Bang Bang Movie Quotes

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.

Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device-the mysterious knock on the door-because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don't know what's out there, yet you know you'll open it. You'll think what I think: No one bad ever knocks.

Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.

And that's when it hits me, the punch in the stomach, the carving out of my insides. That's when I realize that none of this is a movie. I will not go out with a bang. There is no ending. There are no credits. I will wake up and I will keep waking up and this will always be waiting for me.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men — friends, coworkers, strangers — giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

People save their strong opinions for women. Why don’t they look at men? If I have to read another book or see another movie about a woman being courageous, I’ll throw up. Where are the books and movies about the men who do this stuff? But no, it’s always about the women. They not only have to get through it, they’re supposed to stand up, become a symbol, allow their whole lives to become derailed and defined by it. What if you don’t want to? People bang on about women having the right to make choices—well, they need to realise women have the right to choose in these matters, too.

The worst thing about movie-making is that it's like life: nobody can go back to correct the mistakes.

Like I said, some people think it’s weird that my best friend is a girl. Sometimes I think it’s weird, too. Mostly people assume that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, which I guess we could be. But that just seems too teen-movie, if you know what I mean. A boy and girl are best friends, neither of them dates anyone else, and then one night they look at each other and—bang—they realize they’ve been in love with each other the whole time. Everyone’s happy and they go to the big dance together.

I never saw anything like it. He was like the bit in the movie where Tom Cruise is a lawyer and he's decided he's really going to win this case, for the sake of justice and the American way, and that? And it's suddenly like bang-bang-bang—grabbing files off shelves and slamming them down on the desk and punching numbers in the telephone and shaking out the phone cord dramatically , and you know, snapping out instructions to all the assistants around the desk, like: "Get me all the phone records of the President of the United States for the last fifty years," and "Get me the names of every client who ever ate a banana," and "Let's get some Chinese take-out up here, on the double!

Movies always have a beginning and end. But in any movie you see, something always happened before the movie began. We just don't see it. And so we fall for this illusion that things have this beginning and end. For a long time, physics believed that there was a beginning to the universe, and only now they're beginning to say there might have been something before the Big Bang. But from a spiritual perspective, of course there was no beginning. Beginnings and endings are merely illusions.

Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up: if a boy punches you he likes you, never try to trim your own bangs, and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, every story we're told implores us to wait for it: the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell the ones who want us from the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is just moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this: knowing after all the unreturned phone calls and broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment... You never gave up hope.

But that day...well, Soda can't sit still long enough to enjoy a movie, much less a sermon. It wasn't long before he and Steve and Two-Bit were throwing paper wads at each other and clowning around, and finally Steve dropped a hymn book with a bang--accidentally, of course. Everyone in the place turned to look around at us, and Johnny and I nearly crawled under the pews. And then Two-Bit waved at them. I hadn't been to church since.

She's wacko. I should have known she was wacko from the beginning. She had a thing about spies. Was always watching those stupid Bond movies. I'd be banging her from behind, and she'd be watching James Bond on the television. Can you believe it?" ~(Written during Pierce Brosnan's 007 days so, yeah, I CAN believe it!) "Four To Score

Once again, off this skinny prick of a copper went. BANG! SLAP! PUNCH! It was more like a Batman movie! He could hit me all night, but it wouldn’t make any difference.

Fate is not merely knocking on the door, it has entered with a SWAT team and is banging their heads together and administering poppers.

...rarely do the 'significant events' in our lives change us. At least, not in any way we want. The people who suffer tragedy and go on to greatness? They're the stuff of movies and TV shows and books, and--only very rarely--real life. Most of us just go on, the walking wounded, dealing with our lives. This doesn't make us bad--it just means we're not superheroes. It means we're just people, like everyone else.

The next few minutes were filled with more screams and bangs and crashes than a summer blockbuster movie. The dwarven guards made an excellent show of resisting before collapsing to the ground with defeated groans.

I stand in the middle of my room and debate not answering. Bang bang bang. I understand now why so many horror movies use that device—the mysterious knock on the door—because it has the weight of a nightmare. You don’t know what’s out there, yet you know you’ll open it. You’ll think what I think: No one bad ever knocks.

The Penny Dreadfuls emerge,pulsating with excitement and energy,from...the staff room. Okay. So it's not as glamorous as emerging from a backstage, but they do look GREAT.Well,two of them do. The bassist is the same as always. Reggie used to come into work, mooching free tickets off Toph for the latest comic book movies. He has these long bangs that droop over half his face and cover his eyes,and I could never tell what he thought about anything. I'd be like, "How was the new Iron Man?" And he'd say, "Fine," in this bored voice. And because his eyes were hidden,I didn't know if he meant a good fine, or a so-so fine,or a bad fine. It was irritating.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

I have always been intrigued by this obsession with so-called black-on-black violence, as if black-on-white violence was somehow more acceptable. And why had no one ever described what happened in Northern Ireland or in Bosnia, Kosovo, et al. with its vicious brutality as examples of white-on-white violence? There it was just violence - then why black-on-black violence?

-Of course movies today no longer require film. They are recorded and held in digital suspension as ones and zeroes. And so at the moment the last remaining piece of the world is lit and shot for a movie, there will be another Big Bang... and the multitudes of ones and zeroes will be strewn through the universe as particles that act like waves... until, shaken by borealic winds or ignited by solar flares or otherwise galvanized by this or that heavenly signal, they compose themselves into brilliant constellations that shine in full color across the night sky of a remote planet... where a reverent, unrecognizable form of life will look up from its rooftops at the faces of Randolph Scott, Gail Russell, George Brent, Linda Darnell... to name just a few of the stars.

Louise: "How did you get here?" Johnny: "Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday." ~From the movie Naked, written by

In my experience, Fox News isn’t something you can tune out, like a game show or a cable movie you’ve seen a dozen times. The colors, the moving logos, the giant fonts, the . . . well . . . the things they actually say. It’s like the television equivalent of one of those cymbal-banging monkey toys being duct-taped to your forehead. So this is how it’d go. I’d hear something ridiculous, and I’d scoff or make some smart-ass comment, and then it’d be straight downhill from there.

Another time, I was at the bar getting a drink and this geezer is stood at the bar with a ciggie in his mouth, trying his best to look rock hard. He takes a drag and points his finger in my face and drawls, ‘Don't I know you?’ He was looking snake-eyed at me like a typical big screen gangster. I stood in front of him and drawled back, ‘I don’t know, but they call me Richy Horsley,’ and then bang, I batter him with a left hook that landed with a strange dull thud. Mr Movie Gangster was stood there leaning against the bar and staring out in to space, knocked out standing up.

I hated Big. I hated everything about him and this story line. First of all, it didn’t make any sense that he was getting out of the car to tell her he would marry her and never once said that when she’s throwing the flowers at him. I wanted Big dead. I wanted to take the fork that was sitting in my bathroom and stab him in the eyes, right where he has those big puffy circles under them. Stupid-ass shitstain motherfucker. Then Carrie wastes all of her energy being mad at Miranda when the real problem was and always will be Charlotte. Forget what Miranda told Big about getting married. How about being mad at Charlotte for being so stupid? The only decent thing Charlotte’s ever done on the show or in the movie is shit her pants, and that does not make up for years of Type 1 retardation. My

She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One of the other. Six different ways she tried out her hair. The cowlicks were a little trouble, so she wet her bangs and made three spit curls. Last of all she stuck the rhinestones on her hair and put on plenty of lipstick and paint. When she finished she lifted up her chin and half-closed eyes like a movie star. Slowly she turned her face from one side to the other. It was beautiful she looked - just beautiful. She didn’t feel herself at all. She was somebody different from Mick Kelly entirely. Two hours to pass before the party would begin, and she was ashamed for any of her family to see her dressed so far ahead of time. She went into the bathroom again and locked the door. She couldn’t mess up her dress by sitting down, so she stood in the middle of the floor. She felt so different from the old Mick Kelly that she knew this would be better than anything else in her whole life.

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

Alex Honnold, free solo climbing phenom: The Last of the Mohicans soundtrack Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding and others: ambitones like The Zen Effect in the key of C for 30 minutes, made by Rolfe Kent, the composer of music for movies like Sideways, Wedding Crashers, and Legally Blonde Matt Mullenweg, lead developer of WordPress, CEO of Automattic: “Everyday” by A$AP Rocky and “One Dance” by Drake Amelia Boone, the world’s most successful female obstacle course racer: “Tonight Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins and “Keep Your Eyes Open” by NEEDTOBREATHE Chris Young, mathematician and experimental chef: Paul Oakenfold’s “Live at the Rojan in Shanghai,” Pete Tong’s Essential Mix Jason Silva, TV and YouTube philosopher: “Time” from the Inception soundtrack by Hans Zimmer Chris Sacca: “Harlem Shake” by Baauer and “Lift Off” by Jay Z and Kanye West, featuring Beyoncé. “I can bang through an amazing amount of email with the Harlem Shake going on in the background.” Tim Ferriss: Currently I’m listening to “Circulation” by Beats Antique and “Black Out the Sun” by Sevendust, depending on whether I need flow or a jumpstart.

What if—” I stopped, swallowing hard. Nope. I couldn’t even say it aloud. We’d figure something else out because we had to. Time for a subject change before I lost it. “What did your mom say?” “Mostly that she thinks my hair is getting too long and I should cut it.” “That’s not helpful.” “That’s my mom for you.” He was trying for humor but his voice caught, and I wondered if he was thinking about how if she left and he didn’t, he’d never ever see her again. “So,” I said, sitting on the floor against the wall as close to the kitchen doorway as I could get without Lend dropping like a rock, “do you want your Christmas present?” “You got me something?” He sounded surprised. “I’ve been working on it for a while.” “I, uh, didn’t find you anything yet. I was actually setting up for your party, not Christmas shopping like I said.” “Being kidnapped by the Dark Queen and then cursed gets you off the hook for a lot. Besides, my birthday party totally counted.” “This isn’t how I wanted our first Christmas to go. We were going to go all out, pick out a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, decorate it, watch cheesy holiday movies, drink hot chocolate, let my dad make his eggnog and then complain about how disgusting it was, then I was going to deck out my entire room in mistletoe . . .” “Wait, you mean you didn’t plan for us to be stuck in different rooms for the holidays?” “Well, that part’s kind of nice.” I heard his head bang against the wall where he was sitting right on the other side of it from me. “I mean, who wants to actually be able to touch their super hot girlfriend? Overrated.” “I know, right?” I tried to laugh, but it came out choked. I swallowed, forcing my one to come out light. “And I totally dig watching people sleep. It’s so sexy.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

Gentile’s office in downtown Las Vegas, I got on the elevator and turned around and there was a TV camera. It was just the two of us in the little box, me and the man with the big machine on his shoulder. He was filming me as I stood there silent. “Turn the camera off,” I said. He didn’t. I tried to move away from him in the elevator, and somehow in the maneuvering he bumped my chin with the black plastic end of his machine and I snapped. I slugged him, or actually I slugged the camera. He turned it off. The maids case was like a county fair compared with the Silverman disappearance, which had happened in the media capital of the world. It had happened within blocks of the studios of the three major networks and the New York Times. The tabloids reveled in the rich narrative of the case, and Mom and Kenny became notorious throughout the Western Hemisphere. Most crimes are pedestrian and tawdry. Though each perpetrator has his own rap sheet and motivation and banged-up psyche, the crime blotter is very repetitive. A wife beater kills his wife. A crack addict uses a gun to get money for his habit. Liquor-store holdups, domestic abuse, drug dealer shoot-outs, DWIs, and so on. This one had a story line you could reduce to a movie pitch. Mother/Son Grifters Held in Millionaire’s Disappearance! My mother’s over-the-top persona, Kenny’s shady polish, and the ridiculous rumors of mother-son incest gave the media a narrative it couldn’t resist. Mom and Kenny were the smart, interesting, evil criminals with the elaborate, diabolical plan who exist in fiction and rarely in real life. The media landed on my life with elephant feet. I was under siege as soon as I returned to my office after my family’s excursion to Newport Beach. The deluge started at 10 A.M. on July 8, 1998. I kept a list in a drawer of the media outlets that called or dropped by our little one-story L-shaped office building on Decatur. It was a tabloid clusterfuck. Every network, newspaper, local news station, and wire service sent troops. Dateline and 20/20 competed to see who could get a Kimes segment on-air first. Dateline did two shows about Mom and Kenny. I developed a strategy for dealing with reporters. My unusual training in the media arts as the son of Sante, and as a de facto paralegal in the maids case, meant that I had a better idea of how to deal with reporters than my staff did. They might find it exciting that someone wanted to talk to them, and forget to stop at “No comment.” I knew better. So I hid from the camera crews in a back room, so there’d be no pictures, and I handled the calls myself. I told my secretary not to bother asking who was on the line and to transfer all comers back to me. I would get the name and affiliation of the reporter, write down the info on my roster, and

I pushed against it harder, hoping to emboss my face with the jeweled star pattern. 13 One Hundred Percent Driven Snow “YOU NEVER KNOW,” my mother said to me. “You never know what means what.” “True,” I said. I was just nine years old, give or take, but I had learned not to interrupt my mother when she was on a roll, especially not when she was talking to me in the deep voice she used with the women in the beauty shop. She didn’t talk this way to all of them, of course; different people got different treatment, just as some people had to pay for every clip of the shears and other people got their bangs straightened for free. On that day, in the car, she talked the way she did with the longtime customers, the ones who got their lips waxed on the house, the ones who called me “Miss Lady” and called my mother “Girl.” “George Burns cheated on Gracie,” Mama said. “Can you believe that?” I didn’t believe or not believe it, as I wasn’t absolutely sure who George Burns was. “The man who plays God in that movie?” “Yes,” she said. “Him. He hasn’t always been old, you know. He was young and handsome and he was married to Gracie.” “Oh,” I said. “I remember.” This was the key. If I talked too much,

Leverage is the overachiever’s approach to getting more bang for her proverbial buck. It’s how brand-new startups scale and young sci-fi geeks become movie directors. It’s how below-average school systems turn around and revolutions are won. It’s how surfers take championships and artists go from homeless to the Grammys.

She was now entangled in something larger than herself. When she'd watched horror movies, it seemed easy enough to know when the victim should leave, run, hide. There were always shrieking violins and threatening, sawing cellos to alert you to danger. But here there were none, and she banged her head against the dash, as if trying to beat sense into it.

If you consider yourself to be an introvert, I’m about to give you three words That are going to change the way you think of attraction forever. Peak-End Rule The Peak-End Rule: The psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at it’s peak and at it’s end, rather than based on the total sum or average. To understand this rule … you need only think of a Broadway show, a movie, or a concert, and how there are moments in these shows that can actually be quite boring. There are moments in a concert where there are 5 songs in a row that you don’t care about. But if the concert, if the movie, if that Broadway show, ends with a bang, or has a really emotional peak moment somewhere within it … that tends to be the part that we remember. It colors our entire experience of the thing. If you are an introvert the psychology of this is gold to you.

It’s hard to explain how important Star Trek is to me. I think I went to my first Star Trek convention when I was fifteen. So to hear that Leonard Nimoy—Mr. Spock—was on the phone, I was not processing what he was saying. I could only focus on his amazing voice. I thought this was a phone call to see if he’d agree to do the part, but in his mind, he had already agreed to do it! He had one specific note on the script, which is that Mr. Spock doesn’t use contractions when he speaks. He says “cannot;” he doesn’t say “can’t.” And I remember just being chagrined that I hadn’t intervened and had allowed this to go on. I loved Spock so much, I used to sneak lines of Mr. Spock dialogue from the movies and TV shows into Big Bang Theory and give them to Sheldon. There’s an episode early on where Sheldon and Leonard are having a fight, and Penny asks, “Well, how do you feel?” And Sheldon replies, “I don’t understand the question.” That’s from the beginning of Star Trek IV where Spock has reunited with his mind and his body, and is being quizzed by a computer about his status. So Leonard Nimoy was just one of many fanboy moments. I once said to LeVar Burton, “If I could go back in time and tell my teenage self there would be a day where I would eventually talk to three crew members of the USS Enterprise, I’d fall over and die.

But for some reason, during our run, the Academy had a less than favorable view of shows with a live audience. Multicamera comedy somehow got considered a genre that was less-than. Shows like Modern Family were shot like little movies, and I think we were never going to be taken terribly seriously because the culture changed. That’s OK. Bill Prady always used to say, “The audience isn’t counting how many cameras you use. They’re responding to the characters and if they’re laughing.

Kim Dokja x Hansooyoung PART 1 [I shall kill you, Yoo Joonghyuk.] ~ Kim Dokja pg 4110 46. ⸢(Looks like you still don't know how it works. The heroine loses her consciousness, her hand falling away. And the male hero awakens! You see, in all the movies I've seen so far…) pg 4112 47. These idiots, I even died so that you two could talk to each other, but this…' She figured that she really needed to give these two men a harsh earful when she arrived there. But, when she pushed past the bushes and stepped forward, the ensuing spectacle freaked her out in a rather grand manner. Kwa-aaang!! Bang!!! Yoo Joonghyuk was mercilessly slamming his sword down on Kim Dokja, currently sprawled out on the ground. "Hey!! You crazy son of a bitch!!" pg 4125 48. There were plenty of things she wanted to ask, but she chose not to. Instead, she poked Kim Dokja's cheek and spoke up. "Still, this guy looks like he got completely fooled, doesn't he." "Looks that way." "How did it go?" "He went crazy and attacked me." Han Sooyoung smirked and lightly pinched Kim Dokja's cheek as if she was proud of him. pg 4127 49. the events of her dying at Yoo Joonghyuk's sword, me fighting against him, and then, passing out from his attack, and finally, sharing a conversation with Yoo Sangah inside the Library… Han Sooyoung approached the bed before I noticed it and pinched my cheek. "In any case, Kim Dokja. You can be really adorable sometimes." pg 4144 50. The moment Han Sooyoung's fist bumped into mine, she was completely enveloped in bright light. As I watched her figure disappear, I became aware once more that she had become my companion for real. pg 4165 51. ⸢And…⸥ My heart began powerfully pounding away. ⸢The woman that I used to love.⸥ pg 4189 52. Her emotionless eyes; the beauty spot just below one of them; and her lips that always mocked me for fun, now arching up in a smooth line. "Proceed with the execution pg 4191 53. "But, should you be doing something like that? She's originally your bride, isn't she?" "Correction. She was supposed to be one. The throne was usurped on the first day of the wedding, however." Oh, I see. So, it's that sort of development? I felt just a bit relieved now. Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk as a couple? hadn't allowed any dating at the workplace yet, so hell no. pg 4202 54. ⸢By the time you're reading this book, I…⸥ I steeled my heart and read the next line of the text. ⸢…I'd still be living a pretty good life, I guess. Hahah, were you scared?⸥ This idiot… pg 4212 55. The following words were eerily similar to a certain body of text that I was familiar with. ⸢The you reading this story will definitely make it out of here alive.⸥ Han Sooyoung's afterwords came to an end there. For the longest time, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the full-stop at the end of the sentencepg4216 56. "Looks like the company's internal rules need to be changed somewhat…" pg 4234 57. She spoke in a fed-up tone of voice. And then, issued an order to me. "Marry me, Ricardo Von Kaizenix." pg 4244 58. "I didn't want to extend her 50 years by even one minute if I could help it." I was being serious here. The moment I arrived in this world and realized that Han Sooyoung had to spend 50 years here, I just couldn't escape from this one overwhelming emotion. Someone was sacrificed again because of me. Han Sooyoung who had to endure the time frame of 50 years – could she still maintain a normal, functioning mind? Was she able to maintain the ego of the Han Sooyoung that I know of?pg4254 59. Her palm smacked me in the back of the head again. God damn it, this punk… "The third method, 'Romance'." "And its contents are?" "Marry Yuri di Aristel." "And just what did you choose?" "The third method?" "And are we currently married?" "Nope." "And why the hell not?!" pg 4256

Someone has to destroy and re-create the documents. Someone knows. Someone remembers. Everyone thinks "poor kid." Everyone thinks "Thank God that's not me." But you know what? I'm okay being me. No matter how bad it's been for me, it's been worse for someone else. [...] The people who suffer tragedy and go on to greatness? They're the stuff of movies and TV shows and books, and—only very rarely—real life. Most of us just go on, the walking wounded, dealing with our lives. This doesn't make us bad—it just means we're not superheroes. It means we're just people, like everyone else. But I'll bite. I'll play.

In my experience, Fox News isn’t something you can tune out, like a game show or a cable movie you’ve seen a dozen times. The colors, the moving logos, the giant fonts, the . . . well . . . the things they actually say. It’s like the television equivalent of one of those cymbal-banging monkey toys being duct-taped to your forehead.

Fight Club’s quiet 1996 release came just a few years after the arrival of the so-called men’s movement, in which dissatisfied dudes looking to reclaim their masculinity would gather for all-male retreats in the woods. They’d bang drums and lock arms in the hope of escaping what had become a “deep national malaise,” noted Newsweek. “What teenagers were to the 1960s, what women were to the 1970s, middle-aged men may well be to the 1990s: American culture’s sanctioned grievance carriers, diligently rolling their ball of pain from talk show to talk show.

One minute before you die, as your life flashes before your eyes, will some girl who ignored you in a coffee shop many years ago matter? Will the girl in the grocery store who turned away as you stumbled over your words even register during the last movie that plays in your mind?

Your final movie will contain your accomplishments instead, the people you’ve loved, the places you’ve been, and all the pussy you’ve slayed. It will consist of the pleasant moments that made you who you are and made life worth living. One day you will die. Just go up to her and say the words.

Cook yourself some bacon or something.” “Pfft. Rather have the beer.” “Not while I’m standing here,” I said. “You’re underage.” She puffed air up against her fallen bangs, making them flutter. “Aren’t you, like, a thief or something?” “Or something, sometimes.” “But you won’t let me have a beer,” she said. “Nope. A man’s got to have standards.” Melanie pulled a sealed package of turkey bacon out of the fridge and reached for a frying pan. “Ooh,” she said sarcastically, “the code of the criminal underworld, just like in the movies. Like you won’t shoot women or kids, right?” I shrugged. “I try not to shoot anybody if I can help it. If I’m put in a position where I have to, though, their gender or their age doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it.” “And let me guess, you never steal from your boss?” “Depends.” “Depends?” she said. “On how much of an asshole he is.” “That happen a lot?” “Working for assholes?” I said. “You have no idea.” She laughed.

Only in movies will discussing your feelings get the desirable female.

Getting with your crush may work well for guys in the movies, but not in real life.

She’s not going to invite you upstairs like in the movies. She’s not going to tell you she wants to have sex with you. She’s not going to grab your dick and put it in. You must always be making the first move and always be pushing. If you’re scared she’ll think of you as a creep, that means you’re on the right path.

The bathroom weasel technique is like when a movie theater asks if you want to upgrade to a large soda for only thirty cents more. Sure, whatever, might as well.

There we met Distance, a hardened ANC fighter with the looks and physique of an adventure movie-star. It was a quiet day and one of us mentioned Abdul. Distance looked at us and then said: "I am not sorry your friend Abdul was killed. It is good that one of you dies. Nothing personal, but now you feel what is happening to us every day.

Ashleigh!” The figure banged on the door and I nearly dropped the cleaver. Josh. My beating heart should have returned to a normal speed, but it didn’t. I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I jerked open the door. “What?” Covered in frost and snow, he edged past me. “Geez, it’s cold out there.” “And you just brought the cold inside.” I shut the door. “What are you doing here?” “My dad called and--what the hell is that?” He pointed to the cleaver. I angled my chin. “I was in the middle of cutting my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” “With a meat cleaver?” “It’s quick and makes a perfectly straight cut.” He grinned. “Yeah, right. You’ve obviously watched too many movies. Who’d you think I was? Freddy Krueger?” “What are you doing here?” I repeated, not in the mood for his sarcasm or teasing. Plus I was feeling a little silly holding my weapon of choice.

Fox News isn’t something you can tune out, like a game show or a cable movie you’ve seen a dozen times. The colors, the moving logos, the giant fonts, the . . . well . . . the things they actually say. It’s like the television equivalent of one of those cymbal-banging monkey toys being duct-taped to your forehead.

Night had fallen, and I was in the kitchen making a yummy peanut butter and jelly sandwich when I heard the doorbell. I jumped and my heart gave a little kick. This was so a horror-movie scene--bad weather, and a girl cut off from the outside world. Only killers didn’t usually ring the doorbell. Still, I opened a drawer and took out the meat cleaver Mom used for cutting chicken. The doorbell rang again and kept ringing. “All right already,” I muttered as I hurried down the hallway. I hesitated when I saw a large shadowy form behind the etched-glass window of the door. I’d turned on the porch light, and whoever was there blocked most of it. “Ashleigh!” The figure banged on the door and I nearly dropped the cleaver. Josh. My beating heart should have returned to a normal speed, but it didn’t. I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I jerked open the door. “What?” Covered in frost and snow, he edged past me. “Geez, it’s cold out there.” “And you just brought the cold inside.” I shut the door. “What are you doing here?” “My dad called and--what the hell is that?” He pointed to the cleaver. I angled my chin. “I was in the middle of cutting my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” “With a meat cleaver?” “It’s quick and makes a perfectly straight cut.” He grinned. “Yeah, right. You’ve obviously watched too many movies. Who’d you think I was? Freddy Krueger?” “What are you doing here?” I repeated, not in the mood for his sarcasm or teasing. Plus I was feeling a little silly holding my weapon of choice.

spend as much time as I am able writing, but also enjoy downtime with the wife and kids, and am a bit of a movie buff as well. I thrive on sarcasm and nerdism and am currently addicted to The Big Bang Theory amongst other things.

Truthfully, she’d gone as the beast because she was utterly taken by him. Every time she watched the movie, she longed to be in Belle’s place, studying the way he reacted to his human love. She often rewound the movie before the ending where he turned back into the prince, preferring to pretend that part never happened. At a young age, she started showing signs of an active sexuality, which she’d spent a long time feeling ashamed of. But who cares? She admitted it now, proudly: I’d totally bang that manbeast.

The thing is, I knew I didn’t want to hit rewind again and replay my life. I made mistakes, things I wish I had done differently. I sometimes argue with myself and chant like it’s a rhyme from an insane asylum in a movie, “It’s your fault, it’s not your fault..” All the while banging my head against the wall.

Grief is nonlinear. It’s sneaky and sharp, like a serial killer in a movie where there’s no warning. No suspenseful music. No screeching of violins. And one night, when you think you’re fine and everything is fine and oh, look at me living my life—thriving, even—it’s like, BOOM BANG, then suddenly you’re on the floor with no memory of how you got there. Grief put a roofie in your drink and now the room is spinning. Grief is supposed to be a Mack truck but, really, it’s a Prius with its lights off. No way to know it’s coming until you are under its wheels.

What better way to get to know someone than on an epic road trip?” “No way. You’re not Harry, and I’m sure as heck not Sally.” “Obviously. Wrong road trip movie.” Finn splayed a hand on his chest. “Clearly I’m the quick-talking, fast-thinking Louise.” He lifted his palm toward her. “And you’re Thelma.” “Please. If anything, you’re the random drifter who Thelma—” “Bangs?

I'm no good at the new games because I rarely play them. I like old things. Old books. Old movies. Old TV shows. It's not that life seemed simpler "back then." It's that it was more complicated. [...] Life was more complicated, but it was quieter, I bet. Slower. [...] The distractions then were card catalogs and dust and the smell of old paper and ink. The distractions were deep. I wonder what it would be like to go back in time, to live as long ago as the 1980s, or even further back. To know what was to come.

[...] symbolism is bullshit. Because my sister's room is not preserved, but no one has moved on. We're all still stuck in place. [...] I don't want to remember it. Memories go into the memory hole. That's where they belong. [...] There may be symbols and symbolism in books and movies—sometimes it's even fun to find them—but in real life, we only have boxes and bags, old sagging shelves, and attics with fake Christmas trees. And none of it means anything. It's all just the detritus of life, our own jetsam, heaved overboard, then washed back to us by the waves and the tides. Coming around and around again. And the water disgorges the same sights, same house, same me, same Mom.

I'm no good at the new games because I rarely play them. I like old things. Old books. Old movies. Old TV shows. [...] Life was more complicated, but it was quieter, I bet. Slower. [...] The distractions then were card catalogs and dust and the smell of old paper and ink. The distractions were deep. I wonder what it would be like to go back in time, to live as long ago as the 1980s, or even further back. To know what was to come.

I don't want to remember it. Memories go into the memory hole. That's where they belong. [...] There may be symbols and symbolism in books and movies--sometimes it's even fun to find them--but in real life, we only have boxes and bags, old sagging shelves, and attics with fake Christmas trees. And none of it means anything. It's all just the detritus of life, our own jetsam, heaved overboard, then washed back to us by the waves and the tides. Coming around and around again. And the water disgorges the same sights, same house, same me, same Mom.

I’m nestled in my comfy pj’s, hair in a messy bun, and watching a movie when a banging starts at my door. Cameron. Hope fills my chest, and I toss off my blanket. “Who is it?” “Cupid,” says a surly voice. “Who do you think? Open up.” My heart shrinks. Of course it would be Dillon and not Cameron.

The vicar had already started speaking when the door banged open again. Rachael was reminded of an old, bad British movie, though whether it was a thriller or a comedy she couldn't quite say. The vicar paused in mid-sentence and they all turned to stare. Even Dougie tried to move his head in that direction. It was a woman in her fifties. The first impression was of a bag lady, who'd wandered in from the street. She had a large leather satchel slung across her shoulder and a supermarket carrier bag in one hand. Her face was grey and blotched. She wore a knee-length skirt and a long cardigan weighed down at the front by the pockets. Her legs were bare. Yet she carried off the situation with such confidence and aplomb that they all believed that she had a right to be there. She took a seat, bowed her head as if in private prayer, then looked directly at the vicar as if giving him permission to continue. Neville had booked a room in the White Hart Hotel and afterwards invited them all back to lunch.

from their peak in 2006, and the decline is explained entirely by the evaporation of interesting, intelligent mid-budget films. Studios realized their assumption that they had to make every type of movie for everyone was no longer true. So they focused on the types of movies that delivered the biggest and most consistent profits to their publicly traded parent corporations. Increasingly, that meant movies that appealed to audiences in Russia, Brazil, and China. These consumers weren’t likely to understand the cultural subtleties of an American drama or to consider people talking or even running for their lives to be adequate bang for their buck on an expensive night out. They expected spectacle, particularly if they were paying premiums for an IMAX or 3D screen, and they wanted stories that made sense to a villager in China, a resident of Rio de Janeiro, or a teenager in Kansas City. Transformers, in other words. And The Avengers. And Jurassic World and Fast and Furious and Star Wars. With the exception of 1997’s Titanic, which made a spectacle out of the sinking of a cruise ship and Leonardo DiCaprio’s eyes, the forty-eight highest-grossing Hollywood films overseas are all visual-effects-heavy action-adventure films or family animation.

Akemi (pronounced Ah-kay-mee- I thought it was one of the most beautiful names I'd ever heard) didn't seem too interested in me; her attention was focused on her movie. Emiko had told me that Akemi was a sophomore, but she barely looked old enough for middle school with her hair tied back in a bow, and pastel kawaii "cute style" ribbons and lace bedazzling her school uniform and backpack. I hoped Akemi wasn't one of those supposedly innocent girls who the minute she was removed from her family's sight let her hair loose, removed layers of clothing to show off a banging bod, and became a wild party girl. Or maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Wild party-girl Akemi might be a lot more fun than drive-to-school girl Akemi, who hardly had two words to say.

Let’s just assume that everything you have done up until now is wrong.” –  Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory

Charlie’s kisses, were, I suppose, in The Book of Kisses. But they’d be in the chapter called Devouring. There was biting and gnawing and teeth-banging in them, an urgent air of mouth-to-mouth combat, wild and violent and driving to an end that was out of reach, and known to be, but only the more pressing for that. And pressing was a big part of it. She pulled me against her in a mime of movie stars, but the three-dimensionality of our bodies made a bumping mockery of blending, elbows and knees proving extra to the parts required and noses on standby with an abashed air of being in the way. Of course, I was lost from the first moment, in a whirl carousel of taste touch sight smell, and sounds (all s’s – squelch,

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, and not with a whimper, but with the bleak gusto of a low-budget horror movie.

several steps back. “A chip like that is bad news,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid. “It might be NSA. I won’t mess with it. Look, you stay away from me! Next thing, they’ll be after me.” He backed away into the darkness, his hands up as if to ward off evil. “I hate them! Hate them!” Then he was gone, back into the bowels of the tunnels. “See ya,” I whispered. “Wouldn’t want to be ya.” Fang looked at me irritably. “I can’t take you anywhere.” I so wished he weren’t all banged up—so I could whack him. 120 We tried to get some sleep—God knows we needed it. I kind of dozed off. Then I wasn’t asleep, I knew that much. But I wasn’t awake, exactly. I’d been, like, sucked into another dimension, where I could feel my body, sort of, knew where I was, and yet was powerless to move or speak. I was in a movie, starring me, watching it all happen around me. I was going down a dark tunnel, or the tunnel was slipping by me, and I was staying still. Trains were rushing past me on both sides, so it was a subway tunnel. I was thinking, Okay, subway tunnel. Yeah, so? Then I saw a train station: Thirty-third Street. The Institute’s building was on Thirty-first Street. In the darkness of the waking-dream subway tunnel, I saw a filthy rusted-over grate. I saw myself pulling the grate up. Fetid brown water gurgled below. Bleah—it was the sewer system, beneath the city. Hello. Beneath a rainbow . . . Bingo, Max, said my Voice. My eyes popped wide open. Fang was watching me with concern. “Now what?” “I know what we have to do,” I said. “Wake everyone up.” 121 “This way,” I said, walking in the darkness of the tunnels. It was as if a detailed map was imprinted on my retinas, so I could see it laid over reality, tracing the path we needed to follow. If this map effect was part of my life forever, I would go nuts, but right now it was dang useful. One