While TSN is full of great memorable dialog [I especially loved Rashida Jones' parting shot/insight], I'm not sure they're going to be pop culture references. I imagine the dialog referred to in the article would be a catch phrase you can say in a variety of scenarios. While, "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook" is wonderful, I'm never going to repeat it in the same way I would, "Go ahead, make my day."

Also, isn't "Release the Kraken"s popularity from Pirates of the Caribbean, not Clash of the Titans?

I think one liners can slide away, at least from me, when writing. And I guess, when I think about it, I don't hear many one liners thrown around from recent movies. I do hear a lot from online content, youtube videos [Charlie the Unicorn], comedians, etc. My freshman year in college I could sit through an entire lunch while my guy friends swapped Red v. Blue quotes around the table--for the entire half hour.

I think it's because most memorable lines (and arguably some of the best writing) can be found on television these days.

The article is nonsense. What about "Anchorman" which has to be about the most quoted movie of the last six years?

I agree that none of the lines in TSN, while good, were the kind of lines you want to say over and over again - though "You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying hard to be one" comes close. What's missing in all of these is that crucial "pith factor". "Release the Kracken!" has it, but that was a key line in the first Clash, which came out over twenty years ago, so I think there's some nostalgia at work.

However, blaming the writers is like saying, "Man - there's no major flu epidemic this year. I guess viruses just aren't working hard enough" when really, virus are working harder than ever but everyone's gotten a vaccine.

If you look at the box office numbers when adjusted for inflation, only two movies from the last five years crack the top 30 - Avatar at 14 and the Dark Knight at 28. While "I see you" or "Why so serious?" didn't sweep through the culture like a wild fire, they were certainly more recognizable than a lot of lines from recent movies. So, even if they weren't on everyone's lips, if you said one, people would at least know where it came from. Not so for a lot of other movies from a lot of other films.

The bottom line is, we've become much, much more fragmented as an audience. In The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine writes, "In short, though we still obsess over hits, they are not the economic force they once were. Where are those fickle consumers going instead? No single place. They are scattered to the winds as markets fragment into a thousand niches." One of the benefits of those thousand niches is we each get immense, unprecedented choice. But one of the downsides is that our common pop culture is eroding. (Anderson prefers the term fragmenting, but that's just a nicer way to talk about erosion.) When there's an almost unlimited amount of things to watch on the web, cable, On Demand, on DVD, on your iPod or phone or even at the good old theater, it's going to be hard for one line to sweep through the culture like a wild fire. The fragmenting of the audience just creates too many natural fire breaks. I wouldn't say, "Your not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying hard to be one," to anyone because, chances are, they'd just look at me and go, "Who's Mark and what are you talking about?" Yet even if you haven't seen Gone with the Wind - the top grossing film of all time - you can recognize, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." That's because the line itself has already become a cultural meme. It's secured it's place in pop culture history, but, from now on out, it's going to be a lot harder for films to do that.

Sorry for all those trash cans! I got an error message the first time I posted, so I broke up the post into smaller chunks, only to find the original had actually posted fine the first time.

Anyways, here's a good list of the top grossing films adjusted for ticket price inflation:

http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

My take is that anymore, as a society, we've been inundated with "memorable lines" from all facets of media. Video games, youtube videos, memes, other movies.

I know personally when I hear something "memorable" I think to myself "What the hell is that from?" before thinking "Man, that's one memorable line!" That may be because I'm young, but when I hear something memorable, it's not necessarily something to be quoted, it's something to which I say "That's one good goddamn line."

Being quoted doesn't always place the movie/writing on a pedestal. Most of the quotes I use in daily life are from "bad" movies, B-movies, or otherwise unsavory fare. Why? Because those lines are cheesy and often incur irony. Basically, they're funny.

TSN had plenty of one-liners, yes, but what was better was the dialogue. That scene in California when Mark says "Everything I've built" and Eduardo interjects with "We" every time Mark says "I." That's incredible drama at a very basic level, perfectly encapsulating both characters' views. That interaction becomes the turning point into the Third Act, using only a few lines. It's brilliant.

I say to hell with one-liners. You can spend weeks on them, and still come out sounding cliched. I prefer dialogue that only makes sense to that character. Anyone else isn't cool enough, smart enough, feminine enough, masculine enough, stupid enough, God-like enough to pull off the line. So you say, "Wow, what a good line," and you remember it without ever having to repeat it again.

Anchorman was mentioned. Quite a few in Napoleon Dynamite as well.

I'm not sure you can claim there is a difference between "good" one liners and memorable ones.

In all honesty, I think what makes us remember one-liners is that they are often bad, or trite, or cliche.

Above all, they tend to be atypical.

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning..."

Is an incredibly over the top line. And extremely memorable.

I think it's that union of over-the-top fantasy and wish fulfillment that makes a memorable line.

"I'm ready for my close-up Mr. De'Mille."

Today's film, in contrast, favors "realistic" dialogue. I think it's mostly because things that read over the top tend to settle down onscreen. However, execs, readers, agents, managers, don't really understand that. And good over the top dialogue gets chopped into bland and boring dialogue.

The only place we don't see this in recent film are comedies -- which prize over the top dialogue. Which is probably why the most memorable lines from movies of late, are from comedies.

That's my take on it.

Interesting comments, all.

@Annika: I've tracked The Long Tail concept since its initial appearance as an article in Wired. And I think you have a point. We are becoming more and more 'fragmented' as consumers, therefore it's harder, I guess, to come up with lines that speak to a macro audience. Conversely one might expect dialogue that resonates strongly with specific sub-cultures. Is that happening?

@James: The emergence of reality TV over the last 10+ years might buttress your point about dialogue being more "realistic" nowadays. But then I wonder if that would necessarily undercut the use of 'memorable' lines. For example, Richard Nixon famously said, "I am not a crook," one of the most memorable lines of my generation, and that is realistic, if in the end a lie.

In sum, movies are a reflection of a combination of cultural shifts, creative instincts, and a thousand other influences. Undoubtedly filmmakers will approach how they make movies - and craft dialogue - differently as a result. However I don't believe for a second that screenwriters are somehow today undervaluing the importance of memorable lines. Now more than ever, a movie needs everything it can use to cut through all the 'noise' in the consumer marketplace to get people's attention. Great lines of dialogue can help do that.