3x3: Best Shutdowns

Movies
1

Shutdown means so many things to almost four people. Like when Luke told Vader to “talk to the hand.”

Kellywand
3. “Check please!” – Being John Malkovich
2. [sound of cigarette butt hitting pavement] – The Third Man

  1. “Fuck you, that’s my name!” – Glengarry Glen Ross

Dingus
3. “This guy’s a gangsta? His real name’s Clarence.” – 8 Mile
2. “What she’s got, you couldn’t spell, and what you’ve got, you used to have.” – The Barefoot Contessa

  1. [sound of Billy Bob Thornton being bitch slapped] – Tombstone

Tom
3. Bowman “shuts down” Hal – 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. [sound of Quint smashing radio with bat] – Jaws

  1. [sound of lightswitch toggled] – Unfaithful

If you can’t improve on those, you can just drop fucking dead –

2

How about Bruce Willis “shutting down” the asteroid in Armageddon? :)

3

Dr. Evil – “I’ve got a whole bag full of ‘shh!’ right here!.”
Johnny Casper – Backhand to the child. “Kids. You gotta be foim.”

4

I’ve always liked Obi-Wan shutting down the tractor beam on the Death Star in Star Wars. There’s just something about that sound that’s stuck with me through the years.

Also, Han shutting down the intercom in the detention area.

And R2 shutting down the trash compactor.

5

The first thing that came to mind was:

Indy: “Who?”
G-man: “Top. Men.”

6

My favorite has always been this:

Jack Torrance: Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you’re breaking my concentration. You’re distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?

Wendy Torrance: Yeah.

Jack Torrance: Now, we’re going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me typing

[types]

Jack Torrance: or whether you DON’T hear me typing, or whatever the FUCK you hear me doing; when I’m in here, it means that I am working, THAT means don’t come in. Now, do you think you can handle that?

Wendy Torrance: Yeah.

Jack Torrance: Good. Now why don’t you start right now and get the fuck out of here? Hm?

7

How about a recent one: the Hulk shuts down Loki like a motherfucker in mid-villian monologue.

8

The Exorcist: Karras trying to run down the list of entities/demons the girl has manifested and Merrin says there is only one.

Airplane: Johnny shuts off the runway lights.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: When Leatherface slams that door shut.

9

Defusing the nuke in The Abyss: “It’s the blue wire with the white stripe, not… I repeat… NOT the black wire with the yellow stripe.”

10

Every Qt3 movie podcast where Kellywand says something suggestive and then Tom transitions into the 3x3:
Kellywand: “You don’t need your hands to masturbate.”
“One, two, three”

11

Ghostbusters.
Lose the grid or lose your job.

12

“Skin that smokewagon.” I like Christien’s pick just because it has stuck with me for what, fifteen years? And it makes no logical sense but kind of feels right, and a novel take on “Draw!” Still, has a gun ever before or sense been called a smokewagon?

Plus, there’s an achievement in Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare called “Smoke that Skinwagon” for, I don’t know, killing a bunch of zombies. Yeah man, I got geek cred.

Also, just because Shieldwolf already picked my favorite movie, I’ll just throw out, “It’s true sir, this man has no dick.”

13

Kinda, it’s pretty common vernacular to refer to a blackpowder rifle as a “smoke pole.”

14
  1. Han Solo to C3PO
  2. Tommy Getting Made
  3. The GWS in DBS
15

  1. Happy Gilmore. Say what you will about the cinematic output of Adam Sandler, but this was a pretty good high point. I loved the running gag of how Happy constantly deflates Shooter McGavin’s bluster. “I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!” “You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?!” “No! … I…”

  2. Jackie Brown. Robert De Niro really did know where he was parked all along. Of course most of this scene is Bridget Fonda shutting down the big scary bank robber, and she does it so effortlessly, it almost looks like she deserves what she gets.

  3. Network. The Great Ahmed Khan puts an end to the Mao Tse-Tung Hour contract squabbles. “Man, give her the fucking overhead clause.”

mechanical shutdown runners-up: The baseball bat to the copier in Office Space, “You’re terminated, fucker!” in The Terminator.

16

“Shut the fuck up, Donny.”

17

This is one of my favorites, from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The expression on Casey Affleck’s face at the end is just perfect.

Robert Ford: Oh, what’s this? I was real agitated this morning, wondering if I’d be able to tell you and Frank apart. So I had the clipping that described you both. You want me to read it?
Jesse James: Go on.
Robert Ford: Well, I gotta find… here. ‘Jesse James, the youngest, has a face as smooth and innocent as a schoolgirl. The blue eyes, very clear and penetrating, are never at rest. His form is tall and graceful and capable of great endurance and great effort. Jesse is lighthearted, reckless, and devil-may-care. There is always a smile on his lips-’
Jesse James: All right, all right.
Robert Ford: Well, yeah. Then it’s 'Frank, Frank, Frank… ’ You know what I’ve got right next to my bed? The Train Robbers, or a story of the James Boys, by R.W. Stevens. Many’s the night I’ve stayed up with my mouth opens and my eyes open, reading about your escapades in the Wide Awake Library.
Jesse James: They’re all lies, you know.
Robert Ford: [pause] 'Course they are.

18

I like how the cigar is making him “bungie” in that scene.

-Tom
19

“Fill your hands you sons’a bitches.”

20

Tarantino is great at these, or at least used to be.

  1. Mr. Orange putting things in perspective for the cop who lost his ear in Reservoir Dogs.

  2. “I ain’t your friend, palooka.” - Vince, Pulp Fiction

  3. “If I’m curt with you it’s because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please… with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.” - The Wolf, Pulp Fiction