s home theater systems become better and more affordable and the time gap between cinematic and home video releases gets shorter, people have become less and less willing to plunk down twenty dollars (when you factor in tickets, parking and concessions) for a night out at the movies.  In an effort to rekindle the public’s increasingly lukewarm attitude toward the cinema, the American Film Institute (AFI) has come up with the mildly intelligent idea of releasing a slew of Top 100 lists: Top 100 Films, Top 100 Actors, Top 100 Villains, Top 100 Movie Songs, etc. 

I’ve stopped really taking any of these lists seriously as I know their purpose isn’t necessarily to create a definitive “best of” that will stand the test of time.  More often, these lists are generated in order to spark discussions and debates and get people talking – maybe even drum up enough curiosity to encourage people to go out and see the movies they’re discussing.  The formula for these lists is quite simple really.

First and foremost, half the list must be comprised of nominees that nobody would ever argue with, thereby establishing credibility.  So if you’re doing a Top 100 Films list, films like Casablanca and Gone With the Wind must be on it. 

Next, you put at least one or two nominees so unlike anything else on the list that it prompts people to yell, “What the heck?”  That’s how movies like American Graffiti make these lists.  Similarly, you must leave a notable contender conspicuously off the list in order to generate righteous anger amongst the film buffs. 

Third tactic, no matter what the list, you must include Citizen Kane on it.  Even though no normal person can actually sit through an entire showing without falling asleep, this film somehow became Hollywood’s poster child for textbook cinema magic.  Right or wrong, if you plan to have your list taken seriously, this movie’s title had better appear on it somewhere, preferably toward the top.

And last but not least, in order to appease the most pretentious film geeks out there, stick in a couple of really obscure movies that not a lot of people saw and even less people understood.  You don’t even need to have seen the movie.  Just make a few comments about the cinematography and the brilliant cast of unknowns to give the illusion that you truly did exhaustive research on every popular and cult movie ever released.

The latest list to be released by the AFI was the Top 100 Movie Quotes of all time.  They had the usual standards on there like “Here’s looking at you kid,” and “Frankly my darling, I don’t give a damn.”  And just so they didn’t alienate the current generation, they threw in a couple of more recent lines like, “I see dead people,” and “Show me the money.”

This is the list that really got me thinking.  I love movie quotes.  Sometimes I’ll quote a really cool line from a movie that otherwise sucked.  Lines are really what you take away from a movie.  While you do talk about the story, the acting and the directing with friends, ultimately it’s the lines that you find yourself constantly weaving into the conversation more than anything else.  How many times have you heard somebody say something funny or meaningful and asked them, “What is that from?”  The thing about it is there are way too many great lines to be contained on a list of a hundred.  Some of my personal favorite lines are ones that would never be profound enough for the AFI to take notice. 

That’s why I decided to start a list of “Great Throwaway Lines.”  More often than not, these are not the most popular lines from the movie they come from.  The reason for that is because a lot of these great throwaway lines were never written as “quotes.”  Most every line on the AFI’s Top 100 list was obviously written with the intent to be remembered.  “Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re gonna get,” was always meant to be quoted.  But some of the best movie lines are the ones that were written with no special emphasis as just another line in the dialogue.  Yet through the delivery or the context of the situation these lines are great in spite of themselves.

That’s what this list is all about – lines that are funny, chilling or moving no matter if the writer intended it to be remembered or not.  As such, this list is not ranked.  None of these lines are at the “top” of anything.  The only order here is the date of each posting.  Nor is this an exhaustive list.  I will keep adding more lines as they come to me.  Also, since none of these lines exist in the forefront of their respective movies, I will include a little blurb about why each one is included.

If you have suggestions for this list, please email them to me.  The only stipulations are these: 

1) They can’t be to “movie quote-ish.”  If it sounds too much like the screenwriter wet his pants and lit a cigarette as he wrote it, it will not be included.

and

2) I need to know the quote.  Since what makes these lines great is their context, I cannot in good conscience post a quote whose context I do not know.  So let me know, and if I haven’t seen the movie, I’ll try to rent it as soon as possible. 

Enjoy.  And as always, discuss, argue and make a bigger deal out of the list than it actually deserves.

THE LIST