"Coming of Age" Films - The most cliche ridden genre since horror.

[Pirateship1982]

My friends should know better than to watch coming of age films with me. But we were also watching Outlaw so I sat through the first movie: Dog Days of Summer. I annoyed them by guessing the plot elements with 100% accuracy. Is it really cynicism when you're always right?

When the two kids start talking about death I knew one of them was taking a fall. Childhood tragedy involving death is a cliche requisite for coming of age films and and since neither of the kids had a dog or a mentor figure to take the fall, it was a sure bet one of the kids was the red shirted ensign. I put my chips on drowning. If the coming of age flick involves teenagers the death scene is either suicide, car accident, or drugs. Younger participants tend to have water based fatalities, either from exposure to cold or drowning.

And I called it dead on. One of the kids has a big fight with his Dad and at this point I called death by drowning, scene of father wailing in anguish. I saw the kid leaning over the rail and when the rail started to give, I knew I called it right again.

And of course we had the requisite "authority figure character trusts turns out to have dark secret" happen on more than one occasion. I had a feeling the old man was responsible for the death of the kid's mother.

And when I saw the clergyman I knew he was having an affair. Why? Because he had the New England old school pastor look. In coming of age films religious leaders moral standards can be judged by their appearance. If they are conservative you better believe they're "having a little extra on the side" with their parishoners. However if they are inner-city, casually dressed, and play basketball, they'll probably be major role models for the main characters.

I can MST3K a coming of age film as good as any B grade sci-fi/horror flick. Maybe it'll teach my friends not to pick those films during movie nights. Oh well, the male members of the group throught it was funny.

[LRB]

I have the same problem with friends 'insisting' that some forms of comedy are must see movies.

Some of it is simply too post secondary mindset for me.

But then I went straight from 17 to 25 with little in between. Most of the in between years just weren't interesting for me. And everything thay went with them.

[Karri]

Whatever genre the possible plot lines are limited. I can't even remember if I've seen any good movies this year. Probaply not. OTOH, maybe all the writers have read the same books about screenwriting, because the stuff is really the same...I know all the movies I've bought have been big disappointments. Hell, the only ones worth buying were TV series; Family Guy and Fawlty Towers.

[Mountain Man]

Hollywood formula writing - always mimic a previous success, rather than take a chance on untested new material.