"Yeah, man, but it's a dry heat!"

Today is the first day of serious, genuine summer heat this year.  I was up at 7 for my jog, and it was already too hot.  It's over 100 today.  My struggling A/C is not working all that well today (while still costing me a fortune in electricity), so it's up to 87 in the living room already, while my bedroom is up to 94 (it gets sun on three walls... alllllll daaaaayyyy lonnnnnng, sunup to sundown.  Nothing can keep that room cool).  Made working from home a tad uncomfortable.  Cats are all flaked out on the tile floor... might be joining them. 

Heat makes me ancy.  So, I started thinking about movie quotes.  (As one does in broiling weather.  "It must be the heat!")  And not quotes about heat, despite evidence to the contrary.  No, I was thinking about quote length.  Most of what my family quotes on a daily basis is short stuff.  A line or two.  But occasionally, we get going.  Really going.

Like, once upon a time, I could quote all the speeches from Henry V... that's the Ken Branagh movie version of the speeches, not the full Shakespeare ones, cuz it was the movie I was in love with. "Upon the king..." was always my favorite.  But time's slipped by, and I've forgotten my Henry V.  Alas and alack.

So, what do I quote, in full, with regular frequency?

Well, I can do this scene in my sleep...

Nemo: "I asked you to leave, Professor."
Aronnax: "You also asked me ashore today, to show me man's inhumanity to man. Why?  To justify this?  You're not only a murderer, you're a hypocrite. The proof lies out there!"
Nemo:  "You call that murder? Well, I see murder too, not written in those drowned faces out there but the faces of dead thousands.  There are the assassins, the dealers in death, I am the avenger.  Is murder a right reserved for that hated nation that has taken everything from me, everything but the secret of this boat and the energy that propels it... they tried, they cast me into prison and when they failed... when they failed, they tortured my wife and young son to death.  Do you know the power of love, Professor?"
Aronnax: "Yes, I believe that I do."
Nemo: "What you fail to understand is the power of hate.  It can fill the heart as surely as love can."
Aronnax: "I'm sorry for you.  It is a bitter substitute."

Er... yes, a bit dark, but it's burned everlastingly in my memory (another quote for the same movie).  It's from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a great, powerful scene between Professor Aronnax and Captain Nemo.  Disney isn't all kittens and puppies, I'm afraid. 

On a lighter side, I can also do this one from the John Wayne Western, Rio Lobo:

Solider: "Captain!  Which direction you think that yank's taking us?"
Cordona: "South.  I can't see the stars, but we should be heading south."
Soldier: "Well, you're wrong, Captain.  Which side of a tree do you think moss grows on?"
Cordona:  "The north side."
Soldier: "Well, the moss is on this side, and right now, we're going north."
McNally: "Sure, we're going north.  Half of Sheridan's army is south of here.  Only way to go is around ''em.  I don't know if I can get you through... but it's your idea, captain, and you're stuck with it."
Cordona: "You better not be trying something, Colonel.  You might be sorry for it.  Lead on."

Which is probably the most random scene to have memorized ever, except -- those lines are spoken over one of my favorite Jerry Goldsmith cues from that movie.  I recorded it off television so I could listen to the music, and the dialogue came with it.  It took another twenty-five years after I recorded that on my cassette tape before a real CD finally came out, and now, doesn't it figure, I can't hear that cue without having to fill the missing dialogue in myself.

Then probably the longest scene I can think of, that my sister and I can do anytime, anywhere, in stereo...

One - down at the roadblock, we've just begun
Two - the guards are through
Three - the major's men are on a spree
Four - the major and Wladislaw go through the door
Five - Pinkley stays out in the drive
Six - The major gives the rope a fix
Seven - Wladislaw throws the hook into heaven
Eight - Mayonnaise has got a date
Nine - The other guys go up the line
Ten - Sawyer and Gilpen are in the pen
Eleven - Posey guards points five and seven
Twelve - the major and Wladislaw go down to the delve

 And where's Donald Duck?
 Donald Duck's down at the crossroads with a machine gun
 And he better not be asleep or we'll all be in trouble!

Thirteen - Franko goes up without being seen
Fourteen - Zero hour
And?
Mayonnaise cuts the cable, Franko cuts the phone
Fifteen - Franko goes in where the others have been
Sixteen - We all come out like it's Halloween
And shoot every officer in sight.
Ours or theirs?
Let's start out with theirs, huh?  Okay, let's take it from the top without all the ad libs...  One - Down at the roadblock we've just begun....

and so on and so forth.  Sometimes we quote the later version, "Gilpen's got a date?" because we can.