a · b · c1 c2 cars · d · e · f · h · i · k · l · m · n · p1 p2 · r · s1 s2 · t · v · w war weapons

HELICOPTERS

• In movieland, there's an abundance of corrupt helicopter pilots. Villains have no problem renting a helicopter complete with pilot who doesn't mind shooting total strangers, or being shot at.
• When a helicopter is hit by a bullet or rocket, it'll explode immediately if it contains a villain, but if the hero is on board, it will loose power, smoke will come out of the doors, and it'll just reach the ground in time for the hero to get clear then duck just at the moment it explodes.
• People standing outside a running helicopter can always talk in normal or just slightly louder than normal voices.
• A pursued hero, with the bad guys just yards behind him, can jump into a shutdown helicopter, run through the twenty-five item startup checklist, engage and spin up the rotors, take off and be out of pistol range before the bad guys catch up.
• Bullets shot at a helicopter bounce off the fiberglass and aluminum "fuselage" components but make neat little holes through the plexiglas bubble.
• When a helicopter's engine dies, the main rotor immediately stops and the helicopter drops straight to the ground. If a bad guy is flying, the helicopter disappears in a ball of flame, but good-guy pilots just get out, dust themselves off, and walk away.
• When a turbine-powered Bell Jet Ranger helicopter is shot at, it's engine coughs and sputters, chugs along for a little while as the helo staggers through the air uncertainly, and then crashes using the good/bad pilot algorithm noted above.
• Every helicopter shutting down emits the chirp-chirp-chirp sound of the rubber drive belts disengaging, in spite of the fact that only the famous Bell 47G actually makes this sound.
• Piston helicopters always start up with screaming turbine engine sounds.
• Rambo-style pilots can fly with one hand on the cyclic stick while the other fires an automatic weapon out the door. The helicopter automatically knows when to change altititude to fly over obstacles without the pilot worrying about that pesky collective pitch control.

HEROES

• If the hero has a psychological/phsical problem which has prevented him from effectively dealing with problems, you can rest assured that this problem will disappear at an opportune time.
• The hero always misses the villan leaving the scene by seconds.
• Stripping to the waist makes the hero invulnerable.
• The hero will always be paired off with a female character. The sidekick never will.
• The hero's best friend/partner will usually be killed by the bad guys three days before retirement.
• The hero's new wife will be mowed down by 80 machine guns right after the wedding or during the honeymoon.
• Heroes can go without food or sleep, with no measurable drop in physical or mental faculties, for at least 72 hours.
• The hero will always have a small trickle of blood in the right corner of his mouth after a fight. His lip will never be split in the middle, and his upper lip will always be invulnerable. He will wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, then look at it. If his face displays any other injury, it will usually be a small abrasion on his right cheekbone. He will wear a band-aid on this for one day, after which it will be miraculously healed.
• The hero will always refuse the assistance of friends or medical personnel after a fight.
• If the hero gets into a second fight, his most injured body part will always be punched or kicked.
• A hero will show no pain even during the most terrific beating, yet he will wince if a women attempts to clean a facial wound.
• When a hero is paired with a weak sidekick, that sidekick will invariably save the hero's life at a crucial moment, or show remarkable proficiency with weapons in a key scene.
• If the hero is a white male and has an assistant/sidekick who is either not white or not male the assistant/sidekick will die, preferably in an act of heroic sacrifice.
• If the movie hero has a sidekick and he mentiones his family in the first two minutes of the film, the sidekick will surely be killed.
• The movie hero is (almost) always divorced, but he still has some contact with his ex-wife who tells him that she could not stay married to him because she loves him too much.

HOUSES

• People never answer the door until the doorbell or knocking has sounded at least three times.
• The hero lives in New York City working at some okay, but not particularly high-paying job, and yet he or she has a roomy apartment filled with nice stuff, generally with a good view, and sometimes a nice, romantic rooftop to go to.
• People never get out of the house when there is obvious danger there (ghosts, murderers).
• People who hear something weird outside will go OUT to look, even if they know there's a homicidal maniac on the loose.
• When someone's in bed and hears a sound outside, he'll get up and turn the lights on before looking out of a window, even if this usually guarantees that he'll never be able to see anything going on.
• When an intruder is in the house, the occupant will snuck along a wall with his back pressed to it tightly and his arms out a bit from his body, palms flat agaisnt the wall.
• When there's an intruder somewhere in the house, the thing that jumps at the heroine in the dark turns out to be her cat, even if it comes from places cats wouldn't be, like inside a cupboard! As soon as she relaxes, the killer will show up and strangle her.
• Any apartment in Paris will have a view of the Eiffel Tower.