Things I Love #50

A Few Good Men.

The movie. Not, you know, a small gathering of satisfactory male persons.

A Few Good Men was on TV the other night, and I, of course, stopped to watch one scene and then, of course, ended up staying for the entire movie. AFGM is, without a doubt, one of my top Glue Movies of all time. It doesn’t matter what time of the day or night it is or what I’m supposed to be doing, if AFGM is on TV I will stop and watch.

There’s just so much goodness! So much more to this movie than a catchphrase – Mr. Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!”- or a punchline -Mr. Cruise’s couch ju- …well, pretty much everything about Mr. Cruise.

There’s the fun of seeing so many movie stars so young and baby faced (hi Kevin Bacon! hi Keifer Sutherland!), there’s the gorgeous scenery (makes me wish it were autumn already,) and there’s the writing. Oh, the writing.

If this post wasn’t already a love letter to the movie, it would be a love letter to Aaron Sorkin. Anything I say will sound incoherent after invoking the quick-witted wordplay of Mr. Sorkin, so let’s just say that he’s my favourite film and television writer EVER IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE WIDE WORLD and leave it at that.

This is a quick scene at the beginning of the movie, basically to establish that Kaffee (Cruise) is a lawyer. Or, more accurately at this point, a pretty funny guy who plays a lot of baseball and sometimes does some work that somewhat resembles the practice of law. Makes me laugh out loud every time. And, oh yeah, the whole exchange takes place in less than 30 seconds. Aaron, if you’re reading this…marry me?!?

Kaffee: Alright, let’s go. Let’s get two.

Sherby: Sorry.

Kaffee: Nothin’ to be sorry about, Sherby, you just look the ball into your glove. Shooting two.

Sherby: Sorry.

Kaffee: You gotta trust me Sherby. If you keep your eyes open, your chances of catching the ball increase by a factor of ten.

Dave: Kaffee.

Kaffee: Let’s try it again.

Dave: Kaffee!

Kaffee: Dave, you seem distraught.

Dave: We were supposed to meet in your office fifteen minutes ago to talk about the McDermont case. You’re stalling on this thing. Now we either get it done, and I mean now, or no kidding Kaffee, I’ll hang your boy from a fucking yardarm!

Kaffee: Yardarm? Sherby, does the Navy still hang people from yardarms?

Sherby: I don’t think so.

Kaffee: Dave, Sherby doesn’t think the Navy hangs people from yardarms anymore.

Dave: I’m going to charge him with possession and being under the influence while on duty. You plead guilty, I’ll recommend thirty days in the brig with loss of rank and pay.

Kaffee: It was oregano, Dave. It was ten dollars worth of oregano.

Dave: Yeah well your client thought it was marijuana.

Kaffee: My client’s a moron, that’s not against the law.