'ninja III: the domination' came up in another topic recently, so i thought i would check it out. pretty entertaining, but one of its curious little details is that the main character, christie, works as a telecomms engineer (with a sideline in aerobics). there's no reason for this, it's just what she does. it makes a nice change from the usual cop/private investigator/journalist/spy/egyptologist/assassin/cowboy/shaolin monk-type jobs that most characters in genre cinema seem to have.
anybody else got any favourite characters in bad movies with weirdly normal jobs (or any other trivial domestic detail)? or do you guys ignore these scenes and only pay attention when the alien invasions/beheadings/martial arts contests begin?
Quote from: Moreau on June 07, 2010, 01:05:10 PM
or do you guys ignore these scenes and only pay attention when the alien invasions/beheadings/martial arts contests begin?
:teddyr: :teddyr:
Well, I'm a film archivist, so that can pretty much be described as a weirdly nornal job. :wink:
and a "poo underpants inspector" as well, apparently.
what about characters who are supposed to have jobs, but weirdly never seem to do any work? like dr watson from the sherlock holmes stories.
Kirstie Alley (back when she wasn't fat) had a job that was never even described in Village Of The Damned (1995). She was just some doctor that had a fetus in a jar. The kids made her cut herself open.
it's been a while since i saw that. isn't kirstie alley some kind of research doctor, working for the government? but you're right; it's kind of vague and irrelevant.
I was just thinking the other side of that is the hyper-normal job, or maybe the everyman job is a better term. That would be just as cliched a list of jobs people are given to give them regular-guy status, usually something requiring minimal education, so people will underestimate their obvious intelligence. Construction worker, waitress, auto mechanic (of the greasemonkey variety), security guard, anything in retail, unemployed. These can be used in either a serious attempt to make a character people can relate to (maybe add a bit of class struggle to the story), or it can be deliberately ironic.
Funny, when I try to come up with somebody who doesn`t have an exciting job or a deliberately ordinary job, I`m coming up blank. It`s a good question - how many characters just have an average job for no particular reason other than realism?
I suppose the third option is the generic job - people who put on a shirt and tie in the morning and run out the door to do who-knows-what, talk about meetings, accounts, clients or what have you, but give no details. Quite a lot of those around.
Ash in Army of Darkness working at S-mart.
Shop smart, shop S-Mart!
in the 1980 flash gordon, dale arden is a travel agent
"Wierdly normal" is a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it?
However, this thread does give me an idea for a movie:
KILLER CLAIMS ADJUSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE
Superman (journalist)
one of the reasons 'repo man' (1984) is so great is that it takes a banal job and turns it into the basis of a crazy and compelling film.
I'm struggling to understand the concept of the thread :bluesad:
Quote from: Moreau on June 08, 2010, 05:13:37 AM
it's been a while since i saw that. isn't kirstie alley some kind of research doctor, working for the government? but you're right; it's kind of vague and irrelevant.
Yeah, they never really specified... I still liked that film quite a bit though.
In the "Death Wish" movies, Charles Bronson played a character who was an architect by day,vigilante by night.
Quote from: lester1/2jr on June 08, 2010, 05:19:11 PM
I'm struggling to understand the concept of the thread :bluesad:
the 'weirdly normal jobs in movies' topic is like jazz: if you have to ask, you're never going to know.
i was talking to this woman at a party, turned out she was a ballet teacher. all i could think about was 'suspiria'; she terminated the conversation pretty quickly.
Quote from: Moreau on June 09, 2010, 05:06:40 AM
Quote from: lester1/2jr on June 08, 2010, 05:19:11 PM
I'm struggling to understand the concept of the thread :bluesad:
the 'weirdly normal jobs in movies' topic is like jazz: if you have to ask, you're never going to know.
i was talking to this woman at a party, turned out she was a ballet teacher. all i could think about was 'suspiria'; she terminated the conversation pretty quickly.
Is jazz dead yet? No? Damn.
Quote from: Moreau on June 09, 2010, 05:06:40 AM
Quote from: lester1/2jr on June 08, 2010, 05:19:11 PM
I'm struggling to understand the concept of the thread :bluesad:
the 'weirdly normal jobs in movies' topic is like jazz: if you have to ask, you're never going to know.
I'm having a little trouble with this myself. If an ordinary job is necessary to the plot or chosen for deliberate irony, does it count?
I nominate Rutger Hauer in Wanted Dead Or Alive as Nick Randall - the bounty hunter who lives in a warehouse and only ever brings in one suspect.
In The 5000 Fingers of Dr T the adult character who helps the child protagonist (who sees him as a father-figure and wants to set him up with his mom) is a plumber. The bad guy (Dr T of the title) is a piano teacher (but that is essential to the plot: such as it is...). Has to be something implied in that: the plumber helps to take out the oh-so-cultured musician.
I don't recall the name of the movie offhand, but I remember one 80's movie where one of the characters was a cast member of the musical CATS. He dies during the course of the film and later shows up as a ghost in his CATS costume.
Ol' Norm Son-of-a-Gunderson in FARGO painted ducks for US postage stamps.
So - Am I correctly understanding the concept of this thread?
yes! spot on
Quote from: Raffine on June 12, 2010, 08:45:48 PM
Ol' Norm Son-of-a-Gunderson in FARGO painted ducks for US postage stamps.
haha. but it doesn't seem incongruous, because the film itself is 'true to life' in a way
from what I can gather this thread is about vastly exaggerated characters/superheroes who for some reason have mudane occupations. (or is it?)
Rowdy Roddy Piper in THEY LIVE is a construction worker/drifter.
i thought the thread started with actual actor's real jobs, but i like where it is going
in the "thomas crown affair", faye dunaway plays an independent insurance investigator.