my three all-time favorite-ever movie lines:
1. planes, trains, automobiles
john candy is driving the car the wrong way on the highway. steve martin just woke up form a nap. martin straightens around trying to orient where he is and notices people on the other side of the highway median yelling and waving at them. martin rolls down his window to see what they're saying. he turns to john candy and tells him that the people over there are saying we're going the wrong way. john candy casually dismisses the accusation with a shrug saying, "how do they know where we're going." you see martin think on this for a moment and then you see candy's logic wash over his groggy face. he then turns and waves a polite thank you in the other cars direction while john candy is in the background making wild drinking gestures their way.
2. rushmore
a major thread of this movie chronicles a crush jason schwartzman (lead role, student) has on one of his young female prep school teachers. in this scene he is having dinner with the teacher and her boyfriend. miffed at his presence schwartzman works to insult the boyfriend. in one swipe he mocks the man's hospital scrubs (and i'm working from memory here):
SCHWARTZMAN
i like your nurse's uniform.
BOYFRIEND
these are O.R. scrubs
SCHWARTZMAN (sarcastically and slowly)
OH ARE they? [spoken "O.R. they?]
3. true lies
when arnold schwarzenegger learns that bill paxton is having an affair with his wife, jaime lee curtis, schwarzenegger goes to the car dealership where paxton works. while test driving a car, schwarzenegger gets paxton to talk about having affairs with women and specifically his wife. paxton is more than eager to talk about his exaggerated skills at wooing the lonely wives of over-working men. paxton then lights into a long-winded description of how beautiful the woman he was currently working on was. in the midst of his long description on her features, one of the lines slipped in the middle was, "she's got an ass like a ten year old boy."
i to this day still remember sitting dumbfounded in the audience at this unorthodox, unconventional, and unexpected description of a beautiful woman.
i almost added a line from zombieland to the list but i just watched it for the first time while in chicago and i need to let it steep awhile to see if it sticks in my head as much as the above lines do.
