Acolyte: n. attendant, assistant, or follower. Or, in this case, “a beginner…someone who wants to be like someone.”
Here though in a more secular setting. But there are any number of different ways in which one can come to attend, assist or follow another. And [of course] more or less willingly. If less though, there are then plenty of different ways to bring that to an end. Some more horrific than others. And there’s always this: who is following whom?
Why do people do these things? Or, maybe, why don’t more people do these things? Which inquiry is more depressing.
In the past Parker [the one with the swastika tattoos] did terrible things to Mark and James. Bullying them to no end. Raping them. Now there is a dead body, another young girl missing and a chance to get back at him. Not that they can do it themselves though. So, they blackmail another man to do it for them. Then things start to unravel. As things are prone to do when you keep adding more components. A serial killer, for example. And Mark and James are “just Kids”. And, like most Kids, they think they know everything.
And so is Chasely. And between the three of them, boy, do they fuck things up. I mean really fuck things up. But then this a world where nothing is really what it seems. Or, rather, where some things aren’t.
Acolytes
Chasely: It’s probably just a dead pet.
Nope, not even close.
James: We should have said something.
Mark: Like what?
James: I don’t know. Something.
Mark: Like sorry we dug you up? Sorry you’re dead?
Sure, but only if you really are.
Man [to Ian while he – the man – is kicking Gary]: If you knew what he did you wouldn’t care if he ever got up.
Not many assholes that's not applicable to.
Ian [holding a gun to Gary’s head]: I’m not a fucking cop.
Gary: What do you want then?
Ian: I just want you to tell me a few things.
Gary: Like what?
Ian: Like who are the kids that want you dead?
The kids weren't expecting that. Me neither.
Mark: Why’d you do it to us?
Gary: Because I could.
Next up: what can they do to him?
Mark: Pull it out. Chasely, please, pull it out!!
Not what you're thinking.
Ian [to Mark about Gary and Tanya]: He knew as soon they saw her, he could tell them that for once it wasn’t his fault. But it didn’t matter. She was dead. And he was Gary Parker.
Enough said?
Ian [to Mark]: While you was looking for me, I was looking for you.
Too close to call. Until it isn't.
Ian [to Mark]: So, you got rid of Parker, you got rid of your friend, you got the girl. You want to be like me, man, but you’re not.
[long pause as he stares at Mark]
Ian: She is my girlfriend now.
Though not for long.
Quote of the day
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Materialism
“Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.” John Ruskin
If only all the way to the grave.
“The more things we accumulate, the more cluttered our lives become, and the more stressed we feel as we are compelled to think about them. Life is about people not about things.” Natalie Vellacott
So, how's that working out for you?
“The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen.” Steven Pinker
Anyone care to rebut this?
“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” Leonard Ravenhill
Let's make a list.
“The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.” Benjamin Disraeli
I do that all the time.
“Earn, consume, and enjoy life. Offend no one; don’t get offended. Don’t take sides; don’t take a stand. Don’t interfere; don’t get affected. Just earn, consume, and enjoy life.” Abhaidev
And it happens to be in that exact order.
“Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.” John Ruskin
If only all the way to the grave.
“The more things we accumulate, the more cluttered our lives become, and the more stressed we feel as we are compelled to think about them. Life is about people not about things.” Natalie Vellacott
So, how's that working out for you?
“The supposedly immaterial soul, we now know, can be bisected with a knife, altered by chemicals, started or stopped by electricity, and extinguished by a sharp blow or by insufficient oxygen.” Steven Pinker
Anyone care to rebut this?
“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” Leonard Ravenhill
Let's make a list.
“The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.” Benjamin Disraeli
I do that all the time.
“Earn, consume, and enjoy life. Offend no one; don’t get offended. Don’t take sides; don’t take a stand. Don’t interfere; don’t get affected. Just earn, consume, and enjoy life.” Abhaidev
And it happens to be in that exact order.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
A sort of "wild child". Not raised by and around wolves, but by and around a woman who had isolated herself from all the civilized world. Aside from the delivery boy.
A truly one in a million daseins, in other words.
Fortunately, she is found by a man [and later a woman] of science. Not only that but he’s also a doctor who still makes house calls. And she’s a doctor who specializes in “disturbed” minds. So they were able not only to care for her but to probe her for clues as to what in the hell had happened to make her this way. This is a tricky distinction to make at times. You want the truth but there is only so far you can go in “experimenting” with people. Especially someone as vulnerable as Nell. In other words, you can tell her that what you are doing to her is anything. To the extent that you can tell her anything at all.
For one thing, she learned how to speak from a woman who was paralyzed on one side of her face. So her communication is something like a hybrid between a “speech distortion” and a whole new language.
But it does include a healthy dose of what she calls the wor’i’a law. And that allows her to make a distinction between those who either are or are not eva’durs.
Too bad about the hokey ending. The part in the courtroom especially. I mean, please…
As part of her preparation for the role, Jodie Foster read the same books that François Truffaut read when he was prepping his similarly themed film The Wild Child. Foster, being fluent in French, read them in their original language.
Christina Applegate was offered the role of Paula, but turned the role down due to her commitment to the TV sitcom Married with Children. IMDb
Hey, that’s a tough choice.
Nell
Jerry: She lived here all alone, huh?
Sheriff: That’s what hermits do, Lowell. They live alone and they die alone.
Sounds about right. Unless, of course, you count Nell.
Jerry: What kind of deal is this? The first who finds her is supposed to look after her?
Sheriff [matter of factly]: That means you, Jerry.
Sheriff [reading from Violet’s note]: ‘The Lord led you here.’ There you have it.
Jerry: You led me here.
Sheriff: You want the Lord to take care of her now?
Jerry: The last time I saw the Lord was in the church of my wedding and look how that turned out.
Cue the tag team.
Paula [seeing the Sheriff’s wife crying]: What happened to her?
Jerry: Nothing and everything. It hits her once in a while.
Paula: Is there any obvious cause?
Jerry: You want a list? Life’s tough.
And then some.
Dr. Paley [to Jerry]: Let me tell you what we are dealing with here…some pretty fundamental issues. How was the personality formed? We don’t know. How much is innate? How much is learned? We don’t know. Where do gender roles come from? We don’t know. Because you can’t take a baby and have it in a lab and monitor and control every influence.
That's still true, I suspect.
Dr. Paley: Everybody has an ulterior motive…Even caring for someone has an ulterior motive.
In other words, sooner or later [in one way or another] there has to be something in it for you.
Jerry [to judge regarding the custody of Nell]: We all know what happens to these freak cases, Your Honor. They get a year of celebrity, a starring role in a few academic papers and then they get to spend the rest of their lives in a state institution, abandoned by the very doctors and scientists who claimed to be helping them.
In other words, not just chimps and monkeys.
Paula: We shouldn’t be watching this.
Jerry; Why not?
Paula: She’s naked.
Jerry: So? I think she’s beautiful.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
You know what that suggests.
[Jerry plays music making Nell cry]
Paula: Turn that thing off! What the hell do you think you’re doin’? She’s never heard music before.
Jerry: Hey! Sometimes people just do things! It’s called impulse. Try it some time.
Paula: It’s called doin’ what you want when you want to, and not giving a shit about anybody else! I grew out of it by the age of six!
Next thing you know they're getting married. And we all know how sad that turned out to be.
Paula: I think Nell can manage it there.
Dr. Paley: Let me give you a little peek into the future, Paula. One day soon some hiker or fisherman is gonna walk out of those woods with a story about a wild woman. And that’ll bring the news reporters and the reports will bring the crowds, who will bring the talk-show hosts. Nell will find she’s hired a lawyer, an agent, a manager, and three bodyguards. You think she can handle that?
Cue Billy.
Paula [to Jerry]: It’s time to show her the big bad world and see how she handles it.
Next up: jumping the shark.
Billy: Gentlemen, I believe we has got us a wild woman here.
So, how can he take advantage of that? Simply by lifting his shirt.
Paula: To think I was going to be the one to change her life.
Jerry: Me too.
Mary: Don’t you know? You were the first.
Paula: The first what?
Mary: To need her.
But no one needs her more than Mary.
A truly one in a million daseins, in other words.
Fortunately, she is found by a man [and later a woman] of science. Not only that but he’s also a doctor who still makes house calls. And she’s a doctor who specializes in “disturbed” minds. So they were able not only to care for her but to probe her for clues as to what in the hell had happened to make her this way. This is a tricky distinction to make at times. You want the truth but there is only so far you can go in “experimenting” with people. Especially someone as vulnerable as Nell. In other words, you can tell her that what you are doing to her is anything. To the extent that you can tell her anything at all.
For one thing, she learned how to speak from a woman who was paralyzed on one side of her face. So her communication is something like a hybrid between a “speech distortion” and a whole new language.
But it does include a healthy dose of what she calls the wor’i’a law. And that allows her to make a distinction between those who either are or are not eva’durs.
Too bad about the hokey ending. The part in the courtroom especially. I mean, please…
As part of her preparation for the role, Jodie Foster read the same books that François Truffaut read when he was prepping his similarly themed film The Wild Child. Foster, being fluent in French, read them in their original language.
Christina Applegate was offered the role of Paula, but turned the role down due to her commitment to the TV sitcom Married with Children. IMDb
Hey, that’s a tough choice.
Nell
Jerry: She lived here all alone, huh?
Sheriff: That’s what hermits do, Lowell. They live alone and they die alone.
Sounds about right. Unless, of course, you count Nell.
Jerry: What kind of deal is this? The first who finds her is supposed to look after her?
Sheriff [matter of factly]: That means you, Jerry.
Sheriff [reading from Violet’s note]: ‘The Lord led you here.’ There you have it.
Jerry: You led me here.
Sheriff: You want the Lord to take care of her now?
Jerry: The last time I saw the Lord was in the church of my wedding and look how that turned out.
Cue the tag team.
Paula [seeing the Sheriff’s wife crying]: What happened to her?
Jerry: Nothing and everything. It hits her once in a while.
Paula: Is there any obvious cause?
Jerry: You want a list? Life’s tough.
And then some.
Dr. Paley [to Jerry]: Let me tell you what we are dealing with here…some pretty fundamental issues. How was the personality formed? We don’t know. How much is innate? How much is learned? We don’t know. Where do gender roles come from? We don’t know. Because you can’t take a baby and have it in a lab and monitor and control every influence.
That's still true, I suspect.
Dr. Paley: Everybody has an ulterior motive…Even caring for someone has an ulterior motive.
In other words, sooner or later [in one way or another] there has to be something in it for you.
Jerry [to judge regarding the custody of Nell]: We all know what happens to these freak cases, Your Honor. They get a year of celebrity, a starring role in a few academic papers and then they get to spend the rest of their lives in a state institution, abandoned by the very doctors and scientists who claimed to be helping them.
In other words, not just chimps and monkeys.
Paula: We shouldn’t be watching this.
Jerry; Why not?
Paula: She’s naked.
Jerry: So? I think she’s beautiful.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
You know what that suggests.
[Jerry plays music making Nell cry]
Paula: Turn that thing off! What the hell do you think you’re doin’? She’s never heard music before.
Jerry: Hey! Sometimes people just do things! It’s called impulse. Try it some time.
Paula: It’s called doin’ what you want when you want to, and not giving a shit about anybody else! I grew out of it by the age of six!
Next thing you know they're getting married. And we all know how sad that turned out to be.
Paula: I think Nell can manage it there.
Dr. Paley: Let me give you a little peek into the future, Paula. One day soon some hiker or fisherman is gonna walk out of those woods with a story about a wild woman. And that’ll bring the news reporters and the reports will bring the crowds, who will bring the talk-show hosts. Nell will find she’s hired a lawyer, an agent, a manager, and three bodyguards. You think she can handle that?
Cue Billy.
Paula [to Jerry]: It’s time to show her the big bad world and see how she handles it.
Next up: jumping the shark.
Billy: Gentlemen, I believe we has got us a wild woman here.
So, how can he take advantage of that? Simply by lifting his shirt.
Paula: To think I was going to be the one to change her life.
Jerry: Me too.
Mary: Don’t you know? You were the first.
Paula: The first what?
Mary: To need her.
But no one needs her more than Mary.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
The fake orgasm heard around the world.
Besides, in the real world there would almost certainly be the inevitable sequel: When Harry Divorced Sally. Or, even more likely, when Sally divorced Harry for sleeping around. Or, perhaps, when Sally shot and killed Harry for sleeping around. Sorry, I once watched a lot of of true crime docs.
Sure, we know that a lot of the observations here are spot on with respect to the complex relationships that can unfold between men and women wobbling back and forth between friendship and fucking. But they still barely scratch the surface with respect to all of the possible combinations there are. Of course, it’s the same thing between same-sex couples too.
So, I tend to stick to the basics: it is well written [Nora Ephron] and it is often very, very funny. But it would have been all the more so though had they not stuck in those cringe-worthy “real-life story people” vignettes every ten to fifteen minutes. Thank god for fast forward. But, hey, that’s just me.
The orgasm scene was filmed at Katz’s Deli, an actual restaurant on New York’s E. Houston Street. The table at which the scene was filmed now has a plaque on it that reads, “Where harry met sally… hope you have what she had!”
The quote “I’ll have what she’s having” was not only voted #33 on the AFI’s list of “Best 100 Movie Quotes in American Film”, and the ONLY quote on the list to be spoken by a non-professional actor (it was director Rob Reiner’s mom who delivered the line). IMDb
When Harry Met Sally
Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That’s what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side?
Harry: Sure. Why? Don’t you have a dark side? I know, you’re probably one of those cheerful people who dot their “i’s” with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.
Of course, it doesn't even come close to mine.
Harry: Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do, a fleeting thought that jumps in and out of the transom of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days…
Sally: And you think that makes you a better person.
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down I’m gonna be prepared and you’re not…that’s all I’m saying.
Sally: And in the mean time you’re gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.
Nope, he sells out, doesn't he?
Sally: It just so happens that I have had plenty of great sex.
Harry: With whom did you have this great sex?
Sally: I’m not going to tell you that.
Harry: Fine, don’t tell me.
[she thinks about it]
Sally: Shel Gordon.
Harry: Shel? Sheldon? No, no, you did not have great sex with Sheldon.
Sally: I did too.
Harry: No you didn’t. A Sheldon can do your income taxes, if you need a root canal, Sheldon’s your man…but humpin’ and pumpin’ is not Sheldon’s strong suit. It’s the name. ‘Do it to me Sheldon, you’re an animal Sheldon, ride me big Shel-don.’ Doesn’t work.
Start here: https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-peop ... /reference
Harry: I’ll have a number three.
Sally: I’d like the chef salad please with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode.
Waitress: Chef and apple a la mode
Sally: But I’d like the pie heated and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it’s real; if it’s out of the can then nothing.
Waitress: Not even the pie?
Sally: No, I want the pie, but then not heated.
The look on Harry's face! As I recall.
Sally [on why she broke up with Sheldon]: Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.
Harry: Ehhhh. I’m sorry. I need the judges ruling on this. “Days of the weeks underpants”?
Sally: Yes. They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, “You never wear Sunday.” It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? Where had I left Sunday? And I told him, and he didn’t believe me.
Harry: What?
Sally: They don’t make Sunday.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: Because of God.
The Christian God I'm guessing.
Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry: I guess not.
Sally: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.
Of course, Harry nailed it, didn't he?
Harry: You’re with Joe, what, three weeks?
Sally: A month. How did you know that?
Harry: You take someone to the airport, it’s clearly the beginning of the relationship. That’s why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.
Sally: Why?
Harry: Because eventually things move on and you don’t take someone to the airport and I never wanted anyone to say to me, How come you never take me to the airport anymore?
Sally: It’s amazing. You look like a normal person but actually you are the angel of death.
Of course, Sally nailed it, didn't she? On the other hand, Harry nailed it too.
Harry [after telling Sally he is getting married]: You just get to a certain point where you get tired of the whole thing.
Sally: What “whole thing”?
Harry: The whole life-of-a-single-guy thing. You meet someone, you have the safe lunch, you decide you like each other enough to move on to dinner. You go dancing, you do the white-man’s over-bite, go back to her place, you have sex and the minute you’re finished you know what goes through your mind? How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home. Is thirty seconds enough?
Sally (In disgust): That’s what you’re thinking? Is that true?
Harry: Sure! All men think that. How long do you want to be held afterwards? All night, right? See there’s your problem, somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem.
Sally: I don’t have a problem!
Harry: Yeah you do.
One and/or both of them do.
Harry: Would you like to have dinner? Just friends.
Sally: I thought you didn’t believe men and women could be friends.
Harry: When did I say that?
Sally: On the ride to New York.
Harry: No, no, no, I never said that…
[he thinks about it]
Harry: Yes, that’s right, they can’t be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can…This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted…That doesn’t work either, because what happens then is, the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say “No, no, no it’s not true, nothing is missing from the relationship,” the person you’re involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you’re just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let’s face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can’t be friends. So where does that leave us?
Back on square one.
Harry: So I say to her, “Don’t you love me anymore?” You know what she says?
(Jess shakes his head)
Harry: “I don’t know if I’ve ever loved you.”
Jess: Ooo that’s harsh. You don’t bounce back from that right away.
Harry: Thanks Jess.
Jess: No, I’m a writer, I know dialogue and that’s particularly harsh.
And, no, not just philosophically.
Jess: You’re saying Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?
Harry: Mr. Zero knew.
Jess: I can’t believe this!
Harry: I haven’t told you the bad part yet.
Jess: What could be worse than Mr. Zero knowing?
Harry: It’s all a lie. She’s in love with somebody else, some tax attorney. She moved in with him.
Jess: How did you find out?
Harry: I followed her, I stood outside the building.
Jess: So humiliating.
Harry: Tell me about it. And do you know I knew? I knew the whole time that even though we were happy it was just an illusion and that one day she will kick the shit out of me.
Jess: Marriages don’t break up on a count of infidelity. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong.
Harry: Oh really? Well that symptom is fucking my wife.
Let's pin this down once and for all:
1] genes
2] memes
3] a hoplelessly entangled intertwining of both
Marie [to Sally in the bookstore]: Someone is staring at you in “personal growth”.
Take a wild guess.
Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You’re the worst kind; you’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see that? “Waiter, I’ll begin with a house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing. I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side.” On the side is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know; high maintenance.
How high do you go?
Sally: Well, basically it’s the same dream I’ve been having since I was twelve.
Harry: Which is?
Sally: Okay, there’s this guy…
Harry: What does he look like?
Sally: I don’t know, he’s just sort of faceless.
Harry: Faceless guy, okay.
Sally: He RIPS off my clothes.
[pause]
Harry: And?
Sally: That’s it.
Harry: That’s it? Some faceless guy rips off all your clothes, and that’s the sex fantasy you’ve been having since you were twelve? Exactly the same.
Sally: Well sometimes I vary it a little.
Harry: Which part?
Sally: What I’m wearing.
You know, the panties.
Lady at restaurant: I’ll have what she’s having.
Anyone here remember why?
Jess: When someone is not that attractive, they’re always described as having a good personality.
Harry: Look, if you would ask me, “What does she look like?” and I said, “She has a good personality.” That means she’s not attractive. But just because I happened to mention that she has a good personality, she could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality, or not attractive with a good personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right?
I always thought that she was.
Harry [to Jess and Marie]: Right now everything is great, everyone is happy, everyone is in love and that is wonderful. But you gotta know that sooner or later you’re gonna be screaming at each other about who’s gonna get this dish. This eight dollar dish will cost you a thousand dollars in phone calls to the legal firm of That’s Mine, This Is Yours.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: Please, Jess, Marie. Do me a favor, for your own good, put your name in your books right now before they get mixed up and you won’t know whose is whose. 'Cause someday, believe it or not, you’ll go 15 rounds over who’s gonna get this coffee table. This stupid wagon wheel ROY ROGERS GARAGE SALE COFFEE TABLE!
Jess: I thought you liked it!
Harry: I WAS BEING NICE!
You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=1 ... =616&dpr=1
Harry: If you’re so over Joe, why aren’t you seeing anyone?
Sally: I see people.
Harry: See people? Have you slept with one person since you broke up with Joe?
Sally: What the hell does that have to do with anything? That will prove I’m over Joe? Because I fuck somebody? Harry, you’re gonna have to move back to New Jersey because you’ve slept with everybody in New York and I don’t see that turning Helen into a faint memory for you.
Ouch!!!
Right?
Harry [to Jess]: It’s just like most of the time you go to bed with someone, she tells you her stories, you tell her your stories. But with Sally and me, we’ve already heard each other’s stories, so once we went to bed, we didn’t know what we were suppose to do, you know?
Tell me about it!
Harry: You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally: Yes. Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario?
Harry: Yes.
Sally: Who is the dog?
Harry: You are.
Sally: I am? I am the dog? I am the dog?
If only metaphorically, of course.
Jess [at his wedding to Marie]: Everybody could I have your attention please? I’d like to propose a toast to Harry and Sally. To Harry and Sally, if Marie or I had found either of them remotely attractive, we would not be here today.
No, that's true. And then some.
Harry: I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: You see, that is just like you Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you Harry… I really hate you. I hate you.
What, no sequel?
Besides, in the real world there would almost certainly be the inevitable sequel: When Harry Divorced Sally. Or, even more likely, when Sally divorced Harry for sleeping around. Or, perhaps, when Sally shot and killed Harry for sleeping around. Sorry, I once watched a lot of of true crime docs.
Sure, we know that a lot of the observations here are spot on with respect to the complex relationships that can unfold between men and women wobbling back and forth between friendship and fucking. But they still barely scratch the surface with respect to all of the possible combinations there are. Of course, it’s the same thing between same-sex couples too.
So, I tend to stick to the basics: it is well written [Nora Ephron] and it is often very, very funny. But it would have been all the more so though had they not stuck in those cringe-worthy “real-life story people” vignettes every ten to fifteen minutes. Thank god for fast forward. But, hey, that’s just me.
The orgasm scene was filmed at Katz’s Deli, an actual restaurant on New York’s E. Houston Street. The table at which the scene was filmed now has a plaque on it that reads, “Where harry met sally… hope you have what she had!”
The quote “I’ll have what she’s having” was not only voted #33 on the AFI’s list of “Best 100 Movie Quotes in American Film”, and the ONLY quote on the list to be spoken by a non-professional actor (it was director Rob Reiner’s mom who delivered the line). IMDb
When Harry Met Sally
Sally: Amanda mentioned you had a dark side.
Harry: That’s what drew her to me.
Sally: Your dark side?
Harry: Sure. Why? Don’t you have a dark side? I know, you’re probably one of those cheerful people who dot their “i’s” with little hearts.
Sally: I have just as much of a dark side as the next person.
Harry: Oh, really? When I buy a new book, I read the last page first. That way, in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side.
Of course, it doesn't even come close to mine.
Harry: Do you ever think about death?
Sally: Yes.
Harry: Sure you do, a fleeting thought that jumps in and out of the transom of your mind. I spend hours, I spend days…
Sally: And you think that makes you a better person.
Harry: Look, when the shit comes down I’m gonna be prepared and you’re not…that’s all I’m saying.
Sally: And in the mean time you’re gonna ruin your whole life waiting for it.
Nope, he sells out, doesn't he?
Sally: It just so happens that I have had plenty of great sex.
Harry: With whom did you have this great sex?
Sally: I’m not going to tell you that.
Harry: Fine, don’t tell me.
[she thinks about it]
Sally: Shel Gordon.
Harry: Shel? Sheldon? No, no, you did not have great sex with Sheldon.
Sally: I did too.
Harry: No you didn’t. A Sheldon can do your income taxes, if you need a root canal, Sheldon’s your man…but humpin’ and pumpin’ is not Sheldon’s strong suit. It’s the name. ‘Do it to me Sheldon, you’re an animal Sheldon, ride me big Shel-don.’ Doesn’t work.
Start here: https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-peop ... /reference
Harry: I’ll have a number three.
Sally: I’d like the chef salad please with the oil and vinegar on the side and the apple pie a la mode.
Waitress: Chef and apple a la mode
Sally: But I’d like the pie heated and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side, and I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it, if not then no ice cream just whipped cream but only if it’s real; if it’s out of the can then nothing.
Waitress: Not even the pie?
Sally: No, I want the pie, but then not heated.
The look on Harry's face! As I recall.
Sally [on why she broke up with Sheldon]: Well, if you must know, it was because he was very jealous, and I had these days of the week underpants.
Harry: Ehhhh. I’m sorry. I need the judges ruling on this. “Days of the weeks underpants”?
Sally: Yes. They had the days of the week on them, and I thought they were sort of funny. And then one day Sheldon says to me, “You never wear Sunday.” It was all suspicious. Where was Sunday? Where had I left Sunday? And I told him, and he didn’t believe me.
Harry: What?
Sally: They don’t make Sunday.
Harry: Why not?
Sally: Because of God.
The Christian God I'm guessing.
Harry: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally: Why not?
Harry: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: No you don’t.
Sally: Yes I do.
Harry: You only think you do.
Sally: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: They do not.
Harry: Do too.
Sally: How do you know?
Harry: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry: No. You pretty much want to nail 'em too.
Sally: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry: I guess not.
Sally: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.
Of course, Harry nailed it, didn't he?
Harry: You’re with Joe, what, three weeks?
Sally: A month. How did you know that?
Harry: You take someone to the airport, it’s clearly the beginning of the relationship. That’s why I have never taken anyone to the airport at the beginning of a relationship.
Sally: Why?
Harry: Because eventually things move on and you don’t take someone to the airport and I never wanted anyone to say to me, How come you never take me to the airport anymore?
Sally: It’s amazing. You look like a normal person but actually you are the angel of death.
Of course, Sally nailed it, didn't she? On the other hand, Harry nailed it too.
Harry [after telling Sally he is getting married]: You just get to a certain point where you get tired of the whole thing.
Sally: What “whole thing”?
Harry: The whole life-of-a-single-guy thing. You meet someone, you have the safe lunch, you decide you like each other enough to move on to dinner. You go dancing, you do the white-man’s over-bite, go back to her place, you have sex and the minute you’re finished you know what goes through your mind? How long do I have to lie here and hold her before I can get up and go home. Is thirty seconds enough?
Sally (In disgust): That’s what you’re thinking? Is that true?
Harry: Sure! All men think that. How long do you want to be held afterwards? All night, right? See there’s your problem, somewhere between thirty seconds and all night is your problem.
Sally: I don’t have a problem!
Harry: Yeah you do.
One and/or both of them do.
Harry: Would you like to have dinner? Just friends.
Sally: I thought you didn’t believe men and women could be friends.
Harry: When did I say that?
Sally: On the ride to New York.
Harry: No, no, no, I never said that…
[he thinks about it]
Harry: Yes, that’s right, they can’t be friends. Unless both of them are involved with other people, then they can…This is an amendment to the earlier rule. If the two people are in relationships, the pressure of possible involvement is lifted…That doesn’t work either, because what happens then is, the person you’re involved with can’t understand why you need to be friends with the person you’re just friends with. Like it means something is missing from the relationship and why do you have to go outside to get it? And when you say “No, no, no it’s not true, nothing is missing from the relationship,” the person you’re involved with then accuses you of being secretly attracted to the person you’re just friends with, which you probably are. I mean, come on, who the hell are we kidding, let’s face it. Which brings us back to the earlier rule before the amendment, which is men and women can’t be friends. So where does that leave us?
Back on square one.
Harry: So I say to her, “Don’t you love me anymore?” You know what she says?
(Jess shakes his head)
Harry: “I don’t know if I’ve ever loved you.”
Jess: Ooo that’s harsh. You don’t bounce back from that right away.
Harry: Thanks Jess.
Jess: No, I’m a writer, I know dialogue and that’s particularly harsh.
And, no, not just philosophically.
Jess: You’re saying Mr. Zero knew you were getting a divorce a week before you did?
Harry: Mr. Zero knew.
Jess: I can’t believe this!
Harry: I haven’t told you the bad part yet.
Jess: What could be worse than Mr. Zero knowing?
Harry: It’s all a lie. She’s in love with somebody else, some tax attorney. She moved in with him.
Jess: How did you find out?
Harry: I followed her, I stood outside the building.
Jess: So humiliating.
Harry: Tell me about it. And do you know I knew? I knew the whole time that even though we were happy it was just an illusion and that one day she will kick the shit out of me.
Jess: Marriages don’t break up on a count of infidelity. It’s just a symptom that something else is wrong.
Harry: Oh really? Well that symptom is fucking my wife.
Let's pin this down once and for all:
1] genes
2] memes
3] a hoplelessly entangled intertwining of both
Marie [to Sally in the bookstore]: Someone is staring at you in “personal growth”.
Take a wild guess.
Harry: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally: Which one am I?
Harry: You’re the worst kind; you’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally: I don’t see that.
Harry: You don’t see that? “Waiter, I’ll begin with a house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing. I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side.” On the side is a very big thing for you.
Sally: Well, I just want it the way I want it.
Harry: I know; high maintenance.
How high do you go?
Sally: Well, basically it’s the same dream I’ve been having since I was twelve.
Harry: Which is?
Sally: Okay, there’s this guy…
Harry: What does he look like?
Sally: I don’t know, he’s just sort of faceless.
Harry: Faceless guy, okay.
Sally: He RIPS off my clothes.
[pause]
Harry: And?
Sally: That’s it.
Harry: That’s it? Some faceless guy rips off all your clothes, and that’s the sex fantasy you’ve been having since you were twelve? Exactly the same.
Sally: Well sometimes I vary it a little.
Harry: Which part?
Sally: What I’m wearing.
You know, the panties.
Lady at restaurant: I’ll have what she’s having.
Anyone here remember why?
Jess: When someone is not that attractive, they’re always described as having a good personality.
Harry: Look, if you would ask me, “What does she look like?” and I said, “She has a good personality.” That means she’s not attractive. But just because I happened to mention that she has a good personality, she could be either. She could be attractive with a good personality, or not attractive with a good personality.
Jess: So which one is she?
Harry: Attractive.
Jess: But not beautiful, right?
I always thought that she was.
Harry [to Jess and Marie]: Right now everything is great, everyone is happy, everyone is in love and that is wonderful. But you gotta know that sooner or later you’re gonna be screaming at each other about who’s gonna get this dish. This eight dollar dish will cost you a thousand dollars in phone calls to the legal firm of That’s Mine, This Is Yours.
Sally: Harry.
Harry: Please, Jess, Marie. Do me a favor, for your own good, put your name in your books right now before they get mixed up and you won’t know whose is whose. 'Cause someday, believe it or not, you’ll go 15 rounds over who’s gonna get this coffee table. This stupid wagon wheel ROY ROGERS GARAGE SALE COFFEE TABLE!
Jess: I thought you liked it!
Harry: I WAS BEING NICE!
You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=1 ... =616&dpr=1
Harry: If you’re so over Joe, why aren’t you seeing anyone?
Sally: I see people.
Harry: See people? Have you slept with one person since you broke up with Joe?
Sally: What the hell does that have to do with anything? That will prove I’m over Joe? Because I fuck somebody? Harry, you’re gonna have to move back to New Jersey because you’ve slept with everybody in New York and I don’t see that turning Helen into a faint memory for you.
Ouch!!!
Right?
Harry [to Jess]: It’s just like most of the time you go to bed with someone, she tells you her stories, you tell her your stories. But with Sally and me, we’ve already heard each other’s stories, so once we went to bed, we didn’t know what we were suppose to do, you know?
Tell me about it!
Harry: You know how a year to a person is like seven years to a dog?
Sally: Yes. Is one of us supposed to be a dog in this scenario?
Harry: Yes.
Sally: Who is the dog?
Harry: You are.
Sally: I am? I am the dog? I am the dog?
If only metaphorically, of course.
Jess [at his wedding to Marie]: Everybody could I have your attention please? I’d like to propose a toast to Harry and Sally. To Harry and Sally, if Marie or I had found either of them remotely attractive, we would not be here today.
No, that's true. And then some.
Harry: I came here tonight because when you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of the life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: You see, that is just like you Harry. You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you Harry… I really hate you. I hate you.
What, no sequel?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Intellectuals
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." Immanuel Kant
Come on, it all comes down to God in the end.
"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death." Albert Einstein
Next up: intellectual growth in Heaven.
"The colour of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers." Benjamin Banneker[/b]
The fool! Right, AJ?
"It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects." Nikola Tesla
Hogwash shriek the objectivists!
"Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction." E. O. Wilson
Meaning what? Say, for all practical purposes.
"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex." Aldous Huxley
First let's establish if that is even possible.
Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play." Immanuel Kant
Come on, it all comes down to God in the end.
"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death." Albert Einstein
Next up: intellectual growth in Heaven.
"The colour of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers." Benjamin Banneker[/b]
The fool! Right, AJ?
"It is paradoxical, yet true, to say, that the more we know, the more ignorant we become in the absolute sense, for it is only through enlightenment that we become conscious of our limitations. Precisely one of the most gratifying results of intellectual evolution is the continuous opening up of new and greater prospects." Nikola Tesla
Hogwash shriek the objectivists!
"Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive and even spiritual satisfaction." E. O. Wilson
Meaning what? Say, for all practical purposes.
"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex." Aldous Huxley
First let's establish if that is even possible.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Teacher seduces student and/or student seduces teacher. It’s all the rage in our pop culture. So, what’s the catch here? What sets this one apart? Gender. Both the teacher and student are females. And it all unfolds in a Catholic high school. An “exclusive” Catholic high school. One with a “campus”.
Or maybe it’s just one more “prep” school for those folks who can afford to send their kids there. Some sort of weird modern religious hybrid? On the other hand, my own daughter graduated from Friends. And her mom and I were not exactly what you would call Quakers.
Everywhere you look there seems to be a cross. Jesus dying for their sins. Lots of girls here don’t seem to get that part though. Maybe Jesus needs to come back.
And having already been expelled from two schools previously the student here [a Senator’s daughter] seems to embody trouble. But not really. Besides, in some respects she is mature well beyond her years. And that always complicates these things. Especially for those who insist that one size fits all.
She is also very intelligent, with the sort of emotional depth that many of her fellow students seem to lack. And this catches the teacher’s attention. Then they start to go back and forth with it. Lust and love…love and lust. Don’t. Stop. Don’t. Stop. But then don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop!
Basically we come to find out that, in the end, sexual orientation notwithstanding, we all seem to be “human, all too human”.
Loving Annabelle
Simone [having asked Annabelle to stay after class because Annabelle was a bit risque in giving an answer]: I think you’re trying to get a rise out of me.
Annabelle [slightly suggestively]: And why would I want to do that?
Simone: Perhaps to get attention.
Annabelle: Perhaps I’m intrigued.
Simone: Ingrigued by what?
Annabelle [boldly]: By you.
Here we go...
Mother Immaculata [to Simone]: We need to have a serious talk about Annabelle Tillman.
It's not what you think. At least not this time.
Cat [to Annabelle]: Finally, another lesbian. I was afraid we were never going to have one again.
Again?
Mother Immaculata [after demanding that Annabelle give up her Buddhist prayer beads]: You will wear this rosary and add another one for every day you refuse to give up those beads. I think it will help you to realize how heavy a burden denying Christ can be.
Annabelle: I’m not wearing that.
Mother Immaculata: Your mother informs me that if you don’t comply you will be sent to military school. So I suggest you cooperate.
That does it! At least for now.
Words written inside a book that Simone gives to Annabelle [and then on a note Simone receives from Annabelle]: “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
On the other hand, how can it not be both?
Cat: So how’s it going with Miss Bradley?
Annabelle: Nothing’s going with Miss Bradley.
Cat: I had a crush on her when I was a freshman. I’m not gay though, I’m into guys too. Michelle Peters was obsessed with her, she used to write her notes and shit in class.
Annabelle: I’m not obsessed with her.
Cat: But you like her though.
These things do get...sordid?
Annabelle [after Cat kisses her]: I can’t.
Cat: Why not?
Annabelle: Because I’m not interested in being your science project.
You know, if that's what it is.
Annabelle: You play with your necklace a lot
Simone: Nervous habit
Annabelle: Do I make you nervous?
Look what's at stake!
Simone [as Mother Immaculata leaves her room]: That did not just happen.
On the other hand, what if it did?
Postscript: “For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks…the work for which all other work is but preparation.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Right, and look where we are now.
Or maybe it’s just one more “prep” school for those folks who can afford to send their kids there. Some sort of weird modern religious hybrid? On the other hand, my own daughter graduated from Friends. And her mom and I were not exactly what you would call Quakers.
Everywhere you look there seems to be a cross. Jesus dying for their sins. Lots of girls here don’t seem to get that part though. Maybe Jesus needs to come back.
And having already been expelled from two schools previously the student here [a Senator’s daughter] seems to embody trouble. But not really. Besides, in some respects she is mature well beyond her years. And that always complicates these things. Especially for those who insist that one size fits all.
She is also very intelligent, with the sort of emotional depth that many of her fellow students seem to lack. And this catches the teacher’s attention. Then they start to go back and forth with it. Lust and love…love and lust. Don’t. Stop. Don’t. Stop. But then don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop!
Basically we come to find out that, in the end, sexual orientation notwithstanding, we all seem to be “human, all too human”.
Loving Annabelle
Simone [having asked Annabelle to stay after class because Annabelle was a bit risque in giving an answer]: I think you’re trying to get a rise out of me.
Annabelle [slightly suggestively]: And why would I want to do that?
Simone: Perhaps to get attention.
Annabelle: Perhaps I’m intrigued.
Simone: Ingrigued by what?
Annabelle [boldly]: By you.
Here we go...
Mother Immaculata [to Simone]: We need to have a serious talk about Annabelle Tillman.
It's not what you think. At least not this time.
Cat [to Annabelle]: Finally, another lesbian. I was afraid we were never going to have one again.
Again?
Mother Immaculata [after demanding that Annabelle give up her Buddhist prayer beads]: You will wear this rosary and add another one for every day you refuse to give up those beads. I think it will help you to realize how heavy a burden denying Christ can be.
Annabelle: I’m not wearing that.
Mother Immaculata: Your mother informs me that if you don’t comply you will be sent to military school. So I suggest you cooperate.
That does it! At least for now.
Words written inside a book that Simone gives to Annabelle [and then on a note Simone receives from Annabelle]: “The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust
On the other hand, how can it not be both?
Cat: So how’s it going with Miss Bradley?
Annabelle: Nothing’s going with Miss Bradley.
Cat: I had a crush on her when I was a freshman. I’m not gay though, I’m into guys too. Michelle Peters was obsessed with her, she used to write her notes and shit in class.
Annabelle: I’m not obsessed with her.
Cat: But you like her though.
These things do get...sordid?
Annabelle [after Cat kisses her]: I can’t.
Cat: Why not?
Annabelle: Because I’m not interested in being your science project.
You know, if that's what it is.
Annabelle: You play with your necklace a lot
Simone: Nervous habit
Annabelle: Do I make you nervous?
Look what's at stake!
Simone [as Mother Immaculata leaves her room]: That did not just happen.
On the other hand, what if it did?
Postscript: “For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks…the work for which all other work is but preparation.” Rainer Maria Rilke
Right, and look where we are now.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Danny the dog. No, really. Danny is Bart’s dog.
Is this based on a true story? No. But it may well have precipitated one. There are shades of 13 Tzameti here. And who would really be surprised if this sort of “competition” was not being staged somewhere “in reality”.
Of course the only way these martial arts guys are ever able to be successful is when 1] the opponents come at them one at a time and 2] when they never [or hardly ever] think to employ a gun.
On the other hand, that has nothing at all to do with the story. Or at least the story that could have been.
What makes this film effective in part is this: we know that in any number of heartbreaking ways children are raised by others to do the most atrocious things. Maybe not to actually become analogous to an attack dog but acts equally as dehumanizing and barbaric. And that’s not even counting the instances of sex trafficking.
But how many of them are ever likely to bump fortuitously into someone like Sam and Victoria?
Alas, as with so many other films of this nature, the endless possibilities for the characters [think, for example, Oldboy] get reduced down to the usual action flick tropes. Cut! It’s a wrap!
Morgan Freeman’s character Sam was at first not blind at all. After hearing from a piano school for the blind (with a very high reputation, and where the scholars developed their hearing), Freeman had the idea of making his character blind because like this it is easier for Sam to “see” the child in Jet Li’s character, and not the brutal killer. IMDb
Unleashed
Bart [freeing Danny from the collar]: Get em.
Sic 'em in other words.
Bart: You borrow money from me, you’re expected to pay it back. You pay it back, the collar stays on. You don’t pay it back, the collar comes off.
Off it is then.
Infirmier: You know what I have always found fascinating about this whole situation of yours, Bart buddy? You’ve basically turned a man into a dog.
Bart: Like my saint of a mum used to say: Get 'em young enough and the possibilities are endless. Unlike yours at the moment.
Infirmier: Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Now I don’t pay you, you take his collar off.
Bart: Correctimundo.
Infirmier: You take his collar off, he beats us all to death.
Bart: Now who’s the bright penny!
Infirmier: So it seems it’s in my best interest to keep that collar on, then.
Oh, yeah. Unless, perhaps, you're packin'?
Bart [very angry]: I don’t believe it. He just stood there and watched them beat the crap out of me. Even a dog has got the brains to come to his masters defense. Bite them. Claw them. Piss on them. Anything for fucks sake!
What goes around, comes around as it were. Though, of course, not even close to being all the time.
Sam [to Danny]: You know a lot of people think because a piano’s so big, it is very strong and you can just pound it any way you want to and nothing will happen, but that’s not so at all. Pianos are a lot like people. I mean, you pound on a person, they get out of tune. Same with a piano. You pound on 'em and…
Next up: pounding on them here.
Wyeth: That thing with the collar…how did you do that?
Bart: Like my saint of a mum used to say, “Get 'em young, and the possibilities are endless.”
Wyeth: I thought it was the Jesuits who said that.
Bart: Probably got it from my mum.
And now you can pass it on.
Bart: I tell you, I feel really good here. And I feel generous. Danny, what do you want?
Danny: A piano.
Bart: Excuse me?
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: A piano? Oh yeah. How about a lobster dinner?
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: How about a woman? You’ve never had a woman.
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: Danny, you’re starting to piss me off.
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart [laughs]: That’s what I love about you, Danny. One thought at a time.
Click, of course.
Bart: Cause I’m so pleased to have you home, I’ll answer one question. Go on, fire away.
Danny: Did you know my mum?
Bart: Your mum? Why would I know your mum? I found you in the street. Lying on the pavement. You was halfdead. You couldn’t even talk. You was just lying there. No one wanting you. No one caring whether you lived or died. Except me.
His master's voice, as it were.
Bart: I’ll make you a deal. If you go down there tonight and do your job. I promise you, tomorrow I will buy you the nicest piano in the whole bleedin’ city. How’s that?
Danny: I don’t wanna hurt people anymore.
Bart: Then you’re dead.
Still too close to call.
Bart: This is it? This is your refuge? Your home away from home? This is your place of…awakening? Art, books, music? For what? Did it make you a better person? Look what you made of it. Nice people took you in. They give you everything. And look how you repay them. You destroyed their lives. Like you’ll destroy any life. That’s because you’re not meant for this kind of life, Danny. You’re a dog. You’re my dog. I fed you. I trained you. I own you!
Of course, "all things must pass".
Sam: Don’t do it, Danny! Don’t. Don’t kill him!
Danny: He killed my mother.
Sam: This won’t bring her back! And you’ll be just like him!
Bart: He is me. We’re both animals. Fucking dogs!
Sam: No, you’re not an animal! If you kill him, Danny, everything you’ve done to make yourself happy will be lost.
Bart: Don’t listen to this crap! We are animals!
Meaning what though?
Sam [to Bart]: You all right with that thing around your neck?
On the other hand, that's all he's ever known.
Is this based on a true story? No. But it may well have precipitated one. There are shades of 13 Tzameti here. And who would really be surprised if this sort of “competition” was not being staged somewhere “in reality”.
Of course the only way these martial arts guys are ever able to be successful is when 1] the opponents come at them one at a time and 2] when they never [or hardly ever] think to employ a gun.
On the other hand, that has nothing at all to do with the story. Or at least the story that could have been.
What makes this film effective in part is this: we know that in any number of heartbreaking ways children are raised by others to do the most atrocious things. Maybe not to actually become analogous to an attack dog but acts equally as dehumanizing and barbaric. And that’s not even counting the instances of sex trafficking.
But how many of them are ever likely to bump fortuitously into someone like Sam and Victoria?
Alas, as with so many other films of this nature, the endless possibilities for the characters [think, for example, Oldboy] get reduced down to the usual action flick tropes. Cut! It’s a wrap!
Morgan Freeman’s character Sam was at first not blind at all. After hearing from a piano school for the blind (with a very high reputation, and where the scholars developed their hearing), Freeman had the idea of making his character blind because like this it is easier for Sam to “see” the child in Jet Li’s character, and not the brutal killer. IMDb
Unleashed
Bart [freeing Danny from the collar]: Get em.
Sic 'em in other words.
Bart: You borrow money from me, you’re expected to pay it back. You pay it back, the collar stays on. You don’t pay it back, the collar comes off.
Off it is then.
Infirmier: You know what I have always found fascinating about this whole situation of yours, Bart buddy? You’ve basically turned a man into a dog.
Bart: Like my saint of a mum used to say: Get 'em young enough and the possibilities are endless. Unlike yours at the moment.
Infirmier: Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Now I don’t pay you, you take his collar off.
Bart: Correctimundo.
Infirmier: You take his collar off, he beats us all to death.
Bart: Now who’s the bright penny!
Infirmier: So it seems it’s in my best interest to keep that collar on, then.
Oh, yeah. Unless, perhaps, you're packin'?
Bart [very angry]: I don’t believe it. He just stood there and watched them beat the crap out of me. Even a dog has got the brains to come to his masters defense. Bite them. Claw them. Piss on them. Anything for fucks sake!
What goes around, comes around as it were. Though, of course, not even close to being all the time.
Sam [to Danny]: You know a lot of people think because a piano’s so big, it is very strong and you can just pound it any way you want to and nothing will happen, but that’s not so at all. Pianos are a lot like people. I mean, you pound on a person, they get out of tune. Same with a piano. You pound on 'em and…
Next up: pounding on them here.
Wyeth: That thing with the collar…how did you do that?
Bart: Like my saint of a mum used to say, “Get 'em young, and the possibilities are endless.”
Wyeth: I thought it was the Jesuits who said that.
Bart: Probably got it from my mum.
And now you can pass it on.
Bart: I tell you, I feel really good here. And I feel generous. Danny, what do you want?
Danny: A piano.
Bart: Excuse me?
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: A piano? Oh yeah. How about a lobster dinner?
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: How about a woman? You’ve never had a woman.
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart: Danny, you’re starting to piss me off.
Danny: I want a piano.
Bart [laughs]: That’s what I love about you, Danny. One thought at a time.
Click, of course.
Bart: Cause I’m so pleased to have you home, I’ll answer one question. Go on, fire away.
Danny: Did you know my mum?
Bart: Your mum? Why would I know your mum? I found you in the street. Lying on the pavement. You was halfdead. You couldn’t even talk. You was just lying there. No one wanting you. No one caring whether you lived or died. Except me.
His master's voice, as it were.
Bart: I’ll make you a deal. If you go down there tonight and do your job. I promise you, tomorrow I will buy you the nicest piano in the whole bleedin’ city. How’s that?
Danny: I don’t wanna hurt people anymore.
Bart: Then you’re dead.
Still too close to call.
Bart: This is it? This is your refuge? Your home away from home? This is your place of…awakening? Art, books, music? For what? Did it make you a better person? Look what you made of it. Nice people took you in. They give you everything. And look how you repay them. You destroyed their lives. Like you’ll destroy any life. That’s because you’re not meant for this kind of life, Danny. You’re a dog. You’re my dog. I fed you. I trained you. I own you!
Of course, "all things must pass".
Sam: Don’t do it, Danny! Don’t. Don’t kill him!
Danny: He killed my mother.
Sam: This won’t bring her back! And you’ll be just like him!
Bart: He is me. We’re both animals. Fucking dogs!
Sam: No, you’re not an animal! If you kill him, Danny, everything you’ve done to make yourself happy will be lost.
Bart: Don’t listen to this crap! We are animals!
Meaning what though?
Sam [to Bart]: You all right with that thing around your neck?
On the other hand, that's all he's ever known.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Cheap Thrills, Fritiz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Keep On Truckin’.
All the way to the bank, for example. Well, eventually.
Only in America some will say. And this time they may well be right. But, still, someone like Robert Crumb could only emerge at a particular historical and cultural juncture. All the other ones and there is hardly a chance at all that anyone would have ever heard of him. If he wasn’t first locked up or worse.
And to this day he is still tainted [or skewered] with [and by] accusations of racism and sexism. And of course perversion. The grotesque. The misogynistic.
Still, he loathed crass commerialism and the rabid, mass quantity consumption of…stuff. Who could not like someone like that?
Then there’s the bizarre sexual [and scatological] history of the other Crumb brothers, Charles and Maxon.
And, unlike Harvey Pekar [American Splender above], he always illustrated his own texts. Only Crumb shows up in Pekar’s doc while Pekar is no where to be seen in Crumb’s.
Here is a man who insisted that if he was not able to draw for any length of time he would get suicidal…and that when he did draw for any length of time this could make him suicidal. There are of course folks who are the same way about lots of other things too. They just don’t have the talent that it takes to become the subject of a great documentary.
All the artwork by Charles Crumb seen in this movie was thrown away by his mother, Beatrice Crumb, after his death. She didn’t think anybody would be interested in it.
When he was trying to raise funds for the film, Terry Zwigoff encountered Terry Gilliam who he knew had worked with Robert Crumb in the late 60s. Approaching Gilliam, Zwigoff asked for some help with the budget. Gilliam reached into his pocket, handed over a nickel and then walked away.
During his years-long, money-starved struggle to make this documentary, director Terry Zwigoff was laid up in bed with crippling back pain and was suicidally depressed.
Prior to the film’s release, Robert Crumb’s brother Charles committed suicide. IMDb
Crumb
Crumb: When I listen to old music it’s one of the few times I actually have a kind of love for humanity. You hear the best part of the soul of the common people. It’s their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it. Modern music doesn’t have that calamitous loss. People can’t express themselves that way anymore.
Calamitous loss? Uh, good riddance?
Terry Zwigoff: What are you trying to get at in your work?
Robert Crumb: Jesus! I dunno. I don’t work in terms of conscious messages. I can’t do that. It has to be something that I’m revealing to myself while I’m doing it. It’s hard to explain. Which means that, while I’m doing it, I don’t know what it’s about. You have to have the courage, or the… to take that chance, you know? What’s gonna come out? What’s coming out of this? I enjoy drawing. It’s a deeply ingrained habit.
Next up: what we enjoy here.
Robert Crumb: I remember when I - what was it - about five or six? - I was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny. And I - I cut out this Bugs Bunny off the cover of a comic book and carried it around with me. Carried it around in my pocket and took it out and looked at it periodically, and - and it got all wrinkled up from handling it so much that I asked my mother to iron it on the ironing board to flatten it out, and - and she did, and I was deeply disappointed 'cause it got all brown when she ironed it, and brittle, and crumbled apart. I had this sexual attraction to cute cartoon characters. Why? I don’t know. You tell me!
You know, before he kicks the bucket.
Robert Crumb [reading something he wrote from 1962]: “Starting about age 17, I started being driven by that obsession that I’ll go down in history as a great artist. That’ll be my revenge. I decided to reject conforming when society rejected me. I heard all that ‘be yourself’ stuff. When I was myself people thought I was nuts. Guess I’ll have to be satisfied with cats and old records. Girls are just utterly out of my reach. They won’t even let me draw them.”
[he laughs]
Robert Crumb: All that changed though after I got famous.
I'll bet it did.
Robert Hughes: I think Crumb is basically the Brueghel of the last half of the 20th century. I mean, there wasn’t a Brueghel of the first half, but there is of the last half…and that is Robert Crumb. He gives you that tremendous kind of impassion of lusting, suffering, crazed humanity in all sorts of bizarre, gargoyle-like allegorical forms. He’s just got this very powerful imagination that goes right over the top at times…but it very seldom lies.
You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=0 ... =616&dpr=1
https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+ ... client=img
Robert Hughes: Crumb’s material comes out of a deep sense of the absurdity of human life. At a certain psychic level, there aren’t any heroes, villians of heroines. Even the victims are comic. I think it is this which people in America find rather hard to take because it conflicts with their basic feelings. That sort of mixture of utopianism on the one hand and puritanism on the other…which is only another kind of utopianism…which has given us the kind of messy discourse that we have today.
No where near as messy as our own here, of course.
Robert Crumb: Jesus. Fuckin’ raging, epithet music comin’ out of every car, every store, every person’s head. They don’t have noisy radios on, they got earphones; like, "motherfuckin’, cocksuckin’, son of a bitch. Lot of aggression. Lot of anger, lot of rage. Everybody walks around, they’re walkin’ advertisements. They’ve got advertisements on their clothes, you know? Walking around with “Adidas” written across their chests, ‘49’ers on their hats. Jesus. It’s pathetic. It’s pitiful. The whole cultures’ one unified field of bought-sold-market researched everything, you know. It used to be that people fermented their own culture, you know? It took hundreds of years, and it evolved over time. And that’s gone in America. People now don’t even have any concept that there ever was a culture outside of this thing that’s created to make money. Whatever’s the biggest, latest thing, they’re into it. You just get disgusted after a while with humanity for not having more, kind of like, intellectual curiosity about what’s behind all this jive bullshit.
And I'd include many of those who post here.
Charles Crumb: I’m never constipated. That’s about all I can say for myself.
And I think he meant it.
Dian Hanson [an avid pornographer]: Robert doesn’t exaggerate anything in his comics. The women are exactly the way he wants them, and he really accurately portrays himself as the skinny, bad posture, myopic man he is. Some people wonder if he doesn’t exaggerate the size of his penis, which always appears awfully big in the comics. Robert does not exaggerate anything. He is endowed with one of the biggest penises in the world.
Any one here able to confirm that? If so, pleasec keep it to yourself.
Peggy Orenstein: When I was about nine or ten, my brother used to collect Zap comics. And when I saw those, they really, deeply, deeply terrified me. I was deeply upset. And I look at them, and thought, on some level, this is adulthood? This is what adult women are? This is what I grow up into? And it was horrifying.
Robert Crumb: Oh, my God!
Peggy Orenstein: And, I wonder if you think about the effect on people who read it, or what you’re validating for boys…
Robert Crumb: I just hope that, somehow, revealing that truth about myself is somehow helpful. I don’t know, I just hope that it is, but I have to do it. Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed. Maybe I should be locked up, and have my pencils taken away from me, I just don’t know. I can’t say, you know? I can’t defend myself. It was like my daughter Sophie was watching “Goodfellas,” we got a videotape of it, and the violent part horrified her so deeply that she started getting a stomach ache, and I shut it off and wouldn’t let her watch it. Although I think it’s a great movie, a truthful movie, and I got a lot out of seeing it. But it’s obviously not for a kid. And certain harsh realities of life… you gotta, kinda, protect your kids a little bit from that. They don’t understand a lot of things yet, you know? Not everything is for children, and not everything is for everybody.
Anything not for kids here?
All the way to the bank, for example. Well, eventually.
Only in America some will say. And this time they may well be right. But, still, someone like Robert Crumb could only emerge at a particular historical and cultural juncture. All the other ones and there is hardly a chance at all that anyone would have ever heard of him. If he wasn’t first locked up or worse.
And to this day he is still tainted [or skewered] with [and by] accusations of racism and sexism. And of course perversion. The grotesque. The misogynistic.
Still, he loathed crass commerialism and the rabid, mass quantity consumption of…stuff. Who could not like someone like that?
Then there’s the bizarre sexual [and scatological] history of the other Crumb brothers, Charles and Maxon.
And, unlike Harvey Pekar [American Splender above], he always illustrated his own texts. Only Crumb shows up in Pekar’s doc while Pekar is no where to be seen in Crumb’s.
Here is a man who insisted that if he was not able to draw for any length of time he would get suicidal…and that when he did draw for any length of time this could make him suicidal. There are of course folks who are the same way about lots of other things too. They just don’t have the talent that it takes to become the subject of a great documentary.
All the artwork by Charles Crumb seen in this movie was thrown away by his mother, Beatrice Crumb, after his death. She didn’t think anybody would be interested in it.
When he was trying to raise funds for the film, Terry Zwigoff encountered Terry Gilliam who he knew had worked with Robert Crumb in the late 60s. Approaching Gilliam, Zwigoff asked for some help with the budget. Gilliam reached into his pocket, handed over a nickel and then walked away.
During his years-long, money-starved struggle to make this documentary, director Terry Zwigoff was laid up in bed with crippling back pain and was suicidally depressed.
Prior to the film’s release, Robert Crumb’s brother Charles committed suicide. IMDb
Crumb
Crumb: When I listen to old music it’s one of the few times I actually have a kind of love for humanity. You hear the best part of the soul of the common people. It’s their way of expressing their connection to eternity or whatever you want to call it. Modern music doesn’t have that calamitous loss. People can’t express themselves that way anymore.
Calamitous loss? Uh, good riddance?
Terry Zwigoff: What are you trying to get at in your work?
Robert Crumb: Jesus! I dunno. I don’t work in terms of conscious messages. I can’t do that. It has to be something that I’m revealing to myself while I’m doing it. It’s hard to explain. Which means that, while I’m doing it, I don’t know what it’s about. You have to have the courage, or the… to take that chance, you know? What’s gonna come out? What’s coming out of this? I enjoy drawing. It’s a deeply ingrained habit.
Next up: what we enjoy here.
Robert Crumb: I remember when I - what was it - about five or six? - I was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny. And I - I cut out this Bugs Bunny off the cover of a comic book and carried it around with me. Carried it around in my pocket and took it out and looked at it periodically, and - and it got all wrinkled up from handling it so much that I asked my mother to iron it on the ironing board to flatten it out, and - and she did, and I was deeply disappointed 'cause it got all brown when she ironed it, and brittle, and crumbled apart. I had this sexual attraction to cute cartoon characters. Why? I don’t know. You tell me!
You know, before he kicks the bucket.
Robert Crumb [reading something he wrote from 1962]: “Starting about age 17, I started being driven by that obsession that I’ll go down in history as a great artist. That’ll be my revenge. I decided to reject conforming when society rejected me. I heard all that ‘be yourself’ stuff. When I was myself people thought I was nuts. Guess I’ll have to be satisfied with cats and old records. Girls are just utterly out of my reach. They won’t even let me draw them.”
[he laughs]
Robert Crumb: All that changed though after I got famous.
I'll bet it did.
Robert Hughes: I think Crumb is basically the Brueghel of the last half of the 20th century. I mean, there wasn’t a Brueghel of the first half, but there is of the last half…and that is Robert Crumb. He gives you that tremendous kind of impassion of lusting, suffering, crazed humanity in all sorts of bizarre, gargoyle-like allegorical forms. He’s just got this very powerful imagination that goes right over the top at times…but it very seldom lies.
You tell me: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=0 ... =616&dpr=1
https://www.google.com/search?q=robert+ ... client=img
Robert Hughes: Crumb’s material comes out of a deep sense of the absurdity of human life. At a certain psychic level, there aren’t any heroes, villians of heroines. Even the victims are comic. I think it is this which people in America find rather hard to take because it conflicts with their basic feelings. That sort of mixture of utopianism on the one hand and puritanism on the other…which is only another kind of utopianism…which has given us the kind of messy discourse that we have today.
No where near as messy as our own here, of course.
Robert Crumb: Jesus. Fuckin’ raging, epithet music comin’ out of every car, every store, every person’s head. They don’t have noisy radios on, they got earphones; like, "motherfuckin’, cocksuckin’, son of a bitch. Lot of aggression. Lot of anger, lot of rage. Everybody walks around, they’re walkin’ advertisements. They’ve got advertisements on their clothes, you know? Walking around with “Adidas” written across their chests, ‘49’ers on their hats. Jesus. It’s pathetic. It’s pitiful. The whole cultures’ one unified field of bought-sold-market researched everything, you know. It used to be that people fermented their own culture, you know? It took hundreds of years, and it evolved over time. And that’s gone in America. People now don’t even have any concept that there ever was a culture outside of this thing that’s created to make money. Whatever’s the biggest, latest thing, they’re into it. You just get disgusted after a while with humanity for not having more, kind of like, intellectual curiosity about what’s behind all this jive bullshit.
And I'd include many of those who post here.
Charles Crumb: I’m never constipated. That’s about all I can say for myself.
And I think he meant it.
Dian Hanson [an avid pornographer]: Robert doesn’t exaggerate anything in his comics. The women are exactly the way he wants them, and he really accurately portrays himself as the skinny, bad posture, myopic man he is. Some people wonder if he doesn’t exaggerate the size of his penis, which always appears awfully big in the comics. Robert does not exaggerate anything. He is endowed with one of the biggest penises in the world.
Any one here able to confirm that? If so, pleasec keep it to yourself.
Peggy Orenstein: When I was about nine or ten, my brother used to collect Zap comics. And when I saw those, they really, deeply, deeply terrified me. I was deeply upset. And I look at them, and thought, on some level, this is adulthood? This is what adult women are? This is what I grow up into? And it was horrifying.
Robert Crumb: Oh, my God!
Peggy Orenstein: And, I wonder if you think about the effect on people who read it, or what you’re validating for boys…
Robert Crumb: I just hope that, somehow, revealing that truth about myself is somehow helpful. I don’t know, I just hope that it is, but I have to do it. Maybe I shouldn’t be allowed. Maybe I should be locked up, and have my pencils taken away from me, I just don’t know. I can’t say, you know? I can’t defend myself. It was like my daughter Sophie was watching “Goodfellas,” we got a videotape of it, and the violent part horrified her so deeply that she started getting a stomach ache, and I shut it off and wouldn’t let her watch it. Although I think it’s a great movie, a truthful movie, and I got a lot out of seeing it. But it’s obviously not for a kid. And certain harsh realities of life… you gotta, kinda, protect your kids a little bit from that. They don’t understand a lot of things yet, you know? Not everything is for children, and not everything is for everybody.
Anything not for kids here?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Luigi Pirandello
Woe to him who doesn’t know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
Let's explain that to the ladies.
Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Six plots too.
In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.
And, with any luck, I'm dreaming now.
As soon as one is born, one starts dying.
Actually, as soon as one is conceived.
A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his special characteristics; for which reason he is always “somebody.” But a man – I’m not speaking of you now – may very well be ‘nobody’.
That's Mr. Nobody to you by the way.
There is someone who is living my life. And I know nothing about him.
That's still plenty more than you do.
Woe to him who doesn’t know how to wear his mask, be he king or pope!
Let's explain that to the ladies.
Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Six plots too.
In bed my real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.
And, with any luck, I'm dreaming now.
As soon as one is born, one starts dying.
Actually, as soon as one is conceived.
A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is. Because a character has really a life of his own, marked with his special characteristics; for which reason he is always “somebody.” But a man – I’m not speaking of you now – may very well be ‘nobody’.
That's Mr. Nobody to you by the way.
There is someone who is living my life. And I know nothing about him.
That's still plenty more than you do.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
His name is Mud. Mud from Arkansas. Rural Arkansas. And how many different ways can you be a Mud there? Or a Neckbone?
This guy Mud lives in a boat that is lodged way up in a tree. So, you know there’s a backstory here worth telling. But you have to wonder: how dangerous might he be? I mean, here are two young boys alone on an island with him about to find out. A man with a pistol who hammers nails in his boots in the shape of a cross. Why? To ward off evil spirits.
As for the two boys, well, let’s just say that some kids are forced to grow up a hell of a lot faster than others.
Call it, say, a whole other world. And you find yourself either caring about these folks [or folks like them] or you don’t. And, in all honesty, I don’t know if I do or if I don’t. But it is sure is a reminder that no matter where you go, shit happens.
Morally, this is one of those complicated situations that seem [to me] more befitting the arguments of the consequentialists than the deontologists. Of course, to me, that means pretty much every situation there is. Others, I suspect, will be more preoccupied with figuring out what exactly is the right thing to do. And here in this place [deep down South, out in the middle of nowhere] that’s about the only thing they seem to know: either/or.
The wild card here though is Juniper. Where does she really figure into all of this? Of course, she insists that’s what you’ve got to ask about Mud. Sometimes we only know what people tell us about themselves. And what they tell us about others. And when you are “just a kid” that can get especially complicated.
Over 2000 boys auditioned for the role of Neckbone.
Prior to shooting, writer/director Jeff Nichols described the film as Sam Peckinpah directing a short story by Mark Twain. IMDb
Mud
Mud [to Ellis and Neckbone] They’re just good-luck boots. As you can see, it ain’t workin’ too well so far.
Scripted as it were so far.
Neckbone: He’s a bum, Ellis, come on.
Mud: I ain’t no bum. I got money, boy. You can call me a hobo, ‘cause a hobo will work for his livin’, you can call me homeless ‘cause…well, that’s true for now, but you call me a bum again and I’m gonna teach you somethin’ about respect your daddy never did.
Bummer.
Ellis: He’s not dangerous. I know it.
Neckbone [sighs]: Sounds like a shitload of state troopers thinks differently.
And how many might that be?
Now, there are things you can get away with in this world and there are things you can’t.
Unless, perhaps, it's the other way around.
Listen to me, if you see that old man, don’t go near him. He’s the triple six real deal scratch.
Ellis: What’s a scratch?
Mud: It’s the devil himself.
Scratch?
Juniper [on the phone]: Why are you doing this?
Ellis: What do you mean?
Juniper: Why are you helping us?
Ellis: Because both of you love each other.
How sweet.
Ellis [to Mud]: She knew the plan…she just didn’t show up.
Unless, of course, that was her plan.
Juniper: You know you don’t know him, right?
Ellis: I know he’d do anything for you.
Juniper: Is that what you think?
[Ellis nods his head]
Juniper: Mud’s a born liar. That’s why people like him, he makes them feel good about themselves.
Any born liars here?
Mud: What she’d say?
[Ellis punches him]
Ellis: You’re a liar! You said you loved her and you lied! You gave up on her. She gave up on you. Just like anybody else. I trusted you. Everything you told me was a lie! You never cared about her and you never cared about us. Not enough to matter. You used us. You made me a thief!
It sure seemed that way.
Mud [to Neckbone]: The deal’s for the gun, not the bullets.
Let's run this by John and Rachel.
Tom [to Mud]: Come on son, you gotta see this.
The Gulf of America!
This guy Mud lives in a boat that is lodged way up in a tree. So, you know there’s a backstory here worth telling. But you have to wonder: how dangerous might he be? I mean, here are two young boys alone on an island with him about to find out. A man with a pistol who hammers nails in his boots in the shape of a cross. Why? To ward off evil spirits.
As for the two boys, well, let’s just say that some kids are forced to grow up a hell of a lot faster than others.
Call it, say, a whole other world. And you find yourself either caring about these folks [or folks like them] or you don’t. And, in all honesty, I don’t know if I do or if I don’t. But it is sure is a reminder that no matter where you go, shit happens.
Morally, this is one of those complicated situations that seem [to me] more befitting the arguments of the consequentialists than the deontologists. Of course, to me, that means pretty much every situation there is. Others, I suspect, will be more preoccupied with figuring out what exactly is the right thing to do. And here in this place [deep down South, out in the middle of nowhere] that’s about the only thing they seem to know: either/or.
The wild card here though is Juniper. Where does she really figure into all of this? Of course, she insists that’s what you’ve got to ask about Mud. Sometimes we only know what people tell us about themselves. And what they tell us about others. And when you are “just a kid” that can get especially complicated.
Over 2000 boys auditioned for the role of Neckbone.
Prior to shooting, writer/director Jeff Nichols described the film as Sam Peckinpah directing a short story by Mark Twain. IMDb
Mud
Mud [to Ellis and Neckbone] They’re just good-luck boots. As you can see, it ain’t workin’ too well so far.
Scripted as it were so far.
Neckbone: He’s a bum, Ellis, come on.
Mud: I ain’t no bum. I got money, boy. You can call me a hobo, ‘cause a hobo will work for his livin’, you can call me homeless ‘cause…well, that’s true for now, but you call me a bum again and I’m gonna teach you somethin’ about respect your daddy never did.
Bummer.
Ellis: He’s not dangerous. I know it.
Neckbone [sighs]: Sounds like a shitload of state troopers thinks differently.
And how many might that be?
Now, there are things you can get away with in this world and there are things you can’t.
Unless, perhaps, it's the other way around.
Listen to me, if you see that old man, don’t go near him. He’s the triple six real deal scratch.
Ellis: What’s a scratch?
Mud: It’s the devil himself.
Scratch?
Juniper [on the phone]: Why are you doing this?
Ellis: What do you mean?
Juniper: Why are you helping us?
Ellis: Because both of you love each other.
How sweet.
Ellis [to Mud]: She knew the plan…she just didn’t show up.
Unless, of course, that was her plan.
Juniper: You know you don’t know him, right?
Ellis: I know he’d do anything for you.
Juniper: Is that what you think?
[Ellis nods his head]
Juniper: Mud’s a born liar. That’s why people like him, he makes them feel good about themselves.
Any born liars here?
Mud: What she’d say?
[Ellis punches him]
Ellis: You’re a liar! You said you loved her and you lied! You gave up on her. She gave up on you. Just like anybody else. I trusted you. Everything you told me was a lie! You never cared about her and you never cared about us. Not enough to matter. You used us. You made me a thief!
It sure seemed that way.
Mud [to Neckbone]: The deal’s for the gun, not the bullets.
Let's run this by John and Rachel.
Tom [to Mud]: Come on son, you gotta see this.
The Gulf of America!
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Christian is in no mood to celebrate his father’s 60th birthday. And in a very short time not many others will be either. His father you see is a bit of a monster.
The kind that doesn’t show on the outside. But how do you go about exposing the one on the inside. Well, you could begin by proposing a toast:
Christian: Here’s to the man who killed my sister…to a murderer.
His twin sister. His twin sister who just a couple of months previously had committed suicide.
And this is one of those big, big families…one where hundreds might show up to celebrate any particular occasion. But not one of them was expecting anything like this. Michael in particular. And then there is “the help”. Only some of them are more like part of the family.
And then Helene’s boyfriend shows up – a Negro. As if things weren’t already bad enough for, say, Michael. After the old man, he is having the shittiest time of it. But there are plenty more here right behind him.
So, let’s play a game. It’s called, “getting warmer”.
A dogme 95 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95
In fact, Dogme 1
On March 28th, 1996 the Danish National Radio (DR) broadcast “Koplevs Krydsfelt” when an anonymous caller, “Allan”, told his story about an unusual speech he held at his step-fathers 60th birthday. One of the many listeners to this strange story was director Thomas Vinterberg, who was inspired to make his first Dogme movie.
On 23 November 2002 Danish Radio found ‘Allan’ again. Allan met with director Thomas Vinterberg. During the interview it was revealed that Allan’s entire story was pure fantasy. However, Allan had adopted the story from a true life experience of a Danish nurse. IMDb
The Celebration [Festen]
Father: Christian, will you say a few words about your sister tonight?
Christian: I’ve already written something.
And then some.
Christian [before the entire family]: But first, a speech. I’ve written two, Father. One is green, the other is yellow. You choose.
Father: One is green, the other is yellow. I’ll take the green.
Christian: The green is an interesting choice. It’s a kind of “home truth speech”. I call it, “When dad had his bath.”
Don't get him started.
Christian [to the family]: It was much more dangerous when Dad had his bath. I don’t know if you remember, but Dad was always having baths. He’d take Linda and me into the study…as there was something he had to do first. Then he’d lock the door and roll down the blinds. Then he’d take his shirt off and his trousers and made us do likewise. Then he’d put us across the green couch that’s been thrown out now and raped us. Abused us sexually. Had sex with his little ones.
He is relating this matter-of-factly – as though he were describing his father reading them a bedtime story. And then, suddenly, the celebration is never quite the same. Surreal might best describe it.
Kim: Michelle come here, Pia come here. A word. Steal their car keys.
Yes, that's crucial to the plot.
Michael: How dare you drag some monkey to dad’s 60th!
Helene: Are you calling Gbatokai a monkey? How dare you! You Nazi bastard!
The Negro has arrived. The only one, in fact.
Christian: Forgive me for disturbing you again. But I forgot the most important bit. We’re here for my father’s birthday, not all kinds of other stuff. If I led you up the wrong track earlier, I’d like to make amends by proposing a toast to my father. Please stand.
[everyone stands]
Christian: Raise your glasses. Here’s to the man who killed my sister…to a murderer.
Click, of course.
Wife: Bent, have you seen our car keys?
They ain't going nowhere.
Father [to Christian]: What if I got up and said a couple of words instead? About you? About how sick you were as a child? About the way you always spoiled things for the other children? Burning their toys in front of them? About the warped soul you’ve always been? I could also tell them how your mum and dad had to go to France to extricate you from that sanatorium where you lay, sick in the head as ever, pumped full of medicine, to your mother’s despair
Right, like that puts raping his children in perspective.
Father [to Christian]: I could also make a speech about you and your sister. What do you say to that? Did she ever say goodbye to you, eh? No. Was there a card? A letter? No. Nothing. There was for the rest of us. And maybe there was a reason why. Because you just left, as usual. Left your sick sister. She kept asking for you, and rushing to the phone every time it rang; but it was never you. As ever, you were only interested in yourself and your sick mind. Now you sling mud at the family that only ever wanted the best for you. Your mother thinks you should go. She wants to see you no more. But I think you should stay right here and feel what it is like to spit in your family’s face.
Next up: "getting warmer".
Christian [to his mother at the dinner]: In 1974 you, my mother, came into the study to see your son on all fours and your husband with no pants on. I’m sorry you saw me like that. And that your husband told you to get out and that you did so. I’m sorry you’re so hypocritical and corrupt that I hope you die.
And, at the time, I suspect, he really meant it.
Michael: Do we really have to tie you to this tree, Christian?
Yep.
Helene [with a letter from Linda]: It’s from my sister. “Dear whoever finds this letter, you are probably my sister or my brother. Because you must be good at “getting warmer”. I know it must be sad to find me in a bath full of water. But it isn’t so sad for me. I know that my brothers and sister are happy, radiant people and that I love you. And I think you should just not think about me. Christian, my beloved brother, who has always been with me, I thank you for everything. I don’t want to mix you up in this. I love you too much for that. And you, Helene, and you, Michael, of course. You nutter. Dad has begun having me again. In my dreams, anyway. And I can’t bear any more. I’m going away now. As I probably always should have done. I know it will fill your life with darkness, Christian. I have tried to ring you, but I know you’re busy. I just want to tell you not to be sad. I think there is light and beauty on the other side. I’m looking forward to it, as a matter of fact. Although of course I am a bit afraid. Afraid of leaving without you. I love you forever. Linda.”
Even now, tears well up in my eyes...
istian [at the dinner]: I’ve just never really understood why you did it.
Father: It was all you were good for.
Yes, that's what he said alright.
Michael [drunk and enraged]: Lie down, man. Lie down! And stay lying down. I’ve heard enough piss. Lie down, I said. You’ll never see your grandchildren again, man. Never again, get it, Dad? This family…is kaput.
Pick two:
"1: utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed.
2: unable to function : useless."
Father [to the family at breakfast]: I just want to say that I know that when you pack up and go home it will be the last time I see you. I also see now that what I did to my children is unforgivable. I know that all of you especially my children will hate me for the rest of your lives.
Michael: Nice one, Dad. Good speech. Well done. But I think you’ll have to go now so we can eat our breakfast.
Father: Of course, of course.
[then to his wife]
Father: Coming?
Mother: I’ll stay here.
And they let her.
The kind that doesn’t show on the outside. But how do you go about exposing the one on the inside. Well, you could begin by proposing a toast:
Christian: Here’s to the man who killed my sister…to a murderer.
His twin sister. His twin sister who just a couple of months previously had committed suicide.
And this is one of those big, big families…one where hundreds might show up to celebrate any particular occasion. But not one of them was expecting anything like this. Michael in particular. And then there is “the help”. Only some of them are more like part of the family.
And then Helene’s boyfriend shows up – a Negro. As if things weren’t already bad enough for, say, Michael. After the old man, he is having the shittiest time of it. But there are plenty more here right behind him.
So, let’s play a game. It’s called, “getting warmer”.
A dogme 95 film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95
In fact, Dogme 1
On March 28th, 1996 the Danish National Radio (DR) broadcast “Koplevs Krydsfelt” when an anonymous caller, “Allan”, told his story about an unusual speech he held at his step-fathers 60th birthday. One of the many listeners to this strange story was director Thomas Vinterberg, who was inspired to make his first Dogme movie.
On 23 November 2002 Danish Radio found ‘Allan’ again. Allan met with director Thomas Vinterberg. During the interview it was revealed that Allan’s entire story was pure fantasy. However, Allan had adopted the story from a true life experience of a Danish nurse. IMDb
The Celebration [Festen]
Father: Christian, will you say a few words about your sister tonight?
Christian: I’ve already written something.
And then some.
Christian [before the entire family]: But first, a speech. I’ve written two, Father. One is green, the other is yellow. You choose.
Father: One is green, the other is yellow. I’ll take the green.
Christian: The green is an interesting choice. It’s a kind of “home truth speech”. I call it, “When dad had his bath.”
Don't get him started.
Christian [to the family]: It was much more dangerous when Dad had his bath. I don’t know if you remember, but Dad was always having baths. He’d take Linda and me into the study…as there was something he had to do first. Then he’d lock the door and roll down the blinds. Then he’d take his shirt off and his trousers and made us do likewise. Then he’d put us across the green couch that’s been thrown out now and raped us. Abused us sexually. Had sex with his little ones.
He is relating this matter-of-factly – as though he were describing his father reading them a bedtime story. And then, suddenly, the celebration is never quite the same. Surreal might best describe it.
Kim: Michelle come here, Pia come here. A word. Steal their car keys.
Yes, that's crucial to the plot.
Michael: How dare you drag some monkey to dad’s 60th!
Helene: Are you calling Gbatokai a monkey? How dare you! You Nazi bastard!
The Negro has arrived. The only one, in fact.
Christian: Forgive me for disturbing you again. But I forgot the most important bit. We’re here for my father’s birthday, not all kinds of other stuff. If I led you up the wrong track earlier, I’d like to make amends by proposing a toast to my father. Please stand.
[everyone stands]
Christian: Raise your glasses. Here’s to the man who killed my sister…to a murderer.
Click, of course.
Wife: Bent, have you seen our car keys?
They ain't going nowhere.
Father [to Christian]: What if I got up and said a couple of words instead? About you? About how sick you were as a child? About the way you always spoiled things for the other children? Burning their toys in front of them? About the warped soul you’ve always been? I could also tell them how your mum and dad had to go to France to extricate you from that sanatorium where you lay, sick in the head as ever, pumped full of medicine, to your mother’s despair
Right, like that puts raping his children in perspective.
Father [to Christian]: I could also make a speech about you and your sister. What do you say to that? Did she ever say goodbye to you, eh? No. Was there a card? A letter? No. Nothing. There was for the rest of us. And maybe there was a reason why. Because you just left, as usual. Left your sick sister. She kept asking for you, and rushing to the phone every time it rang; but it was never you. As ever, you were only interested in yourself and your sick mind. Now you sling mud at the family that only ever wanted the best for you. Your mother thinks you should go. She wants to see you no more. But I think you should stay right here and feel what it is like to spit in your family’s face.
Next up: "getting warmer".
Christian [to his mother at the dinner]: In 1974 you, my mother, came into the study to see your son on all fours and your husband with no pants on. I’m sorry you saw me like that. And that your husband told you to get out and that you did so. I’m sorry you’re so hypocritical and corrupt that I hope you die.
And, at the time, I suspect, he really meant it.
Michael: Do we really have to tie you to this tree, Christian?
Yep.
Helene [with a letter from Linda]: It’s from my sister. “Dear whoever finds this letter, you are probably my sister or my brother. Because you must be good at “getting warmer”. I know it must be sad to find me in a bath full of water. But it isn’t so sad for me. I know that my brothers and sister are happy, radiant people and that I love you. And I think you should just not think about me. Christian, my beloved brother, who has always been with me, I thank you for everything. I don’t want to mix you up in this. I love you too much for that. And you, Helene, and you, Michael, of course. You nutter. Dad has begun having me again. In my dreams, anyway. And I can’t bear any more. I’m going away now. As I probably always should have done. I know it will fill your life with darkness, Christian. I have tried to ring you, but I know you’re busy. I just want to tell you not to be sad. I think there is light and beauty on the other side. I’m looking forward to it, as a matter of fact. Although of course I am a bit afraid. Afraid of leaving without you. I love you forever. Linda.”
Even now, tears well up in my eyes...
istian [at the dinner]: I’ve just never really understood why you did it.
Father: It was all you were good for.
Yes, that's what he said alright.
Michael [drunk and enraged]: Lie down, man. Lie down! And stay lying down. I’ve heard enough piss. Lie down, I said. You’ll never see your grandchildren again, man. Never again, get it, Dad? This family…is kaput.
Pick two:
"1: utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed.
2: unable to function : useless."
Father [to the family at breakfast]: I just want to say that I know that when you pack up and go home it will be the last time I see you. I also see now that what I did to my children is unforgivable. I know that all of you especially my children will hate me for the rest of your lives.
Michael: Nice one, Dad. Good speech. Well done. But I think you’ll have to go now so we can eat our breakfast.
Father: Of course, of course.
[then to his wife]
Father: Coming?
Mother: I’ll stay here.
And they let her.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Is hypnotism real? And to the extent that it is how can one who masters “Mesmerism” inflict it on others in order to further his or her own particular pathology? Committing murder, for instance. Or, rather, getting others to commit them under the power of hypnotic suggestion. Imagine the legal [moral] entanglements if one could. Wouldn’t it involve being able to convince someone under hypnosis that it is in their own best interest to do away with another? Or, better still, that they are morally obligated to do so?
What are the limitations imposed on Mamiya [the protagonist] with respect to “planting criminal suggestions” in others? And here both the cat and the mouse reflect the manner in which the human mind is susceptible to any number of mental afflictions. And this can in turn impose all manner of distortion on what they perceive to be “reality”.
Only which one is the cat here and which one is the mouse?
So the “horror” in this “horror film” involves the monsters that might be born inside us as a result of any number of variables emanating from either nature or from nurture. Or, more likely, from the complex intertwining of both. A psychotic criminal. A psychotic wife. A psychotic shrink.
So why not a psychotic detective? Or, perhaps, one who is just under a “spell”?
This is as much about the problematic [and, sure, at times, spooky] mysteries of the human mind as anything else.
Speaking of spooky, that deserted building near the end of the film is really a fascinating structure. Both inside and out. Absolutely perfect for this film. It's shown right at the beginning of the trailer: https://youtu.be/JL3FSimRztM?si=48Ks1jJ7GhCsXZIs
And what to make of the final scene. The waitress in the restaurant. The knife.
Cure [Dendoushi]
Takabe: He is like all the others. He admits his intent to kill but then afterwards he is stunned that he did it.
Not to mention [for some] utterly distraught and devastated.
Detective: Don’t believe everything you read. No one can understand what motivates a criminal. Sometimes not even the criminal. No one really understands. You’re getting in too deep.
Takabe: No, all I want is to find words that will explain the crimes. That’s my job.
He's mesmerized, as it were.
Sakuma [to Takabe]: Even if you manage to hypnotize someone you can’t change their basic moral sense. A person who thinks murder is evil won’t kill anyone.
And if he doesn’t think that at all?
Detective: So it “just happened”
Takabe: “Just happened?”
Detective: People like to think that a crime has some meaning. But most of them don’t.
Takabe [showing him a photo of the murdered prostitute]: So somebody “just happened” to do this?
Well, technically -- click -- someone did murder her.
[repeated line]
Mamiya: Tell me about yourself.
And then he'll flick his bic.
Mamiya: You know a lot, detective.
Takabe: Not what’s inside your head.
Though that'll change once Mamiya gets inside his head.
Book Takabe finds in Mamiya’s apartment: MESMERISM AND THE END OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE
Someone who has become obsessed with Franz Mesmer, personality disorders and psychosis.
Mimiya: The detective, the husband. Which one is the real you? There is no real you.
If you get his drift.
Mimiya [to Takabe]: You saw your wife dead, didn’t you?
Oh yeah. If only "in his head"
Takabe [to Mimiya]: Lunatics like you have it easy while citizens like me go through hell!
Indeed. So, by all means, steer clear of the lunatics here.
Sakuma: Mesmer was an 18th century Austrian doctor…the first man to study hypnosis. It wasn’t recognized then as a medical treatment. They saw it as fakery, magic…or witchcraft.
Takabe: And?
Sakuma: There’s still a lot we don’t know about Mesmer. Some say he really did study magic and alchemy.
Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
Also, about hypnotism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis
Doctor [in mental institution after Takabe commits his wife]: Mr. Takabe, you look sicker than your wife to me.
There's a damn good reason for that.
Takabe [after watching a video of the first use of hypnotism in Japan]: Did Mimiya see this film?
Sakuma: I don’t know. There’s not much chance that medical students would see it. But even if he had that still wouldn’t explain his actions.
God knows?
Takabe: Who is the man in this film?
Sakuma: Unknown. We do know, however, why he didn’t show his face to the camera. You know what they called hypnotism in Japan back then? “Soul conjuring”. Like clairvoyance, spiritualism…that sort of thing. The authorities in any age always suppress occultism.
Next up: the authorities here?
If there are any.
What are the limitations imposed on Mamiya [the protagonist] with respect to “planting criminal suggestions” in others? And here both the cat and the mouse reflect the manner in which the human mind is susceptible to any number of mental afflictions. And this can in turn impose all manner of distortion on what they perceive to be “reality”.
Only which one is the cat here and which one is the mouse?
So the “horror” in this “horror film” involves the monsters that might be born inside us as a result of any number of variables emanating from either nature or from nurture. Or, more likely, from the complex intertwining of both. A psychotic criminal. A psychotic wife. A psychotic shrink.
So why not a psychotic detective? Or, perhaps, one who is just under a “spell”?
This is as much about the problematic [and, sure, at times, spooky] mysteries of the human mind as anything else.
Speaking of spooky, that deserted building near the end of the film is really a fascinating structure. Both inside and out. Absolutely perfect for this film. It's shown right at the beginning of the trailer: https://youtu.be/JL3FSimRztM?si=48Ks1jJ7GhCsXZIs
And what to make of the final scene. The waitress in the restaurant. The knife.
Cure [Dendoushi]
Takabe: He is like all the others. He admits his intent to kill but then afterwards he is stunned that he did it.
Not to mention [for some] utterly distraught and devastated.
Detective: Don’t believe everything you read. No one can understand what motivates a criminal. Sometimes not even the criminal. No one really understands. You’re getting in too deep.
Takabe: No, all I want is to find words that will explain the crimes. That’s my job.
He's mesmerized, as it were.
Sakuma [to Takabe]: Even if you manage to hypnotize someone you can’t change their basic moral sense. A person who thinks murder is evil won’t kill anyone.
And if he doesn’t think that at all?
Detective: So it “just happened”
Takabe: “Just happened?”
Detective: People like to think that a crime has some meaning. But most of them don’t.
Takabe [showing him a photo of the murdered prostitute]: So somebody “just happened” to do this?
Well, technically -- click -- someone did murder her.
[repeated line]
Mamiya: Tell me about yourself.
And then he'll flick his bic.
Mamiya: You know a lot, detective.
Takabe: Not what’s inside your head.
Though that'll change once Mamiya gets inside his head.
Book Takabe finds in Mamiya’s apartment: MESMERISM AND THE END OF ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE
Someone who has become obsessed with Franz Mesmer, personality disorders and psychosis.
Mimiya: The detective, the husband. Which one is the real you? There is no real you.
If you get his drift.
Mimiya [to Takabe]: You saw your wife dead, didn’t you?
Oh yeah. If only "in his head"
Takabe [to Mimiya]: Lunatics like you have it easy while citizens like me go through hell!
Indeed. So, by all means, steer clear of the lunatics here.
Sakuma: Mesmer was an 18th century Austrian doctor…the first man to study hypnosis. It wasn’t recognized then as a medical treatment. They saw it as fakery, magic…or witchcraft.
Takabe: And?
Sakuma: There’s still a lot we don’t know about Mesmer. Some say he really did study magic and alchemy.
Let's see what Wikipedia has to say about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Mesmer
Also, about hypnotism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis
Doctor [in mental institution after Takabe commits his wife]: Mr. Takabe, you look sicker than your wife to me.
There's a damn good reason for that.
Takabe [after watching a video of the first use of hypnotism in Japan]: Did Mimiya see this film?
Sakuma: I don’t know. There’s not much chance that medical students would see it. But even if he had that still wouldn’t explain his actions.
God knows?
Takabe: Who is the man in this film?
Sakuma: Unknown. We do know, however, why he didn’t show his face to the camera. You know what they called hypnotism in Japan back then? “Soul conjuring”. Like clairvoyance, spiritualism…that sort of thing. The authorities in any age always suppress occultism.
Next up: the authorities here?
If there are any.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Words
He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” John Green
Of course, here the scratches are virtual.
“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go” F. Scott Fitzgerald
In other words, back up into the clouds.
“Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you.” Natsuki Takaya
Uh, dasein?
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” Stephen King
On the other hand: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/exception
“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”Cornelia Funke
You first.
“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.” David Foster Wallace
And how fucking applicable that is here!
Right?
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” Richard Wright
Actually, I suspect it is only gnawing at a tiny percentage of us all.
He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” John Green
Of course, here the scratches are virtual.
“I don’t want just words. If that’s all you have for me, you’d better go” F. Scott Fitzgerald
In other words, back up into the clouds.
“Because even the smallest of words can be the ones to hurt you, or save you.” Natsuki Takaya
Uh, dasein?
“Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” Stephen King
On the other hand: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/exception
“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”Cornelia Funke
You first.
“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.” David Foster Wallace
And how fucking applicable that is here!
Right?
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” Richard Wright
Actually, I suspect it is only gnawing at a tiny percentage of us all.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
It’s not normal for a man who has been married 25 years to announce that he no longer wishes to be a man…but wants to be a woman instead.
That’s a fact. And it’s a fact that Ruth Applewood, a factory worker living and working out in the American heartland, “transitioned” from a man to a woman. Or it’s a fact in the film.
But what else becomes a fact when others start to react to it? For example, is it a fact that this sort of behavior is unwarranted, unjustified…immoral? After all, while transgenders do not behave normally, they are human beings. And human beings are a part of nature. So, anything that they are able to do is natural.
Of course, what becomes almost impossible for others to understand is how conflicted one can feel…how many different directions one can be yanked in when confronting this sort of thing. Yanked by yourself, yanked by others. And really impossible to explain succinctly in words.
And then the political narratives. Many folks who find themselves trapped in the “wrong body” also find themselves trapped in the “wrong frame of mind”. Thus there are men who not only want to be women but want to be very feminine women. And for men in particular there is the reaction not only of family and friends but of other men at work. Especially when the other men all wear blue collars. Not a whole lot of “enlightened thinking” there. Here’s a guy, smack dab in the middle of middle America – the Cornbelt – who actually thinks he can just tell his boss that gradually over time he is going to be dressing as a woman…and then have this operation. He has this “condition”. And here’s a book that explains it. But he does understand if he decides to “let him go”.
And here in turn God and the church get all tangled up in it. Oh, and his father is complete asshole. So is his son. Or he tries to be at first. Fortunately, his wife and his daughter and his boss are not. But there are many, many other ways this might have all unfolded instead.
Tom Wilkinson chose not to do any research into the subject of transgenderism, as he felt that a mid-Western farmer wouldn’t know anything about the subject either.
Tom Wilkinson had to endure regular close shaves with a barber to convey the impression that estrogen was working on his face. He also had to shave all the hair off his arms, legs and chest. IMDb
Normal
Before…
Minister: I don’t know of any other couple in our congregation…or in this town, for that matter…more devoted to each other. More in love than Roy and Irma.
That’s when Roy faints and falls to the floor.
Minister: Are you having any problems with…intimacy?
Roy: Not really.
Irma: Well, we haven’t had much intimacy lately.
Minister: Because of the headaches?
Roy [too quickly]: Yes.
Minister: Roy, would you like to talk to me…alone?
Irma: Roy, whatever it is just get it out, Honey. I don’t even have to know what it is. I mean, just talk it out with him, okay? Please?
Minister: Irma, if you want, you can wait in the chapel.
Roy: No, no. I’d like Irma to stay.
Minister: Better still. So. Tell us what’s on your mind, Roy.
Roy [in obvious anguish]: I’ve been…I’ve been struggling with something for a long time. I’ve prayed for years for it to go away. But it won’t.
Minister: Go on.
Roy: I was born in the wrong body. I’m a woman. I’ve known it all my life.
The wife and the minister look at each other. They don’t quite know what to say.
Irma: This doesn’t make any sense.
Minister: Roy, I have to agree. I mean, you’ve been married to Irma for 25 years. You have two wonderful children, and suddenly, out of nowhere you make this strange declaration?
Roy: It’s not out of nowhere. I’ve been hiding it for years. It’s been an agony. I can’t go on living my life like this. I’d rather die!
Minister: Meaning?
Roy: Meaning I’d like to have the operation…to change my sex.
The minister brings out the Bible and Irma now very much would like to go home.
Irma: Roy, are you gonna want to be with men?
Roy: No, Honey, you know I don’t.
Irma: Then, if you’re not planning on having intercourse what do you need a vagina for?
Roy: That’s a ridiculous question.
Irma: No, it isn’t. I mean, I had babies with mine. I used it to make love to you. What on earth are you going to do with yours?
Roy: It’s not a matter of what I am going to do with it. I’m doing this to make myself feel complete.
Irma: It’s a sexual organ, honey. That’s what it’s made for. And, as a long time female, let me tell you, I haven’t used mine for anything but to take a penis in, okay?
Roy: There a certainly other things you can do with it.
Irma: Like what?
Roy: You ever masturbated?
Well, that’s one conversation I never had.
Irma: When you are in bed with me, are you a man or a woman?
Roy: I make love to you as myself.
Irma: But are you a man or are you a woman?!
Which one would you be?
Irma: You mean you expect us to go on living together after you do this thing?
Roy: If…if you’ll have me.
Irma: You know, frankly, honey, there’s no way you’re a woman. Only a man could be this selfish.
Now that's a zinger.
Patty: Are you gonna shave your legs? And under your arms?
Roy: Yes.
Patty: What about your bikini line?
Roy: My bikini line?
Patty: So your pubes don’t show when you wear a swimsuit.
Shaved it is then.
Patty: Mom, Dad and I have the same breast size now!
I noticed that myself.
Wayne: Are you and mom going to keep living together?
Roy: Yeah.
Wayne: So does that mean that…Do you still sleep in the same bed?
Roy: Yes.
Wayne: In other words, sexually, you’re still a woman, you’re into Mom?
Roy: That’s correct.
Wayne: So as a man you’re straight but as a woman you’re gay?..Doesn’t that make Mom a lesbian?
Roy: Not necessarily.
Wayne: Come on, Pop.
Roy: Your mother’s sexuality hasn’t changed. We’re staying together because we love each other.
Wayne: So, in other words, if the two of you ever split up, she’d go back to men.
Roy: Probably.
Wayne: So she’s straight.
Roy: Yes, Wayne.
Wayne: But she’s going to sleep with you when you become a woman.
Roy: Maybe. Maybe not.
So, if they do, are they going to Hell?
Roy: You’re just being sarcastic.
Wayne: I’m too fucking confused to be sarcastic!
How confused would you be?
That’s a fact. And it’s a fact that Ruth Applewood, a factory worker living and working out in the American heartland, “transitioned” from a man to a woman. Or it’s a fact in the film.
But what else becomes a fact when others start to react to it? For example, is it a fact that this sort of behavior is unwarranted, unjustified…immoral? After all, while transgenders do not behave normally, they are human beings. And human beings are a part of nature. So, anything that they are able to do is natural.
Of course, what becomes almost impossible for others to understand is how conflicted one can feel…how many different directions one can be yanked in when confronting this sort of thing. Yanked by yourself, yanked by others. And really impossible to explain succinctly in words.
And then the political narratives. Many folks who find themselves trapped in the “wrong body” also find themselves trapped in the “wrong frame of mind”. Thus there are men who not only want to be women but want to be very feminine women. And for men in particular there is the reaction not only of family and friends but of other men at work. Especially when the other men all wear blue collars. Not a whole lot of “enlightened thinking” there. Here’s a guy, smack dab in the middle of middle America – the Cornbelt – who actually thinks he can just tell his boss that gradually over time he is going to be dressing as a woman…and then have this operation. He has this “condition”. And here’s a book that explains it. But he does understand if he decides to “let him go”.
And here in turn God and the church get all tangled up in it. Oh, and his father is complete asshole. So is his son. Or he tries to be at first. Fortunately, his wife and his daughter and his boss are not. But there are many, many other ways this might have all unfolded instead.
Tom Wilkinson chose not to do any research into the subject of transgenderism, as he felt that a mid-Western farmer wouldn’t know anything about the subject either.
Tom Wilkinson had to endure regular close shaves with a barber to convey the impression that estrogen was working on his face. He also had to shave all the hair off his arms, legs and chest. IMDb
Normal
Before…
Minister: I don’t know of any other couple in our congregation…or in this town, for that matter…more devoted to each other. More in love than Roy and Irma.
That’s when Roy faints and falls to the floor.
Minister: Are you having any problems with…intimacy?
Roy: Not really.
Irma: Well, we haven’t had much intimacy lately.
Minister: Because of the headaches?
Roy [too quickly]: Yes.
Minister: Roy, would you like to talk to me…alone?
Irma: Roy, whatever it is just get it out, Honey. I don’t even have to know what it is. I mean, just talk it out with him, okay? Please?
Minister: Irma, if you want, you can wait in the chapel.
Roy: No, no. I’d like Irma to stay.
Minister: Better still. So. Tell us what’s on your mind, Roy.
Roy [in obvious anguish]: I’ve been…I’ve been struggling with something for a long time. I’ve prayed for years for it to go away. But it won’t.
Minister: Go on.
Roy: I was born in the wrong body. I’m a woman. I’ve known it all my life.
The wife and the minister look at each other. They don’t quite know what to say.
Irma: This doesn’t make any sense.
Minister: Roy, I have to agree. I mean, you’ve been married to Irma for 25 years. You have two wonderful children, and suddenly, out of nowhere you make this strange declaration?
Roy: It’s not out of nowhere. I’ve been hiding it for years. It’s been an agony. I can’t go on living my life like this. I’d rather die!
Minister: Meaning?
Roy: Meaning I’d like to have the operation…to change my sex.
The minister brings out the Bible and Irma now very much would like to go home.
Irma: Roy, are you gonna want to be with men?
Roy: No, Honey, you know I don’t.
Irma: Then, if you’re not planning on having intercourse what do you need a vagina for?
Roy: That’s a ridiculous question.
Irma: No, it isn’t. I mean, I had babies with mine. I used it to make love to you. What on earth are you going to do with yours?
Roy: It’s not a matter of what I am going to do with it. I’m doing this to make myself feel complete.
Irma: It’s a sexual organ, honey. That’s what it’s made for. And, as a long time female, let me tell you, I haven’t used mine for anything but to take a penis in, okay?
Roy: There a certainly other things you can do with it.
Irma: Like what?
Roy: You ever masturbated?
Well, that’s one conversation I never had.
Irma: When you are in bed with me, are you a man or a woman?
Roy: I make love to you as myself.
Irma: But are you a man or are you a woman?!
Which one would you be?
Irma: You mean you expect us to go on living together after you do this thing?
Roy: If…if you’ll have me.
Irma: You know, frankly, honey, there’s no way you’re a woman. Only a man could be this selfish.
Now that's a zinger.
Patty: Are you gonna shave your legs? And under your arms?
Roy: Yes.
Patty: What about your bikini line?
Roy: My bikini line?
Patty: So your pubes don’t show when you wear a swimsuit.
Shaved it is then.
Patty: Mom, Dad and I have the same breast size now!
I noticed that myself.
Wayne: Are you and mom going to keep living together?
Roy: Yeah.
Wayne: So does that mean that…Do you still sleep in the same bed?
Roy: Yes.
Wayne: In other words, sexually, you’re still a woman, you’re into Mom?
Roy: That’s correct.
Wayne: So as a man you’re straight but as a woman you’re gay?..Doesn’t that make Mom a lesbian?
Roy: Not necessarily.
Wayne: Come on, Pop.
Roy: Your mother’s sexuality hasn’t changed. We’re staying together because we love each other.
Wayne: So, in other words, if the two of you ever split up, she’d go back to men.
Roy: Probably.
Wayne: So she’s straight.
Roy: Yes, Wayne.
Wayne: But she’s going to sleep with you when you become a woman.
Roy: Maybe. Maybe not.
So, if they do, are they going to Hell?
Roy: You’re just being sarcastic.
Wayne: I’m too fucking confused to be sarcastic!
How confused would you be?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Supposedly based on the Book of Job in the Bible. If the Book of Job were written as a pitch black comedy. In fact, this Book often seems to make it into one or another film. But I still don’t know exactly what the significance of that is. Only this: that however much God tested Job, it’s nothing compared to how much he is testing Ivan.
The first thing Adam does when he settles into his room is to take the crucifix down off the wall and replace it with a portrait of Adolph Hitler. Now, we know that by the end of the film Adam will change. And this being a black comedy the transformation will be entertaining. The set up then is this: Ivan is a minister of the Lord ever intent on seeing the bright side of things. Meanwhile Adam, the really nasty Nazi is now intent on showing him the error of his ways. Clearly, Good vs. Evil.
And sure, enough even after Adam pounds the shit out of Ivan, Ivan turns the other cheek. At worst, he calls this sort of behavior “rude”.
If you’re like me, you won’t know quite how to react to all this. What the hell is it trying to tell us about God? about religion? about people? Is it mocking religion more or less than it is explaining it?
Anyway, the good news is that the whole thing is kind of preposterous. Except for the ending. That’s just plain silly. Or it is in the “God works in mysterious ways” tradition.
According to the making of-featurette on the DVD, the scene with the crows eating apples was planned to be computer-generated, until a few Czechs showed up with four boxes of real-life trained crows, and in the end everything worked out fine for a minimum of cost. IMDb
Adam's Apple
Ivan [reading from a form]: It says here that you are a neo-Nazi. Are you really? It says here that you are evil. It’s rude to write that on a person’s CV. Are you really evil?
Ivan you see is quite sure that with God there are no really evil people.
Adam [to Ivan]: Your son is a paralyzed spastic, your wife killed herself, your mother died giving birth to you and your father raped you…Just give up, Ivan.
The inner child of the past some call it. It's as though, given all that he endured, some things are just beyond his control. Then this part...
Dr. Kolberg [after telling Adam about Ivan’s brain tumor]: Ivan has experienced so much hardship that he needs an explanation in order to deal with it. That’s why he thinks that the Devil has it in for him. Ivan would say that everything is a test. You are a test, his cancer is a test, his son’s handicap is a test. In Ivan’s mind he’s locked in fierce battle with the Devil himself. Ivan has no mind to lose and he blocks everything out. He’s in denial about all the bad stuff. Death, mutilation, hardship, evil – that simply doesn’t exist in Ivan’s world.
Click, of course.
Adam: What if it’s not the Devil that is testing you…dogging you?
Ivan: What is it then…elves?
Adam: God.
Ivan: Why would He do that?
Adam: Because He hates you. I’ve read this book. The Book of Job. Remember God killed Job’s cattle, his seven camels and his ten kids. He takes everything away from him and makes him a leper. Does that remind you of anything?
Ivan: I never had a camel.
You tell me.
Esben: [a fellow Nazi skinhead to Adam] What the hell are you doing?
Adam Pedersen: Picking apples.
Esben: With a sand-n*****?!
Holger: What happened?
Adam: It was lightning. It knocked down the tree.
Esben: What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to make us look bad?
Jørgen: What do you mean?
Esben: You’re running around talking about apple pie and climbing trees with a n*****. Are you an idiot?
Adam: Listen, Esben. I think you should get out of here.
Esben: What did you say?
Khalid [shooting him]: He said that you should fuck off and take your fat friend with you!
Or something like that.
Dr. Kolberg: Adam, this makes no sense at all. I am a man of science, I believe in numbers and charts. Godamnit, I wanna go someplace where people die when they are sick, and don’t sit in the yard eating toast when they have been shot through the head.
Anyone here ever been there?
The first thing Adam does when he settles into his room is to take the crucifix down off the wall and replace it with a portrait of Adolph Hitler. Now, we know that by the end of the film Adam will change. And this being a black comedy the transformation will be entertaining. The set up then is this: Ivan is a minister of the Lord ever intent on seeing the bright side of things. Meanwhile Adam, the really nasty Nazi is now intent on showing him the error of his ways. Clearly, Good vs. Evil.
And sure, enough even after Adam pounds the shit out of Ivan, Ivan turns the other cheek. At worst, he calls this sort of behavior “rude”.
If you’re like me, you won’t know quite how to react to all this. What the hell is it trying to tell us about God? about religion? about people? Is it mocking religion more or less than it is explaining it?
Anyway, the good news is that the whole thing is kind of preposterous. Except for the ending. That’s just plain silly. Or it is in the “God works in mysterious ways” tradition.
According to the making of-featurette on the DVD, the scene with the crows eating apples was planned to be computer-generated, until a few Czechs showed up with four boxes of real-life trained crows, and in the end everything worked out fine for a minimum of cost. IMDb
Adam's Apple
Ivan [reading from a form]: It says here that you are a neo-Nazi. Are you really? It says here that you are evil. It’s rude to write that on a person’s CV. Are you really evil?
Ivan you see is quite sure that with God there are no really evil people.
Adam [to Ivan]: Your son is a paralyzed spastic, your wife killed herself, your mother died giving birth to you and your father raped you…Just give up, Ivan.
The inner child of the past some call it. It's as though, given all that he endured, some things are just beyond his control. Then this part...
Dr. Kolberg [after telling Adam about Ivan’s brain tumor]: Ivan has experienced so much hardship that he needs an explanation in order to deal with it. That’s why he thinks that the Devil has it in for him. Ivan would say that everything is a test. You are a test, his cancer is a test, his son’s handicap is a test. In Ivan’s mind he’s locked in fierce battle with the Devil himself. Ivan has no mind to lose and he blocks everything out. He’s in denial about all the bad stuff. Death, mutilation, hardship, evil – that simply doesn’t exist in Ivan’s world.
Click, of course.
Adam: What if it’s not the Devil that is testing you…dogging you?
Ivan: What is it then…elves?
Adam: God.
Ivan: Why would He do that?
Adam: Because He hates you. I’ve read this book. The Book of Job. Remember God killed Job’s cattle, his seven camels and his ten kids. He takes everything away from him and makes him a leper. Does that remind you of anything?
Ivan: I never had a camel.
You tell me.
Esben: [a fellow Nazi skinhead to Adam] What the hell are you doing?
Adam Pedersen: Picking apples.
Esben: With a sand-n*****?!
Holger: What happened?
Adam: It was lightning. It knocked down the tree.
Esben: What the hell is wrong with you? Are you trying to make us look bad?
Jørgen: What do you mean?
Esben: You’re running around talking about apple pie and climbing trees with a n*****. Are you an idiot?
Adam: Listen, Esben. I think you should get out of here.
Esben: What did you say?
Khalid [shooting him]: He said that you should fuck off and take your fat friend with you!
Or something like that.
Dr. Kolberg: Adam, this makes no sense at all. I am a man of science, I believe in numbers and charts. Godamnit, I wanna go someplace where people die when they are sick, and don’t sit in the yard eating toast when they have been shot through the head.
Anyone here ever been there?