Movie Dialogue Meme

Ganked from almostnever.

1. Pick one dozen movies that are ones that you have special feelings about.
2. Pick a few lines of dialogue that mean something to you.
3. As people guess the film, strike out that entry.
4. If possible, after the film is guessed, explain why that movie made the list.

Warning: Some of these films are rubbish. One can't choose which things one will develop feelings about, or which things will remind the viewer of someone or something.

1. "Because they looked like they’d never had anything in their whole lives."
The War came out just as I was dealing with the realisation that my parents weren’t infallible, they weren’t as powerful as I had thought as a child, and yet I felt they still had so much to tell me. This line always sticks with me, to this day. Elijah Wood’s character asks his father why he gave some candy floss to a group of children who had been making his life hell, and he comes out with this line. I remember sharing Elijah’s sense of rage at this terrible injustice, and then seeing the other side of the coin with this reply.

2. "Well, you’ll never be a vegetable! Even artichokes have a heart."
Amelie. When I was at university, Chris and I had a ritual. We would get a bottle of wine in, some munchies, and watch Amelie (our excuse was to learn French for our module, but really, it was just because we were completely in love with the film.) Those were good, non-working times and we called it our Bonding Session.

3. "I never had friends as close as I did when I was twelve years old."
Stand By Me. This film reminds me of my childhood, as it was always on Channel Four. River Phoenix was still alive; I was young and the concepts of the film were new to me. It also reminds me of my mother, because she used to watch it just to hear the songs.

4. “Was it something I said?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“…It doesn’t matter.”
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Towards the very end, when they're in that house at night, Clementine is looking around and Joel realises that this is very near to the end. All that hatred, spite, anger, and in the end, it didn't matter, because he loved her. I cried buckets when he said this line. He says it very quietly, in the most understated way, and it just gets me.

5. But Charlie, please remember that down there’s a world of used cars, singles bars, broken dreams and out-of-reach stars.
All Dogs go to Heaven. Again, memories of childhood. My own dog-- Charlie-- went missing soon after my sister and I got this on video. We were heartbroken, and this film became a sort of consolation for us. The words above always made me think that if the worst had happened to him, at least he was somewhere safe now. Waah.

6. “Dude! What does mine say?”
Dude, Where's My Car? Yeah, I know. This is the "joke" entry, but in fact, whenever I think of this stupid film, I think of an extremely good friend of mine whom I think I loved. We used to put it on to drive him into a rage. It ususally worked. He's working in America now. Waah. :(

7. “I thought I told you never to play that song here.”
Casablanca. We studied this in film class one day. It reminds me of my good friends Matt and Jess, who went their separate ways after university. Annoyingly, we never got to see the end, so one day I rented it out and watched it all the way through. Cried.

8. “Do you feel alone right now?”
“I don’t know. I like to think that I’m not, but I just… I’ve never seen anything. And I feel like I could spend my whole life debating it and debating it, and I still wouldn’t know the answer, so I just don’t debate it any more. It’s absurd.”
“The search for God is absurd?”
“It is if everyone dies alone.”
This entire set of dialogue in Donnie Darko makes it probably my very favourite scene in the film. It’s the kind of dialogue you kick yourself for never thinking of writing, even though the feelings expressed are *exactly* how you feel. I was brought up Catholic and became disillusioned with the church, questioning everything. And Donnie explains that exactly.

9. “We wanted to tell them so many things. That we loved them. But they didn’t hear us -- they still don’t hear us-- calling them from out of their rooms—where they went to be alone for all time.”
The Virgin Suicides. I can’t describe what this film (and book) gets in me so well. It’s like the very essence of the lost innocence of childhood.

10. “Video’s a poor excuse, I know… sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it; like my heart is going to cave in.”
American Beauty. A little trite, but after this scene, I did endeavour to look at ‘ugly’ things differently. Strangely, it sort of worked, though plastic bags in trees and litter still manages to drive me into a murderous rage.

11. “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it? You can run from it—or you can learn from it.”
The Lion King. Made me cry a lot (hey, I was thirteen!)

12. “The field. The field! It’s covered with blood!”
Watership Down. Very dark animation, really, but a great story and one of the films I loved most. Also referenced in Donnie Darko. Excellent.