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Movie Quote of the Day – The Hours, 2002 (dir. Stephen Daldry)
Leonard Woolf: Why does someone have to die?
Virginia Woolf: Leonard?
Leonard Woolf: In your book, you said someone had to die.
Virginia Woolf: Mmmm.
Leonard Woolf: Why? Is this a stupid question?
Virginia Woolf: No.
Leonard Woolf: Then answer my question, stupid.
Virginia Woolf: Not at all.
Leonard Woolf: Well?
Virginia Woolf: Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It’s contrast.
Movie Quote of the Day – The Reader, 2008 (dir. Stephen Daldry)
Michael: Have you spent a lot of time thinking about the past?
Hana: You mean, with you?
Michael: No. No. I didn’t mean with me.
Hana: Before the trial I never thought about the past. I never had to.
Michael: And now? What do you feel now?
Hana: It doesn’t matter what I feel. It doesn’t matter what I think. The dead are still dead.
Michael: I wasn’t sure what you’d learned.
Hana: I have learned, kid. I’ve learned to read.
Movie Quote of the Day – Billy Elliott, 2000 (dir. Stephen Daldry)
Billy: What about your mum? Does she not have sex?
Debbie: No, she’s unfulfilled. That’s why she does dancing.
Billy: She does dancing instead of sex? Your family’s weird!
Debbie: No they’re not.
Auteur of the Week: Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry is pretty much the John Cazale of directors. (Google John Cazale if you don’t get what I mean by that). He’s directed three films and has been nominated for Best Director by the Academy for all three films. Only two of them were nominated for Best Picture, but it’ quite possibly Billy Elliot was thisclose to getting one of those five slots in 2000. Odds are if the Weinsteins hadn’t had a film out that year (Chocolat) that they aggressively campaigned for, it would have. What I love the most about Daldry as a director, and I think this comes from his background as a theater director, is the strong performances he gets out of his actors. I dare you to find one bad, or even “just okay” performance in one of his films. You’ll be hard-pressed to find one. He has director five Academy Award nominated and two Academy Award winning performances. That’s pretty good for a guy who’s only done three feature films so far.
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