{"id":1650,"date":"2005-06-26T11:19:08","date_gmt":"2005-06-26T18:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/06\/26\/the-afis-100-greatest-movie-quotes-list\/"},"modified":"2005-06-26T11:19:08","modified_gmt":"2005-06-26T18:19:08","slug":"the-afis-100-greatest-movie-quotes-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1650","title":{"rendered":"The AFI's 100 Greatest Movie Quotes List"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was not terribly impressed with the AFI’s “100 Greatest Movie Quotes” list<\/a>. I don’t think I agreed with their view of what makes a quote “great”; too many of their quotes are on the list only because they evoke a great scene (“Is it safe?”), or because they’ve become iconic (“Hasta la vista, baby”), not because they’re especially great lines.<\/p>\n

“My precious” is not the best line from Lord of the Rings<\/em>, for example. Not even close. And “Bond. James Bond” has certainly become iconic, but who the hell thinks it’s a great line?<\/p>\n

To me, a great movie quote should either be great in and of itself (“One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” –Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers<\/i>), or (better yet) it should be a brilliant quote that also says an enourmous amount about the character speaking the quote and the situation they’re in. (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” from Apocalypse Now<\/em> is, by this standard, the best line of the 100 – it’s a brilliant line in and of itself, and it says so much about that character and his situation).<\/p>\n

Casablana <\/em>makes it on the list six times – which is fair enough, that movie has tons of great lines<\/a>. Surprisingly, “I’m shocked, shocked” doesn’t make the list.<\/p>\n

Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
\n[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
\nCroupier: Your winnings, sir.
\nCaptain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
\nCaptain Renault: [aloud] Everybody out at once!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ann Althouse<\/a> points out that a quarter of the quotes are said by women. That doesn’t strike me as unfair – or, rather, it does strike me as unfair, but what’s unfair isn’t so much in the quotes chosen, but in the fact that men are disproportionately given the best parts in movies. (Even more striking: A List of Things Known<\/a> points out that only three (!) of the 100 quotes are said by people of color. And one of the quotes is “show me the money,” which is a lame line anyhow.)<\/p>\n

Just for fun, let’s use this thread to tell each other some of our favorite movie lines said by women, or by people of color, or both. Kim wants me to go outside and help with the garage sale, but before I do that I’ll start us off with some of Eleanor’s great lines from The Lion in Winter<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Henry II: The day those stout hearts band together is the day that pigs get wings.
\nEleanor: There’ll be pork in the treetops come morning.<\/p>\n

Eleanor: You look fit. War agrees with you. I keep informed; I follow all your slaughters from a distance. Do sit down.<\/p>\n

Eleanor: I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice!<\/p>\n

Prince John: A knife! He’s got a knife!
\nEleanor: Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians! How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we are the origins of war: not history’s forces, nor the times, nor justice, nor the lack of it, nor causes, nor religions, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor any other thing. We are the killers. We breed wars. We carry it like syphilis inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten.<\/p>\n

Eleanor: Mother’s tired. Come stick pins tomorrow morning; I’ll be more responsive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(By the way, the internet movie database<\/a> is a great resource for finding quotes from particular movies.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was not terribly impressed with the AFI’s “100 Greatest Movie Quotes” list. I don’t think I agreed with their view of what makes a quote “great”; too many of their quotes are … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-popular-and-unpopular-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1650\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}