Quote of the day

[Phil8659]

Ya, sir, I heard it with these very ears! The pork chop spoke back!

[iambiguous]

When all that really stands between you and a survival of the fittest world is the law?

Well, it matters then just what kind of law it is. Here though – in the really wild, wild west – it ain’t much. And lots of times the folks that come up against it are not all that easy to pin down. Are they “good” men? Are they “bad” men? Were they once one and then became the other? Will something trigger them to turn it all back around again?

And then there’s the roles afforded women here. Let’s just say that back then the options were considerably more truncated. Especially in this cowtown. Big Whiskey, Wyoming.

So, the good, the bad, the ugly. Just a point of view in the end yet no less given over to folks able to come up with a political consensus. But again sometimes the law [and the concensus] is more “progressive” in one context than in another.

How about the one you are in now yourself?

And [as always] it’s a world where you are motivated to do some things by a sense of moral outrage…and other things because those with the moral outrage will pay you to do it. Then [for some] the two get all tangled up in their head and things get complicated…real complicated.

And then in the middle of all this along comes a character like English Bob. And Mr. W. W. Beauchamp.

The whole point of the movie [supposedly] was to expose and then to condemn lawless violence. And most of the violence coming from the law here too. But try to imagine the reaction of folks from, say, the N.R.A… And notice any significant decrease in gun violence in the past 20 odd years since the film came out? Here in America? And it’s not like Will didn’t morph back into Dirty Harry just before he rode out of town.

Clint Eastwood’s mother toiled through an uncomfortable day (wearing a heavy dress) as an extra, filming a scene where she boards a train; but the scene was eventually cut, with her son apologizing that the film was “too long and something had to go.” All was forgiven when he brought her to the Academy Awards and thanked her prominently in his acceptance speech.

Deputy Clyde’s line about why a one armed man needed to carry three pistols: ‘I don’t want to get killed from lack of being able to shoot back’ is sometimes attributed to lawman/gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok who usually carried two pistols around his waist, another in a shoulder holster, sometimes another stuck in the back of his belt, and usually had at least one Derringer hidden somewhere on his person. While working as a lawman, he usually carried a sawed off shotgun as well. Hickok also laughed at Ned Buntline’s report about his killing 20 men with 20 shots saying that his theory was start shooting and keep shooting until the man you were shooting at was dead.

Clint Eastwood asked Gene Hackman to model his character of Little Bill Daggett on then Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates.According to Clint Eastwood in a 2000 interview, Gene Hackman was very concerned about how they were going to show the violence in the movie, owing to the rising gun violence in American cities. Eastwood, a lifelong supporter of gun control, assured Hackman that the film wouldn’t glorify gun violence.  IMDb


Unforgiven

Skinny: Little Bill, a whippin’ ain’t gonna settle this.
Bill: No?
Skinny: This here’s a lawful contract…betwixt me an’ Delilah Fitzgerald, the cut-whore. Now I brung her clear from Boston, paid her expenses an’ all, an’ I got a contract which represents an investment of capital.
Bill (sympathetic to the argument): Property.
Skinny: Damaged property. Like if I was to hamstring one of their cow ponies.
Bill: You figure nobody’ll want to fuck her.
Skinny: Hell no. Leastways, they won’t pay to.

Of course, that's all in the past, isn't it?

Alice [to the women who work as prostitutes]: Just because we let them smelly fools ride us like horses don’t mean we gotta let 'em brand us like horses. Maybe we ain’t nothing but whores but we, by god, we ain’t horses!

On the other hand, men are men. Only back then depressingly more so.

Will: I ain’t like that no more, Kid. Whiskey done it as much as anythin’ I guess. I ain’t touched a drop in ten years. My wife, she cured me of it…cured me of drink an’ wickedness.
The Kid [looking around him]: Well…you don’t look so prosperous.

I noticed that myself.

Ned: Hell, Will. We ain’t bad men no more. Shit, we’re farmers.

Dirt poor farmers to boot.

Will: We done stuff for money before, Ned.
Ned: Yeah, we thought we did. All right, so what did these fellas do? Cheat at cards? Steal some strays? Spit on a rich fella? What?
Will: No, they cut up a woman.
Ned [startled]: What?
Will: Cut her eyes out, cut her tits off, cut her fingers off…done everythin’ but cut up her cunny, I guess.
Ned: I’ll be dogged.

A bit exaggerated as it turns out.

Will [to Ned]: I ain’t like that no more. I ain’t the same, Ned. Claudia, she straightened me up, cleared me of drinkin’ whiskey and all. Just ‘cause we’re goin’ on this killing, that don’t mean I’m gonna go back to bein’ the way I was. I just need the money, get a new start for them youngsters.
[pause]
Will: Ned, you remember that drover I shot through the mouth and his teeth came out the back of his head? I think about him now and again. He didn’t do anything to deserve to get shot, at least nothin’ I could remember when I sobered up.

Jesus, imagine that.

English Bob [discussing the assassination of President Garfield]: …one can see that there’s a dignity in royalty…a majesty…that precludes the likelihood of assassination. Why, if you were to point a pistol at a King or a Queen, sir, I can assure you your hand would shake as though palsied…
Barber: (looking at Bob’s pistols): I wouldn’t point no pistol at nobody, sir.
English Bob: A wise policy. But if you did, I can assure you, the sight of royalty would cause you to dismiss all thoughts of bloodshed and stand…how shall I put it…in awe. Whereas, a president…I mean, why not shoot the president?

Hint, hint.

Bill: First off, Corky never carried two guns. Though he should have.
Beauchamp: No, no, he was, he was called “Two-Gun Corcoran.”
Bill: Yeah well, a lot of folks did call him “Two-Gun” but that wasn’t because he was sporting two pistols. That was because he had a dick that was so big it was longer than the barrel of that Walker Colt that he carried. An’ the only insultin’ he done was stickin’ that big dick of his in some French Lady that Old Bob was sweet on.

Tales from the wild, wild West.

English Bob [being run out of town]: A plague on you. A plague on the whole stinking lot of ya, without morals or laws. And all you whores got no laws. You got no honor. It’s no wonder you all emigrated to America, because they wouldn’t have you in England. You’re a lot of savages, that’s what you all are. A bunch of bloody savages. A plague on you!

Of course, that's still true.

Alice: You just kicked the shit out of an innocent man.
Bill: Innocent? Innocent of what?

That's one way around it.

Bill [after whipping Ned]: Now Ned, them whores are going to tell different lies than you. And when their lies ain’t the same as your lies…Well, I ain’t gonna hurt no woman. But I’m gonna hurt you. And not gentle like before…but bad.

How bad? How bad can you imagine? Yep, that bad.

The Kid [after killing a man for the first time]: It don’t seem real…how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever…how he’s dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.Will: It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.
The Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.
Will: We all got it coming, kid.

Now that's a good point. Well, most of the time.

Bill [after Will blows Skinny away with his shotgun]: Well, sir, you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!
Will: Well, he should have armed himself if he’s going to decorate his saloon with my friend.

Bill's next.

Bill: I don’t deserve this…to die like this. I was building a house.
Will: Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.

Of course, sometimes it's got everything to do with it.

Will: I’m comin’ outta here…an’ any fucker I see out there, I’m gonna kill him…an’ any fucker takes a shot at me, I ain’t just gonna kill him, but I’m gonna kill his wife an’ all his friends an’ burn his f****** house down, hear? And you better bury Ned right!..Better not cut up, nor otherwise harm no whores…or I’ll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches.

Only now he has to run all this by Sally Two Trees.

[iambiguous]

I sort of nearly almost lived through an experience that was sort of nearly almost similar to this. Which is to say that my ex-wife [for reasons not all that far removed from those depicted in the movie], left me and I had to raise my daughter on my own. But [admittedly] things are rather fuzzy in my head all these years later. For example, I’m not sure if the separation was for six weeks, six months, a year or two years.

But eventually she came back into my life. We got divorced and we ended up raising our daughter by way of a joint custody contraption. With a lot of improvising in other words.

Here though the husband was not particularly adept at being a parent. He sort of had to start from scratch. At least I didn’t have to endure that.

And I’d like to think I was nowhere near as self-absorbed as he was. Though maybe I was. But Ted was certainly that. His whole world had come to revolve around work. He and Joanna were going through the motions of having a relationship but Ted is largely oblivious to it all. He really can’t seem to grasp why on earth Joanna would want to leave him: “What have I done, tell me, what have I done?” And this was a time when for many women feminism had begun to finally sink in. The perfect political storm.

The sub-text here is an exploration [re Baby Boom] of just how difficult it can be for parents to raise their kids in the context of the capitalist political economy. But here at least money is not a factor. At least not at first.

And then it all winds up in court. Where the law is supposed to be the whole point. But when it comes to child custody cases, it’s [still] mostly about politics. The politics of gender roles for example. And the prejudices that revolve around the sanctity of motherhood.

Dustin Hoffman planned the moment when he throws his wine glass against the wall during the restaurant scene with Meryl Streep. The only person he warned in advance was the cameraman, to make sure that it got in the shot. Streep’s shocked reaction is real, but she stayed in character long enough for the director to yell cut. In the documentary on the DVD, she recalls yelling at Hoffman as soon as the shot was over for scaring her so badly.

The famous ice-cream scene, where Billy challenges his father by skipping dinner and going straight for dessert, was completely improvised by both Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry. Director Robert Benton liked the scene so much that he decided to keep it in the film.   IMDB


Kramer Vs. Kramer

Joanna: I’m leaving you.
Ted [on the phone to the office]: Honey, please. I can’t hear.
[He hangs up the phone]
Ted: You guys eat?
Joanna: Ted, I’m leaving you. Ted, keys. Here are my keys. Here’s my American Express, my Bloomingdale’s card…my checkbook. I’ve taken $2,000 out of our savings account because that’s what I had when we first got married.
Ted: Is this some kind of joke?
Joanna: Here’s the cleaning, the laundry ticket.
Ted: Jo, you want to tell me what’s the matter?
Joanna: I paid the rent, the Con Ed bill and the phone bill.
Ted: Boy you really picked the time. I’m sorry I was late but I was busy making a living, all right?

That's true, but so what?

Joanna: Ted, don’t make me go back in there. If you do I swear next week, maybe next year I’ll go right out the window.

In there? Take a wild guess.

Ted: Come on now, what about Billy?
Joanna: I’m not taking him with me. I’m no good for him. I’m terrible with him. I have no patience. He’s better off without me.
Ted: Joanna, please.
Joanna: And I don’t love you anymore.
Ted: Where are you going?
Joanna: I don’t know.

For 15 months as I recall.

Ted: Can’t you understand what she has done to me?
Margaret: Yeah. She loused up one of the five best days of your life.

It's still all about him.

Ted : Margaret, I just need to know something. Did you put Joanna up to this?
Margaret: No, I did not put Joanna up to this.
Ted: Give her a little pep talk, maybe?
Margaret: Joanna and I talk a great deal and Joanna is a very unhappy woman; and you may not want to hear this but it took a lot of courage for her to walk out this door.
Ted: Mm-hmm. How much courage does it take to walk out on your kid?

That was my own rebuttal all those years ago.

Ted [dropping Billy off at school]: What grade are you in?

Enough said?

Boss: What are you going to do about Billy? This may sound a little rough but I think you should send Billy away to stay with relatives for a while.
Ted: You mean until Joanna comes back?
Boss: Suppose Joanna doesn’t come back?
Ted: Gee, I don’t know…
Boss: Ted, listen to me. I just told the boys upstairs you’re handling the Mid-Atlantic account. I told them you’re my main man. There are guys in the department eating their hearts out because I gave this job to you. This is important. Don’t blow this. I gotta depend on you. I gotta count on you 110 percent…seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Capitalism let's call it.

Ted [after Billy brings ice cream to the table]: You go right back and put that right back until you finish your dinner…I’m warning you, you take one bite out of that and you are in big trouble. Don’t… Hey! Don’t you dare… Don’t you DARE do that. You hear me? Hold it right there! You put that ice cream in your mouth and you are in very, very, VERY big trouble. Don’t you dare go anywhere beyond that… Put it down right now. I am not going to say it again. I am NOT going to say it AGAIN.
[Billy eats the ice cream]
Billy [after Ted grabs him]: Ow! You’re hurting me!
Ted: OW! Don’t you kick me!
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: You’re no bargain either, pal! You are a spoiled, rotten little brat and I’ll tell you right now…
Billy: I hate you!
Ted: And I hate you back, you little shit!
Billy: I want my mommy!
Ted: I’m all you got!

Let's not go there, okay?

Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Yeah?
Billy: I’m sorry.
Ted: I’m sorry too. I want you to go to sleep because it’s really late.
Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Now what is it?
Billy: Are you going away?
Ted: No. I’m staying here with you. You can’t get rid of me that easy.
Billy: That’s why Mommy left, isn’t it? Because I was bad?
Ted: Is that what you think? No. That’s not it, Billy. Your mom loves you very much… and the reason she left has nothing to do with you. I don’t know if this will make sense, but I’ll try to explain it to you. I think the reason why Mommy left…was because for a long time I kept trying to make her be a certain kind of person. A certain kind of wife that I thought she was supposed to be. And she just wasn’t like that. She was…she just wasn’t like that. I think that she tried for so long to make me happy…and when she couldn’t, she tried to talk to me about it. But I wasn’t listening. I was too busy, too wrapped up…just thinking about myself. And I thought that anytime I was happy, that she was happy. But I think underneath she was very sad. Mommy stayed here longer than she wanted because she loves you so much. And the reason why Mommy couldn’t stay anymore was because she couldn’t stand me. She didn’t leave because of you. She left because of me.
[pause]
Ted: Go to sleep now because it’s really late, okay? Good night. Sleep tight.
Billy: Don’t let the bedbugs bite.
Ted: See you in the morning light.
Billy: Daddy?
Ted: Yeah?
Billy: I love you.
Ted: I love you too.

Let's not go there either.

Billy [looking up at Phyllis in the hall who is stark naked]: Hi.
Phyllis: Hi.
Billy: What’s your name?
Phyllis: I’m Phyllis Bernard.
Billy: Who?
Phyllis: I’m a friend…uh, business associate of your father’s…dad.
Ted [from in the bedroom]: Oh, Jesus…

Buck naked as i recall.

Billy: Who’s gonna read me my bedtime stories?
Ted: Mommy will.
Billy: You’re not gonna kiss me goodnight anymore, are you, Dad?
Ted: No, I won’t be able to do that. But, you know, I get to visit. It’s gonna be ok, really.
Billy [crying]: If I don’t like it, can I come home?
Ted: What do you mean if you don’t like it? You’re gonna have a great time with Mommy. Really. She loves you so much.
Billy: Dad? Don’t forget, once, if you can just call me up, okay?
Ted: We’re gonna be okay. Come on, let’s go get some ice cream.

Cue the script? Though one very different from my own as I recall.

Ted: Hi, what’s up? Tell me. What? What’s the matter?
Joanna: I woke up this morning, kept thinking about Billy and I was thinking about him waking up in his room with his little clouds all around that I painted and I thought I should have painted clouds downtown because then he would think that he was waking up at home. I came here to take my son home. And I realized he already is home.

Epiphanies all around, as it turned out.

[iambiguous]

Absurdity

“You're on earth. There's no cure for that.” Samuel Beckett

I can think of one.

“All things, including us, are fleeting and ever-changing. Our life journey is an ongoing process of exploration and transformation. Therefore, life's meaning must be constructed in the face of death's absurdity.” Erik Pevernagie

See, didn't I tell you.?! About a thousand times, right?

“The search for meaning is as meaningless as the meaning itself.” Abhaidev

Uh, theoretically?

“I can tell you good news, but it will be false. I can tell you bad news, but it will be true. Make a choice!” Abhaidev

Anyone here have a quarter?

“Dearest Clara, I would rather be absurd with you than normal with anyone else.”
Angela Bell

How about you? Just say the word.

“I suddenly felt that it made no difference to me whether the world existed or whether nothing existed anywhere at all.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky

About as absurd as it gets for some.

[iambiguous]

Anarchy in the U.K. was one thing, anarchy in Salt Lake City, Utah another thing altogether. Go ahead, try to imagine Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten going about their nihilistic rebellion there.

Can’t, right?

Of course the thing about being an anarchist anywhere is how you still have to rely on everyone else [the duped masses, for example] to grow your food and make your clothes and manufacture all the other basic accouterments of, say, surviving from day to day. After all, these things don’t exactly grow on trees, do they?

In other words, their righteous rebellion unfolded mostly inside their heads. There you make up the best of all possible worlds and expect folks to just go along with it once they realize [too] just how righteous your particular rebellion is. We find a lot of that here too, don’t we?

Anyway, after watching this, who could possibly not want to become a punk anarchist? If only a tongue in cheek one.

Call this a gathering of…tribes. All of the bizarre points of view that folks are actually able to talk themselves into believing. Poking fun at the weirdos. Only there really are people like this out there. And they really do take this shit seriously. However, uh, idiotic it might seem to you and me.

Still, I could have done with a lot less Mark. Him and Salt Lake City.

The bottom line? Well, we all we to decide this for ourselves: DID STEVO SELL OUT? IS STEVO JUST A POSER?


SLC Punk

Stevo [voiceover]: To be an anarchist in Salt Lake City was certainly no easy task, especially in 1985. And having no money, no job, no plans for the future, the true anarchist position was in itself a strenuous job.

Bummer.

Bob [to Stevo]: Well, it’s a crazy fucked up world and we’re all just floating along waiting for someone who can walk on water.

To return, in other words.

Stevo: Wait, time out. I just wanted to ask real quick, if I can. You believe in rebellion, freedom and love, right?
Mom: Absolutely, yes.
Dad: Rebellion, freedom, love.
Stevo: One: You two are divorced. So love failed. Two: Mom, you’re a New Ager, clinging to every scrap of Eastern religion that may justify why the above said love failed. Three: Dad, you’re a slick, corporate, preppy-ass lawyer. I don’t really have to say anything else about you do I dad? Four: You move from New York City, the Mecca and hub of the cultural world to Utah! Nowhere! To change nothing! More to perpetuate this cycle of greed, fascism and triviality. Your movement of the people, by and for the people got you…nothing! You just hide behind some lost sense of drugs, sex and rock and roll. Ooooh, Kumbaya! I am the future! I am the future of this great nation which you, father, so arrogantly saved this world for. Look, I have my own agenda. Harvard, out. University of Utah, in. I’m gonna get a 4.0 in damage. I love you guys! Don’t get me wrong, it’s all about this. But for the first time in my life, I’m 18 and I can say “FUUUUUCK YOU!”
Dad: Steven, I didn’t sell out son. I bought in.

Let's explain the different. If there is one. 

Stevo [voiceover]: Bob and the rest of us had made an oath to do absolutely nothing. We were gonna waste our educated minds. We had no other way of fighting. As I said, there just weren’t enough of us. Sure, there were a lot more punks than there were four years earlier… but there were also as many posers. Posers were people who looked like punks but they did it for fashion. And they were fools, they’d say “anarchy in the UK.” What the fuck’s that? Anarchy in the UK. What good is that to those of us in Utah, America? It was a Sex Pistols thing. They were British, they were allowed to go on about Anarchy in the UK. You don’t live your life by lyrics. I mean, that’s all you ever heard from these trendy fucks. Like, “Did you hear the new Smiths album? It’s fuckin’ terrif.” Kids walking around Utah saying “terrif” with a stupid old English twang. See what I mean? What the fuck’s up with the England bullshit? You know Jag? He’s a fag!

If only from time to time, let's say.

Stevo [voiceover]: If looking the way we did in Utah was unusual…in Wyoming, affectionately called the Cowboy State… we were f****** aliens.
Liquor store owner: What the hell are you?
Stevo: We come from the east in search of the Messiah. We followed that big star. Yeah, we bring gold and frankincense. Myrrh. Myrrh.
Liquor store owner: Oh, my God. Who let you boys out of the state institute? We’d better get you boys back in the hospital.
Bob: No. It’s alright, man. We’re from England.
Liquor store owner: England?
Stevo: Yeah. That’s right. That’s probably why we seem so weird to you, man.
Liquor store owner: England, huh? Well, that explains it, I guess. You boys enjoying your stay here in the good ol’ U.S. Of A.?
Bob: Sure thing. It’s a great land.
[his mother comes into the store]
Mother: What the hell is that?!
Liquor store owner: It’s all right, Mother. They’re from England.

A bunch from England here too.  And that explains all I need to know.

Stevo [voiceover]: The Fight: What does it mean and where does it come from? An Essay: Homosapien. A man. He is alone in the universe. A punker. Still a man. He is alone in the universe, but he connects. How? They hit each other. No clearer way to evaluate whether or not you’re alive. Now. Complications. A reason to fight. Somebody different. Difference creates dispute. Dispute is a reason to fight. Now, to fight is a reason to feel pain. Life is pain. So to fight with reason is to be alive with reason. Final analysis: To fight, a reason to live. Problems and Contradictions: I am an anarchist. I believe that there should be no rules, only chaos. Fighting appears to be chaos. And when we slam in the pit a show it is. But when we fight for a reason, like rednecks, there’s a system, we fight for what we stand for, chaos. Fighting is a structure, fighting is to establish power, power is government and government is not anarchy. Government is war and war is fighting. The circle goes like this: our redneck skirmishes are cheap perversions of conventional warfare. War implies extreme government because wars are fought to enforce rules or ideals, even freedom. But other people ideals forced on someone else, even if it is something like freedom, is still a rule; not anarchy. This contradiction was becoming clear to me in the fall of '85. Even as early as my first party, “Why did I love to fight?” I framed it, but still, I don’t understand it. It goes against my beliefs as a true anarchist. But there it was. Competition, fighting, capitalism, government, THE SYSTEM. That’s what we did. It’s what we always did. Rednecks kicked the shit out of punks, punks kicked the shit out of mods, mods kicked the shit out of skinheads, skinheads took out the heavy metal guys, and the heavy metal guys beat the living shit out of new wavers and the new wavers did nothing. What was the point? Final summation? None.

Got that? Now all that’s left to do is choose sides.

Stevo: You know what I think it is? I think you’ve become a fascist.
Dad: A fascist?
Stevo: You’re a Nazi!
Dad: Nazi, I’m Jewish, Steven, how can I be a Nazi?
Stevo: That’s the worst. Dad, look at this. What kinda, what kinda car is this?
Dad: That would be a Porsche.
Stevo: A Porsche that you bought at a Volkswagen dealership. Volks…wagen, right? For the people who designed it? Who made that possible, Let me give you a hint, Adolf Hitler.
Dad: IT’S JUST A CAR!

Hell, I owned a couple of Beetles myself.

Stevo [voiceover]: Where were we going? I mean, really, what was happening? This life, it was crazy. And I felt tired. Halfway through the season, inside I was so tired…and I had this wave of melancholy…just, like, sweep through me…and this impending sense that my philosophy… anarchy…was falling apart. What do you do when your foundation falls apart? I don’t know. They don’t teach you that in school.

Of course, some of us became fractured and fragmented. A whole different kind of anarchy.

Chris: Let’s speak of anarchy…
Stevo [voiceover]: So we started our debate. This was our custom. He believed in structure, I believed in chaos. This was an ongoing fight. He seemed to be winning.

Not to worry. That won't last. Or, rather, it never has before.

Stevo: The school of science says the world moves from order to disorder…chaos.
Chris: They’re fools, Stevo. You know, life goes from order to disorder to order. Atoms come together randomly to form a structure. An infant is born. It grows, it gets older, it dies, it decomposes.
Stevo: Exactly. Back into chaos. Exactly. Anarchy.
Chris: But then those atoms are reformed into something else. A blade of grass, a tree, a flower, whatever…the cycle, man.
Stevo: I got it. The cycle, man. Yeah, I get you. The cycle.

Of course, that's been recycled now once too often.

Stevo [voiceover]: Jones didn’t need to prove the devil did not exist…not as a supernatural being… because I had seen the devil. He was in that room with Sandy. He was me, Harvard, my mom and dad, all of us. Jones was just making all of this up anyway, so who cared? “Fuck 'em,” I thought. “Fuck him, fuck this party…and fuck everything. Above all, fuck anarchy!”

Stick yourself in there somewhere and then get back to us.

Stevo [voiceover]: There’s nothing going on here. That’s what I saw when I looked out over the city: nothing. How the Mormon settlers looked upon this valley and felt that it was the promised land is beyond me. I don’t know, maybe it looked different back then.

Nope, that's not it, Stevo.

Stevo: If I knew what was ahead of me, I may have stayed in bed. You see life is like that. We change, that’s all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he’d beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts.

This part: "given new experiences, new relationships and access to new information and knowledge in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change..."

Brandy: I have to ask you something. Why do you go out of your way to look like a bum?
Stevo: I look like a bum?
Brandy: Not in a bad way.
Stevo; I look like a bum in a good way.
Brandy: Aren’t you, like, rebelling against society? Wouldn’t it be more of an act of rebellion…if you didn’t spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? It seems so petty. Stop me if I’m being offensive.
Stevo: Oh, no, go right ahead. It’s…No, it’s fine.
Brandy: You wanna be an individual, right? You look like you’re wearing a uniform. You look like a punk. That’s not rebellion. That’s fashion.

Does that offend any anarchists here?

Stevo [voiceover]: And so there I was. I was gonna go to Harvard. It was obvious. I was gonna be a lawyer and play in the God-damned system, and that was that. I was my old man. He knew, so what else could I do? I mean, there’s no future in anarchy; I mean let’s face it. But when I was into it, there was never a thought of the future. I mean we were certain the world was gonna end, but when it didn’t, I had to do something, so fuck it. I could always be a litigator in New York and piss the shit out of the judges. I mean that was me: a trouble maker of the future. The guy that was one of those guys that my parents so arrogantly saved the world for, so we could fuck it up. We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it. That was the final irony, I think. That, and well, this. And “fuck you” for all of you who were thinking it: I guess when all was said and done, I was nothing more than a God-damned, trendy-ass poser.

Well, at least he found out, right?

[iambiguous]

There are three films here. There is Paul and Jeanne. The good? There is Tom and Jeanne. The bad? And there is Paul and everyone else. The ugly?

I just fast forward now through the bad and savor both the good and the ugly.

Purportedly, the film is basically just one man’s sexual fantasy. The director’s: The idea of this movie grew from Bernardo Bertolucci’s own sexual fantasies, stating that “he once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was”.

All the rest is something that each of us as individuals will attach our own “meaning” to.

Mine tends to revolve around the manner in which one's sense of identity can slip in and out of what is real and what is only imagined...of how things are and of how they might become if we are able to slip in and out of the fantasy.

Most importantly, it revolves around the relationship between the private anguish we endure in absorbing private losses and the manner in which that can be embodied when interacting with others [here intimately] who do not have a clue regarding this part at all.

To wit: We are only afforded a glimpse into the relationship between Paul and his wife. We know she committed suicide and we know Paul is embedded [somehow] in the reason. And then we watch as this all becomes entangled in his relationship with Jeanne. But nothing is ever pinned down. And Jeanne is oblivious. Thus my reaction to the ending may well be very different from your reaction. I was surprised [and not pleasantly] when all pretenses dissolved into “the real world”: Hey, kid, this is who I really am.

I preferred the man falling apart at the seams when confronted with the body of his dead wife. The leap here was just too disconcerting for me. I could not have made it myself.

And Jeanne was someone I was not able gain any traction with at all. She is very young, very beautiful, very hairy. And I have always been attracted to, well, let’s just say that hers is extraordinary. She is “artsy”, off the beaten track. But not much more than that. Not to me. I was not able to find myself caring all that much about her. And I could only imagine my reaction to the film if I had been. How very much different it would have been.

While filming, Bernardo Bertolucci tried to explain the point of the film to Marlon Brando, suggesting that his character was Bertolucci’s “manhood” and that Maria Schneider’s character was his “dream girl”. Brando later maintained that he had absolutely no idea of what Bertolucci was suggesting or even talking about.

According to his autobiography “Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me”, the reason why Marlon Brando refused to do a full frontal nude scene was because his “penis shrank to the size of a peanut on set”.

According to Maria Schneider, Marlon Brando’s lines were routinely taped to her naked body because of his dyslexia and reluctance to memorize his dialog.

According to Maria Schneider, the famous “butter scene” was never in the script and improvised at the last minute by Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci without consulting her. Though the sodomy act was faked, her real tears in the film clearly testify her state of shock.

Jean-Pierre Léaud had so much respect for Marlon Brando that he was afraid to meet him. That’s why he shot all his scenes on Saturdays, when Brando refused to work. Due to this, the two never met in the entire making of the film on and off screen.

Such was the controversy over the film that the print was smuggled into the USA for its debut in a diplomatic pouch from Italy. The film was due to have its premiere at the New York Film Festival where tickets were going for $150.   IMDb


Last Tango In Paris [Ultimo Tango a Parigi]


Paul [with his hands over his ears at the sound of a passing train…seeming to beseech the heavens]: f****** God!

One of them, let's say.

Maid [to Paul]: I’d have finished by now, but the police wouldn’t let me touch anything. They didn’t believe it was suicide. There was so much blood everywhere. They had fun making me do a reconstruction. “She went there.” “She came through here.” “She opened the curtain.”…Asking if she was sad, if she was happy, if you fought, how long you’d been married, why you didn’t have any children. Pigs! They said, “Your boss is a bit unstable.” “Do you know that he was a boxer?” So? “lt didn’t work out, so he became an actor.” “Bongo player, revolutionary in South America, journalist in Japan.” “One day, he lands in Tahiti, hangs around, Learns French.” “Then he comes to Paris. There… he meets a woman with money, marries her and…” “Since then what has your boss done?” “Nothing.” I say, “Can I clean up now?”Paul:“No! Don’t touch anything!”

The blood stays?

Jeanne: I don’t know what to call you.
Paul: I don’t have a name.
Jeanne: Do you want to know mine?
Paul: No, no! I don’t. I don’t want to know your name. You don’t have a name and I don’t have a name either. Not one name.
Jeanne: You’re crazy!
Paul: Maybe I am, but I don’t want to know anything about you. I don’t wanna know where you live or where you come from. I wanna know nothing.Jeanne: You scare me.
Paul: Nothing. You and I are gonna meet here without knowing anything that goes on outside here. OK?
Jeanne: But why?
Paul: Because…because we don’t need names here. Don’t you see? We’re gonna forget…everything that we knew. Every…all the people…all that we do…wherever we live. We’re going to forget that, everything, everything.
Jeanne: But I can’t. Can you?
Paul: I don’t know…

Cue the director.

Paul: What are you looking for?
Rosa’s mother: Something that would explain…A letter, a clue.
Paul: Nothing. I told you, there’s nothing, nothing at all.

Like he actually looked.

Rosa’s mother: I’ll prepare her a beautiful room with flowers. The cards, clothes, relatives, flowers.
Paul: You’ve got everything in that suitcase. You didn’t forget anything. But I don’t want any priests here. No priests.
Rosa’s mother: But, Paul. We have to. Funerals must be religious.
Paul: NO!! Rosa didn’t believe. Nobody believes in f****** God here!
Rosa’s mother: Paul, don’t shout. Don’t talk like that.
Paul: The priest doesn’t want any suicides. The Church doesn’t want any suicides, do they?
Rosa’s mother: They’ll give her absolution. Absolution and a nice mass. That’s all I ask, Paul. Rosa…Rosa is my little girl, do you understand? Rosa…Why did she kill herself?
Paul: Why? Why did she kill herself? Why?
[he viciously punches the door with his fist]
Paul: You don’t know, do you? You don’t know…

I suspect why from time to time.

Jeanne: I shall have to invent a name for you.
Paul: A name? Oh, Jesus Christ! Oh, God, I’ve been called by a million names all my life. I don’t want a name. I’m better off with a grunt or a groan for a name.

So, that's where they take it,

Jeanne: My father had green eyes and shiny boots. I worshipped him. He was so handsome in his uniform.
Paul: What a steaming pile of horseshit.
Jeanne: What? Don’t…
Paul: All uniforms are bullshit. Everything outside this place is bullshit.

On the other hand, whatever that means...?

Paul: Why were you going through my pockets?
Jeanne: To find out who you are.
Paul: “To find out who you are?”
Jeanne: Yes.
Paul: Well, if you look real close, you’ll see me hiding behind my zipper.

Right next to the butter.

Jeanne: Why do you hate women?
Paul: Because either they always pretend to know who I am, or they pretend I don’t know who they are, and that’s very boring.

New thread?

Marcel [doing pullups]: This is my secret. 30 times every morning.
Paul: Really, Marcello, I don’t know what she ever saw in you.

Now that's a good point and then some.

Paul [to Jeanne]: Go, get the butter.

Fuck that?

Paul [while sodomizing Jeanne]: I’m gonna tell you about the family. That holy institution meant to breed virtue in savages. I want you to repeat it after me. Repeat it. Say, “Holy family.” Come on, say it. Go on. Holy family. Church of good citizens. Church…Say it. Say it! The children are tortured until they tell their first lie.
Jeanne [in tears]: The children… are tortured…
Paul: Where the will is broken by repression.
Jeanne: Where the will… broken… repression.
Paul: Where freedom… Free… Freedom! …is assassinated. Freedom is assassinated by egotism. Family… Family… You… You… You… You… You… f******… f******… family. You f****** family!

Come again?

Jeanne; You know, you’re old! You’re getting fat.
Paul: Fat, is it? How unkind.
Jeanne: Half of your hair is out and the other half is almost white.
Paul: In ten years, you know what you’ll be doing…you’ll be playing soccer with your tits.

So, who won?

Paul: You want this golden, shining, powerful warrior to build a fortress where you can hide in. So you don’t have to ever…have…You don’t ever have to be afraid. You don’t have to feel lonely or empty. That’s what you want, isn’t it?
Jeanne: Yes.
Paul: Well, you’ll never find it.
Jeanne: But I find this man.
Paul: Then it won’t be long until he’ll want you to build a fortress for him out of your tits and your **** and your hair and your smile and the way you smell. And…and some place where he can feel comfortable and secure enough so that he can worship in front of the altar of his own p****. Jeanne: But I find this man!
Paul: No, you’re alone. You’re all alone. You won’t be free of that feeling of being alone until you look death right in the face. I mean, that sounds like bullshit, some romantic crap, until you go right up into the ass of death. Right up in his ass… till you find the womb of fear. And then,… maybe. Maybe then, you’ll be able to find him.
Jeanne: I found him. He’s you! You are that man!

We'll see about that, of course.

Paul: Get me the scissors. Get me the fingernail scissors. I want you to cut the fingernails on your right hand, these two. That’s it. I want you to put your fingers up my ass.
Jeanne: What?
Paul: Put your fingers up my ass, are you deaf? Go on. I’m gonna get a pig…and I’m…I’m gonna have the pig fuck you. I want the pig to vomit in your face and I want you to swallow the vomit. Are you gonna do that for me?
Jeanne: Yeah. Yeah!
Paul: I want the pig to die while…while you’re f****** him. Then you’ll have to go behind him. I want you to smell the dying farts of the pig. Are you gonna do all of that for me?
Jeanne: Yes, and more than that!

We'll see about that too.

Paul [to his dead wife]: You know on the top of the closet? The cardboard box, I found all your… I found all your little goodies. Pens, keychains, foreign money, French ticklers, the whole shot. Even a clergyman’s collar. I didn’t know you collected all those little knick-knacks left behind. Even if a husband lives 200 hundred f****** years, he’ll never discover his wife’s true nature. I may be able to understand the secrets of the universe, but…I’ll never understand the truth about you. Never.

Cue dasein, among other things.

Paul [alone at his dead wife’s bedside]: Our marriage was nothing more than a foxhole for you. And all it took for you to get out was a 10 cent razor and a tub full of water. You cheap, goddamn, f******, godforsaken whore, I hope you rot in hell. You’re worse than the dirtiest street pig anybody could ever find anywhere, and you know why? You know why? Because you lied. You lied to me and I trusted you.
[gradually starts losing his composure]
You lied and you knew you were lying. Go on, tell me you didn’t lie. Haven’t you got anything to say about that? You can think up something, can’t you? Go on, tell me something! Go on, smile, you ****!
[starts crying]
Go on, tell me… tell me something sweet. Smile at me and say I just misunderstood. Go on, tell me. You pig-fucker…you goddamn, f******, pig-f****** liar.
[sobbing]
Rosa… I’m sorry, I…I just…I can’t stand it to see these goddamn things on your face!
[peels off her fake eyelashes]
You never wore make-up…this f****** shit.
[wipes off her lipstick with a flower petal]
I’m gonna take this off your mouth, this…this lipstick…
[falls over her, sobbing uncontrollably]
Rosa - oh GOD! I’m sorry! I…I don’t know why you did it! I’d do it too, if I knew how…I just don’t know how…I have to…have to find a way…

Instead, Jeanne found it for him.

Paul: It’s me again.
Jeanne: It’s over.
Paul: That’s right. It’s over and then it begins again.
Jeanne: What begins again? I don’t understand anything anymore.
Paul: There’s nothing to understand. We left the apartment, and now we begin again with love and all the rest of it.
Jeanne: The rest of it?
Paul: Yeah, listen. I’m a widower. I’ve got a little hotel, a kind of a dump. But it’s not completely a flophouse. And…I used to live on my luck, and I got married. My wife killed herself. But you know, what the hell. I’m no prize. I picked up a nail when I was in Cuba in and now I got a prostate like an Idaho potato. But I’m still a good stick man, even if l can’t have any children. Let’s see. I don’t have any stomping grounds. I don’t have any friends. I suppose if I hadn’t met you, I’d probably settle for a hard chair and a hemorrhoid. Anyway, to make a long, dull story even duller, I come from a time when a guy like me would drop into a joint like this and pick up a young chick like you…and call her a bimbo.…Paul [to Jeanne]: Listen, that’s not a subway strap, that’s me cock!

What's that make him then?

Paul: Mademoiselle…How do you like your hero? Over easy or sunny-side up? I ran through Africa and Asia and Indonesia, and now I found you…and I love you. I want to know your name.
Jeanne: Jeanne.
[she shoots him]

Scripted or not, can you blame her?

Jeanne [imagining what she will tell the police]: I don’t know who he is. He followed me in the street. He tried to rape me. He’s a lunatic. I don’t know what he’s called. I don’t know his name. I don’t know who he is. He tried to rape me. I don’t know. I don’t know him. I don’t know who he is. He’s a madman. I don’t know his name.

It might have worked too. In, say, real life.

[iambiguous]

Stupidity

“Stupidity is doomed,
therefore, to cringe
at every syllable
of wisdom.” Heraclitus

Like for some it's not the other way around.

“No matter how kind you are, always expect a few imbeciles.” Criss Jami

How kind?
 
“Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it.”
Stephen Vizinczey

Not strange at all, he snorted.

"You smoke?”
“Smoke? Do I look like a f****** idiot?” Richard K. Morgan

Go ahead, use that yourself.

“You can't fight hatred with hatred and expect anyone to listen to you. You can only try to lessen it with humor, wit, truth and common sense. If that doesn't work run like hell, while they throw rocks at you.” Shannon L. Alder

And the virtual equivalent here. If there is one.

“Inhumanity is the keynote of stupidity in power.” Alexander Berkman

Of course, we can Trump that easily enough.

[iambiguous]

Small towns and big cities. Many [like, say, me] started out in one and ended up in the other. Does that mean anything? Maybe. Maybe not. But there is really no point in arguing about it because there are simply too many different trajectories that one can take. There’s just no escaping the parts that can never really be pinned down with any finality.

Bottom line: You come to think and feel what you do about the past, about the present…about the relationship between them. And it’s inevitable: Some want to escape to what you think and feel now and others want to escape from it.

Willie is back home from the big city. But he never quite succeeded in becoming much more than what he had figured he was bent on escaping from. He’s a jazz pianist. But he is barely able to eke out a living doing it.

Ah, but where does being “beautiful” fit into all of this? A beautiful girl, a handsome boy. Small town or not. And we surely cannot pretend that in this culture it is [ho hum] just one more variable. As though being rich or poor in this culture were [ho hum] just one more variable. Still, for some folks it can be closer to that than for others.

Anyway, with some things, big city or small town, people are people are people. Just don’t think you can ever hope to pin down exactly what that means. Take sex and love for example…

And then there is Willie and Marty. Marty is Natalie Portman beautiful. And while she is just a child [13] she is precocious to a fault.


Beautiful Girls

Kev: No Sambuca today, Darian?
Darian: It’s five o’clock in the morning.
Kev: Does that make it too early or too late?

On the other hand, why take chances?

Paul: I’ll bet $20 she’s banging that guy.
Kev: Bad bet.
Paul: Bad bet? Why?
Kev: Either way, you lose. If you win, she’s bangin’ him. If you lose, you’re out 20 bucks.

Don't you just hate that?

Jan: Only when faced with losing me do you decide you want to spend the rest of your life with me.
Paul: So, what’s wrong with that? I didn’t like the alternative. I mean that’s how one usually comes to a decision anyway, right?
Jan: Wrong again, Paul - one comes to a decision based on what one wants, not based on what one doesn’t want.

After all, there's no possible way it could be...both?

Sharon [to Tommy]: Let me ask you something. What do I do? The best years of your life were high school, when you were the king of the hill, the Birdman, and Darian was your girlfriend. You want all that back. I can’t give that to you. How do I compete with a life that is impossible for you to have again?

Next up: the worst years of your life were high school.

Paul: Why’d you mention the piano? We can’t compete with that.
Tommy: Show her how you spread mulch? That’s sexy.

You wouldn't think so, would you?

Gina: I’m finished speaking to both of you okay? You’re both f****** insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison f****** Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That’s the way it goes. God doesn’t fuck around; he’s a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It’s not my rule. If you don’t like it, call him.
[she opens a copy of Penthouse…the centerfold]
Gina: Oh, guys, look what we have here. Look at this, your favorite. Oh, you like that?
Tommy: I could go along with that.
Gina: Yeah, that’s nice right? Well, it doesn’t exist ok. Look at the hair. The hair is long, it’s flowing, it’s like a river. Well, it’s a f****** weave ok? And the tits, please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits by design were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they’re purely functional. These are silicon city. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being too unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is a sham, this is bullshit. Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved… These are not real women, all right? They’re beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs and our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don’t buy it, all right? But you f****** mooks, if you think that if there’s a chance in hell that you’ll end up with one of these women, you don’t give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It’s pathetic. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do. You’re going to end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you’re going to decide, it’s time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you going to find a cheerleader?
Tommy: I think you’re oversimplifying.
Gina: Oh eat me. Look at Paul. With his models on the wall, his dog named Elle McPherson. He’s insane. He’s obsessed. You’re all obsessed. If you had one ounce of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you’d be sick of her.
Tommy: Yeah, I suppose I’d get sick of her after about, what, twenty or thirty years?
Gina: Get over yourself.
Tommy: What?
Gina: No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there is some other shit going on in the relationship, besides the physical, it’s going to get old, ok? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy.

Hmm. Ever heard it put like that before?

Willie: All I’m saying is you have this amazing thing, you got his person with all that potential, all that future… This girl is gonna be amazing. She’s smart, she’s funny… she’s hot…Mo: She’s 13!
Willie: I know.
Mo: Get over it.
Willie: It’s not a sexual thing. This is…I could wait. In ten years, she’ll be 23, I’ll be 39, it won’t be a big deal.
Mo: Willie…you’re scaring me here.
Willie: This girl is gonna be amazing. I was actually jealous of this little kid on a bike, this short little kid on a bike, cos he gets to be her age now. I get to be some vile old man, like… What’s his name?
Mo: Roman Polanski.
Willie: No, no like…Nabokov.

Let's explain the difference,

Paul: Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you’ve been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high, full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That’s all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels.
Willie: I am now going to check your freezer for human heads.

For starters.

Paul: You let her behind the curtain, didn’t you?
Willie: Maybe she missed her boyfriend.
Paul: You let her behind the curtain, I know you did. You never let them behind the curtain, Will. You never let them see the little old man behind the curtain working the levers of the great and powerful OZ. They are all sisters Willie…they aren’t allowed back there…they mustn’t see.
Willie: Tell me the truth. You stay up nights thinking about this shit?
Paul: You say it like it’s a bad thing.

Staying up nights here?

Paul [referring to Tracy]: Willie, my friend, she is delightful.
Willie: “Delightful”? Who are you, Rex Harrison?
Paul: Seriously, what is your major malfunction? I mean, she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s charming, she’s got a great ass, a nice rack as far as I can tell?
Willie: Nice rack.
Paul: She’s rich, she’s got a great ass.
Willie: Yeah, you mentioned that.

The important stuff, right?

Steve: Can I buy you a drink?
Tommy: No, I got one.
Steve: Come on, Tom. One drink.
Tommy: I was just gonna be leaving.
Steve: OK. Let me see if I got this straight. I can’t buy you a drink, but you can stick your dick into my wife.

Too close to call. Or, rather, it was for me.

Willie: Tommy was sleeping with his wife.
Mo: So?
Willie: I’m just saying it’s not like he was that innocent.
Paul: So he deserved that? You see his face?
Willie: Look, what I’m saying is that this does present a moral dilemma.

If you let it.

Tommy [to Sharon]: I’m just lying here and I’m wondering…how I got here, you know? I don’t mean here, I mean how I got here…How I’m not anything like what I’d hoped that I’d be, you know? I’m not even close to the guy I thought I’d end up being. And it kind of blows.

Then the script kicks in. A crescendo of happy endings. Mostly.

Paul: So you’re the little neighborhood Lolita.
Marty: So you’re the alcoholic high school buddy with shit for brains.

Two for two.

[Phil8659]

Why is the Pope, the only person in the world, who has tohave an entire stable of Cardinals, Bishops, etc., to hear his confessions before he dies?

I admit that speaking for God, is a heavy workload, but really, why do that to begin with?

[iambiguous]

Let’s face it, mental illness can be tricky. It can be tricky diagnosing it. It can be tricky treating it. It can be tricky living with it.

And it can be tricky when you are around someone who is – no doubt about it – ill mentally. Tricky because there are the parts where these folks seem perfectly normal. Or when their behaviors might be deemed merely…eccentric.

You figure you can live with it. With the “episodes”. And maybe even fall in love and live happily ever after. And, sure, maybe you can. But, again, it’s tricky. Inherently problematic.

Joon is especially tricky to be around. Her behaviors can indeed be thought of [at times] as merely eccentric. But other times they are downright bizarre. Scary even. Dangerous? Sam on the other hand is seldom scary. Or dangerous. But [in his own way] he can be just as eccentric and bizarre. Is he mentally ill? Too close to call?

So how do you handle it? If, for example, you are [or want to be] her…lover? Or if you are [and have no choice but to be] her brother.

Benny is the brother. And he can be fiercely protective of Joon. Or maybe a bit too protective. And his whole life seems to revolve around taking care of her. And maybe he likes it that way.

Back again to the part about these things being tricky.

Fortunately, she is just mentally stable enough for this film to have a happy ending. That “episode” on the bus notwithstanding.

Joon’s comment to Sam, “Having a Boo Radley moment, are we?” is a reference to the character of Boo Radley in the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”, a “Boo Radley moment” is when a person is astonished at the sight of something or someone excessively strange and/or rare.

Mary Stuart Masterson told director Jeremiah S. Chechik that she did not remember filming the bus scene. IMDb

Benny and Joon

Mrs. Smeal: I am done Mr Pearl, I am done. The mules turned to glue, she left the house unescorted, she has sudden outbursts. She is simply unmanageable.
Benny: Mrs Smeal! Please, wait, please. Let me talk to her. I can talk to her, you can’t quit on such short notice.
Mrs. Smeal: Oh, well I’m sorry sir. In Ireland we have a saying – when a boat runs ashore, the sea has spoken.

And the equivalent of that here, of course. Help me to find it.

Benny: I’m her brother and her only family. And we’ve done just fine the two of us for 12 years.
Doctor: Yes, but her stress level is always a factor in her display of symptoms. Her agitation should be kept to a minimum.
Benny: Everybody gets agitated...sometimes it’s the only option
Doctor: Benny, don’t get me wrong. I’m impressed that you’ve managed this long. But a group home would give her a chance to develop other relationships. Also we don’t know this but what if she was capable of a part time job? They would encourage her in that direction. These are very nice places, nurturing, supportive.
Benny: I’m not farming her out.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't though.

Waldo: Joon called. She says that you’ve run out of tapioca.
Benny: She what?
Waldo: Oh, and the police will corroborate.

And it's not often that they do.

Joon [to Benny playing ping pong]: Don’t underestimate the mentally ill. We know how to count.

They know how to cheat too.

Mike: Hey guys, rules are rules, without them there’s no order in the universe.
Benny: Oh don’t give me that crap. You took advantage…
Joon: …of your sick sister? A heart flush is a perfectly respectable hand.
Mike: Not respectable enough.
Benny: Hey shut up Mike. I am not taking this guy home.
Mike: You have to man. Remember the bet I lost last year. I had to re-plant your socket set. I didn’t back out did I?
Benny: You can’t bet a human being!

Double or nothing?

Sam: Mentally ill. Really?
Benny: Yeah. But I mean don’t worry about it. Just let her go about her routine, you know. Her routine is everyday therapy. She runs hot and cold on you, just ignore it. That’s just the way it works. Oh, listen, she starts talking to herself, don’t worry about it…but don’t answer.
Sam: ok
Benny: She sometimes hears voices in her head. That comes with the territory too. And just make sure that nothing … and I mean nothing … happens to her.

"Or else", in other words.

Sam: You don’t like raisins?
Joon: Not really.
Sam: Why?
Joon: They used to be fat and juicy and now they’re shriveled. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they’re just humiliated grapes.

On the other hand, do they know that?

Joon: Did you have to go to school for that?
Sam: No, no, I got thrown out of school for that.

And there's a difference.

Sam: Joon.
Joon: What?
Sam: I, I love you
Joon: Me too. But don’t tell Benny.
Sam: Ok.

He finds out.

Sam: How sick is she?
Benny: She’s plenty sick.
Sam: Because, you know, it seems to me that, I mean, except for being a little mentally ill, she’s pretty normal.

Of course, he's in love with her.

Joon: We have to tell him.
Benny: What? Tell me what?
Sam: Err…Benny…Joon…and…and I…are…you know.
Benny: Bullshit! You…
[he gets up and drags Sam from the table]
Sam: No, no.
Joon: Don’t!
Benny: Get the fuck out!!
Joon: You can’t throw him out. I won him!!

A technicality?

Benny: I hope you’re happy…I hope you’re happy with what you have done to her.
[throws Sam against wall]
Benny: You just stay the hell away from my sister.
Sam [shakes his head]: No… no.
Benny: You wanna know why everyone laughs at you, Sam? Because you’re an idiot. You’re a first-class moron!
Sam: You’re scared, Benny.
Benny: I’m what?
Sam: You’re scared. I can see it… And I know why. I used to look up to you. But…uh…now I can’t look at you at all.

Cue the happy ending. Think Gilbert Grape.

[iambiguous]

Identity
 
"What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come...” Samuel Beckett

Death, oblivion, the abyss.
Unless, of course, I'm wrong.

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.” Joan Didion

And then, for some, who they are now.

“I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.” Madonna

Let's run that by, among others, the reservoir dogs.

"We experience ourselves our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.” Albert Einstein

See, I told you.

"I realize then that it's not enough to know what someone is called. You have to know who they are.” Gayle Forman

Actually, it's more who they think they are eventually.

“That ain't me, that ain't my face. It wasn't even me when I was trying to be that face. I wasn't even really me then; I was just being the way I looked, the way people wanted.” Ken Kesey

Personas we call them. Some being more cuckoo than others.

[iambiguous]

A film based on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugamo_ch ... nment_case

A “fictionalized” account: Although this film was inspired by actual events that took place in Tokyo, the details and characters portrayed in this film are entirely fictional.

It’s not like we can’t imagine something like this happening. After all, there are literally millions upon millions of families out there interacting in millions upon millions of different circumstantial contexts. Some parents are more irresponsible [selfish] than others. On the other hand [perhaps] some parents are more desperate than others. Judgments will be made [must be made] but don’t think you can ever really [truly] understand what motivates others to do what they do…just because you yourself would never do the same.

Also, some children are considerably more precocious [mature] than others.

Still, the mother here does [eventually] abandon the children to fend for themselves. And with barely enough money to get by. The oldest is only 12. And none of them [aside from her son] are allowed to leave the apartment. And they are all forbidden to go to school.

In the beginning she does seem to convey [share] something in the way of love for them. And they for her. And she does return at least one time [after 3 months] to help them along. And she does promise to return for good once she is able to remarry. But she doesn’t. These kids really are left to sink or swim. And over time it just gets grimmer and grimmer. And then one of them dies.

"Eventually the electricity, gas, and water in the apartment are all turned off. The children start using the public park's toilet to wash themselves and the tap there for their water."  wiki

Filmed chronologically over almost an entire year.  IMDb


Nobody Knows [Dare Mo Shiranai] 

Mother: Here goes.
[she opens up two suitcases in the new apartment – her children are inside them]
Mother: You OK? Was it hot?
Yuki: It was hot!
Mother: Wow, you did a great job. This is your new home.

That ever happen to you?

Mother: Now that we’ve moved into a new home, I’m gonna explain the rules to you, one more time. Let’s promise to keep 'em, okay?
Yuki: Okay. How many are there?
Mother: Okay, first of all: No loud voices or screaming. Can you do that?
Yuki: I can.
Mother: Okay, next: No going outside.
Yuki: Okay.
Mother: Can you do that? No even out on the veranda. Absolutely no going outside!
Yuki: Okay, Mommy.

Kids, let's call them.

Akira: Mother, I want to go to school.
Mother: You wouldn’t have any fun at school. Besides, when you don’t have a Daddy, they bully you at school. You don’t need to go to school.

Mother knows best.

Mother [to Akira]: Your mother is in love with someone now.
Akira: Again?
Mother: This guy’s really sweet and serious. I think he is really looking out for me. So, if he promises to really…to really marry me, then we can all live in a big house and you can all go to school and Kyoko can play the piano…So just hang on a little longer. I really think this time probably…

All four of her children have different fathers.

Akira [to his siblings]: She stinks of booze.

Blame it all on that?

Pachinko Parlor Employee [possibly Yuki’s father]: Whoa. I don’t have any money. What’ve you got left?
Akira: About 10,000 yen.
Pachinko Parlor Employee: Oh, that’s enough, huh? You know, I’m in a hell of a jam. My stupid girlfriend, you know, she totally maxed out my credit cards. I’m badly off. I’m working my ass off, slowly paying it down, man.
[he gives Akira some money]
Pachinko Parlor Employee: Uh, this is all I’ve got on me. This is it, the last time, huh?
Akira: Thanks, thank you.
Pachinko Parlor Employee: By the way, Yuki ain’t my kid. Every time I did with your mom, I used a prophylactic, huh? Good bye.

Of course, he could be lying.

Akira: Listen, I keep asking you, when will you let us go to school?
Mother: What’s this “school this, school that”? Who needs to go to school anyway? Plenty of famous people never even went to school in the first place.
Akira: Like who?
Mother: How should I know. But plenty of them…
Akira: You’re so selfish, mother.
Mother: How can you say that? Selfish? You want to know who’s really selfish? Your father’s the one who’s selfish, up and disappearing like that. What is this? I’m not allowed to be happy?

Yeah, what about that, kids?

Mother [going off again]: I send you money, soon.
Akira: You’ll come home for Christmas?
Mother: Sure, I’ll come home. I’ll be right home.

Christmas in Tokyo. Lost in translation?

Akira: Bought a new game, why don’t you come over?
Friend #1: I’ll come over when I have time. See you 'round. I’ve got cram school, sorry.
Akira: See ya.
Friend #2: Who was that? Take me along to play.
Friend #1: Yeah, but his house stinks.
Friend #2: Stinks of what?
Friend #1: Stinks of garbage. The place is a real mess.

For lack of parental guidance let's say.

Friend: Shouldn’t you contact the police or child welfare, or something?
Akira: If I do, the four of us won’t be able to stay together. That happened before and it was an awful mess.

How could it not be?

Akira [shaking Yuki]: Yuki.
Brother: Yuki won’t get up.
Akira: Yuki!
Sister: She fell off the chair.

She died.

Akira [holding an envelope]: Kyoko, what’s this?
Sister: It just arrived.
[Akira opens the envelop…it has cash in it and a note from his mother]
“TO AKIRA, GIVE THEM MY BEST. I’M COUNTING ON YOU, MOTHER”

In other words, she's gone for good.

Akira [to Saki after burying Yuki near the airport]: When I touched Yuki this morning she was so cold, it was awful. It just felt so…It was just so…awful.

On the other hand, for some, awful makes the world itself go around and around and around.

[iambiguous]

Nature

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” John Muir

How's that going for you? I had to ask.

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.” Walt Whitman

Me too. Well, if only virtually.

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” Rainer Maria Rilke

In other words, whatever that means.

"I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.” Andy Warhol

Probably the last thing I'd ever expect from him. Is there another one?

"Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.” Michael Pollan

Some, of course, would simply starve.

“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.” Hubert Reeves

Well, sort of, let's say.

[iambiguous]

Imagine the home of the future. Fully automated. Cameras and computers everywhere. Even a “flying webcam”. It circumnavigates from room to room. There is nothing you can’t know. Well, not about what is going on inside your home. Problems? A few clicks of a button and the problem is solved.

You watch this and you think: too bad we have not reached the point where we are able to insert the same sort of technology inside the human brain. Everything brought fully into focus. And if something goes wrong we know precisely what to do in order to fix it. Why? Because [finally] we know precisely what the hell is going on in there.

But then things seem to be ever so much complicated in there aren’t they?

Take for example, that first dinner shared between Richard, Alice, Alain and Benedicte. Not 10 minutes into it, Alice is throwing a glass of wine into Richard’s face. Why? Because he had just been with a whore. Or so she says.

You know then and there this is going to be a very strange film. You just don’t know [yet] how strange. Described as a “creepy psychological thriller” it is all of that and more. Or it is once the dead lemming is dislodged from the pipe under the kitchen sink. Only it isn’t really dead at all. And what the hell is a lemming [native only to Scandinavia] doing in a kitchen pipe in France?

Surreal. Dream-like. What some might call, “open to interpretation”. For example, in the end we find out how the lemming ended up in the pipe. But how does that help to explain anything else?

From the director of A Friend Like Harry above.


Lemming

Alain [voiceover]: My name is Alain Getty. I’m a home automation designer. When the Pollock Company headhunted me, we moved to Bel Air. We’d been there three months. My wife Benedicte was glad to move south. My boss, Richard Pollock, thought well of me. One evening, he’d invited himself and his wife to dinner. That is when everything came unstuck.

It starts when the kitchen sink gets clogged. Something in the S bend. Would you believe a...lemming?

Alice [to Richard after turns off his phone]: One of your whores?
Richard: Alice…
Alice [to Alain and Benedicte]: Do you want to know why we were late?
Richard: Alice…don’t start.
Alice: He was with a whore.

Next thing you know she’s tossing a glass of wine in his face.

Alice: Don’t give me that snotty look.
Benedicte: I’m not.
Alice [mockingly]: “I’m Not”?
Richard: Alice!
Alice: You think you are superior? The model couple in a grotty house?
Bencdicte: Not at all.
Alice: You know what? You are pathetic.
Bendicte: You too.

Well, one of them is for sure.

Benedicte [to Alain after Richard and Alice have left]: If I ever get like that, please have me put down.

Good point.

Alain [looking into the pipe]: What is that?

And then we find out.

Alice: Did Richard tell you he tried to kill me 20 years ago?
Alain: No.
Alice: He doesn’t brag about it. I should be dead, but he missed the jugular. I had it coming. I hate him.
Alain: Why don’t you leave him?
Alice: Because. I want to see him croak.
[after a long pause]
Alice: Do you want to sleep with me?

Just like that.

Alice [to Alain]: The body says yes but the mind says no. A shame. A big shame.

Tell me about it. And then the part where the mind says yes and body says go fuck yourself.

Alice [to Benedicte]: Last night at the lab I tried to seduce your husband. He was exemplary. He wasn’t having it. But you’ll know all of this. He must have told you.

No, he didn’t. But later she tells Benedicte that he was having it…but just a little.

Benedicte [to Alain]: I’m getting sick of your boss’s wife.

Not to worry: the boss’s wife shoots herself in the head.

Nicolas: I’m a small mammals expert. My uncle was right. It’s a lemming. A Norwegian lemming. Did he tell you it only lives in northern Scandinavia?
Benedicte: Yes.
Nicolas: Where exactly did you find it?
Benedicte: In the sink pipe.
Nicolas: In the sink. My uncle thought he had misheard.

Nope, the sink.

Nicolas: You’ve heard about their mystery migrations? Aside from their seasonal migrations, every 30 years or so, overpopulation starts a mass migration. Thousands of them stream across the tundra. People used to think it was a sort of mass suicide.
Benedicte: Suicide?
Nicolas: When they reach a river or a sea, they try to swim across it. They’re good swimmers but it’s too wide, they drown.
Benedicte: A woman committed suicide here last night.
Nicolas: I’m sorry. Was she a relative?
Benedicte: Not at all. It’s a strange coincidence.
Nicolas: No. No, no, no, no. Don’t imagine there’s a link. Lemmings aren’t suicidal. It’s a dumb romantic theory. They drown from exhaustion.

Praise the Lord?

Richard: Did she make a pass at you?
Alain: Yes.
Richard: Did you sleep with her?
Alain: No.
Richard: Why? Weren’t you tempted?
Alain: It just didn’t seem appropriate.
Richard: You thought it would be a sticky situation with Benedicte and me. Otherwise you would have done it. If you’d been sure Benedicte and I would never know.
Alain: Maybe, yes.
Richard: I think you should have done it. She wanted you. Couldn’t you give her that? If you felt no desire for her, ok. But you did, dammit!!

Then things start to get strange. Really, really strange. Again, that part inside the brain. The part we don’t have the technology yet to fully understand. Let alone the knowledge.

Richard [to Alain]: Be brave…

You see, Alice-Benedicte is now living with him.

Alice-Benedicte [to Alain]: Make it look like a suicide…

I'm reasonably sure I have no idea what this movie....means?

[iambiguous]

Some really do wonder: What is the difference between being bipolar and just being “moody”? And if [clinically] you really are manic-depressive [what they used to call being bipolar] is it all just reducible down to those chemicals in the brain? In other words, what part does our “environment” play in it?

For example, our most important relationships – family, friendships – how can [how do] they contribute to making things better or worse?

Me, I have been diagnosed with lots of mental afflictions: PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders. And I’ve had some truly epic mood swings. But no one ever suggested [so far] I was bipolar. Not to the best of my recollection. So I was able to relate somewhat to Pat here. Though in other respects not at all. But that seemed more related to circumstances than to anything else.

For instance, I was never actually committed to a mental institution when my marriage fell apart. Oh, and my life was absolutely nothing like his. The part regarding dasein in other words. The part that makes him the same as and yet different from Tiffany. Who as it turns out is crazy in her own way for her own reasons.

And still, to this day, the controversy rages on: nature vs. nurture. And, with respect to the part about nurture, there are folks who insist that most of this revolves around capitalism.

Oh, and I sure as shit could have done with a whole lot less of that NFL football/Philadelphia Eagles parley bullshit. Talk about mental illness. It is a symptom of a truly sick culture. In fact, this whole “sports” angle damn near ruined the picture for me.

Well, that and the ending.

Robert De Niro actually teared up during the scene when Pat Sr. tells Pat he wished he was closer to him, which was not scripted.

The title “Silver Linings Playbook” is a source of confusion for some, especially people not very familiar with idiomatic English. The “Silver Linings” part of the title comes from the common expression “every cloud has a silver lining,” which means “look on the bright side” or “nothing is all bad.” The first documented use of the phrase in this way is from John Milton’s 1634 work “Comus I”.

Among its 8 Academy Award nominations, this film became the first to earn nods in all four acting categories since Reds (1981) and the first “Big Five” (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Writing) nominee since Million Dollar Baby (2004). Director David O. Russell repeated the same rare feat the following year with American Hustle (2013). IMDb


Silver Linings Playbook

Pat [to Dr. Patel]: I come home, what do I see? I walk in the door and I see underwear and pieces of clothing and a guy’s pants with his belt in it, and I walk up the stairs, and all of a sudden I see the CD and it’s playing our wedding song, and then I look down and I see my wife’s panties on the ground and then I look up and I see her naked in the shower and I think, “Oh, that’s kinda sweet, she’s in the shower. What a perfect thing. I’m gonna find her and maybe I’ll go in there. We never fuck in the shower anymore. Maybe today we will.” I pull the curtain back and there’s the f****** history teacher with tenure. And you know what he says to me? “You should probably go.” That’s what he says to me. So yeah, I snapped. I almost beat him to death.

Next up: snapping here.

Pat [to Dr. Patel]: This is what I learned at the hospital. You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, you have a shot at a silver lining.

You know, if they even exist at all.

Ronnie [explaining what he does after the near collapse of the economy]: You start snapping up commercial real estate – cheap – flip it over, you flip it over and that’s when you make the money. But the pressure…it’s like…
Pat: You okay?
Ronnie: I’m not okay. Don’t tell anybody. Listen to me. I feel like I’m getting crushed and–
Pat: Crushed by what?
Ronnie: Everything. The family, the baby, the job, the f****** dicks at work, and it’s like, you know, like I’m trying to do this, you know, and, and, and I’m like…suffocating.

See? This is the part about capitalism and mental health. Or the lack thereof. The relationship between them.

Tiffany: What meds are you on?
Pat: Me? None. I used to be on Lithium and Seroquel and Abilify, but I don’t take them anymore, no. They make me foggy and they also make me bloated.
Tiffany: Yeah, I was on Xanax and Effexor, but I agree, I wasn’t as sharp, so I stopped.
Pat: You ever take Klonopin?
Tiffany [chuckling]: Klonopin? Yeah.
Pat: Right? It’s like, “What? What day is it?” How about Trazodone?
Tiffany: Trazodone!
Pat: Oh, it flattens you out. I mean, you are done. It takes the light right out of your eyes.
Tiffany: God, I bet it does.

Comparing pills? You first. 

Tiffany: Listen, I haven’t dated since before my marriage so I don’t really remember how this works.
Pat: How what works?
Tiffany: I saw the way you were looking at me, Pat. You felt it, I felt it, don’t lie. We’re not liars like they are. I live in the addition around back, which is completely separate from my parents’ house, so there’s no chance of them walking in on us. I hate the fact that you wore a football jersey to dinner because I hate football, but you can fuck me if you turn the lights off, okay?
Pat: How old are you?
Tiffany: Old enough to have a marriage end and not wind up in a mental hospital.

Me too!

Tiffany: Hey!
Pat: What the fuck? I’m married!
Tiffany: So am I!
Pat: What the fuck are you doing? Your husband’s dead!
Tiffany: Where’s your wife?
Pat: You’re crazy!
Tiffany: I’m not the one who just got out of that hospital in Baltimore.
Pat: And I’m not the big slut!..I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry.
Tiffany: I was a big slut, but I’m not any more. There’s always going to be a part of me that’s sloppy and dirty, but I like that. With all the other parts of myself. Can you say the same about yourself fucker? Can you forgive? Are you any good at that?

Next up: the philosophical sluts here.

Tiffany: Why did you order raisin bran?
Pat: Why did you order tea?
Tiffany: Because you ordered raisin bran.
Pat: I ordered raisin bran because I didn’t want there to be any mistaking it for a date.
Tiffany: It can still be a date if you order raisin bran.

New thread?

Pat: How did you lose your job?
Tiffany: By having sex with everybody in the office.
Pat: Everybody?
Tiffany: I was very depressed after Tommy died. It was a lot of people.
Pat: We don’t have to talk about it.
Tiffany: Thanks.
Pat: How many were there?
Tiffany: Eleven.
Pat: Wow.
Tiffany: I know.
Pat: I’m not gonna talk about it anymore.
Tiffany: Okay.
Pat: Can I ask you one more question? Were there any women?
Tiffany: Yes.
Pat: Really? What was that like?
Tiffany: Hot.

Go ahead, you can ask me one last question too. The hotter the better.

Tiffany: You know what, forget I offered to help you. Forget the entire f****** idea, because that must have been f****** crazy, because I’m so much CRAZIER than you!
Pat: Keep your voice down.
Tiffany: I’m just the crazy slut with a dead husband!
[she laughs maniacally]
Pat: Shut the fuck up.
Tiffany: Fuck you!
[she sweeps everything off the table onto the floor]
Tiffany [storming away]: You shut the fuck up!

True love, let's call it. In other words, postmodern down to the bone.

Tiffany [to Pat]: You may not have experienced the shit that I did. But you loved hearing about it, didn’t you? You are afraid to be alive, you’re afraid to live. You’re a hypocrite. You’re a conformist. You’re a liar. I opened up to you and you judged me. You are an asshole. You are an asshole!

Define asshole?

Officer Keogh: Hey, aren’t you Tommy’s widow?
Tiffany: Yes, I’m Tommy’s crazy whore widow. Minus the whore thing, for the most part.
Officer Keogh: You want to get a drink sometime?
[she turns around and walks away in disgust]
Pat: You shouldn’t say that to her. She doesn’t do that anymore.

What don't you do anymore?

Tiffany [to Pat after changing her mind about delivering the letter to Nikki]: I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I’m empty! I have nothing! I always get myself in these f****** situations. I give everything to other people and nobody ever, I never – I don’t get what I want, okay?

Welcome to the human race. Well, one of them anyway.

Tiffany: No walk, no letter. Walk to me like I’m Nikki. Do it, come on, I’m Nikki.
Pat: You’re not Nikki.
[he does the walk anyway]
Tiffany: Yes! Do you feel that? That’s emotion.
Pat: I don’t feel anything.

We should all be so lucky?

Tiffany: You’re not gonna read that shit on my time. I can tell you all about the “Lord of the Flies.” It’s a bunch of boys on an island and they have a conch – they have a shell – and whoever has the conch has the power and they can talk. And if you don’t have the conch, then you don’t have the power. And then there’s a little chubby boy, and they call him Piggy and they’re really mean, and then there’s a murder. I mean, humanity is just nasty and there’s no silver lining.
Pat: Wow. That was a great synopsis. I still need to read it, though.

Nasty, brutish and short.

Tiffany: You know, for a while, I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. But now I’m starting to think you’re the worst.
Pat: Of course you do. Come on, let’s go dance.

Like there's a difference? You tell me.

Pat Sr. [to Pat]: Let me tell you, I know you don’t want to listen to your father, I didn’t listen to mine, and I am telling you you gotta pay attention this time. When life reaches out at a moment like this it’s a sin if you don’t reach back, I’m telling you it's a sin if you don’t reach back! It’ll haunt you the rest of your days like a curse. You’re facing a big challenge in your life right now at this very moment, right here. That girl loves you, she really, really loves you. I don’t know if Nicki ever did, but she sure as shit doesn’t right now. I’m telling you, don’t fuck this up.

Scripts are us?

Tiffany: You let me lie to you for a week?!
Pat: I was trying to be romantic.

If, nowadays, that's even possible.