If a movie is quotable...

[greybeta]

If you don't know, I did not like Napoleon Dynamite. This causes great concern among quite a few of my good friends at Tulsa. How could I not like the randomness that is Napoleon Dynamite, one of the ten greatest movies of all time? I admit it has its funny moments. But the movie as a whole just fell flat with me, although its adherents are claiming that they will convert me at another showing of Napoleon Dynamite.

Of course, I made an outlandish standment in argument. Just because a movie is quotable does not make it funny. But then the argument became if a movie is quotable, then it must be good. At that moment I couldn't quite come up with a bad movie that's quotable. Okay, so I don't see a lot of movies. So, I ask you, my faithful readers:

If a movie is quotable, then must that be a good movie?

Comments

[usmu.livejournal.com]

If you want to quote a movie, you must have enjoyed it enough to bother others with it. This doesn't necessarily mean good acting or such things, but at least you don't think it's a bad movie. Otherwise you wouldn't want to be reminded of it.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, people are all too ready to remind me of the greatness of Napoleon Dynamite.

[theferrett.livejournal.com]

Glen or Glenda is spectacularly quotable. That does not make it good.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Glen or Glenda has now just been put on my queue.

[i-aldarion.livejournal.com]

Glen or Glenda had my friends and I sitting there and shrieking because it BURNED the MIND. Oh dear god.

But it's worth watching. Especially with good friends. :-)

[tu-nenay-08.livejournal.com]

It really depends. I agree with usmu that you have to enjoy the movie personally, at least a little bit to bother others by quoting it. However, I have gone to movies that were slightly tolerable, but really funny when I quoted a few lines with other people that saw it with me.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Too bad the friends that I watched it with wanted to strangle me after the movie ended.

[luminita.livejournal.com]

Sometimes a movie is just so bad that it becomes quotable by default simply to mock it if nothing else. :P

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

That's supposedly the charm of Napoleon Dynamite, mocking the weird Dynamite family.

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

MST3K proved repeatedly that a movie can be quotable and still be a horrible, horrible movie.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I forgot about Mystery Science Theater!

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

AMEN!!!

[crookedhead.livejournal.com]

no. not at all. My favorite movies to quote from are terrible movies. I hardly ever quote from good movies. Example: There is no worse movie than cool as ice but I love saying: "Drop that zero and get with the hero" or "whackhead was messing with my homeboy's bike." And to add further credence to my claim. My senior yearbook quote was "I love the power glove. It's so bad." from the terrible Fred Savage movie the wizard.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes the Wizard. You can't use the power glove like that...

[wldntulk2knwwho.livejournal.com]

You can't place a movie in the "greatest movies of all time" category just because it has some good one-liners. Truly great movies are touching in indescribable ways. I don't think a bunch of random 80's and 90's references are going to have the same effect on me as Citizen Kane or The Godfather.

If you want to claim ND was the greatest movie ever because it's funny, then what about Spaceballs or Meet the Fokkers? They made me laugh.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

You don't have to tell me that, mysterious man.

[happydog.livejournal.com]

the existence of Mystery Science Theater 3000 proves definitively that a movie need not be good to be quotable.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

Argh. I have failed you, Mystery Science Theater!

MANOS, THE HANDS OF FATE!

[happydog.livejournal.com]

Torgo: But master, you have six wives. Why can't I have one for myself?
The Master: You are not one of us. Therefore you cannot have one of them.

see? eminently quotable - eminently awful!

[thucyditron.livejournal.com]

quotability is a neccessary but not a sufficient condition for goodness in movies.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I do like the way you put it.

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

D, I needed to come out and tell you that I so incredibly totally completely agree with you about ND. I am usually one that enjoys the "random" in my movies...but I just basically thought it sucked.

Here is another thing for you. I adore Kevin Smith. Really I do. But honestly, aside from Dogma and Chasing Amy, his movies are shit. Even then...I only truly liked Chasing Amy because of my personal life experiences.

But they can be, in the right crowd, some of the most quotable movies in the history of the universe.

Another example for you...I don't particularly like the Austin Powers movies. As a matter of fact, I turned the first one off the first time a friend tried to get me to watch it. And, IMHO, those movies get WORSE the more people quote them.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

K, it's good to have friends like you. :)

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

Right back at ya, babe.

On the subject of being friends...I wanted to tell you this but never got around to it. I made you cookies a couple of weeks ago. I was a little bored, and wanted to do it...but they came out terribly. (Which I am sure you figure out by now, since you have no cookies!)

I swore of sugar for a while for New Years...so once I am stronger in that and not so inclined to have a taste, I will attempt them again. Ordinarily I am a very good baker...but these were horrid. :)

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I could have had cookies... :(

[kimmaline.livejournal.com]

I'll try again. PROMISE!!!!

[renough.livejournal.com]

Amazing horrible: Robovampire.

A priest walking around saying, "Bless our drugs." Hilariously quotable, but horrendously awful to watch.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

I think the reason I couldn't think of any quotable bad movies is that I tend to blot them out of my memory. Robovampire seems to be one of them.

[i-aldarion.livejournal.com]

God no.

[greybeta.livejournal.com]

We are agreed, then.