AFI Top 100 Quotes

 

 

The only movie quote not yet listed is "What a dump" from Beyond the Forest.  I haven't been able to find that movie.  Incidentally, Elizabeth Taylor quotes that line in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, when she asks Richard Burton what movie it's from - so I guess that will have to count.

 

This list confirms my belief that Casablanca is the best written movie of all time, what with 6 quotes listed.  Why don't people talk like that anymore?  My only objection is that there aren't any Princess Bride quotes.  I think it's fair to say that that movie is the most quoted film of our generation.  Seriously, when ESPN devotes half an hour to quoting it, I think it's made a significant stamp on pop culture.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=594Oxq4c0XA 

 

 

 



In the Heat of the Night

Top 100 (#75 Revised); Stars - Sidney Poitier (#22); Cheers (#21); Quotes - "They call me Mr. Tibbs" (#16); Heroes - Virgil Tibbs (#19)

Excellent movie.  A Philadelphia homicide detective is falsely accused of murder while visiting relatives in the South.  He then has to help the racist sheriff figure out who really did it.

Have I mentioned that I love Sidney Poitier?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLltYjpxpwI

Moonstruck

Laughs (#41); Stars - Cher (Current); Quotes - "Snap out of it!" (#96); Passions (#17); Top Ten - Romantic Comedy (#8)

A young widow is engaged to a man, but ends up falling for his estranged brother.  Meanwhile, her parents are experiencing romantic problems of their own.

I liked that it included the parents' story.  I liked some of the romantic things Nicolas Cage said.  But overall, it was about passion, not love, so I didn't think it was that great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaANjmlxUzs

Little Caesar

Stars - Edward G. Robinson (#24); Quotes - "Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?" (#73); Villains - Caesar Enrico Bandello (#38); Top Ten - Gangster (#9)

I have now seen more than my share of gangster movies, and I am thoroughly convinced they're all the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq3uK3i4_gA

Cool Hand Luke

Cheers (#71); Quotes - "What we've got here is failure to communicate" (#11); Heroes - Luke Jackson (#30)

Paul Newman's baby blues sure are nice.  Other than that, though, I didn't much care (as in basically my feelings are neutral) for this movie.  It's very much a guy story.

The Cheers barflys called Cool Hand Luke one of the sweatiest movies of all time.  They're probably right.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6zuBcppwjo

Sudden Impact

Quotes - "Go ahead, make my day" (#6)

I remember when this movie came out.  Everybody, from the annoying kids at school to the President of the United States, quoted this line.  Frequently. 

As for the movie itself, enh.  And since I greatly insulted my brother by saying that, I dedicate the clip to him.

I will say, though, that - while I do think there needs to be some policing of police officers - I agree with Dirty Harry's frustration at how often cops hands are tied because of legalities.  I like his Old West justice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdKUxDuovzs

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Top 100 (#30/38); Thrills (#67); Stars - Humphrey Bogart (#1); Quotes - "Badges?  We ain't got no badges!  We don't need no badges!  I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" (#36)

Humphrey Bogart is very good as a miner driven crazy by his greed.  He sets out with two other men to find a legendary lode of gold, but is overcome with paranoia and gold fever.

A bit long, but very well done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgITBzujCS0

Sunset Boulevard

Top 100 (#12/16); Score (#16); Stars - Buster Keaton (#21), William Holden (#25); Quotes - "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up" (#7), "I am big!  It's the pictures that got small" (#24)

I wasn't expecting this to be film noir, but it worked.  I liked it because it was different - it's hard to peg.  Silent screen star Norma Desmond still believes, 30 years later, that she's wonderfully famous and doesn't want to face the fact that people have forgotten her.  She's living in the past, and once struggling screenwriter William Holden stumbles into her world, he finds he can't easily leave it.

Gloria Swanson was campy and overdramatic, but that's what the character called for.  I think Holden had the same clause in his contract that Matthew McConaughey must have - one that says he has to appear shirtless in every movie.  And I loved that Ms. Desmond's bridge club was made up of cameos by other silent film stars, including my favorite, Buster Keaton.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKfBCitChcg

Mommie Dearest

Quotes - "No wire hangers, ever!"  (#72); Villains - Joan Crawford (#41)

Some thoughts -
1) Why would someone stay with an abuser?  I understand why a child would - they don't know what else to do.  But as Christina grew up, why would she ever be happy to see her mother?
2) Why didn't the housekeeper ever intervene?  That makes her just as bad as Joan Crawford.
3) Okay, so it ended (SPOILER) with the children getting nothing in Joan Crawford's will.  Christina's brother says, "It figures she'd get the last word."  Christina thought for a moment, then said, "Does she?  Does she really get the last word?"  Which leaves the viewer to wonder if this was all a made-up vendetta to get back at their mother for not leaving them any money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1YgmytVKg8

Taxi Driver

Top 100 (#47/52); Thrills (#22); Quotes - "You talking to me?" (#10); Villains - Travis Bickle (#30)

It wasn't what I expected, but I'm not sure what I was really expecting.  I wasn't expecting it to be artsy-fartsy.  And I was thinking it was more violent than it was.  And I thought Jodie Foster's role would be bigger.  I don't know.  But I didn't really like it - and I hadn't figured that I would.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4p_rX74TgI

Some Like It Hot

Top 100 (#14/22); Laughs (#1); Stars - Marilyn Monroe (#6); Quotes - "Well, nobody's perfect" (#48)

It had its funny moments, and in the 1950s it was probably a daring premise (although Shakespeare and Mark Twain have both done similar plots).  I guess overall it was okay.  I just don't know that I'd rank it as high as AFI did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNINUciNyyk

Soylent Green

Stars - Edward G. Robinson (#24); Quotes - "Soylent Green is people!" (#77)

This movie might have been a bit more interesting and suspenseful if I didn't already know the ending.  Or maybe that wouldn't have helped. 

I did, though, like seeing Robinson in his final film role.  I like it when big stars of the past come back to the movies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT3wTiQAYrY&feature=related

Love Story

Quotes - "Love means never having to say you're sorry" (#13); Passions (#9)

Boy and girl fall in love and marry despite the objections of their families.  And then she dies. 

Yuck.  Overly sappy, not all that original, and it just didn't draw me in.  If you want the best love story to come out of Hollywood, look here instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpptOWytjCc

Animal Crackers

Stars - The Marx Brothers (#20); Quotes - "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas..." (#53)

Very, very vaudeville. It was performed and blocked as though the actors were on stage, and their lines were said with pauses for audience laughter.

And the acting, well, I've seen better acting on a high school stage. And Margaret Dumont (the one in this clip) is particularly bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPSAu8xfmhk&feature=related

Now, Voyager

Stars - Bette Davis (#2); Quotes - "...Don't let's ask for the moon.  We have the stars" (#46); Passions (#23)

Bette Davis has the mother of all bad mothers in this movie.  Talk about controlling and manipulative.  But, go Bette, she stands up to her mother and falls in love with Paul Henreid.

It was an okay movie, but very Harlequin romance (even the title, which comes from a Walt Whitman poem).  I like Claude Rains, though.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZhEcRrMA-M

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Top 100 (#26/39); Laughs (#3); Quotes - "...You can't fight in here!  This is the War Room!" (#64)

Maybe I would have liked this movie if

1) I was a guy
2) I liked war movies
3) I liked spoofs
4) I watched it during the height of the Cold War

But none of the above applies to me.  Therefore, I just thought it was stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cBZiXdZtnY

Sons of the Desert

Laughs (#96); Quotes - "...Here's another fine mess you've gotten me into" (#60)

I love Laurel and Hardy.  We used to watch their movies as a special treat in elementary school, then, if we were really good, we'd get to watch them backwards.  Oh, how we laughed!

While my favorite movie by these comic geniuses is The Music Box, this one is good, too.  Laurel and Hardy trick their wives into letting them go to a lodge convention.  Needless to say, it doesn't quite go as planned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SvuNcPx2dg

Goldfinger

Thrills (#71); Quotes - "A martini.  Shaken, not stirred" (#90); Songs - Goldfinger (#53); Villains - Auric Goldfinger (#49)

Dr. No didn't have all the Bond gadgets, but this movie did.  Very cool.  And of course, there's Sean Connery.  Also very cool.  But (SPOILER) what's with 007 always getting caught?  He wasn't the hero of this movie.  A girl was.  Not so cool.

Oh, and guess what?  In the newest Bond movie, Daniel Craig will ask for a Heineken, not a martini, shaken, not stirred.  There are just some things product placement should NEVER mess with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7OPuc4KZZY

Wall Street

Quotes - "Greed...is good" (#57); Villains - Gordon Gekko (#24)

A good movie, but sad. Sad that people think money is all there is. It's sad when Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) tells his blue collar dad, "I just want you to be proud of me." How sad that he thinks money is the key to his dad's pride, and how sad that what he's really saying is that he's embarrassed that his dad doesn't even make $50,ooo.

The other thing that's sad is that this movie is another reminder of how Charlie Sheen wasted so much potential (well, except that he doesn't know how to cry).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG8n1fjGz3Q

Shane

Top 100 (#69/45); Cheers (#53); Quotes - "Shane.  Shane.  Come back!" (#47); Heroes - Shane (#16); Top Ten - Western (#3)

Alan Ladd was a bit wussy, but other than that this was a good movie. Thank heavens, though, that it wasn't made recently. Then we'd have to suffer through Shane 2: The Return (in 3D).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy3xcQPdiHc