Beautiful Girls (1996)

In director Ted Demme's coming-of-age comedy/drama, during the high-school reunion of a bunch of guys in Knights Ridge, Massachusetts:

• the memorable scene of Paul Kirkwood's (Michael Rapaport) monologue about "supermodels" and "beautiful girls" to his friend Will: ("Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinkin' Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high - full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's gonna be okay. The supermodels, Willie? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels")
• also the stunning entrance of Andera (Uma Thurman) from Chicago into The Johnson Inn bar-room, where she met the group of guys, ordered whiskey shots for everyone, and requested that Willie "Will" Conway (Timothy Hutton) play the piano - and they all sang Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline"

"Beauty is Truly Skin Deep"

• and the scene of down-to-earth, fast-talking Gina Barrisano's (Rosie O'Donnell) smart-mouthed put-down monologue about the centerfold beauty myth and unrealistic expectations that guys have about supermodels to Tommy "Birdman" Rowland (Matt Dillon) and high-school grad Willie "Will" Conway (Timothy Hutton) - ("You're both f--kin' insane. You want to know what your problem is? MTV, Playboy, and Madison f--king Avenue. Yes. Let me explain something to you, ok? Girls with big tits have big asses. Girls with little tits have little asses. That's the way it goes. God doesn't f--k around; he's a fair guy. He gave the fatties big, beautiful tits and the skinnies little tiny niddlers. It's not my rule. If you don't like it, call him....(picking up a Penthouse magazine in a grocery store) Oh, guys, look what we have here. Look at this, your favorite, oh you like that?...Yeah, that's nice, right? Well, it doesn't exist, OK? Look at the hair, the hair is long, it's flowing. It's like a river. Well, it's a f--kin' weave, OK? And the tits? Please! I could hang my overcoat on them. Tits, by design, were invented to be suckled by babies. Yes, they're purely functional. These are Silicon City. And look, my favorite, the shaved pubis. Pubic hair being so unruly and all. Very key. This is a mockery, this is sham, this is bulls--t...")
• she continued: "Implants, collagen, plastic, capped teeth, the fat sucked out, the hair extended, the nose fixed, the bush shaved... These are not real women, all right? They're beauty freaks. And they make all us normal women with our wrinkles, our puckered boobs... our cellulite feel somehow inadequate. Well I don't buy it, all right? But you f--kin' mooks, if you think that if there's a chance in hell that you'll end up with one of these women, you don't give us real women anything approaching a commitment. It's pathetic. I don't know what you think you're gonna do. You're gonna end up eighty-years old, drooling in some nursing home, then you're gonna decide it's time to settle down, get married, have kids? What, are you gonna find a cheerleader?... You're all obsessed. If you had an ounce of self-esteem, of self-worth, of self-confidence, you would realize that as trite as it may sound, beauty is truly skin-deep. And you know what, if you ever did hook one of those girls, I guarantee you'd be sick of her...No matter how perfect the nipple, how supple the thigh, unless there's some other s--t goin' on in the relationship besides the physical, it's gonna get old, OK? And you guys, as a gender, have got to get a grip. Otherwise, the future of the human race is in jeopardy"
• the advice-giving, flirtatious scenes between Willie and precocious, well-versed 13 year-old neighbor girl Marty (Natalie Portman), mostly on his front snowy lawn; she told him: "(I'm) 13, but I'm an old soul... If I'm not mistaken, you've come back here to the house of loneliness and tears, to Daddy Downer and Brother Bummer, to come to some sort of decision about life, a life decision if you will"; and Marty's recognition of their age difference at the edge of a frozen pond while Marty ice-skated: "We have a little age problem....So what do we do?" - she replied with a Shakespearean flourish: "Alas, poor Romeo, we can't do diddly. You'll go to penitentiary, and I'll be the laughing stock in the Brownies. But if your feelings for me are true, you'll wait...Yeah, wait five years! I'll be 18. We can walk through this world together"; and Willie's follow-up comment about growing up: ("You know, in five years, you won't even remember me...I'm formed and you're not, and you still have changes to go through. You'll change and then I'll be Winnie the Pooh to your Christopher Robin...Well, Christopher Robin outgrew Pooh, that's how it ended. He had Pooh when he was a child. Now when he matured, he didn't need him anymore "); Marty was saddened: "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard"
• the sad good-bye scene between Willie and Marty, as he spoke to her from a second-story window and told her that they should stay in touch: "I hope we stay in touch because I hope to learn someday about what you're doin', 'cause I think whatever it is, you'll be amazing. I really do."
• the bedroom scene after sex when Tommy and his girlfriend Sharon (Mira Sorvino) considered breaking up: "How am I supposed to get through to you when the best years of your life were high school, when you were the king of the hill, the 'Birdman,' and Darian was your girlfriend? I mean, you want all that back! I can't give that to you. How do I compete with a way of life that's totally and completely impossible for you to ever have again?"