100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes reviewed by Ryan Ellis June 23, 2005
AFI's 8th "100 Years, 100 Fill In The Blank" show aired a few weeks ago and it was just amazingly, stupendously, wonderfully unpredictable. Can you believe that not one quote from 'Casablanca' made the list? Nothing from 'The Wizard Of Oz' or 'The Graduate' or 'Gone With The Wind' either. Wow! And the Top 15 was completely filled up with quotes from movies of the past 5 years. Double wow!
Okay, I'm tugging on your leg there. A pack of lies, everything I just said. Those world-famous American movies mentioned above were hugely represented (disproportionately, you might say) and the Top 15's most recent line was from a film made nearly a quarter a century ago ("E.T. phone home"). As per their mandate, the AFI lapdanced on the Bogie/Bergman masterpiece and fawned all over the Rhett/Scarlett tripe. If the #1 spot on these AFI lists isn't occupied by 'Casablanca', you can bet your house it'll be taken by 'Gone With The Wind'. Still, it was an inoffensive show and only 2 or 3 inclusions made me spit at my TV. [I've really got to stop spitting at my electronics.] The entire list can be found elsewhere on the 'Net. This is just a pile of my random thoughts...
Oh, and when I say "high up on the list", I mean close to #1. "Low on the list" means closer to the bottom...ie. close to #100. Now that we're clear:
Beef #1: What a weak line-up of presenters. The only one with anything funny or interesting to say was Bill Maher...and he's not even a movie guy! What happened to Spielberg and Scorsese, who were mainstays on these AFI broadcasts the first couple of years? This show featured about 4 people I've never heard of. At least when Ted Turner and Susan Lucci got some airtime in past years, I knew who the hell they were. Even Burt Reynolds had some interesting things to say on the original "100 Years, 100 Movies" episode, but I don't think he did anything more than re-quote the quotes tonight. What a waste. It's always cool to hear Cameron Crowe's thoughts and Maher kept it real. All the same, the talking heads were 95% useless.
Beef #2: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" at #1. Once "Here's looking at you, kid" clicked in at #5, I would have chewed my leg off if "Frankly" from 'Gone With The Wind' didn't rank #1. Not that I think it belongs there. I'd give it a spot somewhere in the Top 10, fine, but that's not a line people quote very often anymore. It has its place, but lines from 'The Godfather', 'The Wizard Of Oz', and 'Casablanca' have held up far better. "Frankly" was shocking because you just didn't say things like "damn" on-screen in 1939. Today, "damn" would get you a G rating. Worse, though, leads me to...
Beef #3: The absurd follow-up line to "Frankly". I've always hated "After all, tomorrow is another day" (#31), so it actually undercuts the "you go, boy" quality to Rhett's gathering of his balls and finally telling Scarlett to go to hell. I like "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again" (#59) and "Frankly" is worth being on this list somewhere, but that ridiculously weepy "After all" speech is pure drivel. And since I don't like the line in the first place and it comes after Rhett's parting shot, how I say anything else except "Frankly" ought not be even within striking distance of #1? Then again, the voters for these shows are the same apple-in-the-eye retards who think Atticus Finch is the greatest hero of all time, but can't find room for Luke Skywalker or Jesus Christ.
Beef #4: The quotes that made my eyes roll in disgust were "After all" and "Love means never having to say you're sorry" (#13). These two weren't surprising choices, mind you. I just hate the lines. "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is the dumbest famous line in movie history (and I'm glad they included the final scene in 'What's Up, Doc?' where Ryan O'Neal says that very thing to Streisand). I knew those two idiotic quotes would make this list and it was no surprise that they both finished as high as they did, but they're still just flat-out stupid.
Beef #5: 'Mommie Dearest' has now managed to get a villain and a quote ("No wire hangers!" at #72) on these AFI shows. Since it's one of the worst movies you could be coerced into seeing, this is an abomination. Let's stop honouring crap. Please.
Badly Ranked #1: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" (#4). Good line, used amusingly out of context many times over the years, but that's not a Top 5 quote.
Badly Ranked #2: "It was beauty killed the beast" (#84). With Peter Jackson's 'King Kong' remake coming out in December and hopefully a DVD release of the original 'King Kong' this year, this line is more on minds than ever. And it perfectly sums up the entire "beauty and the beast" dynamic you get in all the great pretty girl / hideous guy stories. Deserved to be closer to the Top 25 or 30.
Badly Ranked #3: "Vodka martini, shaken, not stirred" (#90). Shoulda been about 40 spots higher. This is an iconic line from an iconic character. They got the "Bond, James Bond" line ranked nicely at #22. His drink order should have been somewhere closer to his inverted name-dropping.
Badly Ranked #4: "Hey, Stella!" (#45) Should have been much higher, like in the 20s. If you want a pure representation of "I'm sorry I pushed you around, honey, and now I want to bang you till Tuesday" animal lust, that's it. And like many of Brando's quotes, everybody knows it as soon as they hear it, even if it's a bad impressionist (like me) doin' the quotin'.
Badly Ranked #5: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good" (#57). Move it up a few dozen notches. Since (as Bill Maher pointed out) "greed is good" is America's unironic and unofficial motto in 2005, Ollie Stone's 'Wall Street' script obviously forecasted a financial war zone in the States where Gordon Gekko is really just a wimp who didn't know just how greedy this part of the world was going to get. He'd get creamed by the guys on Wall Street today.
Badly Ranked #6: "Is it safe?" (#70) That one gives me the creeps just to think about it. I don't normally fear the dentist, but I'd never think about watching 'Marathon Man' even 2 weeks before a root canal. And it encapsulates the paranoia of being cornered (or strapped into a chair, in this case) and asked a question you have no idea how to answer. Damned if you do, damned if you do not. Terrifying scene and a chilling line of repeated dialogue for ol' Larry Olivier.
Badly Ranked #7: "Say hello to my little friend!" (61). I'm not a fan of 'Scarface' (although I've learned to appreciate Brian De Palma and I want to rent his violent opus on DVD soon to see if I like it a second time), but this quote is about as well-known as it gets. Plop it in the Top 30 or 40 and I'd be on-board. At #61, it's just too low.
Badly Ranked #8: Eastwood's "do you feel lucky" (#51) speech in 'Dirty Harry' is about as memorable as such speeches get. Kinda like "You can't handle the truth!" (#29) stares us in the face today. These guys are saying, "if you people want justice and safety, then leave us vicious bastards alone and let us do whatever it takes to protect you". We can't have it both ways, although we always do, don't we? Nicholson's speech from 'A Few Good Men' is up where it belongs, but Clint's from 'Dirty Harry' was owed a loftier spot than #51.
Badly Ranked #9: Since many trusted film folks believe that "Well, nobody's perfect" from 'Some Like It Hot' is the best closing line in movie history, that it ranked at only #48 is baffling.
Badly Ranked #10: "I'll be back" (#37). Considering how famous Ah-nuld's recurring line is, I thought the voters would cast enough ballots to get it up in the Top 20. There's nothing disgraceful about being #37, but I just thought they'd put it higher. Same goes for #36, "We don't have to show you any steenkin' badges!" from 'The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre'. Now there's a helluva movie and a great (usually misquoted) line.
Badly Ranked #11: "You're gonna need a bigger boat" (#35). I'm biased about 'Jaws', so any argument I make is tainted. It's fine at 35. I'd just love to see it swim up to the Top 25.
They Got It Wrong: "Open the pod bay doors, HAL" (#78) is great and it belongs here. But the key part of that scene is HAL's murderous detachment by monotoning, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that". There's a computer with some attitude. So I like Dave's line, but HAL's follow-up in '2001: A Space Odyssey' is even better.
They Gave Away The Movie: "Soylent Green is made of people!" (#77) Terrific line and one of the most over-the-top deliveries from Mr. Over The Top, Chuck Heston. Still, telling people about that quote gives away the end of the movie. Then again, Saturday Night Live did that years ago when Phil Hartman did a parody of Heston shouting that line over and over and over, so what the hell.
Random dribblings...
"Show me the money!" (#25). How fitting is it that the quote from the last decade to finish highest on this list is delivered by a hotdogging athlete who wants a big pile of dollars? Knowing what we know now about the business of sports, Cuba's line simply says it all. And he and Cruise work that scene so well. Any movie that can do that and succeed with "you had me at hello" (#52) and even make them BOTH work is pretty damned excellent. 'Jerry Maguire', we like you in this house.
"Gentleman, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!" (#64) is such a hilarious quote, but all it did was remind me how funny 'Dr. Strangelove' is and that a half-dozen other quotes from that movie were overlooked. For that matter, Kubrick's films were not represented as well as they could have been. At least that line from '2001' and "Here's Johnny" (#68) from 'The Shining' made it. Speaking of that, Jack's scary-movie version of Ed McMahon's call for Carson might have deserved to slip up into the Top 50 or so.
I was so happy to see "If you build it, he will come" (#39) from 'Field Of Dreams' and "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" (#18) from 'White Heat' were included. Love those movies, love those lines.
1967 was a breakthrough year for American films and it was heavily represented on this list. Interestingly, the highest ranked line from that year was "What we've got here is failure to communicate" (#11). 'The Graduate' and 'Bonnie And Clyde' and 'In The Heat Of The Night' get all the raves from '67, but I love 'Cool Hand Luke' and Strother Martin's accent-twinged line succinctly sums up what was going on in the world during that era.
I like that they got a 'Lord Of The Rings' quote in there ("My precious" at #85), but I still just about lose it every time I hear Aragorn say, "My friends, you bow to no one" in 'LOTR: ROTK'. That's one of the great "from one hero to a bigger hero, I salute you" lines in the history of film.
It's nice that Stallone got some props ("Yo, Adrian" at #80), but there's no awesomer bit in that entire series than the end of the first 'Rocky' when he's busted up and he's lost the match, but at least he got the girl and all he can think of when he first sees her is, "Where's your hat?" Sometimes it's the stupid little throwaway lines that mean more than the ones they put in bold letters on the poster.
It's no surprise that 'The Wizard Of Oz', 'Gone With The Wind', and especially 'Casablanca' were so strongly represented. They always are on these compilations and it's a no-brainer that they'll always win many votes from the AFIers. Those 3 films alone comprised more than 10% of this entire list. As Dennis Miller said, you could devote an entire show to the 'Casablanca' quotations. It had 6 on this list and could have had 2 or 3 more.
Otherwise, the rankings were not vomit-inducing. The Top 10 should have been structured differently, but it's mostly acceptable. I think it's a constitutional requirement that #100 be a movie from the very recent past ("I'm the king of the world" on this list and 'Jerry Maguire' and 'Good Morning, Vietnam' on other ones) and that #1 be reserved for a movie made between 1939 and 1942. It's so bizarre that 'The Shawshank Redemption' could keep bumping between #1 and #2 on the IMDb's list of the Top 250 films (from any country...ever), yet the AFI has pissed on it every single time. In this case, I would have liked to see Morgan Freeman's climactic "I hope" speech on the 100 Quotes, although I'm not stunned it didn't make it. Apart from those complaints, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" and "you talkin' to me" and "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse" and "fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night" and "I coulda been a contender" all ranked way high and certainly deserved to.
Peter Finch's insane delivery of "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore" in 'Network' is still brilliant after nearly 30 years and I'm thrilled to see it finish at #19. However, as cool as that line is, it seems antiquated. We might be mad as hell today (that is, those of us not zonked on illegal or---worse---prescription drugs), but we obviously are quite willing to take it. With all the crap that goes on in the world every day, we continue taking it more than ever. The only rebellion now is via fanboy carping on the Internet. And only losers do things like that. Hey, wait a minute...
So on that note of self-ripping, I leave with these questions...
Where was "I never drink...wine" from 'Dracula'?
Where was a single line of dialogue written by Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet? I know those guys are profane (they, uh, like to say "fuck" a lot) and the AFI likes them the PGness on their 3-hour broadcast, but COME ON! QT doesn't get at least 3 lines from 'Pulp Fiction' and at least 1 from 'Reservoir Dogs' on this list? Nothing from Mamet, particularly from 'Glengarry Glen Ross'? Who's doing the voting again? Do these voters even watch movies made after 1982?
Nothing from 'Sweet Smell Of Success' with its "you're a cookie full of arsenic" or especially its multi-dimensional "Match me, Sidney!" Now THERE'S the worst oversight of all on the "100 Years, 100 Quotes" list.
To quote whatever line you want, write to ryan222@rogers.com or flickershows@hotmail.com
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