17 AGAIN [2009]

Who Says You're Only Young Once?

Janitor: Mike O'Donnell

Mike: Do I know you?

Janitor: No, but I know you.

Mike: Oh yeah?

Janitor: High school star.

Never quite lived up to your potential.

Sooner or later you all come back to the old school.

Stand there and look at the picture of the glory days, wondering waht might have been.

Seems to me you guys are living in the past.

Mike: Well, of course I want to live in the past.

It was better there.

Janitor: I'll bet you wish you had it to do all over again.

Mike: Huh, you got that right.

Janitor: You're sure about that?

Mike, mumbling: Oh, yeah...

Mike: Remember, it's not how big you are...

Alex: It's how big you play.

Mike, after hear Scarlet wants to do something with their backyard: The divorce isn't final for another 2 weeks, so you have no right.

Scarlet: Really?

So, I've spent the last 18 years of my life 

listening to you whine about all the things you could've done without me,

and I have no right?

I have not done anything for me since 1989.

~Mike, age 17

Look, you always had my back in high school, okay?

So if your spirit guide insists you to be a fake teenager and me to be your fake dad,

the least I can do is make sure that my fake son doesn't look...

look like a total douche.

~Ned

[while playing with Stan basket ball]

You know Stan, I feel sorry for you.

You're the man, captain of the basket ball team.

Dates the pretty girls.

High school is your kingdom.

But people, Stan's a bully. Why?

It'd be way too easy to say Stan preys on the weak simply because he's a dick.

No, no, no... Stan here... is much more complex than that.

See, according to leading psychiatrists, Stan's a bully for 3 reasons.

One, underneath all of that male bravado, 

there's an insecure little girl banging on the closet door trying to get out.

Two, like a caveman, Stan's brain is... underdeveloped.

Therefore, Stan is unable to use self-control and so he acts out agressively.

And the third reason, Stan has a small wiener.

[throw a ball back to Stan]

Don't hurt yourself, bigboy.

~Mike, age 17

Ned: So, what did you learn at school today?

Mike, age 17: That I'm a bad dad.

Ned: I thought it was going great.

Mike, age 17: It was going fantastic for me.

Ned: And then what?

Mike, age 17: And then I found out my son spent the last year being the school punching bag,

and watched my daughter get a tongue bath from a psychopatic jackass.

Ned: High school delightful, isn't it?

Mike, age 17: Yeah, but I think I was wrong about my spirit path.

Ned: Ahaha, and who was right?

See, I told you... I told you that high school was the wrong thing.

Mike, age 17: No no no... high school was right, but it's not about basketball.

It's about helping Alex and Maggie.

[after the teacher talks about abstinence, making love and spread the condom among the students]

He's right, I don't need one.

You know why I don't need one?

Because there's no one I'm in love with. 

It's called 'making love', isn't it?

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, 

but I think that means you're ready to take that love and turn it into a baby.

Because that's what love is.

It's that first moment when you hold your baby girl 

and you didn't know that anything could be so small or so delicate.

And you feel that tiny heart beat, 

and you know that you couldn't love anything more in the whole world.

And you hope that you can do right by that little girl 

and always be there to catch her when she falls,

and that nothing ever hurts her.

Not a broken arm, or a bad dream, or a broken heart.

~Mike, age 17

Mike, age 17: Do you think you guys are ever going to get back together?

Scarlet: No.

Mike, age 17: Why are you so sure?

Maybe there's something he could do to fix things.

Scarlet: I love my husband and care about him,

but sometimes that's just not enough.

Mike, age 17: If you girls don't respect yourselves, 

then how do you expect anyone else to respect you, right?

Jamie: Don't respect me.

Lauren: No, don't respect me...

Samantha: You don't have to remember my name.

Mike walks away: This is some other dad's problem.

You know, when you're young, everything feels like the end of the world.

It's not. It's just the beginning.

You might have to meet a few more jerks,

but one day you're going to meet a boy who treats you the way that you deserve to be treated.

Like the sun rises and sets with you.

~Mike age 17, comforting Maggie

Scarlet, before you go through with this, I want to remind you of September 7th, 1988.

It was the first time that I saw you.

You were reading Less Than Zero.

You were wearing Guns 'n Roses t-shirt.

I'd never seen anything so perfect.

I remember thinking that I had to have you, or I'd die.

Then you whispered that you loved me at the homecoming dance.

And I felt so peaceful... and safe.

Because I knew that no matter what happened from that day on,

nothing could ever be that bad, because I had you.

And then I grew up, and I lost my way.

And I blamed you for my failures.

And I know that you think you have to do this today.

I don't want you to.

But I guess, if I love you, I should let you move on.

~Mike, age 17, reading a letter to Scarlet at  the court

I thought Mark was hanging out with Alex to get to me, not you.

~Maggie to her mom

Scarlet: You didn't have to come after me again.

Mike: Yes, I did, because I love you.

You're the best decision I ever made, I just forgot.

And then I fell of the bridge and things got pretty weird after that.

But I'm never going to forget again.

*****