Every once in a while, a good rant clears the air. And goodness knows, there are so many things to rant about in this world. Who delivered your favorite rant in a movie, a book or in real life? I am going with this one.
"Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television’s a goddamn amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the truth, go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves, because that’s the only place you’re going to find any real truth. But, man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. We’ll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he’s gonna win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true! But you people sit there day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube. This is mass madness you maniacs! In God’s name you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion!"
Not exactly true anymore. I think the tube has lost some of its powers, but a good rant it was.
What's your favorite?
22 comments:
I like the rat Crash Davis (Kevin Costner) goes on to Annie Savoy (SUsan Sarandon) in BULL DURHAM. The topics range from log wet kisses to the designated hitter to Oswald acted alone, after which she says, "Oh my" in a weak voice.
BULL DURHAM is a great movie on multiple levels, and not just because I'm a seam head.
Now there is a movie I need to see again.
Jack Nicholson's rant in A FEW GOOD MEN. "You can't handle the truth!" That's a line that never gets old.
George is right--that Nicholson rant's a good one.
OFFICE SPACE has several rant-type moments I love. The part where they kick the printer that never works is a good silent rant.
I also like a good rant, Patti, and Howard Beale's "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore" is right up there.
But I also love this one.
Jeff M.
My favorite thing in OFFICE SPACE (other than the stapler) was the "no talent ass clown" line.
Jeff M.
In the otherwise forgettable remake of The Ladykillers, Irma P. Hall's character goes on a priceless tirade about young people and their obsession with "hippity-hop."
I miss Belushi.
You know I have never seen OFFICE SPACE. Need to remedy that.
That was the high moment in that film, Al. One of the few missteps by the Coen Brothers.
OFFICE SPACE had one of Jennifer Anniston's best roles/performances. Some people are better in smaller roles.
Jeff M.
My favorite by far has to be Matt Damon's rant on the Harvard student at the bar in Goodwill Hunting. It's a perfect distillation of his intelligence and blue collar mind set. It's also delivered perfectly with the stinger at the end about apples.
Also Glengarry Glen Ross is pretty much one long, great rant.
And who can forget Jack Nicholson's rant in A Few Good Men?
Don't know if this counts as a rant, but I love Talor Mali's WHAT TEACHERS MAKE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xuFnP5N2uA
Louis CK and Lewis Black have some gems too.
Mine would be Arthur Edens' from the film MICHAEL CLAYTON:
"Michael. Dear Michael. Of course it's you, who else could they send, who else could be trusted? I... I know it's a long way and you're ready to go to work... all I'm saying is wait, just wait, just-just-just... please hear me out because this is not an episode, relapse, fuck-up, it's... I'm begging you Michael. I'm begging you. Try and make believe this is not just madness because this is not just madness. Two weeks ago I came out of the building, okay, I'm running across Sixth Avenue, there's a car waiting, I got exactly 38 minutes to get to the airport and I'm dictating. There's this, this panicked associate sprinting along beside me, scribbling in a notepad, and suddenly she starts screaming, and I realize we're standing in the middle of the street, the light's changed, there's this wall of traffic, serious traffic speeding towards us, and I... I-I freeze, I can't move, and I'm suddenly consumed with the overwhelming sensation that I'm covered with some sort of film. It's in my hair, my face... it's like a glaze... like a... a coating, and... at first I thought, oh my god, I know what this is, this is some sort of amniotic - embryonic - fluid. I'm drenched in afterbirth, I've-I've breached the chrysalis, I've been reborn. But then the traffic, the stampede, the cars, the trucks, the horns, the screaming and I'm thinking no-no-no-no, reset, this is not rebirth, this is some kind of giddy illusion of renewal that happens in the final moment before death. And then I realize no-no-no, this is completely wrong because I look back at the building and I had the most stunning moment of clarity. I... I... I... I realized Michael, that I had emerged not from the doors of Kenner, Bach, and Ledeen, not through the portals of our vast and powerful law firm, but from the asshole of an organism whose sole function is to excrete the... the-the-the poison, the ammo, the defoliant necessary for other, larger, more powerful organisms to destroy the miracle of humanity. And that I had been coated in this patina of shit for the best part of my life. The stench of it and the stain of it would in all likelihood take the rest of my life to undo. And you know what I did? I took a deep cleansing breath and I set that notion aside. I tabled it. I said to myself as clear as this may be, as potent a feeling as this is, as true a thing as I believe that I have witnessed today, it must wait. It must stand the test of time. And Michael, the time is now."
Boy, I liked that movie. So smart. That writing is exquisite.
"Now you listen to me, and you listen good..." I have lost count how many films have this rant. The last I heard it was in Harrison Ford's THE FUGITIVE.
Well, that's certainly one of the great rants ~~!
Glengarry Glen Ross has some serious rants, but you'd expect that from a play-turned-movie. I just heard some good ones over the weekend via Antigone.
John Cleese is pretty hard to beat when it comes to ranting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoATWN68IZA
Or this one by Cleese. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyWZyGEh5DY
Come to think of it, FAWLTY TOWERS was a goldmine for rants. And not only from Cleese, Prunella Scales (Sybil) had some choice ones too. In this clip she arrives after roughly 2 minutes. Oh boy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4X_bdJox8w
In Spike Lee's "Jungle Fever," Lonette McKee plays a light-skinned black woman whose husband is having an affair with a white woman. McKee has a rant about all the names she's been called because of her light skin. Say what you will about the movie (I'm not a big fan), McKee's rant is first-rate acting.
Although I saw it, because I liked DO THE RIGHT THING, I have little memory of it. Somehow his movies got less memorable as they grew more didactic (although who came blame him) over time.
Maybe it's not a rant, but the dressing down John Wayne gives Harry Carey, Jr. and John Agar in SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON is wonderful.
I also like the way Ned Beatty raves at Peter Finch in NETWORK.
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