Movie quotes, anyone?
The American Film Institute — but we can call them AFI, 'cause we're friends — is putting together another of their "100 Years, 100..." television specials. Previously, they've covered such topics as 100 great movies, movie stars, comedies, thrillers, love stories, heroes and villains, and movie songs. Sometimes AFI's choices fly in from left field (Fargo is a comedy? Yes, there are a number of hilarious moments in it, but I wouldn't call it a comedy), but the lists of "100 Whatevers" always result in excellent conversation fodder for film aficionados. That's us, isn't it?
The upcoming special, which airs on CBS on Tuesday, June 21, is "100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes." You can download a list of the the 400 nominated quotes here. They're listed in alphabetical order by film title.
Go see what you like, and second-guess what's missing. You'll be glad you did!
My initial thoughts, based on a quick scan of selected portions of the list (it's 103 pages, so that was the best I could do for starters):
The upcoming special, which airs on CBS on Tuesday, June 21, is "100 Years, 100 Movie Quotes." You can download a list of the the 400 nominated quotes here. They're listed in alphabetical order by film title.
Go see what you like, and second-guess what's missing. You'll be glad you did!
My initial thoughts, based on a quick scan of selected portions of the list (it's 103 pages, so that was the best I could do for starters):
- Several films deserving of multiple nominations (i.e., Blazing Saddles, The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap) got stuck with only one in order to spread the wealth.
- A few popular flicks seem overrepresented. I mean, I'm glad Airplane warranted three possibilities — there are dozens in that film from which to choose — but did we really need five quotes from Gone With the Wind?
- For several films (The Maltese Falcon being one example, Pulp Fiction another), I would have chosen different quotes from the ones nominated.
- A few quotes, such as Al Pacino's "Hoo-ah!" from Scent of a Woman, barely qualify as quotes, in my estimation. Yes, everyone remembers Pacino making that noise a hundred times in that film, but it's a noise, not a line.
- The bits of schtick from Wayne's World originated on Saturday Night Live, and thus shouldn't be considered "movie" quotes. Call it a quibble, but I'm a quibbler.
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 12:23 AM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
Personally, I hated the nominee list. They seem not to have given thought to what a "quote" really is. At the least, it should be something that, when said, makes you think of the movie without any extra prompting. It should've been said for the first time in the movie; for example "Houston, we've got a problem" is a great quote....but no one thinks "Apollo 13 The Movie" when they hear it. And of course, they left out a number of my favorite quotes from various movies (OK, so one could pretty much just submit the entire script to Casablanca as a quote).
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