philosophy in film

It’s not for nothing this film got a 96% rating at Rotten Tomatoes.

It’s a rather thumping take – cinematically – on American corporate/consumer culture. And certainly a funny one. And the ending is sublime: cynical to a T.

A fucking gem. Don’t die before you watch it.

IMDb

In his autobiography, Garry Marshall (who played the casino manager) wrote that he was initially exasperated by Albert Brooks demanding take after take of their scene. But once he saw the rushes and realized that his frustration made his character funnier, he deferred to Brooks’s comic judgment.

A true classic.

LOST IN AMERICA:
Written and directed by Albert Brooks [1985]

[b]David: Sleeping?
Linda: Yes.
David: Maybe we shouldn’t move.
Linda: (sitting up) Oh God. What’s the matter now?
David: Nothing. It’s just time to ask these questions.
Linda: No. We’ve sold our house and bought another one. These questions should have been asked before…You’re just nervous about tomorrow. You’ll get your promotion, don’t worry. We’ll move into our new house and we’ll be happy, okay?

…

David: Maybe we should’ve gotten a house with a tennis court.
Linda: Why? We don’t play tennis.
David: Sure we don’t play tennis. We don’t have a court. When you have a court, you learn.

…

Linda: I don’t believe you. One minute you want a tennis court, the next minute you’re worried about the movers packing a box? My God. Sometimes I wish we were a little more irresponsible.
David: What does that mean?
Linda: Nothing. Look, get some sleep, okay?
David: What do you mean “nothing”? If you’re saying we should be more irresponsible, I imagine you mean we’re too responsible? Is that right?
Linda: Well, sometimes I think that we are too controlled, yes.
David: Oh, I see. Well, tell me something? How do you go out and buy a four-hundred-thousand- dollar house and let a moving company pack everything and get maids and servants and live the good life and not be controlled?

…

Linda: I’m going to hate this house.
Patty: What are you talking about?
Linda: When the contractor left this morning, I was all alone there and I sat in the middle of the living room and I got so sad. I got this preview of the next ten years, I just started shaking. I’m so unhappy. I don’t like anything anymore. I don’t like my job. I don’t like my life. I don’t like anything. I feel dead.

…

David Howard: Shut up Brad! Your song stunk, I hate your suit and I could hurt you!

…

David [to Paul who just fired him]: It’s all right. I leave gratefully. But before I do I think the people in this office ought to know what went on here today. Don’t have lunch with this man! He’ll want to take you to lunch. Don’t go! He’ll tell you all about the future, how good it will be. I’ve seen the future. It’s a bald-headed man from New York!

…

David [to Linda]: Phil will buy that boat from that stupid boat catalog he’s been making me look at for the last two months, and he will crash that boat off Catalina Island, and he will drown and die and seals will eat him.

…

David: Linda, quit, I’ll wait right here.
Linda: Why - I can’t quit now.
David: Yes you can!
Linda: No I can’t!
David: I did!
Linda: I know, but even if I wanted to, my boss isn’t here, there’s no one I can quit to.

…

David [to Linda]: It’s time to get out. We have to touch Indians.

…

David: This is what we talked about when we were 19. Remember we kept saying “Let’s find ourselves,” but we didn’t have a dollar so we watched TV. Linda, this is just like Easy Rider except now it’s our turn. We can drop out and still have our nest egg.[/b]

Nest egg. Look for that expression to pop up again.

[b]David: We don’t want to stay in Las Vegas. It represents everything we left. This is the worst money-grubbing place in the world.
Linda: Yeah, I know. But just for tonight. Wouldn’t it be fun to have room service, make love in a big bed and watch porno movies.
David: Porno movies? But we want to touch Indians.

…

David: What’s this?
Bellman: Junior bridal suite.
David: Gee, I gave a guy a hundred bucks to get the best bridal suite in the house. Is there a senior bridal suite?
Bellman: I don’t know.
David: But I gave him $100.
Bellman: I don’t know.
David: Can I get into this room? Is there a big living room that goes here?
Bellman: I don’t know.
David: Do you think there’d be a way to get one large heart mattress? I don’t think you can push those together.
Bellman: I don’t know.
David: Not at all?
Bellman: I don’t know.

…

Linda: What do you think?
David: I think if Liberace had kids this would be their room.

…

Casino security: Hey, you can’t come in here dressed like that.
David: I saw Electric Horseman. An animal rode through here with lights on.

…

Linda: [repeated line, at the roulette table] Twenty-two, twenty-two, come on back to me, twenty-two, come on back to me!

…

Linda [still droning on, as though in a trance] : Twenty-two. Twenty-two. Twenty-two.
[It hits twenty-two]
David [whooping]: All right, all right. I’m sorry. How much?
Croupier: $35.
David: We’re up.
Linda: We’re still down.
David: How much?
Linda: Down.
David [going over to the casina manager]: How much?
Pit boss: Down!
David [to Linda]: What does that mean? How much have you lost?
Linda: Everything.[/b]

Everything:

[b]David: The cash in the room, you took that?
Linda: Yes.
David: You cashed your personal checks?
Linda: Yes.
David: You didn’t touch the traveler’s checks.
Linda: Yes.
David: No! The core of the nest egg!!

…

David: Why didn’t you tell me when we got married that you were this horrible gambling addict? It’s like when you have a venereal disease - you tell somebody!
Linda: But I’ve only gambled twice in my life. This was the second time

…

David: If you pick up that Keno card, I’ll kill you.

…

David [to Shuster the Casino manager]: My wife and I have dropped out of society and we are just going to roam across the county and find ourselves…We lost out nest egg here.
Shuster: I realize you lost a great deal of money. Your room and your food. Comped. Free.

…

David: Here’s my idea. As the boldest experiment in advertising history, you give us our money back.
Shuster: I beg your pardon?
David: Give us our money back. Think of the publicity!I mean, the Hilton, for example, they have billboards all over L.A. where they put the faces of the winners of those slot machines. Now, those people win a couple hundred thousand dollars, but the hotel is getting millions of dollars of publicity with those billboards because people drive by and say, “Gee, the Hilton looks like a nice place. Look at those smiling people.” So, what about a billboard with my wife and I on it and we would be smiling and there would be a saying, something like, “These people dropped out of society, they couldn’t take it any longer, but they made a mistake. They lost their nest egg at The Desert Inn, but The Desert Inn gave it back.” This gives the Desert Inn…Vegas is not associated with feeling.
Shuster: First of all, those people on the signs, they won. You lost…If we give you your money back everyone will want their money back. Gamblers will say, “Hey, go to the Desert Inn. If you lose, you’ll get your money back!”

…

Shuster: We’re finished talking.

…

Linda: Why don’t we talk about we are going to do now. Our dream is the same, we just don’t have any money. And we should stop saying that we don’t have any money because we do have some.
David [in a monotone]: We have $802.

…

David: Why didn’t you wake me up? We could have talked.
Linda: I didn’t understand it until now.
David; Oh great. Well, I’m glad you understand everything. Unfortunately, I’m still screwed up. And we don’t have the money to fix me. You’re fixed. And now we have a couple of hundred for me. $100,000 for you, $100 for me. And I think I was sicker than you to begin with!

…

David: Say it! Say it! Say, “I LOST THE NEST EGG.” Go on, say it!!!

…

Linda: In the movie you are basing your whole life on, Easy Rider, they had nothing. They had no nest egg!
David: Bullshit! They had a giant nest egg. They had all that cocaine!

…

David: Weren’t you scared? What were you talking about?
Linda [of the man who had picked her up hitch hiking]: Oh, God. I - He was telling me his whole life story. He was divorced. He got kicked out of the Army. He couldn’t keep a job. Do you know he escaped from prison?
David: What did he do?
Linda: Well, to hear him tell it, he says those two guys were dead when he got there.

…

Employment Agent: What was you previous salary?
David: $80,000 was the base salary and then I was on a bonus situation which would give me anywhere between $15,000 and $25,000 more. Generally around $100,000 a year.
Employment Agent: What bring’s you around these parts? Trying to double up on that income?

…

Employment Agent: I have jobs, but coming from your position and salary you wouldn’t be interested in them.
David: You don’t know me. I might love it.
Employment Agent: A crossing guard.
David: A crossing guard. What is that? At a school?
Employment Agent: Where else have you seen them work?
David: What does that pay?
Employment Agent: $100,000
[he bursts out laughing]
David: What does it really pay?
Employment Agent: It pays $5.50 an hour plus benefits.
David: And the benefits meaning?
Employment Agent: You get a ride to and from school if you need it.
David: Can’t you wrack your brains? Isn’t there an executive file? Or maybe you have a white=collar box or something?
Employment Agent: What sort of box would that be?
David: Just a box for higher paying jobs.
Employment Agent: Oh, I know! You mean the $100,000 box!

…

David: Well, I’m glad I could be your morning entertainment. But I want to tell you something. I made a statement. I made a statement.
Employment Agent: A statement?
David: Yes. Did you see Easy Rider?
Employment Agent: No. But I saw “Easy Money.” Rodney Dangerfield, I like him.

…

David: Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had a lot of fun these last two weeks. Things didn’t go like we hoped but if we’re still together now, after what happened, we won’t split up. That makes me feel great, and I’m real happy.
Linda: Isn’t that wonderful? I told you this would be a blessing.
David: Right. But given our ages and these jobs, we won’t see another nest egg for…ever. I think that there has to be some better way to rebuild than this. I thought of a plan that might speed things up and I thought maybe I should sound it out with you.
Linda: Really? I was kind of thinking the same things, too.
David: You were?
Linda: I was.
David: What is it?
Linda: What was your plan?
David: My plan is not a plan, just a back-up. What’s your plan?
Linda: I was thinking we go to New York as fast as we can.
David: And I eat shit?
Linda: Yeah.
David: My plan, too!

…

David: Brad![/b]

Forgetting the plot points of the film—art, performance, a striving for perfection, the clash of fiercely competitive personalites, sex, madness etc.—think about what it is they are dancing to. This:

Thomas:

We all know the story: virginal girl, pure and sweet, trapped in the body of a swan. She desires freedom, but only true love can break the spell. Her wish is granted in the form of a prince.But before he can declare his love, her lustful twin, the Black Swan, tricks and seduces him.Devastated, the White Swan leaps off a cliff, killing herself. But, in death, finds freedom.

Does that even matter? The simplistic [anachronistic] absurdity of the narrative? Or is the film itself an exercise in irony—the attempt to expose this in the ambigities that abound between the characters?

Being “evil” seems to revolve here around “letting go” and that seems to revolve somehow around sexuality. But how this is so is left to…each one of us?

The difficulty for viewers is that sometimes we don’t know what is true and what is only perceived to be true in the mind of someone who is obviously losing her own.

Or this just a horror film?

IMDb

The budget on this film was so tight that when star Natalie Portman had a rib dislocated during a lift and she called the producer for help. She was told that the budget was so low they had no medic. She stated that if they needed to cut items from the budget they could take away her trailer, instead of the medic. The next day her trailer was gone.

[Note: Some explicit dialogue]

BLACK SWAN
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

[b]Thomas: We open our season with Swan Lake. Done to death, I know. But not like this. We strip it down. Make it visceral and real…But which of you can embody both swans? The white and the black?

…

Thomas: The truth is when I look at you all I see is the white swan. Yes you’re beautiful, fearful, and fragile. Ideal casting. But the black swan? It’s a hard fucking job to dance both.
Nina: I can dance the black swan, too.
Thomas: Really? In four years every time you dance I see you obsessed getting each and every move perfectly right but I never see you lose yourself. Ever! All that discipline for what?
Nina: [whispers] I just want to be perfect.
Thomas: What?
Nina: I want to be perfect.
Thomas: [scoffs] Perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go. Surprise yourself so you can surprise the audience. Transcendence! Very few have it in them.
Nina: I think I do have it in me

…

Thomas [to Nina about Lily’s dancing]: Watch the way she moves…imprecise, but sensual. She’s not faking it. Pay attention.

…

Nina: Beth! I’m so sorry to hear you’re leaving the company.
Beth: What did you do to get this role? He always said you were such a frigid little girl. What did you do to change his mind? Did you suck his cock?
Nina: Not all of us have to.

…

Thomas: I got a little homework assignment for you. Go home and touch yourself.

…

Nina: What happened?
Thomas: She walked into the street, got hit by a car. I’m sure she did it on purpose.
Nina: How do you know?
Thomas: Everything Beth ever did came from within. From some dark impulse. It’s what could make her so thrilling to watch. Even perfect at times. But also destructive.

…

Thomas: That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around.

…

Erica: Has he tried anything with you? He has a reputation. I have a right to be concerned, Nina. You’ve been staying late so many nights rehearsing. I hope he isn’t taking advantage.
Nina: He’s not.
Erica: Good. I just don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.
Nina: Thanks.
Erica: Not like that. I just mean as far as my career was concerned.
Nina: What career?
Erica: The one I gave up to have you.
Nina: You were 28 and only in.
[stops]
Erica: Only what?
Nina: Nothing.
Erica: What!
Nina: Nothing.

…

Lily: I can’t believe he calls her that. It’s so gross.
Nina: I think it’s sweet.
Lily: Little princess? He probably calls every girl that.
Nina: No way! That’s just for Beth.
Lily: I bet he’ll be calling you little princess any day now.
Nina: I don’t know about that.
Lily: Sure he will. You just got to let him lick your pussy.

…

Erica: Do you have any idea what time it is?
Nina: [drunk] Uh… late?
Erica: Where have you been?
Nina: To the moon!
Lily: And back.
Erica: You’ve been drinking.
Nina: Ding ding ding ding!
Erica: What else?
Nina: Huh?
Erica: [raises voice] What else have you been doing?
Nina: Oh, you want to know their names?
[laughs]
Erica: You need to sleep this off.
Nina: No, there were two. There was Tom, there was Jerry.
[laughing]
Erica: [interrupts] Be quiet, Nina!
Nina: And I fucked them both!
Erica: [yells] Shut your mouth!

…

Nina: I felt it…perfect. It was perfect.[/b]

Was it? How the hell would I know?

The language here is English but these folks are sunk so far down in Dublin’s working class you will never understand them without subtitles. That alone speaks volumes about what you are about to see.

Of course conservatives will look at lives like this and say it makes no difference. Everyone is born with the equal opportunbity to make it in life. It’s all up to each of us as individuals.

And [theoretically] that may well be true. And these kids really are rather resourceful. But, hey, who is kidding whom.

KISSES [2008]
Written and directed by Lance Daly

Dylan: You better go back.
Kylie: Are ya gone mad?
Dylan: They’re not after you.
Kylie: Well, after breaking your kitchen window and bursting the pipes I’m going to be reefed out of it too.

Reefed out of it? Don’t ask. Me anyway.

[b]Kylie: What really happened to him?
Dylan: You know what happened to him. He ran off.
Kylie: That’s not what everybody says.
Dylan: What do they say?
Kylie: That your Da killed him…he killed him, Dylan. Everybody knows. He dumped him in the canal.
Dylan: They just had a big scrap. No one got killed, alright?

…

Gardiner Street woman: How you lose your brother?
Dylan: He ran away two year ago. Said if he didn’t, he’d kill me Da, and the prick wasn’t worth going to jail over.
Gardiner Street woman: He would kill his own father?
Dylan: Yeah. I would too. I hate the fucker.
Gardiner Street woman: But you’d go to jail.
Dylan: I’d make it look like an accident. Anyway, they can’t put you into jail until you’re eighteen.

…

Dylan: Your man was a bit old for ya.
Gardiner Street woman: I like old. Old has money.
Dylan: So you kiss him for money?
Gardiner Street woman: No. He is kind to me. And I have nothing to give him, only kisses.

…

Gardiner Street woman: When you kiss, you give or you take.

…

Kylie: It’s going hard.
Dylan: I know, yeah. Sorry.
Kylie: What ya thinking about?
Dylan: I don’t know.
Kylie: About me?
Dylan: No. I don’t know. It just goes like that by itself.
Kylie: Yeah I know.
Dlyan: How do you know?
Kylie: Me uncle made me put his in me mouth.

…

Kylie: Hey mister, are you Bob Dylan?
Dylan Impersonator: Who are you?
Kylie: Kylie Lawless. His name’s Dylan.
Dylan Impersonator: Yeah? Good name you got there, Dylan. So, what you doing kids? Bit late to be out.
Kylie: We’re after running away.
Dylan impersonator: Oh yeah. I know that feeling. I’ve been running away all my life.
Kylie: What are you running away from?
Dylan Impersonator: Myself mostly. Same as everyone I guess.

…

Kylie: How would you kill your Da? It’s not easy to kill a grown man, Dylan. Especially if you haven’t got a gun.
Dylan: I’d stab him.
Kylie: Stabbing wouldn’t kill him.
Dylan: I’d beat him with a hammer.
Kylie: Yeah, I’m sure you would!
Dylan: I’d drop something on his head from the bathroom window. A flower pot.
Kylie: That wouldn’t kill him, it’d just knock him out for a few hours.
Dylan: I’d kill him when he’s knocked out. I’d stand on his throat and hold his nose.

…

Kylie: [after Dylan helps Kylie escape from being abducted]
[Kisses her on the cheek. A pause]
Kylie: How’d you do that?
Dylan: Just closed my eyes and went for it. It’s all I had to give ya.
Kylie: You what?
Dylan: The kiss.
Kylie: No, ya fucking edjeet, hanging onto the car. How’d you do that?

…

Kylie: We can look out for each other. You were right, though. There is no devil. Just people.

…

Kylie: Is it him?
Dylan: No, but it may as well be.[/b]

Something terrible happens. And then the rest [like the reaction itself] is contingency, chance and change. The same as all that led up to it.

This is just one particular existential trajectory. But they don’t call it a rabbit hole for nothing.

For me it all revolves around dealing with a terrible tragedy with or without a faith in God. Just as with so many other things.

Then there is the “parallel universe” subtext. Though more “rational” isn’t this just another narrative about losing and yet not losing someone at the same time. In this universe your son gets hit by the car but in another universe he doesn’t.

To me it all reflects the manner in which we need [and utilize] psychological defense mechanisms to help us cope with the things we either don’t understand or cannot control.

This is another film that attempts to give voice to all that. It’s just better at it than most. Well, for an upper middle class couple living in New York, anyway.

IMDb

John Cameron Mitchell was attracted by the script, and by the personal fact that at 14, he lost his 10-year-old brother to a heart problem; “It was a sudden, unexpected event. It defined a family forever and recovering from it was something we’re still doing.”

wiki

The director of a 2010 stage production of Rabbit Hole, Robert A. Norman, declared, "The 2010 movie version starring Nicole Kidman lacked the humor and hopefulness of the stage script…However, Abaire, who wrote both the stage play and screenplay, believes, “For the film, we cut so much that worked in the play that I worried we had cut all the laughs. But there were all these other laughs I didn’t know were there.”

RABBIT HOLE
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell

[b]Becca: People just don’t scream at you for no reason.
Izzy: Sure they do, you should get out more.

…

Becca: You can’t keep doing this. You’re not a kid anymore.
Izzy: I didn’t know there was a cutoff date.
Becca: Well there is. For acting like a jackass, there’s a cutoff date…

…

Sam [at support group]: We just have to remind each other that it was just part of God’s plan. And we can’t know why. Only God can know why.
Ana: God had to take her. He needed another angel.
Sam: He needed another angel.
Becca: Why didn’t he just make one then?
[Silence. They all turn to Becca, confused.]
Becca: Another angel. I mean, he’s God after all. Why didn’t he just make another angel?[/b]

Here of course she is taking away the only rationalization afforded these folks. Though that is not her intention. Instead, it is more an expression of her own despair in not having it available to her.

[b]Becca: I’m just not ready yet, Howie. I’m sorry if you think that’s abnormal–
Howie: I don’t.
Becca: Then what’s the problem?
Howie: We need to at least head in that direction, which might feel strange at first, but…
Becca: But you wanna have sex.
Howie: Well don’t say it like that.
Becca: You’re trying to rope me into having sex!
Howie: I am not. I wasn’t roping you into sex.
Becca: Al Green isn’t roping?

…

Nat: No group tonight?
Becca: Howie’s there. It’s too much God talk for me, so…
(silence on the other end)
Becca: What.
Nat: Nothing. It’s just some people find that comforting.
Becca: Yeah, well, it pisses me off.
Nat: You know, Becca, when your brother died, I found the church very helpful.
Becca: I know. I know you did, but that’s you. That’s not me, and Danny…Danny isn’t Arthur.
Nat: You know, I brought you to church every Sunday.
Becca: Let’s not start this again, okay, Mom? I’m just…I’m just calling about the cake.
Nat: You’re not right about everything, you know? What if there is a God?
Becca: Then I’d say he’s a sadistic prick.
Nat: All right, Becca, that’s enough.
Becca: “Worship me and I’ll treat you like shit.” No wonder you like him. He sounds just like Dad.

…

Howie: Your sending the dog to your mother’s.
Becca: There was a lot going on, Howie. The dog got under foot.
Howie: Right. And he was a reminder.
Becca: Yes, he was a reminder, and I wanted one less reminder around here.
Howie: And since you never wanted the dog.
Becca: Oh, for godssake.
Howie: Well if I hadn’t bought the dog–
Becca: And if I hadn’t run in to get the phone or if I had latched the gate–
Howie: I left the gate unlatched!
Becca: Well I didn’t check it! I’m not playing this game again Howie. It was no one’s fault.
Howie: Not even the dog’s. Dogs chase squirrels, boys chase dogs.
Becca: I know that.
Howie: He loved that dog! And you got rid of it!
Becca: Just like I got rid of the video.
Howie (losing it): It’s not just the video! I’m not talking about the video, Becca! It’s Taz, and the paintings, and the clothes, and it’s everything! There are no pictures of him around! There’s nothing! You have to stop erasing him! You have to stop it! YOU HAVE TO STOP!

…

Jason [the boy who hit Becca’s son in the accident]: It’s a thirty zone. And I might’ve been going thirty-one. Or thirty-two. I would usually look down, to check, and if I was a little over, then I’d slow down obviously. But I don’t remember checking on your block, so it’s possible I was going too fast. And then the dog ran out really fast, so I swerved. I didn’t know…I didn’t know.
[pause…a connection between them]
Jason: I thought you should know. I might’ve been going a little over the limit. I can’t be positive.
Becca: It’s okay.
Jason: Okay.
Becca: I know, okay?
Jason: Thank you.

…

Howie: Why didn’t you tell me about Jason?
Becca (simply): For the same reason you don’t tell me why you come home reeking of pot.

…

Becca: Does it ever go away?
Nat: No, I don’t think it does. Not for me, it hasn’t - has gone on for eleven years. But it changes though.
Becca: How?
Nat: I don’t know…the weight of it, I guess. At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you…you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and - there it is.

…

Becca: Do you think they’re real?
Jason: Parallel universes? I think it’s basic science. If space is infinite, then everything is possible.
Becca: So somewhere out there, there’s a version of me – what? – making pancakes? Or at a water park.
Jason: Wherever, yeah. Both. Laws of probability. There are tons of you’s out there, and tons of me’s.
Becca: So this is just the sad version of us.
Jason: I guess.
Becca: But there are other versions where everything goes our way.
Jason: Assuming you believe in science.
Becca: Well that’s a nice thought. That somewhere out there I’m having a good time.

…

Howie: It’s so quiet.
Becca: That’s because I slipped Taz a couple Ambien.
Howie (smiles): You’re funny.
Becca: You think I’m joking?

…

Becca: [voiceover] And then what?
Howie: [voiceover] I don’t know…Something though.[/b]

I love music. But I don’t particularly care for rap. In part because its more about the words than the way in which I use music for emotional sustenance. More irony, in other words.

I know practically nothing about this world. So I’ll have to take their word for it.

Rap can be politically astute. But so much of it is not. And some of it seems down right reactionary. The rhymes are always aimed at stumping on and humiliating one or another opponent. At least they are here.

The players here are mostly lumpen sorts who have two ways “out of the hood”: shooting hoops or rapping*. What’s the catch then? He’s white.

And he is one of the teeny tiny percentage of home-boys who might actually do it.

*Or you can win at bingo.

IMDb

The title is a reference to an actual road in Michigan that separates Detroit proper from seven northern suburbs. Eminem grew up near 8 Mile Road and also filmed parts of his “The Way I Am” video on 8 Mile.

8 MILE
Directed by Curtis Hanson

[b]Wink: Look, I’m telling you man, I’m on my way. And I’m takin’ you with me. You’re the franchise, baby.
Rabbit: The franchise? I’m takin’ a fuckin’ bus to work, man.

…

DJ Iz: Man, do you know how many abandoned buildings we have in Detroit? I mean, how are you supposed to take pride in your neighborhood with shit like that next door? And does the city tear them down? No, they too busy building casinos and taking money from the people.
Future: [Talking to Iz while rolling another joint] Shut yo preaching ass up! Don’t nobody care about that shit.
DJ Iz: Did you care when that crackhead raped that little girl? You think that woulda’ happened if he didn’t have an abandoned house to take her to?
Cheddar Bob: They caught him didn’t they?
Future: Yeah, they caught him. Dumb motherfucker went back to the house. How stupid could a nigga be?

…

Future: I had a lotta names, baby. I used to be called Maximum, Brimstone, Godfather D. Big D. None of ‘em worked, you-know-what-Ima-sayin’? 'Til one day someone said I was the future of hip-hop in Detroit. And that was it.

…

Alex: So, I hear you’re a real dope rapper.
Rabbit: A “dope rapper?”

…

Rabbit: Shit wrong with a free demo.
Future: Free comes with a dick up your ass, Jimmy.

…

Stephanie: Me and Greg are having problems.
Rabbit: He found out about the eviction?
Stephanie: No.
Rabbit: The settlement check ain’t coming?
Stephanie: No, it’s comin’ it’s comin’… it’s our sex life.
Rabbit: [disgusted] Mom, I don’t wanna hear this shit.
Stephanie: I mean it’s good, it’s real good. He just doesn’t like to…
Rabbit: [interupting] Mom, I don’t wanna hear this!
Stephanie: [complaining] Greg won’t go down on me.
Rabbit: [even more disgusted] Mom!!

…

Rabbit: Hey Sol, do you ever wonder at what point you just got to say fuck it man? Like when you gotta stop living up here, and start living down here?
Sol: It’s 7.30 in the morning, dawg.

…

DJ Iz: That’s why brothers need to sign themselves a deal. I’m telling you record labels supply niggas with the kind of benefits they need.
Sol: Dawg. We sign us a deal you can take the motherfucking benefits, we’re talking Bentley’s and Benjamins not Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
Future: Look to tell you all niggas the truth, I don’t give a fuck about none of that. I just wanna hit 31 and a 3rd on the box you know what I’m saying? One of them strong songs on JLB.
DJ Iz: No what we need to do is save that shit up and put it into some savings bonds every week, stack it and build our own studio.
Future: Savings Bonds?
Sol: [to DJ] Let me ask you a question Dawg. How the fuck are we brothers? We need fine bitches and fat rides, not no goddamn savings bonds.
Rabbit: That’s all we ever do is talk, man. All of us never do shit about nothin’. We’re still broke as fuck and live at home with our moms.

…

Rabbit [to Future]: You ain’t the future of shit, bitch. You’re just David fucking Porter.
Future: You know, do what the fuck you want, man, 'cause I don’t give a shit anymore.[/b]

Detroit basically had 10 mile 20 mile 30 mile from the designated area of the city that was young. “Streets” were named after distant. How do I know that coming from somewhere else outside of the US, someone told me.

IMDb

A girl who thinks she is a combat cyborg checks into a mental hospital, where she encounters other psychotics. Eventually, she falls for a man who thinks he can steal people’s souls.

Really, that’s what the movie is about. There’s just something about the character Cha Young-goon, however, that keeps me fixated on the screen. And if someone told me this was based on a true story I really wouldn’t know how to react. Bizarre doesn’t even come close to it.

The blond eyebrows, for example.

And, if you can believe it, the guy who directed this also directed Oldboy.

For however much this might help you, here’s a trailer for it:

youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOLDZe2GI

IMDb

Su-jeong Lim got her weight down to just 39 kg to shoot this film.

I’M A CYBORG BUT THAT’S OK [Ssa-i-bo-geu-ji-man-gwen-chan-a] 2006

Written and directed by Chan-wook Park

[b]Attendent: Her grandmother thought she was a mouse.

…

Cha Young-goon: If only I had just one purpose for existing too.[/b]

That turns out to become an atomic bomb “to end zee world”.

[b]Cha Young-goon: Last night I stole Thursday.

…

Park Il-sun: Psycho.
Cha Young-goon: I’m not a psy-cho. I’m a cy-borg.

…

Cha Young-goon: Mom, I think I’m a cyborg.
Young-goon’s mother: …What is that?
Cha Young-goon: I think it’s kind of like a robot?
Young-goon’s mother: …Have you missed your period? Anything you want to eat? Like radishes?[/b]

Radishes, you see, were the only thing her beloved Granny would eat.

[b]Rain: The judge said something that only I could hear: “Defendant Park-lL will eventually vanish into a dot. You shithead!”

…

Rain: They say there is no cure for being anti-social. But the doctor says to have hope. Sometimes it goes away on its own 30 or 40 years later. Though ususally that 30 to 40 years are spent in prison…This is my fifth hospitalization in four years. With steady labor, I can manage the hospital and medication costs. But do you think I can hold out for 40 years like this…without vanishing into a dot?

…

Cha Young-goon [to an hallucinated Granny]: Just wait. I will get you your dentures…and kill them all.
Grannny: The purpose of existence is…of existence is…of existence is…

…

Doctor [after Cha Young-goon recovers from electric shock therapy]: Are you okay?
Cha Young-goon: Yes.
Doctor: Who am I?
Cha Young-goon: Dr Choi Seul-ki.
Doctor: Who is the president of Korea?..It’s okay. It’ll come to you. That kind of memeory skips back soon.
Cha Young-goon: I never knew it in the first place.

…

Rain: Your Granny vanished like a dot.

…

Granny [being taken away in an ambulance]: The purpose of existence is…of existence is…of existence is…

…

Rain [to Cha Young-goon]: I have to cut the skin to open the door.[/b]

You believe what you think is true. But I’ll be damned if I know what to think is true here.

There are people to this day who believe this is an actual documentary of “England’s loudest band”.

Warning:

If you have never seen this movie before DO NOT VIEW IT WHILE EATING. You could very easily choke to death laughing. Really. No bullshit. I almost did watching the scene when Derek gets stuck in the fucking pod.

Look for [among others]: Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Billy Crystal, Howard Hessman, Paul Shaffer, Fed Willard, Fran Drescher, Angelica Huston.

IMDb

[b]The actors are all competent musicians, and the soundtrack is actually them playing.

Much of the dialogue was ad-libbed.

After the film opened, several people approached director Rob Reiner telling him that they loved the film, but he should have chosen a more well known band to do a documentary on.

Ozzy Osbourne has stated that when he first watched the film, he was the only person who wasn’t laughing…he thought it was a real documentary.

This is the only movie on IMDb that is rated out of 11 stars.

Rob Reiner was originally going to be one of the band members, but ended up directing the film after Harry Shearer commented that “he didn’t look good in spandex”.[/b]

wiki

[b]A 4½ hour bootleg version of the movie exists and has been traded among fans and collectors for years

In 2002, This Is Spinal Tap was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.

Critics praised the film not only for its satire of the rollercoaster lifestyles of rock stars but also for its take on the non-fiction film genre. David Ansen from Newsweek called the film “a satire of the documentary form itself, complete with perfectly faded clips from old TV shows of the band in its mod and flower-child incarnations”

The movie cut a little too close to home for some musicians. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne all reported that, like Spinal Tap, they had become lost in confusing arena backstage hallways trying to make their way to the stage. Singer Tom Waits claimed he cried upon viewing it and Eddie Van Halen has said that when he first saw the film, everyone else in the room with him laughed as he failed to see the humor in the film.

U2 guitarist The Edge said in the documentary It Might Get Loud that when he first saw Spinal Tap “I didn’t laugh, I cried,” because it summed up what a brainless swamp big-label rock music had become.[/b]

THIS IS SPINAL TAP
Directed by Rob Reiner

[b]Marty: So in the late fall of 1982 when I heard that Tap was releasing a new album called ‘Smell the Glove,’ and was planning their first tour of the United States in almost 6 years to promote that album, well, needless to say I jumped at the chance to make the documentary, the, if you will, rockumentary that you’re about to see. I wanted to capture the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, of a hard-working rock band on the road. And I got that. But I got more, a lot more

…

Marty [reading from review]: “This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.”
Nigel: That’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?
MARTY: ‘The Gospel According to Spinal Tap’: “This pretentious ponderous collection of religious rock psalms is enough to prompt the question: “What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?” The review for “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “Shit Sandwich”.

…

Limo driver: Excuse me… are you reading “Yes I Can”?
Band groupie: Yeah, have you read it?
Limo driver: Yeah, by Sammy Davis, Jr.?
Band groupie: Yeah.
Limo driver: You know what the title of that book should be? “Yes, I Can If Frank Sinatra Says It’s OK”.

…

Nigel: You can’t really dust for vomit.

…

Ian: The Boston gig has been cancelled…
David: What?
Ian: Yeah. I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s not a big college town.

…

Bobbi: You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man’s arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don’t find that offensive? You don’t find that sexist?
Ian: This is 1982, Bobbi, c’mon!
Bobbi: That’s right, it’s 1982! Get out of the '60s. We don’t have this mentality anymore.
Ian: Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted to do! It wasn’t a glove, believe me.

…

Ian: They’re not gonna release the album because they have decided that the cover is sexist.
Nigel: Well, so what? What’s wrong with bein’ sexy? I mean there’s no…
Ian: Sex-IST!

…

Nigel: Really the young girls quite fearful—that’s my theory. They see us on stage with tight trousers. We’ve got, you know, armadillos in our trousers. I mean it’s really quite frightening…

…

Nigel: Look…this guitar still has the tag on, never even played it.
Marty: [points his finger] You’ve never played…?
Nigel: Don’t touch it!
Marty: We’ll I wasn’t going to touch it, I was just pointing at it.
Nigel: Well…don’t point! It can’t be played.
Marty: Don’t point, okay. Can I look at it?
Nigel: No. no. That’s it, you’ve seen enough of that one.

…

Nigel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Marty: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty: I don’t know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel: [pause] These go to eleven.

…

Marty: The last time Tap toured America, they where, uh, booked into 10,000 seat arenas, and 15,000 seat venues, and it seems that now, on the current tour they’re being booked into 1,200 seat arenas, 1,500 seat arenas, and uh I was just wondering, does this mean uh…the popularity of the group is waning?
Ian: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no…no, no, not at all. I, I, I just think that the…uh…their appeal is becoming more selective.

…

Nigel: It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.

…

Marty: Given the history of Spinal Tap drummers, uh, in the past, do you have any fears, uh, for your life?
Mick: When I did join, you know, they did tell me - they kind of took me aside and said, “Well, Mick. It’s, you know, it’s like this…” And it did kind of freak me out a bit. But it can’t always happen to every, can it? I mean, really…
Marty: Because the law of averages…
Mick: …The law of averages…
Marty: …Says you will survive.
Mick: Yeh

…

[Nigel is playing a soft piece on the piano]
Marty: It’s very pretty.
Nigel: Yeah, I’ve been fooling around with it for a few months.
Marty: It’s a bit of a departure from what you normally play.
Nigel: It’s part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I’m working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don’t know why.
Marty: It’s very nice.
Nigel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like - I’m really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it’s sort of in between those, really. It’s like a Mach piece, really. It’s sort of…
Marty: What do you call this?
Nigel: Well, this piece is called “Lick My Love Pump”.

…

Artist: Um, I’m not understanding it. What do you mean “the actual piece?”
Ian: Well I mean…I mean when you build the actual piece.
Artist: But this is what you asked for, isn’t it?
Ian: What?
Aetist: Well this is the piece.
Ian: This is the piece?
Artist: Yes.
Ian: Are you telling me that this is it? This is scenery? Have you ever been to Stonehenge?
Artist: No, I haven’t been to Stonehenge.
Ian: The triptychs are…the triptychs are twenty feet high. You can stand four men up them!
Artist: Ian, I was…I was…I was supposed to build it eighteen inches high.
Ian: This is insane. This isn’t a piece of scenery.
Artist: Look, look. Look, this is what I was asked to build. Eighteen inches. Right here, it specifies eighteen inches. I was given this napkin, I mean…
Ian: Forget this! Fuck the napkin!!![/b]

You know what’s coming! And the look on David’s face!!

[b]David: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object!

…

Ian: Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I’m told.
David: But you’re not as confused as him are you? I mean, it’s not your job to be as confused as Nigel!

…

Derek: David and Nigel are both like, uh, like poets you know like Shelley or Byron, or people like that. The two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, basically, you see, and I feel my role in the band, is to be kind of in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water, in a sense.

…

Jeanine: Oh, no! If I told them once, I told them a hundred times: put “Spinal Tap” first and “Puppet show” last.

…

Jeanine: We’ve got a big dressing room, though.
David: What?
Jeanine: Got a big dressing room here…
David: Oh, we’ve got a bigger dressing room than the puppets?

[Asked by a reporter if this is the end of Spinal Tap]
David: Well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.

…

David: I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to do a collection of my acoustic numbers with the London Philharmonic.

…

Marty: David St. Hubbins…I must admit I’ve never heard anybody with that name.
David: It’s an unusual name, well, he was an unusual saint, he’s not a very well known saint.
Marty: Oh, there actually is, uh… there was a Saint Hubbins?
David: That’s right, yes.
Marty: What was he the saint of?
David: He was the patron saint of quality footwear

…

Marty: Do you feel that playing rock ‘n’ roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?
Derek: No. No. No. I feel it’s like, it’s more like going, going to a, a national park or something. And there’s, you know, they preserve the moose. And that’s, that’s my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.
Marty: So when you’re playing you feel like a preserved moose on stage?
Derek: Yeah.

…

Nigel: [on what he would do if he couldn’t be a rock star] Well, I suppose I could, uh, work in a shop of some kind, or… or do, uh, freelance, uh, selling of some sort of, uh, product. You know…
Marty: A salesman?
Nigel: A salesman, like maybe in a, uh, haberdasher, or maybe like a, uh, um… a chapeau shop or something. You know, like, “Would you… what size do you wear, sir?” And then you answer me.
Marty: Uh… seven and a quarter.
Nigel: “I think we have that.” See, something like that I could do.
Marty: Yeah… you think you’d be happy doing something like-…
Nigel: “No; we’re all out. Do you wear black?” See, that sort of thing I think I could probably… muster up.
Marty: Do you think you’d be happy doing that?
Nigel: Well, I don’t know - wh-wh-… what’re the hours?[/b]

In today’s world this might be called a fairy tale. But that can only be my own rendition of “today’s world”. One thing for sure: it never happened to me.

Call it perhaps a more whimsical take on contingency, chance and change.

There’s before and then, among other things, before begets an inner child of the past. We all have one. We are only more or less aware of it.

This seems to be more about having an imagination than whatever it is you actually do with it. Also, for some, in particular contexts, the fantastic is not only preferable but necessary.

My own imagination [given birth in a narrative that was, let’s say, weird] is particularly fantastic.

This movie is worth it if only to watch what Amelie does to that rotten son of a bitch grocer Collignon!

Note: The narrator is André Dussollier who played Maxime in A Heart In Winter above

IMDb

The traveling gnome was inspired by a rash of similar pranks played in England and France in the 1990s. In 1997, a French court convicted the leader of Front de Libération des Nains de Jardins (Garden Gnome Liberation Front) of stealing over 150 gnomes. The idea was later used in an advertising campaign for an Internet travel agency.

Well, that explains that.

Hipolito is a reference to the secondary character Hippolite Terentyev, an unlucky philosopher, from the novel ‘The Idiot’ (1869) by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The main character of the novel is a person who is innocent, naive and immensely kind just like Amelie - most likely the film was inspired by the book.

wiki

The film was attacked by critic Serge Kaganski of Les Inrockuptibles for an unrealistic and picturesque vision of a bygone French society with few ethnic minorities. “If the director was trying to create an idyllic vision of a perfect Paris,” Kaganski argued, “He removed nearly all black people.[9]” Jeunet dismissed the criticism by pointing out that the photo collection contains pictures of people from numerous ethnic backgrounds, and that Jamel Debbouze, who plays Lucien, is of Moroccan descent.

AMELIE [Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain] 2001
Written and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet

[b]Narrator: Deprived of playmates and slung between a neurotic mother and an iceberg father, Amelie retreats into her imagination.

…

Narrator: Amelie has one friend, her pet fish Blubber. Alas the home environment has made Blubber suicidal.

…

Narrator: Like every year, her mother had taken her to church to light a candle so that Heaven would send her a little brother. The divine answer came minutes later. Alas, it wasn’t a newborn that fell out of the sky but a tourist from Quebec, determined to end her life. Amandine Poulain, born Fouet, is killed outright.

…

[Amélie hands a begger some money]
Beggar: Sorry madam, I never work on Sundays.

…

Narrator: Amélie still seeks solitude. She amuses herself with silly questions about the world below, such as “How many people are having an orgasm right now?”
[scenes of orgasms taking place]
Amélie: Fifteen.

…

Narrator: And finally, on the night of August 30, 1997, comes the event that will change the life of Amélie Poulain totally.
News reporter: “Good evening. The Princess of Wales, Lady Di died this afternoon in a car crash.”[/b]

This cause Amelie to drop a ball that rolls across the floor hitting a wall tile that comes loose. She removes it and reaches inside. And there is the small tin box that “changes her life totally”.

[b]Narrator: Only the first man to enter the grave of Toutankhamon may understand how Amélie felt when she discovered the treasure that had been hid by a little boy. Amélie suddenly has a luminous idea. She is going to find the owner of this box and return his treasure to him.

…

Amelie imagines her own demise: On the evening of a bright day in July, while holiday-makers enjoy themselves on the beach in the carefreeness of the sunny days and while in Paris, the strollers, overcome by the heat gaze at the trails of smoke of the fireworks, Amélie Poulain, also known as “the godmother of the rejected”, or “the madonna of the cast-offs” succumbs to exhaustion. In the streets of Paris, struck with grief, millions of mourning anonyms gather for the funeral cortège to show in silence their great sorrow of being forever orphans. What a strange fate, that of this young woman deprived of herself, yet so sensitive to the charm of the little things in life. Like Don Quixote, she pitted herself against the grinding windmills of all life’s miseries. It was a losing battle that claimed her life prematurely. At barely 23, Amelie Poulain let her young tired body merge with the ebb and flow of universal woe.

…

Amélie [to her father, who is not paying attention]: I had two heart attacks, an abortion and did crack while I was pregnant. Other than that, I’m fine.
Father: Good.

…

Narrator: Amélie has found Nino’s photo album and his “lost” posers. Any normal girl would call the number, meet him, return the album and see if her dream is viable. It’s called a reality check. The last thing Amélie wants.

…

Voice on phone: Palace Video, King of Porn. Good morning.
Amelie: I call about the ad.
Voice on phone: You’re over 18?
Amelie: Yes.
Voice on phone: Shaved?
Amelie: Sorry?
Voice on phone: Are you shaved? Fur pie doesn’t sell these days.

…

Narrator: Nino is late. Amelie can only see two explanations. 1 - he didn’t get the photo. 2 - before he could assemble it, a gang of bank robbers took him hostage. The cops gave chase. They got away…but he caused a crash. When he came to, he’d lost his memory. An ex-con picked him up, mistook him for a fugitive, and shipped him to Istanbul. There he met some Afghan raiders who too him to steal some Russian warheads. But their truck hit a mine in Tajikistan. He survived, took to the hills, and became a Mujaheddin.[/b]

Or, 3, he’s just late.

[b]Raymond: Is she in love with him?
Amélie: Yes.
Raymond: The time has come for her to take some real risks.
Amélie: Well yes, she’s thinking about it. She’s thinking of a stratagem.
Raymond: Yes, she likes stratagems, doesn’t she?
Amélie: Yes.
Raymond: She’s a bit of a coward. That’s why I can’t capture her look.

…

Josef Stalin dubbed in propaganda film excerpt: If Amélie chooses to live in a dream-world and remain an introverted young woman, she has every right to.

…

Hipolito: Failed writer, failed life…I love the word “fail.” Failure is human destiny.
Joseph: It’s gasbag time!
Hipolito: Failure teaches us that life is but a draft, a long rehearsal for a show that will never play.
Joseph: I bet he stole that.
Hipolito: I do have some original ideas, but people always steal them.
Joseph: Meaning?
Hipolito: You’d better get used to it.[/b]

This is a fable about something but I don’t pretend to understand the inner working of Tim Burton’s brain. Something about being or not being evil in suburbia. Edward seems to bring out the best and the worst in people. And not necessarily in that order.

IMDb

[b]Some of the topiary that Edward makes in the movie can be seen permanently at the New York City restaurant Tavern On the Green.

Johnny Depp said only 169 words in this film.

Tom Cruise was considered for the role but ultimately did not take it because he wanted a happier ending.[/b]

wiki

[b]Michael Jackson lobbied hard for the part, but was unsuccessful.

Tom Hanks turned it down in favor of The Bonfire of the Vanities.

Both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel gave the film a negative review. Ebert stated that “Burton has not yet found the storytelling and character-building strength to go along with his pictorial flair. The ending is so lame it’s disheartening. Surely anyone clever enough to dream up Edward Scissorhands should be swift enough to think of a payoff that involves our imagination.”[/b]

EDWARD SCISSORHANDS [1990]
Written and directed by Tim Burton

[b]Peg: Good morning, Joyce.
Joyce: Why, Peg, have you gone blind? Can’t you see there’s a vehicle parked in my driveway?

…

Peg: Okay, dear, which one did you like best? There was the Winsome Wahini, which looked charming on you, or the Bahimini Bliss.
Young girl: I like them both.
Peg [reaching for her order pad]: Well, great.
Young girl: You don’t actually think I have any money do you?

…

Peg : Why are you hiding back there? You don’t have to hide from me - I’m Peg Boggs, your local Avon representative and I’m as harmless as cherry pie…
[sees Edward come toward her]
Peg: Oh - I can see that I’ve disturbed you. I’ll just be going now…
Edward [plaintively]: Don’t go.
Peg: [sees his scissor hands] Oh, my. What happened to you?
Edward: I’m not finished.

…

Kevin: Can I bring him to show and tell on Monday?

…

Bill: Sweetheart, you can’t buy the necessities of life with cookies.

…

Jim: I’d give my left nut to see that again.

…

Officer Allen: Will he be OK, Doc?
Psychologist: The years spent in isolation have not equipped him with the tools necessary to judge right from wrong. He’s had no context. He’s been completely without guidance. Furthermore, his work - the garden sculptures, hairstyles and so forth - indicate that he’s a highly imaginative… uh… character. It seems clear that his awareness of what we call reality is radically underdeveloped.
Officer Allen: But will he be all right out there?
Psychologist: Oh yeah, he’ll be fine.

…

Jim: [after seeing Edward accidentally cut Kim] Hey! Now you’ve done it!
Kim: It was just a scratch Jim, really!
Peg: What’s going on?
Jim: Call a doctor, he skewered Kim!
Kim: He didn’t skewer me![/b]

I don’t think anyone should understand the workings of someone that creative, it’s just a marvel to see his thought processes on canvas in this case, although I don’t rate everything he has done I was charmed by this movie.

Evil and Eggplant can go screw themselves.

Race. Ethnicity. Gender. As Zorba might say, “the full catastophe”. I’m not black, Italian or female. So I can only grope my way through the labyrinth frame by frame.

The blacks here are mostly middle class while the whites are mostly working class. There’s no way to grasp the racial and gender stuff without taking that into account. In some respects it is and in some respects it isn’t apples and oranges.

And [conveniently] things don’t work out in the end between Flipper and Angie. They were, it seems, “just curious”.

The movie is over the top at times [and occasionally preachy] but it is well scripted and well acted from start to finish. In my own opinion.

Then there’s that extraordinary performance by Samuel Jackson. No Snakes on a Plane here folks. To wit:

IMDb

[b]The Cannes Film Festival introduced the Best Supporting Actor Award specifically to honor Samuel L. Jackson.

…

Halle Berry refused to bathe for two weeks in preparation for a role as a crack addict.

Samuel L. Jackson had just undergone treatment for drug addiction and had only two weeks from his discharge from rehab to the start of filming. Jackson has gone on record as saying that Gator’s ravaged look was not make-up, but actually the result of Jackson’s own detoxification.[/b]

Look for Halle Barry in her first role. I didn’t even recognize her. Also Queen Latifah. And Tim Robbins. And Brad Dourif. B-B-Billy from Cookoo’s Nest. And Anthony Quinn.

JUNGLE FEVER
Written and directed by Spike Lee

[b]James: If you ever get her pregnant, Paulie…
Charlie: Hey!
James: I don’t know why I’m thinking this because I know it’s not going to happen, but if you did, I would give you the abortion, Paulie.

…

The Good Reverend: How much money did he ask for?
Lucinda: Gator did no such thing![/b]

How much? A hundred bucks.

[b]Angie: I do admit I was looking at your skin.
Flipper: Boy, it’s amazing, this preoccupation with color. I mean here you are staring at me. My experiences, my people, I’ve been called every… Black, dot, smut, midnight, spot. Every black derogatory name you could ever think of. And then white people comment all the time. They love it. It’s a deep, dark tan.
Angie: Sorry. It’s kind of messed up, huh?
Flipper: Yeah, it really is.

…

Leslie: Come on, who’s gonna play third base for us.
Flipper: I don’t give a damn who plays third base!

…

Flipper: Mine!..Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!
Jerry: Ego!..Ego! Ego! Ego! Ego! Ego!

…

Cyrus: I thought you said you were going to drop a bomb?
Flipper: She’s white.
Cyrus: White?! Are you on crack or something?!
Flipper: She’s Italian.
Cyrus: H-bomb!
Flipper: From Bensonhurst.
Cyrus: Nuclear holocaust.

…

Flipper: I have to admit I’ve been curious about Caucasian women. That doesn’t mean to say that white is right and sisters aren’t beautiful. Sisters are beautiful too. I mean, hey, hey, that doesn’t mean to say that because a brother is with a white girl that he’s less down, I mean, less progressive. I’m still very pro-black.

…

Gator: Look here, baby brother. I’m a little light. Could you let me hold some change?
Flipper: No. No, Gator. That dancing shit ain’t gonna work. I ain’t giving you a red cent.
Gator: What? Come on, you can do me this one solid. Would you rather I go out and rob some elderly person? Steal? Either way, I’m gonna get high. I hate to resort to knocking elderly people in the head for their money. But I’ll do it. I’ll do it. You know I’ll do it. I’ll do it. I’ll do it You know I’ll do it.

…

Flipper: That’s like saying white boys have little Mini-Frosted Wheaties dicks…It’s a myth. I think.[/b]

Then Flipper gets caught and Drew’s friends try to deconstruct the affair: The “war council”.

youtube.com/watch?v=9JO4_rpG8w4

[b]Flipper: How did Drew bust me? Don’t tell me it was because you opened your big mouth? Goddamn. I trusted you!
Cyrus: If I can’t tell my wife, who can I tell?
Flipper: Nobody! Nobody! Nobody!

…

Drew: I’ve told you what happened to me when I was growin’ up. I’ve explained to you. I’ve poured my heart out. I told you how they called me high yellow, yellow bitch. White honky, honky white; white nigger, nigger white; Octoroon, quadroon, half-breed, mongrel!

…

Mike [Angie’s father]: A nigger! A nigger! A nigger! What kind of woman…
Angie: Daddy!
Mike [slapping, beating Angie around the room]: What kind of a woman are you? You fuck a black nigger? I didn’t raise you to be with no nigger! I’d rather you be a murderer or a child molester than fuck a black nigger!..Your mother’s turning over in her grave.
Angie: Stop, Daddy!
Mike: This is how you scar your mother’s memory? I raised you to be a good Catholic girl. You’re a disgrace! You’re a disgrace! You’re a disgrace to the Italians! You’re a disgrace! You could’ve gone out with a Jew or Irishman but you picked a fucking nigger!..I 'd rather stab myself in the heart with a fucking knife than be the father of a nigger lover!!

…

Gator: But I gots to give you some dap. She looks good! Most brothers with white bitches, 9 out of 10 they don’t never have ‘em no Penthouse Pet. Most brothers be havin’ an outhouse pet…a dog with flies, fleas…but that don’t work for the white boy, see. If a sister’s on his arm, I guarantee you she be slammin’. Boom! Pow!

…

Flipper: She’s Italian.
Gator: Oh, shit. You always had to do things the hard way.

…

Flipper: You didn’t get your check from Soul Train yet?
Gator: Don lost my address.

…

Frankie: He stole a radio out of my fucking car!
Vinny: How do you know?
Frankie: How do I know? He tried to sell it back to me!

…

Flipper: No half-black, half-white babies for me. No!
Angie: Aren’t Drew and Vera mulattoes? Their skin is lighter than mine.
Flipper: No octoroon, quadroon, mulatto babies. No!
Angie: Don’t you have a daughter who’s got white blood?
Flipper: Yeah, so what? At least in my eyes, Drew and Ming are black. They look black, act black, so they are black! It’s hard enough just being black out here. A lot of times the mixed kids they come out all mixed-up, a bunch of mixed nuts.
Angie: You’re not that much different than my family.
Flipper: Your family is racist!
Angie: What is this stuff you’re talking now?

…

Lou: If your mother was alive she would turn over in her grave!

…

Lou: You hate your own father!
Paulie: I’d like to kill you, but I don’t hate you.

…

Orin: Paulie! What happened to you?
Paulie: I fell over some garbage.

…

Gator: [Gator is dancing with his mother, trying to butter her up] Hey pretty lady, you remember me?
Lucinda: Say what you have to say, and go, before your father comes back!
Gator: What’s the matter? You don’t like my dancing anymore? You usually offer to cook me something to eat.
Lucinda: I ain’t playin’ with you Gator! Say what you have to say and go. And if it’s money then forget it!
[loosens herself from his grip]
Lucinda: The answer is no!
Gator: Momma, you gotta help me out. I’m sick. In order for me to get right, I need money!
Lucinda: You’d feel a whole lot better if you had a bath! Boy, the devil’s got you!

…

Lucinda: What happened to the color TV?
Gator: Mama, I smoked the color TV!

…

The Good Reverend: My own flesh and blood, my firstborn son, and I love you. But you’re evil and your better off dead!
Gator: Mama, check out this new step. I made it up just for you.
[Gator dances towards his father, mockingly]
The Good Reverend: I’ll pray for you, my son. Father, I stretch my hands to Thee.
[He shoots Gator dead]

…

Lucinda [craddling Gator]: Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here![/b]

It’s been, let’s say, a while since I was in high school. And mine was enscounced in a lower middle class [and virtually all white] suburb. So I have no real sense of how far this film is from how high school “works” today in a predominently poor and working class neighborhood in New York city.

In all films like this I look for The Wire. In other words, the extent to which education here is rooted in political economy. Unfortunately, the closest it comes is in making allusions to “the powers that be” in the marketing industry.

Are we actually expected to believe the reason this school here is different from say, Dalton, is because the students and the parents and the teachers just haven’t figured out a way yet to “leave no child behind” in these neighborhoods? This is really more in alignment with the narrative of the reactionaries. Or Phil Ochs’s “liberals”.

It’s also an education on the fucking plight of being fucking old in a fucking society that has no fucking use for you anymore.

We all come here with our own narrative. Only more or less able to be communicated to…to ourselves. Much less others.

wiki

A reviewer for Student Handouts, which reviews books and films for those working in education, said: “It easily makes Dangerous Minds look like a pandering Lifetime made-for-TV movie.”

DETACHMENT [2011]
Directed by Tony Kaye

[b]Quote from Camus on the screen: “And never have I felt so deeply at one and at the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.”

…

Henry [voiceover while writing poetry]: I am money, I change hands like the dollar bill, That has been robbed by a lamp; Then a Genie appeared and cried loudly, With volume; But the tears were all for myself, And that’s where it all went wrong.

…

Principal: You will find many of the students functioning well below grade level. Your job is to try and get them caught up. Teach the curriculum. Is that understood?
Henry: Yes.

…

Henry: It doesn’t take strength Meredith, you’ve gotta understand that, unfortunately, most people lack self awareness.

…

Henry [to the camera]: Y’know it’s funny, I spend a lot of time trying to not have to deal… to not really commit. I’m a substitute teacher, there’s no real responsibility to teach. Your responsibility is to maintain order, make sure nobody kills anybody in your classroom, and then they get to their next period.

…

Charles: Another student saved…

…

Grandfather: When you stop coming Henry, I’ll die.

…

Henry: Did you pay her?
The John: Oh, yeah. Right. Right.
[The John pulls money out of his wallet and hands it to Henry]
Henry: What are you paying me for? It wasn’t in my mouth.

…

Erica: Why were you crying on the bus?

…

Henry: [DOUBLETHINK is on the blackboard, from Orwell’s “1984”. When none of the students knows what it means he tells them] It’s deliberately believing in lies while knowing they’re false. Examples of this in everyday life: “oh, I need to be pretty to be happy. I need surgery to be pretty. I need to be thin, famous, fashionable.”. Our young men today are being told that women are whores, bitches, things to be screwed, beaten, shit on, and shamed. This is a marketing holocaust. Twenty-fours hours a day for the rest of our lives, the powers that be are hard at work dumbing us to death. So to defend ourselves, and fight against assimilating this dullness into our thought processes, we must learn to read. To stimulate our own imagination, to cultivate our own consciousness, our own belief systems. We all need skills to defend, to preserve, our own minds.

…

Student: Can I go now?
Doris [school counselor]: God, you are a shallow disgusting creature. You want to know the truth. 1] you’re not going to be in a band or model because you have no ambition. With no skills you’ll be competing with 80% of the U.S. workforce which means minimum wage jobs which you’ll work at for the rest of your life until you are replaced by a computer.
Student: I don’t care.
Doris: 2, the only talent you will ever have is getting men to fuck you…[/b]

etc. Until:

Counselor: Everyday I come into this office and listen to kids like you shit all over yourselves. It’s easy to be callous. It takes courage and character to care…Get out! Get out! JUST GET OUT!!
Student: Fuck you!

Then:

[b]Doris: I’m a total burnout.
Charles: No you’re not.
Doris: Yes I am.
Charles: I mean, I don’t know how you make it through the day, but listen, what do you think I take these pills for? I mean, that’s a rubber room in there. If I didn’t take these things I’d be committing mass murder on half the parents. I’d be throwing the fucking kids out the window.

…

Henry: A child’s intelligent heart can fathom the depth of many dark places, but can it fathom the delicate moment of its own detachment?

…

Erica [pleading]: I love you, Henry. Don’t let them take me. You’re all that I have. Don’t let me go.
[as the social workers drag her away]
Erica: Henry! Henry! Henry! No! Please! Don’t let them![/b]

Boy is this scene a punch to the fucking gut. All your sympathy for the guy is blown out of the water. How the hell could he do it?! But [of course]: what do we really know about the reasons of others? And there’s always a chance that by the end of film…

[b]Meredith: They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I’ll let you know.

…

Henry: I realized something today. I’m a non-person. You shouldn’t be here. I’m not here. You may see me but I’m hollow.[/b]

It’s time to jump into the really deep end of the philosophical pool. Not.

Yeah, there’s something about Mary, alright: She’s fucking gorgeous! Come on, admit it. That’s it, right? Cameron Diaz? Even with that, uh, stuff in her hair.

Let’s lighten the load.

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
Directed by Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly

[b]Ted [narrating]: When I was sixteen years old I fell in love…

Ted: Hey, Renise.
Renise: Hey.
Ted: So listen, uh, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go to the prom you know, with me. It’s no big deal, whatever I mean, if you want.
Renise: See, the thing is, I heard a rumor that this guy I like was gonna ask me. So I’m gonna wait and see what happens there…But that sounds great, yeah.
Ted: Okay. So is that a yes or a no?
Renise: I think I was very clear, Ted. If everything else falls apart, maybe.
Ted: I’m gonna hold you to that.

…

Ted: [narrating] From that point on, the guys looked at me in a completely different light.
Bob: You’re a fuckin’ liar!

…

Ted: YEEEOOOOOWWWWWW!!!

…

Mary’s Step-Father: Oh man! How’d you get the beans above the frank?

…

Mary’s Step-Father: Sheila, Shelia, honey, you gotta come in here and see this!

…

Ambulance tech: WE GOT A BLEEDER!

…

Warren: [as Ted is being taken on a stretcher to the ambulance] He was masturbating! He was masturbating! He was masterbating!

…

Mary [to her girlfriends]: I want a guy who can play 36 holes of golf, and still have enough energy to take Warren and me to a baseball game, and eat sausages, and beer, not lite beer, but beer. That’s my ad, print it up.
Brenda: “Fatty who likes golf and beer.” Gee, Mary, where are you gonna find a gem like that?

…

Ted: Japan? What’s she doing in Japan?
Pat: You’ve heard of mail-order brides? Well, they go that way too.

…

Dom: I mean here you’ve been in therapy thinking you blew it with the greatest girl ever, and it turns out that getting your dick stuck in your zipper was the best thing that ever happened to you!
Ted: Wait a second, I never told you that.
Dom: Christ, Ted, I was only four towns away.

…

Pat: Really, archetecture is only a side thing for my true passion.
Mary: And what’s that?
Pat Healy: I work with retards.
Mary: Isn’t that a little politically incorrect?
Pat: Yeah, maybe, but hell, no one’s gonna tell me who I can and can’t work with.

…

Pat: Those goofy bastards are about the best thing I’ve got going.

…

Magda: [ calling out from the kitchen] Would you like a little clam-dip, honey?
Pat: No, thanks. I’d love a little bundt cake if you have some!

…

Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7… Minute… Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you’re going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
Ted: You guarantee it? That’s - how do you do that?
Hitchhiker: If you’re not happy with the first 7 minutes, we’re gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That’s it. That’s our motto. That’s where we’re comin’ from. That’s from “A” to “B”.
Ted: That’s right. That’s - that’s good. That’s good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you’re in trouble, huh?
[Hitchhiker convulses]
Hitchhiker: No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody’s comin’ up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won’t even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.
Ted: That - good point.
Hitchhiker: 7’s the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 dwarves. 7, man, that’s the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. You know that old children’s tale from the sea. It’s like you’re dreamin’ about Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.
Ted: Why?
Hitchhiker: ‘Cause you’re fuckin’ fired!

…

Ted: Look, I didn’t solicit any sex, OK? This is a huge misunderstanding. I was really going out to pee, I was walking to the bushes, I tripped over this guy - and suddenly all those cops and their helicopters…
Detective Stabler: Ted, Ted, it’s OK, we believe you. The problem is we found your friend in the car.
[Detective Stabler refers to the dead body found in Ted’s car, which unbeknown to Ted was left by the hitchhiker. Ted has no idea about the body. He thinks the police is going to charge him with giving a ride to hitchhiker, as the hitchhiker told him it was a felony in that state]
Ted: [smiles] Oh, the hitchhiker? That’s what this is about, the hitchhiker? Oh, oh, great. This is my luck - I get caught for everything.
Detective Krevoy: [pats strongly on Ted’s shoulder] So…you admit it?
Ted: Ah, yeah, guilty as charged. Look, I know you guys got a job to do, alright? And I’m really sorry. I did it, I admit it. You know, the guy even told me, the hitchhiker told me it was illegal.
Detective Krevoy: Well, uh, can you tell us his name?
Ted: Ah…no, I didn’t catch it. Can we cut to the chase, I mean, am I like in a lot of trouble here?
Detective Stabler: [nods] First tell us why you did it.
Ted: Why I did it? Ah…I don’t know. Boredom? The guy turned to be a blubber mouth who just would not shut up.
Detective Krevoy: [trying to control himself] Ted, this wasn’t your first time, was it?
Ted: No.
Detective Krevoy: How many are we talking here?
Ted: [confused] Hitchhikers? My whole life? Ah…I don’t know - twenty-five, fifty…I mean, who keeps track? Hey, you know, I know this is the Bible Belt and everything, but where I come from this is not that big deal, I mean…
Detective Krevoy: You son of a bitch! You’re gonna fry!
[exploding in rage due to Ted’s seemingly indifference to murder, detective Krevoy roars, grabs Ted by his shirt and repeatedly slams his head against the desk. Ted yells in pain]
Detective Stabler: Take it easy! Calm down!
[Stabler manages to separate between Krevoy and Ted. Ted falls backward on the floor]
Detective Stabler: [to Krevoy] Are you OK?
Ted: [to Krevoy] What the hell is wrong with you?

…

Dom: You got a fucking horseshoe up your ass, man.

…

Pat: Exceptional my ass!

…

Tucker: I’m a phony–just like you, man.
Pat: What do you mean?
Tucker: I mean I’m a fucking fraud. I’m no architect. Don’t be a putz–who’s been to Santiago, Chile twice in one year?!

…

Tucker: Hey, Tracey, how are the twins?

…

Dom: So, just go clean the pipes and you’re all set.
Ted: Huh? What do you mean “clean the pipes”?
Dom: You choke the chicken before any big date, don’t you? Tell me you spank the monkey before any big date. Oh my God, he doesn’t flog the dolphin before a big date. Are you crazy? That’s like going out there with a loaded gun!

…

Dom: The most honest moment in a man’s life is the five minutes after he’s blown a load. That’s a medical fact. And it’s because you’re no longer trying to get laid. You’re actually thinking like a girl. They love that!

…

Pat: [tossing drug-laced doggie treats into Mary’s apartment] Wait… how many is this?
Norm: Umm…four.
Pat: Four? That seems like an aweful lot of speed to give one little pooch. Are you sure it won’t kill him?
Norm: I never said that.

…

Tucker: I may have been, uh, blowing a little smoke up your ass there, Mary.[/b]

A top notch thriller.

Here we bump into all sorts of nasty vermin. A veritable cornucopia of evil. That is, for those who find the “bad guys” more interesting. And [as usual] it revolves around sex and money.

Really, it’s a miracle there are any good guys left at all.

But some are definitely badder than others: to kill or not to kill the kid?

In other words, for some, everybody is expendable.

Look for Gwyneth Paltrow.

wiki

Roger Ebert called the film “one of the busiest movies I’ve ever seen, a film jampacked with characters and incidents and blind alleys and red herrings. Offhand, this is the only movie I can recall in which an entire subplot about a serial killer is thrown in simply for atmosphere.” He added, “I can’t go into detail without revealing vital secrets. Yet after the movie is over and you try to think through those secrets, you get into really deep molasses.”

Actually, the serial killer was necessary in order to create the need for Andy’s sperm sample. Right?

Here’s the thing though: Were Jed and Tracy in on it right from the start?

MALICE
Directed by Harold Becker

[b]Jed: I’m the new guy around here and I want to make friends, so I’ll say this to you and we’ll start fresh. If you don’t like my jokes, don’t laugh. If you have a medical opinion, then please speak up and speak up loud. But if you ever again tell me or my surgical staff that we’re going to lose a patient, I’m gonna take out your lungs with a fuckin’ ice cream scoop. Do you understand me?
Mattew: I’m not going to like you, am I?

…

Tracy: This guy doesn’t have friends, he has subjects.

…

Andy: Dana, what do you think he does with the hair? He cuts off all their hair. What do you think he does with it?
Dana: Makes pillows, who knows.

…

Nurse: I know why you guys become doctors.
Jed: It’s not what you think.
Nurse: I think it’s so you can make a lot of money and see a lot of naked women.
Jed: Oh, well, then it is what you think.

…

Andy: Man, I’d give my right arm for a million dollars.
Jed: Would you really?
Andy: What?
Jed: Give your right arm for a million dollars?
Andy: You mean like literally?
Jed: Yeah. Well, not even an arm. A finger.
Andy: One finger. For one million dollars?
Jed: We’re talking about a surgical procedure…just to the first joint.[/b]

Me, I wouldn’t think twice. For a finger.

[b]Andy: Am I a suspect Dana? Am I a fucking suspect?!

…

Doctor [looking at an xray]: Jed, did you see this?..Four or five weeks would be my guess.
Nurse: She’s pregnant?
Doctor: Not for long.

…

Tracy: He took my insides out and you gave him persmission.

…

Jed: I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn’t miscarry or that their daughter doesn’t bleed to death or that their mother doesn’t suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they’re praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, “Dennis”, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you’re looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn’t like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

…

Tracy: Ask God how many shots of bourbon he had before he cut me open.

…

Tracy: You can put the money in a coffee can for all I care.[/b]

Yeah, right.

[b]Dana: Let me ask you something. How well do you know Tracy?
Andy: She’s my wife.
Dana: I want you to come back to the station with me. I want to show you something.

…

Jed: Bad things happen to good people all the time, Andy, for no reason what-so-ever…

…

Jed: What are you going to do Andy?
Andy: I’m going out and get to know my wife.

…

Andy: Is her mother alive?! Where does she live.
Dennis: Andy, please.
Andy: Aw fuck it, I’ll find her myself.
Dennis: Andy…Scotch. Bring her a bottle of scotch.[/b]

Single malt, preferably.

[b]Andy: Did your daughter ever tell you she had a husband?
Mother: Did your wife ever tell you she had a mother?
Andy: Yeah, a dead one.

…

Mother: What do you want from me?
Andy: Nothing.
Mother: Nobody wants nothing.

…

Mother: She sure found herself a live one in you. Like shooting tuna fish in a barrel.

…

Mother: Get in the game. Go for the twenty million yourself…Look kid I don’t know what the game is. But you got stung. So did your friend the surgeon.

…

Andy: What happened to the baby? The Newport millionaire.
Mother: She pocketed the money he gave her for the abortion. Went downtown to the clinic. She ended up working for the doctor.
Andy: What was the name of the doctor? Was the name of the doctor David Lillianfield? Was the name of the doctor David Lillianfield?!
Mother: Welcome to the game.

…

Tracy: I came here hoping we could reach an understanding.
Andy: I’m afraid I’m going to have to hold a grudge on this one, Trace.

…

Tracy: What do you want?
Andy: What does everyone want? I want the Red Sox to win the World Series.

…

Andy: I had a chat with your mom. Not bad looking for someone who has been dead for 12 years.
Tracy: What do want, Andy?
Andy: That woman changed my life. I don’t think I’m overstating the case and she knows some pretty cool card tricks.
Tracy: Cut the shit! What do you want?!
Andy: I want half. What the fuck do you think I want!

…

Tracy: They write the check to me.
Jed: Not in prison they don’t.

…

Jed: But he’s a child.
Tracy: No, he is a little fucking troll who deserves to be put out of his misery for fucking up my life![/b]

Lifers. If you have ever been in the military you know what the fuck that means. But once again the military here is carefully disguised. It’s the shock and awe rendition we’ve had crammed down our throats now for decades.

Sorry, this really is a pet peeve of mine. I’ll never be able to watch films like this except through the lens of my own political prejudices.

And one thing for sure, if that had been my dad one or both of us would now be dead. What a fucking knee jerk. A walking talking slab of testosterone. I don’t buy the tears [and the “I love you Dads”] near the end. But, then, maybe that’s why he was an alcoholic: he doesn’t either.

Look for Mary Anne’s considerable – and considerably cynical – wit. She steals the show.

IMDb

[b]The South Carolina house where much of the movie takes place is the same house in Beaufort used in The Big Chill.

According to author Pat Conroy, Lt. Col. Bull Meecham is based entirely on his own father, Donald Conroy, a Marine fighter pilot who referred to himself in the third person as “The Great Santini.” Donald Conroy took the nickname from a magician he’d seen as a child. Pat and Donald Conroy were on the set on the day that Robert Duvall and Michael O’Keefe filmed the scene where Bull Meecham bullies and taunts Ben after losing to him in a basketball game. A woman on the set asked Donald Conroy if he and Pat had really played games like that. Donald Conroy replied, “Every day, madam. Every single day.” However, the book and movie gave Donald Conroy an opportunity to mend fences with his children, especially Pat. After the novel was published, Donald Conroy would often accompany his son to book signings, and would sign his son’s novels with the signature, “Donald Conroy - The Great Santini.”

On the morning of the Academy Award nominations in 1981, when the movie got nods for actor and supporting actor, author Pat Conroy received a phone call from him father who told him “You and me got nominated for Academy Awards, your mother didn’t get squat”.[/b]

THE GREAT SANTINI
Written and directed by Lewis John Carlino

[b]Bull: I am Santini, the Great Santini. I come from behind the moon, out of the dark, unannounced. Watch out!

…

Mary Anne: I don’t know why Matt’s so sensitive. He’s practically a giant, for a midget.

…

Ben: Would you like to die in action, Dad?
Bull: It’s better than dying of piles.

…

Bull: This is it, sports fans, Beaufort, S.C.
Mary Anne: And to think I mistook it for Paris, France.

…

Mary Anne: He does remind me someone from the movies, but it’s not Rhett Butler.
Karen: Who’s that?
Mary Anne: Godzilla.

…

Bull: Jesus, Lillian, the little homo is sleeping naked!

…

Bull: Who the hell asked you anything?
[slaps Lillian]
Lillian: Don’t you talk to me like that! Now, he beat you and it was beautiful.

…

Bull [to Lillian]: Our son has it all. He’s fast, he’s got balance, he’s got smarts. But I think you gentled him too much. It screws up his instincts and his timing. There’s one thing I want to give my son and that’s the gift of fury. I want him to gobble up the world. Eat life, or it’ll eat him.

…

Lillian: Your father is very nervous about this game. Look at me, young lady! Look at me! You’ve got to interpret the signals he gives off!
Mary Anne: No problem! He always gives off the signals of a psychopathic killer, so it really doesn’t matter how you interpret them!

…

Mary Anne: Hey Dad, why do you love me more than your other children?
Bull: Beat it, I’m reading the sports page.
Mary Anne: Let’s have a conversation Dad. Let’s bare our souls and get to know one another.
Bull: I don’t want you to get to know me. I like being an enigma, like a Chink. Now scram.
Mary Anne: Am I a Meechum Dad? Can girls be real Meechums; girls without jump shots? Or am I a simple form of Meechum, like in biology. Mary Anne, the one-celled Meechum.
Bull: Mary Anne scram, I’m starting to lose my temper; Lilian!
Mary Anne: [falls to the ground] Dad, I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant by a negro Daddy. His name is Rufus, I didn’t wanna tell you but since we’re baring our souls to each other. Rufus is a pacifist; a pacifist homosexual.
Bull: Jesus H. Christ! Lillian, I’m going to the club. I’ll see you all at the game! I can’t stand it around here!
[storms off as Mary Anne follows him.]
Mary Anne: But you’ll get to like him after awhile Dad. Dwarfs are easy to like, especially when they’re bald and cross-eyed…Dad…Dad…DAD!!

…

Bull: Get that punk and put him on the deck. Get him or I’ll get you. Get him or don’t come home.

…

Bull: No. Don’t get between niggers and grits when they go after each other. I’m giving you a direct order, Hog! Acknowledge!

…

Ben: [Angry with his father] I hope he dies out there with the rest of the snakes!

…

Mary Anne: How sicko-sexual can you get.[/b]

Here’s the thing.

I’m not able to provide all the dialogue I’d like because the fucking dvd has no subtitles and this is a film where the English [brutally working class] is barely distinguishable from gibberish at times. At least to my ears.

On the other hand what is really there to be heard? The context [and the characters] speak louder than anything that might possibly be said.

With films like this you ask yourself over and again: Does poverty [or the rigors of the working class] create characters like this more or less than characters like this create [and then sustain] their own decrepitude? More lives of quiet desparation to…deaden us? entertain us?

And then there’s religion and God and immigration and race and domestic violence and all the rest of it.

I think the point here is this: even if you are able to feel something analogous to hope, the odds of sustaining it much beyond a short period of time are small. Why? Because it’s always never nothing in lives like this. Just like ours but on steroids.

Anyway: THIS IS FUCKING ACTING!

Here’s the trailer:

youtube.com/watch?v=4GxFHpnSECY

IMDb

In the early bar scene where Joseph is sitting alone talking to himself, the voice off screen saying, “Are you all right, Joseph?” belongs to director Paddy Considine, who said he was so taken in by Peter Mullan’s performance that the question was totally spontaneous.

wiki

[b]The American film critic and blogger Jeffrey Wells was so taken by Tyrannosaur after seeing it at the L.A. Film Festival that he started ‘Hollywood Elsewhere’s Tyrannosaur fundraising campaign’ with the idea of raising $2,000 to cover the rental of a screening room so that the film could be shown in Hollywood with the hope of gaining Oscar recognition. Wells claimed this was the first ever critic-funded screening.

Roger Ebert remarked: “This isn’t the kind of movie that even has hope enough to contain a message. There is no message, only the reality of these wounded personalities.”[/b]

TYRANNOSAUR
Written and directed by Paddy Considine

[b]Hannah: Would you like me to pray you?
[She gets down on her knees]
Hannah: Dear God, I am asking you now to touch this man and to reach into his heart. He’s in pain Lord. I believe you brought him here for me to help him find his way. He seems lost Lord. Give him the strenght to find the way…

…

Hannah: I prayed for you again last night.
Joseph: Well, it didn’t fucking work.
Hannah: Do you want God to forgive you for something?
Joeseph [chuckling menacingly]: I don’t want anything from that fucker.
Hannah: God loves you. You’re God’s child.
Joseph: God ain’t my fucking daddy, my daddy was a cunt. He knew he was a cunt. God still thinks he’s God. No-one’s told him otherwise.

…

Hannah: Why are you so angry at God?
Joseph: Why are you so fucking stupid?..What do you know about the world?[/b]

It seems he has been around “goody-goodies” like her all his life. But not quite. The film cuts to Hannah’s home. She is on the couch sleeping. Her husband walks in, goes over to the couch, pulls down his zipper and urinates on her.

[b]Joseph [leaving the shop and Hannah in tears]: Thanks for the tea. I’ll pray for you.

…

Hannah: Do you have something to say to me? You haven’t come to rage at me? swear at me? make fun of me? question my beliefs? criticize me for my cozy life?
Joseph: No.
Hannah: Well, that’s good of you. Bye.

…

Hannah [throwing something at a picture of Christ]: What are you fucking looking at? Fuck you!!

…

Hannah: I feel safe with you.
Joseph: Nobody’s safe with me

…

Hannah: What? What’s wrong? Who are you looking at? Who are you to judge me? You know nothing about me. You don’t know what that bastard did to me!

…

Joseph: That’s the second dog I’ve killed. I love dogs. But it had to be done to even things up.[/b]

A psychological thriller. That changes everything doesn’t it? Time to put on your thinking cap. Time to guess at what is real and what is only perceived to be real.

The disintegrating mind.

I like movies where you [the viewer] are required to do the connecting. How we perceive how others perceive us seems to be an important theme here. But it doesn’t loom nearly as large as how we come to perceive ourselves. It is from this that so much in the way of alienation and paranoia [and even madness] can become a part of our lives. Especially for those who have actually been “tenants” in which “the neighbors” must somehow be integrated into their sense of reality. Polanski does not even give himself credit as an actor in the film. How much of this relates to him being a French citizen but not a “real” Frenchman? Or in being Jewish? Who fucking knows.

Here the neighbors and the apartments are mostly in his head. But how much of what is inside comes from what is outside?

By the end of the film you almost expect to see Rod Serling come out into view from the shadows.

IMDb

Along with Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby this film is part of a loose trilogy by Roman Polanski dealing with the horrors faced by apartment/city dwellers.

This comes a lot closer to Repulsion.

wiki

[b]While the main character is clearly paranoid to some extent (as exemplified in the scene when he believes a neighbour is strangling him, when he is in fact shown strangling himself), this film does not entirely reveal whether everything takes place in his head or if the strange events happening around him actually do exist, at least partially.

The Tenant was poorly received on its release, it has since become a cult favourite. The film holds a 90% Certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[/b]

THE TENANT [Le Locataire] 1976
Written and directed by Roman Polanski

[b]The Concierge: The previous tenant threw herself out of the window. You can still see where she fell. Look…She’s not dead yet, though she might as well be.

…

Minister [mouthing the sermon heard inside Trelkovsky’s head]: Yes, the dying. The icy tomb. Thou shalt return to the dust from whence thou came. And only thy bones remain. The worms shall consume thy eyes, thy lips, thy mouth. They shall enter into thy ears. They shall enter into thy nostrils. The body shall putrefy unto its innermost recesses and shall give off a noisome stench. Yea, Christ is ascended into Heaven and hath joined the host of angels on high, but not for creeps like you full of the basest vice yearning only for carnal satisfaction. How dare you pester me, and mock me to my very face! What audacity! What are you doing in my temple? The graveyard is where you belong. Thou shalt stink. Thou shalt stink like some putrefied corpse lying anong the wayside. Verily I say unto thee thou shalt never enter into my kingdom!

…

Trelkovsky: There is something odd going on in my building. I see people in the toilets, on the other side of the courtyard.
Friend: People together in the shithouse? Like an orgy?
Trelkovsky: No, they just stand there for hours, you know? Absolutely dead still.

…

Zy: Oh…and by the way… The former tenant always wore slippers after ten o’clock. It was much more comfortable for her. And for the neighbours.

…

Stella: She was looking at you when she let out that cry.

…

Trelkovsky: Do you have trouble with your neighbours?
Man: What sort of trouble?
Trelkovsky: You know…These days, relationships with neighbours can get quite complicated. You know, little things that get blown up out of all proportion. You know what I mean?
Man: No. No, I don’t. I mind my own business.
Trelkovsky: So do I. It’s the best way.

…

Stella: Why don’t you take your tie off? You look like you’re choking to death.
Trelkovsky: I found a tooth in my apartment. It was in a hole.

…

Trelkovsky: Tell me… At what precise moment…does an individual stop being who he thinks he is? You know, I don’t like complications. Cut off my arm. I say, “Me and my arm.” You cut off my other arm. I say, “Me and my two arms.” You…take out…take out my stomach, my kidneys, assuming that were possible… And I say, “Me and my intestines.” Follow me?
Stella: Mm-hmm
Trelkovsky: And now, if you cut off my head…would I say, “Me and my head” or “Me and my body”? What right has my head to call itself me? What right?

…

Trelkovsky: They want to drive me to suicide. All right. I’ll show them.[/b]

Jane Fonda won an academy award for her performance as Bree. She deserved it. But it is Donald Sutherland’s character Klute that is far more fascinating to watch. Or was for me. Why? I’m not sure I can explain it clearly. He tumbles into a world far removed from the one he knows but seems more in command of it than it is of him. I thought he was great.

Here sex [the sex that’s talked about] is even weirder than it usually is up on the screen. But men are men are men. Or most of them are.

There will always be a gap [sometimes enormous] between an uninhibited frame of mind that is satisfying and an uninhibited frame of mind that is terrifying. We have to roll the dice with some people. Or stay inhibited with most of them.

One of the strangest love stories you’ll ever see.

IMDb

[b]According to her autobiography, Jane Fonda hung out with call girls and pimps for a week before beginning this film in order to prepare for her role. When none of the pimps offered to “represent” her, she became convinced she wasn’t desirable enough to play a prostitute and urged the director to replace her with friend Faye Dunaway.

Although Fonda had planned on playing scared for the scene with the murderer (played by Charles Cioffi), when she heard the tape recording of the call girl about to be murdered and the fear in her voice, she unexpectedly started crying.[/b]

KLUTE
Directed by Alan J. Pakula

[b]Detective: I’d like you to know that situations of this kind are not unique, Mrs Gruneman. A man will lead a double life. A Jekyll-and-hyde existence and his wife has no idea what’s going on.

…

Bree [on tape]: You should never be ashamed of things like that. You mustn’t be. You know, there’s nothing wrong. Nothing is wrong. I think the only way that any of us can ever be happy…is to let it all hang out. You know, do it all and fuck it!

…

Psychologist: What’s the difference between going on a call as a model or an actress, as a call girl? You’re successful as a call girl…
Bree: Because when you’re a call girl you control it, that’s why. Because someone wants you. Not me. I mean, there are some johns that I have regularly that want me and that’s terrific. But they want a woman and I know I’m good. I arrive at their hotel or their apartment and they’re usually nervous, which is fine, because I’m not. I know what I’m doing. For an hour I’m the best actress in the world. I’m the best fuck in the world. And…
Psychologist: Why did you say you’re the best actress in the world?
Bree: Because it’s an act. That’s what’s nice about it. You don’t have to feel anything. You don’t have to care about anything. You don’t have to like anybody. You just lead them by the ring in their nose in the direction they think they want to go. You get a lot of money out of them in as short period of time as possible. You control it and you call the shots and I always feel just great afterwards.
Psychologist: And you enjoyed it?
Bree: No.
Psychologist: Why not? You say there’s nothing wrong. Why not? You said…
Bree: There’s a difference. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it morally. I didn’t enjoy it physically. I came to enjoy it because it made me feel good. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It made me feel that I had some control over myself, that I had some control over my life. That I could determine things for myself. I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. It’s just so silly to think that somebody else can help anybody, isn’t it?

…

Klute: What about this evening, the old man?
Bree: You saw that? Goddamn you! He’s 70 years old! His wife’s dead. He’s cut garments since he was 14. He’s maybe in his whole life had one week vacation and I’m all he’s got! He never lays a hand on me! What harm is there in that?

…

What’s your bag, Klute? What do you like? Are you a talker? A button freak? Maybe you like to get your chest walked around with high heeled shoes. Or make 'em watch you tinkle. Or maybe you get off wearing women’s clothes. Goddamned hypocrite squares!

…

Bree: Men would pay $200 for me, and here you are turning down a freebie. You could get a perfectly good dishwasher for that.

…

Bree: Tell me, Klute. Did we get you a little? Huh? Just a little bit? Us city folk? The sin, the glitter, the wickedness? Huh?
Klute: Ah that’s so pathetic.

…

Bree: Are you upset because you didn’t make me come? I never come with a john.

…

Bree [to psychologist]: I was trying to get away from a world that I had known, because I don’t think it was very good for me, and I found myself Iooking up its ass and seeing people that I used to know and that I liked a lot…that were my friends. Sort of. Girls that could have been me. I mean, I know I’m not stupid. I guess I just realized that I don’t really give a damn. What I would really like to do is be faceless and bodiless and be left alone.

…

Bree: Well, there’s this man, this detective and I don’t know exactly what is happening or what he wants out of me, or anything like that. But he took care of me.
Psychologist: Did you feel threatened by it?
Bree: I don’t know. When you’re used to being lonely and somebody comes in and moves that around, it’s sort of scary I guess.
Psychologist: How do you feel when you feel scared?
Bree: Angry.
Psychologist:: At whom?
Bree: Whoever is making me feel that way.
Psychologist: Do you feel angry at him?
Bree; Half of the time, yes.
Psychologist: How do you feel angry? What do you want to do?
Bree: I want to manipulate him. How? In all the ways that I can manipulate people. I mean, it’s easy to manipulate men. Right?[/b]

That’s not what we see on the screen though. Or is that me up there?

[b]Bree: I feel physically, that’s what’s different. I mean, I feel. My body feels. I enjoy making love with him. Which is a very baffling and bewildering thing, because I’ve never felt that before. I wish that I could let things happen and enjoy it, you know for what it is and while it lasts and relax about it. But all the time, I keep feeling the need to destroy it. To break it off. To go back to the comfort of being numb again. I keep hoping, in a way, that it’s going to end. Because I had more control before, when I was with tricks. I knew what I was doing and I was setting everything up. And that’s what’s so strange: It’s that I’m not setting anything up. That something is. You know what this is like, but I’ve never felt it before. It’s a new thing and it’s so strange. The sensation that something that is flowing from me naturally to somebody else without it’s being prettied up or…I mean, he’s seen me horrible! He’s seen me ugly! He’s seen me mean. He’s seen me whorey and it doesn’t seem to matter. He seems to accept me. I guess having sex with somebody and feeling those sort of feelings towards them is very new to me. I wish that I didn’t keep wanting to destroy it.

…

Bree: You’re not gonna get hung up on me, are you?[/b]

What she never figured on though was getting hung up on him.

[b]Peter: I have no idea what I’m going to do. I’m so deeply puzzled. I’ve done terrible things, I’ve killed three people. Really, I don’t consider myself a terrible man, no more than-than others. See, Tom Gruneman had discovered me. We were here on business together and he found me and Jane McKenna in my hotel room. She had become hysterical and she started screaming and I guess I hit her. I don’t actually recall, it all happened so quickly. Anyway, she fell and hit her head and that’s when Tom came in the room. I guess he must have heard her screaming. But I never understood really why she did that, she had never screamed before. And it was the revulsion and the contempt that I saw in his face. And the certainty that sooner or later he would use it against me within the company. And I tried to endure that as long as I possibly could, you see. You just want me to keep on talking, don’t you?
Bree: No, I don’t. I do understand, I really do.
Peter: Make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all a great big game to you. I mean, you’re all obviously too lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I’m sure it comes as no great suprise to you when I say that there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone; sicknesses, weaknesses, which–which should never be exposed. But that’s your stock in trade, isn’t it - a man’s weakness? And I was never really fully aware of mine until you brought them out.

…

Bree: I’ve explained to him what I have to do and I think he understands. What could ever happen for us? I mean, we’re so different. I know enough about myself to know that whatever lies in store for me it’s not going to be setting up housekeeping with somebody in Tuscarora and darning socks and doing all that. I’d go out of my mind. Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know how I feel about him. It’s so hard for me to say it! God!
Psychologist: To say what?
Bree: I’m going to miss him. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I just can’t stay in the city, you know? Maybe I’ll come back. You’ll probably see me next week. [/b]

Why not just call them fucking losers and be done with it? Can you imagine the reaction of an Objectivist watching this?!

That’s why it’s a “cult classic”. If you belong to the cult you make allowances for things like that.

Thank God for Uncle Monty!

The 60s laid bare? Or do they miss the point too? Unfortunately, I spent the three most crucial years in the United States fucking army. I did the bulk of my dope smoking in Song Be.

And, for that matter, the best of my male bonding. RIP Danny.

The deathnell of many things. Chin chin.

IMDb

[b]Withnail is a ferocious drunk, but he was played by the teetotaler Richard E. Grant. Finally convinced that he needed to get drunk at least once to have the proper insight into the character, Grant “filled a tumbler with vodka and topped it off with a bit of Pepsi”, then swilled the whole thing down. He was teased the next day by costar Paul McGann and director Bruce Robinson, who assured him that he would never be so funny on film again.

Originally written by Bruce Robinson as a novel. Its conclusion is quite different from the film’s: after his soliloquy in the rain at the park, Withnail returns to the flat he shared with Marwood, loads the rifle he took from Monty’s country home, pours some wine (also taken from Monty) down its barrel, then puts the muzzle to his lips and drinks. He then pulls the trigger on the gun, killing himself.

It was this film that prompted the family of Jimi Hendrix to take back full control over the use of his songs. They had grown dismayed by the association of Hendrix with drug culture in general.[/b]

WITHNAIL AND I
Written and directed by Bruce Robinson

[b]Withnail: Right, you fucker, I’m going to do the washing up!
Marwood: No, no, you can’t. It’s impossible, I swear it. I’ve looked into it. Listen to me, listen to me! There are things in there, there’s a tea-bag growing! You haven’t slept in sixty hours, you’re in no state to tackle it. Wait till the morning, we’ll go in together.
Withnail: This IS the morning. Stand aside!
Marwood: [holding him back] You don’t understand. I think there may be something living in there, I think there may be something alive.
Withnail: What do you mean? a rat?
Marwood: It’s possible, it’s possible.
Withnail: Then the fucker will rue the day!

…

Withnail [reading from a tabloid]: “In a world exclusive interview, 33 year old shot putter Geoff Woade who weighs 317 pounds, admitted taking massive doses of anabolic steroids, a drug banned in sport. It used to get him bad tempered and act out said his wife. He used to pick on me. But now he’s stopped he’s much better in our sex life and in our general life.” Jesus Christ. This huge, thatched head with its earlobes and cannonball is now considered sane. “Geoff Woade is feeling better and is now prepared to step back into society and start tossing his orb about.” Look at him! Look at Geoff Woade! His head must weight fifty pounds on its own. Imagine the size of his balls. Imagine getting into a fight with the fucker!

…

Withnail: FORK IT!

…

Withnail: What is it? What have you found?
Marwood [pulling gunk up out of the sink]: Matter.

…

Withnail: This is ridiculous. Look at me, I’m 30 in a month and I’ve got a sole flapping off my shoe.

…

Marwood: If my father was loaded I’d ask him for some money.
Withnail: If your father was my father you wouldn’t get it.

…

[Marwood is in the pub toilets, after walking past a hulking Irishman who’s called him a ponce]
Marwood: [voiceover] I could hardly piss straight with fear. Here was a man with 3/4 of an inch of brain who’d taken a dislike to me. What had I done to offend him? I don’t consciously offend big men like this. And this one has a decided imbalance of hormone in him. Get any more masculine than him and you’d have to live up a tree.
[reading graffiti]
Marwood: “I fuck arses.” Who fucks arses?
[aloud]
Marwood: Maybe he fucks arses!
[voice-over]
Marwood: Maybe he’s written this in some moment of drunken sincerity. I’m in considerable danger in here. I must get out!

…

Marwood: [voiceover] Speed is like a dozen transatlantic flights without ever getting off the plane. Time change. You lose, you gain. Makes no difference so long as you keep taking the pills. But sooner or later you’ve got to get out because it’s crashing, and then all at once those frozen hours melt out through the nervous system and seep out the pores.

…

Marwood: Don’t vent spleen on me, I’m in the same boat!
Withnail: Stop saying that! You’re not in the same boat. The only thing you’re in that I’ve been in is this fucking bath!

…

Marwood: [voiceover] If The Crow and Crown had ever had life it was dead now. It was like walking into a lung. A self-sustained nicotine-yellow and fly-blown lung. Its landlord was a retired alcoholic with military pretensions and a complexion like the inside of a teapot. By the time the doors opened he was arseholed on rum and got progressively more arseholed until he could take no more and fell over at about 12 o’clock.

…

Uncle Monty: The older order changeth, yielding place to new. God fulfills himself in many ways. And soon, I suppose, I shall be swept away by some vulgar little tumour. Oh, my boys, my boys, we’re at the end of an age. We live in a land of weather forcasts and breakfasts that set in. Shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour. And here we are, we three, perhaps the last island of beauty in the world.

…

Danny: My partner’s got a really good idea for making dolls. His name’s Presuming Ed. His sister give him the idea. She got a doll on Christmas what pisses itself. Then you gotta change its drawers for it. It’s horrible really but they like that, the little girls. So we’re gonna make one that shits itself as well.

…

Uncle Monty: It is the most shattering experience of a young man’s life when one morning he awakens and quite reasonably says to himself, I will never play the Dane.

…

Marwood: What’s he told you?
Uncle Monty: He told me about your arrest in the Tottenham Court Road. He told me about your problems. How you feel. Your desires.
Marwood: Problems, what problems?
Uncle Monty: You are a toilet trader.

…

Marwood: How dare you tell him I’m a toilet trader!
Withnail: Tactical necessity. If I had told him you were active we’d never have got the cottage.
Marwood: I’d never have wanted it, not with him in it!
Withnail: I never thought he’d come all this way.
Marwood: Monty, he’d go to New York!
Withnail: Calculated risk

…

Marwood: He’s a madman. Any moment now he’s going to rush out and get into his tights.

…

Withnail: Free to those that can afford it, very expensive to those that can’t.

…

Withnail: [seeing a road sign reading “ACCIDENT BLACK SPOT. DRIVE WITH EXTREME CARE”] Look at that, accident black spot! These aren’t accidents! They’re throwing themselves into the road glady! Throwing themselves into the road to escape all this hideousness!
[shouts out the car window at a man standing on the pavement]
Withnail: Throw yourself into the road, darling! You haven’t got a chance!

…

Withnail: I feel like a pig shat in my head.

…

Marwood: Right, now we’re going to have to approach this scientifically. First thing we’ve got to do is get this fire alight, then we split into two fact finding groups. I’ll deal with the water and the plumbings, you check the fuel and wood situation.
[a few minutes later, Withnail re-enters the cottage holding a wet stick]
Marwood: What’s that?
Withnail: The fuel and wood situation. There’s nothing out there except a hurricane.

…

Marwood: You never discuss your family do you?
Withnail: I fail to see my family’s of any interest to you. I’ve absolutely no interest in yours. I dislike relatives in general and in particular mine.
Marwood: Why?
Withnail: I’ve told you why. We’re incompatible. They don’t like me being on stage.
Marwood: Then they must be delighted with your career.
Withnail: What do you mean?
Marwood: You rarely are.

…

Withnail [of the chicken]: Shouldn’t it be balder than that?

…

Withnail: I suppose happiness is relative. But I never thought it would be a polythene bag without a hole in it.

…

Marwood: A coward you are, Withnail. An expert on bulls you are not!

…

Withnail: This place has become impossible. Perpetual rain. Freezing cold. And now a bloody madman on the prowl outside with eels.

…

Monty: I can never touch meat until it’s cooked. As a youth I used to weep in butcher’s shops.

…

Withnail: I’ll say one thing for Monty, he keeps a sensational cellar.

…

Withnail: This place is uninhabitable.
Marwood: Give it a chance. It’s got to warm up.
Withnail: Warm up? We may as well sit round this cigarette.

…

Danny: The joint I’m about to roll requires a craftsman. It can utilise up to 12 skins. It is called a Camberwell Carrot.
Marwood: It’s impossible to use 12 papers on one joint.
Danny: It’s impossible to make a Camberwell Carrot with anything less.
Withnail: Who says it’s a Camberwell Carrot?
Danny: I do. I invented it in Camberwell, and it looks like a carrot.[/b]

It does. A very big one.

[b]Marwood: Aren’t you getting absurdly high?
Danny: Precisely the reason I’m smoking it.

…

Withnail: What are you talking about, Danny?
Danny: Politics, man. If you’re hanging onto a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision - let go before it’s too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.

…

Withnail: There’s always time for a drink.

…

Withnail: I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. And indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory. This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! How like an angel in apprehension. How like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me, no, nor women neither. Nor women neither.[/b]