Which Movie Clichés Are the Worst, and More

• Aug 1, 2007 09:59 PM ET
• by Maitland McDonagh

The lowdown on movie cliches, Jenny Wright is missing and more movie questions...

Question: Some friends and I were discussing movie clichés the other day and I was wondering which ones you hate the most. Some of the ones we discussed were:

" The vehicle chases where they always end up near some train tracks and the pursued just makes it across ahead of the speeding train and eludes the pursuer. I mean, what are the odds?

" The girl or guy is running away from the ax/chainsaw/machete-wielding maniac, jumps in their vehicle and it doesn't start. I mean, my car almost always starts.

" All bombs are defused with less than 10 seconds to go. Just once I'd like to see a bomb that had 12 hours left so the hero has time to order a pizza, call his girlfriend and then defuse it.

So, which ones really make your eyes roll back into your head? - Steve "Butthead" Mross

FlickChick:

" The dog that never dies (not that I want the dog to die, but half the population of New York could get sucked into a cosmic sinkhole and the dog would still escape).

" The fireball that throws the hero towards the screen but leaves him with no more damage than a couple of bruises.

" The suspense-dissipating cat in the closet ([ Mrrrrrrrooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww]).

" The shadowy area at the upper right-hand side of the screen during a suspense scene - the one someone or something is going to appear out of.

" The audition montage and its cousin, the bad-date montage.

" The barefoot, wounded running girl who keeps falling down and yet stays a few steps ahead og the psychokiller pursuing her.

" The bad guys who can't shoot straight.

" The villain who talks and talks and talks when he should just kill the hero before the hero gets the drop on him, and the victim who finally overpowers the bad guy and doesn't make goddamned sure he's dead before turning away.

" The female cops/detectives/Secret Service agents in high heels (ask any woman how fast you can run in heels).

" The car chase that ends with the car in pieces and the driver unscathed.

" The brilliant psychopath who can think 10 moves ahead of everyone else and knows exactly how everyone will react to every new development.

Readers, your unfavorites?

MORE CLICHES: I just ran across this piece on cliches, pegged to the release of (surprise!) Rush Hour 3.

Question: I am a new fan of Near Dark, which I saw on cable. Did you ever find out what became of Jenny Wright? - John H.

FlickChick: Not only have I not found out what happened to Jenny Wright, but no one else has either. In fact, I recently took a look at the Near Dark DVD extras, and there's a moment where Adrian Pasdar looks directly at the camera and says, "Jenny, if you're out there... I miss you."

There's a fansite whose webmaster apparently had some contact with Wright and her mother, Marilyn, around 2000, during which time Marilyn sent an e-mail saying that Jenny was not quite "ready to emerge from her shadows." A band called Davy Shannon & Callian's Dream wrote and recorded a song called " Near Dark Jenny" in 1999. But there's still no sign of Jenny Wright herself; I hope she resurfaces or that someone can share some news.

Question: Hey, I really enjoy your column! I had heard a year or so ago that the author Janet Evanovich had been approached about a movie featuring her Stephanie Plum character. As a die-hard "Cupcake"/Joe/Ranger fan, there is nothing I'd love more than to see these characters come to life on screen. Do you know if there has been any progress made on getting this movie made? Thanks for your consideration. - Jan

FlickChick: Unfortunately, I have nothing good to report. TriStar bought the rights to One for the Money in 1994 "for over a million dollars," by Janet Evanovich's account, and all they've done with them is develop a 2002 television pilot with Lynn Collins as Stephanie Plum and General Hospital's Tyler Christopher as Joe Morelli (not the kind of big-name casting likely to flutter a fan's heart). As far as I can tell, the pilot was never made.

A theatrical version of One for the Money is in development, with Reese Witherspoon attached to play Stephanie ( Sandra Bullock - whom Evanovich has always said would be great - and Jennifer Lopez were previously mentioned for the part), and her Type A Films is one of the production companies working with TriStar. The script has been through at least seven writers to date and the producers include Wendy Finerman, whose recent credits have been The Devil Wears Prada and Drumline; she was involved with the TV pilot. And that's about all there is to tell: There's no start date, no director, no casting beyond Witherspoon. But the project isn't dead, and that's a lot more than you can say for most things that have been hanging around unmade for 13 years. So don't give up hope.

Question: I have an old New York newspaper from 1945 that had an advertisement for a movie called Bewitched. The premise was a woman with spilt personalities. I can't find very much information on this anywhere. Do you have any information or know where I can get a copy? - Patrick

FlickChick: This is a tough one. Bewitched (1945) was a very low-budget MGM B-picture (back when that term meant a short, cheap movie made to play on the bottom half of a double bill) made by Arch Oboler. Oboler was famous as the writer of the "Lights Out" radio series - Bill Cosby's famous "Chicken Heart" riff (about being left at home alone and scared to death of the giant chicken heart) was inspired by one of Oboler's episodes. Oboler went on to make nearly a dozen low-budget pictures, including cult sci-fi pictures Five (1951), The Twonky (1953) and The Bubble (1967).

Bewitched is a psychological horror story - as were several of the stories written for "Lights Out" - about a young woman ( Phyllis Thaxter) with multiple personality disorder. Shortly before she's about to get married, she starts hearing a voice (belonging to noir chippie Audrey Totten) that drives her to move away and start a new life. But the voice, which belongs to her violent second personality, follows her and eventually drives her to murder. Edmund Gwenn, best known as the original Miracle on 34th Street's Kris Kringle, plays the psychiatrist who puts a name to the disorder that made her kill. For all its apparent melodramatic clunkiness - I can't speak from personal knowledge - it predates movies like The Three Faces of Eve (1957) by more than a decade.

Now, the bad news. It's been released on VHS, but I couldn't find a single copy for sale. I did run across someone selling noncommercial DVDs on the ioffer site, with which I have no experience. So it's going to be tough to find, but if you're determined, you can satisfy your curiosity about Bewitched.

Send your movie questions to FlickChick.

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