Great stories that preceded Samantha Jones' bad pun.

My friend Mike and company would do the geekiest thing ever.  For several times in the past, they gathered up around a huge TV, smoking cigars and donning Fedoras, watching The Godfather I and II.  Then each time, a trivia game would ensue – What does Don Corleone have on his lap in the opening scene of the film?  Who is Michael Corleone’s first wife whom he married in Sicily?  What was Don Vito buying at the market when he was shot?  What’s the brand name of the olive oil that the young Vito and his friends sold in New York City?

 

They would go on and on, because the first two Godfathers were just so rich in detail.  That’s how it is with great stories.  They connect and get you hooked.  They make you remember even the littlest things.

I’ve been asked recently why I always write about old movies, Pinoy or foreign.  First, it’s the desire to share with the younger generation what they’ve missed out in the past.  “The critical task is necessarily comparative, and younger people do not truly know what is new”, as the great film critic Pauline Kael once said.   Besides, the films before had better and more engaging stories to tell.  Again, like in the case of Mike and friends, it’s the great stories that I retain in my movie memory bank.

Not the visual gags that you see a lot of in movies today, except perhaps for the occasional Woody Allen, Pixar and The Dark Knight type.  Images, however pretty, will soon fade and be supplanted by more cutting-edge technology.  Unlike wonderful stories, they’re not shareable.

I can't even think of a great movie quote that came out in the last few years.  Can anything you've seen recently top these?

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she had to walk into mine." -  from Casablanca

"Where I grew up in Brooklyn, we were too unhappy to commit suicide." – from Crimes and Misdemeanors

"Walang himala! Ang himala ay nasa puso ng tao, nasa puso nating lahat! Tayo ang gumagawa ng himala, tayo ang gumagawa ng mga sumpa at ng mga Diyos, walang himala!"  -  Himala

"Ginawang hayop tayong lahat ng digmaang ito, Naty, hayop!" – Oro, Plata, Mata

"But, Mrs. Mulwray, I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it. And I still think you're hiding something." - Chinatown

The only recent one that sticks is “Lawrence of my Labia” from Sex and the City 2.  I rest my case.