# BINOCULARS
- Whenever someone looks through the binoculars, you see two joined circles
  instead of one.

# BOMBS
- Bombs always have big, blinking, beeping timer displays
- When you cut the wire to the detonator, the timer will stop.  You will not
  be able to do this, however, until only one second remains.
- All wires have different colors, so the hero can easily differentiate
  them when he has to cut the right one. Or, if the plot dictates, so they
  will have to guess which wire shuts of the bomb (with the assumption that
  cutting any of the other wires will detonate the bomb.)

# CARS & DRIVING
- Movie characters driving in the city will get to park wherever they like
  when they get to their destination.
- When you are alone in the back seat of the car, make sure you sit in the
  middle.
- Sudden accelleration of a car (be it forwards, backwards, stopping,
  skidding, sliding, or whatever) causes a loud skid, even on dirt or wet
  roads.  Be prepared.  Each wheel is also fitted with a smoke device to
  let you know when this happens.  Hollywood cars are also special: when
  you take off quickly, you always leave a skid mark for each drive wheel,
  regardless of whether you have a limited slip differential or not.
- Pedestrians in Hollywood have the world's best reactions, so don't worry
  if you have to drive down a sidewalk.  Mr Pappodopolus is quite used to
  having his fruit cart smashed, and despite his gesticulations and curses,
  he always manages to get out of the way in time.
- There are always people carrying around large sheets of glass on the
  street during a car chase.
- The person behind the wheel is talking to and looking at their passenger
  for the entire journey without actually looking at the _road_, changing
  gear, signalling etc. (ex. "When Harry Met Sally").
- Cars chasing each other in the middle of a city will not suffer enough
  damage to stop the chase.
- People being chased by a car will keep running down the middle
  of the road instead of ducking in somewhere where a car cannot go.
- A car will always explode when shot at, unless the hero is driving it.

# COMPUTERS & ELECTRONICS
- Word processors never display a cursor.
- You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS
  ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard
- All computers are connected.  You can access the information on the
  villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
- Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen
  changes.  Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that
  it doesn't go faster than you can read.  The *really* advanced ones also
  emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer.
- All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just
  underneath the surface.  Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a
  puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you
  backwards.
- People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving
  the data.
- A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before
  intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
- Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be
  accomplished in under three seconds. Movie modems usually appear to
  transmit data at the speed of two gigabytes per second.
- When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control
  panels will explode, as will the entire building.

# ENVIRONMENT
- Thunder and lightning always happen at the same time.

# EVIDENCE
- Incriminating evidence can be found either as photograph number four in a
  stack, or in the next to bottom drawer.

# FIGHTS
- If a character uses martial arts rather than a weapon, his opponents will
  always face him one-to-one. Spare bad guys may dance around the fight
  taunting our hero, but none will engage until his predecessor has been
  disposed of.
- Two guys or a bunch of guys go at it, repeatedly bashing each other in the
  face with massive blows, or hitting each other with chairs, sticks,
  refrigerators, whatever -- and they go one doing this, sometimes for minutes
  at a time.

# HEROES
- If the hero has a psychological/physical problem which has prevented him
  from effectively dealing with problems, you can rest assured that this
  problem will disappear at an opportune time.
- The hero always misses the villan leaving the scene by seconds.
- Stripping to the waist makes you invulnerable.
- The hero's best friend/partner will usually be killed by the bad guys
  three days before retirement.
- The hero's new wife will be mowed down by 80 machine guns right after the
  wedding or during the honeymoon.

# HOUSES
- The hero lives in New York City working at some okay, but not
  particularly high-paying job, and yet he or she has a roomy apartment
  filled with nice stuff, generally with a good view, and sometimes a nice,
  romantic rooftop to go to.
- People never get out of the house when there is obvious danger
  there (ghosts, murderers).
- People who hear something weird outside will go OUT to look, even if they
  know there's a homicidal maniac on the loose.
- When an intruder is in the house, the occupant will snuck along a wall
  with his back pressed to it tightly and his arms out a bit from his body,
  palms flat agaisnt the wall.
- When there's an intruder somewhere in the house, the thing that jumps at
  the heroine in the dark turns out to be her cat, even if it comes from
  places cats wouldn't be, like inside a cupboard! As soon as she relaxes,
  the killer will show up and strangle her.

# INJURIES
- When the hero is knocked out, he won't get a concussion or brain damage.
- People hit on the head will not throw up.
- When a hero gets a bloody nose, he'll stop bleeding almost immediately.
- When a hero suffers through car chases and crashes, he never has to worry
  about unfelt spinal injury from impact.
- A slight blow to the head is usually enough to cause total amnesia
- Characters that get shot will never go into shock.
- The hero will always get shot in the shoulder, yet will be able to use
  his arm.

# LOCKS
- Any lock can be picked with a credit card or a paper clip. Any safe can
  be opened in a few minutes with a stethoscope or some high-tech equipment
  with lots of blinking lights.

# PHONES
- All phone numbers begin with 555.
- People speaking on the phone never introduce themselves,
  and never ever say "good-bye" at the end of a conversation.
- A ringing phone is usually picked up within 3 seconds.
- Don't give the person on the other end of the phone time to say what they
  have to.
- When a phone line is broken or someone hangs up unexpectedly, communication
  channels can be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying
  "Hello?  Hello?".
- Always knock over the phone if it wakes you up.  If you are expecting a call,
  make sure that you pull the covers up completely over your head so that
  knocking it over becomes easier.  All houses have phones next to the bed.
- There's a dial tone to be heard on A's phone immediately after B has hung
  up on his/her end.
- The Movie Telephone Time Vortex.
  How often have you seen something like this:
   Phone rings.  Hero/Heroine picks it up.  "Hello.  Yes.   O.k.  Right.
   Thanks, Goodbye."  (Total elapsed time on phone:  5 seconds.)
   Hero/Heroine turns to other character:   "That was John.  He says that
   the Marilyn left for the lawyer's office about an hour ago, and she
   should have been there by now. He's called the lawyer's office but
   Marilyn apparently never got there.  He also called Bill's, thinking
   she'd stop by there, but Bill hasn't seen her.  John says he's going to
   call Anne, as Marilyn said she and Ann were going to go shopping
   sometime today.  If she's not at Anne's, he's going to call the
   police.  He suggests that we drive over to Mario's and check with him
   as to whether or not Marilyn told Wally about the statue.  However, he
   thinks this is unlikely as Marilyn doesn't trust Wally, she only trusts
   us and Fransisco. John also suggests we try to get in touch with
   Fransisco . . . ."
- On the subject of phones, how about variations of the Bob Newhart-style
  conversation where we only get to hear one side of the conversation, as in:
   Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet?  (PAUSE)  And you
   already called Bill's?  (PAUSE)  What did he say?  (PAUSE)  He hasn't
   seen her either.  (PAUSE)  So, John's getting nervous?  (PAUSE)  He's
   going to call the police...
  If I'm not mistaken, the conversation must have gone like this:
   "Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet."
   "Marilyn hasn't shown up at the lawyer's office yet?"
   "No, and I've already called Bill's."
   "And you already called Bill's?"
   "Yes."
   "What did he say?"
   "He hasn't seen her either."
   "He hasn't seen her either."
   "John's getting pretty nervous about this."
   "So, John's getting nervous?"
   "Yes, he's going to call the police."
   "He's going to call the police..."

# POLICE
- Police Captains/lieutenants are always angry at their star detective and
  yell at him, threatening suspension if he doesn't drop the case.
- The police will never question the hero, even if he kills lots of bad guys
- The cops never show up during massive gun battles in city streets that
  involve bystanders and exploding cars. After the fact, you might just a
  siren in the distance.
- There will always be a middle-aged, overweight, African-American police
  chief/captain/lieutenant who says he's "too old for this shit".

# PRODUCT PLACEMENT
- Time will stand still when when the hero is in the presence of a company
  logo.
- When a character picks up a bottle of whiskey or a pack of cigarettes,
  the label will always be clearly visible.

# RADIO & TV
- A character turns on the radio just in time to hear a special
  announcement or some important news item. Then turns the radio off.
  ex.:
   CLICK
   "Three escaped lunatics have been spotted in .
   blah blah blah."
   CLICK
- The phone rings.  Caller says, "You better check out what's on the news
  on Channel 13.  He turns on channel 13 and gets the report from the
  beginning.

# SPACE & VACUUM
- Spaceships make noise!
- Explosions in space make noise
- Exposure to vacuum makes you horribly swell up and/or explode within
  seconds (ex. "Total Recall", "Outland")

# TRAVEL
- Transportation always arrives and leaves on time.
- Characters arrive at the airport and get *right on the plane*. They must
  have the best timing of any people on Earth - I always have wait around
  for a while before boarding. (Not to mention getting a boarding pass and
  the "arrive 15 minutes before departure or you lose your seat" clause of
  most airlines. Good thing movie airlines never overbook!
- Movie characters' suitcases are always weightless when they have to carry
  them.

# VILLAINS
- The bad guy is the foreigner.
- People can be rendered inoperative by bumping them on the head.  Beware,
  though; after you have left the scene, this person will regain consciousness
  and be more determinted to attack you.
- The bad guy also has a side-kick muscleman, who has some sort of trademark
  gimmick that he/she uses to eliminate oppponents.  You must kill or
  decomission this muscleman by forcing a backfiring of this trademarked
  gimmick.  If the muscleman dispatched by a different method, he/she is not
  dead. (For that matter, don't assume that anyone is dead unless their death
  was spectacular.  Beware sequels.)
- The bad guy usually kills his henchman for failing, yet don't seem to run
  out of loyal henchmen.
- Bad guys lurk until their presence is revealed by a flash of lightning.
- You can kill the bad guy by taking careful note of any object that the
  camera has lingered on for an unnecessarly length of time; typically this
  is something like a meathook or a jagged bit of glass.  You will be
  involved in a mighty struggle, and at the appropriate time you can become
  inspired (usually by either an insult from the bad guy or a look of faith
  from your love interest) with strength enough to force the bad guy
  into/onto/under/in front of the aforementioned object.  Actor's Equity
  (Hollywood) requires that within 15 seconds either side of the bad guy's
  demise, you utter your trademark phrase.
- The bad guy, having finally gotten the good guy into his clutches, will
  usually spend a few meglomaniac minutes gloating over his victory and his
  opponent's downfall.  This increment of time will prove just enough to
  allow the good guy to figure a way out of his predicament, or just long
  enough to allow a rescue attempt.
- The bad guy, instead of simply offing the captured good guy on the spot,
  will devise some sort of drawn-out, fiendishly clever method of execution
  that will take enough time to allow the good guy to figure out his
  escape.

# WEAPONS
- Major characters never run out of ammunition, nor do they ever have to
  reload. (If the movie _does_ make them reload, they never have to
  actually carry any spare ammo until that scene)
- Guns never run out of ammunition unless escape would be otherwise
  impossible.
- The first shot or burst of fire from a bad guy _always_ misses, and is
  there just to announce that a fight will be taking place.
- Bad-guy hand grenades make noise and smoke, but no real damage; good-guy
  hand grenades are devastating but selective; they will destroy tanks, but
  won't hurt the thrower, even if he drops one on his toe. Bad-guy grenades
  used by good guys become good-guy grenades, and _vice versa_.
- When the villain runs out of bullets, he'll throw away his gun. When the
  hero does so, he'll conveniently come across another.
- Machine guns submerged underwater for a long time won't jam or misfire
  when the hero pops up to use them. (see any Rambo movie)
- A cigarette case/lighter in the shirt pocket will always block the bullet.
- When the hero faces a ridiculously large number of shooters with high
  powered weapons, they will all miss after several shots. Then, the hero
  will pulls out this gun that looks like a toy and start picking off the
  bad guys from half a mile away, usually hitting them in the forehead.

# WOMEN
- Women will always have shaved legs and armpits, even in caveman movies.
- Women will be worrying about their nails or dresses while people are
  trying to kill them.
- Woman falls to the ground whilst being chased by a bad guy, even
  when running over level, unobstructed terrain. Note that when a man and
  woman are being chased, usually the woman falls, then the man pauses and
  helps her up.

# BINOCULARS & GLASSES
- Glasses never collect moisture when you come in from the cold
outside.

- Computer geeks and "intelligent" persons use them, action heros
never have glasses.

# BIOLOGY AND GENETICS

- People are often exact duplicates of remote ancestors, or of their
parent at the same age.

- At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.

- Radiation causes mutation not to your future children, but to you,
there and then.  Mutation is never immediately fatal, but first
either makes you into a formless blob, or a functional creature with
animal-like features.

- Interbreeding is genetically possible with any person or creature
from anywhere in the universe.

# BODILY FUNCTIONS

- People never cough, sneeze, blow their noses, or show any other
symptoms of being in less than perfect health.

- You can eat as much as you want in a film and you'll never EVER
have to go to the bathroom.

# BOMBS

- Bombs detonated with microwave ovens always explode 2 seconds
after the timer reaches 00:00 and the microwave oven beeps (ex.
"Under Siege").

- Explosions always happen in slow motion.

# CARS & DRIVING

- When you drive a car, you can always recognize all the persons you
know that pass you in the opposite direction.

- If someone has "fixed" the foot-brakes in the car, the driver
never use the hand-brake and the gears to slow down, at least not
until the last moment.

- Cars often end up on cliff-edges with 2 wheels in the open air.
The good guys are saved just before the car falls over, the bad guys
join the car in the free fall, often caused by a bird setting down on
the part of the car hanging over the edge.

- When speeding cars hit a parked car, they fly up into the air
while the parked car doesn't even wiggle

- All cars seem to run on kerosene rather than gasoline (hence the
copious black smoke when they burn).

- Watch steering wheels in movie cars, especially in "through the
windshield looking at the driver" shots. 9 times out of 10, the
spokes of the wheel, which one would think should be horizontal, or
close to it, are vertical, i.e., one can see one of the wheel spokes
vertical, above the dash, in front of the driver's face, even when
he's driving straight.

- There are no stop signs in movie land. Wherever you have to drive,
no matter how close or far away it is, you never have to stop before
you get there.

- Film cars do not have inside rear-view mirrors. Most of them do,
however, have an appx 1" gray spot on the inside of the windshield
where the mirror would normally mount.

- Film cars never start the first time when you're running away from
the bad guy.

# COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS

- If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file,
it also disappears from the screen (e.g Clear and Present Danger).

- If a disk has got encrypted files, you are automagically asked for
a password when you try to access it.

- No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by
any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all
computer platforms.

# CRIME

- When you go to rob a bank in a film, you will always choose the
teller who has just started his or her first day on the job.
# ENVIRONMENT

- Storms start instantaneously: there's a crack of thunder and
lightning, then heavy rain starts falling.

- Heavy rain causes no loss of long-distance visibility.

- Everything is blue at night-time.

- Caves always have flat floors, and it's never fully dark.

# EVIDENCE

- Be sure to leave your important tapes, such as the one labelled
"Incriminating evidence against Senator Smith showing him taking
$24 million in bribes and then fondling the drug lord's daughter" or
your computer floppy disks labelled "All the nuclear launch codes are
on here" where they can be easily found.

# HEROES

- Heroes can go without food or sleep, with no measurable drop in
physical or mental faculties, for at least 72 hours.

# INJURIES

- A facial scar is likely to make you go insane and seek revenge
for the rest of your life.

- If you lose a hand, it causes the stump of your arm to grow by six
inches.

- A lost hand either comes crawling back, or a mad surgeon will
replace it with one transplanted from an executed strangler.

# KNIVES

- When you throw a knife, the blade will always be the first thing
to hit the target - unless you turn the knife around first.