Thursday, November 18, 2004

A MeFi Two-fer

Two things I saw on MeFi today:

:: The AFI's next "100 Years" show will focus on movie quotes -- iconic lines, bits of dialogue, et cetera. As always, look for lots of debate. Personally, I'm glad to see that the prospective list of 400 quotes (which will be whittled down to 100 for the show next year) includes the wonderful line from Say Anything, "I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen." It annoyed me a couple of years ago when the AFI did the "100 Romances" special, and left Say Anything off the list -- despite the fact that it's the greatest teen romance ever filmed. In terms of iconic lines from that movie, I personally would also go with the anonymous stoner who approaches Diane Court at the big party and simply says, "Lloyd Dobler. All right."

(Annoyingly, the list of 400 is a PDF file, for reasons passing understanding.)

:: Speaking of movie lines, I'm reminded of one in particular as I read this article about "secret law", the idea that we are subject to laws and regulations that we are not told about on the basis of national security. The quote I'm thinking of is from Broadcast News:

What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing...he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance...Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen....and he'll get all the great women.


Actually, there's a lot of stuff that's had me thinking of that quote lately.

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