Entertain Me!

I’ve been watching a lot of action-adventure movies lately and one thing I’ve noticed is the abundance of cheesy dialogue. Honestly, I’ve always noticed craptastic lines in movies, but what struck me this time was how it made me roll my eyes and almost stopped me from enjoying the movie all together. I’m really getting sick of cheesy movies. My friends think I’m overly critical of films, like I REALLY have to be entertained or else I’m pissed…well, DUH! These people are getting paid MILLIONS of dollars to entertain me, and damn it, I want to be entertained!

I don’t want cheesy lines delivered with all seriousness—just saw this on an episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, or is it called Terminator? Who knows—“Come with me if you want to live.”

Of course I want to live, dillhole!

Or my all-time favorite, “Stay alive, I’m going to get help!”

Oh, wow, thanks for telling me to stay alive, because I was going to die without that bit of instruction.

But I must say, the funniest 3 minutes in The Office history was when Dwight set a fire and panic ensued because he blocked all the exits. As Oscar climbed into the ceiling he shouted to Angela, “Stay alive, I’m going to get help!”
Priceless. I think I laughed until my stomach hurt at that episode. See, when it’s used mockingly it works.

My peeves aren’t only for cheesy dialogue, but also crappy graphics. I don’t want to know that I’m watching a CGI. I want to think that Keanu Reeves is really kicking the @ss of a hundred Agent Smiths (that scene SO pissed me off).
If Supernatural, a freain' tv show, can pull off excellent graphics than surely a big budget move can do better.

And I’m not sure if any of you have seen the previews of New Moon yet, but I saw a trailer in the movies as well as recently on tv and both times I was like…um, am I the only one who sees that big cartoon wolf? People around me in the theater were ooh-ing and aww-ing—okay, it was giggly fangirls—but I was looking at the graphics thinking, I’m SO not going to see this movie. Is it so hard to make a believable wolf? (So um…I don’t want to be flamed by graphic artist, please. My bro-in-law is a graphic cartoonist…I love you guys, but really, can we do better?)

I remember seeing An American Werewolf in London and being scared out of my MIND! The transformation scene was, and still is, one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Then, years later when they made An American Werewolf in Paris (when graphics/technology should have been and was much better) the wolves looked like cartoons and I was not at all scared.

I think about this when I’m writing. No matter how easy it is for my characters to say or do certain clichéd phrase/actions, I resist. There is nothing an author can do when their book has been optioned into a movie and then their wolves are turned into cartoons, but I guess what I’m saying is, as writers, let’s free the world of clichés. Be it novels, stage, film or the small screen. We owe it to the people reading, hearing, and seeing our work not to give them lazy dialogue. It’s not hard to do. I could tell you how to avoid clichés in your writing…but then I’d have to kill you.