Best dialogue writers out there

Started by Ordet, February 25, 2004, 07:55:03 PM

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Ordet

Best dialogue writer out there

Who do you think is the best dialogist today?

Feel free to quote some orgasmic  lines.
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xerxes

wow, that's like five new topics on your first day... i don't think i've created five topics my whole time here

Alethia

i personally think cameron crowe writes wonderful dialogue.....

for example -----

ACCOUNTANT
So Lloyd, you graduated Lakeside, right?

LLOYD
Yes sir.

ACCOUNTANT
What are you going to do now?

JIM
Yeah Lloyd.  What are your plans for the future?

LLOYD
Spend as much time as possible with Diane before she leaves.

JIM
Seriously, Lloyd.

LLOYD
I'm totally and completely serious.

JIM
No, really.

LLOYD
You mean like career?  Uh, I don't know.  I've, I've thought
about this quite a bit sir, and I'd have to say considering
what's waiting out there for me, I don't want to sell anything,
buy anything or process anything as a career.  I don't want to
sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or
processed, or... process anything sold, bought or processed, or
repair anything sold, bought or processed, you know, as a career
I don't want to do that.  So, uh, my father's in the army, he
wants me to join, but I can't work for that corporation, so what
I've been doing lately is kickboxing, which is really a, uh, new
sport, but I think it's got a good future.  As far as career
longevity goes, I don't really know, because, you know, you can't
really tell.  Your training sticks as a fighter, you know,
but it's no good, you know, you have to be great, but I can't
really tell if I'm great until I've had a couple of pro fights.  
But I haven't been knocked out yet.  I don't know, I can't figure
it all out tonight sir, I'm just kinda hangin with your daughter.



:-D

El Duderino

i think the writer with the most flowing and creative dialouge has got to be Quentin Tarantino. Also....Kevin Smith (though I don't like him much) has some good dialouge...in fact, the dialouge makes his movies. and bleck...Jersey Girl looks vomiticious.
Did I just get cock-blocked by Bob Saget?

grand theft sparrow

Quote from: Cinephilliaci think the writer with the most flowing and creative dialouge has got to be Quentin Tarantino. Also....Kevin Smith (though I don't like him much) has some good dialouge...in fact, the dialouge makes his movies. and bleck...Jersey Girl looks vomiticious.

Yeah, it kinda does but I still think that Smith will pull it off, as I do like his stuff.

Tarantino's great, but his dialogue by nature, as is Smith's, is highly stylized.  You hear those cadences and topics and you know that it's Tarantino (or someone pretending to be Tarantino).  In fact, most notable screenwriters have highly stylized dialogue, like putting a watermark on their script (Tarantino, Kevin Smith, the Coens, Spike Lee). I'm not saying it's a bad thing; it just is the case. That's why Jackie Brown is my favorite Tarantino script (though Pulp Fiction is my favorite Tarantino FILM); outside of Samuel L. Jackson's character, the script isn't very "Tarantino-sounding." It's great to see that he can do that.  The man is here to stay.

I would say that, of all the prominent filmmakers working today, that Cameron Crowe's dialogue is the most natural sounding, as eward pointed out.  He's a damn good screenwriter, not necessarily my favorite but he's great for "real" conversations.  PTA is another one; his dialogue is sort of stylized but not to such a degree that you'd know it was him without knowing it was him, if you know what I mean.

Going back a ways, Billy Wilder is the freakin MAN!  He is one of the best comedy writers ever.  The scripts he wrote with I.A.L. Diamond are just brilliant.  You can feel some of their influence in the Coen brothers' work, the sort of loopiness and incredible wordplay.  Check out The Apartment or One, Two, Three.

SoNowThen

Coens.

and to a lesser degree Mamet, even though his movies suck...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.

Big A Machine

PT Anderson:

"My wife has an ass in her cock in the driveway, alright. I'm sorry if my thoughts are not on the photography of the film we're shooting tomorrow."

"Okay, now you're talking above my head. I don't know all of this industry jargon, YP, MP. All I know is that I can't get a record contract, we cannot get a record contract unless we take those tapes to the record company. And granted, the tapes themselves are a uh um oh, you own them, alright, but the magic that is on those tapes. That fucking heart and soul that we put onto those tapes, that is ours and you don't own that. Now I need to take that magic and get it over the record company. And they're waiting for us, we were supposed to be there a half hour ago. We look like assholes, man."

"I will fuck you up if you fuck with me, ok? I know three kinds of Karate: Jujitsu, Aikido, and regular Karate."
Sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes they need to go to jail.

SHAFTR

"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

phil marlowe

the bowling hall scenes in the big lebowski   --- my god

Pedro

Quote from: SHAFTRDavid Gordon Green.
yessss.   i can tell he spends a lot of time on his dialogue...some of the conversations in his movies have to be prerecorded things from his life.

El Duderino

Quote from: phil marlowethe bowling hall scenes in the big lebowski   --- my god


seriously...now that i think about it. "Shut the fuck up, Donnie." I love it.
Did I just get cock-blocked by Bob Saget?

Kal

Donny, you're out of your element!

Dude, the chinaman is not the issue here!

Also, dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature. Asian-American, please.

You know what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass???

Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing

soixante

Great dialogue through the ages:

Paul Schrader:  "Someday a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets."

Quentin Tarantino:  "It's like a wax museum with a pulse."

Daniel Waters:  "Bulimia is so 87."

Billy Wilder:  "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. De Mille."

John August:  "So Zack, are you open to new experiences?"
Music is your best entertainment value.

Ordet

Ladies and Gentlemen; The great Paddy Chayefsky and his NETWORK    
                               

                                DIANA

               -- Well, Max, here we are --

               middle-aged man reaffirming his

               middle-aged manhood and a

               terrified young woman with a

               father complex.  What sort of

               script do you think we can

               make out of this?

                           


DIANA

                     (pushes her ice cream

                      away, regards him

                      affably)

               Terrified out of my skull, man.

               I'm the hip generation, man,

               right on, cool, groovy, the

               greening of America, man,

               remember all that? God, what

               humbugs we were.  In my first

               year at college, I lived in a

               commune, dropped acid daily,

               joined four radical groups and

               fucked myself silly on a bare

               wooden floor while somebody

               chanted Sufi sutras.  I lost six

               weeks of my sophomore year

               because they put me away for

               trying to jump off the top floor

               of the Administration Building.

               I've been on the top floor ever

               since.  Don't open any windows

               around me because I just might

               jump out.  Am I scaring you off?
                         
                             MAX

               No.

     
                           DIANA

               I was married for four years and

               pretended to be happy and had

               six years of analysis and pretended

               to be sane.  My husband ran off

               with his boyfriend, and I had an

               affair with my analyst.  He told

               me I was the worst lay he had

               ever had.  I can't tell you how

               many men have told me what a

               lousy lay I am.  I apparently

               have a masculine temperament.

               I arouse quickly, consummate

               prematurely, and can't wait to

               get my clothes back on and get

               out of that bedroom.  I seem

               to be inept at everything except

               my work.  I'm goddam good at my

               work and so I confine myself

               to that.  All I want out of life

               is a 30 share and a 20 rating.


                              MAX

               You need me badly!  I'm your

               last contact with human reality!

               I love you, and that painful,

               decaying menopausal love is the

               only thing between you and the

               shrieking nothingness you live

               the rest of the day!



     He slams the valise shut.



                           DIANA

               Then don't leave me!



                           MAX

               It's too late, Diana!  There's

               nothing left in you that I can live

               with!  You're one of Howard's

               humanoids, and, if I stay with you,

               I'll be destroyed!  Like Howard

               Beale was destroyed!  Like Laureen

               Hobbs was destroyed!  Like

               everything you and the institution

               of television touch is destroyed!

               You are television incarnate, Diana,

               indifferent to suffering,

               insensitive to joy.  All of life is

               reduced to the common rubble of

               banality.  War, murder, death are

               all the same to you as bottles of

               beer.  The daily business of life is

               a corrupt comedy.  You even shatter

               the sensations of time and space

               into split-seconds and instant

               replays.  You are madness, Diana,

               virulent madness, and everything you

               touch dies with you.  Well, not me!

               Not while I can still feel pleasure

               and pain and love!
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cowboykurtis

mamet takes the cake -- i dont care who you know, you cousion you are, whos dick your suckin' -- im gonna have yo' job shithead.
...your excuses are your own...