Movie Rules: Condemned to Death

Movie Rule #819: Condemned prisoners will do anything.

Whenever there’s something crazy, violent, illegal, and potentially lethal to be done in movies, condemned prisoners are the ones to do it. They can get death row inmates to agree to fight a suicide mission, participate in lethal combat on a desert island or in weaponized cars, let their brains be controlled, or anything else. I know death row prisoners are desperate, but are they really that eager a source of labor? And even if they were willing to do it, these movies always have to set in a near-future with a decaying government, because the current political climate would never let prisoners be exposed to that kind of thing.

Imagine a movie where a prisoner's on death row, and someone says, “Hey, good news. There’s a new program that can get you out. The only catch is that you’ll have to put on a clown suit, strap a bomb to your chest, and run through a maze while genetically-engineered dinosaurs chase you on live television.” And the prisoner goes, “No, thanks. I think I’ll just wait on my appeal. Or a petition from the governor.” I’d like to see that.

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Movie Rules: Going Nuclear

Movie Rule #245: Nuclear bombs fix everything

Examples: The Core, Armageddon

You ever notice how, in movies, nuclear bombs are the solution to every disaster? There’s an asteroid heading towards Earth? Throw a nuclear bomb on it. The Earth’s core stopped spinning? Stick a nuclear bomb in it. Aliens invading Earth? Fire a nuclear bomb at them. Somehow, a well-placed nuclear bomb will cure whatever ails you.

If only that were the case in real life. If life were a movie, we could solve all our problems. Hole in the ozone layer? A nuclear bomb throws up enough dirt to plug the hole. Rainforest disappearing? A nuclear bomb spreads seeds and puts nutrients back into the soil so the trees grow back. Species going extinct? A nuclear bomb will cause more of them to spontaneously appear.

Imagine if the movies were like our world. A scientist tells government officials, “Gentlemen, a meteor is headed towards Earth that will destroy us all. We must act quickly. Set up an international conference to discuss the situation. Once the presentation has been made, we'll need to pass a resolution to create an international task force to come up with possible solutions. Then the United Nations will need to approve an international treaty to provide funding and manpower to implement the solution. Of course, the United States won’t agree to it, but maybe we can get them to agree to a similar resolution. Our hope is that we'll be able to put a project into place to stop the meteor in roughly ten years. What? No, actually, the meteor is scheduled to hit tomorrow. We're all doomed.” I’d like to see that.

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Movie Rules - Speaking in Tongues

Rule #56: Non-English speakers will speak English with heavy accents, even in their native country.

Examples: Hunt for Red October, Hotel Rwanda

You ever notice how people in American movies almost always speak English, even if they're not English speakers? They cut to a nuclear bunker in Russia full of Russians speaking to other Russians, and what are they speaking? English. But they do it with an accent. Of course, movies could have foreign characters speaking their own language with subtitles, but Americans hate reading subtitles.

My favorite example of this phenomenon is "Goldeneye," where the Russians in the military research facility are not only all speaking English to each other, but their computer systems display English as well. In fact, a critical plot point is that a hotshot Russian programmer likes to use dirty words as passwords for their high-tech Russian computer system. In English.

It's as if movies are set in an alternate reality where the whole world speaks English, and the only distinction between one country's language and another is the accent. Imagine a movie where a Frenchman character walks up to an American and starts speaking English with a French accent, and the American says, "I'm sorry, I don't speak French." Then the Frenchman starts talking with an American accent, and the American goes, "Okay, that's better." Or they get a translator who starts speaking English with a French accent. I'd like to see that.

Movie Rules: Evil Dead

Movie Rule 345: The villain always dies twice

Examples: Die Hard, Terminator

You ever notice that in movies, the villain is never really dead the first time? This is especially true in action movies. You can almost predict it. The hero pumps the villain full of bullets or drops a car on him or strangles him. The villain lies there, dead. The hero and his girlfriend heave a sigh of relief. Suddenly the villain lunges up again or grabs their leg, and they have to put more bullets in him or run him over or drop him off a cliff. That applies no matter how badly the injury. With the Terminator, he was nothing but a severed arm and he still kept going. In Streetfighter, M. Bison wore a vest that literally brought him back to life. It's a classic. I'll bet the villain's henchmen always wish they had what he had - they die instantly.

Movie Rules: Mob Rule

Movie Rule: #112456: People will do anything to get away from the Mob.

Examples: Sister Act, True Identity

Most common in: Comedies

In movies, the Mafia is invincible. There's nowhere they can't go, there's no one they can't get to. If you owe them money or cross them, they will pursue you to the ends of the Earth for the rest of your natural life until they kill you. There's only one way to get away from them, and that's to give yourself a foolproof disguise as a nun. Or as a white man. Or as a woman. And even then, the Mafia will still be sniffing around your convent or sorority, eyeing you with suspicion.

Of course, in the real world, people hide from the Mob all the time. As powerful and crazy as they are, it's not like the Mafia has infinite resources and determination. For example, the Witness Protection program usually just gives people new names and puts them in a different state, and they get along fine. Even in extreme cases, they just do a little plastic surgery. Imagine the real-world WPP going, "Okay, Sammy 'The Thunder' Gravanno is really after you guys, so here's what we'll do for you. From now on, you'll be posing as Bobo and Bongo, two kangaroos at the San Diego Zoo. Here are your costumes." The real people would be like, "Are you insane? I'm not spending the rest of my life as a kangaroo. I'm going to Mexico."

The reason running from the Mob happens so often in movies is that it's an easy way to get someone to do something totally ridiculous. Here's the conversation:
WRITER: "You know, I've got a great idea for a movie; a guy has to disguise himself as a tree in a suburban family's yard. And here's the hook: the family has five dogs!"
PRODUCER: "Sounds funny. But why would a guy dress up like a tree?"
WRITER: "Oh, I don't know. Uh, let's say…he's trying to hide from the Mob."
PRODUCER: "Makes perfect sense to me. Write it up and let's shoot it."

Imagine a movie where somebody owes money to the Mafia and they say "Go whack him," and the hitman goes to the victim's house, then comes back and says "Can't find him. He must have skipped town," and the mobster goes, "Okay, fine. Forget about it. It was only a couple thousand bucks. Just tell everybody to keep an eye out for him. If we don't find him, we'll make it up at the casinos." I'd like to see that.

Movie Rules: Knock-Out

Movie rule #4,627: Even the slightest head impact will knock someone unconscious.

Most common in: Action Movies

The typical scenario: The hero whacks somebody on the back of the head with his fist or a gun and the enemy crumples instantly like a sack of potatoes. And once knocked unconscious, they will stay unconscious for as long as they are required to be. Of course, in real-life, hitting someone on the head will usually just make them mad. People do get knocked unconscious, but that's somewhat rare and usually only last for a few minutes. And a head impact that knocks someone unconscious is just as likely to kill them. Imagine a movie where James Bond sneaks up to a guard, thumps him on the head, and the guard turns around and shoots him. I'd like to see that.

Movie Rule: Garbage Disposals

Movie Rule #6639: Garbage disposals will always attempt to mangle people's hands.

It was actually my nephew who brought this one to my attention. He's ten years old and when he came over, he had never seen a garbage disposal in real life before. When he saw it, he asked, "Does it ever chop up people's hands?" At first, I was horrified, like "No, why would you think that?" Then he said, "In the movies, garbage disposals always chop up people's hands."

Which is true. Especially in horror movies. Someone scrapes something into the garbage disposal and hits the switch. It doesn't work, hmm. Or they drop something into the garbage disposal. So they reach down into the drain. Then the possessed house or the ghost or the computer virus or the blob hits the switch and then there's screaming or blood or all of the above. Or the disposal goes off a split-second after the person manages to pull his/her hand out. Which, of course, rarely happens in the real world. I personally am not stupid enough to reach into a garbage disposal, and even if I was, the odds of it coming on spontaneously are slim-to-none. But in movies, it happens every time. When was the last time you saw someone in a movie scrap some chicken bones into the sink, hit the switch, grind up the bones, and walk away? I'd like to see that.

Examples: Final Destination 2, Heroes

Movie Rules: Monkey Business

Movie Rule 9,145: All primates walk on their hind legs, show big, toothy smiles frequently, and give the thumbs-up sign.

Anyone who knows anything about primates knows that all three of those behaviors are completely unnatural to primates. No primate, including the chimpanzee, walks on its hind legs in the wild. Primates prefer to walk on their hind legs with support from the knuckles of their hands. This was particularly obvious in Every Which Way But Loose, where they had an orangutan with incredibly long arms that had to walk with its arms straight up in the air or hold onto a human to maintain its balance. As far as their smiles, showing teeth is a sign of aggression among primates, so they would never smile on their own. And if I have to explain why the thumbs-up signal isn't natural to the primate, then you need to get out more. But unless the movie is a serious portrayal of primates like Gorillas in the Mist, you'll see primates running around on their hind legs, smiling, and giving the thumbs-up, even when they're fresh out of the jungle.

Examples: Every Which Way But Loose, Planet of the Apes, Monkey Trouble

Movie Rules: Men and Diapers

Movie Rule #19294 - Men are physically incapable of changing diapers.

You ever notice in movies how men are never able to change diapers? If there's a man who has to take care of a baby and there isn't a woman around, there's the inevitable diaper-changing scene. The man/men struggle to figure out how to take off the diaper. Then the moment the diaper is opened, the man/men react as if they've just opened a vat of nerve gas. They gag, they flee, they put on masks, they use kitchen tongs to peel away the diaper, hose the baby down with a garden hose. And then they practically strangle the kid trying to figure out how to put the new diaper on. When was the last time you saw a man confidently change a baby? Replace the men with women and you'll see how silly that is. No, in the movies, women are born knowing how to change a diaper and are immune to any odors or distaste. In fact, you rarely even see a woman changing a diaper in a movie at all - it's just assumed that they can. When was the last time you saw a woman struggling to put on a diaper? I'd like to see that.

Examples: Mr. Mom, The Pacifier, Three Men and a Baby

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Movie Rules: Masters of Disguise

Movie Rule 227: All disguises are perfect.

Ever notice how easy it is for someone to disguise themselves in a movie, particularly in spy movies? They just slip on a mask of the person they're trying to disguise themselves as. And the mask is always an exact copy of the person's face that somehow matches the shape and contours, no matter what the real person's face looks like underneath. It's also made of a flesh-like material that looks completely realistic, right down to the slightest pores, that will fool anyone even on close inspection, including the target's family members. It will also instantly adhere to the wearer's face perfectly to match all facial movements. And as if all that weren't enough, the mask can removed quickly and easily by just tugging it off at the neck. How exactly is that possible? When you think about it, that makes the face-transplant surgery from the movie Face/Off seem shockingly realistic.

Examples: Charlie's Angels, Mission Impossible I, II, III

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Movie Rules: Super Dogs

Movie rule #2183: All dogs in movies and television have human-level intelligence or better.

You ever notice how in most movies and TV shows, dogs seem to have above-average intelligence? By that, I mean they can understand and respond to anything spoken to them, and will behave in human ways. How many times have you watched a TV show or movie and somebody says something to the dog, and the dog understands it? Like in a sitcom, the mother will turn to the dog and say something like "This is all your fault" and the dog will cover its head or run out of the room or growl or something like that. There are even movies and TV shows where the dogs seem smarter than the humans. The point is that the dog acts human, and no one will turn to the dog and say "Holy crap, how did you do that?! You can understand English?" How many times in a sitcom have you seen someone say to a dog "Hey, go get Julie" and the dog just sits there staring at him. Or somebody asks "You feel like going over to my ex-wife's house?" and the dog just licks itself. I'd like to see that.

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Movie Rules: Shooting Locks

Movie Rules: Shooting Locks

Movie rule #28810 - Shooting a lock will automatically open or close a lock, depending on what's required.

You ever notice how in action movies, whenever someone shoots a lock, it does exactly what they need it to? This is especially true in science-fiction movies, which can be vague about exactly how the lock works. How many movies have you seen where the hero is escaping from a horde of enemy soldiers, runs through a door, then turns and blasts the door's lock with a laser gun, then we cut to the soldiers on the other side, banging on the door that no longer opens. Or cut to the other movie, where the hero has to get through a door, grabs his laser gun and blasts the lock, and the door obediently opens. You'd think the lock's designer would take shooting it into account and make it blaster-proof. When was the last time you saw a movie where the hero tried to open a door, then blasted the lock, and the heroine goes, "Great, you just melted the lock! Now we're really trapped in here!" I'd like to see that.

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Movie Rules: Luck

Movie Rules: Movie Luck

Movie Rule #3891: Luck exists.

You ever notice that in movies or TV shows, luck is a fact of life? Like there's usually an episode in a sitcom where a character is cursed with bad luck and they declare they don't believe in luck, and spend the rest of the episode inflicted with inexplicable problems until they give in. Then there's movies like Just My Luck where the whole movie revolves around luck. Where was the last movie or TV show where a character breaks a mirror or gets cursed by a gypsy, declares "Ah, there's no such thing as luck," and spends the rest of the time watching TV or getting a good night's sleep? I'd like to see that.