Anyhow, here are a few lines from movies that I figure most people would catch,(specially here at the Dope)but thought I’d share in case ya’ll weren’t paying attention.
Catch Me If You Can
Frank:
Brenda… Brenda, I don’t want to lie to you anymore.
All right? I’m not a doctor.
I never went to medical school.
I’m not a lawyer or a Harvard graduate or a Lutheran.
Brenda, I ran away from home a year and a half ago
when I was 16.
Brenda:
Frank…
Frank?
You’re not a Lutheran?
Red Dawn
Dont remember the characters names
Girl: Whats the capital of Texas?
Man: Austin
Girl(pointing gun): WRONG COMMIE! it’s Houston!
Spinal Tap
Marty: Let’s talk about your reviews a little bit…regarding ‘Intravenus
de Milo’: “This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of
musical invention within. The musical growth rate of this band
cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of
retarded sexuality and bad poetry.”
Not sure how really subtle it is, but another from Spinal Tap:
The band is sitting in their hotel room in Memphis listening to the radio, and on comes a song that (most of) Tap did as their previous band, The Thamesmen. The DJ calls it an oldie and says that Spinal Tap is “currently residing in the ‘Where are they now’ file.”
But they’re IN Memphis. Performing a concert that night. In the town the DJ is broadcasting from.
Stakeout. (This is more an example of an insider joke the basis of which is sorta subtle.)
Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss are playing the movie line game. One person states a line and the next one guesses what film it’s from.
Emilio’s character: “This was not a boating accident.”
Dreyfuss glances up for a moment and then quickly says: “I don’t know.”
The gag of course is that this is a line Dreyfuss famously uttered in Jaws. A nice cross stitch on the blurry line that separates movie real-life from fiction.
From Bell, Book, and Candle, a pre-Bewitched fasntasy about a man (Jimmy Stewart) who has a witch (Kim Novak) fall in love with him and want to marry him. He goes to his fiancee (Janice Rule) to explain things. This was in the 1950s, when they couldn’t simply come out and say some things, but they got the point across, if you were paying attention:
Jimmy Stewart: But you don’t understand! She told me she was a Witch.
Janice Rule: Oh, Darling, all that means is that she doesn’t know how to spell.
Clark Kent goes running down the street, looking for a place to change into Superman. He comes across a phone booth, but it’s wall mount, and not an actual booth. He pauses, gives it a quick up and down look over, then moves on.
**Ballin Mundson, to Gilda: **Look your best, my beautiful. This will be the casino’s first glimpse of you. Gilda: I’ll look my very best, Ballin. [Looks at Johnny Farrell] I want all the hired help to approve of me. Glad to have met you, Mr. Farrell.
**Ballin Mundson: **His name is Johnny, Gilda.
**Gilda: **Oh, I’m sorry. Johnny is such a hard name to remember . . . and so *easy *to forget. [In a breathy voice] Johnny. There. See you later, Mr. Farrell.
In this scene she very subtly lets us know that she and Johnny were once lovers–“so easy to forget”–and that she’s not going to be his friend–“Johnny. . . See you later, Mr. Farrell.”
I’m sure some people caught this the first time, but I practically had the script memorized before I caught this from The Princess Bride:
Prince Humperdinck sniffs at the empty vial of Iocaine powder and says, “Iocaine. I’d stake my life on it.”
To explain:
Iocaine was described as an undetectable poison, tasteless and odorless.
But the Prince has been described as one of the world’s best trackers.
Moreover, in the previous scene two people have just staked their life on it.
Indy and the Girl are tramping trough the sewars of Venice, and they see a drawing of the Ark on a wall (or possibly a sarcophogus). The Girl asks what it is, and Indy gives his reply.
The joke is that two movies earlier - in *Raiders of the Lost Ark *- he became very, familiar with the Ark indeed, and that he would not be likely to be mistaken as to how it looks. His line is a masterpiece of understatement; asking him that specific question would be like asking Frodo if he’d even seen a gold ring.
In Back to the Future, Marty and Doc meet at the Twin Pines Mall. After Marty goes back in time and plows into one of the pines, when he goes back to the future, it’s the Lone Pine Mall.
And in the beginning of Crystal Skull they complete the circle when the camera pans the wreckage in the warehouse, briefly showing a golden ark peeking out of a smashed crate.
In the last 'Ocean’s" movie (Ocean’s 27?) Matt Daemon wears a prostetic nose as a disquise. There is much discussion as to wether the nose ‘plays’.
The joke is that in Daemon’s previous film, The Brothers Grim, he wanted to wear a nose like but the studio bosses (the Weinsteins) would not let him. That bit was a jab at them.
One of my favs come from Star Trek II. Kirk comes on board and asks Scotty how he is.
Scotty says he had a ‘wee bout but Dr. McCoy pulled him through.’
Kirk asks what he had and Scotty looks a little embarrassed and McCoy chimes in “Shore leave”.
So I guess they still get the clap in the 23rd century.
James Doohan had actually had a heart attack not long before; I’ve always read that that was the point of that gag.
In Buckaroo Banzai, the heroes are looking for evil Red Lectroids in the bowels of the Banzai Institute. They come across a watermelon hooked up to all sorts of scientific gizmos. New Jersey asks, “Why is there a watermelon here?” and Reno says, “I’ll tell you later.” But never does. (I’ve read that it was a throwaway gag to see if the studio was paying attention to the dailies. They weren’t).
In The In-Laws, the Peter Falk character has an autographed picture of JFK in his office. Falk had helped plan the Bay of Pigs invasion. JFK wrote, “At least we tried!”
We’ve remarked on that scene often (I showed Buckaroo Banzai at one of the BFFs – Pepper Mill is actually From Grover’s Mill, New Jersey, so we find the scenes shot there hilarious.
I don’t know if the story about seeing if the studio heads were on the bal is true or not. I do know that the creators of BB have since come up with a convoluted explanation for the presence of the watermelon, IIRC, it’s on the commentary on the DVD.
A little joke I only just noticed when I was watching “The Madness of King George” over the weekend. One of the King’s footmen gets sick and tired of emptying the royal chamber-pot and announces he’s going to quit and open up a little shop in Picadilly. The footman’s name? Fortnam. (Presumably he has a friend Mason somewhere around).*
*The joke, however, is not historically accurate. The tea tins I have from Fortnam’s proudly inform one that they have been in business since 1707, quite some time before King George went mad.
I heard that the watermelon scene Buckaroo Banzai was just to break the tension. They’re stalking an evil red lectroid killer through the Banzai compound, but it’s still supposed to be something of a farce. They just needed something in there to keep it from getting too serious. And it works.
My favorite subtle moment from that movie is right at the end. One of his assistants has been on the phone, and says “the president wants to know is everything okay with the aliens or should he go ahead and blow up the world?” Buckaroo, deadpan and without missing a beat says “tell him yes on one, and no on two.”
