It Ain’t White Boy Day Is It?

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Let’s not argue about whether True Romance (1993) is the best movie of the past twenty years. Not many people would agree with me on that. But the scene between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken is –without a doubt– the best scene in a movie in the last twenty years . I wish I could be more flexible on this point but it just the best acting (and reacting) by two great actors in the last couple of decades.

The movie stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, but includes small but wonderful performances by Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson and James Gandolfini.

The movie was directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game and others). Quinton Tarantino wrote most of the movie but apparently got a couple of scenes from Roger Avary who –according to the Internet Movie Database– met Quentin Tarantino at a video store they both worked at in the 1980’s. I really think this was Tarantino at his best (the movie, not the video store).

Favorite quotes:

[In the Night Club after Drexel has beaten Clarence.]
Drexel Spivey: He must have thought it was white boy day. It ain’t white boy day, is it?
Marty: No man, It ain’t white boy day.

Vincenzo Coccotti: The Anti-Christ. You get me in a vendetta kind of mood, you tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti.

Alabama: If you gave me a million years to ponder, I would’ve never guessed that true romance and Detroit would ever go together.

But you have to see and hear this great cast deliver these great lines and scenes. Buy the DVD.

9 thoughts on “It Ain’t White Boy Day Is It?”

  1. I loved how GO popped his neck when he bit down on his drugs in the Professional. What a stellar performance.

  2. I always loved Gary Oldman’s performance – He made Drexel into one of the scummiest scumbags in movie history. This role is tied at the top with his performance in the Professional.

  3. And here I thought I was the only one who thought this. Best movie by FAR! Why can’t I have a guy who loved me enough to kill my pimp? I love the billboard scene…but I’m a romantic. ;) xo

  5. Agreed..my favorite movie.
    When it came out, we went back to the theatre four times to see it.
    When it came out on VHS, we cried because they chopped the ending where Alabama guns down the last officer.
    When the 10th anniversary collectors edition came out, I cried with joy as I watched the theatre version again.
    QUOTE
    Floyd: You guys uh, wanna smoke a bowl? [shotgun shucks one into chamber] Oh!…you go down Beachwood, and you’re gonna turn right. Then you drive a while then keep drivin’ and drivin…

  6. “Let’s not argue about whether True Romance is the best movie of the past twenty years.”
    (that is the absolute truth!)
    In my top five movies to be stranded on a desert island with ‘True Romance’ ranks 3rd.
    What an incredible journey!

  8. I agree that this scene is perfect. There are few that have ever been better. The performances by Walken and Hopper are amazing. The nuance in the expressions and mannerisms are a joy to behold. This scene could be the entire cirriculum for an Acting 101 course. The movie is too little appreciated, as well. It is one of the best movies of the past 20 years. I have posted a video of the scene at http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=692773890&n=2&Mytoken=521247B4-649A-146D-2FB896986B49CB2F3291936. Enjoy.

  9. I’ve watched true romance a couple of times, great movie. I’ve watched the ancestry lesson maybe a hundred times. It isn’t the best scene in the last twenty years, it’s the best scene ever filmed. Walken is perfect: The grunt followed by “I’m getting angry asking the same question a second time…” The whole Sicilian liar 17 things a guy can do to give himself away, guys got 17, a girls got twenty pantomimes is brilliant, but then the cherry on top of this guilty pleasure is when Hopper turns the tables on his would be tormentors. To say it’s a gem is an understatement. Especially when Hopper closes his ancestry lesson with the great line- “Now if that’s a fact, tell me, am I lying-?” Everything from the build up to the climax is perfect. I even love the score, opera that reinforces the tragic yet underdog gets the last laugh scenerio. Ah, what more to say, brilliant- watch it a hundred times and see if you don’t agree.

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