AN ANNOYING LIST POST

I read somewhere that if you keep a blog and you run out of things to write about, do a list ... the top ten .. the best five ... the suckiest thirteen ... My first instinct was that this was kind of dorkish ... but, then, I look at my life with my collection of science fiction novels and samurai movies and have to admit that, well, I am a bit dorkish.

Then we have the movie High Fidelity with John Cusack and Jack Black. This is a movie about some guys who work in a vintage record store who occupy their days creating lists of things that nobody could possibly care about. The guys are dorks. But they are funny dorks. So maybe that makes them cool. Which makes lists cool. OK, I'm stretching here but self justification has always been one of my greatest strengths.

In my post on the death of Paul Newman, I noted that Cool Hand Luke would be on my list of top ten movies of all time. So I guess I sort of am in the list game. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I have several lists banging around in my head (what they bang against I can't imagine, I hope it isn't my memories of the 20 gallon pot of chili I made when I was a cook, that could get messy)

I have never put any of these lists to paper. One reason is that these lists can be rather ephemeral, changing as often as my memory and preference may change. You can have a list of your ten favorite movies but there is no way it can contain the great movies you have yet to see, they have to be added later, so thusly the list changes. Also, I don't consider these lists to be of any great import, they are just me thinking about shit; but you know, that is what this blog is all about. Really, I just should have called it The Shit That I Think About.

So I guess this blog is a perfect place to drop down a few lists. Take them for what they're worth. Feel free to comment. Feel free to disagree or to add to the list. Feel free to dance the Lindy Hop while wearing a giant pink armadillo suit ... I don't judge.

This first list is one I have been thinking about for quite some time. It has changed a bit over time and I'm sure it will in the future. This my Top Ten Best Soliloquies in movies .. you can call them Monologues as well. I am not the first to blog about this of course ... can you be the first to blog about anything, now? I doubt that I am the first to blog about how you probably can't be the first to blog about anything. Wait, there has to be a first, doesn't there? Maybe I will be the first to think about the significance of being the second to blog about something .. but I doubt it .... OK, the preceding thought was a pointless ramble, I hope you took the opportunity to go get a coffee or a diet royal honey elixir or something.

OK, so here we go, rated ten to one but in a few cases the ordering is pretty random:

10: MALICE - ALEC BALDWIN - "I AM GOD" A great moment of cinematic arrogance:

"I have an M.D. from Harvard. I am board certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England; and I am never, ever sick at sea.

So I ask you, when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry, or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death, or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trauma from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, you go ahead and read your Bible, Dennis, and you go to your church and with any luck you might win the annual raffle. But if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17th, and he doesn't like to be second guessed.

You ask me if I have a God complex?

Let me tell you something:

I AM GOD.

9: GRAPES OF WRATH - HENRY FONDA - "I'M EVERYWHERE" I never tire of hearing this one, simply and beautifully framed by John Ford and delivered in Fonda's soft, lightly accented voice that never gets loud but becomes totally steely by the end:

"I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

8: MALTESE FALCON - HUMPHREY BOGART - "A MAN'S PARTNER" For me, this speech perfectly sums up the cynical romanticism of both film noir and hard boiled detective fiction. Sam Spade lives by a code, and in a world where everyone is motivated solely by greed and self-promotion, he sticks to his code, even when it makes no sense:

"When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere. "

7: APOCOLYPSE NOW - ROBERT DUVALL - "NAPALM IN THE MORNING" We all know it, we all love it, we all misquote it whenever we can:

"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end... "

6: WALL STREET - MICHAEL DOUGLAS - "GREED IS GOOD" Oh, this just perfectly sums up my views on Wall Street, capitalism, corporate North America and rich guys in expensive suits and too much hair gel:

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, is that greed - for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms - greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. "

5: BITE THE BULLET - BEN JOHNSON - "THE PRIZE" This is a great western with a great cast (Gene Hackman, James Coburn, Ian Holmes, Candice Bergen) and a compelling script by Richard Brooks. There are several outstanding monologues but the one that stands out is delivered by Ben Johnson, to Hackman, in the dark, halfway through the brutal cross country horse race as Johnson, the nameless old man who Hackman has just rescued, explains why he is participating in the race:

"God, what ain't I tried. Pony express rider, Overland Stage driver, lawman, gambler, riverman, rancher, rodeo hand, barman, spittoon man... old man. Never much to remember. Of course, there ain't much to forget, either. Nobody's got much use for an old man. I can't blame 'em much. That's why I'm going to win this here newspaper race. When I cross the finish line, I get to be a big man. Top man. A man to remember. "

4: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - STEVE McQUEEN - "WHAT IT GOT ME" The hardened pro gunfighters try to dissuade the kid from picking up the gun and he says "That gun has got you everything you have" and McQueen, the absolutely coolest human in history, leans against the bar, eyes lowered and recounts all that his gun has earned him:

"Yeah, sure. Everything. After awhile you can call bartenders and faro dealers by their first name - maybe two hundred of 'em! Rented rooms you live in - five hundred! Meals you eat in hash houses - a thousand! Home - none! Wife - none! Kids... none! Prospects - zero. Suppose I left anything out? "

3: BITE THE BULLET - GENE HACKMAN - "SAN JUAN HILL" I told you this movie had some great monolouges. Hackman plays an ex Rough Rider and here he recounts the famous charge up San Juan hill to Candice Bergan. First, he gives her the politically correct version of dashing bravery then returns and gives her the truth:

"That's not the way it happened at all. It wasn't anything like it was in San Antoine where we did our trainin'. That's where I ran into Luke and a lot of other men from every other country who wanted to be Roughriders. Bakers and barbers and Congressman, cattlemen, ballplayers, farmers and porters... cowboys. No, we didn't rough ride up that hill, 'cause we didn't have any horses. We didn't charge up there, either. We crawled up there on our scared bellies. There was only one horse and one rider - that was Colonel Teddy. He went chargin' up that damn hill and they shot his glasses off. He put on another pair and they nipped him in the elbow, and he said, "Follow me!" And we did, 'cause we was too damned ashamed not to. "

2: THE WIND AND THE LION - SEAN CONNERY - "I AM THE LION" This is a monologue, by Connery, in voice over. It is a letter written to Teddy Roosevelt by Connery's Barbary Sheik, after the former has defeated the latter, ending Connery's nomadic way of life, and confirming the US's power in the world:

"To Theodore Roosevelt - you are like the Wind and I like the Lion. You form the Tempest. The sand stings my eyes and the Ground is parched. I roar in defiance but you do not hear. But between us there is a difference. I, like the lion, must remain in my place. While you like the wind will never know yours. - Mulay Hamid El Raisuli, Lord of the Riff, Sultan to the Berbers, Last of the Barbary Pirates. "

1: JAWS - ROBERT SHAW - "THE INDIANAPOLIS" What can you say? Number one, little doubt in my mind. This is a long speech. It lasts for a few minutes. A couple of cutaway shots but it is all Shaw, and all script. Words and performance so vivid you can smell the ocean and hear the waves and sense the sharks moving through the water ... more effective than any filmed flashback sequence:

"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

So that's the list. As I said, I could change it in a year but a few them aren't going anywhere, especially Shaw's and Ben Johnson's. Most of them come from great movies. Malice was a good movie, it just happened to contain a great soliloquy. I just hope with all this CGI and green screens, and MTV style frantic editing, we never forget the power of some choice words and some sincere expression.