Every line in Cameron Crowe’s script for Jerry Maguire (one of my favorite movies) is at once witty and apt.  IMDB has a good compilation of some great lines. Besides the ones that have made it into every day life, like "Help me help you", "You had me at hello," and "Show me the money!", here are a couple examples:

Rod Tidwell, Jerry’s only remaining client: You are hanging on by a very thin thread and I dig that about you!

Jerry Maguire: I’m finished, I’m fucked. Twenty four hours ago, man, I was hot! Now… I’m a cautionary tale. You see this jacket I’m wearing, you like it? Because I don’t really need it. Because I’m cloaked in failure! I lost the number one draft picked the night before the draft! Why? Let’s recap: Because a hockey player’s kid made me feel like a superficial jerk. I ate two slices of bad pizza, went to bed and grew a conscience!

Avery Bishop, Jerry’s hard-core fiance: If you ever want me to be with another woman for you, I’d do it. It’s not something I’m interested in. Once, yeah, it seemed normal, but it was just a phase, a college thing, like torn Levi’s or law school for you. Would you like something from the kitchen? I’m gonna get some fruit.

Copy store clerk, after reading Jerry’s Mission/Manifesto: That’s how you become great, man. Hang your balls out there!

Ray, Dorothy’s munchkin son: D’you know that the human head weighs 8 pounds?
Jerry Maguire: Did you know that Troy Aikman, in only six years, has passed for 16,303 yards?
Ray: D’you know that bees and dogs can smell fear?
Jerry Maguire: Did you know that the career record for hits is 4,256 by Pete Rose who is NOT in the Hall of Fame?
Ray: D’you know that my next door neighbor has three rabbits?
Jerry Maguire: I… I can’t compete with that!

Avery Bishop: There is a sensitivity thing that some people have. I don’t have it. I don’t cry at movies, I don’t gush over babies, I don’t buy Christmas presents 5 months early, and I DON’T tell the guy who just ruined both our lives, "Oh, poor baby." But I do love you.

Dorothy: I just want to be inspired.

Dorothy: He’s coming over.
Laurel: Tonight?
Dorothy: He just lost his best client. I invited the guy over.
Laurel: Dorothy, this is not a guy. It’s a syndrome. Early mid-life. Hanging on to the bottom wrung. "Dear God, don’t let me be alone or I call my newly long suffering assistant without medical for company settlement."

Marcee Tidwell: [shouting, to Jerry] What do you stand for?
Dorothy: How about a little piece of integrity in this world that is so full of greed and a lack of honorability that I don’t know what to tell my son! Except, "Here. Have a look at a guy who isn’t yelling ‘Show me the money." Did you know he’s broke? He is broke and working for you for free! Broke. Broke, broke, broke. I’m sorry I’m just not as good at the insults as she is.
Marcee Tidwell: No, that was pretty good.

Dicky Fox, Jerry’s mentor earlier generation agent: Hey, I don’t have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success.

Tags: Favorite Quotes, Movies, Funnies by daniel
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Look at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ’superstar,’ every ’supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

- Carl Sagan, commenting on a picture of planet Earth taken 4 billion miles away by NASA, showing a fragile speck of blue adrift in an unimaginably vast sea of space. See a film with Carl Sagan’s commencement address at the Pangea Day website.

Tags: Science and Technology, Favorite Quotes, Art, Movies, Global by daniel
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The film-maker Jehane Noujaim dreamt a day when people across the world would see the same films, images and messages on the same day, at the

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Tags: Art, Innovation, Media and Alternative Media, Movies, Global, Funnies by daniel
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I was struck when I saw the initial cut of this film at how the Director, Adam Hootnick, was able to be objective and empathetic about every subject it covered, avoiding caricatured stereotypes, and helping us understand the perspective and motivations of those involved during the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.  I highly recommend it for any person who wants a better understanding about the Middle East.

UNSETTLED, a documentary feature film following the lives of a varied group of Israeli twenty-somethings during the withdrawal of Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip, will open for a limited engagement at NYC’s Pioneer Theater on Friday, May 9th, and LA’s Laemmle Music Hall 3 on Friday, May 16th. The film has won a number of festival awards including Jury Prizes at Slamdance (2007) and Sonoma Valley (2008). MTV’s Kurt Loder calls it "remarkable for the balance of its compassion, and for the range of youthful intelligence it reveals," and Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, former Pakistani representative to the UK, calls the film "very important for people in the Muslim world." Special dialogue events have been announced in both cities.

In New York, the 8pm May 13th screening will feature a post-film talkback with Director/Producer Adam Hootnick and Najla Said, actress and writer.

In Los Angeles, the May 18th screening will feature a post-film talkback with Professor Reza Aslan, author of No god but God.

To view a trailer and get ticket info, visit http://www.UNSETTLEDmovie.com

Tags: Israel, Palestine, Gaza, Art, Movies, United States by daniel
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Like Hotel Rwanda, Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) peers into the genocide in Rwanda, here from the eyes of an older priest and a young teacher who witness the slaughter by Hutu militia wielding machetes on Tutsi refugees as UN peace-monitors stand by.  Less than 15 years ago this true story took place.  After witnessing the inhuman carnage from close, helpless to save a mother and her baby, Joe Connor, the idealistic English teacher, asks Christopher, the exhausted Catholic priest:

Joe: How much pain can a human being take, do you think?
If you feel enough pain, does everything just shut down…
before you die?

Christopher: I don’t know, Joe.

Joe: ’cause you’d think that, wouldn’t you? You’d think there’d be some, something in the design, some shut-off valve, if you feel enough pain?

Christopher: I hope so.

Joe: Yeah, God knows.  [chuckles] Maybe we should ask him…  If he’s still around.

Christopher: I think it’s time we packed our bags.

The UN then begins a withdrawal, evacuating foreigners, but abandoning the compound, and the refugees.  What could Joe do? What can the priest do?

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Tags: Leadership, Favorite Quotes, Movies, Religion, Global, Life by daniel
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Robert Redford plays a Professor at a Stanford-like California liberal arts university with an urgent message for his students about the imperative of not leaving governance and public service to the despots, the bureaucrats and the political animals.  Even if, no, particularly if, things look bad, service is that much more needed, and giving it your best is what is important.

The title of the movie comes from an analogy from the World War I to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Germans in the first world war used to admire the British soldiers on the front as courageous and determined but they considered their generals mediocre.  One German General said something along the lines of, "Never have I seen so many lions commanded by such lambs." Redford’s character feels the same is true of the idealistic young men who volunteered to serve their country in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Too bad the movie has several moments that feel contrived, either because of an overly didactic script or because of the editing.  But the movie is worth watching because of several compelling observations, even if some are forced in.

The core message of not turning to apathy just because things are bad is very much applicable to the world we live in today.  It is such an easy cop-out to complain and be cynical.  It takes more work to do something about it.

Tags: Democracy and Freedom (or lack of), Leadership, Movies by daniel
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One of my favorite movies ever, which I just saw recently after many years, is The Mission.  Like all great movies, its power to entertain and its message stand the test of time…

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Tags: Music, Latin America, Gaza, Movies, Religion, Middle East by daniel
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I am taking a minute to blog about the loss of Heath Ledger, not because he was a famous actor that so many of us found exceptionally talented, but because the one time I randomly met him at the lobby of a hotel in NYC I was struck by how sweet, warm, playful, funny, and down-to-earth he was.  Our world lost a very gentle soul, and I suspect the news of his loss struck so many of us not just because he was famous, but because you could sense his natural goodness.  May his family be comforted by knowing he was a noble human being.

Tags: Leadership, Art, Movies, Life by daniel
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A revolution inside the human brain is taking place far beyond our capacity to understand.

What we call "A.D.D." or attention-deficit-disorder will become the norm rather than the exception, if it hasn’t already.

Our brains used to de-construct and decompress during leisurely walks between work and home, but if you see people walking nowadays, odds are they are speaking on a cell phone.  No time to waste: we crave more input.

Email processing makes us "efficient" (though it can also invade our management time) but changes the very way we organize ourselves and communicate.  The constant feedback mechanism turns us into creatures desiring a flow of data and messages.

Instant-messaging, social network platforms, the way we seek news over the internet, and email reminders, are all transforming the way we think, process, relate to other human beings, and relate to our brains.

The impact of this constant-feedback/short-span model of communications is already felt in entertainment platforms, where Youtube’s short-clips are becoming more the rage than long-format movies. 

When we design a video presentation for OneVoice or PeaceWorks, of course we forget about the 1 hour or 20 minute pieces, but now even the 5 minute piece which was acceptable a few years ago is a total eternity.  You have 1 minute max to convey your message, no matter how deep or complex.  After that you’ve lost your audience.

I will not be surprised if the next generation of human beings is radically different in the way people relate to one another.  We have no idea what we are going to become.

And I have a fleeting feeling (as feelings and thoughts increasingly are) that it is not going to be pretty.

Tags: Media and Alternative Media, Introspection, Movies, Global, Life, Marketing by daniel
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[Jason Alexander, who everyone knows for his acting but few know is exceptionally knowledgeable about international affairs and an exceptionally kind and loyal friend, wrote me a note that was very strong; I asked and received his permission to post] 

Danny, my friend -

I am so sorry to hear of this postponement and to read your blog and hear the travails that you have all been going through.
i am also encouraged by the 600,000 signatures and the fact that One Voice is now a threat to those who only wish to hold to a false sense of power by manipulating the hate of those who struggle.

several years ago i befriended an amazing man named tom leyden. tom spent 15 years of his life as a working, prosthelytizing neo-nazi white supremacist. once he had his epiphany and realized there was no value to his life, he removed himself from that movement and has dedicated his life to educating those people he previously would have targeted in order to warn them against the hatemongers.

the amazing thing is, tomorrow you get to try again. keep going.

your work will prevail.

jason

Tags: Movies, Middle East, OneVoice Movement by daniel
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