MUST GO FASTER
There are so many Ian Malcolm gems in this one scene. He is lounging in the Jeep when he feels a vibration, looks at the puddle and sees ripples in the water. “Anybody hear that? It’s a, um... It’s an impact tremor, that’s what it is... I’m fairly alarmed here,” says Ian as he urges Robert Muldoon (played by Bob Peck) and Ellie Sattler (played by Laura Dern) to rush back to the Jeep. As the T-Rex appears and starts running behind the Jeep, Malcolm yells out, “Must go faster”... as if! After the T-Rex veers away, he cheekily comments, “You think they’ll have that on the tour?”
LECTURE AT LUNCH
At lunch with John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), Ian goes on a rant about the ethical responsibility of scientists. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should,” he argued. And then he lands the punch: “What’s so great about discovery? It’s a violent, penetrative act that scars what it explores. What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.”
THAT IS ONE BIG PILE OF SHIT
Ellie needs to see dino droppings to find out if they are ingesting poisonous berries. Ian saunters (sexily) up to a mound and says, “That is one big pile of shit”. A quote that has served us over and over again through life. We also can’t not mention how he asks Ellie if she’ll remember to wash her hands before she eats anything.
SHIRTLESS
He is injured by the T-Rex and even hurt, is sarcastic as ever saying, “Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend”. But the scene that has gone down in the annals of movie history and meme-dom is the scene of him hurt and lounging in Hammond’s centre shirtless with so much swag, it’s still scorching hot 25 years later.
LIFE FINDS A WAY
Ian discovers that all the dinosaurs in the park are female and asks if the scientists “go out to the park and pull up the dinosaur’s skirts” to find out! And when he learns from Hammond and Dr Wu (BD Wong) that they control the chromosomes, he warns them, “The kind of control you are attempting is not possible. If there is something the history of evolution has taught us is that life will not be contained. Life breaks free and expands to new territories, crashes through barriers, painfully maybe even dangerously.” His ultimate point? “Life, uh, finds a way”.
THE LAUGH
The visitors are flying into Isla Nublar with John Hammond and Ian lets out a laugh that has spurred remixes and 10-hour mixes that are available on the Net. Yes that’s something else. As Hammond says, “You’ll have to get used to Dr Malcolm. He suffers from a deplorable excess of personality, especially for a mathematician.”
OTHER GOLDBLUMY ROLES WE LOVE
DAVID LEVINSON
INDEPENDENCE DAY
The MIT-grad genius who not only discovered the hidden countdown in satellite transmission from the aliens but also devised a way to give the mothership “a cold”, that’s Goldblum speak for virus, was pure Goldblum. Our favourite Goldblum moment? When Will Smith’s Steven Hiller drives the alien spaceship backwards instead of forward and responds with “Oops”, he says, “Yes. Yes. Yes, without the oops.”
SETH BRUNDLE
THE FLY
His breakout performance as the eccentric scientist whose testing of a teleportation goes awry in the David Cronenberg film is easily his best performance yet. It is not an easy watch but every cringeworthy transformation moment is made worth it by Goldblum’s fantastic acting.
MAC
EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY
He plays a very furry, blue alien called Mac who crashlands in Valerie Gail’s (Geena Davis) swimming pool, has a makeover and falls in love with her. Cheesy and campy, and very, very ’80s, it has a lot of gratuitous shirtless Goldblum moments and it scores pretty high on the Goldbluminess meter.
ALISTAIR HENNESSEY
THE LIFE AQUATIC WITH STEVE ZISSOU
As Bill Murray’s “partly gay” professional nemesis, he may not have had very many scenes in the Wes Anderson film, but whatever he had he owned with typical Goldblum panache and delivery, a total fit for Wes Anderson whimsy.
KOVACS
THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL
Again a very brief role. But that doesn’t mean that Goldblum doesn’t make an impact. Looking stylish in a top hat, round spectacles, groomed beard and moustache, the “executor of the dead widow’s estate” is pure Goldblum.
GRANDMASTER
THOR RAGNAROK
If there was ever a role to harness all the Goldbluminess of Jeff Goldblum and amplify it, then this is it. One part villain, one part showman — Goldblum fans couldn’t have wanted anything more perfect. He is so weird as the flashily dressed Grandmaster that it is all kinds of awesome. One of our favourite Goldblum moments is one that didn’t make it to the film, where he plays charades with his bodyguard Topaz.
Chandreyee Chatterjee
Which is your fave Jeff Goldblum role? Tell t2@abp.in
