Top 50 Moments Series, Dialogue, Part Two

The sun is shining and my mouth is open. That can only mean one thing: I’m talking crap whilst rubbing myself in the front garden…

11. Aliens. (1987, Cameron): Aliens has a nice blend of Science Fiction, Drama, Horror, Comedy, even Romance, and dialogue which would shine in any genre film from the aforementioned genres, AND manages to blend into a seemless whole. Nothing seems out of place, and the balance between the gung-ho and the tender is perfect. Most of the film fixes on our group of hard as nails Marines, but we also get great lines from Scientists, suits, mothers, and children. Bit players like pilot Ferro get to say future Buffy classic ‘Five by Five’, and Frost (when informed they can’t use their firearms) ‘What the hell are we supposed to use man? Harsh language?’ while Sgt. Apone gets the best military dialogue sounding like a hardened, Vietnam vet: ‘Check those corners’, ‘Look into my eye’, ‘Assholes and elbows’ etc etc. Ripley and Hudson get the best bits. Everyone knows Hudson’s ‘Game over, man’ and Ripley’s ‘Get away from her, you BITCH’, but rarely a minute passes without something special being uttered; I honestly can’t pick a favourite, but I imagine it would be something from Paxton.

12. Battle Royale. (2000, Fukasaku): Battle Royale is less about the quotes and more about the action, emotion, and general Japanese wackiness. Although the likes of Kitano and Mitsuko get some memorable one liners, I think my favourite (and yours) has to be taken from our favourite fun-filled BR survival video; Woman is explaining that you each get a back-pack with food, water, and special item/woman produces hatchet from back-pack/woman grins and says ‘This one’s super lucky!’

13. Dawn of the Dead. (1979, Romero): Romero’s epic is filled with entertaining pie, gore, and blood pressure machine related hijinks, as well as plenty of well documented social commentary. Naysayers would say that this is just a mindless zombie film, but in many ways the power of the script is in the quiet moments where nothing is said; Fran staring through the shop windows at begging zombies, the utter horror of the situation felt by a suicidal soldier in the opening segment. The script does have plenty of zingers and memorable speak, best of all when discussing the inevitability of it all. Fran says ‘It’s really all over… isn’t it?’ when viewing the last gasp talk show solutions, Roger gives the simple comment ‘Jesus, it’s everywhere’ and gives my current favourite line in his final moments when hoping that he won’t die and come back as a zombie ‘ I’m gonna try… not to… I’m gonna try… not to… come back. I’m gonna try… not to… ‘ It’s at once funny, pathetic, tragic, and horrific.

14. The Crow. (1994, Proyas). The Crow made superhero movies Tits at a time when superhero movies were Balls. A lot of this was down to the Proyas look and feel, but most of it was down to the faithful adaptation of O’Barr’s grim comic. While there is the expected assortment of action movie one-liners, the script transcends the norm with moments of poignancy, thankfully none of which require the volume to be turned up to 11 and a world language/accent chip inserted into your brain.

The Sound Of A Dog Barking Backwards

The message of the film is ultimately one of redemption and remembrance, though it is the downbeat lines which come off strongest such as ‘Victims; aren’t we all’ and ‘childhood’s over the moment you know you’re going to die’ and my current favourite ‘nothing is trivial’ which can be understood in many ways.

15. The Stand.  (1994, Garris): Stephen King’s greatest standalone epic gets an insane but justified amount of praise. The TV mini-series which adapts it? Not so much. Looking past the cheese, the (at times) cheap feel, the Molly Ringwald, you’ll find there is a bad-ass story about the end of the world which retains a bright outlook throughout even though almost everyone dies. Not to mention the glorious soundtrack. King wrote the screenplay, so you can be sure that there will be plenty of creative swearing and memorable one lines.

Why So Serious?

There is plenty of religious and spiritual spewing and some classic baddy lines from Flagg and crew, and even those who haven’t seen it or read the book know about M-O-O-N – that spells Meme. If I’m ever in dire need of some motivation though, nothing helps quite as much as a dose of Mother Abigail. ‘I’m 106 years old and I still makes my own bread’ is great while ‘mayhap it is or mayhap it ain’t’ gets used at least once a week. My choice today goes to immortal poultry related madness, a quote which I will endeavor to reenact frequently once the apocalypse hits: ‘Come down and eat chicken with me, beautiful, it’s sooo dark!’ Beautiful indeed.

16. The Thing. (1982, Carpenter): For a film which features only men, dogs, and aliens in extreme isolation , you’d be right in assuming that those on screen aren’t the chattiest bunch. Most of the men keep to themselves, either swearing at chess cheating computers (‘cheating bitch’),  or following through after an Antarctic Curry (‘Which one of you disrespectful men have been tossing his dirty drawers in the kitchen trash-can, huh?’). All it takes to spice things up is the introduction of a spindly booty-stealing, arm-chomping alien freak. This leads to such treats as ‘I don’t know what the hell’s in there, but it’s weird and pissed off whatever it is’ and ‘You believe any of this voodoo bullshit?’. However, one of the greatest movie shapeshifting scenes leads to one of the greatest sci-fi one liners ever. It’s not much of a line in and of itself, but after what we’ve seen and the way it is impeccably delivered, it is undoubtedly a classic: ‘You gotta be fucking kidding’.

17. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  (1989, Herek): As we eagerly await the inevitably disastrous 3rd film in the series, it’s good to look back at a more simple time – the late 1980s. This was a time when there was no such thing as terrorists in the US, when we had no idea what a Snooki was, when a Hilton was something to climb into at night and regret staying in for so long the next day

Some Things Never Change

Music was more simple too, with MTV playing a healthy dose of good rock, bad rock, and crap rock. Senor Cobain and his wonderful ilk were on the verge of telling us that rock music did not have to be vacuous, empty, juvenile, flaccid garbage but until then we had to rely on Mr Reeves and Mr Winter for most excellent guidance. Amongst all the obvious ‘wooos’ , ‘boguses’ and ‘San Dimas High School Football Ruleses’ it is my little French friend, Napoleon, who gets my most quoted lines. ‘Le glace?’, ‘Attend!’ and of course, the reason why Bill’s little brother stopped looking after him – ‘He was a Dick!’

18. Edward Scissorhands. (1990, Burton): A timeless, perfect movie with wonderful performances all round, Edward Scissorhands is a bittersweet, twisted fairytale which catapulted Johnny Depp to superstardom. You’d expect a film about a weirdo with scissors instead of hands to be ripe with interesting dialogue

Short back and sides, sir

but Scissorhands charms us more with its imagery, quirky style, and performances. It’s also surprisingly funny, something which people seem to have forgotten over the years, with plenty of slapstick and visual gags. My favourite comedic line from Ed: ‘Mrs Monroe showed me where the salon’s going to be….. And then she showed me the back room where she took all of her clothes off’.

19. Scream. (1996, Craven): Scream was revolutionary in many ways, almost single-handedly bringing the horror genre back to profitability and back into the minds of critics who normally dismiss the genre for being dumb. Williamson’s script plays with plenty of tropes of the genre in a post modern way, but while poking fun at the genre it also pays its utmost respects. Unlike many of the other movies which were played for cools at the time, the dialogue here hasn’t aged at all – the only thing that has changed is that today we have a group of kids who are much more aware of horror clichés and old movies thanks to ease of access; in 96 it was still an unusual geeky thing to be a massive horror movie fan, now it’s much more widespread and acceptable. We all remember the questions and the rules, but what about Billy’s epic ‘That woman was a slut-bag whore who flashed her shit all over town like she was Sharon Stone or something’? or Sidney’s simple but evocative and pertinent ‘But this is life. This isn’t a movie’.

Why Yes, Mr. Nightman, I Will Marry You

20. Wayne’s World. (1992, Spheeris): Like Bill and Ted before it, Wayne’s World can be accused of dumbing down the rock music genre and making its fans look like morons, but this isn’t a satire, it’s just a love story about our relationship with the music we adore with a lot of silly moments and appreciation for big hair and guitars. Once again, we all know the obvious lines which have gone down into folklore, or worse, memes. I offer my quartet of underappreciated delights from Garth: ‘If she were a president, she would be Baberham Lincoln’, ‘Hey Mr. Donut Man, who’s trying to kill ya? I don’t know but they better not! AUGH UGH oh, that’s not good, I’m not happy! Oh NO!’, Glen: ‘You know, if you stab a man in the dead of winter, steam will rise up from the wounds’ , and Wayne: ‘No Stairway. Denied!’

Alice Cooper- Hey Stoopid

Hey Stoopid

After all the mostly poor efforts of the 80s and coming off the success of Trash, Alice Cooper released their 2nd best album (and probably my favourite) with Hey Stoopid. It brought the best of 80’s metal and hard rock (owing much to G’n’R) and mixed it with Alice’s trademark style, lyrics, and imagery. We had his heaviest album so far (this remained true until Brutal Planet), filled with thrash style guitars, bluesy but not over the top solos, some of his most memorable ballads, and some of his greatest anthems. Alice had a long history of blasting out classics teen and outsider anthems, from I’m Eighteen to School’s Out but here we have my favourite with Wind Up Toy. The most famous song is undoubtedly Feed My Frankenstein, made popular by its appearance in Wayne’s World but it is bookended by even better songs. With plenty of backing and guest musicians and Alice’s lyrical if not musical creativity in high gear, Hey Stoopid is one of the most underrated rock/metal albums of the early nineties.

`Hey Stoopid’ opens the album with a typically 80s fist pumping and chanting intro before dismembering the cheese and breaking out some heavy riffs and chords. It’s as if Alice was replying to all the rubbish hair rock and metal of the previous decade (which he had some part in) and blasting through it with his authentic punk and rebellious roots. Perhaps he wanted to regain some of the respect he may have lost during the decade at the same time as answering his critics, perhaps he just wanted to follow other bands of the time and make a no-nonsense heavy record. The lyrics speak of rehabilitation and making your own decisions without the backing of the crowd. Hardly the most original of sentiments, and indeed Alice said the same before. Slash and Satriani help out with guitar duties while Ozzy provides some backing vocals. Alice would repay the favour soon after by singing on Use Your Illusion.

`Love’s A Loaded Gun’ is a pseudo-ballad, a slightly softer song mixed with a dirty, bluesy sound. The themes of prostitution, love, betrayal, and murder/suicide are typical for Alice as he weaves another grime filled story. I prefer the lyrics to the music on this one. The acoustic verses give way to a louder chorus, each backed with some screaming guitars and Alice sings with trademark irony and venom.

`Snakebite’ opens with the sound of a rattlesnake before bursting into one of the albums most evil and vicious souding riffs. The heavy guitars continue throughout and the chorus is very catchy. Alice creates another character and weaves the story of a tattooed lover who may be murderously possessive. Snakebite is one of those songs for turning up loud when you’re driving at night with the hot air blasting in your face, and it wouldn’t be an Alice Cooper album without some snake references.

`Burning Our Bed’ is another song which features Joe Satriani and is probably the best ballad on offer. It begins a linked trilogy of songs (with the next two obviously) and speaks of the pain and recovery from lost love. It is highly atmospheric thanks to Alice’s whispery vocals and the guitar effects. The verses are nicely acoustic and build up to another catchy chorus. I particularly like the emotional bridge and guitar solo which help to prove that Alice is one of the most underrated writers of love songs (as well as every other type).

`Dangerous Tonight’ has an extended, ominous intro merging with Burning Our Bed and features some of the album’s best guitar work. Really if you’re a fan of flashy guitars without the self indulgence then this is an album for you. The organ/keyboard intro overlapped with the menacing guitars is one of the best introductions of any Alice song. The lyrics are quite darkly erotic with an undercurrent of S and M. The imagery is not overly imaginative but all serves to create a tense atmosphere and the solo and chorus is full of head-banging opportunity. In fact the solo here is one of my all time favourites, not because it is particularly skilful or lightning fast but because, like Leaves by The Gathering, it fits the song so well.

`Might As Well Be On Mars’ also has a brooding, atmospheric intro leading in from the previous song and ending the trilogy. I love the way the piano and thunder start together before leading us into a dark and lonely tale of stalking, self-delusion, and invisibility. I like the verse riff although this is another song where the lyrics are better than the music, even though the music is pretty great too. Alice acts out the story with his vocals as always, straining with desperation and irony. The middle section with its string section and synth somehow becomes anthemic even though it is a song about being alone showcasing his skills as a songwriter, before descending with the obligatory solo and an extended ending where the character fades away back into the dark alley and despair from whence he came.

`Feed My Frankenstein’ is a song dually by Alice and British band Zodiac Mindwarp and is noticeable not only for appearing in Wayne’s World but for it’s sexual lyrics and messed up guitar solo by Steve Vai. Nikki Sixx provides bass here adding to the overall sleazy feeling, and Alice sings in his most ugly, dirty style. Yet again the chorus is a sing-along affair, something which was lacking for most of Alice’s 80s albums. It tool Poison from Trash to remind the group where their greatest strengths lay, in writing crowd pleasers which were smarter than those the average band would churn out.

`Hurricane Years’ is one of the lesser songs on the album but is still pretty good. There are no poor songs on display, it’s just that this and another couple pale in comparison with the rest and sound a little too 80s. I rate the chorus here highly and the overall tempo is fast with some good shredding from Vinnie Moore.

`Little By Little’ has a great introduction continuing the ominous tone, but is let down by a cheesy chorus filled with background cheers and a slow and fairly uninspiring verse. The whole song sounds grimy enough and the sexual lyrics work well speaking of the games lovers play, but it just isn’t as strong as other songs.

`Die For You’ is another excellent little ballad marked by a wonderful guitar riff and some sweet and touching lyrics. The piano over the verses keeps the song light but as is the way with this album, when the chorus starts you want to jump around the room like a mad man. The song again speaks of recovering from a break up and the sheer amount of physical and emotion destruction it can wreak upon you. Alice manages to turn these emotions into a powerful and almost celebratory anthem proving again that he has always been a songwriting force to be reckoned with.

`Dirty Dreams’ is the third less memorable song for me, the melodies aren’t as exciting as others and again the chorus seems a bit cheap. Again the sleaze meter is high showing that this incarnation of Alice was a rather dirty old man. Despite the Sex Pistols introduction it becomes just an average rocker.

`Wind Up Toy’ may well be my favourite Alice Cooper song ever, it is definitely my favourite (what I would class as) anthem ever, and it is one of the best endings to any album I can think of. With it’s scary sounding child’s toy introduction giving away to one of the great riffs, from Alice’s vocals from the point of view of a possibly sociopathic child (yet getting us to side with him), from the themes of madness, anger, loneliness, and a desire to be both free and included, to the excellent chorus and terrifying ending it is genius. The character of Steven re-appears (who all Alice fans will be familiar with), the lyrics are touching, child-like, and imaginative, the drums make you want to pucnh the air no matter how terrible a notion that is, and the guitars scream all over the place, but in all the right places. The ending to the song is one of my favourites, haunting, funny, brilliant- everything Alice should be remembered for.

So, if you enjoy hard rock and metal, or if you’re sick of all the current trend of indie nobodies and bland, unimaginative screamo bands then you should like this. Even if you are the sort who smirks at the slightest mention of Alice Cooper with an (un) knowing irony you should listen to this with an open mind- if you are a genuine music lover and not a fashionista you will find something you like here. It may not have the invention of early Alice, it may lack some of the smarts of his biggest albums, but it is full of energy, great ideas, and sublime tunes. Get it now.

As always, feel free to comment- agree, disagree, share any memories of the album which you may have.