What's new with that, you say?
Thanks all for sharing your favorite comedies and some thoughts along those lines. Just for fun, let me add some of my all-time favorite fun movies. Not my favorite movies necessarily (although many of them are) - I'm not talking about The Mission, Dead Poets' Society, A River Ran Through It, those sorts of great films.
I'm talking about the movies I had the most fun at - which is a different list than my comedies.
Perhaps it's an arbitrary split, but there you have it anyway. I'll just offer three, for now, I may expand upon it later.
1. A Princess Bride, loved it then, loved the book, love it now. I could watch it over and over. A perfect movie.
A sampling of favorite lines:
Buttercup: Farm boy, polish my horse's saddle. I want to see my face shining in it by morning.
Westley: As you wish.
Grandpa: [voiceover] "As you wish" was all he ever said to her.
Buttercup: Farm boy, fill these with water - please.
Westley: As you wish.
Grandpa: [voiceover] That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you." And even more amazing was the day she realized she truly loved him back...
The Poetry Corner:
That Vizzini, he can fuss.
Fuss, fuss... I think he like to scream at us.
Probably he means no harm.
He's really very short on charm.
You have a great gift for rhyme.
Yes, yes, some of the time.
Enough of that!
Fezzik, are there rocks ahead?
If there are, we all be dead.
No more rhymes now, I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE!
Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Vizzini: Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
The Clergyman (with an unusual speech impediment): Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... And wuv, twue wuv, will fowow you foweva...
Inigo: 'ello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father prepare to die.
Grandson: Grandpa, maybe you could come over and read it again to me tomorrow.
Grandpa: As you wish.
2. O Brother, Where Art Thou? An old-timey bluegrass take (loosely) on Homer's Odyssey, what could be better? And a great soundtrack, to boot. Made me a fan out of George Clooney (no mean feat) who delivered his well-wrought lines impeccably.
A sampling of favorite lines:
Ulysses: Pete, the personal rancor reflected in that remark I don't intend to dignify with comment. But I would like to address your general attitude of hopeless negativism. Consider the lilies of the goddamn field or... hell! Take at look at Delmar here as your paradigm of hope...
Delmar: Care for some gopher?
Ulysses: No thank you, Delmar. One third of a gopher would only arouse my appetite without bedding it down...
Tommy: I had to be up at that there crossroads last midnight, to sell my soul to the devil.
Ulysses: Well, ain't it a small world, spiritually speaking. Pete and Delmar just been baptized and saved. I guess I'm the only one that remains unaffiliated.
3. A Prairie Home Companion. I've already sung its praises earlier this year. My favorite film of the year, but that's probably just because I enjoy the radio show so much...although it's not just that. Woody Harrelson was fantastic in it. Can't wait to watch it again.
I just have one quote, for now. Dusty and Lefty had a great number of great lines.
Dusty: What did the elephant say to the naked man?
Lefty: What?
Dusty: That's cute, but can you breath through it?
Your favorite fun movies? Your favorite lines from the above or others?
10 comments:
Canoodling?!
Up here that's another way of "necking and petting"! Daniel!
I loved Princess Bride. I can't abide watching movies, so I should get the book.
Definitely A Princess Bride, which is my husband's favourite movie. I put O Brother in my humorous list, although, as Deb says, it's a bit dark. I love MicroCosmos (the bug reality movie). Lagaan, despite the Bollywood singing, is great fun. And The Graduate's high on my list. Haven't seen Prairie Home Companion, yet - guess it's a must see. Altogether, too many to list, but it's been fun thinking about it. A nice distraction from the serious world. Thanks, Dan!
Great stuff ... I think O Brother must be just about the most quotable movie of all time .. I've probably seen it 10 times, and I always find something new about it to love
I hate doing this (agreeing with Dan), but Prairie Home Companion was absolutely the best.
And I never get tired of seeing North By Northwest. The crop dusting biplane scene with Cary Grant is one of the greatest ever filmed.
Well, I haven't seen any movies this summer, so I still haven't seen A Prairie Home Companion. A Princess Bride and O Brother Where Art Thou are great. One of my favorite lines from the latter is Delmar: I never knew you were a paterfamilias, Uly.
The word "paterfamilias" on Delmar's lips was just hilarious.
John Goodman as the cyclops was great.
I have great fun with Hitchcock thrillers, especially Psycho, Rear Window, The Birds.
I also like movies which celebrate a genre, but then push it. For instance, most Westerns do nothing for me. Even Shane bores me to tears. But High Noon is great because Gary Cooper--an icon in the genre, breaks down and cries and then throws his badge in the mud at the end to show his disdain for a town that refused to lift a finger to help him. (I didn't like Grace Kelly shooting the guy in the back, however, because of Hollywood's constant message that nonviolence never works. )
I also like True Grit and the darkly perfect Unforgiven for the way they push the Western genre in new directions.
Favorite line from True Grit:
Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne), "If I ever meet a Texan who hasn't drank water out of a horse's footprint, I'll shake his hand!"
Favorite line from Unforgiven, "We've all got it coming."
I have fun with Bogart in Casablanca and Key Largo & African Queen.
I have guilty fun at some "crime caper" movies, especially Ocean's 11, The Sting, After the Sunset.
"I slaughtered that horse last Tuesday. 'Fraid it's startin' to turn..."
"You two are just dumber than a bag of hammers!"
"Is you is, or is you ain't, my constituency?"
"You don't mean to say you sold your everlasting soul to the Devil!"
"Well, I wasn't using it!"
"Cows...I hate cows worse than cops!"
"Oh George, not the livestock!"
"Jesus saves, but George Nelson withdraws!"
and..."WE THOUGHT...YOU WAS...A TOAD!"
Don't get me going...I'm going to have to find the VHS and watch it again!
The dialog in OBWAT IS phenomenal, but so much of it was also in the delivery.
"Oh, George. Not the livestock."
I'm laughing just listening to his voice in my mind.
Madcap, I never addressed you. I read the book after the movie and I'm not entirely sure which came first. The book is written as if it is an ancient story and this copy is just a new reprint since the popularity of the movie.
Regardless, the book is exceptional.
The "Mawage" scene in TPB was hilarious!
I thought Saving Private Ryan was definitely hilarious!
Oh wait...I'm thinking of Hot Shots! My bad.
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