Tag: movies

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Woody Allen: Hannah and Her Sisters

Hannah and Her Sisters is a 1986 American comedy-drama film which tells the intertwined stories of an extended family over two years, written and directed by Woody Allen.

You can find this monologue and hundreds of others on Colin’s Movie Monologue page. The entire script can be found on the www.awesomefilm.com site.

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Mickey Sachs (Woody Allen):
Millions of books written on every conceivable subject by all these great minds, and, and in the end, none of ’em knows anything more about the big questions of life than I do.

Ss–I read Socrates. You know, n-n-n–, this guy used to kn-knock off little Greek boys. What the hell’s he got to teach me?

And, and Nietzsche with his, with his Theory of Eternal Recurrence. He said that the life we live, we’re gonna live over and over again the exact same way for eternity. Great. That means I, uh, I’ll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.

Tch. It’s not worth it. And, and Freud, another great pessimist. Jeez, I was in analysis for years. Nothing happened. My poor analyst got so frustrated. The guy finally put in a salad bar.

FATHER FLYNN:
Now why do you think that you would like to convert to Catholicism?

MICKEY:
Well, uh, because, y-you know, I gotta have something to believe in, otherwise life is just meaningless.

FATHER FLYNN:
I understand. But why did you make the decision to choose the Catholic faith?

MICKEY:
Tch. Well, y-you know…first of all, because it’s a very beautiful religion. It’s a strong religion. It’s very well structured. Now I’m talking now, incidentally, about the-the, uh, against-school- prayer, pro-abortion, anti-nuclear wing.

FATHER FLYNN:
So at the moment you don’t believe in God.

MICKEY:
No. A-a-and I-I want to. You know, I’m-I’m willing to do anything. I’ll, you know, I’ll dye Easter eggs if it works.

I-I need some evidence. I gotta have some proof. Uh, you know, i- i-if I can’t believe in God, then I don’t think life is worth living.

FATHER FLYNN:
It means making a very big leap.

MICKEY:
Yes, but, can, can you help me?

MICKEY:
I don’t understand. I thought that you would be happy.

MICKEY:
Well, because I never thought of God in my life. Now I’m giving it serious thought.

FATHER:
But Catholicism? Why not your own people?

MICKEY:
Because I got off to a wrong foot with my own thing, you know. B-b- b-but I need a dramatic change in my life.

FATHER:
You’re gonna believe in Jesus Christ?

MICKEY:
I know it sounds funny, but I’m gonna try.

FATHER:
But why? We raised you as a Jew.

MICKEY:
So, just ’cause I was born that way… You know, I’m old enough to make a mature decision.

FATHER:
But why Jesus Christ? Why, for instance, shouldn’t you become a Buddhist?

MICKEY:
A Bud–? That’s totally alien to me. Look, you’re getting on in years, right? Aren’t you afraid of dying?

FATHER:
Why should I be afraid?

MICKEY:
Oh! ‘Cause you won’t exist!

FATHER: So?

MICKEY:
That thought doesn’t terrify you?

FATHER:
Who thinks about such nonsense? Now I’m alive. When I’m dead, I’ll be dead.

MICKEY:
I don’t understand. Aren’t you frightened?

FATHER:
Of what? I’ll be unconscious.

MICKEY:
Yeah, I know. But never to exist again!

FATHER:
How do you know?

MICKEY:
Well, it certainly doesn’t look promising.

FATHER:
Who knows what it will be? I’ll either be unconscious or I won’t. If not, I’ll deal with it then. I’m not gonna worry now about what’s gonna be when I’m unconscious.

MICKEY:
Mom, come out!

MOTHER:
Of course there’s a God, you idiot! You don’t believe in God?

MICKEY:
But if there’s a God, then wh-why is there so much evil in the world? What– Just on a simplistic level. Why-why were there Nazis?

MOTHER:
Tell him, Max.

FATHER:
How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works.

KRISHNA LEADER:
What makes you interested in becoming a Hare Krishna?

MICKEY:
Well, I’m not saying that I want to join or anything, but…but I know you guys believe in reincarnation, you know, so it interests me.

KRISHNA LEADER:
Yeah, well, what’s your religion?

MICKEY:
Well, I was born Jewish, you know, but, uh, but last winter I tried to become a Catholic and…it didn’t work for me. I-I studied and I tried and I gave it everything, but, you know, Catholicism for me was die now, pay later, you know. And I just couldn’t get with it. And I, and I wanted to, you know. I–

KRISHNA LEADER:
You’re afraid of dying?

MICKEY:
Well…yeah, naturally. Aren’t you? I– L-let me ask you, reincarnation, does that mean my soul would pass to another human being, or would I come back as a moose or an aardvark or something?

KRISHNA LEADER:
Take our literature…

MICKEY:
Uh-huh.

KRISHNA LEADER:
…read it over, and think about it.

MICKEY:
Well, okay. Thank you very much.

KRISHNA LEADER:
You’re welcome. Hare Krishna.

MICKEY:
Who are you kidding? You’re gonna be a Krishna? You’re gonna shave your head and put on robes and dance around at airports? You’ll look like Jerry Lewis. Oh, God, I’m so depressed.

MICKEY:
I…I-I-I-I had to get out of that house. I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly. I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn’t know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me.

And I wandered… …for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, an-and it must have been hours! You know, my, my feet hurt. My head was, was pounding, and, and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn’t know what was playing or anything. I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical, and, and put the world back into rational perspective.

And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down (sighing) and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I’d seen many times in my life since I was a kid, an-and I always u-uh, loved it.

And, you know, I’m, I’m watching these people up on the screen, and I started getting hooked o-on the film, you know? What if there’s no God, and you only go around once and that’s it? Well, you know, don’t you want to be part of the experience?
You know, what the hell, it-i-it’s not all a drag. And I’m thinking to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life… …searching for answers I’m never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.

And…you know… …after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know “maybe” is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that’s the best we have. And…then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

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Al Pacino: ‘Any Given Sunday’ (1999)

Al Pacino appears in the 1999 Oliver Stone-directed movie ‘Any Given Sunday‘ as Tony D’Amato, a down-at-heel head coach of a fictional American football team. It’s almost the end of the game.

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Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino): I don’t know what to say really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives all comes down to today. Either we heal as a team or we are going to crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, till we’re finished.

We are in hell right now, gentlemen, believe me, and we can stay here and get the shit kicked out of us or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb out of hell. One inch, at a time.

Now I can’t do it for you. I’m too old. I look around and I see these young faces and I think I mean I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make. I uh…. I pissed away all my money believe it or not. I chased off anyone who has ever loved me. And lately, I can’t even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life things get taken from you. That’s, that’s part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out that life is just a game of inches. So is football. Because in either game life or football the margin for error is so small. I mean one half step too late or to early you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow or too fast and you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They are in ever break of the game every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us to pieces for that inch. We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch. Cause we know when we add up all those inches that’s going to make the fucking difference between WINNING and LOSING. Between LIVING and DYING. I’ll tell you this. In any fight it is the guy who is willing to die who is going to win that inch. And I know if I am going to have any life anymore it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch because that is what LIVING is. The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can’t make you do it. You gotta look at the guy next to you. Look into his eyes. Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. You are going to see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows when it comes down to it, you are gonna do the same thing for him. That’s a team, gentlemen and either we heal now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That’s football guys. That’s all it is. Now, whattaya gonna do?

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Marianne Williamson: Our Deepest Fear. (‘Coach Carter,’ 2005)

Samuel L. Jackson stars in the 2005 movie Coach Carter, based on the story of basketball coach Ken Carter who helps turn a rebellious high school basketball team around. The narrator in the clip is Rick Gonzalez, playing the part of Timo Cruz, one of the students on the team. The quotation in the clip is by Marianne Williamson – you can visit her website to see the full quotation.

At the beginning of the movie, Coach Carter asks Timo what his deepest fear is.The answer comes towards the end of the movie in this section:

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Timo Cruz (Rick Gonzalez): Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

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Michael Douglas: “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010)

Wall Street Never Sleeps: In this sequel to the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Michael Douglas appears again as Gordon Gecko, a former corporate raider, investor and speculator, but now a changed character after a spell in prison. Here, he speaks to a college audience about his views on speculation.

Watch this clip from the original movie Wall Street.

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Gordon Gekko:Someone reminded me the other evening that I once said, greed is good.

Now it seems it’s legal!

But folks, you know it’s greed that makes my bartender buy three houses he cannot afford with no money down. And it is greed that makes your parents refinance their 200,000 dollar house for 250k, and then they take that extra 50k and they go down to the shopping mall and they buy a plasma TV, cell phones, computers and an SUV. And hey, why not a second home while we are at it. Because, gee whiz, I mean we all know the prices of houses in America always go up. Right?

And it’s greed that makes the government of this country cut the interest rates to 1% after 9/11 so we can all go shopping again.

They got all these fancy names for trillions of dollars of credit, CMOs, CDOs, SIVs, ABSes. You know I honestly think there’s maybe only 75 people in the world who know what they are.

But I’ll tell you what they are, they are WMDs. Weapons of mass destruction.

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When I was away, it seemed that greed, got greedier. With a little bit of envy mixed in. Hedge fund managers just walking home with 50 to 100 million bucks a year.

So Mr. Banker, he looks around and he says, “My life looks pretty boring!” So he starts leveraging his interest up to 40%, 50% to 100%. With your money, not his. Yours. Because he could. You are supposed to be borrowing, not them!

And the beauty of the deal: no one is responsible. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool-Aid.

Last year, ladies and gentlemen, 40% of all corporate profits came from financial services. Not production, not anything remotely to do with the needs of the American public.

The truth is we are all part of it now. Banks, consumers, we’re moving the money around in circles. We take a buck, we shoot it full of steroids and we call it leverage. I call it steroid banking.

Now I have been considered a pretty smart guy when it comes to finance, and maybe I was in prison too long, but sometimes it is the only place to stay sane, and look out from the bars and say, hey is everybody out there nuts?

It is clear as a bell to those who pay attention. The mother of all evil is speculation. Leverage debt. The bottom line: it’s borrowing to the hilt. And I hate to tell you this, but it is a bankrupt business model.

It won’t work. It is systemic, malignant and it’s global. Like cancer. It’s a disease. And we got to fight back. How we going to do that? How we are going to leverage that disease back in our favor?

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Michael Douglas: “Greed is Good” (‘Wall Street’, 1987)

Wall Street is a 1987 American drama directed by Oliver Stone, telling the story of Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a young stockbroker who becomes involved with his hero, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate investor and businessman. Wikipedia has an article on the fictional character Gekko.

In the clip, Gekko (Michael Douglas) addresses a meeting of shareholders of the Teldar Paper company, which he hopes to take over.

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Gordon Gekko: I am not a destroyer of companies, I am a liberator of them!

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all of its forms. Greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind, and greed – you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.

Thank you very much.