This Post Is A Time Sink

Here’s another blast from the Argh Draft Vault, May 5, 2014. We’re cleaning house, Argh People.



I just wrote most of a post that’s a rant and realized that was probably a bad idea, so I’m letting it simmer for awhile. But in the process, I had to go look up The Evil Overlord List, the classic list of things that a smart person would do if he or she became an Evil Overlord. (My fave: “34. I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.”)

Unfortunately, I looked at the list on TV Tropes. For those of you who have never been to TV Tropes: Run away. Click that link and you’ll disappear for days. You have been warned.

Back to me and the Evil Overlord List. At the bottom was a link (Curse you, TV Tropes!) to the Roger Ebert Glossary of Movie Terms, including such beauties as

Cooter Rule, The: When the young good-looking hero goes back to his boyhood farmhouse, he’ll inevitably have a fight at the dinner table with an older, less attractive brother. The fight is usually about abandoning the farm and “Spitting on Daddy’s memory” or the hero’s annoying use of correct grammar. The hero storms out of the house, and sits down on a fence in the backyard. He is followed by his sweet, long-suffering sister-in-law. She says, “Trap, you’re gonna have to forgive Cooter/Hunter/Trip/Billy Bob. He loves you. He don’t mean nothin’. It’s just his way, is all.”

And of course, the classic

Idiot Plot: Any plot containing problems which would be solved instantly if all of the characters were not idiots.

Okay, I also like his labeling of a subset of the Big Misunderstanding in romance plots:

Inevitable Sister: In any movie where the heroine catches her boyfriend dancing in public with another woman, and makes a big scene, the other woman invariably turns out to be the boyfriend’s sister. Cf. MYSTIC PIZZA, etc.

And then there’s this:

Wunza Movie: Any film using a plot which can be summarized by saying “One’s a…” For example, “One’s a cop. One’s an actor.” Or “One’s a saint. One’s a sinner.”

Really, they’re all good. Go check out the Ebert’s Glossary of Movie Terms, just part of the legacy of a great critic.

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