Just sayin'

"We may take pride in observing that there is not a single film showing in London today which deals with any of the burning questions of the day."

— Lord Tyrell, President, British Board of Film Censors, 1937, BBFC Annual Report, p. 4

Here's quoting at you, kid

Clay Risen considers the possibility that's it's time to mark and celebrate the death of the movie catchphrase:

Take the American Film Institute's list of the 100 most memorable film quotes, compiled in 2005, ranging from what was arguably the first film that could be quoted, 1927’s The Jazz Singer—whose signature quote, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothin’ yet!" was so perfectly self-reflexive, the archetypal movie quote—to 2002's "My precious," from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. What I'll call the two-decade Golden Era of the Movie Quote, 1967-1986, accounts for 36 citations, by far the densest 20-year stretch.

One could argue that classic movie quotes proliferated during this time because movies were so imminently quotable. It was the era of the heroic screenwriter, the time when men (and a few women) took dialogue seriously; memorable lines were a way of grounding a scene, the ironic counterpoint to a moment of high seriousness that kept the whole thing stuck in your mind—Roy Scheider's "you're gonna need a bigger boat" in Jaws, for instance.

Needless to say, that line and others, like "bad hat, Harry," also served to brand Jaws as more than your average slasher fare. Over time, though, that branding got out of hand. From the subtle use of catchphrases in a film like Jaws, scriptwriters eventually moved to a baroque phase in which catchphrases were an end in themselves. By the mid-1980s, a summer blockbuster risked failure without a memorable line. Otherwise-middling actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis found they could make up for their lack of skills by learning to dish out well-placed lines like "Hasta la vista, baby" and "Yippee kay-ay, motherfucker." Is it any wonder that we eventually took a break from the whole thing?

"Holy smokes, my friends! I'm so pleased you're not dead!"

Today's my birthday. Remarkably, it happens the same day every year. And that's not just me being flip, because if events had played out according to expert opinion at the time, the mere fact of my having another birthday after July 10, 2009 would peg the Remarkable-o-Meter into the red zone. Today, as Elizabeth reminded me here at our weekend cabin getaway half-way up Mt. Rainier, is my second "rebirthday."

As I mentioned in my post from this day last year — "Yeah, I know, and such small portions" — and the March 2010 post that initiated this blog in the first place, on my birthday two years ago I survived an incident that feels like a Very Special Episode of House or else a discarded scene from the Final Destination series. And yet here I am, having not merely endured but prevailed. (Hat tip to William Faulkner.)

Given that this is a Mostly Movies blog, and in lieu of another original post on the incident (after all, Rainier awaits, to say nothing of Elizabeth and the dog), here are a few relevant movie quotes to commemorate the occasion of yours truly still being here to press Publish and go climb a mountain:

"Sometimes a little near death experience helps them put things into perspective." — Something To Talk About

"It's alive! ALIVE" — Frankenstein

"'Ere, he says he's not dead." — Monty Python and the Holy Grail

"Has it ever occurred to you that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life?" — Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

"Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast." — The Hours

"Funny how gentle people get with you once you're dead." — Sunset Blvd.

[In response to Death coming for Jonas Skat]: "Is there no exemption for actors?" — The Seventh Seal

"Honey, we all got to go sometime, reason or no reason. Dying's as natural as living. The man who's too afraid to die is too afraid to live." — The Misfits

"If a man doesn't know death, he doesn't know life." — Grand Hotel

"No man can walk out of his own story." — Rango 

"I don't like things that finish. One must begin something else right away." — Last Tango in Paris

"Bad things happen, but you can still live." — Super 8

"Get busy living or get busy dying." — The Shawshank Redemption

"Do I know what I'm doing today? No. But I'm here, and I'm going to give it my best shot." — Zoolander

"And then ol' Danny fell, round and round like a penny whirly-gig. 20,000 miles. It took him half an hour to fall before he struck the rocks. And you know what they did to Peachy? They crucified him, sir, between two pine trees, as Peachy's hands will show. Ol' poor Peachy, who never done them any harm, just hung there and he screamed, but he didn't die. And the next day they cut him down and they said it was a miracle he wasn't dead and they let him go, and Peachy come home in about a year." — The Man Who Would Be King

"Your life's 'To Do List' must be a baffling document." — Get Him to the Greek

"There are times when suddenly you realize you are nearer the end than the beginning. And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. Or if you've made any difference at all, really, particularly in comparison with other men's careers. I don't know if that kind of thinking is very healthy; but I must admit I've had some thoughts on those lines from time to time." — The Bridge on the River Kwai

"If the sky were to suddenly open up, there would be no law, there would be no rule. There would be only you and your memories, the choices you've made and the people you've touched." — Donnie Darko 

"I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle." — Citizen Kane

"Just steer the ship, Captain. Don't speculate." — Around the World in Eighty Days

"Live every day as if it is your last, for one day you're sure to be right." — Breaker Morant

"There's nothing sadder than getting to the end of your life and saying, 'I didn't do it right'." — All of Me

Grim Reaper: "A hit. You have sank my battleship!"
Bill, Ted: "Excellent! Yeah!"
Ted: "I totally knew he put it in the J's, dude!"
Bill: "Good thinking, Ted."
Grim Reaper: "You must play me again."
Bill: "WHAT?"
Grim Reaper: "Um, best two out of three."
Ted: "No way!"
Grim Reaper: "Yes way."
— Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

"I was dead too long this time. The anesthetic almost destroyed the regenerative process." — The Doctor (Paul McGann), Doctor Who TV movie

"In that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite.  That existence begins and ends is man's conception, not nature's.  And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing.  My fears melted away, and in their place came acceptance.  All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something.  And then I meant something too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist." — The Incredible Shrinking Man

"Life's like a movie. Write your own ending." — The Muppet Movie

::Squiggly swirly light thingy:: — The Tree of Life


And since I began last year's post with a Woody Allen quote, how about I end this one with another: