I’m a meat-and-potatoes moviegoer more than I am a nuts-and-bolts one. Admittedly, considering my weird hardware-and-hearty-fare metaphoric and personal terminology, that no doubt means nothing to you. Here’s what it means to me, and here’s how I can best explain it:
I usually stay for the end credits, but not because I’m a cinema snob-o-rama who absolutely needs to take note of all the production details to find out who the 2nd Assistant Gaffer was. What I am most curious about - and this information is pretty much stuck on at the tail end of the credits -is the location settings and the music used; I’m resourcefully cheap enough to vicariously use films as travelogues and song sampling buyer’s guides. And as long as I’ve waited the thirteen minutes to get to that point in the eye-glazing acknowledgments, I’ll stick around to see if any animals were harmed in the making of the movie.
Another essential cinematic nutrient lies in keep-it-simple offerings. There’s nothing terribly wrong with fast-food for thought, and I’m too impatient and restless for most multi-course feasts. Ninety minutes is a perfect length for a movie - a constraint conducive, like a short story, to disciplined craftsmanship.
But the most important ingredient for the best meat-and-potatoes fare lies in the good writing, of course; pearls of wit and wisdom that are contained in the bon mots and repartee make for a more memorable and evocative film, resonating long after the sticky floors, popcorn smells and nine bucks shelled out fade to black and blocked memory.
I may not always be able to tell you who-done-it, but I can usually remember who said it and what was said - committing quotes to recollection much better than problematic plots, cardboard characters, and the name of that 2nd Assistant Gaffer. Here’s some of my favorite lines - some the usual suspects, others not AFI-approved - that satiates an aphoristic appetite and satisfies a hunger for gift-of-gab confabs, from stuff ‘n’ nonsense to a deeper truth-delving. The quotes are grouped into three classifications - other than that, no particular order. I don’t need no stinkin’ order:
1. The Appetizers. Usually non-essential to the plot, these do little to advance the story line but whets a desire for a film’s full flavoring. Many are stand-alone lines or non-sequiturs that are funny, astute or absurd in and of themselves, regardless of who is saying them, although most are hinged upon an appropriate delivery and a few are almost inseparable from the character or actor:
"It's in that place where I put that thing that time." - Nancy Ticotin, Hackers.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Andy Marsh
What, no...Go ahead, make my day...or...Where are all the white women at?
What we have here...is a failure...to communicate!
2 - GoHah
And what you have there, Andy, is an inability to see beyond the obvious, overused cliches I was too disinclined to repeat as they've been repeated over and over again. Excuse me while I stifle a yawn...
3 - Victor Plenty
If you already knew about "make my day," Andy, then obviously you didn't need GoHah to write about it in this article. I was glad to see some good lines here that haven't already been burned into the phosphors of our cultural monitor screens.
What's the point of a list of quotes where all the readers have already memorized all the lines being quoted? None at all, except perhaps a mutual stroking of egos. "Oooh, cool! There's Arnie saying 'I'll be back,' just like I would have picked! Yeah baby, yeah!"
What we have here is not a failure to communicate. It is merely a refusal to mutually masturbate, and thus GoHah helps to maintain the purity of our precious bodily fluids.
4 - Rodney Welch
Thanks for the image, Victor.
I agree, though, GoHah, good, strongly unpredictable list, including many I've either never heard or had forgotten. Wanna hear my own favorite?
Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo: "You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing. You shouldn't have been, you shouldn't have been that sentimental.
Of course, a lot depends on hearing the ache in Stewart's voice on that last word.
5 - Andy Marsh
Didn't realize you didn't want opinions...I'll be sure to avoid leaving you any in the future. yawn away
6 - Brent McKee
But no "It's twue! It's twue!" Unforgivable.
7 - lerry
treasure of sierra madre
treasure of sierra madre.
badges? we dont need no
stinking badges !
8 - Bliffle
Another Clifton Webb from "Laura", upon being threatened with a knife by a hood: "Oh put that thing away before you hurt yourself - or do something useful with it and pare your fingernails".
9 - GoHah
Bliffle#9: a big oversight--that's an essential one, thanks.
10 - Bliffle
Dick Powell in A Hammett story after waking up from an involuntary drugged nightmare, talking to himself "You're a Big Brave Detective, let's see you do something really tough, like pull on your pants".
11 - Bliffle
In Patrice LeContes film "Ridicule", set in the court of Louis XVI where dueling metaphors and putdowns determine a mans fate, the antagonist, surrounded by his Fine Courtly friends puts down the hero and his low farmer friends with what he thinks is the coup de grace "a man is known by the company he keeps" he sneers, and Our Hero parries with "a mistake in judgement; Judas kept excellent company".
12 - Puff
We can't forget Scarlet and Rhett, can we?
MY fave---"After all, tomorrow is another day."
13 - Andy Marsh
Oh sure...a quote from Gone with the Wind is ok...but not some ordinary film...but then again..I've looked at Gohahs blog and I get it now...I'm not nearly well read enough...looking at the book reviews he does, I'd have to find the most obscure corner of the library to find them...and that makes the off the wall quotes make more sense too!
But then again...anyone that finds anything related to the child molester Woody Allen interesting or even worth mentioning doesn't even deserve the effort it takes to hit these keys!
So I was right...it has been a waste of my time...Happy New Year!
14 - Victor Plenty
"Yes, you're very smart. Shut up."
Bonus points if you know who I'm quoting.
15 - MCH
Andy...please, stop playing the victim!!!
16 - Andy Marsh
but...but...
ok...I will...but I still don't like Woody Allen!
17 - Victor Plenty
Funny how the same guy who says Woody Allen "isn't even worth mentioning" has now mentioned him twice in the space of ten minutes.
18 - Andy Marsh
That's how much I don't like him!
19 - GoHah
Andy--I like the lines you mentioned, and if I was doing a piece on "top 100 movie lines" they'd make the cut. But on compiling a more eclectic, non-comprehensive listing on "some of my favorite" lines, I thought I could spice up my piece and avoid the overly-familiar ones and bring out a few that don't make the somewhat-boring AFI-sanctioned (and other) lists.
I'm sorry for lashing out a bit, but it wasn't so much a "failure to communicate" on my part, but an attempt at a different kind of communication. Read a book or two and you might understand.
20 - Bliffle
Andy: bummer man. Wanna go out on a double date? I can get some Fresh Ones, if ya know what I mean. Lemme know.
21 - Bliffle
Victor, that's a tough one. Sounds like it could be Davis or Hepburn but screenwriters are more portable, like Fitzgerald, Faulkner, etc. But it feels more recent, too. I giveup since I can't match it quickly.
22 - GoHah
Rodney--Thanks: I can imagine how Stewart would say that, but I'll have to be alert next time I see Vertigo.
Victor--my Grandpa used to talk to me like that, too.
23 - GoHah
Bliffle: your Hammett line reminded my of a favorite Chandler line from the book Big Sleep that never made it to the movie: "She had a face that made a Bishop want to kick a hole in a stainded glass window"--or something to that effect.
24 - Andy Marsh
Gohah - I read...just not the stuff you read...way to thought provoking for me...I'd rather read a Dean Koontz book or a Stephen King book...but that's just me. I read plenty of them as I fly around the country and world. It's better than watching the crappy movies they play on those little screens.
I was having a little fun and you took it way to serious and went off. That's fine. It's your thread. I guess it was a "failure to communicate" my sense of humor....or your lack of one. Either way, no skin off my ass.
Life is good and Happy New Year!
25 - GoHah
Andy: "I don't mind if you don't like my lack of humor. I don't like it myself. It's pretty bad. I grieve over it long winter evenings."
Happy New Year, Andy--Gordon