All right, freshmen, you’ve made it through your first week of class. By now, you have a general impression of the college-learning environment — the expansive and impersonal lecture halls, the hours of note-taking wasted on the Herald crossword, and, most importantly, the class crush.
You know. You spot her, she spots you. You start to sit in the same general area every day. Incidental eye contact. She brushes against your leg trying to get to an open seat, but it’s not near enough to you.
You wait until the next lecture. The Aqua Di Gió is soaked into your Polo extra heavily this morning. You finally get to settle into the seat next to her, waiting with bated breath for that three-minute window of chit-chat before class starts.
You open your mouth to deliver that shining one-liner when, alas, you can’t find the words! You’ve got no in!
Buck up — ArtsEtc. is here to help. There’s no better fuel to light the conversational fire than chewin’ the fat about flicks. We’ve got the essential movies you need to know in order to survive that awkward first encounter with the class cutie, complete with their essential quotes (to make you look witty and urbane) and essential pick-up lines.
Because, you know, it’s much better than whatever you’ll come up with on your own.
This shining jewel in the crown that is the Coen brothers’ filmography got a lukewarm reception upon its release for no other reason than it followed their Oscar-winning opus “Fargo.” Its status as a college favorite has been growing exponentially, and rightfully so. “Lebowski” is one of those flicks that should become just as firmly ingrained in Americans’ cultural consciousness as baseball, apple pie and Britney Spears. It’s that funny, that important and that damn good. Essential Quote: (Walter, thinking that he is smashing Larry Sellers’ brand new Corvette) “This is what happens when you f*ck a stranger in the ass!” Essential Pick-up Line: (The Dude to Bunny Lebowski) “You want me to, uh, blow on your toes?” Essential Flick: “Office Space” Speaking of college favorites, Mike Judge’s ode to the drudgeries of the nine-to-five seemed to bypass theatre and video markets and go right to cult status. And how could it not? “Office Space” plays on the fears of nearly every college student who has any trepidations about entering the workplace — especially at a place like Initech, where the employees are faceless, the bosses are heartless and the simple malfunctioning of a copy machine is enough to drive a man insane. Business majors beware — this film may be like looking into the not-so-distant future. Essential Quote: (Peter to Bob and Bob) “It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.” Essential Pick-up Line: (Peter to Joanna) “I wanna take you out to dinner. And then I wanna go back to my apartment and watch ‘Kung Fu’.” Essential Flick: “Zoolander” Like “The Big Lebowski,” the importance of this movie probably missed many people upon their initial viewing. Not only is it filled with absurd and easily quotable one-liners, but it also assembled one of the finest comedic casts in recent memory. Owen Wilson (“The Royal Tenenbaums”) and Will Ferrell (“Dick”) are at their improvisational best as caricatures from the world of male modeling, and even if you tire of Ben Stiller’s (“Meet the Parents”) shtick as Derek Zoolander, the film has so many other priceless moments that it warrants repeat viewings. Essential Quote: (Mugatu) “Hansel. He’s so hot right now. Hansel.” Essential Pick-up Line: (Hansel to Derek and Matilda) “I think we should get naked.” Essential Flick: “Dumb and Dumber” Easily Jim Carrey’s finest hour as a comedian, this 1994 hit combined the classic Farrelly formula (road trips, retards and raunch) with Carrey and Jeff Daniels’ keen chemistry. Sure, it’s juvenile and crude, but this is the movie that helped kick-start, for better or for worse, an entire decade’s worth of low-brow comedies that raked it in at the box office. “Dumb and Dumber” is also a treat because it has Carrey in fine pre-integrity form — when he traded fart jokes for cheap chuckles instead of taking Frank Darabont’s advice for would-be award nominations. Essential Quote: (Lloyd to a group of no-goodniks outside a gas station) “Hey guys, big gulps, huh? Well, see ya later!” Essential Pick-up Line: (Lloyd to Mary) “I desperately want to make love to a school boy.” Essential Flick: “Snatch” Although not nearly as remarkable as his first directorial effort, Guy Ritchie’s follow-up to “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” has a unique spirit all its own, created mostly by Jason Stratham (“Ghosts of Mars”), Dennis Farina (“Out of Sight”) and the underrated comedic talents of Brad Pitt (“Ocean’s Eleven”). In the tradition of a true post-Tarantino crime caper, “Snatch” is loaded with a bevy of colorful characters and one-liners. Combined with Ritchie’s talent for stylized action and montage sequences, the film is just too damn good to be ignored. Essential Quote: (Turkish to Tommy) “Protection from what? ‘Zee Germans?'” Essential Pick-up Line: Anything from Bullet Tooth Tony’s Madonna monologue. Chicks dig dudes who can talk about Madonna. Essential Flick: “Boogie Nights” Paul Thomas Anderson’s eulogy to the man they called Johnny Wad (porn legend John Holmes) is a richly layered character study about the decadence of the porn industry, the late ’70s and the driving forces that made them click and, eventually, caused their downfall. Anderson has always been a director that loves the process of filmmaking and allows others to share in that love. You just can’t help but get caught up in his starry-eyed vision as Eddy Adams (Mark Wahlberg, “Planet of the Apes”) takes his “one special thing” on the rollercoaster ride of being young, rich, coked-up and very well-endowed. Essential Quote: (Chest Rockwell to Brock Landers) “Let’s get some of that Saturday Night Beaver.” Essential Pick-up Line: (Buck Swope to prospective stereo customer) “It makes you wanna freaky-deaky, right?”
