Capital post!

What about boy meets girl, boy looses girl, boy finds someone else? Or boy meets girl, boy figures out she's possessive and kinda crazy, so breaks up with her and finds someone else.

I can deal with "boy meets girl", though truth be told I watch romances only on other people's time, if you catch my drift.

What I can't stand in the genre, however, is the "chase". We all know it: the two lovebirds are depressed because they've "broken up". One is about to go off to Timbuctoo forever, and the other is just fine with that. Until they have The Talk with a supporting character who tells them that they really *do* love so-and-so, and hence the "chase". The boy/girl/whoever blunders through a chase scene to their one true love, often with a wacky supporting cast in tow, until there is the inevitable hug and kiss at a bus stop, a train station, or especially an airport. See: just about every boy-meets-girl movie over the past 20-30 years. I myself first noticed it in "Crocodile Dundee", which I otherwise enjoyed.

There are good romances though, that stay good without straying too far from the formula. I recently saw "The Waitress" (in theaters as of this post) with a friend, a romance with an interesting, morally-ambiguous twist on the genre.

Other clichés:

--I've probably posted about this one before, but here goes: the ten-second time bomb. That is, every single time bomb the hero finds will be found within a minute of going off, and will be defused within ten. If the villain finds it, there will only be a few seconds left. I'm so over this one...there's a hilarious but easily-missed parody of this shameless plot catalyst in "Team America".

--The comeback. This one is ubiquitous in action movies: the hero gets the life nearly pummeled out of him by the villain, but then suddenly turns the tables on his opponent and wins. Tied into this is death style: the villain must always have a spectacular death (falling into helicopter rotors in "The Last Boy Scout"). The hero must always have a pathetic or noble death, preferably with a last line or gasp.("The Wrath of Khan", anyone?)

--The token scientist. A staple of sci-fi and horror films, this character usually wears a white coat, and is onscreen just long enough to bamboozle the protagonists with their technobabble and findings on species/weapon/technology X. Look for lots of Latinate words.

--The mother of all clichés: the perfect method of execution, which must involve a long delay, many steps, and supervision--if any--by insufferable dolts. No firing squads here!

I could go on and on...

__________________
"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."

--Anonymous