Oscar-Worthy Speeches in Films #monday #meme #moviequotes

Let’s hope you all kept your thinking caps on after Dale at Smurfin’ the Web took us to school during last week’s Monday Movie Meme. Although I was unable to watch the Oscars last night, I’m using my turn as Meme host to offer a topic based on the biggest movie event of the year.

The entire broadcast of the Academy Awards can be quite boring to watch but we may still take home fond memories of over-the-top or inspiring speeches given by the Oscar winners, before taking their golden statues home -- Who can forget the curly fro-sporting Luke Matheny, who started his Academy Award speech with “I should have gotten a haircut” before plugging iTunes sales of his short film “God of Love” and those of fellow Best Live Action Short Film nominees, and then wrapping up by thanking his mother, who provided craft services for the film. It was a light mix of humor and shameless self-promotion that made the Oscar broadcast more memorable and more entertaining.

So, this week’s theme is: Talk that talk!

Share on your blog or in the comments section, movies that feature your most favorite speeches or your most memorable speeches to date. Also, visit the blogs of other meme participants to read and comment on their list. Here are my selections for this week’s Talk that talk! movie meme.

Any Given Sunday
Tony D’Amato, played by Al Pacino, delivers several notable takeaways as a football coach in this movie. Since I’ll be featuring one of them in a later post on this blog, during the 2012 A to Z Challenge and have already highlighted parts of it in my guest post at Far Away in the Sunshine back in May 2011, I won’t get into it much here.

Instead, I’ll just mention that D’Amato’s pregame lesson where he explains -- “Either we heal as a team, or we crumble, inch by inch, play by play, until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now and we can stay here, 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.” -- can be about so much more than winning a football game, depending on how it is perceived.

Pacino’s performance as D’Amato gives audiences a timeless piece that brings almost anyone out of the darkest of places, if you let it.

Boiler Room
Jim Young, played by Ben Affleck, is fearless as he leads a group of young investment brokers in understanding the importance of tenacity and getting results. He starts his speech off strong with what appears to be the immediate firing of two people, in front of everyone, as his meeting begins. “That’s it! Pack your shit, skippy, and let’s go!” -- but that is not what makes the scene memorable. Affleck’s firm and brutal delivery in motivating his brokers-in-training gets him, at the very least, an Oscar nomination for “Best Speech,” in my book.

I’ve only watched “Boiler Room” once or twice, maybe, but cannot forget this meeting scene, where he says “Whoever tells you money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, look at the fucking smile on my face -- ear to ear, baby!” before going on to let the broker wannabes know what is expected of them at his firm, with “You are required to work your fucking ass off at this firm! We want winners here, not pikers. A piker walks at the bell. A piker asks how much vacation time you get in a year -- we’re not here to make friends -- you want vacation time? Go teach third grade, public school!”

Remember the Titans
It seems as though football movies have the best speeches of all time with “Remember the Titans” being among the sports flicks with lessons that can be applied in everyday situations.

Coach Herman Boone, played by Denzel Washington, took his team to the field where the Battle of Gettysburg took place, which served as the foundation for one of his most memorable speeches from this movie -- “This green field right here is painted red, bubbling with the blood of young boys, smoke and hot lead pouring right through their bodies. Listen to their souls -- ‘I killed my brother with malice in my heart. Hatred destroyed my family.’

Listen and take a lesson from the dead. If we don’t come together right here on this hollow ground, we too will be destroyed, just like they were. I don’t care if you like each other or not, but you WILL respect each other and I don’t know, maybe, we’ll learn to play this game like men.”

What are some of Your most favorite or most memorable movie speeches?

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Comments

[sdk_2010]

http://smurfdok.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/monday-movie-meme-270212/" rel="nofollow">My Choices - Great topic Nicole

[HermanTurnip]

At first I thought that this would be a difficult one to reply on, but as I started typing these five speeches *instantly* came to mind:

Repo Man: The "plate of shrimp" monologue
ID4 (Independence Day): The president's speech at Area 51
Patton: The first scene speech
Jaws: Quint's monologue
Animal House: Bluto's motivational speech

[Arlee Bird]

Sports movies are often good ones for inspiring speeches. The first things that came to my mind are maybe not so much speeches as narrations or soliquies, but I'll say Nick Cage's closing lines in Raising Arizona and the ending of The Incredible Shrinking Man. Weird I know, but it's what comes to mind.

Lee
An A to Z Co-Host
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Tossing It Out
Twitter: @AprilA2Z
#atozchallenge
http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/" rel="nofollow">Blogging from A to Z

[Kelly Robinson]

The 1979 film of Macbeth (with Ian McKellan and Judi Dench) is phenomenal. Malcolm's speech in this version made him one of my favorite characters of all time.