MOVIES: “Cut… Action!”

Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy): “Now Mr. Prentice, clearly a most reasonable man, says he has no wish to offend me but wants to know if I’m some kind of a *nut*. And Mrs. Prentice says that like her husband I’m a burned-out old shell of a man who cannot even remember what it’s like to love a woman the way her son loves my daughter. And strange as it seems, that’s the first statement made to me all day with which I am prepared to take issue… cause I think you’re wrong, you’re as wrong as you can be. I admit that I hadn’t considered it, hadn’t even thought about it, but I know exactly how he feels about her and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that you son feels for my daughter that I didn’t feel for Christina. Old- yes. Burned-out- certainly, but I can tell you the memories are still there- clear, intact, indestructible, and they’ll be there if I live to be 110. Where John made his mistake I think was in attaching so much importance to what her mother and I might think… because in the final analysis it doesn’t matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other. And if it’s half of what we felt- that’s everything. As for you two and the problems you’re going to have, they seem almost unimaginable, but you’ll have no problem with me, and I think when Christina and I and your mother have some time to work on him you’ll have no problem with your father, John. But you do know, I’m sure you know, what you’re up against. There’ll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you’ll just have to cling tight to each other and say “screw all those people”! Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them. But you’re two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happened to have a pigmentation problem, and I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if – knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel- you didn’t get married. Well, Tillie, when the hell are we gonna get some dinner?”

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967, dir. Stanley Kramer) 

“Now, you had something, doctor…, something some of us who’ve suddenly lost a loved one never had… Time. Time to make the most of what was left. That what’s precious.”

one CSI New York episode broadcast on May 18th, 2012

Andrew: “I know it seems jerky, but I like writing, actually. I like writing compositions in English, I like writing letters, I like writing you. […] 

 [I]t would be like talking to you when you weren’t here. […] My father says people should write letters as much as they can. It’s a dying art. he says letters are a way of presenting yourself in the best possible light to another person. I think that too.”

Melissa: “I think you sound too much like your father, but I’m not gonna argue with you by mail.

… ‘Much love’, ‘Much love’… God, Andy how sexy… Do you remember how much that meant in our preppy days? If it was just ‘Love’, you were out in the cold. If it was ‘All my love’, you were hemmed in for life… But ‘Much love’ meant it could go either way… Remember?” 

Love Letters (1999, dir. Stanley Donen)

“When a student [is] ready, a teacher [will] appear”

The Grace Card (2011, dir. David G. Evans)

“(See, the last time I broke up with a man he thought I was asking him to wait for me, and then he did, apparently… See, I try to preserve the dignity of others and that’s the problem. And I’m poetic, which…) I’d like to provide clarity, but, in fact, I simply cloud the message…” says one of the clearest characters in the series.

Grey’s Anatomy, series 8, ep. 5 (creator Shonda Rhimes)  

Pat Loud (Diane Lane): “When Bill would go away, I was just left at home with my own worst fears. No returned phone calls, late-night hang-ups, it all just made me so paranoid. That blissful delusion of faithfulness that you need to believe that everything is going to be ok… It died the night of the fires. Life doesn’t go on the way you plan it. When you refuse to accept it, you just become an unlovable person. And I’ve made mistakes. A lot of them. I thought if Bill couldn’t live up to the truth, at least he could live up to the facade.”

“Family is eternal. You can see it in the shape of the ears, or the initials carved into hearts, on trees. Divorce can’t destroy it. Television can’t devour it. We’re still standing. Loud and proud.” 

1997, quote from Lance Loud

Cinema Verite (2011, dir. Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini)

“Display has its purpose,

but simplicity must rule our hearts. We are all naked before God, even the Pope of Rome, even the King of France.”

Borgia (HBO series 2011, dir. Neil Jordan & Simon Cellan Jones)

“Details are the most important.”

Sherlock Holmes (2009, dir. Guy Ritchie)

“Be Italian”

or “Be the spirit of who you are.”

The movie where everyone puts on an accent as naturally as they put on a hat or an evening dress – all except the non-English speakers, who can simply be… themselves. Well, is that so?

Nine (2009, dir. Rob Marshall,

writing credits: Michael Tolkin & Anthony Minghella – screenplay,

Artur Kopit & Maury Yeston- Broadway musical Nine,

Mario Fratti – Broadway musical Nine, Italian original)

“When it comes to love, we’re all in the dark.”

Kinsey (2004, written & directed by Bill Condon)

“[What he did was] open my eyes and let the future in and not miss a minute of it.”

Bobby Garfield about Ted Brautigan in Hearts in Atlantis

(2001, dir. Scott Hicks)

From my father I got a sense of justice. […]

My father gave me all those things. And then he gave me his van.

Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

(Series 1, episode 1, 2008, directed by Anthony Minguella; writers: Richard Curtis & Anthony Minguella – teleplay, Alexander MacCall Smith – novel)

Sands (Johny Depp): Are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can’t?

Cucuy (Danny Trejo): I’m a Mexi-can.

Once Upon A Time in Mexico (2003, written & directed by Robert Rodriguez)

Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey): “Happiness. Happiness is a word for a feeling. Feelings are rarely understood; in a moment they are quickly forgotten and misremembered.”

Shrink (2009, directed by Jonas Pete)

“Never let the facts get in the way of the truth!”

Lie To Me (2009, created by Samuel Baum, series 1, episode 2)

“Morale wins battles…”

Max Payne (2008, directed by John Moore)

 Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mal (Marion Cotillard): Imaginary Dialogue

“Should you wake me up, I’ll be nothing without my dream.”

“Yes, but, you know, I am nothing without you”

The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love (2009, Alina Alens), p. 13

…because a more poetic content may add up to – possibly – understanding.

Inception (2010, written & directed by Christopher Nolan)