May 28, 2006

OH YEAH? NAME ONE

I got this forwarded e-mail listing various unrealistic events found in popular movies (posted below in the extended entry).

The challenge - name one specific movie where this actually happened. Not a TV show (although movies made from TV shows are ok), and not a movie that's obviously farcical and makes zero effort to apply real-world physics, like "Airplane" or "Naked Gun".

I'm gonna need some help with this. The cliches all SEEM familiar, yet I have very few clear memories that associate a given event with a specific movie title. They just kind of blur together. I swear I've seen them all, I just can't remember where.


1) During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.
Beverly Hills Cop

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.
Entrapment

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.
Die Hard

7) If you need to reload your gun, you will always have more ammunition - even if you haven't been carrying any before now.

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.
Jaws

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.
Terminator

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.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture - (outside of Spock (Human/Vulcan), I'm hard-pressed to think of anything. This seems to be mostly a flaw with the Star Trek TV series)

17) Kitchens don't have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.

1 If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises in their most revealing underwear.
Friday the 13th

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.
Dirty Harry

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.

2 Even when driving down a perfectly straight road it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
Casablanca

29) All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
The Rock

30) It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.
Blues Brothers

31) A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
Lethal Weapon

32) If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.
Blues Brothers

33) Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communication systems of any invading alien civilization.
Independence Day

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.
Rumble In The Bronx

35) When a person is knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, they will never suffer a concussion or brain damage.
Road Warrior

36) No-one involved in a car chase, hijacking, explosion, volcanic eruption or alien invasion will ever go into shock.
Mad Max

37) Police Departments give their officers personality tests to make sure they are deliberately assigned a partner who is their total opposite.
The Enforcer

3 When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.
Rumble In The Bronx - most egregious case ever, it was actually verbalized.

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.
Jurassic Park

Posted by: Harvey at 09:54 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 1026 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Well, #14 could be The Fugitive #16 (now do they need an actual child to have been the result of human/alien ahem.... contact??) Otherwise, I think Tony Shaloub's character in Galaxy Quest works (and those aliens looked really incompatible w/ humans) and Steve Gutenberg got busy with one of the alien chicks in Cocoon. #17 Pet Cemetary #24 A Knight's Tale

Posted by: Richmond at May 28, 2006 12:16 PM (e8QFP)

2 I'm not sure "A Knight's Tale" qualifies, simply because it featured lots of anachronistic music. Therefore anachronisitic dentistry probably isn't out of theme. #16 - from the words "interbreeding" and "genetics", I'm thinking this one's all about the half-breed progeny.

Posted by: Harvey at May 28, 2006 01:34 PM (L7a63)

3 #2 - Any soap opera #4 - Airport 76 (or something like that, in the 70's they had all those airplane disaster movies and the stewardess landed the plane in that one) #14 - Ferris Buller's Day off - but it was a German parade.

Posted by: Quality Weenie at May 28, 2006 03:54 PM (BksWB)

4 #4 Airplane! #8 Sommersby #22 Beverly Hills Cop #28 It Takes a Thief

Posted by: Miss Cellania at May 28, 2006 10:48 PM (rLKYY)

5 #9: The Longest Day #14: The Fugitive #17: Roadhouse #24: Timeline

Posted by: Ogre at May 30, 2006 11:03 AM (/k+l4)

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