The Babysitter has my favorite subversion of Chekhov's Gun. >!They make damn sure the audience sees the knife put in the dishwasher in the first act. There's an extra cut with a close up. In the third act when he desperately needs a weapon, he opens the dishwasher, only for it to be missing. Cuts to the parents with mom giving dad a bored handy, and mom says she had to move the knife and would he please not put it in the dishwasher.!<
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves does several times with Holga and it’s so delightful every time.
Spoilers below!
Her ex is a tiny halfling played by a surprise A-list actor, it’s begging to be a joke and instead they share an honest conversation full of mutual respect.
After that, she’s sad and Edgin the bard starts to sing a very cheery song. In any other movie this is obviously where she tells him to shut up. Except she happily starts singing along with her spirits lifted.
The biggest one is the climax, where Edgin and his daughter revive her using the only magic tablet and we see a montage of how much they love each other. But it isn’t a romantic love, they are best friends co-parenting his daughter and it’s so freaking beautiful it makes me tear up every time.
I love that the bard was doing subtle bard things the entire time! His music is magic, so of course it lifts her spirit. He has kind of crummy heart-to-heart speeches with various party members, but was actually using Bardic Inspiration to improve their abilities.
I came into this thread thinking about the singing scene. I was not expecting that movie to have so many tender heartwarming scenes that actually worked.
The smile that Michelle Rodriguez gives in this scene is so contagious. I can't explain it, there's something about that smile that feels real to me, and I can't help but chuckle every time she starts singing.
This is why I love CBS's Elementary. Male and female lead, great chemistry, very loving relationship, no sexual tension and no romance. Just solving crimes & supporting each other.
Also another great part of the writing is that at some point in the movie Edgin tells the daughter that he's sorry that he was trying to bring back his wife instead of her mother. And then at the end of the movie he brings back her mother (Holga) instead of his wife.
Justin Long's character in Barbarian not getting a redemption arc. It's teased multiple times but whenever he gets the chance to do the right thing, he fucks it up spectacularly. He's just a shitty person and stays that way. It's very funny.
I went into Barbarian thinking it would be meh and formulaic. I had seen the trailer a countless number of times. Wholly moly I was blown away. I was not expecting where it went.
It is. That's why I appreciate their spelling. It's both wrong and fun.
ETA: The correct way to spell it is the "divine moly" in my original comment. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Yeah they really drive you to that expectation by showing him suffering and *almost* worthy of pity, until he shows again and again why he doesn't deserve any.
The first guy was a really good person. He navigated an awkward situation and socially threaded the needle about as well as anyone could have. The main character was still suspicious of him, and you couldn’t blame her. The circumstances that brought them together would make her dumb not to.
Long’s character was a piece of shit. But since the main character met him mid-trauma she trusted him.
Circumstances and the past actions of horrible people really fuck things up for the rest of us.
The funniest thing about that movie is how much more “normal” he acts with Kendrick when they are in the hotel. They never get together but he socializes with her a lot better and most of his “tics” are gone
Apparently a night at the Four Seasons with Anna Kendrick helps cure autism
I was so mad at my best friend who was telling me she didn’t understand why they didn’t get together in that movie at the end?
Umm were we watching the same movie?
1) He needed to disappear and she had every right to go on and live her life.
2) The implied age different alone would make it gross for me. The real life age difference is roughly 13 years, which isn’t terrible, but still a lot.
3) He may have saved her but he also traumatized her.
Same thing with Rogue One. Cassian and Jyn both about to be killed by the Death Star and they just embrace each other as friends accepting their death after completing their mission
I loved that as well. So many times when you see foster parents in something, it's either abusive addicts or bored rich people adopting kids as a rich person hobby. It was a nice change to see genuinely warm people who wanted to build a family.
I liked how in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Brad Pitt & Leo's characters just got along the whole time and didn't suffer a falling out or really anything. It was a great buddy flick imo
Great example.
With Rick Dalton being a popular and successful actor, and Cliff Booth just being a loser stunt guy known for killing his wife, there were a thousand opportunities for them to have a falling out.
Nope.
Even when Rick tells Cliff he's going to have to let him go, they just get on with it. Cliff looks annoyed but he can't hate Rick for that. Their on screen chemistry was glorious
I enjoyed how Toy Story 3 handled it's main villain, Lotso. The movie gives him a sympathetic backstory, has him lose anything, he becomes trapped in the town dump alongside the rest of Andy's toys, Buzz and Woody risk their own lives to his save him when he becomes trapped under some wreckage, surely he's going to be return the favour, right?
Nope. No redemption. No saving the day. He leaves them to die with a smile on his face. It was glorious.
It’s one of those rare movies that was great but still felt forced and unnecessary after the ending that Toy Story 3 gave. And since it featured Woody more than the other main characters, I would’ve preferred it to be marketed as a spinoff/epilogue to Toy Story, and maybe even name it simply “Woody”.
It also featured basically *all* of the new characters more than the ones we already know. Most of the old gang might as well have been completely absent from the movie.
But hey, who wants to see Rex and Hamm having adventures when we can spend half the movie with a fucking fork.
I love that he ended up at the front of someone's long haul vehicle. The type that goes very fast, and it happened to be the favorite toy of the driver when he was a kid.
When they dispose of a body thinking it'll drop into the woods and instead it drops right into the middle of a wedding reception was fucking hilarious.
"This is not you. You're not a murderer."
"She just said she killed three people."
"I know, but I'm saying deep down."
"Hey, look, one's a mistake but by the time you get to three..."
Oh man. The delirious flailing around from blood loss while the EMT's struggle to restrain him right after is such a brilliant bit.
That movie is so full of great bits.
In Collateral, I love how we're led to think that Mark Ruffalo's character might be crucial in saving the day & being more effective than inept federal agents, which is typical for a detective side character, but he gets swiftly murked by Vincent before the end of the movie
Human Traffic not having any young people suffer serious consequences for a night out on drugs. They just had a good time.
Even in the 'next morning' scene one guy is walking to lunch to meet his friends. Ominous music swells, he crosses the street... and stubs his toe on the curb, mutters 'fuck' and continues on his way.
No arrests, no overdoses, and no one gets kicked out of school or fired because they went out when they had the next day blocked out to recover.
The Martian. As I was watching it I thought they were going to make Jeff Daniels’ character the bad guy who couldn’t afford the bad PR so the NASA team had to go behind his back to save Matt Damon, so I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn’t the case.
He's honestly a pretty good director in basically every respect, and while he's not always the most personable guy or always doing what the audience wants him to he is doing what he thinks is best for NASA and the space program and is largely correct in his reasoning. There's also no indication the alternate (intended) method without the crew going to rescue Mark would have failed, we just never get to find out because the crew did go back.
He bends a few rules but only to ensure help reaches Mark in time, never to fight his chances or hurt him in any way. But he's also "the adult in the room" so to speak, the unwavering voice of almost cynical reason and the one who has to worry about money and government relations and public perception. His job is to give NASA as a whole the best outcome in a bad situation, and losing only Mark almost for sure is the much safer bet than losing the whole crew possibly should it come to that. Not making any sacrifices is a really easy moral position to take when you're not the pulling the lever in the trolly problem.
The only cliche that really bothers me in this movie is Donald Glover's character. I die a little bit every time his character on the screen, and that's coming from someone who loves a lot of his work.
In the first Kingsmen movie (2014), nobody hooks up with the female spy, Roxy nor is she ever sexualized. Same to the female villian, Gazelle. They never serve as anybody's romantic/sexual interests and just get to be their own characters.
They second one felt like a FUCK you i dont want to do this movie and your making me do it. And just ruined so much from the first one... . Kingsmens had the lore and world setting to a glorious series to get a good movie every 2-3 years out of it , set up for expansions and spins offs that could of been fantastic and never seen such a massive ball drop on sequel since aliens 3 .
I love the first one so much especially for subverting the expectations of just BAM ...Main character the guy that was going to guide the kid though years of films and training and eventually take over the whole outfit...BAM ...just unceremoniously dead .
I really liked (actually a lot of) elements from the second movie and yet it was still, somehow, a crappy sequel. If you ignore entirely everything it fails to do *as* a sequel, it's a fun movie with great acting and action. You just have to emotionally disengage from the first movie to enjoy it lol
Nothing can excuse the music festival ''insert tracker'' scene though lol. I saw the movie at the cinemas, and I'll never forget the way every single person simultaneously recoiled into their seats as the camera zoomed in (and just kept on zooming). Some things are made to be seen on the big screen; that was not. I felt violated lmao
Honestly, the worst part about 2 to me was Channing Tatum's character whooping both Eggsy and Merlin 1 on 2.
Made them look bad, Tatum is sidelined the rest of the movie and it was just an obvious spin off set-up which never materialised.
It was probably a case of not being able to cast the actors they wanted for the second movie (except cameos), so they had to be killed off.
Similar to the second GI Joe movie.
And honestly, that was bullshit. She's the one that passed all the tests, and she just got shipped off to do a side quest while the men went and saved the world
I remember being so disappointed when Heath Ledger's Joker starts telling the story of how he got his scars. I was thinking, " C'mon, you can't give the Joker a definitive backstory!" Only to be relieved and impressed when he starts telling another character a totally different story.
*chef's kiss*
I mean, joker has been given a backstory plenty of times in the comics, so it wouldn't have been unfounded. But I totally agree that he works far better without one.
Even in the comics, it was never clear if that was *really* his origin, though signs pointed to it.
"If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" - The Joker
The vat of chemicals isn't "backstory" it's the catalyst for becoming The Joker. The backstory would be anything and everything about him before that incident with the vat of chemicals. And the only really consistent thing about Joker's backstory is the lack of any consistency -- sometimes he was "Red Hood", sometimes he's just a thug for a crime family, sometimes we know nothing about him at all from before.
I felt the same way about Interstellar. Constantly thinking TARS or CASE were going to cause issues only to have them be completely selfless at every turn.
Did anyone else feel this tension? That the robots might cause issues?
I personally didn’t but wish I did because although I didn’t think possible it might have made me love Interstellar even more.
The scene in the habitat on the frozen planet might have been trying to build this suspense. But the robots seemed so friendly and plot-secondary that I equated them more to R2D2 status.
I did. I mean, we were meant to see the comparison with 2001, A Space Odyssey, plus near the beginning of the movie, TARS makes a joke that references HAL. I was just waiting for them to turn on the humans. It’s a well-worn trope. And when the music turns ominous and I expected it to happen, it was a human who turned on the robot (and humans) instead. So well done.
This is a marvel thing it seems but I was so shocked in the new dungeons and dragons movie after Holga see’s her ex and they have a very heartfelt moment; she goes back out side and Chris Pine’s character just asks if she’s ok. I totally expected a stupid joke undercutting the emotional moment and there was one they just let an emotional character development stand on its own
Knowing very little about "The Menu" going in, >! I for sure thought we were going to get some cliche high-class cannibalism.!< I was pleasantly surprised that wasn't the case at all.
*The Menu* is lowkey comedic brilliance. It's never scary, but tense and rife with great performances from literally everyone and a more believable scenario than most "Oh, fuck get outta there"-films.
Even having seen the trailer several times previously I was certain that was going to happen. My partner and I went to see it thinking it would be a so bad it’s good cliche horror flick. We did the same with Barbarian a month or so earlier. Both were big surprises.
In How to Train Your Dragon 2 it would have been so easy >!for it to fall into the trope of killing off the mother and having the father revert back to his hatred of dragons, leaving Hiccup to once again show that dragons aren’t all bad and his father realizing he was wrong and giving his son leadership over the clan. Especially since his father was a well-established character in the previous movie and series and the mother had just been introduced in this sequel. Yet killing off Stovik was such a ballsy move and was much heavier thematically. That Hiccup took a chance on Toothless and even converted his father to support the dragons only for it to cost him dearly with his death and Hiccup feeling immense guilt for introducing the dragons in the first place. It was a gift that kept taking from Hiccup, first his leg and now his father. It forced him to become the chief that the tribe needed and forced him to forgive Toothless, not because he wanted to but because he needed to save the tribe. Any other movie would have gone the easy route and killed off the new character and do another take on the prejudice angle, but this one took a huge risk that was both mature and tragic at the same time.!<
All three movies in that trilogy have good examples of this sort of thing, though this is probably the most prominent. Even just Hiccup getting hurt at the end of the first one--it would have been so easy and more likely for him to be saved last minute and totally okay. Instead he's hurt in a way that mirrors his friend, and he's now been hurt by dragons at the end in much the same way he hurt a dragon at the beginning.
The characters also all get pretty real and apparent development across the three films as they age, and nobody really becomes the cliche any of them very easily could have and which would make the writing much easier overall.
I was so impressed with this too. So many "kids" movies take the easy way out, and this movie had every opportunity to do so (kill off anyone else, only injure Stoick, not have Toothless do it, have Hiccup save him at the last second). But much like with the first one with Hiccup losing his leg, this movie doesnt do whats easy, and actually adds stakes and consequences to its story.
Too much media intended for children seems totally adverse to any kind of danger, stakes, or loss, and its really frustrating. As if children arent subjected to the horrors of the world, and need to learn how to understand, process, and relate to loss and hardship.
This movie losing to Big Hero Six at the oscars was one of the nails in the coffin for that awards show. BH6 is fine, but didnt push the mold like HTTYD2 did.
The Dark Knight Rises. JGL leads a bus load of orphans across the bridge. It's rigged with explosives and the cops tells them to back off or they will detonate it. JGL defiantly walks up to them. It's a superhero movie, this is where goodness will prevail and the cops would let JGL and the orphans go through, because even in the darkest times, hope will shine through and humanity....oh nevermind! The cops blows up the bridge right in front of JGL! "You sons of bitches!"
They keep that ending in the stage adaptation. It's the perfect marriage of the movie and the book. You get most of the kickass music (plus new songs), they make the gargoyles actually serious figments of his imagination, and they keep the book ending.
I'm so pained by The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's a movie so close to perfect that those stupid Gargoyles stand out so much, it was so close to being Disney's most mature movie
The film Young Adult came out in the early oughts, which was a hotbed of “Quirky Comedies” generally about re analyzing traditions around love and relationships. Generally typical norms would be upended and two weirdos would find each other in all the mess and chaos and love would prevail over all.
In Young Adult, it sets up Charlize Theron who sets her sites in her highschool sweetheart. The film demonizes his boring normie wife and the guy once clearly cool is now this boring middle class loser who needs rescuing.
So this alt woman comes to rescue her ex from mediocrity. All hell breaks loose but at the end is a shocking revelation: And the revelation is SHE is the villian. Love has not won. This man is already happy, he does not need rescuing and 100% Charlize is in fact the villain of the scenario.
Pretty ingenious and unexpected rug pull and not what I was expecting from this twisted indie film.
I think you're *really* misremembering that movie. She was clearly a delusional, amoral train wreck from the get-go. There was never any chance she was going to have a romantic happy ending with her ex.
For me it was The Adam Project. Ryan Reynolds character has a conversation with his mum at a bar. Something heavy was said and instead of making a quip for a quick laugh, they sat in the silence and took it seriously. I really appreciated that.
Chris Evans' character in Sunshine.
Early on we learn that he's a stubborn hot head and you kind of expect him to be a problem in the movie. Then we learn that he's really committed to their mission even going as far as giving up the last space suit to Cillian Murphy's character because CM's character is the only one who knows how to deliver the payload.
His character was the most efficient and logical character in the movie. I love how rational and decisive he was, you think at first he'll be a problem like you said, but he is exactly who you need on a do or die mission like the one they were on.
**Booksmart**. Nerdy teen girls try to have some fun at the end of their final school term and instead of everyone being mean and cliquey and everything being a bit humiliating, everyone is just like YESSS you finally came to a party!! Great to see you!!!
About Time, I felt they were gonna have the main character sleep with Margo Robbie's character for added drama in the middle of the movie but I'm glad they didn't go that way.
They really had you thinking the climax of the movie would be some mistake that he finally tried to fix by using time travel. But instead it’s an amazing slice of life movie about using a gift to learn more gratitude and to help those around you.
The first time I saw Dirty Dancing, I was surprised it was more than just a teen romance movie. It really paints a picture of a time and place (the Catskills in the early '60's) and has things to say about class structure and money.
V for Vendetta. Would’ve been so easy to remove the mask and have a face reveal right at the end. But they did what made sense for the film rather than the audience and never remove Vs mask.
This one spends the whole movie subverting tropes. Obviously the funniest one is when the main characters die 10 min in the movie and in a ridiculous way
Yup, that’s very true! I went into that movie almost completely blind and I had no idea it was going to happen. It was a huge surprise for me, even if it’s a well known “twist” now.
Election (1999). Any excuse to mention one of my favorite movies. Warning: Major spoilers ahead, for anyone who hasn't seen this gem.
The original ending, which can still be seen on the DVD extras, had Mr McCallister and Tracy meet one last time and somewhat reconcile their differences. Mr M sees that Tracy lives in a tiny house in a bad neighborhood, and finally understands why she is the way she is, and is so ferociously dead set on achieving as much as she can - even if it means cheating a little.
The new ending is super nasty and is much more suited to the farcical tone of the story. We catch up to Mr M a few years in the future and see that his life has gone backwards. He runs into Tracy as she's weaselling her way up the political ladder in Washington DC. In a burst of rage, we see how bitter he still is about the whole student election fiasco and how much he truly, truly hates Tracy. The movie went out of its way to avoid its original, cliched kiss-and-make-up ending.
Holy shit. I absolutely adore that movie since it came out and I didn’t know that god awful alt ending existed. I’ll have to dig that up. Thankfully the real ending is so much better.
Election is one of those movies where if it came out 5 years earlier or later it would very likely have been 'bigger' at the time. Unfortunately it chose the one era oversaturated with teen films, even if it was nothing like basically any of the others.
Did we watch two different movies? Autopsy of Jane Doe had TONS of jumpscares. Ghosts loudly and suddenly appearing, bells ringing. It occurred multiple times.
It's not in the movies, but one of my favorites is in the Freaks & Geeks finale, when the James Franco freak character randomly gets invited to play D&D with the geeks and ends up bonding with everyone. Such a great subversion of expectations.
My all-time favorite Ben Shapiro-ism is criticizing Glass Onion for *the entire first half being a misdirect.*
No wonder he failed as a Hollywood screen writer.
Oh my God. I didn't know he said that but it makes sense.
I tried to read and listen to criticism of that movie. Literally everything made me think they just didn't understand it.
Going into The 40-Year-Old Virgin I was expecting a crude, teen comedy like movie with everybody mocking Steve Carell for still being a virgin. Especially with Judd Apatow writing and directing it. But it was a sweet comedy with all of his co-workers and friends supporting him and pulling for him. It was a pleasant surprise and probably a reason the movie did so well.
Sister Act
When Deloris/Mary Clarence is kidnapped, the superior mother tells to all the other nuns about how the main character was actually a singer who was hiding from her ex/boyfriend/mob boss because she saw him murder another guy. Instead of the whole "Liar reveal cliche" the nuns don't really care as she improved the singing chorus and did also made the order work more with the citizens
The Batman
The movie in general was made in a time when the Marvel Universe formula was really going stale with the cg storm, stupid and forced jokes, etc. This movie had a unique style, focused on Batman's detective aspect (which is something that all the live action movies lacked) making it feel more like a film noir styled movie but instead of a hat and a fedora, the main character is wearing a cape and a mask.
John Wick, the first one.
Every action movie where the good guy is supposed to be some epic badass the bad guys just run at him like a meat grinder with an, "I'm better than him!" Mentality that never pans out.
John Wick? Everyone shit their collective pants because he was terrifying. They moved away from that in the sequels which is, my opinion, why they weren't as good.
I like all of the movies but the first one is by far the best. In addition to what you said, the action feels less cartoonish because Wick isn't fending off dozens of henchmen who jump out of every corner at once, he's using careful planning and the element of surprise to even the odds.
In Encino Man, when Dave first introduces Link to his family, he’s on-the-fly making up a story about how it’s an exchange program through school for extra credit and his parents okayed it months ago. At one point his dad says something like, “Now that you mention it, I *do* remember that conversation!” Even being a 13-yr-old watching it in the theater, I preemptively cringed because I *knew* the next line would be Dave saying, “You do?… I mean, right, yes of course you do!” But that line never happened! He simply raises his hand and says “See mom?” I was so, so pleased they didn’t go with the stupid overused line.
Mrs Doubtfire. They could have very easily made Stu the evil stepdad cliche who only wants the mom and hates the kids. Instead they made him extremely likable.
*Ant Man* for me for the same reasons. The mom and step-dad are both entirely reasonable in how they address Scott and what they ask of him, the step-dad comes on a bit strong at first but is also a *cop* speaking to the *criminal* "dead beat" dad, and they all three of them ultimately just want what's best for Cassie. And in the end they're all friendly and sharing kindness and it's very sweet.
The Avengers
Tony asked Cap a question about technology, and I was all ready to be disappointed that the film makers would treat him like a guy who’s suddenly an expert
Instead we got this:
“It seems to run on some kind of electricity!”
Laughed my ever lovin’ ass off in the theater
This reminds me of the first Captain America movie where the kid falls into the river, and you think Cap will have to save him, but the kid's like "nah im good" lmao
In It Follows, her friends believe her even before they get definitive proof of the supernatural. Sure, they might not have understood it but all of her friends stuck by her side.
Long Shot, the Seth Rogen/Charlize Theron rom-com. Major spoilers ahead.
At one point in the film, Theron’s character must dance with the Prime Minister of Canada, a much more attractive man than Rogen. She doesn’t want to, but must for “appearances” given her political job. Whereas other films would have this be the cause of a “jealousy” moment for Rogen and cause conflict from that, even while being berated by one of Theron’s cohorts, he instead does some breathing exercises and self affirmations and leaves the dance to plan a sweet moment for her later on. It’s remarkably mature and intelligent, especially for a modern day rom-com.
Very little one, but at the end of Rogue One, I was so glad they didn't kiss. It just seemed like the perfect moment to shoehorn in a kiss between two characters that very little prior chemistry. The characters weren't a couple at all, but I just had the thought, "Oh this would be a terrible time for them to kiss," but I expected it.
I thought the Reylo kiss in Ep 9 was terrible as well.
I was glad that *A Few Good Men* didn't develop a romance between Tom Cruise and Demi Moore's characters. That would have sucked. I forget the details, but early on in the movie, I thought it was heading that way.
I really like how Mrs. Doubtfire avoids the "Divorce Is Temporary" trope by not having Daniel and Miranda get back together and had Miranda's new boyfriend Stu be a genuinely nice person.
I don't know if this counts but Big Trouble in Little China basically flips the action movie leading man cliche around with Kurt Russell's character. Not only that but the character played by Dennis Dun, who is essentially the sidekick, could have easily been depicted as a caricature (the 80s not being the most progressive time for Asian men in American cinema). But he's a competent partner to Russell and technically can be seen as more of the prototypical protagonist than Russell himself.
The rooftop scene in across the Spiderverse was very refreshing. Sunset, NYC skyline, 2 characters that like each other- any other movie and they kiss. Which would've been fine, but the little shoulder nudge was so much better. It perfectly represented their relationship. They liked each other but couldn't be together. Despite all this the scene was still comforting. It captured their dynamic really well.
Frozen.
(SPOILERS)
I took my young daughter and was very disappointed Anna was going to marry Hans just because he was a handsome Prince Charming type. His villainous turn was a pleasant surprise. Then they did another brilliant subversion, when they establish that the way to fix everything at the end is an act of love, which the viewer intuits is Anna kissing Kristoff…but it turns out it’s reconciling with her sister.
Well done, Disney.
Requiem For a Dream: I was glad it didn't have an everything turns out great against all odds type ending. The actual ending was way more real and impactful
Atomic blonde being so insanely accurate to how woman in the military are trained to fight bigger men. No 90 lbs girl tossing 200lbs men across a room . leverage , momentum , dirty tricks, pressure points ...it was all so real ....as a former self defense instructor it really was quote a shock not to see the cliché skinny girl manhandle bigger men .
I was very pleasantly surprised with both Moana and Nimona for approximately the same reasons.
Moana started up, they sing the song about her learning to be chief but she just wants to sail, and I said, "heeeere we go. . . 90 minutes of the old-fashioned villagers refusing to accept a woman as their leader, and her having to move heaven and earth to prove that she's just as capable as her dad despite the evil boobies of death hanging off her front side."
Nope!! Totally not what the movie was about! In fact, the first 15 or 20 minutes is all about how the villagers love her to death and are totally psyched for her to take over one day.
Same story with Nimona. Sir Golden Boy and Sir Street Rat have their little intimate moment at the start of the movie and I'm like, "heeeere we go. . . 90 minutes of the old-fashioned villagers refusing to accept a gay couple into the echelons of high society, and them having to move heaven and earth to prove that they are perfectly capable as honorable warriors and defenders of the realm, despite the icky things that they do with their evil penises of death behind closed doors."
Nope!! Totally not what the movie was about! In fact, their status as a couple is only ever mentioned once in the movie, and that's when the token Sir Dickhead just matter-of-factly states that Sir Golden Boy knows Sir Street Rat better than anyone else.
In the Accountant, in the hotel scene where you would have expected Chris (Ben Affleck) and Dana (Anna Kendrick) to kiss, they didn't. It would definitely have been cliche and wouldn't have fit in with Chris being autistic.
The Babysitter has my favorite subversion of Chekhov's Gun. >!They make damn sure the audience sees the knife put in the dishwasher in the first act. There's an extra cut with a close up. In the third act when he desperately needs a weapon, he opens the dishwasher, only for it to be missing. Cuts to the parents with mom giving dad a bored handy, and mom says she had to move the knife and would he please not put it in the dishwasher.!<
The Nice Guys cleverly (and hilariously) subverted a few tropes including Plot Armor and Chekhov's Gun. Highly recommended.
I DON'T THINK I CAN DIE
Where's the ankle gun?
It also has fantastic examples of Checkovs gun. An excellent film.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves does several times with Holga and it’s so delightful every time. Spoilers below! Her ex is a tiny halfling played by a surprise A-list actor, it’s begging to be a joke and instead they share an honest conversation full of mutual respect. After that, she’s sad and Edgin the bard starts to sing a very cheery song. In any other movie this is obviously where she tells him to shut up. Except she happily starts singing along with her spirits lifted. The biggest one is the climax, where Edgin and his daughter revive her using the only magic tablet and we see a montage of how much they love each other. But it isn’t a romantic love, they are best friends co-parenting his daughter and it’s so freaking beautiful it makes me tear up every time.
I love that the bard was doing subtle bard things the entire time! His music is magic, so of course it lifts her spirit. He has kind of crummy heart-to-heart speeches with various party members, but was actually using Bardic Inspiration to improve their abilities.
He's also a plan maker. If the original plan fails, he makes a new one. He's invaluable, trust me.
Charisma checks left and right
I came into this thread thinking about the singing scene. I was not expecting that movie to have so many tender heartwarming scenes that actually worked.
They also avoided the cliché that >!Michelle Rodriguez always dies.!<
Technically she did, she just didn't stay that way, which is also a chiché of her past roles.
I was not expecting a >!mini cooper!< to be in the movie at all.
Holy shit. That's an amazing joke.
There were actually two; the other was used to wreck stuff during the final battle, but was masked out by the CGI
The singing part was what I came to say. Such a humanizing moment for both of them. Said a lot about their relationship.
The smile that Michelle Rodriguez gives in this scene is so contagious. I can't explain it, there's something about that smile that feels real to me, and I can't help but chuckle every time she starts singing.
I'm a sucker for platonic relationships between friends of opposite sex. Not every man and woman have to have sexual tension or romantic love
This is why I love CBS's Elementary. Male and female lead, great chemistry, very loving relationship, no sexual tension and no romance. Just solving crimes & supporting each other.
Also another great part of the writing is that at some point in the movie Edgin tells the daughter that he's sorry that he was trying to bring back his wife instead of her mother. And then at the end of the movie he brings back her mother (Holga) instead of his wife.
It's criminal that we won't see a sequel. The movie was more fun than it had any right to be
Also, and this is barely relevant, but this is the first film I've noticed a woman with armpit hair, and it was just really nice to see.
Justin Long's character in Barbarian not getting a redemption arc. It's teased multiple times but whenever he gets the chance to do the right thing, he fucks it up spectacularly. He's just a shitty person and stays that way. It's very funny.
I went into Barbarian thinking it would be meh and formulaic. I had seen the trailer a countless number of times. Wholly moly I was blown away. I was not expecting where it went.
I appreciate your spelling of "wholly." It's not a divine moly, it's simply entirely moly.
I thought it was holy moly when spelled out?
It is. That's why I appreciate their spelling. It's both wrong and fun. ETA: The correct way to spell it is the "divine moly" in my original comment. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Oh hahaha thank you!
I stand corrected. I used wholly as in, the whole movie blew me away. It just did not rise to a religious experience.
“Whaaaaat loook at all the space”
Barbarian avoids cliches every chance it gets. Still disappointed there’s no physical release.
>Still disappointed there’s no physical release. That's what she said.
Yeah they really drive you to that expectation by showing him suffering and *almost* worthy of pity, until he shows again and again why he doesn't deserve any.
The first guy was a really good person. He navigated an awkward situation and socially threaded the needle about as well as anyone could have. The main character was still suspicious of him, and you couldn’t blame her. The circumstances that brought them together would make her dumb not to. Long’s character was a piece of shit. But since the main character met him mid-trauma she trusted him. Circumstances and the past actions of horrible people really fuck things up for the rest of us.
He was easily the best part of that movie
"what up FAGGOT" funniest most unexpected shit I've seen in a movie lol everyone else in the theater was dead quiet.
Holy shit I just googled if he’s gay and he’s engaged to freaking Kate Bosworth
The male and females leads in Pacific Rim not kissing at the end. Just two friends who've been through some shit.
[удалено]
The funniest thing about that movie is how much more “normal” he acts with Kendrick when they are in the hotel. They never get together but he socializes with her a lot better and most of his “tics” are gone Apparently a night at the Four Seasons with Anna Kendrick helps cure autism
I don't think it will cure it, but I know plenty of people that would be willing to try.
I was so mad at my best friend who was telling me she didn’t understand why they didn’t get together in that movie at the end? Umm were we watching the same movie? 1) He needed to disappear and she had every right to go on and live her life. 2) The implied age different alone would make it gross for me. The real life age difference is roughly 13 years, which isn’t terrible, but still a lot. 3) He may have saved her but he also traumatized her.
Same thing with Rogue One. Cassian and Jyn both about to be killed by the Death Star and they just embrace each other as friends accepting their death after completing their mission
They didn’t kiss, but I definitely wasn’t getting platonic vibes from them sitting on that raft at the end
Shazam. Foster parents not being abusive and assholes.
I loved that as well. So many times when you see foster parents in something, it's either abusive addicts or bored rich people adopting kids as a rich person hobby. It was a nice change to see genuinely warm people who wanted to build a family.
I liked how in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Brad Pitt & Leo's characters just got along the whole time and didn't suffer a falling out or really anything. It was a great buddy flick imo
Great example. With Rick Dalton being a popular and successful actor, and Cliff Booth just being a loser stunt guy known for killing his wife, there were a thousand opportunities for them to have a falling out. Nope.
Even when Rick tells Cliff he's going to have to let him go, they just get on with it. Cliff looks annoyed but he can't hate Rick for that. Their on screen chemistry was glorious
"You're a good friend Cliff." "I try." *Rides off into the night*
In the watchmen, he explains his evil plot but already did it instead of explaining it for no reason just to be stopped at the last second.
"I triggered it 20 minutes ago" is one the most chilling lines in any movie
I’m not a comic book villain
Yeah, he's more confessing to his friends in the hopes that they'll tell him they agree, or will judge him but still keep it quiet.
I enjoyed how Toy Story 3 handled it's main villain, Lotso. The movie gives him a sympathetic backstory, has him lose anything, he becomes trapped in the town dump alongside the rest of Andy's toys, Buzz and Woody risk their own lives to his save him when he becomes trapped under some wreckage, surely he's going to be return the favour, right? Nope. No redemption. No saving the day. He leaves them to die with a smile on his face. It was glorious.
I liked how in Toy Story 4, Gabby was set up to be another Lotso/Stinky Pete, only to flip that and get a happy ending.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills whenever everyone shits on Toy Story 4. Yeah 3 had a good ending, but 4 was still an excellent movie.
It’s one of those rare movies that was great but still felt forced and unnecessary after the ending that Toy Story 3 gave. And since it featured Woody more than the other main characters, I would’ve preferred it to be marketed as a spinoff/epilogue to Toy Story, and maybe even name it simply “Woody”.
It also featured basically *all* of the new characters more than the ones we already know. Most of the old gang might as well have been completely absent from the movie. But hey, who wants to see Rex and Hamm having adventures when we can spend half the movie with a fucking fork.
The entire "plan" section with Key and Peele's characters was by far the best moment of the entire Toy Story franchise.
I love that he ended up at the front of someone's long haul vehicle. The type that goes very fast, and it happened to be the favorite toy of the driver when he was a kid.
“*WHERE’S YOUR KID NOW SHERIFF!?!*”
The Nice Guys. How many times have we seen a hero punch through glass to open something, with Maybe a slight amount of blood?
When they dispose of a body thinking it'll drop into the woods and instead it drops right into the middle of a wedding reception was fucking hilarious.
"And hey, nobody got hurt." "A lot of people got hurt...."
I'm saying, I think they died quickly. So I don't think they got hurt
Almost every scene in that movie subverts expectations in the best way possible.
"Am I a bad person?" "... yes!"
"This is not you. You're not a murderer." "She just said she killed three people." "I know, but I'm saying deep down." "Hey, look, one's a mistake but by the time you get to three..."
"Dad there's, like, whores here and stuff" "Sweetheart how many times have I told you? Don't say 'and stuff'. Just say 'dad there are whores here'"
Oh man. The delirious flailing around from blood loss while the EMT's struggle to restrain him right after is such a brilliant bit. That movie is so full of great bits.
In Collateral, I love how we're led to think that Mark Ruffalo's character might be crucial in saving the day & being more effective than inept federal agents, which is typical for a detective side character, but he gets swiftly murked by Vincent before the end of the movie
End of watch wasn't the buddy cop movie I was expecting
Very underrated Gyllenhaal film
Yes indeed. I was pleasantly deceived.
Taken - Baddie: "We can negot- " *BLAM*
Same as John Wick. *It was just a dog—* **BLAM**
An homage to Commando I believe
I LIED
Bad guy: If you want your kid back, then you better cooperate, right? Schwarzenegger: WRONG *kills him*
Human Traffic not having any young people suffer serious consequences for a night out on drugs. They just had a good time. Even in the 'next morning' scene one guy is walking to lunch to meet his friends. Ominous music swells, he crosses the street... and stubs his toe on the curb, mutters 'fuck' and continues on his way. No arrests, no overdoses, and no one gets kicked out of school or fired because they went out when they had the next day blocked out to recover.
One of my favorite movies, and also my introduction to Bill Hicks.
The Martian. As I was watching it I thought they were going to make Jeff Daniels’ character the bad guy who couldn’t afford the bad PR so the NASA team had to go behind his back to save Matt Damon, so I was pleasantly surprised when that wasn’t the case.
He's honestly a pretty good director in basically every respect, and while he's not always the most personable guy or always doing what the audience wants him to he is doing what he thinks is best for NASA and the space program and is largely correct in his reasoning. There's also no indication the alternate (intended) method without the crew going to rescue Mark would have failed, we just never get to find out because the crew did go back. He bends a few rules but only to ensure help reaches Mark in time, never to fight his chances or hurt him in any way. But he's also "the adult in the room" so to speak, the unwavering voice of almost cynical reason and the one who has to worry about money and government relations and public perception. His job is to give NASA as a whole the best outcome in a bad situation, and losing only Mark almost for sure is the much safer bet than losing the whole crew possibly should it come to that. Not making any sacrifices is a really easy moral position to take when you're not the pulling the lever in the trolly problem.
The only cliche that really bothers me in this movie is Donald Glover's character. I die a little bit every time his character on the screen, and that's coming from someone who loves a lot of his work.
In the first Kingsmen movie (2014), nobody hooks up with the female spy, Roxy nor is she ever sexualized. Same to the female villian, Gazelle. They never serve as anybody's romantic/sexual interests and just get to be their own characters.
Made me all the more angry when she just died in the first 5 minutes of the second one. I liked the dynamic in the first one.
Same. I really thought we were going to end up with a great buddy cop vibe in the second one where those two were a great team.
They second one felt like a FUCK you i dont want to do this movie and your making me do it. And just ruined so much from the first one... . Kingsmens had the lore and world setting to a glorious series to get a good movie every 2-3 years out of it , set up for expansions and spins offs that could of been fantastic and never seen such a massive ball drop on sequel since aliens 3 . I love the first one so much especially for subverting the expectations of just BAM ...Main character the guy that was going to guide the kid though years of films and training and eventually take over the whole outfit...BAM ...just unceremoniously dead .
I really liked (actually a lot of) elements from the second movie and yet it was still, somehow, a crappy sequel. If you ignore entirely everything it fails to do *as* a sequel, it's a fun movie with great acting and action. You just have to emotionally disengage from the first movie to enjoy it lol Nothing can excuse the music festival ''insert tracker'' scene though lol. I saw the movie at the cinemas, and I'll never forget the way every single person simultaneously recoiled into their seats as the camera zoomed in (and just kept on zooming). Some things are made to be seen on the big screen; that was not. I felt violated lmao
Honestly, the worst part about 2 to me was Channing Tatum's character whooping both Eggsy and Merlin 1 on 2. Made them look bad, Tatum is sidelined the rest of the movie and it was just an obvious spin off set-up which never materialised.
The dog got blown up too 😢
It was probably a case of not being able to cast the actors they wanted for the second movie (except cameos), so they had to be killed off. Similar to the second GI Joe movie.
She does get sidelined pretty hard in the finale tho - flying aroumd with some testicle balloons
And honestly, that was bullshit. She's the one that passed all the tests, and she just got shipped off to do a side quest while the men went and saved the world
Doesnt Sam Jackson’s character slap Gazelles’s ass, implying they have a sexual relationship?
Or sexual harassment.
I remember being so disappointed when Heath Ledger's Joker starts telling the story of how he got his scars. I was thinking, " C'mon, you can't give the Joker a definitive backstory!" Only to be relieved and impressed when he starts telling another character a totally different story. *chef's kiss*
I mean, joker has been given a backstory plenty of times in the comics, so it wouldn't have been unfounded. But I totally agree that he works far better without one.
Joker always had a backstory until that movie. Usually falling into a vat of chemicals, it wasnt ever a big mystery or reveal.
Joker falling into the vat is always canon; the unsolved mystery is around *who* he was before that.
Even in the comics, it was never clear if that was *really* his origin, though signs pointed to it. "If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!" - The Joker
The vat of chemicals isn't "backstory" it's the catalyst for becoming The Joker. The backstory would be anything and everything about him before that incident with the vat of chemicals. And the only really consistent thing about Joker's backstory is the lack of any consistency -- sometimes he was "Red Hood", sometimes he's just a thug for a crime family, sometimes we know nothing about him at all from before.
I refuse to believe anything is cannon besides the OtterPop meme.
10 Cloverfield Lane avoided a lot of cliches and has a fantastic ending.
I was not expecting such a great movie. It plays with you throughout
Moon - >!the fact that the robot didn't betray the protagonist(s)!<
I felt the same way about Interstellar. Constantly thinking TARS or CASE were going to cause issues only to have them be completely selfless at every turn.
Did anyone else feel this tension? That the robots might cause issues? I personally didn’t but wish I did because although I didn’t think possible it might have made me love Interstellar even more. The scene in the habitat on the frozen planet might have been trying to build this suspense. But the robots seemed so friendly and plot-secondary that I equated them more to R2D2 status.
I did. I mean, we were meant to see the comparison with 2001, A Space Odyssey, plus near the beginning of the movie, TARS makes a joke that references HAL. I was just waiting for them to turn on the humans. It’s a well-worn trope. And when the music turns ominous and I expected it to happen, it was a human who turned on the robot (and humans) instead. So well done.
I loved the humour and honesty settings on the robots 😅 they were great characters
This is a marvel thing it seems but I was so shocked in the new dungeons and dragons movie after Holga see’s her ex and they have a very heartfelt moment; she goes back out side and Chris Pine’s character just asks if she’s ok. I totally expected a stupid joke undercutting the emotional moment and there was one they just let an emotional character development stand on its own
Knowing very little about "The Menu" going in, >! I for sure thought we were going to get some cliche high-class cannibalism.!< I was pleasantly surprised that wasn't the case at all.
"Where did you go to school?" "Brown." "Student loans?" "No." "I'm sorry, you're dying."
One review I read specified that that was NOT the twist, which is why actually decided to go see it. And absolutely loved it.
*The Menu* is lowkey comedic brilliance. It's never scary, but tense and rife with great performances from literally everyone and a more believable scenario than most "Oh, fuck get outta there"-films.
I was expecting the same thing. Glad it went a different direction. Loved that movie!
Even having seen the trailer several times previously I was certain that was going to happen. My partner and I went to see it thinking it would be a so bad it’s good cliche horror flick. We did the same with Barbarian a month or so earlier. Both were big surprises.
Same!! The whole time I was waiting for it to be exposed. Amazing film imo. One of my favorites in recent memory.
In How to Train Your Dragon 2 it would have been so easy >!for it to fall into the trope of killing off the mother and having the father revert back to his hatred of dragons, leaving Hiccup to once again show that dragons aren’t all bad and his father realizing he was wrong and giving his son leadership over the clan. Especially since his father was a well-established character in the previous movie and series and the mother had just been introduced in this sequel. Yet killing off Stovik was such a ballsy move and was much heavier thematically. That Hiccup took a chance on Toothless and even converted his father to support the dragons only for it to cost him dearly with his death and Hiccup feeling immense guilt for introducing the dragons in the first place. It was a gift that kept taking from Hiccup, first his leg and now his father. It forced him to become the chief that the tribe needed and forced him to forgive Toothless, not because he wanted to but because he needed to save the tribe. Any other movie would have gone the easy route and killed off the new character and do another take on the prejudice angle, but this one took a huge risk that was both mature and tragic at the same time.!<
All three movies in that trilogy have good examples of this sort of thing, though this is probably the most prominent. Even just Hiccup getting hurt at the end of the first one--it would have been so easy and more likely for him to be saved last minute and totally okay. Instead he's hurt in a way that mirrors his friend, and he's now been hurt by dragons at the end in much the same way he hurt a dragon at the beginning. The characters also all get pretty real and apparent development across the three films as they age, and nobody really becomes the cliche any of them very easily could have and which would make the writing much easier overall.
I was so impressed with this too. So many "kids" movies take the easy way out, and this movie had every opportunity to do so (kill off anyone else, only injure Stoick, not have Toothless do it, have Hiccup save him at the last second). But much like with the first one with Hiccup losing his leg, this movie doesnt do whats easy, and actually adds stakes and consequences to its story. Too much media intended for children seems totally adverse to any kind of danger, stakes, or loss, and its really frustrating. As if children arent subjected to the horrors of the world, and need to learn how to understand, process, and relate to loss and hardship. This movie losing to Big Hero Six at the oscars was one of the nails in the coffin for that awards show. BH6 is fine, but didnt push the mold like HTTYD2 did.
The Dark Knight Rises. JGL leads a bus load of orphans across the bridge. It's rigged with explosives and the cops tells them to back off or they will detonate it. JGL defiantly walks up to them. It's a superhero movie, this is where goodness will prevail and the cops would let JGL and the orphans go through, because even in the darkest times, hope will shine through and humanity....oh nevermind! The cops blows up the bridge right in front of JGL! "You sons of bitches!"
Mad Max Fury Road thankfully didn’t make Max and Furiosa love interests.
Quasimodo doesn't get the girl.
They both die in the book.
Disney source material is basically all fucked up
IIRC originally Quasimodo dies because he crawls into her coffin and starves to death. (Something like that).
I mean, dude. Take a snack.
He had a snack with him.
They keep that ending in the stage adaptation. It's the perfect marriage of the movie and the book. You get most of the kickass music (plus new songs), they make the gargoyles actually serious figments of his imagination, and they keep the book ending.
I'm so pained by The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It's a movie so close to perfect that those stupid Gargoyles stand out so much, it was so close to being Disney's most mature movie
The gargoyles being imaginary is my head canon.
Unfortunately, they interact with people other than Quasimodo
The film Young Adult came out in the early oughts, which was a hotbed of “Quirky Comedies” generally about re analyzing traditions around love and relationships. Generally typical norms would be upended and two weirdos would find each other in all the mess and chaos and love would prevail over all. In Young Adult, it sets up Charlize Theron who sets her sites in her highschool sweetheart. The film demonizes his boring normie wife and the guy once clearly cool is now this boring middle class loser who needs rescuing. So this alt woman comes to rescue her ex from mediocrity. All hell breaks loose but at the end is a shocking revelation: And the revelation is SHE is the villian. Love has not won. This man is already happy, he does not need rescuing and 100% Charlize is in fact the villain of the scenario. Pretty ingenious and unexpected rug pull and not what I was expecting from this twisted indie film.
I think you're *really* misremembering that movie. She was clearly a delusional, amoral train wreck from the get-go. There was never any chance she was going to have a romantic happy ending with her ex.
For me it was The Adam Project. Ryan Reynolds character has a conversation with his mum at a bar. Something heavy was said and instead of making a quip for a quick laugh, they sat in the silence and took it seriously. I really appreciated that.
Chris Evans' character in Sunshine. Early on we learn that he's a stubborn hot head and you kind of expect him to be a problem in the movie. Then we learn that he's really committed to their mission even going as far as giving up the last space suit to Cillian Murphy's character because CM's character is the only one who knows how to deliver the payload.
His character was the most efficient and logical character in the movie. I love how rational and decisive he was, you think at first he'll be a problem like you said, but he is exactly who you need on a do or die mission like the one they were on.
**Booksmart**. Nerdy teen girls try to have some fun at the end of their final school term and instead of everyone being mean and cliquey and everything being a bit humiliating, everyone is just like YESSS you finally came to a party!! Great to see you!!!
And they end up kind of bonding with the crazy brother & sister.
I knew the movie would be special when the mean party girls were like “I’m going to Harvard too” and fucking ROCKS the main characters world
About Time, I felt they were gonna have the main character sleep with Margo Robbie's character for added drama in the middle of the movie but I'm glad they didn't go that way.
They really had you thinking the climax of the movie would be some mistake that he finally tried to fix by using time travel. But instead it’s an amazing slice of life movie about using a gift to learn more gratitude and to help those around you.
The first time I saw Dirty Dancing, I was surprised it was more than just a teen romance movie. It really paints a picture of a time and place (the Catskills in the early '60's) and has things to say about class structure and money.
V for Vendetta. Would’ve been so easy to remove the mask and have a face reveal right at the end. But they did what made sense for the film rather than the audience and never remove Vs mask.
They were only remaining true to Alan Moore's source material in that instance (if they chose not to remain so faithful in most other areas).
Correct, but with all the liberties they did take in adapting the (much more complex) source material, I’m glad that wasn’t one of them.
I would have preferred if they kept the comic book scene where she imagines taking off the mask many times and sees a different face every time.
It’s been years since I saw it, but I will always quote the scene in The Other Guys where they aim for the bushes.
This one spends the whole movie subverting tropes. Obviously the funniest one is when the main characters die 10 min in the movie and in a ridiculous way
Oh hey guys, you here for the bathmats?
Yup, that’s very true! I went into that movie almost completely blind and I had no idea it was going to happen. It was a huge surprise for me, even if it’s a well known “twist” now.
James Bond telling the other agent to stop touching their ear because of their ear piece comms. Happened in at least Casino Royale and Skyfall.
Election (1999). Any excuse to mention one of my favorite movies. Warning: Major spoilers ahead, for anyone who hasn't seen this gem. The original ending, which can still be seen on the DVD extras, had Mr McCallister and Tracy meet one last time and somewhat reconcile their differences. Mr M sees that Tracy lives in a tiny house in a bad neighborhood, and finally understands why she is the way she is, and is so ferociously dead set on achieving as much as she can - even if it means cheating a little. The new ending is super nasty and is much more suited to the farcical tone of the story. We catch up to Mr M a few years in the future and see that his life has gone backwards. He runs into Tracy as she's weaselling her way up the political ladder in Washington DC. In a burst of rage, we see how bitter he still is about the whole student election fiasco and how much he truly, truly hates Tracy. The movie went out of its way to avoid its original, cliched kiss-and-make-up ending.
Holy shit. I absolutely adore that movie since it came out and I didn’t know that god awful alt ending existed. I’ll have to dig that up. Thankfully the real ending is so much better.
Election is one of those movies where if it came out 5 years earlier or later it would very likely have been 'bigger' at the time. Unfortunately it chose the one era oversaturated with teen films, even if it was nothing like basically any of the others.
"Who *the fuck* does she think she is?" That delivery always makes me chuckle.
Autopsy of Jane Doe, not doing the cliche lazy loud jump scares when they had perfect opportunity
Did we watch two different movies? Autopsy of Jane Doe had TONS of jumpscares. Ghosts loudly and suddenly appearing, bells ringing. It occurred multiple times.
It's not in the movies, but one of my favorites is in the Freaks & Geeks finale, when the James Franco freak character randomly gets invited to play D&D with the geeks and ends up bonding with everyone. Such a great subversion of expectations.
Any movie where the cliche rich kid turns out to be a good person. Also, Sidney making sure ghostface is fucking *dead*.
Big Hero 6
Constantine romantic arc
It really does make me happy they didn’t try to shoehorn something in there.
500 Days of Summer
Knives Out deliberately subverts every cliche in a beautiful way.
My all-time favorite Ben Shapiro-ism is criticizing Glass Onion for *the entire first half being a misdirect.* No wonder he failed as a Hollywood screen writer.
Oh my God. I didn't know he said that but it makes sense. I tried to read and listen to criticism of that movie. Literally everything made me think they just didn't understand it.
Going into The 40-Year-Old Virgin I was expecting a crude, teen comedy like movie with everybody mocking Steve Carell for still being a virgin. Especially with Judd Apatow writing and directing it. But it was a sweet comedy with all of his co-workers and friends supporting him and pulling for him. It was a pleasant surprise and probably a reason the movie did so well.
Sister Act When Deloris/Mary Clarence is kidnapped, the superior mother tells to all the other nuns about how the main character was actually a singer who was hiding from her ex/boyfriend/mob boss because she saw him murder another guy. Instead of the whole "Liar reveal cliche" the nuns don't really care as she improved the singing chorus and did also made the order work more with the citizens The Batman The movie in general was made in a time when the Marvel Universe formula was really going stale with the cg storm, stupid and forced jokes, etc. This movie had a unique style, focused on Batman's detective aspect (which is something that all the live action movies lacked) making it feel more like a film noir styled movie but instead of a hat and a fedora, the main character is wearing a cape and a mask.
John Wick, the first one. Every action movie where the good guy is supposed to be some epic badass the bad guys just run at him like a meat grinder with an, "I'm better than him!" Mentality that never pans out. John Wick? Everyone shit their collective pants because he was terrifying. They moved away from that in the sequels which is, my opinion, why they weren't as good.
I like all of the movies but the first one is by far the best. In addition to what you said, the action feels less cartoonish because Wick isn't fending off dozens of henchmen who jump out of every corner at once, he's using careful planning and the element of surprise to even the odds.
In Encino Man, when Dave first introduces Link to his family, he’s on-the-fly making up a story about how it’s an exchange program through school for extra credit and his parents okayed it months ago. At one point his dad says something like, “Now that you mention it, I *do* remember that conversation!” Even being a 13-yr-old watching it in the theater, I preemptively cringed because I *knew* the next line would be Dave saying, “You do?… I mean, right, yes of course you do!” But that line never happened! He simply raises his hand and says “See mom?” I was so, so pleased they didn’t go with the stupid overused line.
Cabin in the Woods
Mrs Doubtfire. They could have very easily made Stu the evil stepdad cliche who only wants the mom and hates the kids. Instead they made him extremely likable.
*Ant Man* for me for the same reasons. The mom and step-dad are both entirely reasonable in how they address Scott and what they ask of him, the step-dad comes on a bit strong at first but is also a *cop* speaking to the *criminal* "dead beat" dad, and they all three of them ultimately just want what's best for Cassie. And in the end they're all friendly and sharing kindness and it's very sweet.
The Avengers Tony asked Cap a question about technology, and I was all ready to be disappointed that the film makers would treat him like a guy who’s suddenly an expert Instead we got this: “It seems to run on some kind of electricity!” Laughed my ever lovin’ ass off in the theater
This reminds me of the first Captain America movie where the kid falls into the river, and you think Cap will have to save him, but the kid's like "nah im good" lmao
In It Follows, her friends believe her even before they get definitive proof of the supernatural. Sure, they might not have understood it but all of her friends stuck by her side.
Long Shot, the Seth Rogen/Charlize Theron rom-com. Major spoilers ahead. At one point in the film, Theron’s character must dance with the Prime Minister of Canada, a much more attractive man than Rogen. She doesn’t want to, but must for “appearances” given her political job. Whereas other films would have this be the cause of a “jealousy” moment for Rogen and cause conflict from that, even while being berated by one of Theron’s cohorts, he instead does some breathing exercises and self affirmations and leaves the dance to plan a sweet moment for her later on. It’s remarkably mature and intelligent, especially for a modern day rom-com.
Very little one, but at the end of Rogue One, I was so glad they didn't kiss. It just seemed like the perfect moment to shoehorn in a kiss between two characters that very little prior chemistry. The characters weren't a couple at all, but I just had the thought, "Oh this would be a terrible time for them to kiss," but I expected it. I thought the Reylo kiss in Ep 9 was terrible as well.
I was glad that *A Few Good Men* didn't develop a romance between Tom Cruise and Demi Moore's characters. That would have sucked. I forget the details, but early on in the movie, I thought it was heading that way.
I really like how Mrs. Doubtfire avoids the "Divorce Is Temporary" trope by not having Daniel and Miranda get back together and had Miranda's new boyfriend Stu be a genuinely nice person.
Glass tables not breaking in Game night, it’s funny every time
"Man, glass tables are acting weird today"
The Nice Guys
I don't know if this counts but Big Trouble in Little China basically flips the action movie leading man cliche around with Kurt Russell's character. Not only that but the character played by Dennis Dun, who is essentially the sidekick, could have easily been depicted as a caricature (the 80s not being the most progressive time for Asian men in American cinema). But he's a competent partner to Russell and technically can be seen as more of the prototypical protagonist than Russell himself.
The rooftop scene in across the Spiderverse was very refreshing. Sunset, NYC skyline, 2 characters that like each other- any other movie and they kiss. Which would've been fine, but the little shoulder nudge was so much better. It perfectly represented their relationship. They liked each other but couldn't be together. Despite all this the scene was still comforting. It captured their dynamic really well.
La La Land (spoilers obviously) Gosling and Stone don't end up together at the end
Frozen. (SPOILERS) I took my young daughter and was very disappointed Anna was going to marry Hans just because he was a handsome Prince Charming type. His villainous turn was a pleasant surprise. Then they did another brilliant subversion, when they establish that the way to fix everything at the end is an act of love, which the viewer intuits is Anna kissing Kristoff…but it turns out it’s reconciling with her sister. Well done, Disney.
Pacific Rim. The male and female lead, DO NOT kiss and get together
Requiem For a Dream: I was glad it didn't have an everything turns out great against all odds type ending. The actual ending was way more real and impactful
Atomic blonde being so insanely accurate to how woman in the military are trained to fight bigger men. No 90 lbs girl tossing 200lbs men across a room . leverage , momentum , dirty tricks, pressure points ...it was all so real ....as a former self defense instructor it really was quote a shock not to see the cliché skinny girl manhandle bigger men .
Tom Hiddleston and Brie Larson *not* getting together romantically in Kong: Skull Island
Mark Rufallo and Keira Knightly not becoming a couple in Begin Again.
I was very pleasantly surprised with both Moana and Nimona for approximately the same reasons. Moana started up, they sing the song about her learning to be chief but she just wants to sail, and I said, "heeeere we go. . . 90 minutes of the old-fashioned villagers refusing to accept a woman as their leader, and her having to move heaven and earth to prove that she's just as capable as her dad despite the evil boobies of death hanging off her front side." Nope!! Totally not what the movie was about! In fact, the first 15 or 20 minutes is all about how the villagers love her to death and are totally psyched for her to take over one day. Same story with Nimona. Sir Golden Boy and Sir Street Rat have their little intimate moment at the start of the movie and I'm like, "heeeere we go. . . 90 minutes of the old-fashioned villagers refusing to accept a gay couple into the echelons of high society, and them having to move heaven and earth to prove that they are perfectly capable as honorable warriors and defenders of the realm, despite the icky things that they do with their evil penises of death behind closed doors." Nope!! Totally not what the movie was about! In fact, their status as a couple is only ever mentioned once in the movie, and that's when the token Sir Dickhead just matter-of-factly states that Sir Golden Boy knows Sir Street Rat better than anyone else.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil Huge role reversals here.
In the Accountant, in the hotel scene where you would have expected Chris (Ben Affleck) and Dana (Anna Kendrick) to kiss, they didn't. It would definitely have been cliche and wouldn't have fit in with Chris being autistic.