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V. Gangadhar

From brilliant and snappy to plain corny, film buffs recollect memorable movie lines.

A still from `Notting Hill'

The best way to keep smiling in the New Year is to go through the results of some polls held in the US, the UK and other western nations.

The American Film Institute has collected around 400 entries of classic one-liners from famous Hollywood films. The best of these are chosen by leading directors, script writers, critics and actors. Many more are expected and the top 100 classic one-liners will be announced in June.

Humphrey Bogart leads with 10 entries, followed by Al Pacino and the Marx Brothers with six each. Bogey's classic, "Here's looking at you, kid" from Casablanca is already in the list and expected to head it when the final results are declared. "I'll be back" — the famous Arnold Schwazenegger line from Terminator as well as Jack Nicholson's pithy, "You can't handle the truth" (A Few Good Men) were also expected to make the final list.

Who can forget Clark Gable's parting shot in Gone With the Wind, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", or sexy Mae West's irresistible "Why don't you come up and see me"? Tom Hanks's "We have a problem" from Apollo 13 could be the understatement of all time while good people all over the world could take courage from the line, "May the Force be with you" from the Star Wars gang.

Other contenders are "I'll make them an offer which they can't refuse" (Marlon Brando in Godfather) and Sean Connery's famous introduction in the Bond films, "Bond, James Bond".

From memorable lines to silly scenes and sillier quotes... This search was undertaken by the British bakers Warburtons, while introducing their new cheese-flavoured crumpets. According to the company, three of the cheesiest moments in films were Leonardo Di Caprio's "I am the king of the world" from the blockbuster movie, Titanic; Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts baby in the corner" from the 1989 film, Dirty Dancing; and Andy McDowell's line from the 1990 film, Five Weddings and a Funeral, "Is it still raining, I haven't noticed."

Other famous lines included were Notting Hill... when Julia Roberts says: "I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy... asking him to love her," and "Today we celebrate our Independence Day" from Independence Day.

The bakers made the momentous discovery that while women voted for inane lines from romantic comedies like Notting Hill and Jerry McGuire, men opted for those from action films like Top Gun and Brave Heart.

Though India makes the largest number of films in the world, it is a pity we do not have such polls. Anyway, here is a list of most clichéd lines from commercial Hindi films. We can't nail them to individual films because they occur in almost all Hindi films: "Yeh shadi nahin ho sakti "; "Maa, main pass ho gaya, first class first"; "Mein Maa bannewali hoon"; "Khandan ki izzat ko mitti mein mila diya"; "Mere pass Maa hain"; "Kutte, kamine, meri izzat lootna chahte ho!"; "Bees saal pehle..."; "Tukda, tukda kar doonga, tera khoon pee jaoonga"; "Kaan kholke sun lo!"; " Maa ka doodh piya ho tau baahar aao"; "Laeee... .dies and gentleman, ab Miss Geeta (or Mita, Nita or Rita) aap ke saamne ek gaana pesh karegi".

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