Welcome to this week’s 6 List. This is a new feature here at Helpful; Snowman, a weekly column that will help me share my sage rosemary advice with the world, generally improve your lives, and add some kind of structure to complaining about encounters at Quiznos.
This Week’s 6 List:
6 Movie Scenes That Let’s Never See Again (in no particular order)
1. Cracking Codes -or- “I’m in!”
Is there anything more exciting than watching someone puzzle out another person’s computer password? Yes. There are many. In fact, almost all the things that aren’t that thing are more exciting. So why, time after time, do we have to watch a movie scene with some fucking nerd, probably named Dade, typing on a keyboard and trying to figure out someone’s password?
I know, it’s the updated version of the scene where they get the old guy with a stethascope to crack a safe. But you know what’s awesome about that? The guy is old, salty, has at least some kind of tool, probably calls someone a “young cocksucker,” doesn’t drink Mountain Dew Code Red, isn’t Jay Baruchel, and also it takes him about four seconds.
Not to mention that nobody can break a computer password. Okay, maybe that’s not true. I did it. Once. And with about 40 hints. But I guarantee that nobody can guess a password. I’ll think of one right now and you try to guess it. Did you guess MahunCleCh@rles,ya’ll? No? Alright, then you’re not “in.”
From now on, instead of hacking a password, just capture the owner of the computer, melt the lower half of his body with lava, and give me some shit to watch.
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2. Rube-Goldbergian Circumstances Lead to Brief Moment of Visual Comedy.
Um, this one takes a second to explain.
American Pie is a repeat offender in this category. Here’s an example of the kind of shit I’m talking about:
A guy is dogsitting and decides to take the dog for a walk. He finds what he thinks is the dog’s leash, but is actually a studded leather harness for god knows what. As he is struggling to get it on the dog, he spills hot coffee all over his pants. So then he takes his pants off and resumes trying to get the harness back on the dog. He gets right behind it, pinching it with his thighs to hold it still while he straps it in. THEN, someone walks in. The shot is from the perspective of the walker-inners, and with the struggling and the pantslessness it appears that the dude is banging the dog. Then we immediately cut to another scene.
Okay, this is not funny for about 400 reasons. For startes, you can see this coming a hundred miles away. And most importantly, these types of scenes fall apart because if this really happened you would immediatley back away from the dog, show that you had underwear on and were not hard, explain the pants situation, and really it would all be more logical and sensible than suspecting you of banging a dog.
The only Rube-Goldbergian shit I want to see in movies is Pee-Wee Herman’s breakfast machine.
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3. The Old “I’m in denial about having superpowers” Schtick.
When I go see Spider-Man, I go to see a wackjob dressed in a costume beating the shit out of the mentally ill. What I don’t go to see is a forty minute story where Peter Parker figures out, Holy Shit, something has gone terrible awry! Here’s the thing: the movie is called SPider-Man. I saw the preview where he was swinging around and shooting webs all over in costume. Can’t we just skip to that? I know he’s SPider-Man, you know he’s Spider-Man, let’s just all admit it, throw in a quick montage set to one of the many hits from Journey’s vast catalogue, and get this motherfucker rolling.
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4. Dance Numbers
Enough. There are two kinds of people in this world. There are people who love to dance and feel like it’s a freedom of motion that makes you feel alive. And then there are people who think with brains and know that dancing is a last resort thing when you say, I’m balding in 8 days from now and I need to drink nine drinks and rub up against somebody for just a second, just to feel wanted.
I’m sure there are amazing dancers out there. But fuck it. It doesn’t look good on screen. It’s like watching track and field on TV where you just don’t get any sense of it. Plus, it’s always ballroom dancing bullshit with snappy dialogue that just makes me want to puke down the front of someone’s dress right before dipping her so that the puke goes down the dress and then slides back up and coats her face.
And yes, I saw fucking Slumdog Millionaire, and that dancing at the end bullshit can make like tech support and stay the hell in India.
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5. Fake Fart Scenes
Farts equal funny. No denying that one. But fake farts? not funny. Why can’t they just record real farts for the movies? Do they need fart mixmasters? Can they afford to buy me a couple double stacks from Wendy’s?
Also, we’re talking about using film, a medium that doesn’t in any way engage your sense of smell, to demonstrate something that is based almost entirely on smell. I’m no film student, but I think it might be wise to avoid doing things like, I don’t know, hinge an entire scene on something that, as far as the audience is concerned, DOESN’T GODDAMN EXIST!
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6. What Are These Things -or- “Brian? Brian, are you alright?”
They are fucking zombies. Quit pretending that you’ve never seen a goddamn zombie movie. Do you know why Scream was such a hit when it came out? Because they didn’t pretend like they were existing in some bizarre parallel universe that was exactly like ours except that horror movies never existed. That’s it. Big secret formula. We’re gonna save a whole hell of a lot of time and energy if we can all just acknowledge that we’ve got a zombie or a vampire or a mummy or whatever on our hands. Not to mention, Fuck it, who cares? I don’t care what the guy is, if some asshole tries to eat your head feel free to start shooting. If anybody gives you shit, just be content in the knowledge that while you make your helicopter escape to the mall the judgmental assholes will be knee deep the reanimated corpses from the cemetery, most of which are probably decomposing, nude, elderly women.