IT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED, AND OFTEN, BY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS HOW: I'll stay spoiler free, for now, on the exact rankings from the AFI Top 100 Quotes list, and if you want to know them, don't click on that link.
Here's what you should know, however: I only got half of the top ten correctly, though the five quotes I erred on landed at 17, 23, 28, 42 and 48 on the list. Fans of Casablanca and Bette Davis will be well-rewarded by the program, and I have no quarrel whatsoever with the quote selected at #1, a line that, as Ray Romano (?!?) properly explains, satisfies an audience that has been waiting to hear it for four hours.
What was underrepresented in the list? Comedy, as always. No Spinal Tap, no Princess Bride. If you're interested in a Cinderella story about a former greenskeeper, you'd best have been watching the first fifteen minutes, and the highest-ranked line from a comedy came at #33 from Rob Reiner's mother in a deli. (This is to be distinguished from highest-ranked comic line; arguably, "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore" would qualify for that, or Robert Duvall's darkly comic take on the olfactory properties of wartime defoliants.)
And minorities. I count only three lines from minority actors in the whole list of 100, and Al Pacino playing a Cuban drug lord doesn't count: "They call me Mister Tibbs", "Show me the money!" and "Badges! We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!" (And two of the three, I'd say, don't exactly paint the speaker in a good light.)
Of course, I can't make that criticism unless I can suggest ones they missed. How about Laurence Fishburne's "Show me" from The Matrix? From Denzel, "King Kong ain't got shit on me!" from Training Day, "With all due respect, your honor, we don't live in this courtroom, do we?" from Philadelphia, or about half his lines in Malcolm X? Mars Blackmon's "Please-baby-please-baby-please-baby-baby-baby-please!" Samuel L. Jackson's rendition of Ezekiel 25:17? Or a single Eddie Murphy line, whether it's "Heh heh heh", "Feeling good Louis" or Donkey's thoughts on parfait? Or a contribution from Morgan Freeman, whether it's his narration explaining Andy Dufresne's five hundred yard escape or "They used to call me Crazy Joe Clark. Well now, they can call me Batman!"
[Jen and I have argued about whether Darth Vader lines should count -- voiced by a black actor, by a guy wearing a black costume -- but Anakin Skywalker, of course, is white.]
Your thoughts, comments and whatnot are welcome. As always.
edited to add: Ann Althouse liveblogged.
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