RITA
Well, everyone knows that!
PHIL
You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There’s a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You’re a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You’re very generous. You’re kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.
Rita is amazed.
RITA
How are you doing this?
PHIL
I told you. I wake up every day, right here, right in Punxsutawney, and it’s always February 2nd, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Dir: Harold Ramis • Scr: Danny Rubin, Harold Ramis • Cast: Andie MacDowell (Rita), Bill Murray (Phil Connors)
No reason is given why Phil should find himself trapped in time, although earlier drafts suggested a disaffected ex-lover had cast a spell on him.
1993 SHADOWLANDS
A spirited poet inspires a passionless professor.
JOY
We can’t have the happiness of yesterday without the pain of today. That’s the deal.
Dir: Richard Attenborough • Scr: William Nicholson • Cast: Debra Winger (Joy Gresham)
1997 AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY
DR EVIL
The details of my life are quite inconsequential. . . Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen, a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. . . it’s breathtaking — I suggest you try it.
Dir: Jay Roach • Scr: Mike Myers • Cast: Mike Myers (Dr Evil)
2000 MEMENTO
Leonard has lost his short-term memory and can only manage his life by leaving himself written prompts.
LEONARD
So you have information for me?
NATALIE
Is that what your little note says?
LEONARD
Yes.
NATALIE
It must be hard living your life off a couple of scraps of paper. You mix your laundry list with your grocery list, you’ll end up eating your underwear for breakfast.
Dir: Christopher Nolan • Scr: Christopher Nolan • Based on a story by Jonathan Nolan • Cast: Guy Pearce (Leonard Shelby), Carrie-Anne Moss (Natalie)
The entire opening scene is shown backwards but the sound effects were too disorienting in reverse so they were re-edited to match the altered cues.
2001 AMÉLIE (LE FABULEUX DESTIN D’AMÉLIE POULAIN)
NARRATOR
On September 3rd 1973, at 6:28pm and 32 seconds, a bluebottle fly capable of 14,670 wing beats a minute landed on Rue St Vincent, Montmartre. At the same moment, on a restaurant terrace nearby, the wind magically made two glasses dance unseen on a tablecloth. Meanwhile, in a fifth floor flat, 28 Avenue Trudaine, Paris 9, returning from his best friend’s funeral, Eugène Colère erased his name from his address book. At the same moment, a sperm with one X chromosome, belonging to Raphaél Poulain, made a dash for an egg in his wife Amandine. Nine months later, Amélie Poulain was born.
Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet • Scr: Guillaume Laurant, Jean-Pierre Jeunet • Cast: André Dussollier (Narrator)
2002 ONE HOUR PHOTO
A photo technician becomes obsessed by a family whose prints he processes.
SY
No one ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget.
Dir: Mark Romanek • Scr: Mark Romanek • Cast: Robin Williams (Seymour ‘Sy’ Parrish)
THE GREATEST STORY EVER SOLD
While the writers of Hollywood’s golden age were peppering their screenplays with sparkling one-liners, their counterparts in the marketing departments seemed to be having a tougher time. The earliest attempts at poster captions are surprisingly flat-footed, relying almost without exception on lively punctuation to bolster sagging imaginations. Gradually, decade by decade, their techniques grew more sophisticated.
In the 1940s they seemed to feel audiences needed a talking point:
The World’s Greatest Dancers in the World’s Greatest Musical Show!
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Walt Disney’s Technicolor FEATURE triumph!
Fantasia (1940)
EVERYBODY’S TALKING ABOUT IT! It’s Terrific!
Citizen Kane (1941)
Millions Have Read This Great Novel. . . Millions more will see an even greater picture!
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
The Screen Dares To Open The Strange And Savage Pages Of A Shocking Best-Seller!
The Lost Weekend (1945)
In the 1950s they seemed keen to make sure nobody missed the point of the film:
It’s all about women. . . and their men!
All About Eve (1950)
The Bride gets the THRILLS! Father gets the BILLS!
Father of the Bride (1950)
The story of a blonde who wanted to go places, and a brute who got her there — the hard way!
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
The story of a family’s ugly secret and the stark moment that thrust their private lives into public view!
Written on the Wind (1956)
A Man’s Life in Their Hands...
12 Angry Men (1957)
Unspeakable Horrors From Outer Space Paralyse the Living and Resurrect The Dead!
Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959)
In the 1960s they assumed audiences were smarter, and favoured a more conversational tone:
Check in. Relax. Take a shower.
Psycho (1960)
How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?
Lolita (1962)
Remember, the next scream you hear may be your own!
The Birds (1963)
You are cordially invited to George and Martha’s for an evening of fun and games.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
This is Benjamin. He’s a little worried about his future.
The Graduate (1967)
Pray for Rosemary’s Baby.
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
In the 1970s they realized that rhetoric and exclamation marks were for squares, and gave us laconic catchphrases instead:
M*A*S*H Gives a D*A*M*N.
M*A*S*H (1970)
Name Your Poison.
McCabe & Mrs Miller (1971)
Shaft’s his name. Shaft’s his game.
Shaft (1971)
Life is a Cabaret.
Cabaret (1972)
Don’t go in the water.
Jaws (1975)
By the end of the 1970s, the decade in which the idea of the blockbuster and its associated saturation marketing was born, the discipline had finally come of age. A recent survey of advertising and branding professionals declared the following the greatest ever taglines:
We are not alone.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
Star Wars (1977)
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.
Jaws 2 (1978)
In space no one can hear you scream.
Alien (1979)
Who ya gonna call?
Ghostbusters (1984)
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Th
e Fly (1986)
They’re back.
Poltergeist II (1986)
The list is life.
Schindler’s List (1993)
Houston, we have a problem.
Apollo 13 (1995)
Earth. It was fun while it lasted.
Armageddon (1998)
Proving that those who do not study the history of this arcane discipline are condemned to repeat it, the Huffington Post recently resurrected these ham-fisted examples:
Today the pond. Tomorrow the world.
Frogs (1972)
Unwittingly, he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States.
The Day of the Dolphin (1973)
Not to be confused with King Kong.
Ape (1976)
The Only Thing More Terrifying Than the Last 12 Minutes of This Film are the First 92.
Suspiria (1977)
Science Created Him. Now Chuck Norris Must Destroy Him.
Silent Rage (1982)
They came to Space Camp with the dream of becoming astronauts. Suddenly. . . Without warning. . . Before they were ready. . . They were launched into space.
SpaceCamp (1986)
Laugh. Cry. Share The Pants.
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)
He Was Dead. . . But He Got Better.
Crank (2006)
Titans Will Clash.
Clash of the Titans (2010)
2002 THE BOURNE IDENTITY
A secret agent saved from death has no memory of who — or what — he is.
BOURNE
I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left-handed and the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab of the grey truck outside, and at this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Now, why would I know that? How can I know that and not know who I am?
Dir: Doug Liman • Scr: Tony Gilroy, William Blake Herron • Based on a novel by Robert Ludlum • Cast: Matt Damon (Jason Bourne)
Director Doug Liman asked screenwriter Tony Gilroy not to read the original novel but simply to work from an outline he had prepared.
2002 MINORITY REPORT
A detective worries that his chief is getting out of his depth.
GIDEON
Careful, Chief. Dig up the past, all you get is dirty.
Dir: Steven Spielberg • Scr: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen • Based on a story by Philip K. Dick • Cast: Tim Blake Nelson (Gideon)
Three years before production began, Spielberg assembled sixteen ‘future experts’ to sketch out how the year 2054 might look. The team included Neil Gershenfeld, professor at MIT’s Media Lab; Shaun Jones, director of biomedical research at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency); William Mitchell, dean of the school of architecture at MIT; and Jaron Lanier, one of the inventors of virtual reality technology.
2004 GARDEN STATE
Andrew and Sam look back on their New Jersey childhoods.
ANDREW
There’s a handful of normal kid things I kinda missed.
SAM
There’s a handful of normal kid things I kinda wish I had missed.
Dir: Zach Braff • Scr: Zach Braff • Cast: Zach Braff (Andrew Largeman), Natalie Portman (Sam)
2004 50 FIRST DATES
Lucy suffers from short-term memory loss, so her lover Henry is forced to remind her every day that they are together.
LUCY
Can I have one last first kiss?
Dir: Peter Segal • Scr: George Wing • Cast: Drew Barrymore (Lucy Whitmore)
2008 LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN)
Schoolboy Oskar befriends his reclusive young neighbour.
OSKAR
Are you a vampire?
ELI
I live off blood. . . Yes.
OSKAR
Are you. . . dead?
ELI
No. Can’t you tell?
OSKAR
But. . . Are you old?
ELI
I’m twelve. But I’ve been twelve for a long time.
Dir: Tomas Alfredson • Scr: John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel • Cast: Kåre Hedebrant (Oskar), Lina Leandersson (Eli)
The film contains several innovative sound effects. Puncturing a sausage was used to emulate biting into flesh, while drinking yogurt was used to sound like sucking blood. Blinking eyelids were dubbed with a recording of grape skins being pressed together.
2009 CRAZY HEART
A country and western singer finally manages to quit drinking.
‘BAD’ BLAKE
Ain’t rememberin’ wonderful?
Dir: Scott Cooper • Scr: Scott Cooper • Based on a novel by Thomas Cobb • Cast: Jeff Bridges (Otis ‘Bad’ Blake)
2010 INCEPTION
Cobb teaches his pupils how to create dreamscapes other people can enter. Here, he experiences Ariadne’s first attempt.
COBB
I know this bridge - this place is real. You didn’t imagine it, you remembered it...
ARIADNE
I cross it every day on my way to the college.
COBB
Never recreate places from memory. Always imagine new places.
ARIADNE
You have to draw from what you know.
Cobb shakes his head.
COBB
Use pieces — a streetlamp, phone booths, a type of brick — not whole areas.
ARIADNE
Why not?
COBB
Because building dreams out of your own memories is the surest way to lose your grip on what’s real and what’s a dream.
Dir: Christopher Nolan • Scr: Christopher Nolan • Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb), Ellen Page (Ariadne)
Four set stills from Last Tango in Paris (1972) capture the shadowy intimacy of the lovers’ story.
The camera adored Marilyn Monroe just as her public did, capturing her every mood from the demure to the exuberant.
The chiaroscuro photography and swelling Rachmaninov score of Brief Encounter set the scene for a heartbreakingly British love story.
Tears
1943 I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE
Paul warns Betsy that life on the tropical island holds hidden terrors.
PAUL
It’s easy enough to read the thoughts of a newcomer. Everything seems beautiful because you don’t understand. Those flying fish, they’re not leaping for joy, they’re jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them. That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies. The glitter of putrescence. There is no beauty here, only death and decay.
BETSY
You can’t really believe that.
PAUL
Everything good dies here. Even the stars.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur • Scr: Curt Siodmak, Ardel Wray • Based on an article by Inez Wallace and on Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë • Cast: Tom Conway (Paul Holland), Frances Dee (Betsy Connell)
Perhaps missing the point of Tourneur’s zombie metaphor, a New York Times reviewer dismissed the film as ‘a dull, disgusting exaggeration of an unhealthy, abnormal concept of life’.
1944 LIFEBOAT
Adrift at sea, German U-boat captain Willi and American citizen Connie await rescue. To pass the time, Willi fixes Connie’s diamond bracelet.
WILLI
Looks like bits of ice.
CONNIE
I wish they were.
WILLI
They’re really nothing but a few pieces of carbon crystallized under high pressure at great heat.
CONNIE
Quite so, if you want to be scientific about it.
WILLI
I’m a great believer in science.
CONNIE
Like tears, for instance. They’re nothing but H2O with a trace of sodium chloride.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock • Scr: Jo Swerling • Based on
a story by John Steinbeck • Cast: Walter Slezak (Willi), Tallulah Bankhead (Connie Porter)
Even though most of the film was shot in a studio water tank, the entire cast suffered from seasickness at some point. When someone mentioned to Hitchcock that Tallulah Bankhead was not wearing underwear during one take, he replied: ‘I don’t know if this is a matter for the costume department, make-up, or hairdressing.’
WHERE’S ALFRED?
A ‘cameo’ role (named after a type of brooch which bears a bust or portrait) was originally a brief appearance by a real-life figure instantly recognizable to the audience. This usually meant that the person in question was playing themselves as opposed to a character in the story. In The Lodger (1927), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) cast himself in the insignificant role of a newsman on the telephone – facing away from the camera – and the term has now come to mean a member of the crew who has a part, however small, in the film itself.
Hitchcock amused himself – and us, once his mischievous appearances had become established as part of his house style – by taking cameos in thirty-nine of his fifty-two films. To begin with, the moments were innocuous enough: posting a letter, travelling on a bus, reading a newspaper. Before long, the appearances were more obvious: walking a horse across the screen or standing in front of a sign promoting ‘Cut Rate Drugs’. In Lifeboat (1944), he is seen in the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of a newspaper advertisement for ‘Reduco Obesity Slayer’, a fictitious weight-loss product (Hitchcock was almost comically portly).
The subtlest can be found in Rope (1948), where, apart from the opening credits, in which Hitchcock is glimpsed far away entering an apartment building, the entire story takes place in a single room with a cast of only nine. Fifty-five minutes into the film, in the skyline of New York seen through the windows, a distant red neon sign flashes: an image of the director’s head appears once again above the logo for ‘Reduco’.
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