save money by buying second hand timers, which is just sloppy when you think about it.  Also - at the vital moment when it comes to chose between cutting the green and the red wire - no one ever gets it wrong, despite any previous ineptitude or color blindness suggested in the film.

Whilst we're on the subject of bombs diffusing why is it that the hero never has any computer problems at a vital moment?  Every hero is able to swiftly able to hack into even the most secure of networks and never, ever has a time out, loses connection or has to sit waiting for five minutes yelling at the screen because their clapped out laptop is taking so long to boot up.  If I were to have to help during a big jewel heist and my computer skills were needed then, based on the time I have to log on to work each morning as opposed to the actual time I am supposed to start, we would need a good solid ten minutes of sitting around staring at a computer that had decided that now was a good time to be reconfiguring its hard drive instead of, oh i don't know, actually starting up.

#4: Police, despite receiving special training, are never actually able to drive at speed
The caveat to this is "unless the main character is a rogue cop" in which case he, or she, will be the sole exception to the rule that on any given corner a certain amount of cop cars will slide, explode, turn upside down or otherwise exit the chase in increasingly over the top methods

Meanwhile, of course, your film's hero will continue to drive like someone who has been competing in formula one for several years, making jumps that should leave his back wheels on the pavement some hundred yards behind him.

#5: The hero never gets seriously injured, no matter what
In the closing scenes of Die Hard 4.0 Bruce Willis finally faces his enemy - who manages to pull him close and press the gun right against his shoulder.  Bruce, desperate to defeat his enemy, pulls the trigger - effectively shooting the bullet through his own body in order to kill the baddie.

Now what SHOULD happen next is that Bruce's arm flies sideways across the room seperated from the rest of his body, whilst he collapses and dies on the spot from a combination of shock and blood loss.  At the very best the internal damage from the shot would leave him unable to ever use the arm again.

However, what actually happens is no repercussions whatsoever - and our hero is able to walk with ease to the ambulance as if nothing of any interest has happened.  This, to me, is one of the main dangers of film - in that we don't show the reality of weapons and as such there's a tendency to think that being shot is nothing much to worry about.  As such I do tend to think that if you are going to show violence in a film then there should also be consequences from that violence.

#6: In real life no one, ever, stops to explain exactly why they are trying to do whatever they are doing
Wouldn't it be nice if they did?  Wouldn't it be great if you walked into your local coffee shop of a morning, ordered a latte and the person across the desk from you said "ha ha, you have fallen into my trap"

Or if every time your boss made a decision they told you exactly why they were doing it at great lengths and giving you lots of time to reach for the letter opener before they finally used the word "sacked" or, even worse, "outsourced"

It would be good news for victims of crime as well if criminals would only stop and explain their back story, thus giving you a few vital minutes to call the police as they inevitably launch into a few moments of over-acting

As usual suggestions for more examples of things that never happen are welcome

Two Recent Movies I Have Seen (the sokiguess experience)

Well, in leiu of anything intelligent to say I thought that this week I would bring you a review of the two films I have seen recently at the cinema.

I should begin by saying that going to the movies is something of an unusual experience for me these days - the last film I saw prior to these, The Ghost, was nearly 12 months ago.

When I DO go I generally go to the local arts cinema rather than the multiplex.  Herein you can enjoy (or not) the wonders of world cinema - odd Bavarian animations where people are endlessly chased by buildings, French road movies about the grimness of existence and other little delights that, for whatever reason, passed the bigger screens by.

Sadly it seems that the cinema is showing much less of the French ROad Movies About the Grimness of Existence (surely there's a new genre there - FROMAGE films??) and much more of the mainstream - no doubt in some ludicrous attempt to start making a profit.

So what films did I see then?


#1: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Plot Summary (I will do my best not to give spoilers here, but look away now if you don't even want to know the basics)

A small group of elderly Brits all see an advert for a new retirement home in India and decide, for various reasons, to up sticks to a new country.

Review:
OK so when I saw the adverts for this film I really wasn't sure that I was going to enjoy it.  I got the impression from the clips that it was going to play on the old stereotypes of the Elderly (slightly racist) Brit Abroad and the Helpful But Slightly Backwards locals that often appear - and yes, there was a certain amount of that, but thankfully the film cleverly played on the perceptions of the characters and allowed them the experience to learn by their experience and allowing us to realize, along with them, just how wrong their initial ideas may have been.

True - you could argue that the cast seem to walk quite easily through their roles - but when you have a cast that includes Dame Judy Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie and Bill Nighy you don't expect to see the strings being pulled

On the plus side this is a beautifully shot film and makes much use of the sights and sounds of India - to the point where i was ready to pick my passport straight out of the drawer when i got home - and as far as feel good films go I can't remember the last time I came out of a cinema feeling so cheered up by a film

My one criticism then, would be the arrival of all the main characters at the same time, even on the same plane (don't worry - this happens so early in the film that it spoils nothing) - and i kinda felt it would have been better to have one or two people already there

#2: The Artist

Plot: A silent black and white film about the silent black and white era of film making, told via the relationship between a fading star of the silent era, and an upcoming one of the "talkies"

Review:
There are films that you come out of loving, or hating and those films that you come out of sokiguessing - IE shrugging one's shoulders and indifferently saying 'S OK I guess.

For me at least The Artist, despite all of its awards, was one of the latter.  It was all very nice, and quite enjoyable - but I came out of the cinema with no strong feelings either way.

The film was quite enjoyable, but I guess the problem is with a film like this that you either buy into the central conceit or you don't and when a film succeeds or fails largely on that idea - the idea to make a silent film when you could equally make one with sound - you either enjoy that idea or not.

For me I found that towards the end I was a bit tired of the silent movie approach and slightly frustrated when certain aspects of the film relied on reactions to things that had been said, but for which we had been given no word card.

Still, as an example of someone trying to do a bit of back to basics storytelling and film making, as opposed to just relying on spectacular 3D effects, even if that plot is more than reminiscent of Singin' In The Rain, it is definately worth a watch - just wait for it to come on telly and see it in the comfort of your own home.