Who says it: Lili Taylor as Corey Flood, aspiring songwriter and best friend of Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack)
The context: At a high school graduation party, Corey announces that she has written 65 songs about her ex-boyfriend, Joe (Loren Dean), and plans to sing them all that night.
How to use it: To comment on perfidy, especially that of a romantic partner. You need to sing it the way she does -- “Joe lie-hies… when he cri-hies…”
Jen Lechner asked me the other night why I hadn't used anything from this movie yet. It surprises me, too, because I adore this movie.
The problem, for the purposes of this blog, is that the best lines in it are exchanges, not one-liners. "If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at like the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?" "By choice, man!" But I'll probably come up with a few other lines from this movie before the end of July.
Anyway, I feel that I need to apologize to loyal readers of the blog who want to know, "Whatever happened with that whole brain-stealing scandal?" Here's an update from yesterday's Press-Herald:
More brain suits filed
By KEVIN WACK, Portland Press Herald Writer
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
The legal battle over brain harvesting in Maine continued to expand Tuesday when four more families filed lawsuits alleging their dead relatives' brains were taken without proper authorization.
The cases, all brought by Berman & Simmons of Lewiston, raise the number of brain-harvesting lawsuits in Maine to eight. The Lewiston law firm is expected to file a ninth case today in Kennebec County Superior Court.
If you want to read the entire saga from the beginning, click here.
What's particularly interesting to me about these latest developments is that they involve a research lab in Bethesda run by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey. Dr. Torrey was a consulting psychiatrist for Zacchaeus Free Medical Clinic when I volunteered there in the early 1990s; I never met him, but he's helped a lot of people. His book Surviving Schizophrenia is essential reading for everyone who loves or works with someone who has the disorder.
I sympathize with the plaintiffs in this lawsuit, but part of me feels impatient about it: isn't curing live people more important than keeping dead bodies intact? Dr. Torrey is welcome to my brain, if he wants it.
3 comments:
I would argue that this movie has one great great line, which goes as follows:
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.
Great movie. Although, I must confess, that I find most of Cameron Crowe's movies like many of my favorite Neil Young albums: spectacular singles, great overall tone, but not fully realized from beginning to end. As a moviemaker he has not yet created his "Car Wheels on A Gravel Road" film yet....and I know his hero is Billy Wilder, who was remarkable for making so many complete masterpieces.
And when do we get some prime Billy Wilder movie quotes?
He says "How hard it it to get in a good mood?" and his sister answers "I don't know how hard?"
He asks about the red nail polish line on the volume knob of his amp and she says something about that - the line is where if you stay below it - the police don't come . . . Say Anything is one of the best movies ever - but the "I don't wanna sell anything" speech is the best . . . I do love "Joe Lies" which is how I found this page . . . ;o)
"Joe Lies" is also a term you can use to refer to pedantic, silly, wallowing-in-self-pity-and-bitterness music, especially anything of fairly poor quality sung by a female with an acoustic guitar.
"Oh, man this chick was in the coffee shop today singing these awful songs..."
"Was it Joe Lies?"
"Yeah, it had some Joe Lies to it, definitely."
Currently, songs that inspire memories of Joe Lies in me every time they come on are "Who Do You Think You Are" and "Someone Like You".
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