Films based on non-fiction books

1851 quotes found

"[narrating] Our mission was called "a successful failure," in that we returned safely but never made it to the moon. In the following months, it was determined that a damaged coil built inside the oxygen tank sparked during our cryo stir and caused the explosion that crippled the Odyssey. It was a minor defect that occurred two years before I was even named the flight's commander. Fred Haise was going back to the moon on Apollo 18, but his mission was canceled because of budget cuts; he never flew in space again. Nor did Jack Swigert, who left the astronaut corps and was elected to Congress from the state of Colorado. But he died of cancer before he was able to take office. Ken Mattingly orbited the moon as Command Module Pilot of Apollo 16, and flew the Space Shuttle, having never gotten the measles. Gene Kranz retired as Director of Flight Operations just not long ago. And many other members of Mission Control have gone on to other things, but some are still there. As for me, the seven extraordinary days of Apollo 13 were my last in space. I watched other men walk on the moon, and return safely, all from the confines of Mission Control and our house in Houston. I sometimes catch myself looking up at the moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage, thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?"

- Apollo 13 (film)

0 likes1990s American filmsDrama filmsFilms based on non-fiction booksFilms based on true storiesHistorical films
"[voiceover] Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out. Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché. I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass. I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more. Improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something, or took up an instrument. I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool. I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that. Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days. Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that. But I'll still be ugly though. Nothing's going to change that."

- Adaptation (film)

0 likesComedy-drama filmsFilms based on non-fiction booksFilms about authorsScreenplays by Charlie KaufmanFilms directed by Spike Jonze
"The year Chris graduated high school, he bought the Datsun used and drove it cross-country. He stayed away most of the summer. As soon as I heard he was home, I ran into his room to talk to him. In California, he'd looked up some old family friends. He discovered that our parents' stories of how they fell in love and got married were calculated lies masking an ugly truth. When they met, Dad was already married. And even after Chris was born, Dad had had another son with his first wife, Marcia, to whom he was still legally married. This fact suddenly re-defined Chris and me as bastard children. Dad's arrogance made him conveniently oblivious to the pain he caused. And Mom, in the shame and embarrassment of a young mistress, became his accomplice in deceit. The fragility of crystal is not a weakness but a fineness. My parents understood that a fine crystal glass had to be cared for or it may be shattered. But when it came to my brother, they did not seem to know or care that their course of secret action brought the kind of devastation that could cut them. Their fraudulent marriage and our father's denial of this other son was, for Chris, a murder of every day's truth. He felt his whole life turn, like a river suddenly reversing the direction of its flow, suddenly running uphill. These revelations struck at the core of Chris' sense of identity. They made his entire childhood seem like fiction. Chris never told them he knew and made me promise silence, as well."

- Into the Wild (film)

0 likesAdventure films2000s American filmsFilms based on non-fiction booksSurvival filmsNonlinear narrative films
"Most countries are founded in conquest. Europe, conquest, conquest and more conquest. Look at Britain. Before becoming an empire, it was conquered by the Norman kings of France and earlier by the Romans. Before the British came, India was invaded by the Persians, the Mongols, the Afghans, the Arabs and Alexander the Great. Conquest was how wealth was acquired. Not through entrepreneurship, invention or business. Historically, every culture has despised entrepreneurs and merchants. In India, we have the caste system. Who's at the top? The Brahmin or priest. The entrepreneur is one step from the bottom. The Islamic historian Ibn Khaldūn says that looting is morally preferable to entrepreneurship or trade. Why? Because looting is more manly. In looting, you have to beat the guy in open combat to take his stuff. America is based on a different idea. The idea of acquiring wealth not by taking it from someone else. Instead, wealth can be created through innovation, entrepreneurship and trade. Let's take a look at Manhattan. Reportedly in 1626, Native Americans sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $700 in today's money. There's land all over the world now that you can buy for $700. But when the Dutch bought Manhattan, there was no Manhattan. Prices are astronomical today because of what's been built over the past 300 years. Manhattan is the creation of the people who built it, not the original inhabitants who sold it. Manhattan represents the new American ethic of wealth creation. An alternative to conquest."

- America: Imagine the World Without Her

0 likes2010s American filmsDocumentary filmsHistorical filmsFilms based on non-fiction books
"This woman does not belong in a RICO indictment, are you outta your minds?! She does not belong in a mob indictment, she raked a game, that’s it, for seven months two years ago. And why? Because she was giving credit in the millions and she didn’t want to use muscle to collect. She has had opportunity after opportunity to greatly benefit herself by simply telling the real stories she knows. Ok, I have the forensic imaging going back to 2007, and I'm talking about text messages, emails - movie stars, rock stars, athletes, billionaires; all explicit—some married with kids—but that’s the tip of the iceberg. What about the guy comes this close to being named U.S. Ambassador to Monaco, he’s withdrawn from consideration at the last minute, no one knows why. She does. CEOs with college-age mistresses, an SVP of an investment bank who wanted Molly to put a marked deck in the game, the head of a movie studio who texted her that a particular movie star was too black for his taste, J. Edgar Hoover didn’t have this much shit on Bobby! You know, she could’ve written a best seller, she could have been set for life. You know, you know she’s got the winning lottery ticket and she won’t cash it. Your office took every dollar she had in a Constitutionally fucked up seizure and then you put the IRS on her to tax what you seized? I mean, I’ve been in those strategy meetings. You broke her back so she couldn’t possibly afford to defend herself. And now she has an opportunity to guarantee her freedom by just...“providing color”...and she still won’t do it. This woman doesn’t belong in a RICO indictment, she belongs on a box of Wheaties. So yes, Harrison, I am imploring you to do the right thing. She knows nothing about the three Petes. Nothing about Taiwanchik. Nothing about RGO or insurance fraud. Between the two of us we’ve appeared in front of this judge 28 times as prosecutors and not once has he deviated from our sentencing recommendations, he’s not gonna start now. I know you’ve been putting this bust together for three years and there’s no one who doesn’t want to see mobsters go to jail, including and especially the one person in the room who’s had one of them put a gun in her mouth. Probation. Community service. Or better yet, just consider that all she did was run a poker game exactly the same way every casino in America does and drop the goddamn charges."

- Molly's Game

0 likes2010s American filmsBiographical filmsCrime drama filmsFilms based on non-fiction booksFilms based on true stories
"Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard: Hello, my fellow Americans. They say we may have lost the battle but we didn't lose the war. Yes, my friends, we are under attack. You may have read about this in your local newspapers or seen it on the evening news. That's right. We are living in an era marked by the spread of integration and miscegenation. The Brown decision. The Brown decision, forced upon us by the Jewish-controlled puppets on the U.S. Supreme Court, compelling white children to go to school with an inferior race, is the final nail in a coffin, is the final nail in a black coffin towards America becoming a mongrel nation. We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life. We had a great way of life until the Martin Luther Coons of this world and their army of Commies started their civil rights assault against our holy white Protestant values. Do you really want your precious white child going to school with Negroes? They're lying, dirty monkeys, stopping at nothing to gain their equality with white men. Rapists, murderers, craving the virgin white, is it "virgin pure"? Rapists, murderers, craving the virgin pure flesh of white women. They are super predators! And the Negro's insidious tactics, under the tutelage of high-ranking, blood-sucking Jews, using an army of outside northern black beast preda... agitators. God, watch this! God! Using an army of outside northern black beast agitators determined to overthrow the God-commanded and biblically inspired rule of the white race. It's an international Jewish conspiracy. May God bless us all."

- BlacKkKlansman

0 likes2010s American filmsBlack comedy filmsCrime filmsFilms about the Ku Klux KlanFilms based on non-fiction books
"My dear Senator Dawes, as I believed you sincere in asking me to keep you informed, I write you again in an appeal for your assistance. With no medical equipment here worthy of the name and understocked in medicines, there has been little reason for the sick to risk the journey to the agency for treatment. I bought a horse and a wagon with my own salary and have just now returned from the several weeks in the villages. It is a mistake to trust the official reports. Measles, influenza and whooping cough have ascended from hell all at once. My own assistant's child has been taken. The agent here, Royer, has no experience and even less inclination to help these people. Of equal concern is the epidemic of hopelessness that has overtaken the reservation. That the Sioux would bear the wretched taste of cod-liver oil for the ounce of spirits contained in the bottle is, to me, the whole of their experience in a nutshell. I no longer deny them. Many here fear a return to the old ways. The prophesy of a Paiute shaman called Wovoka has spread from tribe to tribe faster than a telegraph signal, rekindling old superstitions among the Sioux and old apprehensions among the whites who are sure to mistake desperation for hostility. As conditions worsen, the church can provide little solace beyond a Christian burial. Sincerely yours, Charles Eastman."

- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (film)

0 likes2000s American filmsFilms based on non-fiction booksWestern filmsHistorical drama TV showsTelevision films