Several
years ago, my PC was set up to receive
e-mail but not venture onto the 20th century's
most overrated product -- which is, of
course, the Internet. At the time, a now-VERY-former
Manor Maiden e-sent me a batch of clever
"Things We Learn From Watching Movies"
items she had stumbled across at a film
fan site.
Though I have Net access
these days, I've never gotten around to
finding said site. Nonetheless, the theme
was inspirational in the composition of
the list of Golden Rules of scarepix appearing
in an earlier M-O-M. As it turns out,
I have also compiled a collection relevant
to the other genres; and if you fervently
beg, I just might publish them here.
Okay, okay, enough with
the genuflecting already. You're getting
drool all over my shoes! Instead, cast
your eyes on these truisms from Tinseltown.
• The standard commercial
jet passenger area is about 60 feet wide
and features a huge movie screen.
• If you tell him,
a bartender will "leave the bottle"
of potent liquor in front of you and not
even ask you to pay for it.
• No one has ever run
through a crowded area without plowing
into a bystander.
• A guy used by a woman
to make another man jealous will be a
great sport about it when she eventually
dumps him cold.
• An impassioned speech
to a massive crowd can be heard clearly
in the 400th row without any means of
amplification.
• All white people
can expertly handle chopsticks... and
buy about eight quarts of Chinese food
at a time.
• There's this big
store where villains can go to obtain
perfect replicas of local utility company
uniforms and vehicles.
• The worst kids from
the worst neighborhoods can become thoroughly
engrossed in schoolwork if a new, single,
devoted teacher takes over their class.
• Many bikers are fun-loving
jokers.
• As of the mid-Nineties,
automatic pistols were designed to be
held horizontally.
• Talking animals won't
speak when it would most benefit a human
pal.
• He who prays aloud
while in mortal danger dies an ultraviolent
death seconds later... especially if reciting
that "walk through the valley of
death" psalm.
• Older, poorly painted
cars are 100 times more likely to get
rammed than late-model ones.
• Don't panic if you
fall from a great height. You can always
grab a two-inch protuberance on the way
down.
• No matter what one's
level of fighting expertise, it's best
to stand stationary and exchange full-power
blows rather than present any sort of
defense.
• If in such a fight,
punch as hard as you desire; fists are
unbreakable.
• The prettiest female
inmates are also the nicest.
• Directly outside
a window in every cheap hotel room is
a flashing neon sign, excellent for illuminating
the too-wound-up-to-sleep occupant.
• All public libraries
have a microfilm filing of every single
newspaper page published locally over
the last sixty years.
• Nineteenth-century
cowboy bars had special whiskey that could
be drunk straight all day without inducing
nausea.
• Any youth worth his
leather jacket knows how to effortlessly
hot-wire an ignition.
• Bachelors have no
concept of food shopping -- which explains
why they only have five items in their
refrigerator, max, one being a severely
outdated, near-empty milk container.
• The people most prone
to getting KO'd are stakeout cops parked
outside the home of someone they're supposed
to be protecting.
• Baseball teams are
composed entirely of "characters."
• It's no sweat for
a jobless high school student to afford
a nice set of wheels and the four-figure
insurance tab that comes with it.
• Ninety percent of
all rock stars have Cockney accents, can't
go a full sentence without throwing in
a UK colloquialism, and appear to take
sartorial clues from a 1975 Mott The Hoople
album. Bloody wankers!
• Male professional
dancers really enjoy being with women.
• Seven-figure ransoms
in used bills easily fit in a standard-size
briefcase.
• You can leave auto
headlights on indefinitely and it'll never
run the battery down.
• Hospitals have an
unlocked closet on each floor, containing
full doctor and nurse outfittings, including
stethoscopes.
• The best marksmen
are extremely nervous people who have
never before handled a pistol -- their
first shot always scores a clean kill
on a baddie.
• Weirdest girl in
town? Don't worry: on a dare, a guy from
the school "in" clique will
hit on you, you'll bloom into a real looker,
and he will genuinely love you, as proven
in a climactic confrontation with the
clique's leader.
• It's always dry and
sunny the day a public hanging is scheduled.
• Multi-racial gangs
are not the least bit uncommon.
• No matter how remote
the road, rest assured there will be a
car coming in the opposite direction when
in-a-hurry you attempt to pass a slow-moving
vehicle.
• If you want to win
a basketball championship, be on the team
that is losing "the big game"
with mere seconds left on the clock.
• Law enforcement agents
never go into the Evidence Room without
stealing something -- and nearly getting
caught by the guard.
• Mid-20th-century
women wore magical bobby pins capable
of unlocking any door in the universe
with a simple twist of the wrist.
• Prior to the Kennedy
administration, national highway regulations
required a front-seat passenger to sit
no more than two inches to the right of
the driver, regardless of gender. To compensate
for any discomfort this caused in those
pre-air-conditioning days, added ventilation
was provided by the removal of windshield
glass.
• Med students aren't
in it for the money.
• When battling a heavily
armed troop of thugs, there's no sense
in the empty-handed protagonist grabbing
the weapon and ammo from the body of the
first enemy he knocked off.
• During a high-speed
chase on a flat surface, it is imperative
to work that gearshift hard and often--even
with an automatic transmission.
