Whoever said that watching movies was a waste of time clearly hasn’t been paying close enough attention. Below is just a small sample of things I learned from the movies.
Also, feel free to chime in with your own, though I already got ‘don’t go full retard’ in the bag, so save it.
Life Lessons
1. Be good to the mentally challenged and one day they’ll save your life – The Goonies
2. Be good to prostitutes and one day they’ll save your life – Killing Zoe
3. Never trust a computer – 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Never trust a woman – Blood Simple (see also, Bound)
5. Never trust a man – In The Company of Men
6. Never trust a little boy – A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
7. Never leave the boat – Apocalypse Now
8. Never let your house smell like soup – Juno
9. Parents just don’t understand; similarly, children just don’t understand – Freaky Friday (Lindsay Lohan version)
10. Don’t mess with Tracy Flick – Election
11. Don’t mess with angry elves – Elf
12. If you push the fat guy enough, he will snap – Full Metal Jacket
13. Think twice before you dump pig’s blood on the prom queen – Carrie
14. You can accomplish anything with a healthy dose of perseverance and optimism – American Movie
15. All you need to escape from prison is a little ingenuity, determination, a nail file, some paper mache and lots of elbow grease – Escape from Alcatraz
16. You can change what you wear, where you live and how you speak, but you can never change who you are – A History of Violence
17. Just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you can pass shop – The Breakfast Club
18. Always make your first shot count – Barry Lyndon
19. When you’re good to mama, mama’s good to you – Chicago
20. You’ll never appreciate life unless you’re just about die – The Game
21. Everybody sells out. Everybody. – The Candidate
22. You don’t have to have money to be rich – It’s a Wonderful Life
23. It’s better to be broke than be new money – Giant (see also, Titanic)
24. But skin-flintiness is a sure-fire ticket to hell – A Christmas Carol
25. Some love is just not meant to be – Kill Bill
26. But if you’re meant to be together, you will always wind up together – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
27. Be careful, though, because the quiet ones always have anger issues – Punch Drunk Love
28. And it’s never too early for Iggy Pop – Almost Famous
Something To Chew On
29. Life is like a wheel, sometimes you’re up, sometimes your down, but all times pass – 24 Hour Party People
30. Life is a… – Cabaret
31. Life is like a… – Layer Cake
32. She is – Breakfast at Tiffany’s
33. Free will is always more important that complete lawfulness – A Clockwork Orange
34. Some people are just bad – East of Eden
35. And everybody is racist, everybody – Crash
36. But some things just defy explanation – Eyes Wide Shut
Travel Tips
37. Paris is magical – Amelie
38. But some French people were really unhappy about Algerian independence – Day of the Jackal
39. Venice is creepy – Don’t Look Now
40. Nebraska is soooo boring – About Schmidt
41. The sun doesn’t set for like six months in Alaska – Insomnia
42. Rain-forest natives can have agendas, too – Fitzcarraldo
43. Natives in South America are afraid of horses and black men – Aguirre, The Wrath of God
I Did Not Know That About…Monsters
44. Jewish vampires could care less about crosses – The Fearless Vampire Killers
45. To a vampire, the human is the real monster – The Last Man on Earth
46. Shopping malls are great places to ride out the zombie invasion, as long as nobody else knows you’re there – Dawn of the Dead (The original)
47. Underground mines are another good place to ride out the zombie invasion, assuming you can all get along – Day of the Dead
48. Ouija boards are evil – The Exorcist
I Did Not Know That About…Decorating
49. There is a difference between piss yellow and puke green – American Graffiti
50. A rug really can tie a room together – The Big Lebowski
I Did Not Know That About…History
51. Abe Lincoln had a long reach – Fight Club
52. Fed Ex shipped 12 packages its first night and did the sort on a card table – Cast Away
53. WWII was harrowing, even for Germans – Das Boot
54. Martha Washington was a hip, hip chick; similarly, the 1972 democratic convention was a bitchin’ time – Dazed and Confused
55. The depression was bad – The Grapes of Wrath
56. Indians won’t take your scalp if you’re bald – Jeremiah Johnson
I Did Not Know That About…Medicine
57. Canned fish can kill you – Dead Calm
58. Cranberry juice is great for urinary infections – The Departed
I Did Not Know That About…The Military
59. The military will always kick out liars no matter how good a soldier they might be – Jarhead
60. It is an officer’s duty to escape – The Great Escape
61. You don’t go into battle with loose change in your pocket – Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb
I Did Not Know That About…Art, Literature and Music
62. There is no better dramatic device than the ironic ending – Martin
63. Voice-overs are a sign of narrative weakness – Adaptation
64. Art, and the art scene, are a ludicrous fraud – F For Fake
65. Jim Morrison was a drunken blowhard, no matter how great his music was – The Doors (see also, Almost Famous)
66. You have to be a little insane to make a movie in the jungle with Klaus Kinski – Burden of Dreams
67. Any novel about a black-Jewish-homosexual is by definition a problem novel – Capote
68. The River Bottom Nightmare Band RULES – Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas (All right, so not technically a movie, but it deserves it’s place here)
I Did Not Know That About…Sexual Politics and Dating
69. You know how I know you’re gay? You like Coldplay. – 40 Year Old Virgin
70. Gay men are so hot – Go
71. Two women together is like double-sexy – Kissing Jessica Stein
72. Cowboy gay sex makes people real angry – Brokeback Mountain
73. A great rack can get you anything – Erin Brokovich
74. Some chicks are dudes – The Crying Game
75. The best music to put on when you’re on a date with a girl is Led Zeppelin 4, side 2 – Fast Times at Ridgemont High
I Did Not Know That About…Crime and Criminals
76. When you are paid for a job, you do the job – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
77. Intensely complicated and convoluted heist plots are always undone by a streetwise NYC cop, ergo, keep it simple, stupid – Die Hard (see also, The Italian Job (original version))
78. Criminal’s are stupid and their crimes are pointless – In Cold Blood
79. Don’t worry, when a group of enemies comes at you they will always attack one at a time – Enter the Dragon
I Did Not Know That About…Sports
80. Football is to Texas as object of obsession is to stalker – Friday Night Lights
81. Arsenal’s fans are wankers – About a Boy
82. Cockfighting is deplorable – Cockfighter
I Did Not Know That About…Animals
83. Rhode Island Red’s are a kind of chicken- Chicken Run
84. Dingoes apparently have a taste for human flesh – A Cry In The Dark
85. If a bear is hungry enough he will eat you – Grizzly Man
I Did Not Know That About…Higher Education
86. College students always hate townies – Breaking Away
87. Anybody can pass the bar exam if they study – Catch Me If You Can
I Did Not Know That About…Law Enforcement
88. Frontier justice is swift and sometimes imperfect – Hang ’em High
89. Lazy cops hate workaholic cops – Hot Fuzz
I Did Not Know That About…Other Stuff
90. The Catholic church is evil – The Davinci Code
91. A wooden airplane will fly – The Aviator
92. Apparently, death is a really hot woman – All That Jazz
93. Howard Stern is basically a good guy – Private Parts
94. You can’t roll back an odometer by running the car in reverse – Ferris Bueller
95. You’ll Shoot your eye out – A Christmas Story
96. Kicking ass is not cool, unless you do it for peace – Billy Jack
97. Don’t cross the streams – Ghostbusters
98. ‘He started it’ is not a good excuse when you start killing people- First Blood
99. Unless God says it’s cool – Frailty
Obviously
100. Nothing’s been the same since Sam the Lion died – The Last Picture Show
