You are as abandoned and noisy as any character in a porn film, Laura. You are Ian’s plaything, responding to his touch with shrieks of orgasmic delight. No woman in the history of the world is having better sex than the sex you are having with Ian. . . in my head.
Dir: Stephen Frears • Scr: D. V. DeVincentis, Steve Pink, John Cusack, Scott Rosenberg • Based on a novel by Nick Hornby • Cast: John Cusack (Rob Gordon)
2002 ABOUT SCHMIDT
Roberta, mother of the bride-to-be, reassures the groom’s father about their children’s future.
ROBERTA
You already know how famously they get along as friends, but did you know that their sex life is positively white-hot? The main reason both of my marriages failed was sexual. I’m an extremely sexual person, I can’t help it, it’s just how I’m wired, you know, even when I was a little girl. I had my first orgasm when I was six in ballet class. Anyway, the point is that I have always been very easily aroused and very orgasmic; Jeannie and I have a lot in common that way. Clifford and Larry, they were nice guys, but they just could not keep up with me. Anyway, I don’t want to betray Jeannie’s confidence, but let me just assure you that whatever problems those two kids may run into along the way, they will always be able to count on what happens between the sheets to keep them together. More soup?
Dir: Alexander Payne • Scr: Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor • Based on a novel by Louis Begley • Cast: Kathy Bates (Roberta Hertzel)
2006 BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE
BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN
Borat has travelled to the US from Kazakhstan seeking the freedom — and pleasures — of the West.
BORAT
A man yesterday tell me, if I buy a car I must buy one with pussy magnet.
Dir: Larry Charles • Scr: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer • Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat)
The Kazakh government described Borat as ‘a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is incompatible with the ethics and civilized behavior of Kazakhstan’s people’ and ran a four-page advertisement in the New York Times correcting the misperceptions Sacha Baron Cohen had spread. Much of the film was staged as ‘reality’ and the police were called to the set on ninety-two occasions.
2011 A DANGEROUS METHOD
A psychoanalyst proposes that society has an unhealthy attitude towards sex.
GROSS
It seems to me the measure of the true perversity of the human race is that one of its very few reliably pleasurable activities should be the subject of so much hysteria and repression.
Dir: David Cronenberg • Scr: Christopher Hampton • Based on a play by Christopher Hampton and a book by John Kerr • Cast: Vincent Cassel (Otto Gross)
Chicago, based on Bob Fosse’s stage musical, gave the Prohibition era a burst of twenty-first-century energy.
The romance that never was: Bond and Moneypenny embrace in a rare studio portrait from 1962.
A still from the original Scarface (1932) before the Motion Picture Production Code clamped down on overt violence and sexuality.
Bruisers
1942 THE PALM BEACH STORY
HACKENSACKER
That’s one of the tragedies of this life — that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.
Dir: Preston Sturges • Scr: Preston Sturges • Cast: Rudy Vallée (John D. Hackensacker III)
1947 OUT OF THE PAST
A gangster threatens a private investigator he intends to frame.
WHIT
You’re gonna take the rap and play along. You’re gonna make every exact move I tell you. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. And I’ll promise you one thing: it won’t be quick. I’ll break you first. You won’t be able to answer a telephone or open a door without thinking, ‘This is it’. And when it comes, it still won’t be quick. And it won’t be pretty. You can take your choice.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur • Scr: Daniel Mainwaring • Cast: Kirk Douglas (Whit Sterling)
1949 KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
Murderer Louis Mazzini is scrupulous in his professional etiquette.
LOUIS
It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.
Dir: Robert Hamer • Scr: Robert Hamer, John Dighton • Based on a novel by Roy Horniman • Cast: Dennis Price (Louis Mazzini)
1949 WHITE HEAT
Cody Jarrett celebrates his escape from jail shortly before he is killed in a blaze in a chemical plant.
CODY
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!
Dir: Raoul Walsh • Scr: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts • Based on a story by Virginia Kellogg • Cast: James Cagney (Arthur ‘Cody’ Jarrett)
Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) reprises Cagney’s line – and triumphant pose – as he yells from the ship’s bow in Titanic (1997): ‘I’m the king of the world!’
CHEESE
In 2004, British bakery Warburtons celebrated a new line of Cheddar-flavoured crumpets by inviting its customers to nominate the cheesiest movie lines of all time. Here are their top ten:
I’m the king of the world!
Titanic (1997)
Nobody puts Baby in the corner.
Dirty Dancing (1987)
Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
SAM WHEAT: I love you.
MOLLY JENSEN: Ditto.
Ghost (1990)
You can be my wingman any time.
Top Gun (1986)
I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.
Notting Hill (1999)
Today we celebrate our Independence Day!
Independence Day (1996)
They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!
Braveheart (1995)
You had me at hello.
Jerry Maguire (1996)
BLIND WOMAN: You’re a godsend, a saviour.
POSTMAN: No, I’m a postman.
The Postman (1997)
There are plenty of other classics which might have given these winners a run for their money:
One thing’s sure. Inspector Clay is dead. Murdered. And somebody’s responsible.
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
It makes you kill yourself. Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more evil that can be invented.
The Happening (1966)
You know, hot dogs get a bad rap. They got a cool shape, they got protein.
The Happening (1966)
Okay, cocksucker. Fuck with me and we’ll see who shits on the sidewalk.
Death Race 2000 (1975)
If Pazuzu comes for you, I will spit a leopard.
Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)
You have a great body. May I use it?
Saturn 3 (1980)
Flash! I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the earth!
Flash Gordon (1980)
I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I’m very hungry!
Commando (1985)
The dingo took my baby!
A Cry in the Dark (1988)
EDWARD: So what happens after he climbs up and rescues her?
VIVIAN: She rescues him right back.
Pretty Woman (1990)
Kenner, just in case we get killed, I wanted to tell you. You have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on a man.
Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991)
CRISTAL: You have great tits. They’re really beautiful.
NOMI: Thank you.
CRISTAL: I like nice tits. I always have, how about you?
NOMI: I like having nice tits.
Showgirls (1995)
Swoon, I’ll catch you.
The English Patient (1996)
You complete me.
Jerry Maguire (1996)
You’re why cavemen chiselled on walls.
As Good As It Gets (1997)
I hate to disappoint you,
but rubber lips are immune to your charms.
Batman & Robin (1997)
I said, put the bunny back in the box.
Con Air (1997)
It’s like looking in a mirror. Only not.
Face/Off (1997)
Did you just have a brain fart?
G.I. Jane (1997)
KITANA: Mother! You’re alive!
SINDEL: Too bad. You will die!
Mortal Kombat 2: Annihilation (1997)
He’s got space dementia.
Armageddon (1998)
A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where will they live?
Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998)
Dancing’s just a conversation between two people. Talk to me.
Hope Floats (1998)
You better hold on tight, spider-monkey.
Twilight (1998)
While you were still learning how to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer galaxies.
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
God was showing off when he made you.
Keeping the Faith (2000)
This is Walker. We need to get those planes fuelled and loaded right now!. . . I think World War Two has just hit us.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Well, you might be a cunning linguist, but I am a master debater.
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)
I’m really wired. What do you say I take you home and eat your pussy?
Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002)
I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere.
Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)
You know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else.
X-Men (2002)
It’s turkey time. Gobble gobble.
Gigli (2003)
Are you a Mexican or a Mexi-can’t?
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
Are you sure you saw what you think you thought you saw?
Hellbreeder (2004)
I’ve always been standing in your doorway.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
BRENDA: I know Tai Kwon Do!
MADEA: And I know ‘Whoop Your Ass’!
Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)
Hold me, like you did by the lake on Naboo.
Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Forgive my lips. They find joy in the most unusual places.
A Good Year (2006)
It’s a pressure valve. It won’t open unless there’s tremendous pressure.
Poseidon (2006)
Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty. For tonight, we dine in hell!
300 (2006)
Not the bees!
The Wicker Man (2006)
1950 THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
Crooked lawyer Emmerich finds it easy to forgive himself.
EMMERICH
Crime is only a left-handed form of human endeavour.
Dir: John Huston • Scr: Ben Maddow, John Huston • Based on a novel by W. R. Burnett • Cast: Louis Calhern (Alonzo D. Emmerich)
1951 ACE IN THE HOLE
Lorraine is puzzled by the motives of an unscrupulous journalist.
LORRAINE
I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you — you’re twenty minutes.
Dir: Billy Wilder • Scr: Billy Wilder, Lesser Samuels, Walter Newman • Cast: Jan Sterling (Lorraine Minosa)
1953 THE WILD ONE
A young woman questions a Hell’s Angel who has ridden into town.
MILDRED
Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?
JOHNNY
Whadda you got?
Dir: László Benedek • Scr: John Paxton • Based on a story by Frank Rooney • Cast: Peggy Maley (Mildred), Marlon Brando (Johnny Strabler)
Triumph, manufacturers of the motorcycle Brando rides, were not happy to be associated with the film until they realized it had substantially boosted sales.
1967 POINT BLANK
Crime boss Brewster plans to eliminate one of his partners.
BREWSTER
Fairfax is dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Dir: John Boorman • Scr: Alexander Jacobs, David Newhouse, Rafe Newhouse • Based on a novel by Donald E. Westlake (as Richard Stark) • Cast: Carroll O’Connor (Brewster)
1969 TRUE GRIT
US Marshal Rooster Cogburn suspects Ned Pepper is harbouring the man he is pursuing.
ROOSTER
When’s the last time you saw Ned Pepper?
EMMETT
I don’t remember any Ned Pepper.
ROOSTER
Short feisty fella, nervous and quick, got a messed-up lower lip.
EMMETT
That don’t bring nobody to mind. A funny lip?
ROOSTER
Wasn’t always like that, I shot him in it.
EMMETT
In the lower lip? What was you aiming at?
ROOSTER
His upper lip.
Dir: Henry Hathaway • Scr: Marguerite Roberts • Based on a novel by Charles Portis • Cast: John Wayne (Reuben J. ‘Rooster’ Cogburn), Jeremy Slate (Emmett Quincy)
Between 1926 and 1976 John Wayne starred in over 170 films; this was the only one that won him an Oscar.
1971 GET CARTER
Small-time crook Jack Carter hears Cliff Brumby has been trying to get rid of him.
BRUMBY
Listen, I don’t like it when some tough nut comes pushing his way in and out of my house in the middle of the night! Bloody well tell me who sent you.
CARTER
You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me it’s a full-time job. Now behave yourself.
Dir: Mike Hodges • Scr: Mike Hodges • Based on a novel by Ted Lewis • Cast: Bryan Mosley (Cliff Brumby), Michael Caine (Jack Carter)
1972 THE GODFATHER
MICHAEL
Well, when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to a personal services contract with this big-band leader. And as his career got better and better, he wanted to get out of it. But the band leader wouldn’t let him. Now, Johnny is my father’s godson. So my father went to see this band leader and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the band leader said no. So the next day, my father went back, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, he had a signed release for a certified check of $1,000.
KAY
How did he do that?
MICHAEL
My father made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
KAY
What was that?
MICHAEL
Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola • Scr: Francis Ford Coppola, Mario Puzo • Based on a novel by Mario Puzo • Cast: Al Pacino (Michael Corleone), Diane Keaton (Kay Adams)
‘DON’T QUIT. MAKE THEM FIRE YOU’
It’s easy to look back on The Godfather and believe it sprang fully formed from the talents of Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola and their stellar cast. Who else could have delivered the screen-searing power of Don Corleone but Marlon Brando? Try these names for size, Paramount’s original suggestions: Ernest Borgnine, Edward G. Robinson, Orson Welles, Danny Thomas, Richard Conte, Anthony Quinn and George C. Scott. Even Coppola himself first wanted Laurence Olivier for the role.
The studio hated Coppola’s second choice of Brando and offered him the minimum fee permitted by the Screen Actors Guild; one of the producers later said the star received $50,000 [$275,000] plus a percentage of the profits, which he sold back to the studio to pay for an expensive divorce. The film went on to make $135 million [$740 million] in its US theatrical release alone.
During pre-production the film received numerous threats from the Mafia, who controlled the ‘teamsters’ – drivers and labourers for the film industry. One of the producers
eventually met with Joseph Colombo, boss of one of New York’s Five Families organization, and agreed that if the mobsters permitted the production to go ahead undisturbed the script would not include the terms ‘Mafia’ or ‘Cosa Nostra’.
The early days of the project were so dogged by arguments and setbacks that Coppola returned from a location scout to find a telegram from his agent, urging him: ‘Don’t quit. Make them fire you.’ His persistence paid off, although he said afterwards: ‘Every film creates its own identity and it’s possible to rivet the audience without the obvious tools. I was more surprised than anyone that this picture seemed to work the way it did.’
The Godfather won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Actor. Even the ceremony itself had its memorable clashes: three other cast members (James Caan as Sonny, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone) were all nominated for Best Supporting Actor but Pacino boycotted the awards as he calculated his ‘secondary’ role had more screentime than Brando’s; Brando refused to collect his own Oscar, sending instead rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to deliver a speech about the film industry’s mistreatment of Native American Indians.
1972 CHATO’S LAND
Whitmore’s men grow restless as he leads them deeper into hostile territory.
CAPTAIN WHITMORE
For a thirsty man in a dry land, you gotta lotta talk.
Dir: Michael Winner • Scr: Gerald Wilson • Cast: Jack Palance (Captain Quincey Whitmore)
1974 BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA
Bennie hopes to claim the bounty on a wanted man who is already dead.
BENNIE
There ain’t nothing sacred about a hole in the ground — or the man that’s in it.
Dir: Sam Peckinpah • Scr: Sam Peckinpah, Gordon T. Dawson • Cast: Warren Oates (Bennie)
Although Peckinpah was reportedly desperate, drunk and depressed while directing the film, many consider it his finest work. Banned in many countries on its release and panned by the Wall Street Journal as being ‘grotesque, sadistic, irrational, obscene and incompetent’, the film was hailed by Roger Ebert as ‘some kind of bizarre masterpiece’.
All the Best Lines Page 13