Moviegoers' Glossary

Here are some excerpts from Roger Ebert's Glossary of Movie Terms (via Hanan, as usual):

Fallacy of the Talking Killer
The villain wants to kill the hero. He has him cornered at gunpoint. All he has to do is pull the trigger. But he always talks first. He explains the hero's mistakes to him. Jeers. Laughs. And gives the hero time to think his way out of the situation, or be rescued by his buddy.

"Fruit Cart!"
An expletive used by knowledgeable film buffs during any chase scene involving a foreign or ethnic locale, reflecting their certainty that a fruit cart will be overturned during the chase, and an angry peddler will run into the middle of the street to shake his fist at the hero's departing vehicle.

Land Boom Rule
In any movie where there is a cocktail party featuring a chart, map, or model of a new real estate development, a wealthy property developer will be found dead inside an expensive automobile.

One-at-a-time Attack Rule
In any situation where the hero is alone, surrounded by dozens of bad guys, they will always obligingly attack one at a time.

Weak-Ankled Female Syndrome, The
Whenever a man and woman are on the run, the woman inevitably falls and sprains her ankle. As a result, the man must drag or carry her and their progress is slowed, stalled or halted.

There's one glaring omission; here's my version:

Laptop That Controls the Universe, The
Any guy in his late teens or early twenties can save the world with any laptop. And it doesn't have to be connected to anything—there's WiFi even in abandoned warehouses on the edge of town! Just in the nick of time, he can figure out all necessary passwords and hack into the villain's system to abort whatever evil is about to be unleashed on the world.

Comments

[pam]

Yes! The laptop that rules the world! And I know there are another dozen hard-and-fast rules from the movie world ...

[votermom]

The Recruit had a good take on that omnipotent laptop, I thought.