Movie tropes vs. women?

My close, personal friend Luke was watching Stranger Things recently and found himself off-put by the townsfolk's response to Winona Ryder's character, treating her perhaps like a crazy person just because she was saying things that sound crazy. He felt this way, in part, I suspect, because it seemed like lousy trope to him that nobody ever believes the hysterical woman who, it turns out later, knew exactly what was up and tried to warn everyone.  He was looking for more examples of this. I responded thusly.  Like my previous post about a movie trope, you may find it spoilerish.

People mostly humor the moms in The Exorcist and The Orphanage, because they're being paid to do so, but the husband in The Orphanage thinks she's nuts for free. 

Sarah Connor gets locked up for talking about Judgement Day. Everyone assumes the mom in Lights Out is loony and talking to herself instead of a monster. Nobody believes Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist, and they're right not to, although there are dire consequences either way. I'm sure in some Nightmare on Elm St. entries the parents and police and doctors figure these girls will calm down after they get some rest. 

[Guy who posted earlier in the comments] Adam might mean the most recent remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or could be describing Jolie in Changeling, but in those movies the authorities DO believe the women, they just don't say so because they're in on the conspiracy.

The people around the main character in It Follows don't get what's going on at first, but that's closer to the heart of the trope - it's the same as investigating a weird noise in your basement. WE know that because this is a horror movie, hey don't do that. But, when the movie is over and there's a weird noise in your basement, you're going to go check on the cat or whatever because you think you live in a world without Terminators and creepy psychic children, just like the characters did at the start of most of these movies.

Well, the appearance of realism is half of it. The other half is moving these characters to action once they see that there's no authority figure who's going to act for them. That part applies to most of the above folks, moreso the more that they're protagonists. The cops don't believe Peter Parker in ASM, or the kid in Gremlins, or Cary Grant in North by Northwest, or Liam Neeson in Non-Stop, or Coraline in Coraline. But only some of this group is because they sound crazy. Others are suspected of being drunk!

My point may have been that I think you'll find it happening to a woman in most any horror and/or fantasy where a woman is the lead.

The reason I'm reposting this here is mostly because I thought it might lead to interesting conversation. But also, the silence this post earned me on Facebook got me all paranoid that we weren't really talking about movies and I came across like someone's tone-deaf, racist uncle. Internet!

Set List: Improvised Magic Tricks

Excuse me, but is this your card?

Of course it is, because we've both read my new book of improvised magic tricks. Now sure, these tricks will work in any improv scene, and they will make that scene better, but you don't need to be an in improv scene to do them. They work anywhere! Or, anywhere that someone has taken an improv class! Or anywhere that —well, I don't want to give away all of the secrets. At least, not until you buy my book, on sale now, wherever the lobby to this theater is found.

Escape Room Reviews: The Mystery of Senator Payne

Company: 60 Out
Room: The Mystery of Senator Payne
Date Played: 8/27/16
Player Count: 2, which was probably a little low.
Success:  Success! w/ hints

Premise: There's just 1 hour after the Senator's staff leaves the office and before he returns from his golf game, during which you need to break into his office and steal a copy of a bill he's sponsoring.

Immersion: The office... looks like an office! Except of course that the Senator has no computer or office supplies of any kind (of course, if he had, maybe I'd be carping about all the red herrings). Naturally, the further we got, the less plausible I found it to to believe that the Senator actually has time for any of the stuff we discovered.

Highlights: This is a very high tech room, and despite the constant presence of our friendly Keeper, apparently completely automated. These guys are great with magic objects. 

The puzzles here have a lot of variety in their methods, but mostly follow the form of the player needing to gain insight on to use objects together. In that way, this is probably room most like a point-and-click adventure game that we've played.

Lowlights: Our search skills were lacking on the day we played this one. For that reason and the ticket price, it would have been good to bring a couple of others along - showing up with two people means overpaying per person, but we'd heard good things about the company and were excited to try them out.  

The introductory video was not up to par with the video we just saw over at Exit Game. 

You'd think a US senator could afford to replace his old, beat-up paper goods once in a while. 

And Finally:  Our Keeper was very free with communicating with us during the game over the room's PA system. It never felt irritating like other games where the walkie talkie keeps wanting to give you hints. It was more like we were interacting with the narrator. It felt like he was a part of our team. (When he gave us our time at the end, he said it wasn't a terrible score for "a group of three.")

Regular locks provide clear goals. A room built on magic objects (that is, some combination of sensors, rfid tags, arduinos, you know, magic) puts everything in front of you as well, but you don't know it. The downside of this, I think, is that it creates a lopsided impression of the overall game.  You forget about the puzzles you breezed through, and mainly remember the sticking points that ate up the majority of your time. I guess maybe that's always true, but perhaps I feel it more in these situations?

Even though I found the second half of this game to be less enjoyable than the first half, I still thought the company seems really promising.  I'm looking forward to coming back to try their casino heist!  Out of 7 rooms played, I'm ranking this one #4.

How to book this room yourself: Visit https://www.60out.com/rooms/myster-of-senator-payne-escape-room

#2,294: Don't Think Twice

Mechanic: Resurrection - ★★☆☆☆
• I mean, it's dumb, but of course it is.
• Really worrying green screenery in the opening scene.
• Poster correctly identifies the best part of the movie.
• Probably a better Hitman movie than Hitman.

The Sicilian - ★★☆☆☆
Is there another term for 'In Media Res' for when you actually start at the end of things? Or for when nothing really happens in a movie, perhaps to make a point? Or for when a movie's kind of boring?

Some guy in the lobby after was talking up how much he wanted to go watch the hour-longer director's cut, so I understand that others may have experienced the film differently.

Kubo and the Two Strings - ★★★☆☆
Pretty enough to keep you from thinking too closely about the plot. After all, it seems unfair to blame the Macguffin for being useless, but that's why the character doesn't usually get ahold of it so quick.

Don’t Think Twice - ★★★☆☆
I'm glad I saw this, but also a little hung up on what it's got to say. Is the message that teams are an acceptable as a support system? Use groups as a launchpad to your own success? And keep your head down and keep grinding away unless it's your own turn?

As a comic, I thought it was interesting that nothing in this movie seemed in any way aspirational. I don't want to be on that team. They had the vibe of good friends that real life improv teams occasionally project, but folded in on themselves in a way that was unusual to me. To their credit, their improv came from a place of deep confidence and control — a lot of the improv I see feels more driven by fear.

I wondered if the tech shown on screen was meant to indicate the year or the financial situation the characters are living in.

Birbiglia's character is one of those guys that the comedy scene will run out of town on a flurry of facebook posts in a few years.

Billionaire Bullying Continues!

Billionaire Elon Musk continues his relentless campaign of bullying against billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.