Movie Mystery and Intrigue

A fellow blogger posted his list of 50 favorite movies. Sometimes the perfect storm of direction, cinematography, lighting, on-screen talent, dialog, costumes and makeup, special effects and musical score combine to create a masterpiece.

For me, what makes a movie memorable are the lines; the words on a page, committed to memory and delivered with precision and emotion. Recognize any of these, who said them or where they come from?

 

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.

It’s merely a flesh wound.

So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower.

Face it, girls, I’m older and I have more insurance.

It’s a business lie. It’s not the same as a life lie.

Come on in and try not to ruin everything by being you.

You are certainly the most distinguished group of highway scofflaws and degenerates ever gathered together in one place.

Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome.

Our speedometer has melted and as a result it’s very hard to see with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going.

*****

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.

I had no idea that broccoli could be so intriguing.

You soaked his underwear in meat? That is so wrong. Funny—but wrong.

Dude, is my face okay? I think you melted it off.

*****

Are you gonna eat your tots?

Photo Credit: thecia.com.au

I couldn’t love you any more if you were my own son. But the fact of the matter is, you’re… well you’re a putz.

You’ve got a great future in front of you in Retail Food marketing, and I just hate to see you throw it all away by going psycho on us.

Let me out there, sir, I have no problem exposing myself.

 

 

Now this is the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night. That when I get older, these kids are going to take care of me.

Thank you for the cookies. I look forward to tossing them.

You’re different and special in your own way. Live it. Own it.

And up goes Her Royal Highness… Now exhale slowly…And down goes Her Royal Highness…

Heeere’s Johnny!

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Terror: Old School

While digging for recipes, I discovered a booklet published in 1945 by Sealtest, a company known best in the Philadelphia region for its ice cream. Its forward illustrates an American perspective just after World War II that declares the end of terror on the world stage.  It implores communities, parents in particular, to take stock of its children’s health as an important part of citizenship.  What’s your take?

Note the zip code for New York City.

Signs of the Times

File this under “Politics.”

Not the national one.

The fun one.

There’s a nearby business/industrial property situated on a corner where a yellowish brick warehouse sits about 100 yards back from passing traffic that’s chock full of tractor trailers, commuters and vans and SUVs full of softball moms and all their gear.

A single macadam entrance to its loading dock that is narrowed by a rolling, chain link fence gate and concrete barriers remains visibly unvisited by day. But at the end of each day the gate with its single, rusted, NO TRESPASSING sign rolls closed for the night. Alien-esque, sometime before the next dawn, it reopens but no matter how early you pass by, the gate is already open once again.

The front and one side of the building’s frontage otherwise devoid of landscaping consists of a grass lawn that’s home to one modern metal sculpture and a tree or two. It dips into a hollow leading to a long-abandoned front office entrance. There, a tiny, lineless paved lot looks like it once served the company president, staff and visitors (but not the peons). The entire building rear and opposite side hides behind a railroad track embankment and a fenced in lot full of nondescript storage trailers.

The few windows in front reveal nothing about its contents save for a tiny, dilapidated wooden sign, peeling with age. Some of the stick-on black letters have peeled off leaving silhouettes announcing the company name: So and So Imports.

In the past, Stick Chick occasionally noted NO TRESPASSING signs on the lawn but not much else, and certainly not the number of notices that passersby could have placed announcing everything from nearby homes for sale to political rants, lost pets or yard sale ads.

Stick Chick has always maintained that the place must be a front for a clandestine government operation or more nefarious pursuits. Never would you see people bustling about and only once or twice in two decades of passing by on a regular basis did she ever see a vehicle coming or going from that skinny side entrance.

Most recently, and more ironically, facing each of the two roads that meet at the corner, someone unseen, placed a big yellow sign with red stencil-painted letters announcing NO SIGNS ON YARD.

Stick Chick laughed aloud the first time she saw them, imagining the poor bastard assigned to paint and plant the signs announcing no signs.

Some soul with a deeper sense of irony and humor than she recently planted a new accompanying sign. If you are driving and pass by quickly, you might miss it. But just the other day, Stick Chick turned the corner with v2.0 in the passenger seat who erupted with a fit of giggles that lasted a good half mile.

Neil Patrick Harris and the writers of How I Met Your Mother would be proud to know that Barney Stinson’s oft delivered line has made it into the common vernacular.

Kudos to the maker of the renegade sign, and the local who took this photo and posted it on Facebook. Stick Chick would be pleased to give proper credit on that one.

As the Pram Rolls Full Circle

Lately I have meditated on clarity in an effort to conjure specific memories. I have purposefully attempted to attach sights, sounds and smells to each so that they become vivid.

The result of one such attempt is a poem that I wrote and posted this weekend called The Pram. For illustration, I added a stock photo that looked as similar to the one I recalled as I could find.

I received an email from my mom (who read the poem) with this photo attached.

This is me in the pram.

I remembered.

Mind blown.