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Title Screen
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Movie Title/Year and Scene Descriptions |
Screenshots
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The Naked Gun: From the Files
of Police Squad! (1988)
Deadpan, bumbling LA detective Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie
Nielsen) starred in this gag-filled comedy from the directorial team
of Zuckers and Abrahams (also responsible for Airplane!
(1980) and Top Secret! (1984)).
- there were many insanely silly scenes and dead-panned
jokes, including the opening of a speeding LA cop car (shot behind
the revolving cherry-top) down nighttime streets, into a carwash,
and then barreling into a house - and a shower with naked women
- and then down a rollercoaster before coming to a stop in front
of a donut shop
- Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson) was on the receiving
end of very bad luck while attempting to bust a heroin drug operation
at the docks led by shipping magnate Vincent Ludwig (Ricardo Montalban):
he was shot multiple times, bumped his head, burned his hand on
a hot stove, stumbled into a door with 'wet paint', smashed his
hand in a closing window, dove face-first into a frosted cake,
stepped into a bear trap, and fell overboard
Hapless Detective Nordberg (O.J. Simpson)
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Lt. Drebin in Driving-School Vehicle
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Drebin Visiting Nordberg in the Hospital
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Drebin's Insensitive Comments to Nordberg's Wife
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- bumbling LA crimefighter
and detective-lawman Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) commandeered
a driving-school vehicle with an unflappable and calm Driving
Instructor (John Houseman): ("It's okay. Normally you would
not be going 65 down the wrong way of a one-way street. Apply
the brakes. Now, put it in reverse..")
- Drebin visited badly-wounded partner Detective
Nordberg in his hospital room - and caused his bed to fold up
on him by sitting on the bed controls, and made insensitive
and blunt comments to his wife Wilma (Susan Beaublan): ("And
I wouldn't wait until the last minute to fill out those organ
donor cards")
- in one of the scenes, all the most-feared
enemies of the US sat at one conference table and plotted
to destroy America -- Muammar al-Qaddafi, Arafat, Khomeini, Idi
Amin, and Russian leader Gorbachev; Drebin appeared (in
disguise) and thwarted them
- Drebin completely destroyed
and trashed shipping magnate Ludwig's apartment of priceless art
objects and treasures
- this film contained the famous double-entendre one-liner
of Frank Drebin: "Nice beaver" as he looked up the dress
of Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), Ludwig's ex-girlfriend assistant,
as she climbed a ladder - to which a stuffed beaver was produced
and she responded: "Thank you...I just had it stuffed"
- the scene of Drebin having "safe sex" with
Jane - both wore complete body condoms
- in a slapstick scene, Drebin slid
across the table and landed, embarrassingly, on the visiting
look-alike Queen of England
At the Ball Park
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Drebin Butchering the National Anthem
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Drebin Behind the Plate as Umpire
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- at a ballgame, Drebin awkwardly
butchered the singing of the national anthem while
impersonating opera tenor-singer Enrico Pallazzo: ("Oh say
can you see / By the dawn's early light / What so proudly we
hail / In the twilight's last gleaming? / Whose bright stripes
and broad stars / In the perilous night / For the ramparts we
watched / uh, da-da-da-da-da-daaaa. / And the rocket's red glare
/ Lots of bombs in the air / Gave proof to the night / That we
still had our flag. / Oh say does that flag banner wave / Over
a-a-all that's free / And the home of the land / And the land
of the - FREE!")
- and Drebin -- wearing a live police wire while
going to the bathroom was overheard over the stadium loudspeakers
at a speech given by flustered Mayor Barkley (Nancy Marchand)
- going undercover, Drebin
took the role of the the home plate umpire at the baseball game,
calling the pitches: "Steeerikkke!", and
dancing around the plate with funky moves
- Drebin delivered a smaltzy "Power of Love" speech
to a hypnotized Jane (as she held a gun on him); his words were
broadcast on the Jumbotron as he professed his love to her, asked
for her engagement, and attempted to break her homicidal spell: "Jane,
it's me, Funny-face. You love Frank Drebin. And Frank Drebin
loves you. Jane, listen to me. If you don't love me, you might
as well pull that trigger, because without you, l wouldn't want
to live anyway. l've finally found someone l can love - a good,
clean love - without utensils...lt's a topsy-turvy world, Jane,
and maybe the problems of two people don't amount to a hill of
beans, but this is our hill and these are our beans. Jane, since
l met you, l've noticed things l never knew where there - birds
singing, dew glistening on a newly-formed leaf, stop lights...Jane,
this morning... l bought something for you. lt's not very much,
but pretty good for an honest policeman's salary. lt's an engagement
ring. I would have given it to you earlier, but l wanted to wait
until we were alone....l love you, Jane" - she melted at
his words, dropped her gun, and embraced him for a kiss
- and in the conclusion, the visual joke at the
top of the stadium when wheel-chaired, recuperating partner Nordberg
was slapped on the back by Frank and was sent helplessly down
the aisle of the stadium steps and flipped 360 degrees to the
ballfield below as Jane gushed to Frank: "Everyone should
have a friend like you!"
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LA Cop Car Crashing into House and Shower
World's Leading Terrorists at One Table
Drebin's Trashing of Ludwig's Apartment
Gag Line: "Nice beaver"
Safe Sex - Full Body Condoms
Drebin On Top of the Visiting Queen of England
Hypnotized Jane Holding a Gun on Drebin
Drebin's "Power of Love" Speech to Jane Broadcast on
Jumbotron To End Her Hypnotic Spell
Wheelchaired Nordberg Sailing Down Stadium Steps
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The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell
of Fear (1991)
- in this hilarious sequel, among many other very
funny sequences, the self-consciously syrupy sex scene between
buffoonish Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) and his ex-girlfriend
Jane Spencer (Priscilla Presley), the secretary of her new love
interest, kidnapped Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer (Richard Griffiths);
the spoof sequence began as a parody of the clay-molding love scene
in Ghost (1990) to
the tune of the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody;
a mysterious third pair of hands appeared over theirs (an in-joke
about body doubles), and they began using their feet to massage
the clay pot; soon after they kissed and began to ignore the spinning
pot, the clay splattered all over them; suddenly Frank took on
the chiseled torso of Arnold Schwarzenegger and when Jane reached
down into the front of Frank's jeans-pants, she pulled out a large
wad of clay that she fondled into the shape of a square ashtray
- the love-making sequence ended with a clever montage
of sexual metaphors for sexual intercourse and orgasm (similar
to the final scene of North by Northwest (1959)), as Jane
(in the missionary position) gripped the headboard posts behind
her and forcefully broke them off:
- a rapidly-opening and blossoming
red flower, and its pairing up with a purple flower
- the sight of Egyptian slaves raising a heavy stone obelisk
- the initial blast off of a phallic-shaped rocket
- the view of a long hot dog placed inside a bun by a street vendor
- a human cannonballer inserting himself inside the round end of
the cannon
- a train at full speed barreling into a tunnel
- two oil rigs thrusting in and out
- a roller-coaster careening around a corner
- the expulsion of the cannonballer from the cannon
- the sight of black, liquid oil gushing from a well
- the firing of an underwater torpedo
- the collapse and bursting of a dam holding back water
- the activation of a dynamite plunger
- exploding fireworks
- a basketball slam-dunk
- the "Blue Note Bar" sequence, with a
blues singer (Colleen Fitzpatrick) (in homage to Annie Hall
(1977))
crooning
I Guess I'm Just Screwed, where the walls were decorated
with images of famous historical disasters (the San Francisco Earthquake,
the Hindenburg Crash, the Titanic Sinking, the 1938 appeasement
of Hitler in The Munich Agreement by British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain, a grinning picture of losing 1988 Presidential candidate
Michael Dukakis, a Ford Edsel and the Hubble Telescope), and a
cigarette girl was cruising around with a tray of pills for purchase;
when Drebin ordered a "Black
Russian" - the waiter did a double-take toward the camera;
and then Frank met up with Jane (in a re-enactment of Casablanca
(1943)) when
pianist Sam was asked to play their "song just one more time" -
and he began a rendition of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead!;
as they broke up another time, he spitefully shouted after her:
"I'm single. I love being single. I haven't had this much
sex since I was a Boy Scout leader. I mean, the time I was dating
alot"
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The Naked Truth (1957, UK) (aka Your Past is Showing)
- director/producer Mario Zampi's very British, satirical,
post-war black comedy ("Terrific... Shocking... Scandalous...")
- about The Naked Truth gossip-publisher
Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price) who threatened to blackmail a number
of celebrity-individuals (over their scandalous pasts, including
promiscuous cheating, plagiarism, and corruption as a slumlord)
through his tabloid publication unless they paid him £10,000:
("Pay in a fortnight or I publish in a month")
- Peter Sellers (in his first leading film role) starred
as nasty television variety show host Wee Sonny MacGregor,
who vengefully conspired with others to murder Dennis, although
they confounded each other's plans
- the other characters included cowardly upper-class
philanderer and insurance salesman Lord Henry Mayley (Terry-Thomas),
his wife Lady Lucy (Georgina Cookson), "Agatha Christie"-like mystery
novelist Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), Flora's nervous and hysterical
daughter Ethel (Joan Sims), and model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton)
- the sequence of Flora running through
town in search of a "Mickey Finn" to poison Dennis, politely confronting
druggists, supposed criminals, and the police
- the many disguises, personas and facial expressions
that Sonny assumed; in one case, he made
an attempt at a pub in Ireland to surreptitiously hire two anarchists
(terrorist IRA members) and nitro explosives - using a perfect
Irish-Welsh accent (while sporting a large shamrock on his lapel);
he also flustered a gunsmith shop
owner by appearing as an Edwardian style country squire ordering
a suspicious amount of ammunition (1,000 rounds) for a one day hunt:
("I'm having a day's rough shooting and want some bullets... as
long as they've got gunpowder in them...I think you'd better make
it a thousand")
- in the conclusion, hostage Dennis accidentally fell
into the ocean from a blimp (when he took a step out for
fresh air), killing himself; in celebration, Sonny stupidly fired
a pistol shot that pierced the zeppelin, causing it to spiral away
as it deflated
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Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
- the character of overbiting, afro-haired, geeky
and unpopular, black-spectacled Napoleon Dynamite (Jon Heder),
on stage and on the spur-of-the-moment, choreographed dancing to
the tune of Jamiroquai's Canned Heat; he was supporting
his buddy Pedro (Efren Ramirez) running for his HS student body
class president in Preston, Idaho (ND was wearing a "Vote For Pedro"
T-shirt); he wowed the audience and received a delayed standing
ovation
- the dance began with Napoleon's hands in his pockets,
then various jumps with hand gestures, some shuffling, a pelvic
thrust, a fake basketball shot, arms over his head and
bird-flapping with his arms, a squat and hip swivel, various poses,
clapping, pointing, swatting, and an actual somersault
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(National Lampoon's) Animal
House (1978)
- the character of Faber College's animalistic,
misfit, beer-bellied, Delta fraternity member John "Bluto"
Blutarsky (John Belushi) - with numerous gross-out belches and
slobbish behavior (such as crushing beer cans on his head)
- the scene of Bluto in the cafeteria lunch line
- first munching on a hard-boiled egg with the shell (from the
discarded food area), and his progress along the counter piling
up and overloading food on his tray (and taking bites of
a few items and putting the half-eaten remains back), stuffing
his pockets, sucking (or slurping) down a plate of bright green
Jell-O in one gulp, and filling his mouth with an entire hamburger
- at the cafeteria table, Bluto was asked by frat
boy Greg Marmalard (James Daughton): "Don't you have any respect
for yourself?" and one of the preppy sorority girls Babs Jansen
(Martha Smith) was also disgusted by him: "It is absolutely gross.
That boy is a P-I-G, pig", he followed up with a guess-what-I-am-impersonation:
("See
if you can guess what I am now"), then punched
his cheeks with his fists to send a cream puff in all directions:
("I'm a zit. Geddit?")
- the cafeteria's food fight scene and Bluto's instigating
battle cry ("Food fight!")
- the wild "Toga, Toga" party scene in
Delta House at Faber College (chanted by Bluto and others), after
Dean Wormer (John Vernon) told the frat that they were on
"double secret probation"
- during the Toga Party, Bluto's smashing of the
guitar of a folk singer (Stephen Bishop) on the stairway
- Bluto's famous challenge to his fellow frat brothers
to join him to seek revenge on Dean Wormer and the clean-cut
Omegas, although he was historically inaccurate: ("Did you
say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over
when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!...It ain't over
now. Cause when the goin' gets tough, the tough get goin'. Who's
with me? Let's go. Come on!")
- the voyeuristic and winking Peeping Tom scene
of Bluto on a ladder outside the window of a sorority house,
watching the half-dressed frat girls having a pillow fight, and
then being amazed to see self-pleasuring, half-naked Mandy
Pepperidge (Mary Louise Weller) by herself - causing his ladder
to fall backwards
- the scene of a Playboy-reading young kid
thanking God for a cheerleader from a homecoming parade float
catapulted into his room during the sabotaged and ruinous
parade
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(National Lampoon's) Christmas
Vacation (1989)
- the trek to the country to find the most perfect
X-mas tree, the Griswold Family Christmas Tree: ("We're
kicking off our fun old fashion family Christmas by heading out
into the country in the old front-wheel drive sleigh to embrace
the frosty majesty of the winter landscape and select that most
important of Christmas symbols"), to cut down an oversized
Christmas tree in knee-deep snow: ("Thith tree is a thymbol
of the thpirit of the Griswold family Chrithmath")
- family head Clark Griswold's (Chevy Chase) determination
to have a good old-fashioned Christmas celebration: "Where
do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking
out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no! We're
all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday
emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the
hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with
Danny f--king Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass
down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch
of assholes this side of the nuthouse"
- the invitation to many in-laws to join them (Ellen's
parents, Clark's own parents and his aunt and uncle), including
crazy Kansas redneck Cousin Eddie Johnson (Randy Quaid)
- sex-crazed Clark's visit to the mall, where he
nervously became tongue-tied as he ogled busty lingerie clerk
Mary (Nicolette Scorsese) at the display counter, who asked: "Can
I show you something?"
- with his reply about how cold it was: "Yes, yes it is, it's
a bit nipply out. I mean nippy out, ha, ha, ha. What did I say,
nipple? Huh, there is a nip in the air, though"
- the scene in which Clark had waxed his round silver
sled with a revolutionary grease, although Eddie had encouraged
him not to: ("Don't go puttin' none of that stuff on my
sled, Clark. You know that metal plate in my head?... I had to
have it replaced, because every time Catherine revved up the
microwave, I'd piss my pants and forget who I was for a half
hour or so. So over at the VA, they had to replace it with plastic
one. It ain't as strong so, I don't know if I oughta go sailin'
down no hill with nothin' between the ground and my brain but
a piece of government plastic") - and Clark's unexpected
streak of fire in the snow after announcing: "Nothin' to
worry about, Eddie. Going for a new amateur recreational saucer
sled land speed record. Clark W. Griswold, Jr. Remember, don't
try this at home, kids. I am a professional"
- the traditional turkey meal dinner preceded by
80 year-old Aunt Bethany's (Mae Questel) "Grace" (actually,
the Pledge of Allegiance) and the cutting into the bone-dry bird:
(Clark: "If this turkey tastes half as good as it looks,
I think we're all in for a very big treat!" Eddie: "Save
the neck for me, Clark")
- Clark's angry rant about his Scrooge-like boss,
Mr. Shirley (Brian Doyle-Murray): ("I want him brought from
his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all
the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with
a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in
the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good,
rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating,
inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless,
dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-assed, bug-eyed, stiff-legged,
spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey s--t he is! Hallelujah!
Holy S--t! Where's the Tylenol?")
- the kidnapping of Mr. Shirley - (Clark had suggested
it as a "last-minute gift-idea" and Eddie took him
seriously); he was tied up with a big red bow on his chest; it
was retaliation for Clark not receiving a cash bonus, but a one
year membership in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club ("the gift
that keeps on giving the whole year")
- the over-the-top Christmas lights display on
the exterior of the house ("250 strands of lights, 100 individual
bulbs per strand, for a grand total of 25,000 imported Italian
twinkle lights") - and the moment the lights were finally
turned on, requiring auxiliary power from the utility company,
and the electrocution of the cat
- a terrifying squirrel incident when the wild animal
was set loose in the Griswold house, and destructive havoc ensued
in an attempt to get rid of it
- the final disaster when Uncle Lewis (William Hickey)
threw his lit cigar down a storm drain, and the entire sewage
system destructively exploded (Eddie had dumped raw sewage down
the drain); the blast sent a flaming Santa-sleigh and reindeer
decoration across the sky in front of a full moon
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(National Lampoon's) Vacation
(1983) (aka Vacation)
- as the title suggested, director Harold Ramis'
road trip comedy told about the crazy cross-country adventures
and mishaps of a family on their way from Chicago, IL to an amusement
park in SoCal; the post-card opening sequence was accompanied
by the song: "Holiday Road" sung by Lindsay Buckingham
- clueless family head Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase)
was expecting to pick up a new "Antarctic Blue Super Sports
Wagon with CB and optional family fun pack," but due to
a car-dealership mix-up, the slick car salesman Ed (Eugene Levy)
had Clark agree to accept and drive a gigantic pea-green "Wagon
Queen Family Truckster" station wagon with a broken-down
engine, for his reluctant family's cross-country trek to Walley
World in Southern California with wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo),
son Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall), and daughter Audrey (Dana Barron);
he insisted that the family join together in sing-alongs to combat
boredom
- there were numerous arduous misadventures on the
way to Walley World, including getting lost in a ghetto area
of East St. Louis, MO where the clueless, out-of-place Clark
asked for directions from a black pimp: "Pardon me, I wonder
if you could tell me how to get back on the expressway?" (who
responded: "F--k yo Mama!") - and as they drove off,
their hubcaps were stolen by vandals; Rusty also asked: "Wonder
if these guys know the Commodores?"
- during an overnight motel stop where Clark was
preparing to romance Ellen with wine, the film included a parody
of the motel shower scene in Psycho (1960) when
Clark pretended to attack his long-suffering wife Ellen - using
a stabbing motion with a banana; she rejected his offers to "do" her
back and front: ("Go do your own front!"); and afterwards,
they had to abort love-making when their vibrating massager bed
malfunctioned and they were forced to move to the floor, where
they were embarrassingly discovered by their two kids
- at a stop in Dodge City, KS at a Wild West-themed
tourist attraction, Clark entered into an altercation with a
bartender in a tavern- "saloon" - and was "shot" with
blanks as part of the simulated experience
- during the trip, Clark had his first sexy encounter
with a flirtatious and tempting vixen (supermodel Christie Brinkley)
in a passing red 1983 Ferrari 308 - with CA license plates: "LUV
ME"
- the family visited with Ellen's cousin Catherine
(Miriam Flynn) and her beer-swilling, hayseed husband Eddie (Randy
Quaid) at their farm in Coolidge, KS, who ate Hamburger Helper
without the meat: ("I don't know why they call this stuff
Hamburger Helper. It does just fine by itself, huh? I like it
better than Tuna Helper myself, don't you, Clark?")
- there were many funny lines of dialogue: Eddie: "How
do you like yours, Clark?"
Clark: "Oh, medium rare, a little pink inside." Eddie: "No,
I mean your bun"; Eddie described his disability: "I
got laid off when they closed that asbestos factory, and now, wouldn't
you know it, the Army cuts my disability pension because they said
that the plate in my head wasn't big enough" - and then he
asked Clark for a loan of $52,000 dollars
Ellen's Cousin-in-Law Eddie with Clark
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Eddie: "How do you like yours, Clark?"
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Vicki: "Daddy says I'm the best at it"
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A Box of Home-grown Weed: "How cool is
this?"
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Dale to Rusty: "I've got a stack of nudie
books this high!"
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Vicki Stirring Kool-Aid with Her Hand
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- Eddie's young daughter Vicki (Jane Krakowski)
bragged about French kissing: "I'm goin' steady, and I French
kiss...Yeah, but Daddy says I'm the best at it" and also
showing off a shoebox full of home-grown weed to Audrey: ("How
cool is this?"), while Eddie's son Dale (John Nevin) bragged
to Rusty: "I've got a stack of nudie books this high";
Vicki also stirred a jar of red Kool-Aid by sticking her hand
inside and swishing it around (Clark asked: "Vicki, can
I help you with that Kool-Aid, please?")
- as they left, the Griswolds were forced to agree
to take along foul-tempered Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her viciously-mean
dog Dinky, to later be dropped her off at her son Norman's home
in Phoenix, AZ
- at a lunch-break picnic rest stop during the road
trip, to the sound of June Pointer's
"Little Boy Sweet", Clark attempted to impress the sexy
blonde vixen nearby (next to her red Ferrari), by flirting back while
performing an awkward dance and opening his sandwich to show it off,
as she drank from a soda bottle; all of a sudden, Ellen cried out: "They're
all wet. Oh God! The dog wet on the picnic basket!" - and Clark
began unglamorously spitting out his mouthful, although Aunt Edna
shrugged her shoulders and took another bite
- after an overnight tent-campground stop at a rundown
Kamp Komfort facility in South Fork, CO, Clark was stopped by a
forgiving and grief-stricken motorcycle cop after Clark had accidentally
dragged Dinky tied by a dog leash to the bumper: "Explain
this, you son-of-a-bitch...Do you know what the penalty for animal
cruelty is in this state?...Well, it's probably pretty stiff...Poor
little guy. Probably kept up with you for a mile or so. Tough little
mutt. Yeah....Here's the leash, sir. I'm going back to get the
rest of the carcass off the road...."
- as they left Colorado, Ellen's vanity in her suitcase
with her credit cards fell off the roof of the car; then a car
crash in the Arizona desert followed an intense argument with his
wife, and Clark experienced man-to-man talks in the desert with
his son Rusty, including sharing a beer with him
- upon their arrival at a Grand Canyon Village motel,
Clark discovered that they had no credit cards or cash, and the
clerk refused to cash a check, even after a bribery attempt; fortuitously,
Clark was able to 'borrow' money from the open cash register (and
left a $1,000 check in exchange) before briefly viewing the scenic
Grand Canyon
- following the death of Aunt Edna in her sleep, she
was wrapped in a tarp and tied to the top of the station wagon:
(Clark: "You want me to strap her to the hood? She'll be fine.
It's not as if it's going to rain or something"); in Phoenix,
AZ during a downpour, they left Aunt Edna's wrapped rigor mortis
body on a backyard porch lawn chair at Cousin Normie’s house;
Clark (during the thunder and rain storm) half-heartedly attempted
to offer a prayer to God on her behalf: "Oh, God. Ease our
suffering in this, our moment of great despair! Yeah! Admit this
good and decent woman into Thine arms and the flock in Thine heavenly
area up there. And Moab, he laideth down behind the land of the
Canaanites. And, yeah, though the Hindus speak of karma...I implore
you, give her a break....Honey, I'm not an ordained minister! I'm
doing my best, okay?"
- the always-clumsy and dim-brained, half-crazed Clark
Griswold gave a deranged, foul-mouthed, colorfully R-rated exhortation
and rant to his beleaguered family to press on, on their journey
from Chicago westward: "I think you're all f--ked in the head.
We're ten hours from the f--kin' fun park and you want to bail
out! Well, I'll tell you somethin'. This is no longer a vacation.
It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm gonna have fun and you're
gonna have fun. We're all gonna have so much f--kin' fun we'll
need plastic surgery to remove our god-damn smiles. You'll be whistling
'Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah' out of your assholes! Ha, ha, ha. I gotta be
crazy! I'm on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose!
Holy S--t!"
- at the next motel stop, Clark encountered the same
blonde vixen at the bar, who temptingly flirted with him, after
he vowed he was single and owned the entire chain: (Vixen: "It's
too bad you're married. I'm in the mood for some fun"
Clark: "Married? Oh, you mean those people I'm with? That's
my brother's family. My brother's ring. You know, I usually borrow
them on these little inspection tours of mine. It sorta helps to
complete the disguise. It's fun for them...In order to be convincing,
you have to look and act like an ordinary jerk. You know, stop at
all the stupid sites and, uh, look like a fool")
- later as they walked to the swimming pool, Clark
kept rambling: "My credo is, if you have to have a credo,
you know, 'Go for it,' pretty much. You only go around this crazy
merry-go-round once! You know?...Yeah. (she began stripping down
to go skinny-dipping, and tossing her underwear at him) That's
my credo! You don't have to have a credo, but 'If the shoe fits,
wear it.' 'A penny saved... ' 'Pennies from heaven...' My favorite
credo, you know, uhm, 'A penny saved, and... '"; when she
dove in completely naked, she urged him to join her ("Are
you gonna go for it?"); after he jumped in naked, he screamed
about the water temperature and alerted many other guests to his
embarrassing situation, including Ellen, who afterwards was easily
convinced to go skinny-dipping ("I know how to have fun and
I'm gonna prove it...I want us to have some fun together") - with Clark only
Walley World - An Empty Parking Lot
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Slo-Mo Run Toward Walley World Entrance
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Holding Walley World Guard Hostage
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- after their eventual arrival at Walley World in
Los Angeles, Clark spoke: "First ones here!"; they
ran in slow-motion (to the sounds of Chariots of Fire's
theme) to the entrance, but to their dismay, it was closed for
two weeks for maintenance; at the front gate, they were notified
by a happy, animatronic moose holding a sign - with a recording: "Sorry
Folks! We're closed for two weeks - to clean and repair 'America's
Favorite' Family Fun Park"; completely disheartened, Clark
punched the moose in the nose
- Clark held the overweight Walley World security
guard Russ Lasky (John Candy) hostage at gunpoint (with a realistic
looking BB-gun he had just bought at a sporting goods store): "Now
you listen to me, fat ass. You do what I say and there won't be
any problem, okay? OK. We just drove 2,460 miles, just for a little
Roy Walley entertainment. The Moose says you're closed. I say you're
open"
- although a SWAT team arrived and they were handcuffed,
the family was able to experience some of the rides in the park
when charges were dropped by Walley World's owner Roy (Eddie Bracken),
including the roller-coaster
- in the end credits, it was revealed that rather
than driving back, the Griswolds opted for a plane trip to return
to Chicago
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Mix-up at the Car Dealership
The Family Sing-Alongs With Clark Leading
East St. Louis Pimp to Clark: "F--k yo Mama!"
Psycho Shower Parody
Vixen Passing in a Red 1983 Ferrari
Clark Dancing With His Urine-Soaked Sandwich
Clark with Motorcycle Cop After an Accident With Dog
Dinky
Clark Sharing Beer with Son Rusty
Clark's Rant: "This is no longer a vacation. It's
a quest. It's a quest for fun"
Clark With the Flirtatious Blonde (Christie Brinkley)
at the Motel
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(National Lampoon's) Van Wilder (2002)
- a contrived, un-PC, gross-out sex-and-school romp
about a seventh year undergraduate student (Ryan Reynolds) at Michigan's
Coolidge College who, among other things, hired busty young women
and strippers to be "topless
tutors", such as Desiree (Jesse Capelli), with the help of Indian personal assistant
Taj (Kal Penn)
- the scene of Van Wilder's advice to Taj on his "foolproof
plan" of sexual technique: "All you need are the three
fundamentals: scented candles, massage oil, and Barry White. Write
that down. Hey! No cock pump"
- the sequence of
Taj's disastrous "hot" date with pretty blonde Naomi (Ivana
Bozilovic) ("That's 'I moan' backwards");
calling her "my little Jasmine flower," Taj tripped
on the floor, and when he liberally applied oil to her back and
she begged: "Take me, I want you now," he jumped onto
her, but slid across her back onto the floor and started a fire;
she asked: "Don't tease me..." and added: "I'm
about to culminate, now get over here!"; they both felt "on
fire" and were "burning up" - because Taj's
back was literally up in flames
- the detestable, hard-to-watch scene of Van Wilder's
collection of cream for the fillings of pastry treats to be consumed
by a rival group of frat boys - taken from canine ejaculate from
his English Bulldog (named Colossus, or "C-Los" for short),
with an enlarged scrotum - a prosthetic; as they bit into the
eclairs, the insides spilled out and ran down their mouths:
"Dig in, guys. Oh, they're so warm"; but then they saw
a polaroid photograph of the semen-extraction process - and proceeded
to puke (there was one huge projectile of throw-up)
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The Naughty Nineties (1945)
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The Navigator (1924)
In Buster Keaton's classic comedy, reportedly Keaton's
favorite film - a fish-out-of-water tale with many inventive sight
gags:
- the introduction provided by prologue title cards: "Our
story deals with one of those queer tricks that Fate sometimes
plays. Nobody would believe, for instance, that the entire lives
of a peaceful American boy and girl could be changed by a funny
little war between two small countries far across the sea. And
yet it came to pass. The spies of the two little nations were
at a Pacific seaport, each trying to prevent the other getting
ships and supplies."
- the story of well-to-do Rollo Treadway (Buster
Keaton) and equally-naive flapper girlfriend and across-the-street
neighbor Betsy O'Brien (Kathryn McGuire), who had rejected his
simple proposal to get married ("Will you marry me?")
with her simple response ("Certainly not"); he was
forced to rip up a ticket he had purchased for her to join him
as his bride on a Honolulu honeymoon cruise
- due to rival factions of international spies from
two small nations at war, the sale of a cruise ship (Betsy's
father John O'Brien (Frederick Vroom) had sold the steamship
the S.S. Navigator to one of the small countries at war,
after which spies from the opposing country set it loose), and
a mixup of pier numbers (12 vs. 2), Rollo and Betsy mistakenly
found themselves deserted and adrift on a foggy night on the S.S.
Navigator - Rollo thought he had boarded an ocean cruise
to Honolulu, while she boarded the same ship to look for her
father
- sailing aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean on their
first morning, Rollo and Betsy did not know of each other's presence
as they roamed the deck - often just missing each other, until
they accidentally bumped into each other
- the numerous and elaborate sight gags first involved
the two spoiled rich kids' inept efforts to make breakfast: to
brew a few coffee beans in a pot using sea water, to open a can
by whacking it with a machete, to boil eggs in a large pot and
remove them, to open a can of tinned milk with a drill, and to
use oversized cooking implements as personal utensils
- the failed efforts of Rollo and Betsy to signal
a naval rescue ship (their hoisted yellow flag was interpreted
as "quarantined"), and to fearlessly drop a small rowboat
from the deck into the water in order to absurdly pursue the
naval ship by pulling The Navigator (before sinking the
rowboat)
Dropping a Rowboat Into the Water to Tug The
Navigator
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- the classic sequence of Rollo attempting to set
up an uncooperative folding deck chair and put Betsy in it
- the first evening, the gag of a swinging-portrait
on a nail, seen through Rollo's porthole next to his bed, and
thinking it was a ghost
- in the dark, Rollo's mistaking a large box of
"GIANT FIRECRACKERS" and "ROMAN CANDLES"
for regular candles
- Rollo's failed efforts to shuffle a wet deck of
playing cards
- still drifting after weeks at sea, Rollo's many
Rube Goldberg-like inventions to make life easier in the kitchen
- their sighting of cannibals - and to avoid drifting
ashore and being captured, the scene of Rollo's underwater deep
sea diving (in an elaborate diving outfit with helmet) to patch
a leak in the ship, including his duel with a swordfish (by using
another swordfish!) and an encounter with an octopus, while a
tribe of island cannibals in an outrigger canoe kidnapped Betsy
from the deck
Heavy Deep Sea Diving Outfit
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Patching a Leaky Hole Underwater
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Fighting a Swordfish
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- the scene of Rollo's routing of the natives by
scaring them when he emerged on shore in his deep-sea diving
outfit; after returning to the Navigator, they circumvented
the cannibals' entry onto the ship by cutting away the gang-plank,
throwing water down on them, and exploding firecrackers at them
Betsy's Rescue From Cannibals
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- the classic scene of Rollo's encounter with a
toy cannon that was accidentally tied to his leg (he stepped
into a rope loop) that was continually aimed at him, while he
was trying to point it at the attacking cannibals
- as the Navigator's decks were completely
overrun by cannibals, Rollo and Betsy escaped to the outrigger
canoe vacated by the natives; but then they were again pursued
and appeared about to meet their demise via drowning, when they
were miraculously rescued by an emerging naval submarine underneath
them; they entered the hatch, closed it, and escaped as the submarine
descended
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A Kiss - and Tossed Around Inside Rescue Submarine
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- inside the submarine, Rollo was kissed by a grateful
Betsy, but then accidentally fell backwards onto an orientational
lever control, sending the galley's interior cabin slowly rotating
360 degrees around and tossing them about like they were within
a dryer, as the film ended
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One Country's Plot to Set The Navigator Steamship
Adrift
Betsy Rejecting Neighbor Rollo's Marriage Proposal
Searching For Each Other On The Navigator and
Eventually Bumping Into Each Other
Failing to Set Up a Folding Deck Chair
"Ghost" Seen Through Rollo's Bunk Porthole
Firecrackers, Not Candles
Shuffling Wet Playing Cards
Sighting Cannibals on a Nearby Island
Betsy's Kidnapping
Doomed to Drown, But Saved By a Submarine Emerging
Underneath
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Never
Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941)
- the Great Man's (W. C. Fields) two very funny
restaurant ordering scenes in the Cozy Corner Cafe - a greasy-spoon
restaurant with a tough, obnoxious, fat waitress named Tiny (Jody
Gilbert); he asked: "Is there any goulash on this menu?";
she wiped a spot off the menu and replied: "It's roast beef
gravy"; then, he asked about the steak: "Is that steak
New York cut?"; she crossed if off the menu because it was
unavailable. Pouring him a glass of ice water, she became distracted
and he ended up with the overflow on his lap. He joked: "No
extra charge for the cold shower, I hope"; struggling to
order something, he asked: "Do you think it's too hot for
pork chops?" That also was crossed off the menu, along with
a number of other items. He wondered: "That, uh, practically,
uh, eliminates everything but ham and eggs...No ham." He
was forced to order two four-minute eggs in a cup, white bread,
and milk, causing him to mutter: " I don't know why I ever
come in here - the flies get the best of everything."
- during his second visit to the restaurant with
the fleshy waitress, he told her: "I didn't squawk about
the steak, dear. I merely said I didn't see that old horse that
used to be tethered outside here" - and then insultingly
commented on her big behind: "There's something awfully
big about you too"; when he paid his tab, she advised: "And
another thing, don't be so free with your hands" - to which
he replied: "Listen honey. I was only trying to guess your
weight. You take things too seriously"
- the scene of his diving to retrieve his precious
bottle of booze which he had accidentally knocked over the side
while gesturing; he made a drunken free-fall dive from out of
the airplane, now flying over Mexico; catching up with the bottle
as he fell thousands of feet to the ground, he landed on a giant
mattress in a strange mountain cliff-top country (Ruritania),
bouncing about a dozen times until he came to rest, and then
asked himself: "Why didn't I think of that parachute? What
a bump!"
- the scene of the Great Man falling in a large
basket off the cliff of the mountain top retreat of wealthy matron
Mrs. Hemogloben (Margaret Dumont) and her lovely daughter Ouliotta
Delight Hemogloben (Susan Miller), to avoid marriage, and his
remark as he looked down: "Don't start worrying until we
get down to one-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-nine. It's
the last foot that's dangerous"
- the final ten minutes - the Great Man's mad drive
through downtown LA to take an oversized woman (he presumed she
was pregnant) to the maternity hospital (borrowed for Abbott
and Costello's In Society (1944)), with a police escort
from cops on motorcycles, sirens blaring; after many near-misses
and collisions, his car's roof was tangled up with the hook and
ladder of a fire-engine, and his car was hoisted high into the
air and then dumped back onto the highway; he narrowly missed
pedestrians and other cars in the frantic ride to the hospital;
his wrecked and disintegrating car finally came to a halt next
to the "Maternity Hospital Quiet!" sign, where he was
left holding only the steering wheel in his hands. Hospital orderlies
rushed out with a stretcher and wheeled the unconscious passenger
into the delivery room - she recovered consciousness just in
time to berate the hospital staff. The Great Man staggered at
the crash site, musing: "Lucky I didn't have an accident...I
would have never gotten here"
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A Night
at the Opera (1935)
- regarded by some as the funniest sequence ever
filmed -- the famous "stateroom" scene (preceded by
the 'food-ordering' scene) in which a small cruise ship room
was crowded with all four Marx Brothers, chambermaids, an engineer,
a manicurist, the engineer's assistant, a passenger looking for
her Aunt Minnie, and staff stewards - and opera matron Mrs. Claypool's
(Margaret Dumont) opening of the door that spilled all the occupants
out onto the floor
- the preceding egg-ordering scene
- the classic 'contract-tearing' parody scene of
contract negotiations between shady shyster manager Otis P. Driftwood
(Groucho Marx) and Fiorello (Chico Marx): "The party of
the first part...", ending with Fiorello's concluding that "You
can't fool me - There ain't no Sanity Clause"
- the scene at City Hall in which the stowaways
posed as bearded air heroes and Fiorello's speech when he described
the aviators' difficult trip to America
- the hilarious, rearranged furniture and bed-switching
sequence in Driftwood's apartment to elude and confuse private
Detective Henderson
- Driftwood's complaint/suggestion:
"You're willing to pay him a thousand dollars a night just
for singing? Why, you can get a phonograph record of Minnie the
Moocher for 75 cents. And for a buck and a quarter, you can get
Minnie"
- and the operatic opening night finale (a lavish
production number) of Il Trovatore with madcap havoc:
wild backdrops, backstage and onstage chaos, Harpo swinging Tarzan
ape-like on stage fly-ropes in tune to Verdi's music,
and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
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9 to 5 (1980) (aka Nine to
Five)
Director Colin Higgins' feminist-leaning workplace
farcical comedy was so successful that it was the basis for a short-lived
ABC-TV sitcom and a 2009 Broadway show of the same name.
The catchy Oscar-nominated title song sung and
lyrics waswritten by Dolly Parton during the opening title credits
montage of hustle-bustle scenes (of getting to work by 9 am) -
filmed and located in downtown San Francisco:
"Tumble out
of bed and stumble to the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch and try to come to life. Jump in the shower
and the blood starts pumpin' Out on the street the traffic starts
jumpin' With folks like me on the job from nine to five. Workin'
nine to five what a way to make livin' Barely gettin' by, it's
all takin' and no givin'. They just use your mind and they never
give you credit. It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it..."
Opening Title Credits Montage
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The main characters were: three
secretaries who were harrassed by their sexist corporate boss Franklin
Hart, Jr. (Dabney Coleman) during their 9 to 5 job at Consolidated
Companies, Inc.:
- Doralee Rhodes (singer/songwriter Dolly Parton in
her film debut), the well-endowed secretary of Hart, tired of being
sexually-harrassed and hearing rumors about her affair with her
boss
- Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda), a new secretary, mousy,
compelled to work after divorce proceedings against her cheating
husband Dick (Lawrence Pressman); she was nervous, agitated in
the new job by all her duties, and unable to manage the xerox machine
- Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), senior office manager,
a long-time worker, and a widow with four children
Judy Bernly
(Jane Fonda)
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Violet Newstead
(Lily Tomlin)
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Doralee Rhodes
(Dolly Parton)
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Male-dominated, married personal
secretary Doralee Rhodes delivered a threatening tirade to get her
gun and fire at lecherous, chauvinistic and harrassing corporate
boss Franklin Hart after being ogled one too many times, her compromised
reputation and his bragging about their having an affair:
"Well,
that explains it. That's why these people treat me like some dime
store floozy...They think I'm screwin' the boss...And you just love
it, don't ya? It gives you some sort of cheap thrill like knockin'
over pencils and pickin' up papers...Get your scummy hands off of
me. Look, I've been straight with you from the first day I got here.
And I put up with all your pinchin' and starin' and chasin' me around
the desk 'cause I need this job, but this is the last straw...Look,
I got a gun out there in my purse, and up until now, I've been
forgivin' and forgettin' because of the way I was brought up. But
I'll tell you one thing: if you ever say another word about me
or make another indecent proposal, I'm gonna get that gun of mine
and I'm gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!
Don't think I can't do it!"
His one word response after
she left his office was "s--t!"
The three commiserated at a bar
about their jobs and detestable boss (Judy: "We've got to do
something. He can’t treat people like that"). Violet pulled
out a "gift" from
her son - a "marijuana cigarette" and challenged them
to smoke it: "Would you two show a little spunk? I mean, what
are you, a man or a mouse? I mean, a woman or a "wouse"?"
They decided to retreat to Doralee's house for what Violet termed "an
old fashioned ladies' pot party."
Each of them went through elaborate revenge
fantasies (while giggling and stoned with very strong "Maui
Wowie")
about killing their boss in various
ways, while labeling him as "a lying, sexist, egotistical, hypocritical
bigot":
- Judy hunted him down in his office and threatened
him with a rifle ("You're foul, Hart - a wart on the nose
of humanity, and I'm going to blast it off...Goodbye, boss man.
It's quittin' time")
- she counted to ten and then began firing as he fled; she pursued
him into the women's room where he was hiding in a toilet stall -
he became a plaque on the wall
- Doralee fantasized riding up in a
Western scenario ("I think
I'd like to ride up one day and give him a taste of his own medicine");
she arrived on a horse (to the tune of the "Lone Ranger" theme
song); she pretended that she was his boss and shamed him by objectifying
his body and sexually-harrassing him (as he often did to her) ("You're
my boy from 9 to 5...You need to be a little more cooperative if
you want to keep this job...One little kiss? What's that gonna hurt?
Who's gonna know?"); then when he resisted, she roped and hog-tied
him and put him on a BBQ spit
- Violet portrayed Disney's fanciful
Snow White ("For me, it
would have to be like a fairy tale. You know, something gruesome
and horrible and real gory. But kinda cute...) - with plans to poison
Hart through his coffee; after he drank the coffee, he admitted that
he deserved it, and was ejected from his desk chair out the skyscraper
window
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Judy - Hunting Him Down With a Rifle in the Office
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Doralee - Abusing, Roping and Spit-Roasting Him
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Violet - As Snow White, Poisoning Him With Coffee
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Back in reality, Violet wrongly thought she had
actually poisoned Hart's coffee with Rid-O-Rat powdered poison
rather than sweetener, when he fell from his chair, knocked himself
out and was quickly whisked off to the hospital. When Hart recovered
and left the hospital without the threesome's knowledge, the threesome
was in the middle of endeavoring to cover up Violet's possible
crime of murder (and prevent an autopsy) by getting rid of the
body. Violet mistakenly stole the corpse of a police witness from
the hospital, stashed it in her trunk, and drove off. When they
realized their mistake, they had to re-smuggle the body back into
the hospital (and avoid a suspicious motorcycle cop who stopped
them for a defective tail-light).
Hart was kidnapped and held captive
by the trio in a bizarre suspension and chain system in his own
bedroom, while the ladies sought evidence to charge him with embezzlement.
During Hart's absence, improvements in office procedures ("changes
that really count")
instituted by the ladies led to increased productivity and positive
morale, such as job-sharing, a day-care center, a rehabilitation program
for recovering alcoholics, and more.
In the triumphant finale after
Hart escaped and was about to send the threesome to jail, the company's
impressed, white-haired chairman Russell Tinsworthy (Sterling Hayden)
arrived for an unexpected visit to congratulate Hart for all of the
improvements - except one ("that equal pay thing, though, that's
got to go!"), and promoted him for a transfer to run Consolidated's
Brazilian operation for the next two to three years. Hart reacted
to the unwanted "chance of a lifetime" transfer: "Brazil,
sir?"
In the last scene, the champagne
drinking trio congratulated each other on getting rid of Hart:
-
Judy: "We did it! We actually pulled it off, and we didn't
panic."
- Doralee: "And Tinsworthy loved what we did."
- Violet: "Yeah, everything except that part about the money."
- Judy: "What are we gonna do about that?"
- Violet: "Hey, we've come this far, haven't we? This is just
the beginning."
- Doralee: (toasting) "And here's to the beginning."
- Violet: "I'll drink to that."
- Judy: "The beginning!"
- Doralee: "Yeah!"
- "Monsieur Hart. Holy merde!" (the reaction of
Hart's deferential and loyal assistant Roz Keith (Elizabeth Wilson),
speaking French after returning from a French language seminar)
The film's final caption: "Franklin
Hart was abducted by a tribe of Amazons in the Brazilian jungle and
was never heard from again." |
Franklin Hart, Jr.
(Dabney Coleman)
Hart Looking Down Buxom Doralee's Dress
Judy's Problems with the Xerox Machine
Doralee to Hart: "I'm gonna change you from a rooster to
a hen with one shot!"
Plans to Seek Revenge: At a Bar and at Doralee's Home While
Smoking Pot
Unrealistic Fairy-Tale Dreams
Hart Knocked Out, Not Poisoned!
Violet Stealing the Wrong Corpse From the Hospital
Hart Chained, Detained and Suspended From the Ceiling In
His Own Home
Impressed Chairman Russell Tinsworthy - Hart Promoted to
Brazil
Triumphant Threesome Drinking Champagne
Roz: "Holy merde!"
Franklin Hart Caption
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Ninotchka
(1939)
- a sophisticated romantic comedy, advertised
as the first in which "Garbo LAUGHS" - also a critique of
Soviet society (under Stalin)
- the scene of somber and
dour Russian commissar Nina "Ninotchka" Ivanovna Yakushova's
(Greta Garbo) arrival at the train station (after being dispatched
from Moscow), where she was met by a trio of Russian delegates/comrades
(Sig Rumann, Felix Bressart, and Alexander Granach), who apologized
for not bringing flowers because they didn't know she was female
- and she sternly and unsmilingly cautioned them to downplay
her sexuality and not act gallantly: "Don't make an issue of my
womanhood. We're here for work. All of
us. Let's not waste any time. Shall we go?" - and she refused to have a
porter carry her bags; as she walked off, she told them the news:
"The last mass trials have been a great success. There are
going to be fewer but better Russians"
- the scene of her meeting with dashing Count Leon
d'Algout (Melvyn Douglas), when all she wanted was assistance
in holding her unfolded map of Paris to go to the Eiffel Tower
to learn about it from a "technical
standpoint"; point-blank, she told him: "I am interested only in
the shortest distance between these two points. Must you flirt?...Suppress
it!"
- the first instance of Ninotchka saying her famous
line after being introduced to Leon's elderly,
dignified butler Gaston (Richard Carle): "The day will come when you'll be
free. Go to bed, little father. We want to be alone"
- her response to Leon's request for feedback
when he asked: "Ninotchka, you like me just a little bit?"
- and her reply: "Your general appearance is not distasteful...The
whites of your eyes are clear. Your cornea is excellent"; and
then her denial of his feelings of love: "Love is a romantic
designation for a most ordinary biological - or, shall we say,
chemical - process. A lot of nonsense is talked and written about
it"
- Leon's failed attempt to arouse emotion in Ninotchka:
"Love isn't so simple, Ninotchka. Ninotchka, why do doves bill
and coo? Why do snails, the coldest of all creatures, circle
interminably around each other? Why do moths fly hundreds of
miles to find their mates? Why do flowers slowly open their petals?
Oh, Ninotchka, Ninotchka, surely you feel some slight symptom
of the divine passion? A general warmth in the palms of your
hands, a strange heaviness in your limbs, a burning of the lips
that isn't thirst but something a thousand times more tantalizing,
more exalting, than thirst" - and her cold reply:
"You are very talkative"
- the celebrated cafe scene of Count Leon
attempting to melt her icy, stony-faced,
humorless, impassive exterior and have her "laugh from the
heart" by telling her
dumb jokes and stories in a restaurant; when that utterly failed
and she remained unamused and stone-faced without any reaction,
he leaned backward on the shaky table behind him and accidentally
toppled over in his chair, causing everything to crash to the
floor. He finally succeeded in making her laugh uproariously
and uncontrollably. She howled, threw her head back, and collapsed
across the table, pounding it with her hand. Leon slowly got
up from the floor, recomposed himself, and sat next to her. And
then he recovered and broke down into howling laughter with her.
He saw the humor of the situation and joined in everyone's laughter
at his own expense
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Nothing Sacred (1937)
Director William Wellman's great black comedy
- a superb screwball comedy (the first filmed in Technicolor) from
former newspaperman and scriptwriter Ben Hecht (who also wrote
the play "The Front Page" - made into another famous
screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940))
- satirized the world of tabloid reporting and its corruption
and dishonesty; it was remade as Living It Up (1954) with
Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Janet Leigh:
- the humorous opening title screen: "THIS
IS NEW YORK, Skyscraper Champion of the World...where the Slickers
and Know-It-Alls peddle gold bricks to each other...And where
Truth, crushed to earth, rises again more phony than a glass
eye..."
- the early scene of a gala banquet, where the New
York Morning Star and its editor boss Oliver Stone (Walter
Connolly) was hosting a penniless black Harlem shoeshiner (bootblack)
(Troy Brown, Sr.), honoring him as the foreign potentate of
the Orient - "Sultan of Marzipan" (who was donating
$10 dollars for every $1 dollar, for the establishment of an
art institute known as the Morning Star Temple ("twenty-seven
halls of learning and culture, twenty-seven arenas of art"));
he was exposed as a fraud by his wife who interrupted the proceedings
- revelations were that hot-shot star newspaperman
- dapper, cynical ambitious tabloid reporter Wallace "Wally" Cook
(Fredric March), had printed exaggerated stories in the paper
about the impersonating Harlem worker; Oliver Stone was so angered
that he announced: "I am going to remove him from the land
of the living!"; Cook was severely reprimanded and demoted
to writing obituaries for the remainder of his five-year contract
- Cook learned of a promising story to redeem himself
- "Poor little working girl doomed to death from radium
poisoning"
- he begged for a chance to travel to Warsaw, Vermont (fictional)
and interview the dying girl: "Listen, Oliver, there's a story
in this kid that ought to tear your heart out...Oliver, so help
me. I'll be in Vermont by morning. I'll dig you up a story that'll
make this town swoon...If I don't come back with the biggest story
you ever handled, you can put me back in short pants and make me
marble editor"
- arriving in Vermont, Cook was regarded skeptically
by the small-town folk as a scandalmonger; in the office of incompetent
and bumbling Dr. Enoch Downer (Charles Winninger), Cook's profession
was criticized: "I'll tell you briefly what I think of newspapermen.
The hand of God reaching down into the mire couldn't elevate
one of them to the depths of degradation. Not by a million miles";
Cook's requests to see the terminally-ill Hazel Flagg, diagnosed
by Dr. Downer as having only six weeks to live, were deflected
- after the appearance of watch
factory worker Hazel Flagg (Carole Lombard), Dr. Downer
informed her that she had been re-diagnosed as healthy: ("Well,
you can stop giving yourself the airs of a dying swan. According
to this last analysis I made, you ain't going to die....You're
fitter than a fiddle!...That first diagnosis I made was a mistake");
but she was very disappointed that a trip with $200 to the big
city of New York was no longer possible and that she had to stay
in Warsaw ("You know,
I don't know which I am, happy or miserable, I'm all mixed up")
- outside the doctor's office as Hazel cried about
her predicament, Cook offered to bring her to NY as a guest of
the newspaper on an all-expenses-paid trip, as a symbol of courage
and heroism: ("We'll show you the town. We'll take you everywhere.
You'll have more fun than if you lived a hundred years in this
moth-eaten yep-and-nope village...You'll be a sensation. The
whole town will take you to its heart. You'll have everything
you've ever dreamed of. You'll have it on a silver platter. You'll
be like Aladdin with the magic lamp to rub"); as they flew
to New York with Dr. Downer, Cook exclaimed as they approached
NY: "Well, there she is, in all her beads and ribbons";
he promised: "New York is going to lay its heart at your
feet while the whistles blow and the bands play and the cameras
grind"; Hazel became a national hero (with a ticker-tape
parade and presentation of the key to the city) so the small-town
rube could enjoy a taste of life before succumbing; she was given
gowns, banquets, theatre tickets, homage poems, and more
Hazel Invited to NY by Cook
|
Hazel's Welcome Sign in Technicolor NYC Aerial
Shot
|
"Belle of New York"
|
- at a nightclub, the floorshow "The Heroines
of History" included women onstage on horseback (Lady Godiva,
Pocahontas, etc.); the boozing Hazel was invited to the stage
by the emcee to join them: ("That little soldier whose heroic
smile in the face of death has wrung tears and cheers from the
great stone heart of the city. I humbly invite her now to take
her place beside all the great Heroines of History"); with
the effects of excessive alcohol, she fainted on-stage - garnering
even more sympathy
- the next morning in bed, the hung-over Hazel began
to feel anxious pangs of conscience about her phony and feigned
illness; she worried about what would happen when she was found
out: ("I've got a conscience...I'm ruining him"); and
then she discovered that Cook was planning to make elaborate
funeral arrangements for her death with NY's governor: ("There'll
be about 30,000 automobiles and a considerable group on foot.
About half a million, I think...I'm getting the governor to declare
a public holiday for the, uh, occasion"); and then she also
learned that Dr. Emil Egelhofer (Sig Rumann), a radium poisoning
specialist, was going to examine her - she told Dr. Downer: "I've
got to commit suicide in advance before that scientist gets to
me. I-I've got to be drowned" - she planned on writing a
suicide thank you note to the city and then disappearing and
hiding out forever ("I'll change my name and hide away for
the rest of my life and never, never see him again")
- still in bed, Hazel listened to a 20-member elementary
school glee club singing a dedicated song to her: "We're
sorry you're dying, Hazel" - during the song, she was crawled
over by a freckle-faced kid's pet squirrel
- Hazel's suicide note was discovered by her empty
bed: "Dear New York City, Goodbye. Remember me as someone
you made very happy. I have enjoyed everything. There's only
one thing left to enjoy. Your river - that smiled outside of
my window. It is easy to die when the heart is full of gratitude.
Hazel Flagg"; she was prevented from drowning herself at
the pier by Cook (who was actually rescued by Hazel because he
couldn't swim), who then proposed marriage to her
- the arrival of Dr. Egelhofer and his three European
colleagues to examine Hazel; after her X-rays proved that she
was not ill, Morning Star editor Oliver Stone was notified
of the new diagnosis: ("There is no vestige, no trace, no
single symptom of radium poisoning in this young woman, Mr. Stone");
the doctors were paid to keep quiet, and then Stone chastised
his star reporter Cook for promoting a hoax: "I am sitting
here, Mr. Cook, toying with the idea of removing your heart -
and stuffing it like an olive!...You ruined the Morning Star.
You blackened forever the fair name of journalism. You and that
foul botch of nature, Hazel Flagg!...The biggest fake of the
century. A lying, faking witch with the soul of an eel and the
brain of a tarantula!")
- while Stone was worried about the revelation of
the scandal, Cook was thankful about Hazel's newfound health
and prospects of marriage: "I thank God on my knees that
she's a fraud and a fake and isn't going to die" - he planned
to tell the readership:
"Wanna tell 'em we've been their benefactors. We gave 'em
a chance to pretend that their phony hearts were dripping with
the milk of human kindness," and he blamed Stone for the publicity
stunt:
"You used her like you've used every broken heart that's fallen
into your knap-sack. To inflame the daffy public and help sell
your papers"
Dr. Egelhofer and Colleagues
|
Stone to Cook: "You ruined the Morning
Star!"
|
Cook: "You used her..."
|
- in a comic lady-beating scene, Cook wanted Hazel
to look properly bruised, sweaty, and sick - allegedly with pneumonia
- before another diagnosis was made; Hazel was knocked out with
a terrific punch; and then when she revived, she reciprocated
and knocked Cook unconscious
- exasperated by the whole situation of fakery,
Hazel confessed to city officials, some citizens and the mayor
outside her hotel room: "I'm a fake, I'm a phony, I'm not
gonna die. I was never gonna die. I never had radium poisoning,
I never had anything. I wanted a trip to New York, and I got
it"; however, the group decided that the true news of her
health would endanger her inspirational story for everyone ("This
thing must not get out")
- in the last analysis, Hazel declared: "Oh,
let me alone. I wish I really could die. Go someplace by myself
and, and die alone! Like an elephant!"; it was decided that
Cook and Hazel would make their honeymoon disappearance-getaway
as marrieds (incognito), sailing on a cruise ship to a tropical
island, while it was rumored in the newspapers that she had committed
'suicide' based upon another suicide note left behind: "Dear
New York - We've had a lot of good times together - you and I
- but even the best of times must end, so I have gone to face
the end alone - like an elephant. Sincerely, Hazel"
Ending: Solution -
"HAZEL VANISHES"
|
Disguised as Honeymooners
on Tropical Cruise
|
|
Opening Title
Editor Oliver Stone with Imposter "Sultan of Marzipan"
Hoax Revealed
Ace Reporter Cook Demoted But Allowed to Interview Dying
Girl
Hazel Flagg
(Carole Lombard)
Fainting On-Stage as a "Heroine of History"
Cook's Plans for Her Funeral, and Examination by a Specialist
Squirrel
Hazel's Suicide Note
Hazel Kissing Cook After Rescue
Fighting Sequence - Knocking Each Other Out
Hazel Confessing to City Officials and Mayor
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The Nutty Professor (1963)
- in the film's opening scene, the introduction
of the main Jekyll-Hyde character: eccentric, buck-toothed, whiny-voiced,
nerdy and naive scientist Professor Julius F. Kelp, who was found
in the smoky rubble of his chemistry lab (underneath a door)
after a violent and destructive explosion; he meekly explained:
"I used too much..."
- the scene of Professor Kelp's reprimand for causing
another explosion, scolded in the office of imposing superior
Dr. Warfield (Del Moore), as Kelp sat in a sinking soft leather
chair before the desk and shyly looked up; Kelp left a trail
of dirty shoe prints on the carpet leading into the office; when
asked "How long?!" he had been at the university, Kelp opened
up his pocket watch that blared out the Marine Corps hymn: "Halls
of Montezuma"; Kelp answered: "Two years and 22 minutes now"; Warfield
chastised Kelp: "Kelp, it's human nature. Kelp, people just don't
like teachers blowing up their kids!" and then he noted: "Try
to understand that I understand, that scientists and creators have
their little eccentricities. Einstein hated hair cuts, Da Vinci
loved to paint, and Newton..." -
Kelp interrupted: "He
had something to do with figs, didn't he?"
- the entrance of Kelp into a local Vic Tanny workout
gym, where he was knocked to the ground by an exiting, muscle-bound
beefcake male; later when asked if he was hurt when he again
fell onto a bouncy trampoline, he explained: "Well, actually,
if you would say that a man with an ulcer had a nail in his shoe
and a splinter in his finger was then struck by lightning - if
you could say that that man was not hurt, then yes you would
say I'm not hurt"
- the scenes of physical comedy - of
Kelp using the gym's pulling weight machine (in split-screen,
the unscrewed pulley station sent him flying), an almost-blind
Kelp (without his glasses) bowling the wrong way at a bowling
alley, and the sight-gag of the stretching of his arms when he
dropped a heavy weight bar ("I suspect it was somewhat heavier
than I...") - the punchline came later when he was seen in bed
(with his hands next to his feet, facilitating the scratching
of one foot)
- the scene of Professor Kelp drinking a strange
pink elixir and then his transformation into a hip,
swaggering, greasy-haired and obnoxious ladies man alter-ego
known as Buddy Love
- Buddy Love's first public appearance in the hip
Purple Pit hang-out (a dance nightclub), and the
sequence of Buddy's detailed instructions to the bartender on how
to prepare his favorite cocktail - an Alaskan Polar Bear Heater
("two shots of vodka...a little rum... some bitters... and a smidgen
of vinegar...a shot of vermouth... a shot of gin... a little
brandy...lemon peel...orange peel... sherry...some more scotch...");
the bartender sampled the drink, said: "Not bad" and then fell
over
- the scene of Buddy's vocal
performance of "That
Old Black Magic" at the
piano under subdued lighting - bringing stunned reactions from
onlookers, in a vain attempt to seduce pretty blonde
student Stella Purdy (Stella Stevens) - she could see
through his giant ego - Buddy: "Honey, I always say, if you're
good and you know it, why waste time beating around the bush,
true?" Stella: "And I always say that to love yourself is the
beginning of a lifelong romance, and after watching you, I know
you and you will be very happy together"
- the scene in Dr. Warfield's office, when Buddy
flattered the administrator to act out the famous scene
from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and after just one recited
line, concluded: "You choked me. It was gorgeous. The prettiest
thing I've ever seen in my life"
- the prom scene, when Buddy, serving as a chaperone,
realized his formula was wearing off during his singing, and
he was forced to admit to Stella and the rest of the participants
that he was really just Professor Kelp; he apologized and confessed:
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I didn't mean to do anything that
wasn't of a kind nature. Learning a lesson in life is, uh, is
never, is never really too late. And I think that the, uh, lesson
that I learned came just in time. I don't want to, uh, want to
be something that I'm not. I didn't like being someone else.
At the same time, I'm very glad I was, 'cause I found out something
that I never knew. You might as well like yourself. Just think
about all the time you're gonna have to spend with you. Well,
and if you don't think too much of yourself, how do you expect
others to?"; Stella responded that she preferred his real self:
"I'm only trying to say that I wouldn't ever want to spend the
rest of my life with anyone like Buddy. Being the wife of a professor
would be much more normal and much happier" - and she kissed
him
- with two swiped "Kelp's
Kool Tonic" bottles from Kelp's father stuffed in the back of
her jeans and with plans to marry Kelp (with a marriage license
in hand), Stella convinced the two that they should elope together:
("We have our own lives to live. Come on, let's go"); he agreed
to leave with her: ("Yes, actually, Stella, what's right is right,
let's split")
- during the final closing credits scene, each
of the characters took a bow - Kelp clumsily tripped and stumbled
into the camera (and caused the screen to go black)
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The Nutty Professor (1996)
- the opening credits scene of the release of hundreds
of hamsters on the campus of Wellman College from the laboratory
of overweight Professor Sherman Klump (Eddie Murphy), a biochemistry
researcher
- Klump's first meeting with pretty graduate student,
Carla Purty (Jada Pinkett), and his bumbling first words to her about
chemistry that she was going to be teaching: ("WeII, thank you
very much. I'm fatter - uh, fIattered that you, you've been foIIowing
my work the way you have. A chemistry teacher. Chemistry sure
is important to have... chemistry... to have and use it. ChemicaIIy.
Chemistry. WeII")
- the Klump Family's dinner scene (five characters
- including Professor Klump, his father Cletus, mother, brother
and grandmother - all played by Eddie Murphy), when they first
discussed obesity and ex-overweight black celebrities: ("What
are ya talkin' about, where all the fat and calories is? You
know where that come from? Watchin' that damn TV. Every time
you turn it on, ya got somebody there talkin' about lose weight,
get heaIthy, get in shape. Everybody lookin' all anorexic, talkin'
about that's healthy. I know what healthy is. And I'll tell ya
somethin' else. I don't know why everybody tryin' to lose weight
in the first pIace! Ain't everybody supposed to be the same size.
We're all different. Big, small, medium, midgets. You supposed
to have all that. I don't know if I want to be the same size,
like that Oprah Winfrey. She's gonna lose her weight. Wasn't
nothin' wrong with her. She was fine. Oprah was a fox! She lose
all that weight, her head Iook all big, skin hangin' all over.
And Luther Vandross. Nigger used to be the black Pavarotti. Lost
all that weight, lookin' all ashy. Oprah and Luther need to keep
their ass one weight, 'cause I'm confused")
- the continuation of the dinner scene when Sherman's
ravenous father Cletus began to pass gas ("coIon cIeansin'")
- and ended up soiling himself when he broke wind - and everyone
began tooting: (Cletus: "Oops. Now see what you made me do? Goddamn
it, I messed up my pants")
- also the two scenes of Sherman's fantasy nightmares
(spoofing well-known films From Here to
Eternity (1953) and King Kong
(1933)), kissing Carla on a beach (but with his tremendous
weight buried her under the sand) and then terrorizing the
city as a monstrous giant Fatzilla: ("It's Fat-ziIIa! Boy,
you look Iike King Kong with titties"), and then a passerby
cried out a warning: "Oh my God, he's gonna blow!" - and Sherman's
gargantuan expelled fart caused massive destruction, although
Cletus congratulated him: "Way to go, son! That's my boy!"; a
bum lighting a match ignited an H-bomb-like explosion
- and the attempts in a Rocky-styled montage by
Klump to work out, including a failed acupuncture session with
thousands of needles
- after taking a massive dose of genetic weight
loss formula, Klump's transformation when he stood in front of
a mirror and saw himself: ("Oh! Oh! I'm thin! I'm thin! Look
at my cheekbones! I have cheekbones! Yes! Look at my chest. Look
at my breasts. I don't have breasts. I'm an 'A' cup. I
don't need a bra anymore. Oh, God! I'm thin! I'm thin! I'm thin!
Nothin' but air there. Nothin' but air there. My ass is gone
now. I'm sIim, sIim, sIim. WeII, I'II be damned! I can see my
dick! My dick! My dick, my dick, my dick!"); however, he was
also transformed into an
obnoxious, testosterone-driven alter-ego Buddy Love (Murphy again)
- the scene of Buddy's apology to Carla for being
late in front of The Scream nightclub: ("Let's just have
a meaI together. Why you Ieavin'? Hey, what you want? You want
me to beg you? I'II get down on my knees. I'II beg you in front
of aII these peopIe. Think I care if these peopIe are watchin'?
I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I want the worId to know that I was Iate!
And I'm sorry! My car ran outta gas. I needed fresh drawers.
My mother's sick. The car broke down on the street...I don't
know why this is happenin' tonight. Of aII nights this has got
to happen to me tonight.... Why!? Why!?...Why?")
- Buddy's fat jokes, told in merciless revenge against
stand-up comedian Reggie Warrington (Dave Chappelle), deriding
his mother's weight and other insults: ("Ok, fat jokes! You wanna
do fat jokes? Alright! Your mother's so fat, the bitch needs
Thomas Guide to find her asshole! Alright! Wait, wait, wait,
your mother's so fat, after sex I roll over twice, and I'm still
on the bitch! Your mother is so fat, she fell in the Grand Canyon
and got stuck! Reggie's mother's so fat, that the bitch gets
her toenails painted at Earl Scheib!...Reggie's mama is so
fat, her blood type is rocky road! Last one! Reggie's mother's
so fat... HER BELT SIZE IS EQUATOR!")
- the embarrassing conversation at the Klump dinner
table when Sherman brought Carla there for dinner, and they made
inappropriate comments about the two having sex and getting married:
("Sherman has never had reIations...I hope you got a strong back.
When you get aII that man, and reIease aII that that's been buiIt
up for 35 years. Just wantin' and wantin' and wantin'! Whoo!
Might make your head bIow off...I got my own seIf hot teIIin'
that story")
- the scene of Buddy explaining in "rich-dummy"
terms the secret of his weight loss plan to wealthy alumnus Harlan
Hartley (James Coburn) at the hotel restaurant The Ritz:
("I'll break it down for all the rich dummies in the room, listen
up! If you gonna eat nasty stuff like this. I know it looks good
and some of you all like porkchop. But this greasy, nasty porkchop,
do you realize that there's a gene in your DNA that routes this
straight to your fat cells, and it causes all sorts of unsightly
conditions. Case in point, this woman is sufferin' from what
I like to call jello arms. You notice the arm has taken on a
gelatin sort of vibe, and it's quite nasty. Now to my left,
this gentleman has turkey neck, and to my immediate left, this
woman is sufferin' from what we like to call saddlebag syndrome.
And to my extreme left, this young lady is suffering from what
I like to call tank ass... I'm your brother, I'm your brother.
Like I was sayin' everybody, where there's
a will, there's a way, and there is a way we can turn these
genes off, and I'm not talkin' about usin' exercise or diet,
I'm talkin' about by takin' a simple solution that helps reconstruct
your metabolic cellular strands, thus giving you the appearance
of, as they say in medical terms, gluteus minimus, or in layman's
terms, an extremely tight, wonderful ass. Let's give a big round
of applause for the woman with the nice ass, huh? It's so nice,
don't you agree? She's worked so hard. Have
a seat, have a seat. Oh, are these girls with you? Everyone
has a nice ass at this table. Is this the nice ass section?")
- and the final scene, when the two alter-egos:
Buddy Love vs. Sherman "fought" against each other
as he gave a demonstration on stage of the effects of the miracle
serum
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O |
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The Odd Couple (1968)
- the continuing contrast of two opposing, incompatible,
divorced/separated male roommates (both divorced from ex-wives
Blanche and Frances) trapped together in a Manhattan apartment, who
began to take on characteristics of a typical husband and wife
- the compulsive, prissy, hypochondriacal, neurotically-neat,
tidy, know-it-all photographer Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon)
- the ultra-slobbish, grumpy, unkempt sportswriter
Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau)
- during his weekly poker game, Oscar's offer to share
food from his refrigerator now broken for two weeks - spoiled and
rotten sandwiches: ("I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches.
Which one do you want?" Oscar was asked: "What's the
green?" He replied: "It's
either very new cheese or very old meat")
- the restaurant scene where Felix demonstrated his
loud honking technique to clear his sinuses: ("I'm trying
to clear up my ears. You create a pressure inside your head. It
opens up the eustachian tubes"), and then complained: "I
think I strained my throat"
- the scene at the ballpark when Oscar phoned Felix
with an "emergency" suggestion for dinner that evening: "Oscar,
just called to tell ya. Don't eat any frankfurters at the ballgame
today. I've decided to make franks and beans for dinner tonight";
with his back turned, Felix was told he had missed a major triple
play: "A triple play! The Mets did it! The greatest fielding play
I ever saw, and you missed it, Oscar! You missed it!"
- the double-date scene with two British female neighbors,
the Pigeon sisters Cecily (Monica Evans) and Gwendolyn Pigeon (Carole
Shelley), known as the "Coo-Coo" sisters because of their
cooing sound when they laughed; the evening was essentially ruined
when Felix reminisced about his wife Frances and children and caused
them to sob uncontrollably with him; Oscar arrived and asked: "What
the hell happened?...Nothing? I'm gone three minutes,
and I walk into a funeral parlor. What did you say to them?";
he called his roommate "a walking soap opera!"; in the meantime,
the meatloaf burned in the oven and Felix suggested: "We better
get some corned beef sandwiches" because there was no way
the charred meatloaf could be salvaged:
"$4.80 worth of ashes? I'd throw it down the incinerator,
but it won't burn twice"
- their major battle of wills
when Oscar threatened Felix: "If you want to live here, I
don't want to see ya, I don't want to hear ya, I don't want to
smell your cooking, right? Now, kindly remove that spaghetti from
my poker table. What the hell is so funny?" Felix laughed: "It's
not spaghetti, it's linguini." Oscar hurled the linguini at
the wall and made a mess: "Now it's garbage!"
- Oscar's laundry list of problems with Felix, and
his interpretation of the note he found from Felix on his pillow:
("I can tell you exactly what it is. It's the cooking, the
cleaning, the crying. It's the talking in your sleep. It's those
moose calls that open your ears at 2:00 o'clock in the morning.
I can't take it anymore, Felix. I'm crackin' up. Everything you
do irritates me, and when you're not here, the things I know you're
gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes
on my pillow. I've told you 158 times I cannot stand little notes
on my pillow. 'We are all out of cornflakes. F.U.' Took me three
hours to figure out that F.U. was Felix Ungar")
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Office Space (1999)
- the opening credits sequence that introduced the main characters (all stuck in commuter traffic), including
white guy Michael Bolton (David Herman) singing along to his radio
playing gangsta rap; when he glanced out his window and saw an
African-American hawking bouquets of flowers nearby, he cautiously
locked his doors, then continued singing after the curb-seller
passed by
- the condescending "Did you get the memo?" office
scenes of computer programmer Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) being
reprimanded for not following protocol by smarmy supervisor Bill
Lumbergh (Gary Cole), and then a second time by another superior
Dom Portwood (Joe Bays): ("Ahh,
we have sort of a problem here. Yeah. You apparently didn't put
one of the new cover sheets on your T.P.S. reports...Mmm, yeah.
You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all T.P.S. reports now
before they go out. Did you see the memo about this?... If you
could just go ahead and make sure you do that from now on, that
would be great. And, uh, I'll go ahead and make sure you get another
copy of that memo. OK!")
- the character of cubicle office-mate Milton Waddams
(Stephen Root), who tried to survive by defending his behavior
in his cubicle (regarding his radio and stapler) argued to Peter
that he was allowed to listen to his radio for two hours each morning:
("I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume
from nine to eleven... I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen
to her headphones while she's filing, then I should be able to
listen to the radio while I'm collating so I don't see why I should
have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable
volume from nine to eleven")
- and Milton's feelings of
being threatened when he was to be moved to a new location: ("And
I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told,
I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then
I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too,
because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and
I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels,
and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline
to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because
it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline
stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then
I'll set the building on fire...")
- the rage expressed by Samir Nagheenanajar
(Ajay Naidu) on Monday morning at the office printer-copier-fax
machine: ("Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam?
I swear to God, one of these days, I just kick this piece of s--t
out the window...Piece of s--t!")
- the scene of Peter candidly describing a typical
workday to efficiency experts, mostly about his lack of motivation:
("Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. Uh,
I use the side door. That way Lumbergh can't see me. And, uh, after
that, I just sort of space out for about an hour....Yeah. I just
stare at my desk. But it looks like I'm working. I do that for,
uh, probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given
week, I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual
work....Let me tell you something about T.P.S. reports. Ahh...
The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy. It's that I just don't
care...It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now, if I work
my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another
dime. So where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob.
I have eight different bosses right now....So that means that when
I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell
me about it. That's my only real motivation, is not to be hassled.
That and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that'll
only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired")
- the scene of the ultimate revenge against the office
copier/fax/printer machine - its demise was delivered with crushing
shoe heels and a baseball bat in the middle of a field, to the
rap tune of the Geto Boys song "Still"
- the scene in which chain-restaurant waitress Joanna
(Jennifer Aniston) told her demanding boss (who said that she lacked "flair" -
lingo for a requirement to wear buttons on her uniform's suspenders,
and only did "the
bare minimum")
that she quit - and gave him the finger: ("Huh, what do I
think? Um, you know what, Stan, if you want me to wear thirty-seven
pieces of flair like your, uh, pretty boy over there, Brian, why
don't you just make the minimum thirty-seven pieces of flair?...You
know what? Yeah, I do. I do want to express myself. OK? And I don't
need thirty-seven pieces of flair to do it. All right? There's
my flair. OK? And this is me expressing myself. OK? There it is.
I hate this
job. I hate this goddamn job,
and I don't need it")
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Old School (2003)
- the post-wedding reception scene of three 30-somethings,
including attorney Mitch "The Godfather" Martin's (Luke Wilson)
drunken and inappropriate toast to his buddy Frank
"The Tank" Ricard (Will Ferrell) who had just been wed
to Marissa Jones (Perrey Reeves): ("True love is hard to find.
Sometimes you think you have true love, and then you catch the
early flight home from San Diego, and a couple of nude people jump
out of your bathroom blindfolded Iike a goddamn magic show, ready
to double-team your girlfriend"); to save embarrassment, their
other buddy Bernard "Beanie" Campbell (Vince
Vaughn) grabbed the microphone and continued: ("And it stops
right there and it continues right here, because I think what my
friend Mitch is trying to say is that true love is blind. Let's
raise our glasses, whatever we got in front of us. Salute. Health
and happiness. Cheers, everybody")
- the scene of Beanie complimenting Mitch on his new
rented home near the campus in upstate New York where the three
went to school years earlier; and Beanie's telling his son
Max to cover his ears ("Earmuff
it for me") so that he could use profanities, and encourage
Mitch to hold a house-warming party - dubbed Mitch-A-Palooza: ("We're
gonna get so much ass here, it's gonna be sick. I'm talking like
crazy, like boy-band ass....What we need to do is to throw us like
a big kick-off, like kick-ass party to start things off here...I
don't think you realize what a huge opportunity this is for you.
Girls love a guy who's in your particular situation....Mitch, you're
on the rebound. You're like an injured young fawn who's been nursed
back to health, who's finally gonna be re-released into the wilderness")
- Frank's drunken urging of everyone to go streaking
at the party, although he ultimately was the only one running through
the streets and through the quad to the gymnasium ("We're
streaking!");
a carload of female acquaintances came upon Frank and were disgusted,
including Frank's wife Marissa: ("What the hell are you doing?"),
although Frank insisted: "Everybody's doing it"; when
he got in the car, one of the ladies noticed Frank's shrinkage:
("Looks like
it's a little cold out there, huh?")
- the scene of their school's College Dean Gordon
Pritchard (Jeremy Piven), previously known as "Cheeese!" when
they abused him in his younger days, telling Beanie and Mitch that
the house must be vacated in a week: ("And as of this morning,
this house has been rezoned. It is now exclusively for campus use
only")
- the marriage counseling scene in which the therapist
(Gregory Alan Williams) encouraged Frank and his wife Marissa
to "say anything...in the trust tree, in the nest" - and Frank
talked about fantasizing the type of underpants worn by a waitress
at the Olive Garden: ("I guess, deep down, I'm feeling a little
confused. I mean, suddenly you get married and you're supposed
to be this entirely different guy. I don't feel different. I mean,
take yesterday, for example. We were out at the Olive Garden for
dinner, which was lovely. And, uh, I happened to look over at a
certain point during the meal and see a waitress taking an order,
and I found myself wondering what color her underpants might be.
Her panties. Uh, odds are they're probably basic white, cotton
underpants. But I started thinking, 'Well, maybe they're silk panties.'
'Maybe it's a thong.' 'Maybe it's something really cool that I
don't even know about.' You know? And, uh, I started feeling...I
don't know where I was going with that. I-I guess what I'm trying
to say is that now that I'm married, I'm definitely feeling a little
freaked out about the fact that I'm gonna have sex with only one
person for the rest of my life")
- the fraternity hazing scene of the inaugural pledge
class, involving a 30 pound cinder block that was tied with a long
piece of string to the penis of each pledge before they dropped
their block off a ledge onto the lawn below: ("This is your first
test....Do you trust we've provided you with enough slack so your
block will land safely on the lawn?...Pledges, prepare to release!
One... two... three! Release!"); Weensie's (Jerod Mixon) block
hit a sewage drain and he was pulled from the ledge onto the lawn
("Wasn't meant to happen like that, Weensie! Walk it off, big guy.
We're coming down")
- the petting zoo scene at a
child's birthday party in which Frank shot
himself accidentally with a horse-tranquilizer gun ("That's the
most powerful tranq gun on the market, I got her in Mexico")
- in the jugular ("They say it can puncture the skin of a rhino
from..."); in reaction,
mullet-haired stable boy Peppers (Seann William Scott), who was
tending to the animals, exclaimed: "Yes,
that's awesome!...You just took one in the jugular, man....Whoa!
Yes!...You should pull that out. That s--t is not cool";
Frank responded: "You're craz, you're crazy, man. You're crazy. I
like you, but you're crazy," as his voice began to slow down
and he heard distorted voices
- and during the charter review, the debate scene
(over the government's role in supporting innovation in the field
of biotechnology) between Mr. James Carville (Himself) - the co-host
of CNN's Crossfire and famed political consultant, and Frank
- who gave an astounding answer: ("Recent research has shown
that empirical evidence for globalization of corporate innovation
is very limited. And as a corollary, the market for technologies
is shrinking. As a world leader, it is important for America to
provide systematic research grants for our scientists. I believe
strongly there will always be a need for us to have a well-articulated
innovation policy with emphasis on human resource development.
Thank you");
and Carville's response: ("We have no response. That was perfect");
Frank screamed out: "That's the way you do it! That's the
way you debate"
- after being burned and humiliated trying to jump
through a ring of fire during a school spirit competition, Frank's
locker-room scene, wearing only underpants, in which he exhorted
his fraternity's team to be calm and win the upcoming gymnastics
competition: ("We've
made a great effort so far. Let's just keep it up! That's right!
We can't have anyone freak out out there, okay? We've got to keep
our composure! We've come too far. There's too much to lose! We've
got to just keep our composure!"), when he picked up a chair
and smashed it into the lockers
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One, Two, Three (1961)
- a satirical comedy with the blustery, fast-talking
character - the head of Coca Cola's West Berlin operations - C.
R. "Mac" MacNamara (an over-the-top performance by James
Cagney), and his many commands to his loyal heel-clicking German
assistant Schlemmer (Hanns Lothar): ("Schlemmer,
you're back in the SS, small salary!"), and his funny pro-capitalist
lines, such as: "'Any world that can produce the Taj Mahal,
William Shakespeare, and Stripe toothpaste can't be all bad"
- the main objective of Mac - to keep his conservative
boss Wendell's (Howard St. John) impulsive, hot-blooded 17 year-old,
southern-belle daughter Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) from
marrying a radical communist in order to save his job and be transferred
out of post-war Berlin, although she confessed that she had been
married for six weeks: "He's not a communist. He's a Republican.
Comes from the Republic of East Germany" - Mac was flabbergasted:
"Why you dumb, stupid little pot! Do you realize what you've done?
You've ruined me, that's all!"
- the East German arrest (by planting a copy of the Wall
Street Journal) and torture of young, beatnik East German communist
Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz), Scarlett's husband in a "happy
socialist marriage" - forcing him to listen to Itsy-Bitsy
Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini over
and over again on a phonograph - to try to turn him into an instant
capitalist, and to get him to sign a confession that he was an
American spy
- Otto's disgust at the West: " "I spit
on your money. I spit on Fort Knox. I spit on Wall Street", to
which MacNamara responded: "Unsanitary little jerk, isn't he?";
Otto made other pronouncements: "Capitalism is like a dead herring
in the moonlight. It shines but it stinks"
- the Grand Hotel Potemkin scene of Mac's sexy
and busty secretary Fraulein Ingeborg (Liselotte or Lilo Pulver)
stripping off her polka-dot dress to ingratiate himself with German
officials
- and the final scene (and ending line) when MacNamara
found he was drinking a Pepsi-Cola dispensed from a Coke machine,
and he yelled out: "Schlemmer!"
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The Other Guys (2010)
- in this comedic buddy cop film, the "Tuna vs.
Lion"
sequence between two mis-matched partners: mild-mannered, exacting
forensic accountant-desk clerk and detective Allen "Gator" Gamble
(Will Ferrell) and tough, disgraced, quick-to-anger detective Terry "Yankee
Clipper" Hoitz
(Mark Wahlberg); while Hoitz was complaining about Allen's humming
and weird smile while working at his desk, he decided to directly
confront Allen to his face - and they began to compare themselves
to a tuna fish and a lion battling it out --
Terry Hoitz: "You know what I just did? I just walked out
that door, saw a couple detectives, and was about to start bad-mouthing
you behind your back. But I stopped myself, because my pops taught
me that a man who talks behind somebody’s back is a coward....
I’m gonna tell you directly to your face....
I don't like you. I think you're a fake cop. The sound of your
piss hitting the urinal, it sounds feminine. If you were in the
wild, I would attack you, even if you weren't in my food chain.
I would go out of my way to attack you. If I were a lion and you
were a tuna, I would swim out in the middle of the ocean and freaking
eat you, and then I'd bang your tuna girlfriend."
Allen Gamble: "OK, first off: a lion, swimming in the ocean? Lions
don't like water. If you placed it near a river or some sort of
fresh water source, that makes sense. But you find yourself in the
ocean, 20 foot wave, I'm assuming its off the coast of South Africa,
coming up against a full grown 800 pound tuna with his 20 or 30
friends, you lose that battle. You lose that battle 9 times out
of 10. And guess what, you've wandered into our school of tuna
and we now have a taste of lion. We've talked to ourselves. We've
communicated and said: 'You know what, lion tastes good, let's go
get some more lion'. We've developed a system to establish a beach-head
and aggressively hunt you and your family. And we will corner
your pride, your children, your offspring...We will construct a series
of breathing apparatus with kelp. We will be able to trap certain
amounts of oxygen. It's not gonna be days at a time. An hour? Hour
forty-five? No problem. That will give us enough time to figure out
where you live, go back to the sea, get more oxygen, and then stalk
you. You just lost at your own game. You're outgunned and out-manned.
(pause) Did that go the way you thought it was gonna go? Nope."
Feeling defeated, rebuffed and unable to compete verbally,
Terry threw a cup of coffee onto the front of Allen's shirt.
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