What Are Your Cinematic Affectations?

What Are Your Cinematic Affectations?

Posted on Friday March 1, 2013, 17:37 by Ali Plumb in Empire States

There’s a moment in Iron Man where Tony does this thing with his hands. It’s like a double finger click with his right hand that slaps into the palm of his left hand, making a sound like “Clicketty-click” in the process. It’s the kind of thing everyone’s favourite billionaire playboy philanthropist does when he’s walking, or thinking, or just being a bit cool. “Throw a little hot rod red in there…” Clicketty-click.

There’s another moment in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where the semi-professional fourth wall breaker is in the bathroom of posh restaurant Chez Quis, washing his hands and talking to no one in particular. Before he leaves, he picks up a mint from a bowl. “Mint”, he says, popping into his mouth. That’s it. “Mint.”

Finally, Fantastic Mr. Fox. “What’s this thing you do, the whistle with the clicking sound?” asks Kylie Sven Opposum. “That’s my trademark,” explains Mr. Fox.

Tony Stark, Ferris Bueller and Mr. Fox are very cool characters, and the actors that play them are very cool people. But it’s these things they do, these habits, these quirks, this day-to-day “trademarks” as George Clooney’s woodland alter-ego would have it, that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently.

I’ve managed to pick and absorb a whole host of different cinematic affectations throughout my life, be it cracking my neck from side to side Wolverine-stylee or occasionally dropping the peace-sign-across-the-face move on the dancefloor à la Pulp Fiction. Who hasn’t slid across a wooden floor in their socks and pretended to be a bit like Tom Cruise in Risky Business (who’s actually seen Risky Business, anyway)?

From pushing my glasses up my nose in a certain way – Christopher Reeves' Superman – to cracking my knuckles before stepping into an awkward situation – Brad Pitt’s character in Snatch, just moments before he’s thumped into a metaphorical lake – I think I may be mostly movie habits. I’m worried I have no personality. I’m concerned I’m not really a human being at all, just a collection of little movie quirks I think look cool but altogether look quite ridiculous.

So I write this asking for some reassurance – for some members of the Empire community to admit that they too do this; that so many of the little things that they think make them them are in fact lifted from their favourite movies, or, in some cases, from movies they don’t even like.

In other words, if any of this rings true to you, let me know in the comment box below what you’ve snuck into your subconscious. Currently, I’m typing like Johnny from Airplane! and no one in the office seems to care. Probably just as well, really…