Seen One Film? You’ve Seen Them All.

Our excellent filmmakers have all sorts of people checking on quality at every level.  I recall learning in a high school drama class (where I was impressed that the instructor’s name was Warner) that the script girl was responsible for keeping a record of everything in the scene being filmed at the close of a day of shooting.  It’s terribly embarrassing when a viewer spots the fact that an actor is wearing a Harvard tie but suddenly sprouts a purple and gray one before he can get to the leading lady and kiss her.
Sometimes they miss.  People still talk about that chariot race scene in Ben Hur, in which a car can be seen going by behind the stadium.  Bit of a jarring anachronism there, folks.

What I’m proposing is that they hire one more person, a specialist in finding and reporting film clichés that have been around in the business since time immemorial.  The one that makes me groan more than any other is an actor’s concluding an unsatisfactory telephone conversation by staring at the mouthpiece.  Not the earpiece, mind you—the mouthpiece.  I have noticed, though, that the great actors have largely dropped that little piece of action.  Yesterday evening I saw Wag the Dog, and Robert DeNiro actually put a receiver down without staring at it.

Just about every time in movie history when someone discovers that his/her party is being followed, the announcement is, “Hey, we’ve got company.”  Come on, guys; develop some imagination.

There’s one cheap trick used to build tension a bit, which is that people saying goodbye at boarding time, especially where a train or a boat is involved, ignore the “All aboard” call and stand on the dock or the platform for an excruciatingly long time.

Sometimes I wonder whether all sound effects personnel relate to what the law enforcement officer in Gator tells the title character, that he’s from New York and New Yorkers don’t drive.  Have you noticed that no car in the history of the cinema has ever started or stopped without its tires screeching?  In The Great Race that even happens when The Great Leslie comes to a stop on a beach.

Of course, television is just about as bad.  When was the last time anyone indicated a horizontal measurement of length without comparing it to a football field?

And when is Arthur Kent going to get over looking as if he’s caressing an invisible basketball?