because words matter.
Maybe the Head Groundskeeper is getting old (David, there’s no “maybe” about it!) but there’s nothing in the movie theaters we’re interested in seeing these days. Not into comic books.
We read today that this date in 1945, the USS Indianapolis, having just delivered the atomic bomb to Tinian Island, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Only 317 survived out of a crew of 1,200.
In the greatest movie soliloquy of all time, Quint tells what made him become a modern-day Ahab. Actor Robert Shaw’s 4-minute speech drives Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, Jaws. In a movie with spectacular action scenes and special effects, Quint’s claustrophobic shipboard version of a nighttime campfire story focuses tight on his face:
“Sometimes that shark looks right at ya. Right into your eyes. And the thing about a shark is he’s got lifeless eyes, black eyes. Like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, he doesn’t even seem to be livin’ … ’til he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then … ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin’. The ocean turns red, and despite all your poundin’ and your hollerin’ those sharks come in and they rip you to pieces.”
→ Why shark attacks are up in the U.S. It’s actually good news!
Something called The Daily Jaws credits Shaw, a hard-drinking Shakespearean actor who died at age 51, with co-writing it. (A travesty that Shaw wasn’t even nominated for an Oscar.) Who writes dialogue like this any more? If there were any justice, we’d credit the writers not the actors who spoke these lines, but here goes:
Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction:
“There’s a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. ‘The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.’ … Now… I been sayin’ that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, that meant your ass. You’d be dead right now. I never gave much thought to what it meant. … But I saw some shit this mornin’ made me think twice.”
Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption:
“Am I sorry for what I did? … A young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man’s all that’s left.”
Orson Welles in The Third Man:
“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy, and peace — and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
What other great movie speeches?
Offhand, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca: “I’m no good at being noble, but …” James Stewart filibustering in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: “You all think I’m licked. Well, I’m not licked.” Jack Nicholson, in A Few Good Men: “I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.” A personal favorite is John Cazale as Fredo in Godfather Part 2:
“I can handle things. I’m smart. Not like everybody says, like dumb. I’m smart and I want respect!”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: It is a speech we find necessary to recite to many of our interlocutors these days, for some reason.
Are we sexist? Where are the ladies?
What’s your favorite quotation?
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
“What’s your favorite quotation?”
The Gotch recently watched Pulp Fiction again (that Monster Hit Son Of A Preacher Man earworm won’t vacate!)
‘Nother notable quotable?
Ving Rhames’ Marcellus Wallace: What now? Let me tell you what now. I’ma call a coupla hard, pipe-hittin’ n*****s, who’ll go to work on the homies here with a PAIR A PLIERS AND A BLOW TORCH. You hear me talkin’, hillbilly boy? I ain’t through with you by a damn sight. I’MA GET MEDIEVAL ON YOUR @$$ (caps/italics added)
Yoikes!
The Gotch
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Or from the eminently quotable Heartbreak Ridge; Major G. F. Devin (Peter Jason) to Clint Eastwood’s Gunny Highway:
“Be Careful What You Wish For, You Might Just Get It.”
The Gotch
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Don Corleone : We have known each other many years, but this is the first time you’ve come to me for counsel or for help. I can’t remember the last time you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let’s be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you feared to be in my debt.
Bonasera : I didn’t want to get into trouble.
Don Corleone : I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, you made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law. So you didn’t need a friend like me. Now you come and say “Don Corleone, give me justice.” But you don’t ask with respect. You don’t offer friendship. You don’t even think to call me “Godfather.” You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married and you ask me to do murder – for money.
Bonasera : I ask you for justice.
Don Corleone : That is not justice. Your daughter is alive.
Bonasera : Let them suffer then as she suffers.
[the Don is silent]
Bonasera : How much shall I pay you?
[the Don turns away dismissively, but Bonasera stays on]
Don Corleone : Bonasera, Bonasera, what have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you’d come to me in friendship, this scum who ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by some chance an honest man like yourself made enemies they would become my enemies. And then, they would fear you.
Bonasera : Be my friend… Godfather.
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Some day — that day may never come — I may ask you for a favor.
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“Fredo, you’re my brother and I love you. But never take sides against the family again.”
The Gotch
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You’ve got it.
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone Get Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg ________________________________
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The Outlaw Josey Wales. (with settlers coming under attack)
“If things look bad, and it looks like your not going to make it,then you gotta get mean, I mean PLUMB MADDOG MEAN!
Because if you loose your head and give up ,you neither live nor win.
Thats just the way it is.
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How can you go wrong quoting a Clint Eastwood character, am I right?
As William Munny in The Unforgiven:
“Its A Hell Of A Thing, Killing A Man. You Take Away Everything He’s Got And Everything He’s Ever Gonna Have.”
The Gotch
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Little Bill Daggett: I don’t deserve this…to die like this. I was building a house.
William Munny: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.
Bill: I’ll see you in Hell, William Munny.
William: Yeah.
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A Mordequi played a prominent part in High Plains Drifter.
Any relation…?
The Gotch
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No relation. But Clint Eastwood westerns are some of my favorites, and High Plains Drifter is in my personal collection.
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“I am not an animal!” –Spoken by John Hurt, playing David Merrick in “The Elephant Man” (1980).
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The Big Short:
Rabbi: Your son is looking for inconsistencies in the word of God.
Mother: So, has he found any?
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The Stranger in High Plains Drifter:
The only problem you’ve got Sheriff is a short supply of guts.
The Gotch
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“What we’ve got here…is failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.”
Strother Martin (Captain) in Cool Hand Luke
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
Joe Mantell (Lawrence Walsh) in Chinatown
“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Robert Duvall (Bill Kilgore) Apocalypse Now
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Judge Smails to Danny Noonan: “I’ve sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn’t want to do it. I felt I owed it to them.”
The Gotch
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My favorite quotation, which is also a memorable insult, can be found in the movie “Casablanca”. Bogart to Peter Lorre: “If I gave you any thought I might despise you.” Ouch. BTW Robert Shaw created the best cameo portrayal ever of king Henry VIII in the film “A Man For All Seasons”.
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I’m trying to find local blogs that cover the current schooling experience in Madison written and curated by insiders, mainly teachers and staff. No bureaucrats or 3rd party activists. Anyone know of any? Thanks.
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HL Mencken said: “(movies)are idiotic because their production is mainly in the hands of idiots.”
He also said: “In some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
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I respect Mr. Mencken and his writings greatly, but his blanket statement about movies comes across as brash and knee-jerk.
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Mencken is a rich source for quotes. My favorite: “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
Mr. Mencken on “objective” news reporting: “Truth is a commodity that the masses of undifferentiated men cannot be induced to buy.”
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“Mencken is a rich source for quotes.”
You’s damned skippie!
“Every Normal Man Must Be Tempted, At Times, To Spit Upon His Hands, Hoist The Black Flag, And Begin Slitting Throats.”
And The Gotch can resist ANYTHING…..but Temptation…
The Gotch
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First place is a Cadillac Eldorado
Second place is a set of steak knives
Third place is you’re fired
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“If you get the vax shots, you won’t get the covid rabies”. Joe Xiden
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Great quotes, folks. But these are one-liners, not soliloquies or speeches. Think Hamlet or Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, and Countrymen …” From Julius Caesar. Like Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” in On the Waterfront.
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OK. A soliloquy. Paul Varjak to Holly GoLightly from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”: “You know what’s wrong with you, Miss whoever you are? You’re chicken. You’ve got no guts. You’re afraid to stick your chin out and say…’ okay – Life’s a fact – People do fall in love – People do belong to each other, because that’s the only chance anybody’s got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing and you’re terrified somebody’s going to stick you in a cage — well, baby you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself and it’s not bounded on the West by Tulip, Texas or on the East by Somaliland — it’s wherever you go, because no matter where you run you just end up running into yourself.”
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Jeepers Blaska; let your needs be known and the Great Platinum Subscriber Unwashed shall provide.
To wit; Wilfred Brimley’s Asst. U.S. AG James J. Wells superbly “aw shucks” delivered, ethically sound, exchange with a Top-Of-Her-Game, très fetching Megan Carter (Sally Fields):
“I think I know where we’re headed here. Before we get there, I want to say something to you. You know and I know that we can’t tell you what to print or what not to. We hope the press will act responsibly, but when you don’t, there ain’t a lot we can do about it. We can’t have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. IT AIN’T LEGAL. AND WORSE THAN THAT, BY GOD, IT AIN’T RIGHT.” (caps/italics mine)
And the coup de grâce not long after to Bob Balaban’s Elliott Rosen:
Wells: What’d you figure you’d do after government service, Elliott?
Rosen: I’m not quitting.
Wells: You ain’t no presidential appointee, Elliott; the one that hired you is me. You got thirty days.
More like it…?
The Gotch
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Jeepers Blaska; let your needs be known and the Great Platinum Subscriber Unwashed shall provide.
To wit; Wilfred Brimley’s Asst. U.S. AG James J. Wells superbly “aw shucks” delivered, ethically sound, exchange with a Top-Of-Her-Game, très fetching Megan Carter (Sally Fields):
“I think I know where we’re headed here. Before we get there, I want to say something to you. You know and I know that we can’t tell you what to print or what not to. We hope the press will act responsibly, but when you don’t, there ain’t a lot we can do about it. We can’t have people go around leaking stuff for their own reasons. IT AIN’T LEGAL. AND WORSE THAN THAT, BY GOD, IT AIN’T RIGHT.” (caps/italics mine)
And the coup de grâce not long after to Bob Balaban’s Elliott Rosen:
Wells: What’d you figure you’d do after government service, Elliott?
Rosen: I’m not quitting.
Wells: You ain’t no presidential appointee, Elliott; the one that hired you is me. You got thirty days.
More like it…?
The Gotch
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“Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, “Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.” You remember that? “This ain’t your night”! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have to take them dives for the short-end money.
…You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.”
Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On The Waterfront
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Bruce Wayne: Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he’s after.
Alfred Pennyworth: With respect Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man that *you* don’t fully understand, either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So, we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anybody who traded with him. One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.
Bruce Wayne: So why steal them?
Alfred Pennyworth: Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.
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