Only in the movies

Jared has a link to a great list entitled 40 Things That Only Happen in the Movies. It is genius on par with George Carlin, minus the irritating digs at Christianity.

Some things the list-writers failed to mention:

When the bad guys have an automatic weapon, they will graciously delay their spray of bullets to strike directly behind the escaping hero. The bad guys will then curse their bad luck, as if they didn't have some subconscious desire to let the hero get away.

When a rare bullet hits the target of the hero, it is always in a fleshy part of the body like the arm or the butt, to avoid fatality. On the contrary, a hero can throw a can of tuna with their weak hand and hit the bad guy in the shin, with the bad guy becoming the unlikely victim of a sudden shin-contusion fatality.

Movie bad guys are so accommodating.

In some movie universes, such as those created by Kevin Smith, every character, from a priest to a street-corner drug dealer, uses Phillip Johnson-type words like solipsistic and obsequious, book-ended by f-bombs.

There's no such thing as a humble protestant pastor who isn't sifting from the collection plate or improperly mingling with the lady congregants. Lowly Catholic priests with an Irish background, however, have unimpeachable character.

In car chases, the average cop car is as fast and can handle as well as a Ferrari Testarossa -- or at least just fast enough to stay within two or three car lengths of one. However, all uniformed cops are incompetent drivers. All detectives in Armani suits have Formula 1 driving skills.

In car chases, an otherwise serenely silent Volvo suddenly ports a 392-Hemi under the hood with open headers.

All politicians are Kennedy-esque, even the ones that are based on former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Sr. Unless they are Republicans, in which case they are always Dixie-based bigoted hypocrites.

An invisible horn section always accompanies a three-piece band. By relation, a drummer's tightly closed hi-hat can sound like a ride cymbal and vice versa.

When chasing a bad guy early in the movie, he can disappear in the middle of the Sonoran Desert when surrounded by three military regiments using the latest tracking technology. When chasing a bad guy late in the movie, only the hero can catch him, usually closing five city blocks of distance by making the most unlikely of changes to pursuit route.