My Thirty Favorite Things About Wedding Crashers

I don’t know what it was about Wedding Crashers that made me love it so much. Maybe the fact it had a happy ending you could high five to, or the fact the first forty minutes or so are funnier than just about anything else out there. It’s a flawed movie, as it certainly drags towards the end, but regardless of all this, I saw the movie five times, blowing away my old record of two, shared by a few films.

That’s right, five times, but it’s not like I didn’t have good reason to go see it. Every time I went, I was going with somebody who hadn’t seen it before and was experiencing the laughs for the first time. Plus, it’s not like I’m the only one who saw it multiple times. Old Man Winter saw it on back-to-back nights, Dill and Shane have seen it four times and Ashley’s seen it three. Again, I can’t put my finger on it, but whatever that movie had made my summer at least seven times better. In an effort to figure out why I love it so, I present to you my thirty (and when I started this, it was at twenty) favorite things about Wedding Crashers. If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m going to pretend not to know you, and if you have, I think you’ll enjoy this.

30) "But that wife of his, Eleanor...big dyke! A real rug muncher. Big lesbian mule." and "Because you're a homo."

29) "Damn....sluts!"

28) The Fact The Bad Guy's Name is "Sack Lodge" - That's right, people: Not Zach, incase you thought that. It's "Sack".

27) "I happen to know everything there is to know about maple syrup! I love maple syrup. I love maple syrup on pancakes. I love it on pizza. And I take maple syrup and put a little bit in my hair when I've had a rough week. What do you think holds it up, slick?"

26) The Note Owen Wilson Uses to Ask His First Conquest To Dance – Do you want to dance? Yes __ No ___ Maybe ___

25)“Would you say you’re completely full of shit, or just fifty percent?

“I hope just fifty, but who knows.”

24) “Rule Number 76: No excuses, play like a champion!”

23) “Erroneous! Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts!”

22)“Kindly leave” and Don’t Jump: Life’s Worth It - Lot of little stuff in the scene where Jeremy tells John about his upcoming wedding, and is promptly thrown out.

21) The Entire Cleary Wedding – Including such lines as “Well, the proper girl in the hat just eye-fucked the shit out of me”, “I’m sorry I’m not sorry, John, I’m a cocksman”, “Tourretes”, the awkward convo about the dead Aunt Liz, the vows that crack Rachel up and our two heroes betting on whether the bride will cry and what reading will take place.

20) “You motor-boatin’ son of a bitch!”

19) Glory jacking off Jeremy under the table – I don’t care how mature you think you are, tell me that isn’t not funny, especially as he tries to cover up for it. “Haha…he’s joking….it feels so good when he jokes.” Classic.

18) “Hey John, that’s weird, that glass looks half full to me.”

“Wow, now that you mention it, it is half full.” – along with every other line in the opening scene, especially Wilson and Vaughn singing shout and the rant about the Latin guy rubbing on you.

17) “Todd, the painting was a gift – I’m keeping it.”

16) The Ending – Good guy gets the girl, Sack gets jacked in the face and they apparently have to crash a wedding to get some food. (Again, the movie isn’t perfect – why Jeremy and Gloria don’t have a reception of their own is beyond me, but who cares? Sack just got punched in the face.)

15) Christopher Walken – Just him being in the movie makes it funnier. How there are people who wouldn’t be interested in buying his Saturday Night Live “Best Of” DVD blows my mind, but it’s nice to have him around, even if he doesn’t have a whole lot to work with. He’s Christopher freakin’ Walken, baby. He dances and he has the line “The guy wants to run for president and thinks Moby Dick is a venereal disease.” Who doesn’t love it?

14)" Grab that net and catch that beautiful butterfly, pal!"

13) “It’s the first quarter of the big game and you want to throw up a Hail Mary! I want to be pimps from Oakland, or cowboys from Arizona, but it’s not Halloween. Grow up, Peter Pan…Count Chocula.” – And yeah, I just typed that from memory.

12) The “Touch” Football Scene – I like to pretend all the audibles and hot routes are a direct mocking of Peyton Manning, but even if they aren’t, this scene is worth it for Shane’s favorite line “Crab cakes and football, that’s what Maryland does!”, Christopher Walken’s touchdown celebration, Rachel McAdams being so damn cute and Vince Vaughn’s comments the second time he’s down on the ground (“If I had air in my lungs I would scream at you”, “I hate you”).

11) “You bite your tongue!” and “You better lock it up!” – For those who want a classy way to say shut up.

10) “Well, darn him…” – This one slips by the first couple times, but during the incredible awkward scene between Jane Seymour and Owen Wilson, Seymour says something along the lines of “William doesn’t give a shit about my tits”, and poor Owen can only say “Well, darn him” before attempting to defend himself from the former Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. And don’t think I didn’t appreciate getting this ammo to use on my sister. Jane Seymour as a drunken whore – you can’t buy that kind of material.

9) The Breakfast Scene – Starting with “Soft mattress? Yeah, it could have been the soft mattress. Or the midnight rape. Or the nude gay art show that took place in my room last night. One of those three probably contributed to the lack of sleep” and ending with Owen Wilson telling Vince Vaughn he loves him, it puts the “buddy” into this “buddy movie”.

8) The Quail Hunting Scene – From “I don’t know what fuck a quail is”, to The Most Dangerous Game reference, to Christopher Walken’s hunting call, this is the last purely comedic scene before things turn totally chick flick (with the exception of the…)

7) Will Ferrell Cameo – I’m not sure what would have happened if you removed Ferrell from the movie, but I’m glad he’s there. From the time he steps from the shadows, he loudly steals the show, and then quietly takes it too (His celebration arm pumping will be a feature in my taunt arsenal for years to come). Throw in how he talks about his mother – “I never know what she’s doing” – and his meat loaf request, and this ranks right up there.

“Yeah, her boyfriend just died. In a hand-gliding accident! What an idiot! What a loser! ‘Hey, I'm hand-gliding! Aaaahhh! Take a picture, honey….I'm dead!”

6) Vince Vaughn’s Smooth Moves on The Dance Floor – Which have inspired me to eventually take ballroom dancing courses at some point in time over my college career. Ladies, apply now!

5) Rachel McAdams – It’s her breakout role, and I fall in love with her at least a half dozen times through the movie just for the looks she makes. She never dresses trashy, never acts like a whore and never seems to lose that killer smile – at least until Owen Wilson breaks her heart – so it’s hard not to fall for her. Again, the wedding date is set for next June, and I hope you all can attend.

4) Vince Vaughn’s Spiel on Dating – The second time I went to see it, I recorded this on my cell phone so I’d have it, not realizing I was going to be able to download the entire film and not worry about it. Regardless, here it is:

“Janice, I apologize to you if I don't seem real eager to jump into a forced awkward intimate situation that people like to call dating. I don't like the feeling. You're sitting there, you're wondering do I have food on my face, am I eating, am I talking too much, are they talking enough, am I interested I'm not really interested, should I play like I'm interested but I'm not that interested but I think she might be interested but do I want to be interested but now she's not interested? So all of the sudden I'm getting, I'm starting to get interested... And when am I supposed to kiss her? Do I have to wait for the door cause then it's awkward, it's like well goodnight. Do you do like that ass-out hug? Where you like, you hug each other like this and your ass sticks out cause you're trying not to get too close or do you just go right in and kiss them on the lips or don't kiss them at all? It's very difficult trying to read the situation. And all the while you're just really wondering are we gonna get hopped up enough to make some bad decisions? Perhaps play a little game called "just the tip". Just for a second, just to see how it feels. Or, ouch, ouch you're on my hair."

3) The Use of Guster’s “I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today” – The second best montage of the movie has the best song in the movie, as Guster’s track follows Owen Wilson’s collapse and Rachel McAdam’s obvious distress about her upcoming marriage. It’s got the great “Na Na Na Na” bridge, “Does anyone feel like they’re disappearing? I feel so much like just giving up” and my second favorite line of the movie “Love doesn’t exist, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And I’m not picking on love, because I’m pretty sure friendship doesn’t exist either.” In fact, you know what deserves to be on here?

2) The Entire Soundtrack – K-Ci and the Sunshine Band get you started with “Keep It Coming Love”, then the Isley Brother’s “Shout, Coldplay’s got “Sparks” for the nighttime hallway scene, Guster for the montage I just spoke of, Mungo Jerry’s “In The Summertime” for the biking scene, Rod Stewart’s “Stay With Me” to close out the movie. Excellent song selections all around.

1) The “Shout” Montage – Easily number one, and the reason I wanted to do this list, just so I could put it there. It’s got my favorite line of the movie – “What are you going to do for an encore, walk on water?” – , it’s got hilarious facial expressions from both leads as they dance, it’s got Vince Vaughn laughing maniacally while eating cake, “You don’t treat cake like that, you gotta treat cake like a lady!”, “And then everyone said ‘Jabroni’” and “Come on, let’s make a memory!”. Notice all of that and I didn’t even have to mention the gratuitous nudity of a bevy of beautiful women, which is obviously a good thing. Plus, doesn’t the whole thing just look like so much fun? Who doesn’t want to jump up and down and spray champagne everywhere? Honestly, I think I’ve watched that scene twenty-five times, and never, ever, ever does it get old.