Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your movie picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.
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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is Speech/Soliloquy/Monologue
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Have been waiting for this theme. I love wordy movies and a good Speech/Soliloquy/Monologue make it all the more memorable.
"You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know; that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. ..."
A Few Good Men (1992)
This scene gets played a lot but often just the "You can't handle the truth" bit. There a lot more.
"I don't know who went to this place, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William Tell, whoever. Their spirit is dead, if they ever had one. It's gone. You're building a rat ship here. A vessel for seagoing snitches, and if you think you're preparing these minnows for manhood, you better think again, because I say you are killing the very spirit this institution proclaims it instills. What a sham. What kind of a show you guys are putting on here today? I mean, the only class in this act is sitting next to me, and I'm here to tell ya this boy's soul is intact. It's non-negotiable. You know how I know? Someone here, and I'm not gonna say who, offered to buy it. Only Charlie here wasn't selling. ..."
Scent of a Woman (1992)
It's that speech where Al Pacino's character is pissed and gives this explosive lecture to the school and its faculty for deciding to expel his young friend for not snitching on his classmates who committed vandalism.
V for Vendetta (2005)
This is possibly one of my favourite quotes from the movie (if I'm remembering it correctly it was not in the graphic novel). Just the number of V words put together into something that is actually coherent is amazing.
An Education (2009)
Carrie Mulligan's breakout role as Jenny. I thought Jenny's teacher failed her for not giving a good answer to that question.
"...on this most auspicious of nights, permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis persona. Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."
V for Vendetta (2005)
This is possibly one of my favourite quotes from the movie (if I'm remembering it correctly it was not in the graphic novel). Just the number of V words put together into something that is actually coherent is amazing.
"Studying is hard and boring. Teaching is hard and boring. So, what you're telling me is to be bored, and then bored, and finally bored again, but this time for the rest of my life? This whole stupid country is bored! There's no life in it, or color, or fun! It's probably just as well the Russians are going to drop a nuclear bomb on us any day now. So my choice is to do something hard and boring, or to marry my... Jew, and go to Paris and Rome and listen to jazz, and read, and eat good food in nice restaurants, and have fun! It's not enough to educate us anymore Ms. Walters. You've got to tell us why you're doing it."
An Education (2009)
Carrie Mulligan's breakout role as Jenny. I thought Jenny's teacher failed her for not giving a good answer to that question.
"Nick loved a girl I was pretending to be. "Cool girl". Men always use that, don't they? As their defining compliment: "She's a cool girl". Cool girl is hot. Cool girl is game. Cool girl is fun. Cool girl never gets angry at her man. She only smiles in a chagrined, loving manner. And then presents her mouth for fucking. She likes what he likes, so evidently he's a vinyl hipster who loves fetish Manga. If he likes girls gone wild, she's a mall babe who talks for football and endures buffalo wings at Hooters. ..."
Gone Girl (2014)
This cool girl speech made Gone Girl one of those things that made it more than a thriller about *blank (because spoiler)* .
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Participating Blogs/Bloggers
V for Vendetta's is great!
ReplyDeleteSome great speeches, here. Funny story about V for Vendetta, though. When my brother and his then-wife went to see it, they both rolled their eyes at that speech, decided they were going to hate the rest of it and didn't make it too far past that point. I, on the other hand, loved it.
ReplyDeleteI love it too. It's a great introduction for V and he is theatrical.
DeleteNice choices and that speech by Pacino is really the only good thing in Scent.
ReplyDeleteWe match on A Few Good Men, I'm not always crazy about Nicholson but he is dead on in that scene and the entire film.
Love An Education. Carey Mulligan is wonderful and nails that scene.
Monologues are tricky and can really show what an actor has to offer...or not if they flub it. But it's always terrific to find films where they land them like the three I chose.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)-Idealistic greenhorn Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) is selected by the political machine of his state to complete the term of a recently deceased senator. Arriving full of purpose and dreams of justice the bumpkin is taken under the wing of an esteemed but secretly crooked senior senator (Claude Rains) and guided by the at first cynical and doubtful reporter Diz Moore (Thomas Mitchell) and Smith’s secretary Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur). Won over by his honesty the pair try and help him when his awareness of the breathe of malfeasance in government threatens to crush his spirit. Attempting to right many wrongs this climaxes in a memorable filibuster.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)-Ted and Joanna Kramer (Dustin Hoffman & Meryl Streep) are in a failing marriage. Feeling suffocated Joanna leaves not only Ted but deserts their young son Billy (Justin Henry) as well to find herself in parts unknown. Up to this point a distracted, obtuse father focused on his career Ted is required to assume all parental responsibilities and forges a strong bond with his young boy. Time passes and Joanna reappears wanting Billy back regardless of the fact that she abandoned him. Ted puts up a fight and in the court case that ensues there are several memorable monologues.
A Few Good Men (1992)-On the Guantanamo Bay military base two marines perform a Code Red on a fellow marine resulting in his death. Charged and moved to the nation’s capital their case is assigned to hotshot officer Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise). They affirm that they were under orders to perform the act while their superiors Lt. Kendrick (Keifer Sutherland) and Colonel Nathan Jessup (Jack Nicholson) deny any involvement. Moving into the courtroom Kaffee takes drastic measures to uncover the truth leading to many confrontations and an epic showdown monologue.
Haven't seen your first two.
DeleteI love these sort of scenes...even if I don't like the actors performance, if the writing is good, I'd still remember it.
I almost used the Cool Girl speech myself but I use that so often for so many other categories lol. Great picks!
ReplyDeleteHaha...you love Gone Girl right.
DeleteV for Vendetta is good but unsure if I would revisit the film any time soon. A Few Good men is quite good even if I am not a Jack Nicholson fan or Demi Moore. Gone Girl is excellent and so nasty. A Scent for a Woman is ok although i hate the whu-ya moment and hate the name of the film.
ReplyDeleteI've seen V for Vendetta a couple of times.
DeleteScent of a Woman - my guess is it is called that because he is blind. I remember he said whu-ya, but can't remember the scene.