MemeMachineGo!

Huh. I've always thought that the montage was a good device, for just the same reasons. Movies are about drama. Dramatic moments don't, as you mentioned, happen without a lot of boring, repetitive work in preparation. To not show this work happening at all would be dishonest. But the montage is an accepted cinematic device that indicates the passage of time and the ongoing work being done while preserving the dramatic pace. Yes, it's a cliche worthy of parody, but it became that way because it works.

Now, if the movies were truly realistic, they'd show the protagonist hanging out with friends, blowing off steam, complaining about what a tough job this is, and otherwise procrastinating, and then throwing together something half-assed at the last minute.

But of course the hero would still triumph because the enemy had done more of the same, and the counter-effort was even more half-assed.

I think they're a perfectly good device for a movie.

I also think they portray things as easier than they are, and that seeing that hundreds of times over makes it easy to fall into the trap of thinking things really work that way. Even when you know better.

Well, if we wanted to start cataloging everything that movies did that falsely portrayed reality, we'd have quite a long list. Like how almost everyone worth telling a story about is good looking. Or how many problems are the fault of an evil genius with huge resources and a motivation of power or revenge for its own sake. Or how most of said problems can be solved by killing the single person responsible. Or how most US cities (except for New York and San Francisco, which can't be convincingly faked) look like Toronto or Vancouver.

I learned long ago not to expect life to be like the movies, and I'm sure you did too. As for those people who never did... well, I've got better things to do than trying to set them straight.

=v= The best (as in "so bad it's good," so by "best" I mean "worst") montage ever was in Eddie Murphy's Boomerang. The whole point of the movie is that Murphy, a cad who uses and loses women, gets his comeuppance when a woman does the same to him. What this ultimately leads to is a Montage! in which he walks around alone and pouting for oh, about, ten seconds. Then he changes his ways and everything goes right. By which I mean he gives one woman the heave-ho and starts to date the "plain Jane" (Halle Berry).

Perhaps this is a case where a dishonest montage could help, though. Perhaps more men would stop being cads if they believed that all they were in for was ten seconds of pouting.

Halle Berry as a "plain jane".

Now that is dishonest.