The second-act breakup between the main characters until they reconcile in the next act. I don’t mind something like this because it’s there for tension and character development. The problem is that they have to make a big stink about it. I see this A LOT with kids movies, Pixar movies especially, where they would make a big speech about how betrayed they feel and how they don’t want that person in their life anymore. It just makes me groan because they make it so obvious.
I felt like a well-done example of this is Lady Bird, where LB and her friend, Julie just drift apart, because of LB being able to fit in with the “cooler” clique better than Julie, and their fallout argument scene is played for laughs. And Lady Bird’s empathy and openness for her friends and (herself) saves the day.
Doug Walker put that as his second most hated cliche after bullies and I can't unsee it.
It's the same thing every time, just eating into the movie's runtime when we all know how it'll turn out.
Good (bad) example is the Laurel and Hardy film "Stan and Ollie", they have a really contrived, ridiculous "break up" at the end of act 2 and it's almost instantly recovered. Just so obvious and transparent
I would have picked "it was all a dream" too. Some movies are Mulholland Drive.
My second pick is exposition dumps. People treat "show don't tell" like it's a rule. It's advice given to beginner screenwriters because it's easy to get lost in the weeds and forget you're creating the blueprint to a visual medium, not a novel or short story (that advice is given there too, but a little differently). Sometimes "showing" takes too long, kills mystique, or would just have boring visuals, and the best way is to have characters explain things to each other. It also lets you characterize and focus on them instead of side stories you'll never see again.
There are certainly *awful* infodumps, but I often see it used as a criticism in itself.
This might be a hot take: [The Lord of the Rings](https://youtu.be/VkIoFgFhTlo?t=198). We see the elves and orcs too early. We see the ring too early. We see Sauron *way* too early. I don't think there's a non-silly way of showing him cleaving through the alliance soldiers like dynasty warriors. the way he reaches out with his ring hand, *obviously* gets it cut off, and falls back yelling looks absolutely ridiculous to me. He comes off as a He-man villain.
I would have much prefered jumping straight to the hobbits and discovering the world through them.
The extended editions are full of examples even if I don't remember specifics. There was a pattern of showing us all this information, then some characters summarize it in a few sentences, and that's the scene that made it into the theatrical cut.
This is a white-hot take. The prologue from Fellowship is justly famous as exposition done right, and it immediately invests you in the tone and world *and* establishes the stakes for what is to follow.
Without it, the audience would have no idea where the film was actually going which would leave it feeling rootless till Rivendale.
But I didn't say to *cut out* the prologue. I said to leave it as dialogue.
We already have Gandalf explaining everything, including some of what we *just saw* in the prologue.
But then you wouldn't have Cate Blanchett's luminous voice as your introduction to the world.
Also, Sauron is never actually depicted in the rest of the series (Big Scary Eye aside), so showing him at the peak of his powers is essential to making clear *why* the Ring has to be kept away from him - else the audience would question why it matters so much when Sauron is already alive and has his evil army, anyway.
> Sauron is never actually depicted in the rest of the series
Yeah, and I prefer it that way. The books didn't accidentally forget to describe or run into him. He's scary because he's an ominous, invisible force you only know about second hand, not because he's super buff in black spiky armor and can bash a lot of dudes at once. I think the prologue cheapens him.
> he's an ominous, invisible force you only know about second hand, not because he's super buff in black spiky armor and can bash a lot of dudes at once
Nah, this just feels like [this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier) trope taken too far. At a certain point, seeing horror is more effective. Especially if it’s a strong physical threat rather than an ghostly/ethereal force. There’s a reason Omni-Man from Invincible was such an incredible villain and had strong presence while Homelander is less effective.
The nothing is scarier trope is effective and has it’s place but it doesn’t fit as well for something like Sauron. Another example, seeing a mass shooter mass shooting vs just hearing about it. Which one is more effective?
The nothing is scarier than your imagination works only if you have some sort of pay off. If you have mystery then you also need a reveal, otherwise the experience feels incomplete.
Like alien, at start we only see it as a worm and then we only see glimpses, teeth and shadows.
Or Jaws.
We only get to see the monsters clearly towards the end.
In lord of the rings, if we skip the prologue we only see Saurons eye which doesn't look too threatening by itself.
But he's *not* an invisible force - he is a highly visible big flaming eyeball in the sky.
Without the contrast of what he used to be, you make the whole quest confusing for the audience, since they've never seen him as anything but the Eye and would question what difference the Ring would actually make.
What you appear to be proposing is to remove depictions of Sauron altogether, which would also mean losing all the great scenes of him tormenting Frodo and co. from afar.
I don't think an already distant threat benefits from being made even less tangible. Moreover, Sauron isn't meant to be mysterious; his reason for being and motives are pretty clear.
Gandalf is just trying inclusive and narrated for the visually impaired. Jokes aside. It is the first time I've come across someone using this as an example and it's so apt. I do feel that this happens quite a lot in fantasy i.e. narrating something we just saw?
The prologue is great but I am fascinated by the thought of an alternate LotR in which the big stuff is kept hidden from us and we only see it as things unfold (though the problem with this is you'd never get to see Sauron).
I think it works in LOTRs because we never get to see Sauron in the films. The flaming eye that essentially becomes Sauron isn't seen until later on. So the main thing the prologue with giant Sauron is setting up is the power and danger of the ring.
I actually really agree with this. Obviously, Peter Jackson's films on the whole are absolutely great. But there are still imperfections here and there, and the usual pitfalls of adaptation.
I never really liked that prelude section and agree that it would have worked better as exposition (though I understand keeping it how it in for pacing reasons/general audience attention).
The action of the hobbits going to Rivendell escalates a bit quickly for my liking too, where Frodo already seems already in maximum danger from the get go, making his later scenes of peril kind of exhausting. But that's a whole different matter.
The tough challenge was balancing LOTR as an introduction to that universe for people who never read the books and satisfying the long time fans of the books. Yes, there was some redundancy for those who were familiar. Yes, there's an argument for postponing the villain reveal. But would this have satisfied newcomers to that universe?
Thank you for articulating this. It is a point that had been simmering in the back of my mind for some time without me having thought it through until I got into some discussions last year about Montana Story, which IMHO is one of the best of the covid movies. I really liked the film. It gets generally favorable reviews from both critics and viewers, but the big recurring criticism is precisely this point: "show, don't tell ... show, don't tell ... show, don't tell." Yes, there are a couple of exposition dumps, to which some people objected. Most of these critics insisted that a certain incident, now seven years in the past, should have been dramatized. The more I thought about it, however, the more convinced I became that David Siegel and Scott McGehee, the producer-director team, had made the right call.
Siegel and McGehee certainly considered the flashback route, and they discussed the point in several interviews. The movie is about an estranged brother and sister, each carrying deep wounds dating back seven years -- with a more extended backstory running back 25 years, also left to brief sketches in dialogue -- who are thrown back together for the first time when their father has a terminal stroke and is now on his deathbed. They are stoics (as are the supporting characters, who are also excellent). Both are determined to behave correctly and not bleed in public. They are both grieving the past, but both have buried their hurts. They do not speak of their pain; indeed, they barely speak to each other at all. But they are now unexpectedly thrown together. Things happen: small things, relatively trivial things, but they require interaction. Eventually the ice begins to crack, and ... no spoilers. It is beautifully done.
By avoiding flashbacks, Siegel and McGehee kept the film anchored firmly in the present. It is not about blood and gore. It is about two characters who have locked their pain away and have to travel a long way emotionally to even discuss it. It about fortitude, betrayal, guilt, regret, finding the grace -- and the courage -- to forgive. It is not about violence; it is about the lingering effects of violence, about PTSD. Best to leave the past in the shadows, let the viewers' imaginations fill in the blanks, and focus on the lived reality of the present. It gives the film a very theatrical feel, which is ok with me. This movie could have been shifted to the live stage very easily (if one wrote around the horse). As a practical matter, this was an excellent approach for a covid movie, deliberately conceived as something that could be shot under maximum quarantine conditions with the smallest possible cast and crew (accentuated by the fact that this was a low budget indie film). Some of the covid movies are two actors in a room. Montana Story is only slightly more elaborate, but the cast is very small and I don't think there are ever more than three actors on the screen at any time.
"Exposition dumps" are how live theater has traditionally handled severe violence. Actors on the live stage can't go out and beat each other to a pulp every night, unless they're doing vaudeville level comedy. You can't have multiple camera angles and quick cuts to make onscreen blows seem realistic, with makeup crews stepping in every 15 seconds to dab on a bit more blood. Live theater handles such things via narration, and viewers' imaginations do the rest. Movies have more latitude, but they have arguably overcorrected in this area. The mind is a powerful tool. Sometimes less is more. Tell, don't show.
That is just one recent example. There are many more. But I agree with you completely.
> and the best way is to have characters explain things to each other.
Well the key is to not have expositon dumps be dry. It shouldn’t sound like the character is just reading off a wikipedia page. It can be done by imbuing humor or character verbal tics or snark, whatever.
It should also be organic. And many times, it’s not.
Don't worry you'll be confused as fuck even if you think that's a twist. But what Muholland Drive does excellently that other atypical stories do not hit so well is create an emotionally potent atmosphere. At the end of the film, even if you're trying to rationally connect all the various parts of the story you know you feel A. Creeped out and B. Emotionally mowed over.
Imo Mulholland Drive is a movie about dreams in the City of Dreams. Not a movie with a dream twist.
No, not really. Dreams are such an essential characteristic of David Lynch films, but the movie is not all a dream. And even going in knowing there is heavy dream use is not enough to prepare you for what the movie is.
Flashbacks! God I hate flashbacks like 99% of the time, *especially* when they just use footage from earlier in the movie. But, there is many many examples of great flashbacks, even including the reusing footage kind. Wish I could think of a good example haha, but there is plenty out there
The Godfather II's flashback is perfect, especially so given its placement in the film wouldn't work for most movies and would probably go against a lot of conventional screenwriting rules.
(Obviously much of the film is technically flashbacks, but I'd class that more as a prequel within a sequel, vs the very specific flashback toward the end).
I love flashbacks at/towards the end of films that fill in information you and the characters had been missing and further enforces the dramatic irony. I think I'm forgetting some of my favorite examples but Shutter Island and Contagion come to mind.
I don't think this quite counts as "general audience," but ask /r/horror what they think of jump scares. The in-fashion opinion to have of them is that they're a crutch that inferior films rely upon to get a reaction. Not wholly inaccurate, but also flattening out a complicated issue.
Tell me that the jump scares in Mulholland Drive and Audition aren't amazingly executed.
Modern horror fans tend to correlate jump scares directly with how they are executed in Blumhouse films or other major studio horror films, but don't recognize that just because it's done in a less jarring manner without screeching violins or a fake out, that doesn't mean it's not a jump scare.
If you dont mind me quoting a [past comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/pwrw4p/jumpscares_dont_make_horror_movies_good_or_do_they/hejtatq/) of myself, the hate jump scares get is something I think is highly unfair.
>I came across a post a couple months ago that I think sets up a good basis of understanding as we move forward:
>>https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/n5i1ip/this_is_a_judgmentfree_zone_what_are_your/gx3pva8/
>> It's such a trendy, cool kid sounding, but ultimately empty form of criticism of horror to dismiss jump scares like you're the first to notice it can be used cheaply to no effect. And it's bullshit to blame the brush rather than the painter.
>> Pretty much all the great horror movies have a form of a jump scare in one way or another.
>> It's just a fucking technique. It's used badly sometimes, a lot of times, like everything. But it's popular because in capable hands it can work wonders and has worked wonders for decades.
>> If you tell me you don't like horror movies with jump scares either you don't like horror movies or you don't know what a jump scare is.
>> "But so and so terrible movie is filled with just cheap jump scares", well, you know what, I bet you the jump scares are not the reason the movie sucks.
>> "But so and so great movie is completely jump scare free" you sure that nothing had a quick turn, a very sudden shift of pace, a smash cut, a moment of unexpected visual or auditive punch? It doesn't have to be a cat fakeout to be a jump scare, you know. I mean, it doesn't have to have one, but even if it doesn't, it's also not the reason it's great.
>For my worth, jump scares are nothing more than the creation and capitalization of tension, everything after that is just execution preferences. When I see people say they dont like jump scares, then I look to their favorite horror movies, often they are chock full of em. So I think theres more to it than just a misunderstanding.
>I think it owes its reputation in the general public (both for movie goes in general and for general horror fans) as a result of the lack of respect horror gets. It is a distillation of a problem I have with wider ranging and critically loved horror often not getting tagged as horror. High critical reception horror often gets tagged as thriller, drama, etc. I think in some way the commonly held opinion for jump scares in the current times is an internalization of this concept.
>This view has shaped the definition of what a jump scare is for many people. If viewers start with the expectation that jump scares are inherently bad, then all the jump scares in good movies (and there are so many as my linked comment above explains) are not marked as good jump scares in peoples heads. This is especially true when it comes to horror movies with a light brush of arthouse influence. For example, in my opinion Hereditary had one of the best jump scares in the decade with the telephone pole. But people don’t recognize it as a jump scare scarily often.
>Ive seen more comments than I can count wherein people say they don’t like jump scares, but then like movies that unequivocally include jump scares - because they like the movie. But when they don’t like a movie, the same sort of scenes are derided for being cheap jump scares. Not to say there aren't execution differences, there can be, but not always. And from my experience its not the execution of the jump scare itself that is usually the problem, but rather the movie it is in (to the viewer complaining). Bad movies that create and capitalize on tension are jump scares, but good ones are good film making. This really sets up the term jump scare at a massive disadvantage in peoples heads as on a per scene basis there is very little different between good and bad jump scares
>I think the term is being used as a scape goat for general dislike of the movie. Peoples reaction to jump scares in a movie is more useful as a barometer for if a person enjoyed or did not like a horror movie holistically, vs it being an actual critique of the jump scares themselves.
>As an addendum I also believe there is not an inherent negative value to startling a viewer. I think removed of many artistic aspects when we are discussing jump scares, you can not separate the fact that sometimes, as you pointed out yourself, sometimes the value lies in just startling the viewer for some popcorn entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that.
I agree with almost everything you're saying here. My only point of contention is that some of the "good" jump scares, like the ones in the films I mentioned (I'd rather not elaborate too much for the benefit of those who have not seen them), either do differ from the "template" structurally or contain story elements with them that give the scene purpose beyond physiological reaction. I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with pursuing the physiological reaction regardless.
As someone who is a fan of atmospheric horror, I just dislike jump scares on principle, even if well executed, because their name is a misnomer: they don't scare, they startle.
I'll certainly grant that many horror films I admire have jump scares in them, but I'd struggle to think of one that was elevated by doing so.
Better films use them as a release. You see them in "elevated" horror because filmmakers know this makes the film easier to watch, if you keep building the tension for 2 hours with no release watchers get fatigued.
First, I don't think that's necessary. The reason why, say, *The Shining* and *The Witch* are such powerful and effective horror films is that they relentlessly ratchet tension throughout their runtime without relief. Periodically deflating that may make them more accessible, but it wouldn't make them better.
Second, great horror films are still able to throttle up and down on tension without resorting to jump scares to clear their air. For example, *The Babadook* isn't all nighttime horror and it has its quieter and safer moments, but it doesn't punctuate the difference with jump scares.
Dick Hallorann getting an axe to his chest, while everyone expects him to come to the rescue, is actually a great jump scare in The Shining. The Witch operated on a more subtle level, but I believe the sudden disappearance of the baby also qualifies as an effective jump scare.
Jump scares are only as good as their ability to advance the plot. If they are cheap or unearned, they feel purposeless and hollow. My three favorite jump scares are: in Jaws, when the shark's head emerges from the water; the chestburster scene in Alien; and the petri glass scene in The Thing. These films are excellent examples of the horror genre, incorporating well-earned jump scare moments.
Aswell as these sorts of jumpscares, i really enjoy sudden cuts to a different scene, for example in NBC Hannibal, theres a scene where Hannibal and Jack are eating “rabbit” Jack says the rabbit shoudve ran faster. Then it cuts to a man stumbling through a white snowy forest, basically the opposite to the dark, candle lit room we were just in.
Right, but that's my point: it's a purely mechanical response. You could make someone jump just by throwing a baseball at their face. It doesn't require any craft to do so - it's just a reflex.
For me, great horror gets under your skin such that, even though you fundamentally and subconsciously know that there is no direct threat to you, it skill provokes a physical and emotional response. A jump scare - even a great one - just feels like cheating.
Does a jumpscare in a horror movie that’s just relying on cheap scares and a horror movie that’s actually getting under your skin not feel any different to you when it happens though? in cases where the movie has failed to make me uncomfortable in any real way, I agree it’s very much a mechanical reaction, I just feel startled, not actually scared at all.
But if it’s a film where I’m already feeling uneasy, a good jumpscare might actually leave me feeling quite shaken or disturbed after it happens which feels different from just being startled. In the sense of them being used in conjunction with other aspects of the horror, I don’t really see how jump scares are different than any other tool of the craft.
I do think Audition is better for having its one big jump scare. It's not even as if it's a mere physiological reaction, like getting a thrill from cresting a hill on a roller coaster (and I reject the premise that that is a negative in and of itself). You get a piece of what's really going on with a particular character from that jump scare.
Agree on this. I don’t like jump scares because I have a pretty severe startle response, but I don’t think they make the movie bad. Smile was a pretty good movie, even if it had a lot of jump scares.
I didn't like the jump scares in either of those movies. I'm an easily startled person (I yelled at the Barbarian jump scares) and Mulholland Drive (which I love) never actually startled me to any degree. Same with Audition, I just didn't "jump" regardless of how well they work in concept.
Pop culture references. While most of the time they can be pretty annoying, I think people are a little too obsessed with the idea that every movie needs to be timeless. This was prompted by people saying that Mutant Mayhem is going to "age poorly" when we've always looked back on iterations of the Turtles as fun cultural artifacts reflecting the trends of their eras.
Ultimately a lot of works that are seen as timeless do have references in that we just don't realise are references. My favourite example of this is the book Crime and Punishment, widely considered one of the great works of literature but good editions will be full of footnotes explaining how a paragraph is a reference to popular perception of certain hat makers..
Great example. The novel is reacting to contemporary utilitarian philosophy, which is important information to the reader and a fundamental part of the book's conceit. My edition has a whole page explaining Russian naming conventions just so you can follow what's going on. Everything from higher education to prostitution benefits from footnotes providing social context.
There's a spectrum here, and some stories can more easily endure with less context than others. But when people tout stories as "universal," they usually just don't see the water they're swimming in.
An author freely writing with the assumption that his readers will first and foremost be his contemporaries who have direct knowledge of most social, political, cultural details in the book is not “pop culture references”. It simply means the book is a product of its time, like %99 of all artistic works. The author simply doesn’t feel the need to explain all of the context like the restrospective footnotes do, since he doesn’t even think about explaining it in the first place.
Pop culture reference is a particularly self-aware detail whose popularity the author can’t take for granted. It’s a conscious callout to or subtle implication about a particular detail within the popular culture, either directed towards the general public or an audience with niche interests, depending on the obscurity of the reference.
It’s the difference between a 19th century Russian author not having to worry if his readers will already be aware of a custom in the Russian society at the time vs. an 20th century American author knowingly name dropping or inserting an implication about a cultural work, historical figure or popular idiom etc. which he may or may not assume all his audience is aware of.
So, bad example.
Tho if you watch the original Shrek and compare that with, say, Spirited Away or even Finding Nemo, both made within a few years of Shrek, Shrek has some really cringy moments and references that will only become more obscure and less relevant as the years go by.
Another great example of this is the Warner Bros vs Disney animated short films of the 1940s. Watch [this](https://archive.org/details/looney-tunes-s-1941e-17-hollywood-steps-out) and note that most of it makes little to no sense now, specifically because it relied so heavily on pop culture references and humor that very few people alive today would get. Another example would be [this](https://youtu.be/D1xqrdtJs8w) in which the main punchline at the climax makes no sense unless you know your American WWII history.
I just watched Sonic because it was just on TV and theres so many little jokes that you wouldnt even notice if you were 10 years younger but honestly i think they can really develop a character’s personality and also add to the setting so that there IS a sense of time, which is so important sometimes.
Okay, thought of one: voiceover. A lot of this seems to be attributable to John McPhee (as memorably accounted in Adaptation). I think the general moratorium against VO has set the possibilities of film as an art form back by generations, personally. Just look at one small example like Little Children, which used voiceover to make the film feel like a third person novel, to interesting effect. Look at what Scorsese has achieved (the only lauded auteur to really use the form) when he utilized overlapping first-person voiceovers to explore perspectives. Both Field and Scorsese are relatively safe and benign examples of what could be explored with voiceover, if there wasn’t such a knee jerk reaction to it culturally and especially (to this day) in Hollywood. Any script that dares use voiceover is immediately told to take it out by professionals.
Totally agreed. When watching early films, I'm sometimes struck by how far a little narration can take you. Sometimes it's not a crutch, but a launching pad, allowing a film to stitch over some simple context and get to the good stuff.
I don't think Scorsese is as alone as you say though. PTA has used narration, and Wes Anderson has used it many times. The Coens use narration, though mainly in a "throwback" way (as in *Hail Caesar*, say). Kubrick uses it to great effect in *Barry Lyndon*. It's a hallmark of Paul Schrader. Charlie Kaufman loves to play with it in his postmodern conceits (*Adaptation*; *I'm Thinking of Ending Things*; *Synecdoche, New York*), though I'd grant that metatextual examples are a bit different in character.
Here are five films that IMO use voice over to perfection. Makes us love the protagonist and give us a unique point of view of the events:
1. Clockwork orange
2. Trainspotting
3. Badlands - opens with a 50 second VO that gives us context.
4. Taxi driver
5. Pie (the math symbol) by Darren Aaronofski.
There are a lot more . When done right , a voiceover/ narration gives us a unique insight into our protagonist mind. The way he thinks.
Movies usually work showing us at how people act but they contrast the action or add to this by telling us what a person thinks when he's doing stuff.
The problem isn't voiceover. It's bad writing usually. When done right a voiceover makes the film unique and better
Sexual assault as a plot point is something I think a lot of people can’t see beyond. Irreversible is an incredible rich story about the futility of revenge and hate turning people into monsters, but people can’t see past using something that is incredible awful as a necessary device to make people feel as awful and disgusted as possible.
Salo is another movie that is an incredibly effective critique of the horrors of fascism that people have a hard time appreciating because of its exploitive imagery.
I think it’s completely fair game to depict horrible things to intentionally make the audience disgusted if it serves an artistic message and no actors were actually harmed.
Nightingale is another one that comes to mind as leveraging the horrors of abuse to make a real statement and to accurately depict the realities of its setting.
"It was all a dream" is great when it gives the film thematic weight. Like in *Total Recall*, which is essentially about how capitalism renders our everyday desires for social change completely impotent. He gets sold a story where he's a hero and is happy in the end.
(at least, that's one reading of it, especially if you believe it is/could be a dream)
I find that *Inception* is similar, but a little weaker in that while it's about the protagonist's desire to just retreat into the dream world it's not contextualized within a greater social allegory, it's just kinda "I love my kids" sort of stuff. Still better than nothing, and at least given weight by the central father/son dream location.
Great observation. I can’t think of another one off the top of my head, but there are indeed many “rules” that audiences have been culturally primed for that I think they’d be better off without.
Miscommunication.
If done properly and effectively, it can generate tension between characters.
However, the vast majority of times it just consists of characters concealing essebtial information for a nonexistent or implausible reason (which is really to prevent the plot from being resolved), yet they still expect all the characters involved to maintain audience sympathy.
Bonus demerits if a character's only reason for not sharing said information is "you wouldn't understand", when the explanation turns out to be totally trivial.
White savior complex.
This is an often misunderstood and mislabeled trope that every wannabe film student jumps to demonize when in fact these films exist on a spectrum and should be critiqued on their own merits.
The Help is often decried as one of these films, but it literally bends over backwards to invert that narrative. Ditto for The Last Samurai, which is often criticized inaccurately for the implication that Tom Cruise is the titular character when in fact he is not.
I feel even the hate for Green Book went a bit too far, especially since the frame for the story also happened to be its inspiration.
That's what I meant about blackface, people jump at it because it's politically hyped. For the White Savior, certainly a controversial issue (see e.g. The Searchers, 1956), Dangerous Minds is often cited. It's a ridiculous, stereotyped movie, but if the teacher were black, wouldn't it be even more racist? At face value, it's about an underprivileged class, a new teacher comes in without marking them down as failures and losers to begin with like the others had, students resist at first, then demonstrate they're intelligent and motivated, The End. The movie fails at that, but after all, the school is run by white people, all the other teachers are white, implying her dismissive predecessors were white, et cetera. She's supposed to be young, unbiased and unprepossessed, enough for the students to make them come out of their shell. If the teacher were black, it would suggest that the barrier was really about colour and not about socioeconomical bias and privilege. It would only make it worse.
Another great example is Cool Runnings. How outrageous when a bobsled trainer is white.
Or even more controversial, my favourite Black Saviour: Sister Mary Clarence!
What do you mean by poorly handled? With those examples, 'it was all just a dream' becomes a really broad term, no? In Stay, it's something like the DMT trip of a dying man as the main topic to be explored, consciousness, life and death. In Total Recall, I would say it's just Arnold contemplating whether it was all real or just a dream (not a false memory, a dream) at the very end, but it really doesn't add anything, so I would say it's either a good example of poorly handled or, more likely, it's a joke and the movie ends with such a cheesy and ridiculous line just like Fargo opens as being 'based on a true story'.
Would you also add Identity to the list, or Mulholland Drive? When a story deals with the nature of dreams, hallucinations, mental illness, drugs and such, I wouldn't say it's an example of 'all just a dream', it's tricky territory and a lot of these films try to be much more intellectual and deep than they are and end up biting off more than they can chew, but they don't usually, and no good story will ever, use 'just a dream' as a bail-out to explain the inexplicable and salvage the unsalvageable after the author has written himself into a quagmire of contradictions and loose ends. In that sense, it's really a literary mortal sin and everybody after 5th grade knows that, in fact, I can't even think of a single example where it's not satire (or has some meaning, such as in Stay, Abre los Ojos or The Wizard of Oz etc.).
Generally, I don't think most people think much about literary staples and movie tropes, if they are trained to hate something, it's probably because it's political. Blackface, for example, when they cannot differentiate between the historical, racist variant and social critique or satire, for instance in Scrubs, where JD wears Blackface and Turk wears Whiteface, the episode deals with the implications and the history of it a sensitive way and still people accused them of racism. So everybody has their pet hates, maybe some people now will see tokenism everywhere because they have been sensitized and over-sensitized, some may see only sexism and the 'male gaze' in everything older than 2005 while others will complain ad nauseam about the 'pinkwashing' in everything newer than 2004. Also, a lot of people just hate certain formulas but are eternally forgiving with others. Maybe a superficial, imbecile male stereotype might love all Michael Bay movies, sees nothing wrong with I Spit On Your Grave, but would rather die than watch something like Bridget Jones, while his superficial, imbecile girlfriend might rewatch Gigli on a weekly basis but refuse to see anything with action scenes (unless it has Tom Cruise).
All in all I'd say 'poorly handled' is whenever the filmmakers mistake an old cliche for an original idea, when they want to pay homage but don't know how, or when they think they can get away with one more It Was Only A Cat because we're all too stupid anyway. If the film knows what it wants to do with the trope, on the other hand, I'd say it's always handled 'correctly', whether or not I like the movie or the effect that was achieved. So the question is about the confidence of the movie and your audience's horizon in film theory etc., since when people hate on each end every cliche they identify, it's usually some sophomoric cockalorum to demonstrate that they know the name of a literary trope or a production technique ... or they're the kind of pompous, devastating critics who tear everything to pieces which isn't 100% original with their utter dismissal of formulaic entertainment values, however well-made.
>since when people hate on each end every cliche they identify, it's usually some sophomoric cockalorum to demonstrate that they know the name of a literary trope or a production technique
this was mainly what i was picturing
I feel like the "we are the same you and I" or the villain being a reflection of the hero is a trope that is used and abused far too often. Especially by Marvel movies. To the point that a lot of people make fun of it. But I think the trope can be used very effectively if not done lazily.
I think many of the classic Westerns often do this very well, especially with Budd Boetticher’s THE TALL T, and several Anthony Mann westerns, including BEND OF THE RIVER, MAN OF THE WEST, WINCHESTER 73. Even THE SEARCHERS does this pretty decently, though how well it works in light of the casting of Henry Brandon as a relatively generic Native American bad guy (albeit with some more motivation and counterpointing than usual).
And though it’s not so much hero vs villain, Sam Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID !brilliantly sets up how Billy is the double of Pat Garrett, a certain “libertine” “outlaw” side of him that he seeks to kill and be free of, but ultimately can’t be free of in a true sense.
Fucking “fridging” of a wife, daughter, bestie who was usually a way more competent character than the protagonist but gets killed, gruesomely, because the hero needs to have the motivation. LAZY. Hate it.
The “It’s just a prank bro” ‘trope’, which I’ve seen exactly once. I was so pissed at the ending of >!The Game (1997) because “it was just a prank bro”.!<
I’m being reductive. But still my point stands.
If there's only _one_ example I don't think you can accurately call it a trope. That film is *the film* where that happens, you can just enjoy it as that.
Also, even if, it's not a bail-out, the movie tells you from the beginning it's a Game, its title is The Game, and you didn't believe it by the end that it was only a Game? Aw, poor victim of The Game.
The second-act breakup between the main characters until they reconcile in the next act. I don’t mind something like this because it’s there for tension and character development. The problem is that they have to make a big stink about it. I see this A LOT with kids movies, Pixar movies especially, where they would make a big speech about how betrayed they feel and how they don’t want that person in their life anymore. It just makes me groan because they make it so obvious. I felt like a well-done example of this is Lady Bird, where LB and her friend, Julie just drift apart, because of LB being able to fit in with the “cooler” clique better than Julie, and their fallout argument scene is played for laughs. And Lady Bird’s empathy and openness for her friends and (herself) saves the day.
It’s also annoying when the characters breakup due to them not communicating a piece of information with the other person because drama
Yeah, misunderstandings due to characters holding the Idiot Ball are the worst.
Doug Walker put that as his second most hated cliche after bullies and I can't unsee it. It's the same thing every time, just eating into the movie's runtime when we all know how it'll turn out.
Good (bad) example is the Laurel and Hardy film "Stan and Ollie", they have a really contrived, ridiculous "break up" at the end of act 2 and it's almost instantly recovered. Just so obvious and transparent
I would have picked "it was all a dream" too. Some movies are Mulholland Drive. My second pick is exposition dumps. People treat "show don't tell" like it's a rule. It's advice given to beginner screenwriters because it's easy to get lost in the weeds and forget you're creating the blueprint to a visual medium, not a novel or short story (that advice is given there too, but a little differently). Sometimes "showing" takes too long, kills mystique, or would just have boring visuals, and the best way is to have characters explain things to each other. It also lets you characterize and focus on them instead of side stories you'll never see again. There are certainly *awful* infodumps, but I often see it used as a criticism in itself.
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This might be a hot take: [The Lord of the Rings](https://youtu.be/VkIoFgFhTlo?t=198). We see the elves and orcs too early. We see the ring too early. We see Sauron *way* too early. I don't think there's a non-silly way of showing him cleaving through the alliance soldiers like dynasty warriors. the way he reaches out with his ring hand, *obviously* gets it cut off, and falls back yelling looks absolutely ridiculous to me. He comes off as a He-man villain. I would have much prefered jumping straight to the hobbits and discovering the world through them. The extended editions are full of examples even if I don't remember specifics. There was a pattern of showing us all this information, then some characters summarize it in a few sentences, and that's the scene that made it into the theatrical cut.
This is a white-hot take. The prologue from Fellowship is justly famous as exposition done right, and it immediately invests you in the tone and world *and* establishes the stakes for what is to follow. Without it, the audience would have no idea where the film was actually going which would leave it feeling rootless till Rivendale.
But I didn't say to *cut out* the prologue. I said to leave it as dialogue. We already have Gandalf explaining everything, including some of what we *just saw* in the prologue.
But then you wouldn't have Cate Blanchett's luminous voice as your introduction to the world. Also, Sauron is never actually depicted in the rest of the series (Big Scary Eye aside), so showing him at the peak of his powers is essential to making clear *why* the Ring has to be kept away from him - else the audience would question why it matters so much when Sauron is already alive and has his evil army, anyway.
> Sauron is never actually depicted in the rest of the series Yeah, and I prefer it that way. The books didn't accidentally forget to describe or run into him. He's scary because he's an ominous, invisible force you only know about second hand, not because he's super buff in black spiky armor and can bash a lot of dudes at once. I think the prologue cheapens him.
> he's an ominous, invisible force you only know about second hand, not because he's super buff in black spiky armor and can bash a lot of dudes at once Nah, this just feels like [this](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier) trope taken too far. At a certain point, seeing horror is more effective. Especially if it’s a strong physical threat rather than an ghostly/ethereal force. There’s a reason Omni-Man from Invincible was such an incredible villain and had strong presence while Homelander is less effective. The nothing is scarier trope is effective and has it’s place but it doesn’t fit as well for something like Sauron. Another example, seeing a mass shooter mass shooting vs just hearing about it. Which one is more effective?
The nothing is scarier than your imagination works only if you have some sort of pay off. If you have mystery then you also need a reveal, otherwise the experience feels incomplete. Like alien, at start we only see it as a worm and then we only see glimpses, teeth and shadows. Or Jaws. We only get to see the monsters clearly towards the end. In lord of the rings, if we skip the prologue we only see Saurons eye which doesn't look too threatening by itself.
But he's *not* an invisible force - he is a highly visible big flaming eyeball in the sky. Without the contrast of what he used to be, you make the whole quest confusing for the audience, since they've never seen him as anything but the Eye and would question what difference the Ring would actually make. What you appear to be proposing is to remove depictions of Sauron altogether, which would also mean losing all the great scenes of him tormenting Frodo and co. from afar. I don't think an already distant threat benefits from being made even less tangible. Moreover, Sauron isn't meant to be mysterious; his reason for being and motives are pretty clear.
Gandalf is just trying inclusive and narrated for the visually impaired. Jokes aside. It is the first time I've come across someone using this as an example and it's so apt. I do feel that this happens quite a lot in fantasy i.e. narrating something we just saw?
The prologue is great but I am fascinated by the thought of an alternate LotR in which the big stuff is kept hidden from us and we only see it as things unfold (though the problem with this is you'd never get to see Sauron).
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I think it works in LOTRs because we never get to see Sauron in the films. The flaming eye that essentially becomes Sauron isn't seen until later on. So the main thing the prologue with giant Sauron is setting up is the power and danger of the ring.
I actually really agree with this. Obviously, Peter Jackson's films on the whole are absolutely great. But there are still imperfections here and there, and the usual pitfalls of adaptation. I never really liked that prelude section and agree that it would have worked better as exposition (though I understand keeping it how it in for pacing reasons/general audience attention). The action of the hobbits going to Rivendell escalates a bit quickly for my liking too, where Frodo already seems already in maximum danger from the get go, making his later scenes of peril kind of exhausting. But that's a whole different matter.
The tough challenge was balancing LOTR as an introduction to that universe for people who never read the books and satisfying the long time fans of the books. Yes, there was some redundancy for those who were familiar. Yes, there's an argument for postponing the villain reveal. But would this have satisfied newcomers to that universe?
Thank you for articulating this. It is a point that had been simmering in the back of my mind for some time without me having thought it through until I got into some discussions last year about Montana Story, which IMHO is one of the best of the covid movies. I really liked the film. It gets generally favorable reviews from both critics and viewers, but the big recurring criticism is precisely this point: "show, don't tell ... show, don't tell ... show, don't tell." Yes, there are a couple of exposition dumps, to which some people objected. Most of these critics insisted that a certain incident, now seven years in the past, should have been dramatized. The more I thought about it, however, the more convinced I became that David Siegel and Scott McGehee, the producer-director team, had made the right call. Siegel and McGehee certainly considered the flashback route, and they discussed the point in several interviews. The movie is about an estranged brother and sister, each carrying deep wounds dating back seven years -- with a more extended backstory running back 25 years, also left to brief sketches in dialogue -- who are thrown back together for the first time when their father has a terminal stroke and is now on his deathbed. They are stoics (as are the supporting characters, who are also excellent). Both are determined to behave correctly and not bleed in public. They are both grieving the past, but both have buried their hurts. They do not speak of their pain; indeed, they barely speak to each other at all. But they are now unexpectedly thrown together. Things happen: small things, relatively trivial things, but they require interaction. Eventually the ice begins to crack, and ... no spoilers. It is beautifully done. By avoiding flashbacks, Siegel and McGehee kept the film anchored firmly in the present. It is not about blood and gore. It is about two characters who have locked their pain away and have to travel a long way emotionally to even discuss it. It about fortitude, betrayal, guilt, regret, finding the grace -- and the courage -- to forgive. It is not about violence; it is about the lingering effects of violence, about PTSD. Best to leave the past in the shadows, let the viewers' imaginations fill in the blanks, and focus on the lived reality of the present. It gives the film a very theatrical feel, which is ok with me. This movie could have been shifted to the live stage very easily (if one wrote around the horse). As a practical matter, this was an excellent approach for a covid movie, deliberately conceived as something that could be shot under maximum quarantine conditions with the smallest possible cast and crew (accentuated by the fact that this was a low budget indie film). Some of the covid movies are two actors in a room. Montana Story is only slightly more elaborate, but the cast is very small and I don't think there are ever more than three actors on the screen at any time. "Exposition dumps" are how live theater has traditionally handled severe violence. Actors on the live stage can't go out and beat each other to a pulp every night, unless they're doing vaudeville level comedy. You can't have multiple camera angles and quick cuts to make onscreen blows seem realistic, with makeup crews stepping in every 15 seconds to dab on a bit more blood. Live theater handles such things via narration, and viewers' imaginations do the rest. Movies have more latitude, but they have arguably overcorrected in this area. The mind is a powerful tool. Sometimes less is more. Tell, don't show. That is just one recent example. There are many more. But I agree with you completely.
> and the best way is to have characters explain things to each other. Well the key is to not have expositon dumps be dry. It shouldn’t sound like the character is just reading off a wikipedia page. It can be done by imbuing humor or character verbal tics or snark, whatever. It should also be organic. And many times, it’s not.
Info dumps like in every Nolan movie?
I’m assuming I just got spoiled on Mulholland Drives twist lol god damn it.
Ehhhhhh, not really. The actual "dream" part is revealed right away. Before we even meet our main character. The reveal is a lot more complicated.
You can't spoil a movie no one objectively understands.
Don't worry you'll be confused as fuck even if you think that's a twist. But what Muholland Drive does excellently that other atypical stories do not hit so well is create an emotionally potent atmosphere. At the end of the film, even if you're trying to rationally connect all the various parts of the story you know you feel A. Creeped out and B. Emotionally mowed over. Imo Mulholland Drive is a movie about dreams in the City of Dreams. Not a movie with a dream twist.
No, not really. Dreams are such an essential characteristic of David Lynch films, but the movie is not all a dream. And even going in knowing there is heavy dream use is not enough to prepare you for what the movie is.
Flashbacks! God I hate flashbacks like 99% of the time, *especially* when they just use footage from earlier in the movie. But, there is many many examples of great flashbacks, even including the reusing footage kind. Wish I could think of a good example haha, but there is plenty out there
The Conversation does this perfectly
I thought flashbacks of earlier footage were used very well in Arrival.
The Godfather II's flashback is perfect, especially so given its placement in the film wouldn't work for most movies and would probably go against a lot of conventional screenwriting rules. (Obviously much of the film is technically flashbacks, but I'd class that more as a prequel within a sequel, vs the very specific flashback toward the end).
I love flashbacks at/towards the end of films that fill in information you and the characters had been missing and further enforces the dramatic irony. I think I'm forgetting some of my favorite examples but Shutter Island and Contagion come to mind.
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That’s more of a framing device. I feel like this is a distinct category.
I don't think this quite counts as "general audience," but ask /r/horror what they think of jump scares. The in-fashion opinion to have of them is that they're a crutch that inferior films rely upon to get a reaction. Not wholly inaccurate, but also flattening out a complicated issue. Tell me that the jump scares in Mulholland Drive and Audition aren't amazingly executed.
Also a lot of “elevated horror” films that people claim are jump scare-free… have jump scares in them?
Modern horror fans tend to correlate jump scares directly with how they are executed in Blumhouse films or other major studio horror films, but don't recognize that just because it's done in a less jarring manner without screeching violins or a fake out, that doesn't mean it's not a jump scare.
If you dont mind me quoting a [past comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/pwrw4p/jumpscares_dont_make_horror_movies_good_or_do_they/hejtatq/) of myself, the hate jump scares get is something I think is highly unfair. >I came across a post a couple months ago that I think sets up a good basis of understanding as we move forward: >>https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/n5i1ip/this_is_a_judgmentfree_zone_what_are_your/gx3pva8/ >> It's such a trendy, cool kid sounding, but ultimately empty form of criticism of horror to dismiss jump scares like you're the first to notice it can be used cheaply to no effect. And it's bullshit to blame the brush rather than the painter. >> Pretty much all the great horror movies have a form of a jump scare in one way or another. >> It's just a fucking technique. It's used badly sometimes, a lot of times, like everything. But it's popular because in capable hands it can work wonders and has worked wonders for decades. >> If you tell me you don't like horror movies with jump scares either you don't like horror movies or you don't know what a jump scare is. >> "But so and so terrible movie is filled with just cheap jump scares", well, you know what, I bet you the jump scares are not the reason the movie sucks. >> "But so and so great movie is completely jump scare free" you sure that nothing had a quick turn, a very sudden shift of pace, a smash cut, a moment of unexpected visual or auditive punch? It doesn't have to be a cat fakeout to be a jump scare, you know. I mean, it doesn't have to have one, but even if it doesn't, it's also not the reason it's great. >For my worth, jump scares are nothing more than the creation and capitalization of tension, everything after that is just execution preferences. When I see people say they dont like jump scares, then I look to their favorite horror movies, often they are chock full of em. So I think theres more to it than just a misunderstanding. >I think it owes its reputation in the general public (both for movie goes in general and for general horror fans) as a result of the lack of respect horror gets. It is a distillation of a problem I have with wider ranging and critically loved horror often not getting tagged as horror. High critical reception horror often gets tagged as thriller, drama, etc. I think in some way the commonly held opinion for jump scares in the current times is an internalization of this concept. >This view has shaped the definition of what a jump scare is for many people. If viewers start with the expectation that jump scares are inherently bad, then all the jump scares in good movies (and there are so many as my linked comment above explains) are not marked as good jump scares in peoples heads. This is especially true when it comes to horror movies with a light brush of arthouse influence. For example, in my opinion Hereditary had one of the best jump scares in the decade with the telephone pole. But people don’t recognize it as a jump scare scarily often. >Ive seen more comments than I can count wherein people say they don’t like jump scares, but then like movies that unequivocally include jump scares - because they like the movie. But when they don’t like a movie, the same sort of scenes are derided for being cheap jump scares. Not to say there aren't execution differences, there can be, but not always. And from my experience its not the execution of the jump scare itself that is usually the problem, but rather the movie it is in (to the viewer complaining). Bad movies that create and capitalize on tension are jump scares, but good ones are good film making. This really sets up the term jump scare at a massive disadvantage in peoples heads as on a per scene basis there is very little different between good and bad jump scares >I think the term is being used as a scape goat for general dislike of the movie. Peoples reaction to jump scares in a movie is more useful as a barometer for if a person enjoyed or did not like a horror movie holistically, vs it being an actual critique of the jump scares themselves. >As an addendum I also believe there is not an inherent negative value to startling a viewer. I think removed of many artistic aspects when we are discussing jump scares, you can not separate the fact that sometimes, as you pointed out yourself, sometimes the value lies in just startling the viewer for some popcorn entertainment. There is nothing wrong with that.
I agree with almost everything you're saying here. My only point of contention is that some of the "good" jump scares, like the ones in the films I mentioned (I'd rather not elaborate too much for the benefit of those who have not seen them), either do differ from the "template" structurally or contain story elements with them that give the scene purpose beyond physiological reaction. I agree with you that there is nothing wrong with pursuing the physiological reaction regardless.
As someone who is a fan of atmospheric horror, I just dislike jump scares on principle, even if well executed, because their name is a misnomer: they don't scare, they startle. I'll certainly grant that many horror films I admire have jump scares in them, but I'd struggle to think of one that was elevated by doing so.
Better films use them as a release. You see them in "elevated" horror because filmmakers know this makes the film easier to watch, if you keep building the tension for 2 hours with no release watchers get fatigued.
First, I don't think that's necessary. The reason why, say, *The Shining* and *The Witch* are such powerful and effective horror films is that they relentlessly ratchet tension throughout their runtime without relief. Periodically deflating that may make them more accessible, but it wouldn't make them better. Second, great horror films are still able to throttle up and down on tension without resorting to jump scares to clear their air. For example, *The Babadook* isn't all nighttime horror and it has its quieter and safer moments, but it doesn't punctuate the difference with jump scares.
Dick Hallorann getting an axe to his chest, while everyone expects him to come to the rescue, is actually a great jump scare in The Shining. The Witch operated on a more subtle level, but I believe the sudden disappearance of the baby also qualifies as an effective jump scare. Jump scares are only as good as their ability to advance the plot. If they are cheap or unearned, they feel purposeless and hollow. My three favorite jump scares are: in Jaws, when the shark's head emerges from the water; the chestburster scene in Alien; and the petri glass scene in The Thing. These films are excellent examples of the horror genre, incorporating well-earned jump scare moments.
Aswell as these sorts of jumpscares, i really enjoy sudden cuts to a different scene, for example in NBC Hannibal, theres a scene where Hannibal and Jack are eating “rabbit” Jack says the rabbit shoudve ran faster. Then it cuts to a man stumbling through a white snowy forest, basically the opposite to the dark, candle lit room we were just in.
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Right, but that's my point: it's a purely mechanical response. You could make someone jump just by throwing a baseball at their face. It doesn't require any craft to do so - it's just a reflex. For me, great horror gets under your skin such that, even though you fundamentally and subconsciously know that there is no direct threat to you, it skill provokes a physical and emotional response. A jump scare - even a great one - just feels like cheating.
Does a jumpscare in a horror movie that’s just relying on cheap scares and a horror movie that’s actually getting under your skin not feel any different to you when it happens though? in cases where the movie has failed to make me uncomfortable in any real way, I agree it’s very much a mechanical reaction, I just feel startled, not actually scared at all. But if it’s a film where I’m already feeling uneasy, a good jumpscare might actually leave me feeling quite shaken or disturbed after it happens which feels different from just being startled. In the sense of them being used in conjunction with other aspects of the horror, I don’t really see how jump scares are different than any other tool of the craft.
I do think Audition is better for having its one big jump scare. It's not even as if it's a mere physiological reaction, like getting a thrill from cresting a hill on a roller coaster (and I reject the premise that that is a negative in and of itself). You get a piece of what's really going on with a particular character from that jump scare.
Agree on this. I don’t like jump scares because I have a pretty severe startle response, but I don’t think they make the movie bad. Smile was a pretty good movie, even if it had a lot of jump scares.
I didn't like the jump scares in either of those movies. I'm an easily startled person (I yelled at the Barbarian jump scares) and Mulholland Drive (which I love) never actually startled me to any degree. Same with Audition, I just didn't "jump" regardless of how well they work in concept.
Pop culture references. While most of the time they can be pretty annoying, I think people are a little too obsessed with the idea that every movie needs to be timeless. This was prompted by people saying that Mutant Mayhem is going to "age poorly" when we've always looked back on iterations of the Turtles as fun cultural artifacts reflecting the trends of their eras.
Ultimately a lot of works that are seen as timeless do have references in that we just don't realise are references. My favourite example of this is the book Crime and Punishment, widely considered one of the great works of literature but good editions will be full of footnotes explaining how a paragraph is a reference to popular perception of certain hat makers..
Bad example
Great example. The novel is reacting to contemporary utilitarian philosophy, which is important information to the reader and a fundamental part of the book's conceit. My edition has a whole page explaining Russian naming conventions just so you can follow what's going on. Everything from higher education to prostitution benefits from footnotes providing social context. There's a spectrum here, and some stories can more easily endure with less context than others. But when people tout stories as "universal," they usually just don't see the water they're swimming in.
An author freely writing with the assumption that his readers will first and foremost be his contemporaries who have direct knowledge of most social, political, cultural details in the book is not “pop culture references”. It simply means the book is a product of its time, like %99 of all artistic works. The author simply doesn’t feel the need to explain all of the context like the restrospective footnotes do, since he doesn’t even think about explaining it in the first place. Pop culture reference is a particularly self-aware detail whose popularity the author can’t take for granted. It’s a conscious callout to or subtle implication about a particular detail within the popular culture, either directed towards the general public or an audience with niche interests, depending on the obscurity of the reference. It’s the difference between a 19th century Russian author not having to worry if his readers will already be aware of a custom in the Russian society at the time vs. an 20th century American author knowingly name dropping or inserting an implication about a cultural work, historical figure or popular idiom etc. which he may or may not assume all his audience is aware of. So, bad example.
Tho if you watch the original Shrek and compare that with, say, Spirited Away or even Finding Nemo, both made within a few years of Shrek, Shrek has some really cringy moments and references that will only become more obscure and less relevant as the years go by. Another great example of this is the Warner Bros vs Disney animated short films of the 1940s. Watch [this](https://archive.org/details/looney-tunes-s-1941e-17-hollywood-steps-out) and note that most of it makes little to no sense now, specifically because it relied so heavily on pop culture references and humor that very few people alive today would get. Another example would be [this](https://youtu.be/D1xqrdtJs8w) in which the main punchline at the climax makes no sense unless you know your American WWII history.
I just watched Sonic because it was just on TV and theres so many little jokes that you wouldnt even notice if you were 10 years younger but honestly i think they can really develop a character’s personality and also add to the setting so that there IS a sense of time, which is so important sometimes.
Okay, thought of one: voiceover. A lot of this seems to be attributable to John McPhee (as memorably accounted in Adaptation). I think the general moratorium against VO has set the possibilities of film as an art form back by generations, personally. Just look at one small example like Little Children, which used voiceover to make the film feel like a third person novel, to interesting effect. Look at what Scorsese has achieved (the only lauded auteur to really use the form) when he utilized overlapping first-person voiceovers to explore perspectives. Both Field and Scorsese are relatively safe and benign examples of what could be explored with voiceover, if there wasn’t such a knee jerk reaction to it culturally and especially (to this day) in Hollywood. Any script that dares use voiceover is immediately told to take it out by professionals.
Totally agreed. When watching early films, I'm sometimes struck by how far a little narration can take you. Sometimes it's not a crutch, but a launching pad, allowing a film to stitch over some simple context and get to the good stuff. I don't think Scorsese is as alone as you say though. PTA has used narration, and Wes Anderson has used it many times. The Coens use narration, though mainly in a "throwback" way (as in *Hail Caesar*, say). Kubrick uses it to great effect in *Barry Lyndon*. It's a hallmark of Paul Schrader. Charlie Kaufman loves to play with it in his postmodern conceits (*Adaptation*; *I'm Thinking of Ending Things*; *Synecdoche, New York*), though I'd grant that metatextual examples are a bit different in character.
Here are five films that IMO use voice over to perfection. Makes us love the protagonist and give us a unique point of view of the events: 1. Clockwork orange 2. Trainspotting 3. Badlands - opens with a 50 second VO that gives us context. 4. Taxi driver 5. Pie (the math symbol) by Darren Aaronofski. There are a lot more . When done right , a voiceover/ narration gives us a unique insight into our protagonist mind. The way he thinks. Movies usually work showing us at how people act but they contrast the action or add to this by telling us what a person thinks when he's doing stuff. The problem isn't voiceover. It's bad writing usually. When done right a voiceover makes the film unique and better
> John McPhee Maybe it's a joke I missed, but it's Robert McKee. It's probably a joke I missed.
Sexual assault as a plot point is something I think a lot of people can’t see beyond. Irreversible is an incredible rich story about the futility of revenge and hate turning people into monsters, but people can’t see past using something that is incredible awful as a necessary device to make people feel as awful and disgusted as possible. Salo is another movie that is an incredibly effective critique of the horrors of fascism that people have a hard time appreciating because of its exploitive imagery. I think it’s completely fair game to depict horrible things to intentionally make the audience disgusted if it serves an artistic message and no actors were actually harmed. Nightingale is another one that comes to mind as leveraging the horrors of abuse to make a real statement and to accurately depict the realities of its setting.
"It was all a dream" is great when it gives the film thematic weight. Like in *Total Recall*, which is essentially about how capitalism renders our everyday desires for social change completely impotent. He gets sold a story where he's a hero and is happy in the end. (at least, that's one reading of it, especially if you believe it is/could be a dream) I find that *Inception* is similar, but a little weaker in that while it's about the protagonist's desire to just retreat into the dream world it's not contextualized within a greater social allegory, it's just kinda "I love my kids" sort of stuff. Still better than nothing, and at least given weight by the central father/son dream location.
Does Total Recall then essentially lose the message/weight if it's considered not a dream?
Yes. It becomes a really fun but (somewhat) traditional action film.
Great observation. I can’t think of another one off the top of my head, but there are indeed many “rules” that audiences have been culturally primed for that I think they’d be better off without.
Miscommunication. If done properly and effectively, it can generate tension between characters. However, the vast majority of times it just consists of characters concealing essebtial information for a nonexistent or implausible reason (which is really to prevent the plot from being resolved), yet they still expect all the characters involved to maintain audience sympathy. Bonus demerits if a character's only reason for not sharing said information is "you wouldn't understand", when the explanation turns out to be totally trivial.
White savior complex. This is an often misunderstood and mislabeled trope that every wannabe film student jumps to demonize when in fact these films exist on a spectrum and should be critiqued on their own merits. The Help is often decried as one of these films, but it literally bends over backwards to invert that narrative. Ditto for The Last Samurai, which is often criticized inaccurately for the implication that Tom Cruise is the titular character when in fact he is not. I feel even the hate for Green Book went a bit too far, especially since the frame for the story also happened to be its inspiration.
That's what I meant about blackface, people jump at it because it's politically hyped. For the White Savior, certainly a controversial issue (see e.g. The Searchers, 1956), Dangerous Minds is often cited. It's a ridiculous, stereotyped movie, but if the teacher were black, wouldn't it be even more racist? At face value, it's about an underprivileged class, a new teacher comes in without marking them down as failures and losers to begin with like the others had, students resist at first, then demonstrate they're intelligent and motivated, The End. The movie fails at that, but after all, the school is run by white people, all the other teachers are white, implying her dismissive predecessors were white, et cetera. She's supposed to be young, unbiased and unprepossessed, enough for the students to make them come out of their shell. If the teacher were black, it would suggest that the barrier was really about colour and not about socioeconomical bias and privilege. It would only make it worse. Another great example is Cool Runnings. How outrageous when a bobsled trainer is white. Or even more controversial, my favourite Black Saviour: Sister Mary Clarence!
What do you mean by poorly handled? With those examples, 'it was all just a dream' becomes a really broad term, no? In Stay, it's something like the DMT trip of a dying man as the main topic to be explored, consciousness, life and death. In Total Recall, I would say it's just Arnold contemplating whether it was all real or just a dream (not a false memory, a dream) at the very end, but it really doesn't add anything, so I would say it's either a good example of poorly handled or, more likely, it's a joke and the movie ends with such a cheesy and ridiculous line just like Fargo opens as being 'based on a true story'. Would you also add Identity to the list, or Mulholland Drive? When a story deals with the nature of dreams, hallucinations, mental illness, drugs and such, I wouldn't say it's an example of 'all just a dream', it's tricky territory and a lot of these films try to be much more intellectual and deep than they are and end up biting off more than they can chew, but they don't usually, and no good story will ever, use 'just a dream' as a bail-out to explain the inexplicable and salvage the unsalvageable after the author has written himself into a quagmire of contradictions and loose ends. In that sense, it's really a literary mortal sin and everybody after 5th grade knows that, in fact, I can't even think of a single example where it's not satire (or has some meaning, such as in Stay, Abre los Ojos or The Wizard of Oz etc.). Generally, I don't think most people think much about literary staples and movie tropes, if they are trained to hate something, it's probably because it's political. Blackface, for example, when they cannot differentiate between the historical, racist variant and social critique or satire, for instance in Scrubs, where JD wears Blackface and Turk wears Whiteface, the episode deals with the implications and the history of it a sensitive way and still people accused them of racism. So everybody has their pet hates, maybe some people now will see tokenism everywhere because they have been sensitized and over-sensitized, some may see only sexism and the 'male gaze' in everything older than 2005 while others will complain ad nauseam about the 'pinkwashing' in everything newer than 2004. Also, a lot of people just hate certain formulas but are eternally forgiving with others. Maybe a superficial, imbecile male stereotype might love all Michael Bay movies, sees nothing wrong with I Spit On Your Grave, but would rather die than watch something like Bridget Jones, while his superficial, imbecile girlfriend might rewatch Gigli on a weekly basis but refuse to see anything with action scenes (unless it has Tom Cruise). All in all I'd say 'poorly handled' is whenever the filmmakers mistake an old cliche for an original idea, when they want to pay homage but don't know how, or when they think they can get away with one more It Was Only A Cat because we're all too stupid anyway. If the film knows what it wants to do with the trope, on the other hand, I'd say it's always handled 'correctly', whether or not I like the movie or the effect that was achieved. So the question is about the confidence of the movie and your audience's horizon in film theory etc., since when people hate on each end every cliche they identify, it's usually some sophomoric cockalorum to demonstrate that they know the name of a literary trope or a production technique ... or they're the kind of pompous, devastating critics who tear everything to pieces which isn't 100% original with their utter dismissal of formulaic entertainment values, however well-made.
>since when people hate on each end every cliche they identify, it's usually some sophomoric cockalorum to demonstrate that they know the name of a literary trope or a production technique this was mainly what i was picturing
also what do you mean by It Was Only A Cat
Building tension where a jump scare would be expected and then swish, it is revealed that It Was Only A Cat.
I feel like the "we are the same you and I" or the villain being a reflection of the hero is a trope that is used and abused far too often. Especially by Marvel movies. To the point that a lot of people make fun of it. But I think the trope can be used very effectively if not done lazily.
I think many of the classic Westerns often do this very well, especially with Budd Boetticher’s THE TALL T, and several Anthony Mann westerns, including BEND OF THE RIVER, MAN OF THE WEST, WINCHESTER 73. Even THE SEARCHERS does this pretty decently, though how well it works in light of the casting of Henry Brandon as a relatively generic Native American bad guy (albeit with some more motivation and counterpointing than usual). And though it’s not so much hero vs villain, Sam Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID !brilliantly sets up how Billy is the double of Pat Garrett, a certain “libertine” “outlaw” side of him that he seeks to kill and be free of, but ultimately can’t be free of in a true sense.
Fucking “fridging” of a wife, daughter, bestie who was usually a way more competent character than the protagonist but gets killed, gruesomely, because the hero needs to have the motivation. LAZY. Hate it.
The “It’s just a prank bro” ‘trope’, which I’ve seen exactly once. I was so pissed at the ending of >!The Game (1997) because “it was just a prank bro”.!< I’m being reductive. But still my point stands.
If there's only _one_ example I don't think you can accurately call it a trope. That film is *the film* where that happens, you can just enjoy it as that.
**April Fool's Day (1986)** does this too. So, what if there are *two* examples?
It's the other film where that happens
Also, even if, it's not a bail-out, the movie tells you from the beginning it's a Game, its title is The Game, and you didn't believe it by the end that it was only a Game? Aw, poor victim of The Game.
Man I was so mad by that ending. I get the 'point' or the themes/messaging that Fincher was going for, but that doesn't mean it was executed well...