Garth: Look, we don't know nothing about children, so if you need something... Hub: [interrupts] -find it yourself. Better yet: learn to do with out.

Typographical Art by swesomesauceexp

Hub: We're fix'in to die anytime, so if we kick off in the middle of the night, you're on your own: So I watched one of my favorite movies again for the umpteenth time this weekend, Second Hand Lions (2003). Two old men, Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine), have lived adventurous and interesting lives. In their later years they have taken to sitting on a porch in Texas and shooting shot-guns at traveling salesmen while sipping tea surrounded by a pack of adorably lounging and watchful dogs. Their disaster of an opportunist niece drops off her young teen child, Walter, as she heads west to con out an existence, and hoping her son can sniff out a reported fortune of hidden cash in the McCann brothers possession. Her son, the focus of the film, is an innocent, just trying to find a place to find some support. It is a sweet, exciting, schmaltzy, satisfying, humorous, family film; just quirky enough to make it light, and just poignant enough to offer real lessons about relationships, this film hits a sweet spot with me despite a lower Rotten Tomatoes score of 59, an Ebert score of 3/4, and an IMDB rating of 7.6/10. [90% of Google users like the film though.] The following is a bit of script that I particularly like:

WALTER (Haley Joel Osment)
Those stories, about you, about Africa: they're true. Aren't they?

HUB (Robert Duvall)
It doesn't matter....

WALTER
It does too! Around my mom I hear so many lies I don't know what to believe in....

HUB
Dammit, if you want to believe in something, believe in it! Just because something isn't true, that's no reason you can't believe in it!

Walter blinks, confused. Hub SIGHS....

HUB (Cont'd)
There's a long speech I give to young men. Sounds like you need to hear a piece of it....

(pause)

Some times the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, virtue, and courage mean everything; that money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. That true love never dies.

Walter's eyes are wet. Perhaps, so are Hub's.

HUB (Cont'd)
Doesn't matter if they're true or not. A man should believe in those things anyway. Because they are the things worth believing in.

Walter thinks, finally nods: he understands. They both watch moonlight ripple the water, both lost in thought.

WALTER
That was a good speech.

HUB
Thanks.