"Say Anything" is one of those rare movies that has something to teach us about life. It doesn't have a "lesson" or a "message," but it observes its moral choices so carefully that it helps us see our own. That such intelligence could be contained in a movie that is simultaneously so funny and so entertaining is some kind of a miracle.
Monday, April 14, 2014
THE WORLD IS FULL OF GUYS. BE A MAN. DON'T BE A GUY: Say Anything was released twenty-five years ago today. Besides being the first movie at which I made out with a girl (and in one of the big rooms at the Orleans 8), there's this, from Ebert's contemporaneous review:
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"Say Anything" remains at the top of my list of favorite movies - not "teen" movies, not "movie I loved when I was younger" - just favorite movies, period. Lloyd Dobler is a fantastic, original character, and this movie spent more time than most others of its genre on the world surrounding its main characters - Lloyd's friends and sister, Diane's father and his problems. Just a great movie.
ReplyDeleteI will risk turning this into a quote thread:
ReplyDelete"I gave her my heart — she gave me a pen."
I miss Roger Ebert!
ReplyDeleteDiane Court was a show pony. What you need, my friend, is a stallion.
ReplyDeleteYOU MUST CHILL!
ReplyDeleteJoe lies. Joe lies, when he cries.
ReplyDeleteSay Anything... was one of the many (many) 80s teen movies I didn't see until much later, even though I was completely the target market at the time. It holds up beautifully, so much better than the John Hughes movies of the era.
ReplyDeleteIt's also interesting to consider the movie in the context of Crowe's career as director: it started out strong, with Say Anything..., Singles, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous. Then it was all downhill from there.
I say that all the time. Most people don't get what I'm trying to say.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite little tiny throwaway quote from this movie is "By choice, man."
ReplyDeleteD.C.: Lloyd, why do you have to be like this?
ReplyDeleteLloyd Dobler: 'Cause I'm a guy. I have pride.
Corey Flood: You're not a guy.
Lloyd Dobler: I am.
Corey Flood: No. The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don't be a guy.
I had a hard time, when I first started watching "Fraser," warming up to Martin because he was the Bad Dad from Say Anything...
ReplyDeleteAnd I never, never, ever hear "Riki Don't Lose My Number" without hearing his raspy singalong.
Yes. It's so disappointing to have just the right line to use at just the right time and have nobody appreciate the quotation.
ReplyDeleteVanilla Sky and Elizabethtown are both fascinating messes. We Bought A Zoo is solid (if unspectacular) stuff and deserves credit for using a de-glammed Scarlett Johansson very effectively. The movie he's got coming out at Christmas sounds fascinating, as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm incarcerated, Lloyd!
ReplyDelete100% yes.
ReplyDeleteSay Anything may be the only romance on my list of movies I will watch to the end whenever I run across them. I have very specific memories of seeing it on its initial release in Philadelphia, during what was either the rainy Saturday or the rainy Sunday of my freshman year Spring Fling. It would be the epitome of understatement to observe that the movie held up far better than the short relationship it fostered.
ReplyDeleteI'm choosin' it.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to buy anything, sell anything, or process anything as a career...
ReplyDeleteHonestly, this could be easily the best father figure in a movie. The level of complexity, the love, the acts he does for his daughter; it's a really interesting role in the writing and in the performance.
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's that fantastic little scene in the luggage store when his card gets rejected and confiscated, followed by him cringing in his bathtuub. Jeez, John Mahoney knocks it out of the park in that. (Nice dude, by the way; he still has a place here in Oak Park. You'd never guess that he's British.)