What makes a bad torture scene?

I realized something last night.

You know that thing where villains have these paralogical discourses that they go into as they are, let's say, torturing someone? Like, they're beating up a guy and talking about the origins of the upper-class Elizabethan fad for pointy shoes? They've chosen this moment to show off their erudition because the writer wants it to provide some kind of ironic/absurdist contrast?

It doesn't work any more. I've gotten so tired of that dramatic device I almost hurled a book at the TV.

Now, I am prone to using that device myself. Those of you who know that I have yet to finish the only fic I ever started may be puzzled about what I mean. I play paper-and-pencil role-playing games. I have occasion to improvise all kinds of dialogue, including paralogical villain dialogue, and I have for a long time- I've been gaming for twenty-two years (yikes!) with only one break longer than a year. I've "written" that kind of scene a lot. A lot a lot. Since I myself am a Mr. Know-it-all, I understand the temptation to cram in some exposition and show off smarts. But that device has become *so* overused that I feel it must be retired.

From now on, all my torturers will pay attention to what they're doing.

I think the device I'm complaining about springs from a similar kind of scene, of which an excellent example occurs in Marathon Man.

( Spoilers )

"The last time I tortured somebody, they didn't even *have* chainsaws" is a fine line. :)