Anyone get turned off from a film based on just a line of dialogue heard in it?

Last year, it was "The ventriloquist who was murdered!" in DEAD SILENCE.

This year, so far, its either "The women need to be protected" from that idiotic-looking ONE MISSED CALL remake or "The President's book of secrets" from the NATIONAL TREASURE sequel (well, the presence of Nicholas Cage was another reason I decided to pass on that film).

"Everybody needs money! That's why they call it money!" - HEIST

Not horror, and I'm doing this from memory, but:

MURDER AT 1600; spoken by Wesley Snipes: "1600 Pennsylvania Ave? That's an address that changes all the rules."

Speaking of Wesley Snipes:

"Always bet on black."

Yeah, do that and you'll wind up broke!

Also, from memory: "I am here to give you back your righteous minds!" THE GREAT DEBATERS. If I had ever thought of going to this, that would've killed it for me.

Oh, what - you're too good for your righteous mind or something?

Screaming into phone: "Gimme back my son!!!!"

Some Mel Gibson movie. Not a particularly funny line, but I found it to be funny from the tv commercials - much to the chagrin of my co-workers who had to hear me blurt it out for months afterwards.

EDIT: It was from "RANSOM". I just looked it up on youtube 'cause I just had to see it again. Someone has made a 30-second tribute!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dW_zbu5TJjk

"If I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a flamethrower to this place!"

From the SCENT OF A WOMAN trailer; stuck in my head for years after hearing it loop at the video store.

"So, you've created a monster and now you want us to kill it."
-Michael Madsen in Species

I don't get it... what's the premise of the move, Mike?

Trailer editors must be drawn to these ultimate expositional lines like magnets. They are horrible clumsy things with two left feet, especially out of context, but many movies have them (even some very good ones). And you can bet they'll show up in the trailer so Ma and Pa Kettle won't be confused.

"You're the man now, dog!!"--Sean Connery talking street in FINDING FORRESTER. Hilarious.

WilWil, an aside: I was working at the Waldorf when they took over the lobby several days to shoot scenes for SCENT OF A WOMAN. It was fascinating in that "hurry up and wait" way. Months later, though, a very flamboyant gay room clerk friend of mine persisted in checking people in with the info: "...and behind you is the famous lobby where they shot the movie SMELL OF A WOMAN..."

"What's the problem?"
Kevin Bacon in the Stir of Echoes trailer, a still-quoted favorite amongst my friends. It's all in the line-reading: screeched in a manic, possessed voice. I don't even think it appears in the actual film.

"Treat me like the pig that I am."
Andrew Dice Clay, The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine. I'm not sure why this one still bugs me after 18 years but it does.

that recent one from THE MIST - "You were trying to open a window to another dimension but maybe it was a doorway!" still makes me cringe when I think of it.

Some movie coming up about an evil serial killer who uses the internet to...zzzz...torture...murder....we're all....zzzzzz....implicated.....huh, uh, what? Anyway, whatever that movie is it has the double-punch trailer combo that just made me laugh out loud in the theater: they seem to be showing you a tightly edited version of the ENTIRE movie AND a really bad line, something like "he's hacked into my car's on-board computer!" as the female lead detective's car begins to careen out of control. I guess remote controlling a car is the new movie go-to for evil hacker hijinks, replacing that steadfast standby of the Y2K era, "controlling the traffic lights".

This is somewhat off-topic, but sometimes a catch-phrase from the poster art or marketing campaign will keep me away. Here's one example:

"Evil wants to party!" (used to "promote" the HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL remake, I think). That was enough to prevent my patronage.

Here are a couple of lines of dialog from trailer previews that made me cringe:

"Touchdown!!!" (THE ABYSS, a film that I otherwise like)

"Let's rock and roll!!!" (LOST IN SPACE film)

'Yeeeesssssss!!" (THE PLAYER, another film that I otherwise like)

Wow, Marty, that's amazing! Of all the dumb lines in bad trailers for awful Hollywood product in the last 15 years or so, THAT is the one that has stuck most securely in my mind. I saw that trailer with a similarly-minded pal of mine, and we both howled with laughter at that line. I've never been able to describe WHY it's so damned funny, but I can't even THINK that line without laughing. I'm laughing now!

(Swelling orchestra in the background) "I'm a POSTMAN!"

Guess the movie. :P

In the same trailer, Costner has a line that I wish I could remember the wording of, something to the effect of how great it was to get a piece of mail, like, "When you got a letter it made you feel important..." Either way, it made me laugh out loud when I saw that trailer.

Glad to see that I was not the only one who laughed at the awfulness provided by the MURDER AT 1600 trailer. That aforementioned "changes all the rules" line was made even worse by Snipes ham-fisted into-the-camera delivery which initially gave me the impression that this was going to be NATIONAL LAMPOON'S MURDER AT 1600.

Another priceless bit from that same trailer...Diane Lane's breathless exaltation.."The President and the First Lady were in the White House!!!!!!"

Calm down Ms. Lane...that's really not that unusual I would think...


Oh, speaking of Mr. Snipes...my favorite bad line of dialogue (yes even worse than the MURDER AT 1600 bit) also comes in a Snipes trailer, though he doesn't deliver it. The 1994 drama, SUGAR HILL, has a brief line delivered by actor Michael Wright, playing Snipes' younger brother.

To this day I have no idea what he actually said, as he delivers it in such a crazed guttural fashion, that it caused myself, my best friend, and two other audience members to laugh out loud.

My friend's best attempt at translating this fevered exclamation, was...

"Jim Nabors did me bad with a flavored lightsaber"

Now I don't actually think that is what Mr. Wright was trying to say, but honestly that's about as close as I have ever been able to come to deciphering it.

Check the trailer out here for yourselves and tell me what you think. The line in question comes near the final third of the trailer on a rooftop scene with Snipes and his gang right after he says something to the effect of "I don't want to bury none of you"

SUGAR HILL Trailer at IMDb

Any clues out there?

Oh, this is good.

Here's my translation:

"This is the flavor that they savor up here, neighbor."

And are you sure that's not Marlon Wayans?

Okay, I found the trailer on YouTube. Here's the Costner laugh line I was looking for:

"Getting a letter made you feel like you were part of something bigger than yourself. I don't think we ever really understood what they meant to us until they were gone."

(Ummm, did Costner never get junk mail? Or bills? Did he forget about e-mail?)

There's an equally funny line earlier in the trailer when a sweet young thing declaims to Costner, "You have a gift, Postman. You give out hope like it's candy in your pocket." :lol:

*There* it is - that's the other line that was ricocheting around the back of my skull when THE POSTMAN came up!

"We will gouge evil from its shell!" from the fertile mind of Uwe Boll. Gouge evil from its shell? That's not a very good epic movie rallying line.

When I saw SIGNS in the theater, some guy would scream "GIVE ME BACK MY SON!!!!" every time Mel Gibson started to open his mouth. Although I'm no proponent of obnoxiousness in theaters, looking back, it makes me laugh pretty heartily.

Yeah but ya need to hear the line *in its entirety* for it to work:

"We will gouge evil from its shell! And then dip it in delicious clarified butter!!"

See? Pretty good, huh?

Conversely...

Although I have no need to ever see any of those EPIC MOVIE type things (much like I don't need to actually be stabbed in the face to know I won't enjoy being stabbed in the face, I don't need to see these movies to know I won't like them), the REMEMBER THE SPARTANS trailer dialog "SPARTANS! We gonna stomp the yard!" makes me laugh. I am ashamed of it, but there you go.

"So you see, Ellie... what you call 'death' may only be the temporary absence of life!" -- Gloria Grahame in BLOOD AND LACE (1971)

Yeah, that's the line.

"She was a real tease" voice-over from the brilliant TEENAGE MOTHER trailer, seeing as how she was not a tease at all, as she was clearly putting out (hence, being a 'teenage mother' and all)! :)

Vincent

I recall a friend and I laughing at the voice-over trailer for Charles Bronson's MR. MAJESTYK:

"They hassled his friends--"
"They destroyed his crops!"

That stern voiced narrator, coupled with images of watermelons being sledgehammered, sent us into gales of laughter.

The same friend and I attended THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN, a disappointing drive-in flick. An early line of dialog--"This town's about ready to explode!", also caused us to have difficulty in taking the rest of the film seriously.

Sometimes, when I was really bored, I would write intentionally bad catch-phrases for films. Two examples:

OUTBACK (1971) "A man went looking for Australia--and couldn't find it anywhere."

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) "You'll believe a horse can fly!"

Obviously, with the latter, I was spoofing a similar tag line for the first SUPERMAN film with Christopher Reeve. I do think that my catch-phrase for TITANS was better than the incredibly lame tag line I saw one of the TITANS posters: "Experience the fantasy."

This line from MURDER BY NUMBERS always got my back up:

"The profile doesn't fit the profile."

Maybe it was the delivery, by "tough" cop Sandra Bullock, wearing the obligatory leather blazer (have you ever dealt with a cop wearing a designer leather blazer?). But I also think the line is a stinker.

I don't remember the line or lines now but there were some really dumb ones in the trailer for that Mark Wahlberg film FOUR BROTHERS (some from the narrator, some from the actors).

"The truth is... we're not the one been teachin' Radio. Radio been teachin' us."

Followed by a triumphant slow-motion shot of Radio, arms extended cruciform, riding in the basket of a shopping cart. In fall of 2003, RADIO truly taught us all.

RADIO is an all time classic bad trailer.

The trailer for THE RELIC contains a shot of James Whitmore's wheelchair-bound scientist saying, "...The gradual extinction of the human race." Implying, of course, that the monster in the film could cause the gradual extinction of the human race. In the actual film, Tom Seizmore's cop shows up at the museum and Whitmore, whose character has a playfully antagonistic relationship with him asks, "So, Lieutenant, how goes the gradual extinction of the human race?" So it may be a monster, but the gradual extinction of the human race never comes into play in the film. Thanks, guys.

I hated the trailer for Four Brothers... hated it the first time for its badness, and then it got progressively more hateful due to the fact that for a long period of time, it was shown before every movie I went to see.

just remembered another one. The Clint Eastwood one in the White House (I think) where the narration had an echo or something like that.

A Walk in the Clouds, Keanu, to Italian love interest:

"You don't know how SSPECIAL (at about six times the volume of the rest) you are!!!"

"In America it's bling bling, but out here it's bling bang." - BLOOD DIAMOND

"Get off my plane!" AIR FORCE ONE

And I'm sick of the default "crowd gasp" that seems to be used more than ever now in trailers when something huge and unbelievable happens. And it's usually at a quick break in the music to really give it that bang.

I remember something like "It wasn't a gang shooting, it was an execution" being pretty bad. And wasn't that the trailer where they were going to burn the guy in the car and called him the Gingerbread Man or something?

The Susan Sarandon Goldie Hawn one where they're drunk and Sarandon say "We're burning down the house!" (the trailer was also scored with the Talking Heads song) and all of the dialogue in that new Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey piece of crap.

Any trailer where a character roars (while running or whirling about in slow motion): "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, you know what's always funny? In the trailers for wacky comedies where something really wacky is happening and then the sound of a needle skipping across a record pops onto the soundtrack and everything stops. Oh, boy, I'm slapping my knee just thinking of it. I know a movie is going to be hilarious when that happens in the trailer.