When my friends and I would act out movies as kids, we'd play the guys' roles, since they had the most interesting things to do. Decades later, I can hardly believe my sons and daughter are seeing many of the same limited choices in current films.
I suppose we all loved those kind of sci-fi movies where terrible things came out of swamps and came to Mars. And there's usually some poor girl. All the guys are trying to desperately handle levers and saying, go to something or other.
I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.
Jakob Elinsky: What do we say to him? Frank Slaughtery: We say nothin'. The guy's going to hell for seven years, what are going do wish him luck?
Rachael: Why am I the bad guy? Kyle: Because you're his girlfriend, you cheated on him, and he has fucking cancer, you lunatic!
Lindsey Brigman: Explorer, this is Cab Three, starting our descent along the umbilical. Some guy: Roger that, Cab 3. Good luck. Lindsey Brigman: Luck is not a factor.
Susan Orlean: John Leroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale eyes, slouch-shouldered, sharply handsome, despite the fact he's missing all his front teeth.
Eric 'Otter' Stratton: You guys up for a toga party? John 'Bluto' Blutarsky: Toga! Toga! Eric 'Otter' Stratton: Ah, I think they like the idea, Hoov.
Natasha Romanoff: [after kissing Bruce Banner] I adore you... [Suddenly pushes him off cliff] Natasha Romanoff: ...but I need the Other Guy.
Jim Gordon: This guy did deliver us one of the city's biggest crime lords. Loeb: No one takes the law into their own hands in my city. Understand?
Sanderson: [after Cpt. Steele orders Grimes to hook up with Eversmann] "MY GUYS, LET'S GO!" [Deltas depart for the Wolcott crash site with Grimes in-tow]
[addressing the shocked expressions at the dance after playing a wild heavy metal guitar solo] Marty McFly: I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.
Butch Cassidy: How many are following us? Sundance Kid: All of 'em. Butch Cassidy: All of 'em? What's the matter with those guys?
[about the trackers following them] Butch Cassidy: I couldn't do that. Could you do that? Why can they do it? Who are those guys?
Detective Greenly: What if it was just one guy with six guns? Paul Smecker: Why don't you let me do the thinking, huh, genius?
A lot of guys go, 'Hey, Yog, say a Yogi-ism.' I tell 'em, 'I don't know any.' They want me to make one up. I don't make 'em up. I don't even know when I say it. They're the truth. And it is the truth. I don't know.
I tried talking to a psychologist once. Two minutes in, I said, 'Ciao!' Never again. There's no way, no way, I'd continue! I couldn't buy into a single thing the guy was saying.
I'm a very tough guy, and I fight hard, and I don't give up. And that makes me friends and that makes me enemies, and I know that.
My favorite thing to do is to wind those guys up by hitting on their girlfriends. I say, 'I think your girlfriend's gorgeous, but it's all right, I'm gay.' They get very nervous after a few minutes!
I would spar with the boys at school. This guy I had a crush on, we called him Spitfire -- I gave him a bloody nose and lip, so needless to say the romance did not work out!
Good editorial writing has less to do with winning an argument, since the other side is mostly not listening, than with telling the guys on your side how they ought to sound when they're arguing.
