Posts published under “Best Lines”
DON”T FLUB THAT LINE: Who’s Wearing The Queen Pants Around Here
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998/DVD)
How could a love story about the origins of Romeo and Juliet be a controversial film? Well, one that snubs Saving Private Ryan from the Best Picture Oscar. What seemed like a typical costume period nomination, along with Elizabeth, beat out modern war classics like Ryan and Terrence Malick’s Thin Red Line. Ever since creating the question of why? Along with Best Picture, the movie garnered six more Oscars including Best Actress for Gwyneth Paltrow and Supporting Actress for Judi Dench.
Most of the uproar came from the Best Picture, but no one raised any eyebrows when Judi Dench won having only been in three scenes. In what was a glorified cameo, seemingly to give Dench a chance to round out her portyale non current female British Monarchs, somehow convinced everyone that she was in a true supporting role. Therefore, in her three scenes she had to be on point, and by gift of the screenwriters given lines that would be her staple in movies to come. Marc Norman was the originator of the idea of a struggling Shakespeare, but it was the brilliant Tom Stoppard who actually gave the movie its Elizabethan flare. While it is not certain who wrote the most obscured lines in the movie, we do have to lay the blame at both of the writers feet.
So the scene: It has just been pointed out that one of the actors in the premier of Romeo and Juliet maybe a woman (not prohibited in English theater at the time), and Queen Elizabeth (Dench) has somehow disguised herself in the crowd (a massive undertaking considering that she was wearing a costume that was larger than a family sedan) to see for herself. After she reveals herself to everyone, as the queen, she begins to solve every one’s problems, but this is after she has to explain how she can empathize with even a supposed drag queen. So when the Queen is justifying her upcoming round of decrees on the people’s lives involved with the play, Dench says (but very quietly), “I know something of a woman in a man’s profession. Yes, by God, I do know about that.” Really, we get it. She is the Second Queen of England, but come on! Does she have to remind us constantly? In the two previous scenes, Dench points out that she is the Queen and that she is a woman. Then again, with all of the make up and crazy make up, maybe the filmmakers thought that the audiences would think that it was Divine back from the dead and not Judi Dench.
DON’T FLUB THAT LINE: There Are No Bad Lines, Just Bad Actors
One of the reasons I thought of this category, to begin with, was to point out this one line. I would find myself rewinding this scene over and over again laughing harder each time. It is almost funnier than any joke in the entire movie. So enough babbling, for those of you that don’t know, Happy Gilmore is the story about a failed hockey player that has uncommon gifts on the golf course, and through the course of one golf season, he tries to raise enough money to save his grandmother’s house and become a better person. It is an Adam Sandler movie, so it is not going to make you any smarter so don’t look for any deep meanings.
The romantic interest in the movie is played by Julie Bowen. Of late, she has found herself a steady job on Modern Family, but back in her journeyman days, this was her first high profile role. The scene is towards the end of the movie. Happy (Sandler) is in a playoff hole against his nemesis Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald) when a hired goon, played by Joe Flaherty, comes driving a VW Bug on the golf course towards Happy. Virginia (Bowen) screams out to warn Happy, “HAPPY LOOK OUT!” However, the delivery of the line is quite different. In looking on the internet, the only other decipherable translation is, “HAPPY LOOK OUT AHHHH!” Along with the intelligible screaming, there are some waving of the hands, and in the end, Bowen looks and sounds more like a bad impression of someone with a mental disability. Now, I have no back story on the scene. It may have been a quick take, or the best out of a whole bunch of bad ones. However, this is the one that made it to print, and it is classic. The rest of the movie is pretty funny as well. It’s got Carl Weathers so it worth a look.
DON’T FLUB THAT LINE: Time-travel, Shmime-shmavel
Star Trek: First Contact (1996/DVD)
This weeks edition of DON”T FLUB THAT LINE deals with one of the most important plot points in all of science fiction, and to illustrate this, we will be looking at Star Trek: First Contact. This is the eighth Star Trek movie, and the second featuring The Next Generation cast (Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, and Marina Sirtis). It is considered the best by the TNG cast of their three primary films (First Contact, Insurrection, Nemesis), Generations was a joint cast between the Original (Scotty, Kirk, Chekov, and Sulu’s daughter) and TNG. The synopsis of the story is this: The Borg have returned and are trying to destroy the Federation completely. This entails a trip back in time to prevent the First Contact between Earth and an alien race. The Enterprise follows the Borg back in time to ensure the moment of First Contact happens and the Federation remains intact in the future.
For Trekkers, this was a delightful film that brought together many of the beloved aspects of the Next Generation series. For non Star Trek fans, it is not a bad introduction to the Star Trek universe, as well as getting a history lesson of the Star Trek future. What brings us to this movie in this feature is the function of one primary character. Commander Riker is the first officer on the Enterprise, second in command to Captain Picard. Riker is a brash rogue that is summed up by the idea that his most unwavering faith is in himself. However, when the crew is engaged in battle or a chase, Riker performs his most important function for the Next Generation cast. Read more »
DON’T FLUB THAT LINE: My Tauntaun Is Bigger Than Yours
Greetings faithful readers, and welcome to another new feature. There is only one more after this, so these introductions will stop after next week. This week we venture into the land of odd lines. These are seemingly forgettable dialogue from either main characters or random bit players in the back ground. Which leads us to:
STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980/DVD)
With Empire being the best of all of the Star Wars movies, it also contains the best odd lines of the entire franchise. Now I feel I should not have to summarize the story for you all, because if I do then you would not fit the criteria of our name of this site. Which is to say that any movie that can produce the lines of “Laugh it up fuzz ball” and “Scruffy nerf herder” all in the same scene is a special kind of movie. But those are not the lines we are looking at today. For today it is a quick exchange between a random Rebel soldier and Han Solo.
Let me set the scene for you: Han is working on the Millennium Falcon, after confronting Leia about her feelings for him, when C3PO approaches Han about the location of Luke Skywalker. Han jumps into action an orders a Rebel deckhand to check the “South Entrance” to see if Luke is there. Then Han walks into another room, where the random deck hand reappears to report that Luke is not there and has not checked in. A few other “no name” characters are sternly discussing whether Luke had checked in or not. So Han runs to the nearest Tauntaun to go save his friend. As Han jumps on his transport, a voice off screen warns, “Your tauntaun will freeze before the first marker.” To which Han replies, “Then I’ll see you in hell.”
There are two reasons I love this line about the Tauntaun. First, the response Han gives is priceless. What did this random Rebel soldier do to Han other than provide a helpful tip so he doesn’t freeze to death? Maybe, in the days of Star Wars, using the word Tauntaun was slang for something about one’s mother. Or maybe Han needed to seek anger management instead of taking out his rage, about Leia not saying she loved him moments earlier, on Rebel Soldier #4. Second, a friend of mine (Noah Schleifer) pointed out that possibly, in real life, that the guy who said the line boasts every time that he sees it, “THAT’S ME!!!” Which is just a reminder that sometimes even the people who are credited with something like “Rebel Soldier #4″ can deliver a memorable line along with the stars of the movie. So here’s to you Master of the Extras, may you always get one line in almost every movie you show up for.
