This is a response to a previous post of mine from quite a while ago (100 Years, 100 Better Quotes - 6/25/05). Although they're fairly well known (and fairly obvious to most film buffs) here's Film Babble Blog fan Hollie Gibson's top 10 movie quotes, along with some thoughts:
“Well, it takes a certain type of woman to wear a backless dress with a Beretta 70 strapped to her thigh.” If you have recently seen the new James Bond film, SKYFALL, you may recognize that quote.
Yes, James Bond is still the master of the one-liners. In fact, his quotes are so well known that they have infiltrated our language. We want our Martinis “shaken not stirred” in just the same way that Sean Connery had his in GOLDFINGER.
Of course, it's always fun to have a night out at the cinema, but now we have the technology to take it into our own homes. With a huge Samsung TV and a tub of popcorn, who needs to leave the house anymore?
Top 10 Film Quotes
Apart from James Bond films, there are many other famous quotes. Here's some of the best:
1. “May the Force be with you” is the quote from Han Solo in STAR WARS which has now become such a familiar part of our language.
2. “I want to be alone” was Greta Garbo's sultry line from the film GRAND HOTEL.
3. “There's no place like home” is how Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ felt after a long journey of killing witches, wearing red sparkly shoes and visiting the Emerald City.
4. “I'll have what she's having” is the classic quote from the envious customer in a restaurant in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.
5. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine” is one of the famous lines spoken by Rick Blaine in the classic film CASABLANCA. The other, of course, is “Who's looking at you kid?”
6. “Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn” is the line spoken by Clarke Gable to Scarlett O'Hara at the end of GONE WITH THE WIND. Her feisty retort was “After all, tomorrow is another day.”
7. “I see dead people” is the line which sends shivers up your spine from the young boy Cole Sear in THE SIXTH SENSE.
8. “Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?” is the flirty line spoken by Benjamin Braddock to Mrs Robinson in THE GRADUATE.
9. With “I'll be back,” Arnold Schwarzenegger lets us know what's in store for us in THE TERMINATOR.
10. “Here's Johnny!” Of course, if you really want some classic scary stuff there's nothing to beat Jack Nicholson in THE SHINING as his axe bursts through the door.
These are some of the best quotes to be found in films, but there are many more to familiarize yourself with. So why not spend an evening settled down in front of your massive television set, warm up some popcorn and see how many more classic quotes you can come up with?
Or you could just spend a nostalgic evening watching the films mentioned above. In the words of Bette Davis in ALL ABOUT EVE, “Fasten your seat-belts. It's going to be a bumpy night.”
More later...
I recently received the 1st DVD of season 1 of the much buzzed about HBO show Flight Of The Conchords from NetFlix. The 6 episodes on the disc were very funny with crazily catchy songs by the kooky kiwi folk/rap duo, but trouble was that I had waited for it for 3 months!
That's right, since it was released on December 17th, 2007 it had been at "very long wait" in my queue. I enjoyed it but can't quite say it was completely worth the wait.
During this "very long wait" I had composed a rough draft list of 10 complaints about NetFlix but abandoned it because it wasn't really thought out and also the next day my next DVD came broken in half - so I thought karma was against me. And I hadn't even posted it!
So being newly frustrated with the DVD mailing program I decided to refine the list of pet peeves and pair it down to 5 complaints. Now, don't get me wrong - I really like NetFlix and think overall they provide an excellent service.
I do think some other high volume users and film buff geeks like me will find something to relate to in this persnickety list which I call: 5 Snivelling Bitchy Beefs About NetFlix
1. Lack Of New Release Special Editions Of Undeniable Classics - I noticed that the 50th Anniversary Edition of 12 ANGRY MEN - the 1957 Sidney Lumet Best Picture winning cinematic standard - has just been released on March 4th and contains 2 hours of bonus material. There's a new transfer of the best available print, a commentary by historian Drew Casper, and two "making of" featurettes. Sounds pretty sweet, huh? Well, NetFlix doesn't carry it.
They only have the 2001 non-anamorphic Vintage Classics release that has only the trailer as bonus material available. Wha? Also, NetFlix doesn't carry The 40th Anniversary Edition of THE GRADUATE, The WALL STREET (20th Anniversary Edition), and even the 26th Anniversary of THE JERK is nowhere to be found! Okay, so maybe they have something against anniversary editions but Criterion re-releases are often dissed too - THE ICE STORM - Criterion Collection, set to be released tomorrow (March 18th), is nowhere on their schedule.
The idea that NetFlix doesn't upgrade from the old original releases to the new enhanced editions with better transfers doesn't give the impression that they are catering to the real film fan. Seems like these titles would get more action if their definitive new models were available. To their credit they did have BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT available right off the bat.
2. The Removal Of Their Upcoming New Releases page - What gives? When I previously went browsing under the tab that says "New Releases" I used to have the option to see upcoming releases on a page that wasn't flashy, just informative about all the releases coming out the next week.
Now that page is gone with just a basic showcase, movable by arrows, that shows 4 titles at a time - none of which are either brand new or upcoming just labeled as "Popular New Releases". It seems like they don't want us to know what to put in our queue in advance - the lack of a release date on say, GRACE IS GONE (Availability - Unknown) when Amazon lists it as May 27, 2008 seems a bit suspicious. Just sayin'.
3. No Saturday Service - Yes, they specify this on their website that they process "rental returns Monday through Friday, except holidays, via the United States Postal Service."
Okay, but dammit for the "world's largest online movie rental service, providing more than seven million subscribers access to more than 90,000 DVD titles plus a growing library of more than 5,000 choices" - shouldn't Saturday be added to the workweek?
I mean I hate that if I mail a disc on Friday (or sometimes Thursday) they won't get it until Monday and I won't get my next movie til Tuesday or Wednesday possibly! I mean, I just hate that. 4. Odd Inventory Practices - Sometimes as a heavy user a transaction can be a bit baffling.
I had FACTORY GIRL, a movie that was not a hit or critical success in my queue at "very long wait" last year and it's status kept changing - availability: "short wait" then "now" then back to "very long wait". I got many releases in the meantime that were much more popular and sometimes sent to me on the Monday before their release while FACTORY GIRL kept hanging back. When it finally came the actual disc had printed on it: “Sale copy – not for rental”! Uh, NetFlix - is that even legal? I mean, I'm just wondering.
5. They Turned My Site Down To Be A NetFlix Affiliate - Yep, sour grapes. Okay! So that about sums up my issues with the San Francisco based corporation that is successfully annihilating Blockbuster as well as Ma and Pa videostores across the map.
And I'm all for that - videostores are pretty anachronistic and irrelevant these days and will soon be extinct for a lot of technological advances they can't adapt to. From the point of view that to truly love something one can see its flaws all the more and shouldn't be afraid to point out what could be improved I hope this isn't taken the wrong way. Otherwise I just may have to get used to an empty mailbox.
More later...
This Friday, director Mike Nichols' latest film, CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, is getting a full release but it's another Nichols' movie released 40 years ago to the day (Dec. 21st, 1967) that I'm blogging about here - THE GRADUATE.
That's right, the much beloved classic that starred a young then unknown Dustin Hoffman as Benjamin Braddock, a college graduate who's worried about his future. Braddock's affair with Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), his courtship of her daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross), and the famous wedding crashing climax are all the stuff of legend so let's celebrate its 40th anniversary with this deluxe post.
There are Spoliers here so if you have not seen THE GRADUATE go immediately get a copy and watch it then get back to me. Everybody else should know the cast, the plot, and remember its widely quoted dialogue (even the currently playing I'M NOT THERE quotes the "good evening Mr. Gladstone" line) as well as the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack but here's some things that you may not know:
5 Fun Facts About THE GRADUATE:
1. Paul Simon's soundtrack submission was originally called "Mrs. Roosevelt" - According to Wikipedia Simon played the director a bit of a new composition and said "'It's a song about times past — about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff.' Nichols advised Simon, 'It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt.'"
2. It was Richard Dreyfus's first movie - Albeit a brief appearance but he's visible over landlord Norman Fell's (yep, he was also the landlord on Three's Company) shoulder in the boarding house scene. Dreyfus's only line: "Shall I call the cops? I'll call the cops."
3. The could have beens - Imagine alternate universe versions in which Benjamin is played by either Robert Redford, Charles Grodin (who both tested for the part) or Warren Beatty (who did BONNIE AND CLYDE instead) with Natalie Wood or Sally Field in the role of Elaine. Pretty much impossible to picture, huh? Also consider that Marilyn Monroe was originally slated to play Mrs. Robinson and that the part was also offered to Doris Day and you really get a Bizarro world thing going. Thank goodness the stars aligned casting-wise because if it went any of those directions I don't think I would be blogging about it today.
4. The leg in the poster isn't Anne Bancroft's - it's Linda Gray's. Gray, the Dallas TV star, later played Mrs. Robinson on stage in the West End and Broadway play adaptations.
5. Benjamin is driving in the wrong direction - In Dustin Hoffman's DVD commentary * he says "I remember after the film opening, for years, people coming up and saying 'you know you're going the wrong way?' " It's true Benjamin is driving his Alfa Romeo west on the upper deck of the San Francisco Bay Bridge though he's supposed to be on his way to Berkeley, which is to the east. On a separate commentary track Nichols tells Steven Soderbergh: "If you went to Berkeley you wouldn't be visible to a helicopter - you'd be on the lower level - I said screw it, you know? What are they going to do to us?".
* The new 40th anniversary DVD set has a recently recorded and very entertaining commentary with Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross. Hoffman does most of the talking - even when he confesses to Ross that he had a crush on her back in the day she has little to say.
I recently re-read the 1962 Charles Webb novel of THE GRADUATE (that's my own personal yellowed beat-up paperback pictured on the left) and was surprised at how close an adaptation the movie was. Only a few notable differences - Benjamin shortly after coming home to Pasenda takes a hitchhiking trip for a few weeks and claims to his father upon his return that he helped fight a large forest fire, washed dishes, and spent time with prostitutes. Since Benjamin twists the truth throughout the whole story we are not sure whether to believe him but it's a telling footnote. Also the iconic line "plastics" is not in the original text. However, "Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me" is.
There has been much talk of a sequel - Buck Henry's (playing himself - he was the original co-screenwriter of THE GRADUATE) pitch to studio exec. Tim Robbins in THE PLAYER (Dir. Robert Altman, 1992) of course comes to mind: ‘‘Okay, here it is: The Graduate, Part II! Ben and Elaine are married still, living in a big old spooky house in Northern California somewhere. Mrs. Robinson, her aging mother, lives with them. She’s had a stroke. And they’ve got a daughter in college — Julia Roberts, maybe. It’ll be dark and weird and funny — with a stroke.’’
In 2004 Nikki Finke in LA Weekly resonded angrily when she came upon a report of a sequel being produced with Kevin Costner, Jennifer Aniston, and Shirley MacLaine.
The resulting film RUMOR HAS IT... (Dir. Rob Reiner, 2005) turned out not to be a sequel but a regular ole rom com with the premise that a woman (Aniston) with the same Pasenda background discovers that her family was the inspiration for the characters in the book and movie.
Costner plays Beau Burroughs (get it?) and MacLlaine is the boozy cynical Mrs. Richelieu (of course you get it) and the whole affair is lame and badly written (they should've gotten Buck Henry to do a re-write) adding nothing to THE GRADUATE legacy. Looks like it has finally quashed the possibility of a sequel and uh, that the fact that one of the pivotal principles is no longer with us - the late great Anne Bancroft (1931-2005).
Okay! So once more Happy Birthday THE GRADUATE! Yet again, Benjamin and Elaine board the bus that drives off into the sunset and we all sigh.
More later...
