90’s Movie Monologues
I’m a 90’s kid. Full disclosure, I was born in 1982 so I’m a little bit of an 80’s kid too. But there is something very special about the 90’s, and I appreciate that this could just be nostalgia talking, but I doubt it.
The thing I loved the most about the 90’s were the movies. There is a ‘new age noir’ quality to so many films that went on to become classics. From the genre defining movie that was Pulp Fiction to the old Hollywood thrill of Seven. And of course there was Fight Club, The Matrix, In The Name If The Father, The Mask and also some total stinkers like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Wild Wild West… What were they thinking!? Jean-Claude Van Dam as Guile? Seriously? But I digress.
In honor of my own trip down memory lane I recently took, I have complied a few monologues from movies you know and love (and if you don’t? Bloody educate yourself!).
FYI, Some of these are riddled with foul language. You’ve been warned.
1-6 are for the boys. 6-12 are for the girls. But they are all for whoever really…
Enjoy!
1. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Mr Brown:
Uh uh, I don’t tip…No, I don’t believe in it…Don’t give me that, if she don’t make enough money, she can quit….I don’t tip because society says I have to. All right, I mean I’ll tip if somebody really deserves a tip, if they really put forth the effort, I’ll give them something extra, but I mean this tipping automatically, uh, it’s for the birds. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, they’re just doing their job…She was okay. She wasn’t anything special…Look, I ordered coffee, right? Now we’ve been here a long fuckin’ time and she’s only filled my cup three times. I mean, when I order coffee, I want it filled six times…The words ‘too fucking busy’ shouldn’t be in a waitress’ vocabulary…
Jesus Christ, I mean, these ladies aren’t starvin’ to death. They make minimum wage. You know, I used to work minimum wage and when I did, I wasn’t lucky enough to have a job that society deemed tip-worthy… You know what this is? It’s the world’s smallest violin playing just for the waitresses…So’s workin’ at McDonald’s, but you don’t feel the need to tip them, do ya? Well, why not? They’re serving you food. But no, society says – don’t tip these guys over here, but tip these guys over here. That’s bullshit…
Fuck all that…I mean, I’m very sorry the government taxes their tips. That’s fucked up. That ain’t my fault. I mean, it would appear that waitresses are one of the many groups the government fucks in the ass on a regular basis. I mean, if you show me a piece of paper that says the government shouldn’t do that, I’ll sign it. Put it to a vote, I’ll vote for it, but what I won’t do is play ball. And this non-college bullshit you’re givin’ me, I got two words for that: learn to fuckin’ type, ’cause if you’re expectin’ me to help out with the rent, you’re in for a big fuckin’ surprise.
2. 4 Rooms (1995)
Ted:
My name is not Theodore, it’s TED, TED, TED, T2E2D 2..TED2NOT TEDDY, NOT THEODORE . . . TED . . . . Yes, my mother did me the service of naming me Theodore and I haven’t a clue as to how you know that because everyone who knows that lives a long way away from here. Do you have any idea what it’s like to go to school where all the other kids’ parents are in jail doing time for crimes like grand larceny, aggravated assault, burglary and murder, and you get stuck with a mother who names you Theodore and dressed you up in little matching pink outfits with, get this, a little blue bow fucking tie! Well, I’ll tell you what happens. Pretty soon Theodore becomes “Theo the Thumper,” and when Theo the Thumper gets old enough, he packs his bags and goes thousands of miles away where he can put the whole bloody mess behind him. So, if you don’t mind, shoot me now, because no one is going to call me that again. My name is Ted, okay? Got it? TED!
3. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Captain Koons:
Hello, little man. Boy, I sure heard a bunch about you. See, I was a good friend of your dad’s. We were in that Hanoi pit of hell together over five years. Hopefully…you’ll never have to experience this yourself, but when two men are in a situation like me and your Dad were, for as long as we were, you take on certain responsibilities of the other. If it had been me who had not made it, Major Coolidge would be talkin’ right now to my son Jim. But the way it turned out is I’m talkin’ to you, Butch. I got somethin’ for you.
(The Captain sits down and pulls a gold wrist watch from his pocket)
This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the first World War. It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee. Made by the first company to ever make wrist watches. Up till then people just carried pocket watches. It was bought by private Doughboy Erine Coolidge on the day he set sail for Paris. It was your great-grandfather’s war watch and he wore it everyday he was in that war. When he had done his duty, he went home to your great-grandmother, took the watch off, put it an old coffee can, and in that can it stayed ’til your granddad Dane Coolidge was called upon by his country to go overseas and fight the Germans once again. This time they called it World War II. Your great-grandfather gave this watch to your granddad for good luck. Unfortunately, Dane’s luck wasn’t as good as his old man’s. Dane was a Marine and he was killed — along with the other Marines at the battle of Wake Island. Your granddad was facing death, he knew it. None of those boys had any illusions about ever leavin’ that island alive. So three days before the Japanese took the island, your granddad asked a gunner on an Air Force transport name of Winocki, a man he had never met before in his life, to deliver to his infant son, who he’d never seen in the flesh, his gold watch. Three days later, your granddad was dead. But Winocki kept his word. After the war was over, he paid a visit to your grandmother, delivering to your infant father, his Dad’s gold watch. This watch. (holds it up, long pause) This watch was on your Daddy’s wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew if the gooks ever saw the watch it’d be confiscated, taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, that watch was your birthright. He’d be damned if any slopes were gonna put their greasy yella hands on his boy’s birthright. So he hid it in the one place he knew he could hide something. His ass. Five long years, he wore this watch up his ass. Then he died of dysentery, he gave me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. And now, little man, I give the watch to you.
4. Clerks (1994)
Randal:
Oh, f–k you! F–k you, pal! Jesus, there you go. Trying to pass the buck. I`m the source of all your misery. Who closed the store to play hockey? Who closed the store to go to a wake? Who tried to win back his ex-girlfriend without even discussing how he felt with his present one? You want to blame somebody? Blame yourself! (mimicking) ‘I’m not even supposed to be here today.’ You sound like an asshole! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You’re here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulder, like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn’t here. Jesus, you over-compensate for havin’ what’s basically a monkey’s job. You push f–kin’ buttons! Anybody could waltz in here and do our jobs. You, you’re so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store, Dante, and badly I might add. I work in a s–tty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy Jay’s got it right, man, he has no delusions about what he does. Us – we like to make ourselves seem so much more important than the people that come in here to buy a paper or God forbid, cigarettes. We look down on them as if we’re so advanced. Well, if we’re so f–kin’ advanced, what are we doin’ working here?
5. Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994)
Matthew:
Gareth used to prefer funerals to weddings. He said it was easier to get enthusiastic about a ceremony one had an outside chance of eventually being involved in. In order to prepare this speech, I rang a few people, to get a general picture of how Gareth was regarded by those who met him. Fat seems to be a word that people most connected with him. Terribly rude also rang a lot of bells. So very fat and very rude seems to have been a stranger’s viewpoint. On the other hand, some of you have been kind enough to ring me and let me know that you loved him, which I know he’d have been thrilled to hear. You remember his fabulous hospitality, his strange experimental cooking. The recipe for ‘Duck a la Banana’ fortunately goes with him to his grave. Most of all, you tell me of his enormous capacity for joy. When joyful, when joyful for highly vocal drunkenness. But I hope joyful is how you will remember him. Not stuck in a box in a church. Pick your favorite of his waistcoats and remember him that way. The most splendid, replete, big-hearted, weak-hearted as it turned out, and jolly bugger most of us ever met. As for me, you may ask how I will remember him, what I thought of him. Unfortunately there, I don’t have words. Perhaps you will forgive me if I turn from my own feelings to the words of another splendid bugger: W.H. Auden. This is actually what I wanted to say:
‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let the aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead, Scribbling on the sky the message: He is Dead. Put crepe bows ’round the white necks of the public doves, Let traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West. My working week and my Sunday rest. My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song, I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now, put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun. Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood, For nothing now can ever come to any good.’
6. Joe vs the volcano (1990)
Joe Banks:
Mr. Waturi, Frank. I quit….I’ve been working here four and a half years. The work I did I probably could have done in six months. That leaves four years left over. Four years. If I had them now – like gold in my hand. (he presents his lamp to DeDe) Here, this is for you. Goodbye, DeDe.
He then turns around to confront Mr. Waturi:
This life. Life, what a joke! This situation, this room…You look terrible, Mr. Waturi. You look like a bag of shit stuffed in a cheap suit. Not that anybody could look good under these zombie lights. I, I, I can feel them sucking the juice out of my eyeballs. Suck suck suck suck suck. $300 bucks a week. That’s the news. For $300 bucks a week, I’ve lived in this sink, this used rubber (Frank: “Watch it, mister. There’s a woman here”) Don’t you think I know that, Frank? Don’t you think I’m aware that there is a woman here? I can smell her, like, like a flower. I can taste her like sugar on my tongue. When I’m 20 feet away, I can hear the fabric of her dress when she moves in her chair! Not that I’ve done anything about it.
I’ve gone all day, every day, not doing, not saying, not taking the chance, for $300 dollars a week. And Frank, the coffee, it stinks. It tastes like arsenic. These lights give me a headache. If they don’t give you a headache, you must be dead, so let’s arrange the funeral….You’re not tellin’ me nothin’….Why, I ask myself, why have I put up with you, I can’t imagine. But I know. It’s fear. Yellow freakin’ fear. I’ve been too chicken-shit afraid to live my life, so I sold it to you for $300 freakin’ dollars a week! (He grabs Waturi by the collar) You are lucky I don’t kill you! You’re lucky I don’t rip your freakin’ throat out! But I’m not going to! And maybe you’re not so lucky at that. ‘Cause I’m gonna leave you here, Mr. Wahoo Waturi. And what could be worse than that? (Joe leaves but then the door re-opens and he comes back in) DeDe?… How about dinner tonight?
7. Election (1999)
Tracy Flick:
Poet Henry David Thoreau once wrote, ‘I cannot make my days longer, so I strive to make them better.’ With this election, we here at Carver also have an opportunity to make our high school days better. During this campaign, I have spoken with many of you about your many concerns. I spoke with Eliza Ramirez, a freshman, who said she feels alienated from her own homeroom. I spoke with sophomore Reggie Banks who said his mother works in the cafeteria and can’t afford to buy him enough spiral notebooks for his classes…
I care about Carver and I care about each and every one of you, and together we can all make a difference. When you cast your vote for Tracy Flick next week, you won’t just be voting for me. You’ll be voting for yourself and for every other student here at Carver. Our days might not be any longer, but they can sure be better. Thank you.
8. Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Alice:
Do you remember last summer at Cape Cod?…Do you remember one night in the dining room, there was this young naval officer and he was sitting near our table with two other officers?…The waiter brought him a message, at which point he left. Nothing rings a bell?…
Well, I first saw him that morning in the lobby. He was, he was checking into the hotel and he was following the bellboy with his luggage to the elevator. He-he glanced at me as he walked past. Just a glance. Nothing more. But I could hardly move. That afternoon, Helena went to the movies with her friend, and you and I made love. And we made plans about our future and we talked about Helena. And yet at no time was he ever out of my mind. And I thought if he wanted me, even if it was only for one night, I was ready to give up everything. You. Helena. My whole f–king future. Everything.
And yet it was weird, ’cause at the same time, you were dearer to me than ever. And, and at that moment, my love for you was both tender and sad. I-I barely slept that night, and I woke up the next morning in a panic. I didn’t know whether I was afraid that he had left or that he might still be there. But by dinner, I realized he was gone and I was relieved.
9. Magnolia (1999)
Linda Partridge:
I have to tell you something, I have something to tell you. I want to change his will. Can I change his will? I need to….No, no, no, you see, uhm, I never loved him. I never loved him. Earl. When I met him, when I started, I met him, I f–ked him, and I married him because I wanted his money. Do you understand? I’m telling you this. I’ve never told anyone, I didn’t love him, but now, you know, I know I’m in that will. I mean, we’re all there together. We made that fucking thing and all the money I’ll get. And I don’t want it, because I love him so much now. I’ve fallen in love with him now for real as he’s dying. And, uhm, I look at him, and he’s about to go, Alan. He’s moments. I took care of him through this, Alan. What now, then? I don’t want him to die.
I didn’t love him when we met, and I did so many bad things to him that he doesn’t know. Things that I want to confess to him, but now I do. I love him….This isn’t any f–king medication talking! This isn’t — I don’t know, I don’t know. Can you give me nothing? You, you have power of attorney! Can you go, can you go in the final fucking moments and change the will? I-I don’t want any money. I couldn’t live with myself with this thing that I’ve done. I’ve done so many bad things. I fucked around. I fucking cheated on him. I fucking cheated on him, Alan! There. There. You’re his lawyer, our lawyer. I am his wife. We are married. I broke the contract of marriage. I fucked around on him many times. I sucked other men’s cocks…
10. Beautiful Girls (1996)
Gina Barrisano:
You’re both fuckin’ insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison fucking Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That’s the way it goes. God doesn’t fuck around; he’s a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It’s not my rule. If you don’t like it, call him….(picking up a Penthouse magazine in a grocery store) Oh, guys, look what we have here. Look at this, your favorite, oh you like that?…Yeah, that’s nice, right? Well, it doesn’t exist, OK? Look at the hair, the hair is long, it’s flowing. It’s like a river. Well, it’s a fuckin’ weave, OK? And the tits? Please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits, by design, were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they’re purely functional. These are Silicon City. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being so unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is sham, this is bullshit…
Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved… These are not real women, all right? They’re beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs… our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don’t buy it, all right? But you fuckin’ mooks, if you think that if there’s a chance in hell that you’ll end up with one of these women, you don’t give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It’s pathetic. I don’t know what you think you’re gonna do. You’re gonna end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you’re gonna decide it’s time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you gonna find a cheerleader?
Look at Paul. With his models on the wall, his dog named Elle McPherson. He’s insane. He’s obsessed. You’re all obsessed. If you had an ounce of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you’d be sick of her… No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there’s some other s–t going on in the relationship besides the physical, it’s gonna get old, OK? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy.
11. Dangerous Minds (1995)
Lou Ann Johnson:
Learning is the prize. Yes, knowing how to read something and understand it is the prize. Okay? Knowing how to think is the prize….Okay. Well, yeah, well, you know how to run, too. But not the way you could run if you trained. You know, the mind is like a muscle, okay, and if you want it to be really powerful, you got to work it out. Okay? Each new fact gives you another choice. Each new idea builds another muscle, okay, and it’s those muscles that are gonna make you really strong. Those are your weapons. In this unsafe world, I want to arm you….Yeah. Hey, try it, you’re just sittin’ here anyway. Look. Okay, if at the end of the term, you’re not faster, stronger and smarter, you will have lost nothing. But if you are, you’ll be that much tougher to knock down.
12. Passion Fish (1992)
Nina:
‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’ Four years starving in New York, doing showcases I had to pay for myself. That was my first big break. My first feature, this like zero-budget movie about people who are taken up into alien spaceships and given physicals against their will. I go in for the audition, and the director is really intense and mysterious and he has me sit with my eyes closed and free-associate, right? We do these improvs about the aliens representing our most primal fears. And it’s great. Finally some real acting. And they tell me before I leave that I’ve got the part. Only I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m so thrilled because it’s this feature, you know. It’s not a student film or anything. So the agent gives me my script, and I go through it Iooking for Margaret, the part that they say I have. And I’ve got my yellow underliner marker in my hand, only it’s drying out. And finally I find only one page with the corner folded over. And I’m in this therapy group of these people who have had these alien physicals. And I’ve, I’ve got only one line: ‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’…
But I’m a professional, right? I prepared. I had back story on this woman. I knew that she had been to the hairdresser betore she came to the therapy group. I knew that she didn’t trust that guy who sat next to the fuchsia. I knew that, uhm, she, she turned the TV set on the minute she got back to her apartment, just for the sound of it. And I even had my uhm, my boyfriend, my boyfriend at the time, with a thermometer, you know, uhm, for the sense memory, right? I was loaded for fucking bear.
So finally it comes time to shoot the scene. And they do one take of the wide shot, and they stop before my line. I was, I was terrified that they were gonna cut it. They move in for reaction shots, close-ups. Mostly things that mean that I have to go and sit outside because the camera is set up where my chair is. Well, by the time they get to me, the crew is grumpy because it’s late and they’re non-union and they don’t get paid extra for overtime. The lead actor is gone. He’s got his shrink appointment. And I’m, I’m alone. And I’m staring at this piece of tape stuck to a stand next to the camera. And the director says, ‘Okay, uh, let’s try it a few times without cutting and, uh, show me a few different colors.’ — (with different emphases on various words) ‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’ ‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’ ‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’ ‘I didn’t ask for the anal probe.’ That was it”
