The Quotable Movie

I wonder if I could get through an entire day without quoting a movie. It’s like having a speech impediment, or brain impediment more likely. Someone will say something, make a reference and I immediately associate it with some one-liner from a movie. For instance, the other day my daughter said something about her friends having abandoned her in her time of need (she’s a teenager and very dramatic) and all I could think of was the line from Juno: “Thanks a heap coyote ugly, this cactus-gram stings worse than your abandonment.” This is not the first time. My kids and I just spent two weeks with my sister and niece and I don’t think any of us went more than a couple of hours without quoting some movie verbatim. Worse than that, any one of us if not all of us not only knew the movie line but actually joined in on reciting the line! Funny thing – the line was perfectly appropriate for the moment at hand. What is it about certain movies and the quotes in them that they become dialogue for our lives?

Even the most off the wall movie provides with us with ideal rhetoric for our daily life. Take for example, The Birdcage, one of my all time favorites. I think daily we quote Agador, “hallo, my career!” or Albert, “sweetie you're wasting your gum.” How is it that Hollywood has managed to tap into our inner voices and to word everything in that perfect, funny and very apropos way? Screenwriters. Okay sure but perhaps it’s just everyday people saying everyday things. Only better. And we remember them and use them and maybe we overuse them. Maybe. Or perhaps I should just say, “I have no response to that.” (Joe versus the Volcano by the way.)