Newt Gingrich's Favorite Movie Lines

 

May I use your phone? I need to call home.

 

I coulda been someone who could contend for the championship!

 

What's so bad about greed?

 

Frankly, my dear, I don't think I really care anymore.

 

Get away from me, you stupid monkey!

 

I'm super mad, and I can't take much more!

 

Show me how much money I'm going to make!

Newt Gingrich is not good at quoting movies

(via LA Times)

Gingrich mocks Obama's algae energy comments as 'Cloud Cuckoo Land'

Newt Gingrich, whose well-developed sense of sarcasm always goes over well with his Republican supporters, was on a roll Monday evening as he regaled a ballroom of supporters near Knoxville with his account of President Obama's energy plan, and his own vow to reduce gasoline prices to $2.50 a gallon, which has evolved into a campaign slogan.

Really, Newt? Do you really think anyone is stupid enough to think that you could lower gas prices to $2.50! No one could possibly be that dumb. . .

About 200 supporters filled the airport Hilton hotel ballroom, some holding signs that said, "Newt=$2.50

Oyyyyyyy. . . .Can we give this guy back to the Baptists?

Gingrich also delighted the crowd with a riff on a recent speech the president delivered at the University of Miami. On Feb. 23, Obama said that gasoline and diesel fuel are being developed from algae. "If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we'll be doing all right," Obama said. Gingrich has been having fun with that ever since.

Okay, Newt, you do know that this is a real thing, right?  There really are algae that excrete diesel fuel. This is a fact. As of now, they aren't really a viable fuel source, but someday, maybe. So, what's so funny about this?

"Do you all remember in the movie, 'The Graduate,' the moment where Dustin Hoffman is just graduating and he goes to a party welcoming him home and this older gentleman comes over to him and says, 'I have a word that will change your life,' and the word was 'plastics?' And Hoffman spends the rest of the movie, going, 'I don't quite get this?'

Yes, I remember The Graduate. Apparently, you don't.

And Mr. McGuire was right, by the way. There was a lot of money to be made in plastics. Companies like Dow, DuPont, BASF, and Mitsubishi have made billions from plastics. So what's so funny?

There's at least a couple mil right here!

Also, Dustin Hoffman does not spend the rest of the movie going "I don't quite get this." Can you imagine how shitty a movie the Graduate would have been if it had been a movie about a young man trying to decipher an older man's career advice? Have you even seen the Graduate?

"Well, the president the other day in Florida had a word that I thought was a quite magical one. Does anyone here remember his solution?"

Many in the crowd yelled: "Algae!"

"Algae," Gingrich confirmed. "I think this is a 'Saturday Night Live' skit. You don't often get presidential speeches that could literally be delivered on 'Saturday Night Live' and you wouldn't realize it was a fake. But presidents are supposed to, like, run the country today,"

Yeah, what a doofus! Why can't he concentrate on something more realistic, like a moon colony?

 

Life With the Blunt Amendment

 

I'm sorry, sir but your boss is a Jehovah's Witness, so I can't give you that blood transfusion.

 

You need Thorazine. Unfortunately, your boss is a Scientologist.

 

We really should do a bypass, but your boss is a Christian Scientist.

 

Sorry, your boss is a hardcore Muslim, I'm not allowed to poke around down there at all.

 

This is Who They Are.

Ohio governor puts libertarian ideology into practice:

Kasich turns down federal disaster aid

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said thanks but no thanks to immediate federal disaster relief Saturday, even as governors in Indiana and Kentucky welcomed the help.

John Kasich, a man said to have presidential aspirations, would rather do a little political grandstanding than allow the federal government to help the people of his state in a time of tragedy. Never mind that the good people of Ohio pay in to the federal disaster relief program with their income taxes and are absolutely entitled to receive funds from it. No, Kasich would rather burnish his anti-government bona fides than do the sensible, practical, moral thing. Your house got knocked down? You have nothing left? Too bad, I'd rather thumb my nose at Washington than allow you to get help rebuilding.

Apparently, he's been listening to Ron Paul:

Ron Paul: No federal tornado aid

• 03/05/12 at 12:30pm 

Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul said he doesn’t think the federal government should help. “The people who live in tornado alley, just as I live in hurricane alley, they should have insurance,” Paul said
“There is no such thing as federal money,” Paul said, on the show, according to the National Journal. “Federal money is just what they steal from the states and steal from you and me.”
He also said FEMA has led to nothing but “frustration and anger.”

Okay, if the Federal Government has "stolen" this money from the states and the people, why would you object to getting some of it back?  How does it help anything to refuse needed money that, according to you, belongs to the people anyway? Do you not see the flaw in your logic here? Also, does it really need to be pointed out that the "frustration and anger" at FEMA is based on the perception that they haven't done ENOUGH to help in recent disasters?
And I'm quite sure that most people in tornado alley do have insurance, but the deductibles on these policies generally run in to several tens of thousands of dollars before the insurance companies begin to pay a dime. If, like most people, you don't have 25 or 50 thousand dollars in the bank, your insurance policy isn't going to do you a lot of good.

This is who these people are. When they talk about "small government," this is what they mean. They don't mind a government large enough to force trans-vaginal ultrasounds on unwilling women. they have no problem with a government big enough to tell people who they can marry. They don't mind a government big enough to invade every country in the world where a Muslim looks at us funny. They only want government to be small in areas where it it might help people.

Because the whole point of tea-party libertarian, small-government conservatism is the fear that somehow, somewhere someone might be getting over on them. Their world-view is based on the resentment they feel when they think that someone might be getting something paid for by their tax dollars. They have no problem with their tax dollars being used to hurt someone, like, say an Iraqi civilian or an Occupy protestor, they just can't stand the thought that someone might be getting helped at their expense.
For some reason, the fact that the government funnels billions of their tax dollars to companies like Haliburton or Blackwater, but if some farmer in Illinois gets help rebuilding his house at their expense, it's time to put on the pointy hat and throw tea in the fucking harbor!

2011 Must have been a pretty weak year for movies

Because I just saw two of the Best Picture nominees last night, and gotta say, not impressed!

We rented Hugo and Midnight in Paris from Redbox last night.



Maybe Hugo loses something in the non-3D version, I don't know, but I thought it was just OK.

I definitely could have done without the Sasha Baron Cohen character.

 He felt really cartoony, and in a movie where all the plot points feel pretty contrived already, he was just not helping. I wouldn't say Hugo is a bad movie, I enjoyed it, but it definitely didn't feel like anything to write home about.



 

Midnight in Paris, on the other hand was just awful. And I love Woody Allen. He's made some of my all-time favorites - Annie Hall, Hannah and Her Sisters, Manhattan, etc. And I looooove Paris. Seems like a sure bet, even with the potentially annoying presence of Owen Wilson. But I really hated this movie. It seems like we've already seen this a million times: Back to the Future, Peggy Sue Got Married, Groundhog Day, Hot Tub Time Machine. . .
Just the Rachel McAdams character alone is enough to make this movie painful. Nothing against McAdams, but the character is so ridiculously unpleasant, belittling and condescending to Owens at every turn that it's just not at all believable that anyone would want to marry her, much less a successful, reasonably handsome guy who must have other options.

Yes, I will wear this snotty expression throughout the whole movie!

 

 When Wilson confronts her, accusing her of having an affair with the equally ridiculously unpleasant "Paul" she says, and I'm paraphrasing here, something like "yes, I spent a few nights with Paul. . . Get over it!" which no actual human being would ever say.

And the whole point of the movie seems to be a combination of "hey, it's Hemingway! Hey, it's Dali'! Oh, look, Gertrude Stein!" and some moral about how people romanticize the past, which is a long way to go for that stunning insight.

 

 Look, we got Adrien Brody for two minutes!

 Oh, the 2012 guy romanticizes the 1920's, but the woman from the 20's romanticizes the Belle Epoque, and the people in the Belle Epoque romanticize the Rennaissance! You don't fucking say! People really feel an unrealistic nostalgia for what they think of as the "Good Old Days?" Holy shit! I never thought of that!

  

Also, who casts a skinny guy as Hemingway?

The only other Best Picture nominee I've seen this year is The Artist, which was really good, but I was surprised that it was Best Picture material. Now that I've seen some of the competition, it makes a lot more sense.

 

And the Oscar for Best Dog goes to. . .