Dear readers, it’s time for one more episode of “Only in the Movies,” where you learn about more things that only happen in the movies, but don’t happen in real life. Why? Because it’s the summer, and I’ll bet you’ve gone to the movies or have watched some at home recently.
And this column really is in 3D. Unfortunately, because you’re reading it in a newspaper or on a computer, you can’t tell. But it is. Trust me.
If you’ve read the other two “Only in the Movies” columns I’ve done, you may remember that I’ve written that when a hero is getting shot at, the shots that miss him or her hit things made of steel so that we can hear the “ping, ping” sound of many, many shots missing them, and at the same time, the bullets hit metal and make sparks. So we can say, “Whew, that was a close one!”
But non-connecting bullets don’t only hit steel. No. They also hit dirt–not asphalt, mind you–but dirt, so that the flying dirt sails into the air near the aforementioned hero, and we can once again say, “Wow, that was a close one!”
When the hero or the main agent in an FBI raid is about to go into a house or apartment, take a close look at him or her. Do you notice anything different about the main person and all the other people about to storm the house? What I’ve discovered is that the head agent is wearing a bulletproof vest and walking with a gun drawn. But the 75 people behind him or her are wearing complete protective gear, including helmets, and many are carrying shields.
Why do they do this in the movies? So that we can recognize the head honcho during the raid.
In real life, this would mean, “Hey, the big cheese doesn’t matter as much as all these worker bees, you assailant, you, so just shoot him in the head and get it over with.”
I mean, really, isn’t that what it seems like they’re saying? And like someone with all that experience would walk into such a dangerous situation without a helmet anyway.
Puleeze.
I’ve also noticed that anytime convicts escape from prison or anyone else who is on the run needs new clothing to get out of either the bright orange jumpers that they escaped in, or the blood-soaked clothing they were wearing when they were wrongly accused of a crime they didn’t commit (which sent them on the lam in the first place), they always find clothes. And most of the time, they get a jumpsuit that an auto mechanic has left at a closed service station.
I have a question: don’t auto mechanics ever take their uniforms home to clean them? At least one doesn’t–in the movies, that is–because then the convict or person running can don them and keep going…undetected.
Amazing how they are always the exact size of the person who needs them, isn’t it?
If they can’t find clothes at the local mechanics, they tend to pull them off clotheslines in rural areas. Again, I’m shocked–shocked I tell ya–that they are able to not only find entire outfits, but find them in the exact right size.
How is this possible? I guess because it’s only in the movies.
If I were ever on the run (and let’s get this straight, I wouldn’t be because I’m too much of a guilt-ridden Catholic to do something so bad to get me thrown in jail), I’d find something either two sizes too big or two sizes too small.
And if people saw me running down the street either wearing something that looked like a tent or an outfit that squeezed me like a sausage, that wouldn’t attract any attention. Nope. Not at all.
Guess that’s why I haven’t been in the movies…yet.
Michele Wojciechowski, when she’s not dissecting movies for fun, writes “Wojo’s World”® from Baltimore.
She’s the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box.
Wojo also contributes stories about folks in the comedy field for Parade.com.