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August 20, 2004
50 BEST MOVIE LINES EVER: #25-#21
We're countin' 'em down, like we do every week here on American Top 50... as the numbers get smaller, the hits get bigger. Now... on with the countdown. (Cue Music: "Mudge's Coast to Coast." Next, cue cheesy radio voice over people: "Number Twenty-Five!")
25. "Ain't gonna be no rematch." "Don't want one." -- Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) and Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), ROCKY (1976)
One of the great tragedies of modern cinema is that Sylvester Stallone was not banned by law from making more than one sequel to Rocky. II was a good movie, III was okay, IV was a punchline, and V was one of the ten worst films of the 90s. But the original was brilliant; I honestly could argue for it as the best boxing film ever made. (No, I haven't forgotten "Raging Bull," I just said I could argue for Rocky as well.) Don't forget, Stallone actually got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for this film.
What I liked most about Rocky was that the script (written by Stallone?!) managed to have the hero triumphant in the end without the Hollywood ending... it would have been so easy to have Rocky beat Apollo Creed and have the underdog triumph over impossible odds... but Stallone didn't take the easy way out. He crafted a story in which our hero can win without winning. The fight is wonderfully choreographed, and the story in the ring plays out in a crescendo of emotion that still puts me on the edge of my seat if I see it on TV again on a boring weekend.
And how does Stallone drive the whole story home? As the exhausted fighters embrace at the end of the fight, barely able to stand, Apollo tells the Stallion that this was his one shot - there will be no rematch. Rocky, ever triumphant, replies that he doesn't want one... because for him the fight wasn't about winning the championship, it was about proving something - to the world, and to himself. And in that moment, you know that he did it.
24. "They're he-e-e-e-e-e-re." -- Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O'Rourke), POLTERGEIST (1982)
I'm a grown man. I'm 36 years old. I was 14 when Poltergeist came out. And I still get skeeved out if there's "snow" on the television.
Can you name me two words (besides, "I'm pregnant") that so instantly put all the hairs on the back of your neck on end? The sense of foreboding and tension when little Carol Anne informs the family that they're not alone in the house anymore... it's thick. And the fact that the little 5 year old girl says it in that high-pitched, innocent little girl voice just makes it a creepier line. The only other line that ever put a scare into me like that was "Have you checked the children?" -- but that was a TV movie, so it doesn't count.
Poltergeist was underrated, man.
23. "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." -- The Dread Pirate Roberts/Westley (Cary Elwes), THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987)
Probably not the best pull from Princess Bride for most people. But I don't think I've ever heard a movie line that sums up my philosophy of life better than this one. So I don't care whether you think this is the best line from that movie. And I don't care whether you like this movie. It's my list, and it's my curmudgeonly expectations and beliefs that make me enjoy the lines I do. So you can keep your ROUS's, and Innigo Montoya can tell someone else that they killed his father and must prepare to die. I say, Life is Pain, and anyone who says differently is selling something.
22. "Would you give a guy a foot massage?" "Fuck you." -- Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Whitfield (Samuel L. Jackson), PULP FICTION (1994)
Back in 1997, I was one of the Dean's TA's back at Boston University's College of Communication... I had a section of 20 freshmen for an hour every Friday morning for their Perspectves in Communication class - an introduction to all the media and methods of mass communication. (We basically had one or two weeks for each medium.) When it came time to give them an introduction to the techniques and principles of film, I used the scene from the beginning of Pulp Fiction -- when Jules and Vincent are preparing to reclaim the briefcase and kill Bret and Flock of Seagulls -- as an example of the importance of good dialogue to a story (a lesson, by the way, that George Lucas never seems to have learned).
You have two professional hit men, preparing to go intimidate and then kill four people on behalf of a drug lord. These are not characters you're naturally going to feel sympathy for, or come to actually like. Unless, of course, they're given witty banter and smart dialogue as the scene builds... so that you as the audience almost forget who they are and what they're about to do... and by the time they actually get inside the apartment, you're hooked -- they're the good guys now, and you're cheering for them as they blow people away in cold blood.
The whole build-up is outstanding - from the Royale with Cheese and mayo on french fries in the car, all the way up to their conclusion that Tony Rocky Horror shoulda damn well known better than to massage Mia Wallace's feet. But the line that both solidifies Jules and Vincent as your heroes, and cements the tone of the dialogue for the rest of the film, is the extended discussion about the unspoken meaning of foot massages... and if Jules is so sure they don't mean anything, perhaps he might give a man a foot massage. Jackson plays his response perfectly, waiting a few seconds as the realization that he's "caught" sinks in on the audience before delivering the tell-off. Outstanding writing, outstanding acting.
21. "Is it safe?" -- Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), MARATHON MAN (1976)
Go ahead, name me another line in the history of film that puts you in more physical pain simply upon hearing it. I dare you. I defy you.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the dentist... here comes the scene in which the sadistic Nazi played by Olivier prepares to torture a clueless Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman's character is so terrified that he begins to spout whatever answer he thinks the doctor is looking for. "Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it..." and then right away, "No, it's not safe, be very careful," in the same sentence. And every time I hear that line and hear that drill... the screenwriter was brilliant to realize that just about everyone freaks a little when they hear a dentist drill anyway... combine that sound with a sadistic Nazi and the idea of torture, and you get an all-time Hall of Fame cringe.
Like I said, go on and name me another line that actually makes you cringe and flinch in physical pain whenever you hear it. Go on.
I didn't think so.
