Author Archives: Marya E. Gates
Movie Quote of the Day – Battle Circus, 1953 (dir. Richard Brooks)
Lt. Ruth McGara: Don’t be angry, Major, it’s just when I go for somebody, it’s got to be all the way.
Maj. Jed Webbe: Yesssss?
Movie Quote of the Day – The Saint, 1997 (dir. Phillip Noyce)
Dr. Emma Russell: Wait. When am I gonna see you?
Simon: I’ll find you. You found me.
Dr. Emma Russell: Yeah, I did.
Movie Quote of the Day – Little Children, 2006 (dir. Todd Field)
Sarah Pierce: I think I understand your feelings about this book. I used to have some problems with it, myself. When I read it in grad school, Madam Bovary just seemed like a fool. She marries the wrong man; makes one foolish mistake after another; but when I read it this time, I just fell in love with her. She’s trapped! She has a choice: she can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle.
Mary Ann: Some struggle. Hop into bed with every guy who says hello.
Sarah Pierce: She fails in the end, but there’s something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion. My professors would kill me for even thinking this, but in her own strange way, Emma Bovary is a feminist.
Mary Ann: Oh, that’s nice. So now cheating on your husband makes you a feminist?
Sarah Pierce: No, no, it’s not the cheating. It’s the hunger. The hunger for an alternative, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.
Mary Ann: Maybe I didn’t understand the book! She just looks so pathetic.
Movie Quote of the Day – Django Unchained, 2012 (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
Calvin Candie: White cake?
Dr. King Schultz: I don’t go in for sweets, thank you.
Calvin Candie: Are you brooding ’bout me getting the best of ya, huh?
Dr. King Schultz: Actually, I was thinking of that poor devil you fed to the dogs today, D’Artagnan. And I was wondering what Dumas would make of all this.
Calvin Candie: Come again?
Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas. He wrote “The Three Musketeers.” I figured you must be an admirer. You named your slave after his novel’s lead character. If Alexander Dumas had been there today, I wonder what he would have made of it?
Calvin Candie: You doubt he’d approve?
Dr. King Schultz: Yes. His approval would be a dubious proposition at best.
Calvin Candie: Soft hearted Frenchy?
Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas is black.
Movie Quote of the Day – Wristcutters: A Love Story, 2006 (dir. Goran Dukic)
Zia: So you’re trying to leave? You don’t like it here?
Mikal: Are you joking? Do you guys like it here? Who the hell likes being stuck in a place where you can’t even smile? It’s hot as balls, everybody’s an asshole. I just wanna go home.
Movie Quote of the Day – A Night at the Opera, 1935 (dir. Sam Wood)
Otis B. Driftwood: It’s nice seeing you again. But I was expecting my other suit. Did you see it?
Fiorello: Yeah. Took up too much room, so we sold it.
Otis B. Driftwood: Did you get anything for it?
Fiorello: $ 1.40
Otis B. Driftwood: That’s my suit, all right.
Cinecon, Apu and Doomed Yuppies in Love: September 2013 in Films
September was a crazy month for me with work and starting up a new semester (My last! Soon I will have my M.F.A.!) and thus, not as much watching of films happened as I would have liked. In fact, I averaged just barely over one a day. I guess this is what happens when you start being a productive member of society. . .and go to school full time. . .at the same time. It’s also meant I haven’t had time to do Oscar Vault Monday. It looks like I probably won’t be able to start that feature up again until after my final presentation or perhaps even upon the new year. But when I do have time, it will be back and better than ever, I promise! Until then, as always, I have listed all the films I watched this past month below, as well as a few highlighted favorites.
- Sutter’s Gold (Cinecon 49)
- A Thrilling Romance (Cinecon 49)
- Oh, Mary, Be Careful (Cinecon 49)
- April Love (Cinecon 49)
- Wet and Warmer (Cinecon 49)
- Castles For Two (Cinecon 49)
- The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Cinecon 49)
- Spring Parade (Cinecon 49)
- China (Cinecon 49)
- Fifty Roads to Town (Cinecon 49)
- Hi, Good Lookin’ (Cinecon 49)
- It Started With A Kiss (1959)
- The Servant
- Barcelona
- Aparajito
- Riddick
- The Castle (1997)
- Gunfighters of Abilene
- Apur Sansar
- The Sport Parade
- Cold Feet (1989)
- Girlfriends (1978)
- Gun Street
- Undertaking Betty
- Ljuset håller mig sällskap (Light Keeps Me Company)
- California Dreaming (1979)
- Carson City Raiders
- Re-Animator
- The Butcher’s Wife
- Shotgun Stories
- The Paper (1994)
- The Last Days of Disco
- Eight Men Out
- Ride With The Devil
- So Young So Bad
1880s: 0
1880s: 0
1890s: 0
1900s: 0
1910s: 1
1920s: 4
1930s: 3
1940s: 4
1950s: 5
1960s: 3
1970s: 2
1980s: 3
1990s: 6
2000s: 3
2010s: 1
A cheated again and have listed seven films, but when you see how I did it, you will understand. . .it’s not really cheating, I swear.
Spring Parade, 1940 (dir. Henry Koster)
I saw this at Cinecon (which is a strange little festival that is really hit or miss, but completely comprised of films you will probably never get another chance to see on the big screen) and fell head over heels for it. Deanna Durbin is so wonderfully wacky in this film. It’s also a sweet film, without being sappy, that’s also got a sly sense of humor. Basically, it’s a perfect film.
The Servant, 1963 (dir. Joseph Losey)
I saw the new print released by Rialto (which looked great) and I still am not really sure what I saw. Talk about film as a subversive medium. Wowza. Dirk Bogarde is great (as he always is) as the titular servant, who starts out the perfect valet, and winds up something completely different. I’m sure for the English who live with their distinct classes (are they still like this? I don’t know), it packs even more of an impact.
Aparajito, 1956 / Apur Sansar, 1959 (dir. Satyajit Ray)
At the end of August I went to the final Oscars Outdoors screening of the summer. It was Cinema Paradiso (one of my all-time favorites). Before the start of the film they gave everyone who wanted them tickets to the newly restored Apu trilogy at the Academy theatre. I saw Pather Panchali a few years back, but I had never seen the other two films. I don’t think I have the words to describe how moving seeing these three films together really was (it was split between two nights). Each film builds on the other, as we start before Apu is even born and watch him grow from a child, to a boy to a man. We see him discover the joy of learning, the pain of loss and the power of love. Films like these are why cinema exists.
Barcelona, 1994 / The Last Days of Disco, 1998 (dir. Whit Stillman)
Another trilogy I finished this month was Whit Stillman’s “Doomed-Bourgeois-in-Love” series. A few months back I saw Metropolitan and I finally got around to watch the next two films. All three of them are filled with the kind of upper class East coast prep-school Ivy league type people that I have never really dealt with, but figure I would probably not enjoy knowing. Yet, despite the world in which these films are set, Whitman adds a bit of a critical edge to their lives (usually in the form of an outsider), so he doesn’t mock the characters, but he doesn’t let them off easy, either. These films are definitely not for everyone, but I really dug them. Also mad props for having Chris Eigeman in all of them because I love him so.
Re-Animator, 1985 (dir. Stuart Gordon)
I almost wish I had waited until October to watch this for my horror-movie-a-day viewing plans, but man I loved every minute of this gem. It’s funny and it’s gross and it’s all around perfect. If you haven’t seen it, make it one of your horror movies for the month of October, okay? You will not regret it.
Like I said, I have big plans for a horror-movie-a-day (via Netflix and Warner Archive Instant) this coming month and in November, don’t forget about Noirvember. Awww yeahhh best month of the year. See you on the flip side, my friends.
Movie Quote of the Day – Summer and Smoke, 1961 (dir. Peter Glenville)
John Buchanan, Jr: Why is it that whenever we make love, you never make love without biting or scratching, or leaving a little blood on me?
Rosa Zacharias: Because I know I can’t hold you and maybe I’m angry.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, 1943 (dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
Barbara Wynne: We must go, darling. We have the Bishop for lunch.
Clive Candy: I hope he’s tender.
Movie Quote of the Day – Casual Sex?, 1988 (dir. Geneviève Robert)
Vinny: Hey, need a lift?
Stacy: Vinny! What are you doing here?
Vinny: I was just driving around the neighborhood. Last night I did something– Look, it’s like this. It’s Christmas Day, I’m sitting around my house, right, I’m all alone. . .so, uh, I hop in the limo. . .24 hours later, I wind up in Chicago. And I say to myself, Vincent, where the hell you going? That’s when it hits me. . .I’m coming to see you.
Stacy: You drove all that way just to see me?
Vinny: Hey, only 4 days and, what, 18 speeding tickets.
the diary of a film history fanatic 