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The Universal Laws of Film

The Universal Laws of Film

Last updated on: August 11, 2016 at 8:35 am by Mary Pezzulo

The Universal Laws of Film 2016-08-10T22:14:31-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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You all know by now that I’m a great lover of films, and of writing film reviews. But I haven’t been able to get to any films this summer because of my autoimmune condition and the heat. I’ve been re-watching things, watching TV with my daughter and re-visiting Mystery Science Theater 3000, which I absolutely love. And I have been keeping a running tally of laws affecting the film universe; here are my findings.

Lava radiates no heat. I’ve seen this one a thousand times, not only in cheesy movies but in first rate action films as well. Lava does no damage to your flesh unless you’re actually touching it. You can stand on a rock inches above it; you can be suspended in an iron cage within a few feet of it and not experience any ill effects. You can engage in an epic battle in a cave full of it without breaking a sweat. It radiates no more heat than room temperature water. But God help you if you touch it even a little bit. Then it’s all over.
Hackers never click the mouse. Ever. It’s the most incongruous thing. In a diverse myriad of action films there’s always a scene with a nerdy hacker sitting in front of his laptop, hacking into the enemy base. There are always people standing bent over the hacker, watching him hack into the enemy base. They ask him asinine questions like “Can you make that picture bigger?” and of course he can. He can do anything. He can launch nuclear warheads with that laptop. But he does it all on the keyboard. Whatever their request is, the hacker accomplishes it by mashing keys on the keyboard. The foley artist foleys in obnoxiously loud clackety-clack noises to indicate that there is indeed a mashing of keys going on– and it’s never the foleyed sound of laptop keys either. It’s always the sound of a quaint sticky keyboard from the 1980s, the kind that were dark brown and mostly used in libraries and schools. Laptop keyboards barely make a sound, but this keyboard goes clackety clackety clack loud enough to obscure dialogue. And never once does the hacker use the mouse pad, a mouse or a touchscreen. He never clicks “yes” or “execute” or whatever is hacker language for “yes.” He just types gibberish until the enemy base is good and hacked.
Priests call everyone “my child.” This has never once happened to me in real life, no matter how patronizing the priest. In real life, the priests I’ve known have also always said goodbye by waving or saying “goodbye” instead of making a random limp sign of the cross in my face, as well, but movie priests make a limp sign of the cross. Maybe I haven’t met any of the right priests.
It’s impossible to speak when wearing a mask, without bobbling your head. Gestures mysteriously become more pronounced as well.
Oppressed peoples in fantasy films have an infinite number of children. I was watching a film recently, where the citizens had to sacrifice a tithe of their children to the rock monsters “every third full moon,” which I reckon means about four times a year. Now, to me that means that after one ritual sacrifice, 90% of the original children would be left. After second ritual sacrifice, 10% of the 90% would be missing, not counting infants under three months old who have been born since the last sacrifice but are too small to walk sadly into the volcano so they don’t count. That’s eighty-one per cent of the town’s children over six months old still alive to be sacrificed later. That means that after one full year of quarterly ten per cent human sacrifice, there ought to be only 65% of the populace’s children between one and eighteen years old, left alive. Unless these people are dreadfully ignoring their NFP charting, there’s no way they can just keep having babies quickly enough to replace the ones lost to the rock monsters. They’d be extinct in a generation, and the rock monsters would have starved to death. Yet, in this film, there are streets full of adorable moppets hoping they’re not randomly chosen as sacrifice victims and a bevy of amorous, buxom teens as well. It makes no sense unless the children come in an infinite supply straight from central casting. This would also explain why most of the children in a film that’s supposed to be about ancient Greece are noticeably Northern European blondes as well.
Coughing is fatal. If a character in a film balls up her fist and coughs delicately into it, particularly if she’s a beautiful and virtuous young woman, she will be dead by the end of the film every time. Sometimes she’ll be diagnosed with pneumonia or consumption or the vapors, but a lot of the time she’ll simply die. This is not true of fainting fits or head injuries, which can be had in almost infinite supply with no damage. But the cough carries them off every time.

Those are all I can think of for now; list more in the comments if you’ve got them!

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