Babble

I had originally intended for my previous post to serve as a comprehensive list of my favorite scenes of all time, at least in in terms of dialogue. At some point in the not too distant future I intend to put together a list of my favorite action sequences and comedic scenes. We'll see if that actually happens. But I digress, as with most all-time lists thrown together in one sitting, I inadvertently left many of my favorites out. In the same vein, some of those that made the cut are perhaps more appropriately included in a list of my favorite movies. Regardless, I will now expound upon my abridged and flawed collection of favorites. Hopefully, my sentiments resonate on some level for some of you, and serve as motivation for others to see a movie or two for the first time.

The first scene, from The Princess Bride, is very much at home on this list.  I've seen this movie 5, maybe 10 times.  The interplay between Wallace Shawn's insanity and Cary Elwes deadpan is nothing short of classic.  Plus, how many times have you seen a battle of wits played out to the death?   

Climax: William Shawn: You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha... 

He then falls out of the chair to his apparent demise. 

It's no coincidence Christopher Walken appears twice.  True Romance is an often overlooked Quentin Tarantino flick.  In fact, I likely wouldn't even know it existed if not for a few college movie junky buddies from college.  As with most things Walken, his anomalous cadence and demeanor account for much of the scene's grandeur.

Climax: Walken: Sicilians are great liars. The best in the world. I'm Sicilian. My father was the world heavy-weight champion of Sicilian liars. From growing up with him I learned the pantomime. There are seventeen different things a guy can do when he lies to give himself away. A guys got seventeen pantomimes. A woman's got twenty, but a guy's got seventeen... but, if you know them, like you know your own face, they beat lie detectors all to hell. Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothin', but you're tellin me everything. I know you know where they are, so tell me before I do some damage you won't walk away from.

Dennis Hopper: You're Sicilian, huh? 

Walken: Yeah, Sicilian.
Hopper: Ya know, I read a lot. Especially about things... about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here's a fact I don't know whether you know or not. Sicilians were spawned by niggers.
Walken: Come again?
Hopper: It's a fact. Yeah. You see, uh, Sicilians have, uh, black blood pumpin' through their hearts. Hey, no, if eh, if eh, if you don't believe me, uh, you can look it up. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, uh, you see, uh, the Moors conquered Sicily. And the Moors are niggers.
Walken: Yes...
Hopper: So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin' with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That's why blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin. You know, it's absolutely amazing to me to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, that, uh, that Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. Now this...  

Although misguided and ignorant, the opening monologue of The Departed is authentically revelatory of the skewed ideology of a sociopath, while also managing an element of truth.

Climax: Jack Nicholson: I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May he rest in peace. That's what the niggers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it.

From the numerous layers of Donnie Darko, this one makes the cut for it's celebration of intelligence and fringe insightfulness, juvenile delinquency, and adolescent male pathology. 

Climax: Jake Gyllenhaal: [shouts] First of all, Papa Smurf didn't create Smurfette. Gargamel did. She was sent in as Gargamel's evil spy with the intention of destroying the Smurf village. But the overwhelming goodness of the Smurf way of life transformed her. And as for the whole gang-bang scenario, it just couldn't happen. Smurfs are asexual. They don't even have... reproductive organs under those little, white pants. It's just so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf. You know, what's the point of living... if you don't have a dick?

Stephen Baldwin has apparently gone completely off the reservation since his appearance in The Usual Suspects.  No, not drugs, just good old fashioned bible thumping lunacy.  But try to cast this notion aside for the purposes of this scene, which includes Benicio Del Toro's barely decipherable mumbling, and Kevin Spacey preamble narrative.        

Climax:  This one's short enough that the whole thing qualifies.  

The Way of The Gun is an awful movie.  Terrible.  Thankfully, this scene graces us at the very beginning... errr... perhaps regrettably, because this scene was just enough to make me watch this entire god-forsaken movie.     

Climax: When I found this scene on  YouTube yesterday, I was delighted to realize the loudmouth is none other than Sara Silverman.  Be that as it may, the climax remains Ryan Phillipe's decision to punch her out instead of her boyfriend, Carrot Top.

I'm a bit of a David Milch junkie; at least his two most recent HBO projects.  Oddly, he used to be a junkie.  He's also a brilliant writer.  To my chagrin, this was one of the best Deadwood clips of Al Swearengen that I could find.  There are countless better.  

Climax:  Once acclimated to the colloquial dialogue undoubtedly colored also by Milch's palette, the entire series was a climax.  I chose this one over the alternatives for its theme of libertarian sovereignty, old west style, in addition to Al's eloquence.  

I was genuinely bummed when Deadwood came to an end, but David Milch's John from Cincinnati capably filled the void, if only for a short time.  You pretty much knew from day 1 this show was too strange and abstract to catch on.  Even for HBO.  Without any context, this might be the most confusing clip of any movie you've ever seen.  Even with it I struggled to make sense out of it.  But therein lies much of the beauty of this show: odd prose and disjointed story lines.    

Climax:  Just watch.  Its 9:30 and I'm getting too tired to sift through this sprawling soliloquy.  

Deerhunter is one wild flick.  When you consider how the movie ends - heck, even without it - this is pretty intense.  

Climax:  It's all there.

This is not the best scene in Rudy.  To the contrary, I found this scene a little awkward the first time I saw it.  Only in hindsight do I appreciate this scene on any level.  But it is one of my favorite movies.

***Note to YouTube:  I couldn't find the scene in Twins where Arnold tells DeVito, "I'm your brotha Vincent!" Or the part of Back to the Future where Doc Brown responds to Marty's characterization of his mother's crush as "heavy" and Doc asks, There's that word again; 'heavy'. Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?" 
Please address this.