my family through movie quotes
June 06, 2004, 9:41 pm

In this week's Entertainment Weekly (is it wrong that I think Daniel Radcliffe is getting hot in his old age?), Stephen King wrote an interesting article on how he polled his children about their shared love of movies and the resulting quotage that laid the backdrop for many a family conversation. He asked for others to submit their favorite "family" movie quotes, and I got to thinking about ours; how is it that a family of all girls has so few quotes from women that we quote all the freaking time? Anyway, after much debate (and I gather more than a few omissions), here is the Biensoul Family Quote List (oddly enough, my mom didn't have much to contribute, and then I realized it was because whenever my dad and us girls launch into a quote-parade, she just sort of shakes her head at us):

1. "You guys playing cards?" --Flounder, Animal House; most quoted Biensoul line EVER, and often follows whenever one of us states the obvious (i.e. From an actual exchange two nights ago: "Dad, you taking a walk?" "Jessica, 'you guys playing cards?'" "Point taken.") There are many more Animal House quotes bandied about the Biensoul Compound, but this one is the most popular.

2. "Taylor bunts!" "Shit!"--Bob Uecker and unknown Yankee player, Major League; my sisters and I rewound and re-rewound this scene when we were kids. I have no idea why we found it so funny.

3. "Nobody puts Baby in the corner." --Patrick Swayze, Dirty Dancing. DUH.

4. "The wedding is off." --Steve Guttenberg, Diner. We're from Baltimore. We have to know these things.

5. "It's Brigadoon! It's bloody Brigadoon!!" --Gareth, Four Weddings and a Funeral; I forget why Christina said this at a Biensoul party once, but we burst out in it all the time now.

6. "EAT COOKIE!" --the Asian lady in Mickey Blue Eyes; my father finds this scene hysterical. We just laugh when he says it.

7. "Hollywood says, 'Where'd WHO GO?!?'"--Wolfman, Top Gun; of all the quotable lines in this movie, I have no idea why we've latched on to this one. We say it all the freakin' time.

8. "You broke my HEART, Fredo, you BROKE MY HEART!" --The Godfather; Christina insists that her father-daughter at her wedding will be the Godfather waltz. Ha!

9. "If Ariel was my daughter, I'd show her who was boss!" --Sebastian, The Little Mermaid; really because we like to imitate the accent.

10. "I am, your singing telegram!" BANG! and "I hated her SO MUCH, that FLAMES, from the sides of my face..."Clue; we do this one over and over again until someone pees in her pants.

Now, these probably don't count, but they're pseudo-movie quotes by proxy, all from MST3000:

1. "Meet the Hobgoblins: Frankie, Sniffles, Bounce-bounce, and the Claw!"

2. "I launch and nobody cares."

3. "You're getting a lump of coal."

If there's anything that has been quoted in the Biensoul house over the past 20 years with alarming regularity, it's Bill Cosby's Himself. ANYTIME we have chocolate cake in the house we launch into "Dad is great! Gives us chocolate cake!" and my father says, "BRAIN DAMAGED!" whenever we mess up the tv or forget to take out the trash.

Lastly, our one tv quote that has punctuated all Biensoul sister arguments (and declares the winner) is the quote, "You can FORGET SAMBA!" from Sex and the City.

So, what's your family like?