My immediate family loves a good movie quote.

We watch a movie, most of the time one of my parents’ favorites, and we get attached to the quotes and dialogue. Soon enough, we find ourselves saying them every day in situations that make sense, or something completely unrelated. Someone could say something that would remind us of that movie and we would break out the quote, with the accent and everything.

For example, the movie “A League of Their Own” has been a part of our repertoire since before I even watched the movie. We would quote scenes like when the young boy, Stillwell Angel, mocked the Rockford Peaches before the final game.

Jimmy Dugan, played by Tom Hanks, was one of our favorites. My sisters and I played softball growing up, so you can bet that my parents would break out one of his quotes every now and then. “Are you crying?” my parents would ask teasingly. “There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!”

Even his more inappropriate comments became a part of our jokes as we grew older and got to know what they meant.

However, there was one movie that stood above the rest when it came to movie quotes and our everyday lives, and that was “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” It came out in 2002 and the sequel came out in 2016.

Every time we had a sore on our lips or some other ailment we would say, “put some Windex on it.” When we baked cakes, one of us would always eventually ask, “does it have a hole in it?” referring to when Maria was given a Bundt cake by Ian’s parents.

For no reason at all, other than we were reminded of it, we would say “Ian, we’re gonna kill ya,” said by one of the brothers, or start naming Gus’s relatives as if they were really there, or explain what Aunt Voula had in her neck.

When we told our parents we were going out or we were leaving to go back home, they would jokingly quote Gus’s “Why do you want to leave me?” when Toula told him she wanted to go to college.

We laughed at how the brothers taught Ian how to say dirty sayings in Greek and then get slapped by their mother as everyone realized who taught him that.

In the second movie, the old men are shocked when Ian speaks Greek fluently to them.

Writing this column, I realized that part rang true to my family. My grandparents, Oma and Opa, came from Europe and speak German fluently. My sisters and I would joke that if we ever said something dirty in German, my dad would be the first one to get smacked by Oma rather than us. However, unlike Ian, I still haven’t learned how to speak German fluently. Sorry, Oma.

My older sister, my dad, and a couple other friends could relate to Ian, though. The older people or people in public would have no clue they were fluent in German until they laughed at one of their jokes or perked up when they understood. The sudden realization of the older people that “Oh no, they know what we’re talking about,” was funny.

Gus was one of the best characters of the movie, so when I saw the news one afternoon that the actor who played him, Michael Constantine, had died, I was very sad.

Not often do I cry at celebrity deaths. Alan Rickman was one that hit home for me when I found out on a snowy day, and Constantine’s death nearly brought me to tears as well.

This man and his fellow actors, in a way, shaped my childhood and brought my family so much joy over the years. The way he delivered his lines was so memorable, and it’s something we could watch over and over again and still be entertained.

Thank you, Michael Constantine, for playing such a great character and thank you, Nia Vardalos, for writing such an amazing movie.

Alyssa Ochss is the page designer at The Alpena News. She graduated from Oakland University and loves pop culture and all things nerd. You can reach her at aochss@thealpenanews.com.