I just sent an email to Roger Ebert's regular bi-monthly
"Answer Man" column.
I've tried submitting stuff before, but he hasn't printed any of it. So, today I decided not to be polite about it anymore.
My submission was to his "Ebert's Movie Glossary" subsection where he prints common movie cliches.
My submissions after the FREEDOM FOLD.(TM)
Millenium Falcon Ignition System: The chances a vehicle works, doesn't work, or works spectacularly especially if needed as a plot point. This chance is doubled if the vehicle is ever referred to as "a hunk of junk."
Action film to Porn Evolution: As US action stars got worse and worse after Bruce Lee's death and before Jackie Chan's arrival, multiple camera angles would be used and edited end to end to extend the screen time of the only skill the actor has. The primary example is the number of repeats of a single Jean-Claude Van Damme's Helicopter Kick in each successive movie. From a similar practice in porno films, which, amazingly enough, also feature actors named "Van Damme" but with more talent.
"Imagine the odds of that" rule: Every time a minor bad guy is chased out of the back of a bar or restaurant into an alley that runs in 2 directions, the chances of the good guy chasers to choose the wrong direction of the alley to continue the chase is 100%. Make that 1000%.
3000% chance for the characters to psychically realize they lost the trail, backtrack, and find the minor character dead within a minute or less of screen time. See "Golden Child."
"The Token Minority Actor" Inversion: A new trend in Asian-produced action films set in the modern day of at least 1 fighter or actor being American/White/European/non-Asian. See any Jackie Chan or Jet Li film after and including Rush Hour.
The Infinite Odds Rule: Anything described as impossible by a nerd/scientist type will be expressed as "the odds of that suceeding/failing/working are infinite!"
The "500 trillion served" Rule: Non-intelligent alien life forms find humans the most delicious delicacy in the known universe. Also, the "Human as perfet incubator to my Baby/Egg" corallary
The "caaan uuuu heeeeaaar meeee nowwwww" rule: All zombies apparently subscribe to AT&T's "In" coverage plan, as they know exactly when and where to converge in flash mobs, even if there was only one or no zombies there seconds before. They also appear to car pool, as they all shuffle along at different speeds yet arrive in one homogenous group.
The Apocalyptic Zombie Movie Survival Rule: The only chance to make it to the last frame is to join a rag-tag group of survivors. Hiding alone or refusing to join the rag-taggers is an automatic death sentence. Also, if you see a fortified position with military or policemen, immediately run in the opposite direction. See Resident Evil: Apocalypse, any of the Romero Zombie films, or Dawn/Day of the Dead. Exception: Evil Dead 3 aka Army of Darkness.
The "Americans are cruel heartless bastards" rule: Since Jackie Chan thinks Americans love to cruelly laugh at people who make honest mistakes, his post-movie outtakes are now exclusively him flubbing lines.
The Inverted Japanese Remake Rule: now that America produces nothing original, the Japanese are forced to make their own orignal items, including horror films, which are now copied by American studios in smaller, shorter, cheaper and inferior forms. See The Ring (originally Ringu), The Ring: Two (Ringu: 2,) The Grudge ("Ju-On"), etc. that will eventually be played on Sony DVD players with Toshiba TV's.
The Uniform Nightclub Architecture Rule: All nightclubs must have a 2nd level overlooking the main floor, where one character can gaze at another, although in real life, all the drunks falling off the second-floor railing would probably close the bar within weeks. Also the same architecture is used internationally, especially in action films where bad guys need to be convenietly thrown over the railing in a group vs 1 fight. See almost every single James Bond film, XXX, Walking Tall, etc.
The "Action Star Gangbang": as action stars must overcome bigger obstacles in each successive film, the number of adversaries in the obligatory gang fight must increase. Also a trend in porn films. See The Houston 500, The Matrix series, etc.
The "I can't believe they screwed me this bad" DVD rule: When the DVD is so superior to the theatrical release that moviegoers who paid for a ticket become physically ill and/or violent. Prime Example: Scary Movie 3, where almost all the scenes in the trailers were not only better than the theatrical release, they were not in the theatrical release but only available on the DVD, such as the entire Matrix parody storyline.
The "Bloody Alien" rule: all alien blood must not be red. Corollary: any human-looking alien is instantly identifiable by having non-red blood. Corollary 2: After "Alien," the chances of the blood being acidic, poisonous, or having some other special feature increased to 50%. See "Them."
The "Sci-fi Stupidity Realization" rule: All bad sci-fi films must contain a reference to a earlier, better well-known sci-fi movie. The crappier the movie, the more numerous the references. Eg. all Star Trek movies after Zombie Spock, especially Star Trek: The Voyage Home.
The Crappiness Rollover Rule: When a movie franchise has so completely lost their direction, audience, and originality that they flip the crap-o-meter back to 0 and fans only remember one movie, usually late in the series. Example: Police Academy <what number again?>: Citizens on Patrol, Halloween H20, etc.
The Catwoman rule: when expectations are so low that moviegoers are completely taken by shock when any part of a film even mildly amuses them. Taken from The Onion.
The Asian Zombie Virus Immunity Rule: Until the remake of Day of the Dead, not a single Asian person was ever zombified. I think SARS and/or a high carb diet (eg. rice) has something to do with it. I think there are more Asian basketball, baseball, and football stars than zombies.
The "Stupid Pedestrian Victimization" rule: if a person on foot is chased by a car, the person conveniently runs down the middle of the street, even though there are lots of cars parked on the curb making a protective barrier if the pedestrian even thought about using the sidewalk. Corpllary: if the bad guy is the one on the street, being hit by the car will not kill them. eg. Jeepers Creepers.
The "Never Marry this Person" rule: an almost guaranteed death sentence which encomasses, among others, Tony Shaloub, any James Bond actor, Scarlet O'Hara, Tom Cruise's co-stars, etc.
The "I Love/Hate M. Night Shalayman" rule: because of his glacial pacing and 3+ hour movie times, the polarization of movie goers into "Love him! Artsy!" and "Hate him! Boring!" groups.
If anybody likes this stuff, I did the "Not-so-secret movie rules: Sci-Fi" and "Not-so-secret movie rules: Action Films" on the IMDB boards.