I believe you have my stapler?
If you’ve ever used the words “Whatever I feel like doing! GOSH!” or wanted to throttle someone (or multiple someones) who’ve done the same, you might want to go check out The Ten Most Obnoxiously Overquoted Movies. Now, the blogger in question might be a tad obnoxious himself (and you know he loved “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries”), but…he’s not wrong. There are only so many iterations of “Yeah, baby!” that are acceptable in the world, and I’m pretty sure Mike Myers used them all up.
But isn’t it a relief to see what isn’t on that list? How Star Wars is, apparently, still fair game, despite being one of the most-quoted, most-ripped-off movies of all time? How it’s pretty much always okay to compare a situation to a scene from The Godfather, even if you’re misquoting it, just like everyone else? I think we can all feel better now. After all, where would I be without When Harry Met Sally and “You’re right, you’re right, I know you’re right”? Did Nora Ephron know that he was writing the most quotable film of all time? (Answer: Of course she did.) What about You’ve Got Mail, which is definitely in the sleeper-quotation category: it’s a film that is ridiculously, endlessly quotable, only I can never place the quotations until after I’ve used them. What about Notting Hill? And I’m not talking about Spike; I’m talking about, “They’re prescription, so I can see all the fishes properly.” You have no idea how often that quotation comes in handy. Don’t even get me started on, “It’s not Jane Austen; it’s not Henry James; but it’s…uh…gripping.” What about Twister, for heaven’s sake?
All I’m saying is that movie quotation can obviously get out of hand–nothing ruins a movie like careless imitation–but that a well-used movie quotation is nearly always appropriate, and that if we’re only staying away from ten movies, I call that a win. Find something good and use it well, my friends.
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