The actor: Wyatt Russell The character: Willoughby The film: Everybody Wants Some!! The line: “Well, boys: here for a good time, not a long time, right?” I guess Willoughby listened to Trooper, right? It used to be that many of our great film directors in this country were real macho sportsman types, and not just… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #38
The actor: Cliff Robertson The character: Ben Parker, alias “Uncle Ben” The film: Spider-Man The line: “Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.” Uncle Ben? More like Uncle Luke 12:48! “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #39
The actor: Daniel Malik The character: Black Phillip The film: The Witch The line: “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” One of the foundational principles of this blog is that the elevated horror craze of the mid-2010s was deleterious to the way people approach genre films, and that just as importantly, most of the movies… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #40
The actor: Daniel Kaluuya The character: Fred Hampton The film: Judas and the Black Messiah The line: “I am! A revolutionary!” If you’re a regular churchgoer, you’ve heard the one about how Jesus wasn’t some sedate guy who preached love and chill vibes. Jesus had a bite to him, whether he was doing some of… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #41
The actor: Hannes Oli Agustsson The character: Olaf Yohansson The film: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga The line: “Play ‘Jaja Ding Dong!’” There are two ways to be funny. The first way is to know that what you’re saying is incredibly funny and to act like it’s just a remark. I have… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #42
The actor: Barkhad Abdi The character: Muse The film: Captain Phillips The line: “Look at me. I’m the captain now.” At my day job as a teacher, I don’t pretend to be some kind of wiz at classroom management. After this many years, I’m good at it. If I wasn’t, to put it simply, I’d… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #43
The actor: Saoirse Ronan The character: Jo March The film: Little Women The line: “And I’m so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is good for. I’m so sick of it. But I’m so lonely!” There are so many good adaptations of existing text in the American movies of the 2010s.… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #44
The actor: Donnie Yen The character: Chirrut Imwe The film: Rogue One The line: “I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.” Through three movies, what exactly signified a Jedi must have been a complete mystery. Was it just Luke, Yoda, and Obi-Wan? Was it someone with a blue or green… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #45
The actor: Rosamund Pike The character: Amy Dunne The film: Gone Girl The line: “You think you’d be happy with a nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it.” John Ford’s best movie is The Searchers, right? At this point that’s basically gospel, or, to say gospel as the Christians do, to have decided something… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #46
The actor: Daniel Kaluuya The character: OJ Haywood The film: Nope The line: “What’s a bad miracle? They got a word for that?” In The Grapes of Wrath, there’s a phrase that Steinbeck uses early on that I have never forgotten and that I have shamelessly brought into my own writing: “Now and then the… Read More Top 100 American Movie Quotes of the 21st Century: #47
Seeing Things Secondhand 