One of the greatest lines of dialogue I've ever heard in a movie was during the scene on the beach between Ted Danson and William Hurt, when Danson is grilling Hurt about his crumbling alibi. Hurt says something like, "If this is one of those conversations, maybe I should have my lawyer present" and then Danson says, "Buddy, your lawyer is present."
Just great.
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MHO is that this is one of the Greatest Dialogue Movies Ever, and the Ted Danson line is part of that. For me, tho, the whole scene where Ned first meets Matty is the sharpest, cleverest, and most refined-to-it's-essence dialogue exchange between two consenting adults I've ever heard, or read. It's F'n electric! I even created an art piece around it -
I made a single-row vinyl record stand, then in place of records, put album-sized cuecards/album covers of their first verbal exchange. It starts with Ned's "...promise not to talk about the heat." and ends with Matty's "...you don't want to lick it?" It's surprizingly easy to see Matty's dangerous and sultry nature without having seen Ms Turner's matching body. And Ned is a real beast with burdens. Try it with index cards...
"Indulge me...while I revel in my time"
There's that one moment in Ned's office with Mattie when he realizes he has decided they're going to kill Edmund, and Ned says, in an almost Shakespearian tone, "A man will die for no other reason but we want him dead." (Who knows, maybe it IS a quote from Shakespeare!)
shareNed: I need someone to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets.
Matty: Get married.
Ned: I just need it for tonight.
Brilliant.
I got a serious question for you: What the *beep* are you doing? This is not *beep* for you to be messin' with. Are you ready to hear something? I want you to see if this sounds familiar: any time you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you're gonna *beep* up. If you think of twenty-five of them, then you're a genius... and you ain't no genius. You remember who told me that?
http://tinyurl.com/cjsy86c
Mr. Racine, I no longer care whether these alleged toilets were actually en route from Indiana or not, I think we are wasting our time here.
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