I feel the need, the need for ... movie quotes

Upon returning from an air show in Cape Girardeau, Mo., over the weekend, my brother-in-law, Tony, commented on the experience via a Facebook posting.

"Went to the air show for a little bit and now I can't stop quoting 'Top Gun' for some reason," he wrote.

Well, given an opening like that, I was more than happy to oblige.

"Your ego's writing checks your body can't cash," I retorted in the comments section, quoting one of my favorite lines from the movie. This of course set off a "Top Gun" quote-off, that went on for several hours.

"Turn and burn," Tony shot back.

"That's a negative, Ghost Rider. The pattern is full," I added.

"It's time to buzz the tower," Tony threw in.

"Slider ... you stink," was added by someone named John Long.

"Crash and burn, eh Mav?" was my last response.

It was good fun, and it proved two pretty obvious things:

The first is that we are huge geeks. But I think everyone who knows us pretty much already knew that.

The second, is that "Top Gun" is clearly among the greatest movies of all time.

Now sure, snobbish critics with their noses in the air will almost never list "Top Gun" among the cinematic masterpieces of the modern era. They'll say it's predictable and formulaic — that its dialogue is campy. They'll say that the romantic scenes are laughably bad.

And they're probably right.

But "Top Gun" is still a great movie for the response it elicits; namely, grown men quoting lines back and forth on Facebook for several hours on a Sunday afternoon. That's something you'll never get from so-called greats like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Schindler's List."

Sometimes, when ranking the greatest movies of all time, folks rely too much on vague ideas like "plot" or "character development" or "cinematography." But give me a good quotable movie, and I'm happy almost 100 percent of the time.

This got me thinking of other movies that rank among the all-time greats, at least in terms of being ripe for Facebook quote-offs. Here are some that I came up with:

— "Office Space." Bored at work? Try starting a conversation about "TPS reports."

— "The Princess Bride." Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

— "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Ask a buddy to cut down the largest tree in the forest with a herring, and he will know what to do. Just hope he doesn't say "ni" at you.

— "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." Post a picture of a Circle K convenience store on Facebook with the caption, "strange things are afoot at the Circle K," and you are sure to generate at least three or four "likes." (And at least one person who will comment, "what am I missing?")

— "Airplane." From Peter Graves' "Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?" to Barbara Billingsley's "I speak jive;" surely, this is the most quotable movie of all time. (Don't call me "Shirley.")

This isn't to say that a movie must be highly quotable in order to be great. There will always be a place for heartwarming tales, buddy flicks, action-adventures and even smartly done romantic comedies. And it's always nice to watch movies that are visually stunning, or compelling in the emotions they evoke.

But there is a special place in the annals of moviedom for films that offer nothing more than ample lines for fans to memorize and quote verbatim at the drop of the hat. It takes a special movie to achieve that. And movies that do deserve to be called great.