The problem with starting a writers’ group, I’ve found, is that sooner or later you have to write for it. I’m committing tomorrow to that task, which means I’m just limping into the weekend blog-wise. So be it. The way the movie-quotes discussion has been going, I feel like just opening the floor to this question:
RESOLVED: The inclusion, in a top-100 list on great movie lines, of a quote from “On Golden Pond,” a shitty movie no one in their right mind saw more than once, is an insult to the concept. Especially when they left out “If someone gets in your way, step on ’em,” from “Showgirls.”
I mean: Take it away. Or talk about anything you want. I’ll be back after the weekend.
mary said on June 24, 2005 at 3:06 am
I never saw On Golden Pond even once. It looked like something I was supposed to respect, not enjoy. As I recall it was supposed to be the last movie for Henry Fonda and maybe for Katherine Hepburn, and Jane was in full aerobics video mode at the time, so it featured her toned bod. Feh. Who needs it? Gimme an unpretentious crap movie any day. At least you don’t get scowled at for hating those.
Speaking of which, I haven’t seen a movie I liked in a pretty long time. I guess Sideways and Hotel Rwanda were the last ones I didn’t feel disappointed by. Star Wars put half of us to sleep. Hitchhikers’ Guide sucked. I’m refusing to see anymore movies based on either comic books or TV shows. I don’t see the Bewitched movie generating any memorable quotes.
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Dorothy said on June 24, 2005 at 6:24 am
Mary – a good foreign film I saw a few months ago on STARZ or one of the zillion cable channels I get was “Mostly Martha.” I liked it very much. It was German. I have not seen it in Blockbuster here, but maybe there on the West Coast you might find it. And speaking of foreign films, have you seen “Motorcycle Diaries”? We loved it!
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Jones said on June 26, 2005 at 12:10 pm
Why do I get the feeling that list was really composed by like maybe Terry Gross from Fresh Air? Or maybe Joel Siegel?
THE most quoted movie of my generation is Animal House and they picked ONE from it. And it was “Toga! Toga! Toga!” Are you fucking KIDDING me?
I mean, how many times in your life have you heard “That boway is a P-I-G peeig!”? I would’ve overloaded the list the other way, including 27 combined quotes from Animal House and Goodfellas just to piss people off. And I could, off the top of my head…
“The Negros stole our dates!”
“I make you laugh? You think I’m funny ha-ha?”
“Karen, why did you DO that???”
“Sophomore dies in kiln explosion?”
“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
And of course, my favorite…
“He’s Fred Dorfman’s brother. He’s a legacy from Harrisburg!”
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Nance said on June 26, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Well, if you’re going to include that last line, Jonesy, you have to include the one right after “Sophomore dies in kiln explosion” — “Faun Liebowitz. Her name was Faun Liebowitz, and she was from Fort Wayne, Indiana.”
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mary said on June 26, 2005 at 3:54 pm
I’ve never seen Animal House, but then I’m about five years older than you, Nance.
On a completely different subject (you did give us permission to write about whatever we felt like writing about) I watched the penultimate show in the Greatest American series yesterday. They had five groups of people, sort of cheering sections, for the five finalists. Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Franklin and Reagan. There were also three celebrities discussing the finalists. Dennis Miller, Ann Coulter and Randy Jackson. Imagine how bad that could be. It was worse.
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brian stouder said on June 26, 2005 at 6:13 pm
well, my list of quotes would have several from Wizard of Oz, and several from Clint Eastwood (that is, in movies where he actually had lines to speak) –
I especially liked the line in Unforgiven when the young buck is talking to Clint after they killed a man. The kiddo wants to be re-assured that the dead man “had it comin'” – and Eastwood’s response is something like “We all have it comin’, kid”
Dr Strangelove has lots of great lines – such as when Slim Pickens is reading down the list of items in the survival kit, if their B-52 goes down. He lists a revolver, a few hundred dollars in cash, choclate bars and nylons – and then remarks that a guy could have a good time in Vegas with that stuff!
And another is when Peter Sellers (as the president) sees some of his generals scuffling with some Russian diplomats, and says “There’s no fighting in the War Room!” (the guys and I use that one at most game nights!)
Also “open the pod bay door, HAL”
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning” (etc)
I suppose the inherent weakness of any such list is that you are forced to take memorable lines from movies that lots of people have seen.
Breaker Morant is a tremendous movie, very talky (and with an Australian accent) with many memorable lines such as “Did you sing to her?” and “Shoot straight you bastards! Don’t make a mess of it!”
Being a big David Lynch fan, one of my favorite lines is “Silencio”. Blue Velvet (“It’s a strange world”) has lots of great lines, mostly from Dennis Hopper. The movie is sort of a reverse-Wizard of Oz, where we substitute the other side of town for “somewhere over the rainbow” – a movie with a genuinely visceral appeal
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Nance said on June 26, 2005 at 7:25 pm
Dr. Strangelove trivia to watch for the next time you see the movie: In the scene you mention, Brian, the one where Slim Pickens is detailing the survival-kit contents, watch his lips. He originally said, “A fella could have a good time in Dallas,” etc. But the movie was released when the Kennedy assassination was still fresh in the public memory, and so it was overdubbed and changed to “Vegas” to avoid offending moviegoers.
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brian stouder said on June 26, 2005 at 9:59 pm
>”A fella could have a good time in Dallas,” etc. But the movie was released when the Kennedy assassination was still fresh in the public memory, and so it was overdubbed and changed to “Vegas”
Wow!
I never knew that, although I recall hearing that the Kennedy assassination knocked the original Manchurian Candidate onto the shelf.
I seem to recall an old Telling Tales column that revolved around the one-word-line
“rosebud”
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cc said on June 27, 2005 at 2:01 pm
The only line I remember from Golden Pond is when the young boy is asked how he’s going to spend the summer he replies, “Cruise chicks. Suck face.”
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