Several years ago, my PC was set up to receive e-mail but not venture onto the 20th century's most overrated product--which is, of course, the Internet.  At the time, a now-VERY-former Manor Maiden e-sent me a batch of clever "Things We Learn From Watching Movies" items she had stumbled across at a film fan site.

Though I have Net access these days, I've never gotten around to finding said site.  Nonetheless, the theme was inspirational in the composition of the list of Golden Rules of scarepix appearing in an earlier M-O-M.  As it turns out, I have also compiled a collection relevant to the other genres; and if you fervently beg, I just might publish them here.  

Okay, okay, enough with the genuflecting already.  You're getting drool all over my shoes!  Instead, cast your eyes on these truisms from Tinseltown.

• The standard commercial jet passenger area is about 60 feet wide and features a huge movie screen.

• If you tell him, a bartender will "leave the bottle" of potent liquor in front of you and not even ask you to pay for it.

• No one has ever run through a crowded area without plowing into a bystander.

• A guy used by a woman to make another man jealous will be a great sport about it when she eventually dumps him cold.

• An impassioned speech to a massive crowd can be heard clearly in the 400th row without any means of amplification.

• All white people can expertly handle chopsticks...and buy about eight quarts of Chinese food at a time.

• There's this big store where villains can go to obtain perfect replicas of local utility company uniforms and vehicles.

• The worst kids from the worst neighborhoods can become thoroughly engrossed in schoolwork if a new, single, devoted teacher takes over their class.

• Many bikers are fun-loving jokers.

• As of the mid-Nineties, automatic pistols were designed to be held horizontally.

• Talking animals won't speak when it would most benefit a human pal.

• He who prays aloud while in mortal danger dies an ultraviolent death seconds later...especially if reciting that "walk through the valley of death" psalm.

• Older, poorly painted cars are 100 times more likely to get rammed than late-model ones.

• Don't panic if you fall from a great height.  You can always grab a two-inch protuberance on the way down.

• No matter what one's level of fighting expertise, it's best to stand stationary and exchange full-power blows rather than present any sort of defense.

• If in such a fight, punch as hard as you desire; fists are unbreakable.

• The prettiest female inmates are also the nicest.

• Directly outside a window in every cheap hotel room is a flashing neon sign, excellent for illuminating the too-wound-up-to-sleep occupant.

• All public libraries have a microfilm filing of every single newspaper page published locally over the last sixty years.

• Nineteenth-century cowboy bars had special whiskey that could be drunk straight all day without inducing nausea.

• Any youth worth his leather jacket knows how to effortlessly hot-wire an ignition.

• Bachelors have no concept of food shopping--which explains why they only have five items in their refrigerator, max, one being a severely outdated, near-empty milk container.

• The people most prone to getting KO'd are stakeout cops parked outside the home of someone they're supposed to be protecting.

• Baseball teams are composed entirely of "characters."

• It's no sweat for a jobless high school student to afford a nice set of wheels and the four-figure insurance tab that comes with it.

• Ninety percent of all rock stars have Cockney accents, can't go a full sentence without throwing in a UK colloquialism, and appear to take sartorial clues from a 1975 Mott The Hoople album.  Bloody wankers!

• Male professional dancers really enjoy being with women.

• Seven-figure ransoms in used bills easily fit in a standard-size briefcase.

• You can leave auto headlights on indefinitely and it'll never run the battery down.

• Hospitals have an unlocked closet on each floor, containing full doctor and nurse outfittings, including stethoscopes.

• The best marksmen are extremely nervous people who have never before handled a pistol--their first shot always scores a clean kill on a baddie.

• Weirdest girl in town?  Don't worry: on a dare, a guy from the school "in" clique will hit on you, you'll bloom into a real looker, and he will genuinely love you, as proven in a climactic confrontation with the clique's leader.

• It's always dry and sunny the day a public hanging is scheduled.

• Multi-racial gangs are not the least bit uncommon.

• No matter how remote the road, rest assured there will be a car coming in the opposite direction when in-a-hurry you attempt to pass a slow-moving vehicle.

• If you want to win a basketball championship, be on the team that is losing "the big game" with mere seconds left on the clock.

• Law enforcement agents never go into the Evidence Room without stealing something--and nearly getting caught by the guard.

• Mid-20th-century women wore magical bobby pins capable of unlocking any door in the universe with a simple twist of the wrist.

• Prior to the Kennedy administration, national highway regulations required a front-seat passenger to sit no more than two inches to the right of the driver, regardless of gender.  To compensate for any discomfort this caused in those pre-air-conditioning days, added ventilation was provided by the removal of windshield glass.

• Med students aren't in it for the money.

• When battling a heavily armed troop of thugs, there's no sense in the empty-handed protagonist grabbing the weapon and ammo from the body of the first enemy he knocked off.

• During a high-speed chase on a flat surface, it is imperative to work that gearshift hard and often--even with an automatic transmission.