Speech, Speech!: Great Movie Speeches

While fishing on the internet for other great movie speeches, I found  that AmericanRhetoric.com -- on its blogroll below "Plato on Rhetoric" and "Christian Rhetoric" and "Obama Speeches" -- has a link to Great Movie Speeches, with audio from the usual suspects (passages from Gandhi,  Malcolm X and  Gladiator as well as dozens of unusual ones. Check it out. Your nomination for best movie speech?

Though both Mo'Nique and Jeff Bridges delivered deeply emotional speeches at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday night in accepting (respectively) supporting actress honors (for  Precious) and the prize for best actor in a drama (Crazy Heart), the evening was otherwise thin on what my speech teacher called passionate rhetoric.

My thoughts naturally turned to Great Movie Speeches -- and not only Gandhi's, and Malcolm X's and Jefferson Smith's, but also:

Kevin Costner  in Bull Durham: "I believe in the soul... the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: "On our very first day at Harvard a very wise professor quoted Aristotle... "the law is reason free from passion." Well...no offense to Aristotle, but in my three years at Harvard I have come to find that passion is a key ingredient to the study and practice of law...and of life. It is with passion, courage of conviction, and strong sense of self that we take our next steps into the world. Remembering that first impressions are not always correct, you must always have faith in people, and most importantly...you must always have faith in yourself."

Queen Latifah in Hairspray (after learning that her son is dating a white girl): "Well, love is a gift, a lot of people don't remember that. So, you two better brace yourselves for a whole lotta ugly comin' at you from a neverending parade of stupid."

Your favorite movie speech?