Movie time!

I was having an email conversation about the most quotable movies out there.  The ones where you can say a line and most everybody knows what you're referring to.  I found a list labelled The Top 10 Most Quotable Geek Films…Ever! which is as follows:

 

Anyway, spend fifteen minutes with geeks and you'll realize we brandish movie quotes like a samurai wields a katana. If you want a true geek movie list, you need a Top 10 of source material for all the best one-liners. Here's mine, The Top 10 Most Quotable Geek Flicks…Ever!:

1. The Empire Strikes Back - If we're only going to pick one entry in the Star Wars lexicon, here's your moneymaker. Yoda alone is worth his muppet-weight in quotable gold, and the dialogue in this SW Episode is the snappiest and most memorable of them all. "No. Try not. Do… or do not. There is no try."
2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail - The Tech Blog guy had this right, just under-ranked. Holy Grail is pretty much a motherlode of geek quotations. I know at least a dozen people who could recite the film on demand. If you don't know why witches weigh the same as ducks, Lancelot's favorite color, or the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, you're not really a geek.
3. The Princess Bride - This movie singlehandedly turned the word "inconceivable" into a comedic catchphrase, and that's but one of about two-dozen must-know quotes and tropes that Rob Reiner's masterpiece delivered unto us.
4. Superman II - "Kneel before Zod!" Any questions?
5. Office Space - Occasionally dull, filled with only marginally likeable characters, with only the slightest hints of theme or meaning–yeah Office Space is pretty much the perfect example of the average geek's career life. And the nightmare-boss character of Bill Lumbergh is the painfully quotable scumbag we've all done professional time with at some point. "Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler…"
6. Pulp Fiction - This movie was designed to be a quote-fest, and for once Tarantino wasn't so busy riffing off other peoples' work that he delivered. Most of the quotes aren't repeatable in polite company (which is part of the fun), but let's just say that, short of Snakes on a Plane, Samuel L. Jackson's entire list of personal catchphrases comes from this film. And I dare you to tell me that ain't worth the price of admission.
7. Army of Darkness - Bruce Campbell is like unto a god–an insane trickster god–amongst geeky film nuts, and this movie is pretty much why. Absurd in the extreme, so campy it's painful, and the ultimate proof that you must fear the boomstick!
8. Die Hard - Every single gamer who has ever appropriated an automatic weapon in any game setting under any circumstances has marked the occasion with this film's signature quote: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho." There are other jewels to be found here, but our profanity filter prevents their citation.
9. Aliens - If this movie taught us anything–and it taught us a great deal, believe me–it was this most important lession: "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
10. Tombstone - An underrated entry on most lists, but anyone who has seen this film knows the bounteous quotability of which we speak. How inexorably great is the dialogue here? It made the phrase "I'm your huckleberry" downright terrifying.

A pretty good start, but I disagree on a few choices.  Superman II?  Come on, you're kidding right?  Aliens, Die Hard and Tombstone are all movies I like, but do I quote from them?  Not so much.  So, given that here is my list:

1.  The Princess Bride - easily the most quotable.  No rational argument can be had.

2.  The Big Lebowski - A modern classic which could give The Princess Bride a run for it's money, if only it didn't use so many curse words.

3.  Ghostbusters - Probably lost on the younger generation, but the combination of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis and Rick Moranis means great one liners from all corners.

4.  The Blues Brothers - It's 106 miles to Chicago, you know the rest.

5.  Office Space - If you work in a cube, you know this movie well.  Or you should.

6.  All of the Star Wars movies, not just Empire - These are not the droids you're looking for easily trumps anything Yoda said, no matter how backwards he says it.

7.  Clerks - Another movie hampered by excessive cursing.  Not a wise choice in polite company.  "I think I can see her kidneys!"

8.  Strange Brew - A personal favorite.

9.  Pulp Fiction - "I'll have the $5 milkshake."  More curse words.  I'm starting to see a pattern here.

10. Some sort of amalgam of Monty Python, including the movies and the TV show.  They all sort of run together in my head and I have a hard time separating them.

 

So, agree, disagree?  Did I leave something obvious off?  Leave a comment, let me know what you think.

 

Date:  July 18

Distance:  24

Ride Type/Bike:  Commute/Suburban

Month to Date Miles:  253

Year to Date Miles:  2208

 

Date:  July 21

Distance:  24

Ride Type/Bike:  Commute/Kuwahara

Month to Date Miles:  277

Year to Date Miles:  2232