Columns
Make me a movie I can't refuse
By Dave Weinbaum

Ever scroll down the TV menu and come across a movie you just can’t pass up….
FOR THE 40TH TIME?  

I have.  

Actually the 40 estimate is low for The Godfather 1 and 2. .  

Below are my film addictions with an explanation for each:

  • The Godfather-The Don of all Mafia movies, a real conglomerate of Italians
    that imported criminal, yet a loosely self-governed society within the greater
    American culture.  The pinnacle of Marlon Brando, James Caan and Al
    Pacino.  Quotes:  “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”  “…if some unlucky
    accident should befall Michael-if he is to be shot in the head by a police
    officer, or be found hung dead in a jail cell…or if he should be struck by a
    bolt of lightning-then I’m going to blame some of the people in this room…”

  • The Godfather II- Amazing flashback scenes with a youthful Robert DeNiro
    playing a young Vito Corleone exacting his revenge on his father and mother’
    s murderer…up close and personal.  Also an interesting bit of history as the
    Mafia plans to make Cuba a Caribbean Vegas are dashed by Castro.  
    Quotes: “Buffer…oh yeah a buffer.  The family had a lot of buffers!”  Lee
    Strasberg as a sickly but deadly Meyer Lansky “type”.   “Someone put a
    bullet through his eye.  No one knows who gave the order-when I heard it, I
    wasn’t angry; …I let it go.  And I said to myself, this is the business we’ve
    chosen-I didn’t ask who gave the order…”

  • Hoosiers-The true 50’s story of a tiny farm town school that can barely field a
    basketball team, yet goes all the way. The elder coach, banned from big
    time ball gets a second chance in Spider Breath, Indiana at hoops and love.  
    Gene Hackman takes a triple double, while Dennis Hopper a drunken mad
    delight, adds double digit assists.  Quotes:  “I play, coach stays.  He goes, I
    go.”   “Five players on the floor functioning as one single unit: team, team,
    team – no one more important than the other.”

  • Rudy-This movie is very personal to me, as I was like Rudy on my High
    School Team and wanted to quit, like Rudy.  “You are so full of crap.  You’re
    five foot nothin’ a hundred and nothin’ and you hung in with the best college
    football team in the land for two years…now go back.”  Both of us went
    back.  I’m still working on MY movie.  

  • Dances with Wolves- Despite the fact Costner makes every white man the
    most evil he can make him, one gets a real look into Indian culture and the
    genocide they suffered at the hands of early of the early American
    government.  Indians now take their revenge by scalping the great, great,
    great grandchildren of the “pioneers” on their gaming tables.  Quote:  
    “Nothing I have been told about these people is correct.  They are not
    thieves or beggars.  They are not the bogeymen they were made out to be.  
    On the contrary, they are polite guests and I enjoy their humor.”

  • Cinderella Man-The story of Irish boxing great James J. Braddock and his
    struggle to keep his family together through the depression.  He had about
    as much chance of becoming heavyweight champ as Ted Kennedy
    sobering up.  Amazing fight scenes!  Crowe, Zelleger and Giamatti are
    fabulous.  Quotes:  “For $250 I’d fight your wife…and your grandmother.”  
    “They ought to put your mouth in a circus.”

  • Glory Road-The seminal season (1966) that obliterated the racial barrier in
    division 1 college basketball.  “Your dignity’s inside you.  Nobody can take
    that away from you unless you allow them to.”

  • The Natural-Central casting calling Rick Ankiel!  I can’t believe Krauthammer
    beat me to this amazing analogy to real life Cardinal Ankiel, just as he’s
    helped St. Louis get back into the race.  Quote:  “Red, it took me sixteen
    years to get here.  You play me, and I’ll give ya the best I got.”

Certain movies reach our core and reinforce our beliefs, time after time after time.  

Anyone out there match these?  Let me know yours!  

I have others.

Meanwhile….

I’ll be on the golf course.


Dave Weinbaum is a regular contributor of one-liners and commentaries to many
regional and national publications and Web sites, including the Reader's Digest,
National Enquirer, Forbes, and is a regular pundit for the prestigious www.
jewishworldreview.com . Readers can reach Dave at dwquote@prodigy.net.