10E2009q: Quotable | Barfly

Lot of classics in here... yes yes "to all my friends..." Or how about "I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around." But, whenever I eat a great ham sandwich I think of this one...

Henry: That's ham! Ham with mustard and relish.


Plus someone put the whole movie on Vimeo...

the logger -deer jackin'

The [Game] Warden caught me dead to roights...
At noight.
Usin a loight.
Shootin 'cross the road
Restin it on the hood... out of season.

More at The Logger.

quotable -roseanne

Dan (John Goodman): Jackie! You're blocking me.

Jackie (Laurie Metcalf): In what sense?

Dan: In a Plymouth sense...

Think we went the first 3 years without missing an episode... Read Roseanne's biography and everything. She was a huge Lenny Bruce fan, does that surprise? The early series now available on NetflixInstant; totally stands the test of time. John Goodman is hero status anyway, but great recap and classic scenes below.

quotable -meet the parents

Kevin (Owen Wilson): I salvaged these timbers from a fisherman's chapel in Nantucket...

That quote is in the family lexicon. Used as byplay to any over-hyphenated (see what I did there...) descriptions of food/fashion etc. You know; Great Lakes chicken breast - fed at moonlight etc. [hello pot this is the kettle??? -ed] Provenance fatigue? Anyhow, Wilson throws that line away with perfection.

quotable -the jerk

Marvin: I probably couldn't afford it anyway...

quotable -so i married an axe murderer

Ranger John 'Vicky' Johnson: .... ... ...... ..... ... ...... ocular cavities.

I love Vicky. He's the best.

find a little treasure

"Going to secondhand stores and finding a little treasure ... that meant more to me because it was more of stab in the dark ... because you didn't know if you were gonna be able to afford it and you don't know really what you are looking for, and when you find it, it's more special to you, rather than having a thousand dollars and going into a store like that just buying the whole store..."

This is practically the only clip I have heard of Cobain speaking. Emotional story and history all around KC so tough to talk about any one single aspect -but like this quote. A lot going on here; ideas of artists and poverty, success, etc. This interview was used in the movie Kurt & Courtney.

quotable -the odd couple

Oscar Madison (Matthau): I can't take it anymore, Felix, I'm cracking up. Everything you do irritates me. And when you're not here, the things I know you're gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can't stand little notes on my pillow. "We're all out of cornflakes. F.U." Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!

jack butler's out of office message

quotable -down by law

Try and watch the end of Down By Law and not get back into cardigans... fantastic. Tough choice, do you want to stay and live at the Tintop or head up to where two roads diverge in a wood... Either way, you have a closet full of Uncle Luigi's old clothes to get you ready. If you saw this film around its release or in the cinema you will be nicely surprised by the cleaned up dvd versions out there now. Crisp B&W from cinematographer Robert Muller (who had a lock as DP on classic 80's American cinema; Mystery Train, Barfly, Down by Law, To Live and Die in L.A., Paris Texas, Repo Man...) Jack (Lurie): So is this how you dressed on the outside.. sort of 'garbage man on parade'? 

Zack (Waits): ... Jack, you thinking of doing some squirrel hunting? Recommended: The Road Not Taken -Short Lecture

quotable -so i married an axe murderer

Charlie (Myers): Excuse me... I asked for the LarGe cappaCCiNO.

must know -where the rivers flow north

Howard Frank Mosher's novella Where the River Flows North (1978) is a perennial read of mine. I think I'm on my third ripped copy. The stubborn (to put it mildly) old Vermont logger Noel Lord and his native American girl-friday Bangor are huge characters that Mosher references in other works as well. Jay Craven's 1993 movie of the novella was a fair hit. Rip Torn (what a fkin name, btw mental) is covered up and smothered in hair and woolens, and raising sufficient production money was a problem. This film and Craven's later adaptations of Mosher's Stranger in the Kingdom (1998) and Disappeareances (2006) are labors of love no doubt about it. This old review from the NYT echoes my thoughts. Besides WTRFN, Mosher's Northern Borders is another good read.




"Have a drink" New York Money said to Noel.
Bangor said sharply "Don't you crowd him mister, you wish you hadn't."
.
Noel brought his cant hook up from his lap and drove it through the big man's hand into the tabletop. Noel picked up the fifth and smashed off the top against the edge of the table. He rammed the shattered bottle between New York Money's teeth. Brown, murky liquid foamed into his mouth and over his cut face.
.
"I never suspected he could chug that quart of mule without breathing. It must have been cut. No man could have chugged a quart of Father's."

That last sentence is practically a whole story.

quotable -diner

Fenwick (Bacon): Hold on a sec I'm getting some coffee here.
Shrevie (Stern): You're going to get coffee before we go to the diner to get coffee?
Fenwick: I want coffee!

quotable -rumble fish

Benny (Waits): Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. When you're young, you're a kid, you got time. Throw away a couple of years here, a couple of years there... It doesn't matter. The older you get you say, "Jesus, how much I got?" I got 15 summers left. Think about it.

'Grab via The Sheila Variations. Have a definate soft spot for Rumble Fish here. More choice shots below, same source.

quotable -casino royale

Bond: The trouble always is not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it.

That line did not make it into the movie but you will find it in the original text. (Fleming, Ian. Casino Royale. New York: Macmillan, 1953. 62.) Casino Royale is a must read if you are a Bond fan (as are Dr. No, Goldfinger and You only Live Twice -the later short stories not so much... complete bibliography here.) The whole cane chair "questioning" scene comes from the book though and much respect to EON Productions for keeping it. (EON = everything or nothing. That sounds like a Bond title itself).

quotable -outland

Marshal William T. O'Neil (Connery): There's a whole machine that works because everybody does what they are supposed to. I found out I was supposed to be something I didn't like. That's my rotten little part in the rotten machine.

This gritty 80's sci-fi is criminally underrated. Grim and darkly styled with a cameo by Steve Berkoff as a madman (no stretch there...). It is all about Connery though, going up against the machine of crooked management. The denouement spacesuit battle is a bit hammy, but everything up till then is quality "vision of the future" stuff.

'Nother quicky.
Security Sergeant Montone (talking to his number 2): We're talking about nuclear detonators here. You don't just "lose" them and then "find" them again. You lose your comb and then find it, but not nuclear detonators.


The trailer has not aged well, but would be remiss not to include it.

quotable -evel knievel

Photo: David Ashdown/Keystone/Getty"Anybody can take off; it's landing that's tough. I never missed a take-off."

Check the Field Guide to Evel Knievel's Injuries on Steve Mandich's site. Plenty of other Evel stuff there too.

quotable -the life aquatic with steve zissou

Steve Zissou: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go on an overnight drunk, and in 10 days I'm going to set out to find the shark that ate my friend and destroy it. Anyone who wants to tag along is more than welcome.

Side note: next year will be the centenary of Jacques Cousteau's birth, so expect retrospectives galore (can't wait). Hard to look at the Cousteau.org site without thinking of Zissou and Co. Are they doing this intentionally (graphically I mean?).

quotable -diamonds are forever

Peter Franks (Bond): That's quite a nice little nothing you're almost wearing. I approve.


Felix Leiter: Ok James I give up. I know the diamonds are hidden on the body but where?

James Bond: Alimentary my dear Leiter.

BTW, isn't Felix a great name... tried to convince M to name our second boy Felix... shot down. Come on, Felix Fox... He'd be a total rake.

quotable -thunderball

Home Secretary: Your man, double-o-seven, I thought he was onto something.
M: I thought so too sir.
Home Secretary: He obviously has a highly developed sense of... shall we say drama.