Today, I want to know what you think is the all-time best movie insult.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Movies, naturally, have a ton of great insults in them, since there are many excellent screenwriters out there, and insults are a major part of drama, so, well, put them together and you gets lots and lots of epic insults in movie history. I want to know, though, which one you think is the all-time best!
My pick is the exchange between Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ugarte (Peter Lorre) in Casablanca, where Ugarte visits Rick at his casino to reveal that he has the stolen letters of transit that the Nazis are looking for (thus proving that he is a murderer, since the Nazi couriers who had the letters were killed. Rick is honestly surprised by this, as he didn’t think Ugarte had the guts to actually kill someone. He knew he had the lack of CHARACTER to do it, just not the guts).
Ugarte wants Rick to hold on to the letters for him until he sells them, because he trusts Rick, even though he knows Rick hates him (he just knows Rick is an honorable man).
Ugarte tells Rick, “You despise me, don’t you.”
Rick replies, “If I gave you any thought, I probably would.”
Daaaaaaang, that’s COLD!
Okay, so that’s my pick! How about you?
And feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at brian@poprefs.com!
You cock-juggling thunder-cunt!
Hannibal King, Blade Trinity.
I always liked the the line from “Good Morning Vietnam”
*The radio team discussion while reviewing listener letters from Marines in Da Nang*
“This guy here wrote; Captain Hauk should suck the sweat off of a dead yak’s balls.”
“Sir, I have no idea what that means, but it seems very negative to me.”
“I crap bigger than you.”
-Jack Palance as Curly to Billy Crystal as Mitch in “City Slickers”
“You mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries!”
I might have to go with “Billy Madison” here: “What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
(Unless we consider a “movie insult” to be an insult directed AT a movie, in which case Roger Ebert was the king: “This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”)
I always liked Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist (very underrated)
“The day I need a friend like you, I’ll just have a little squat and shit one out”
Let’s go with another Adam Sandler movie:
Gavin: I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast.
Gilmore: You eat shit for breakfast?
“Every time he opens his mouth he detracts from the sum total of human knowledge!” — from an obscure (but fun) 1930s political film, “Dark Horse.”
So many movie insults to recommend, so little time. Some of my faves:
“I don’t think I want to know a six-year-old who isn’t a dreamer, or a sillyheart. And I sure don’t want to know one who takes their student career seriously. I don’t have a college degree. I don’t even have a job. But I know a good kid when I see one. Because they’re ALL good kids, until dried-out, brain-dead skags like you drag them down and convince them they’re no good. You so much as scowl at my niece, or any other kid in this school, and I hear about it, and I’m coming looking for you! Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face! Good day to you, madam.” – UNCLE BUCK (1989)
“If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I’d like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, d***less, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey s*** he is.” – NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)
“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you – he really is an idiot.” – DUCK SOUP (1933)
“To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people.” – A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988)
“Were you always this stupid or did you take lessons?” – THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996)
“My great aunt Jennifer ate a whole box of candy every day of her life. She lived to be 102 and when she’d been dead three days, she looked better than you do now.” – THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER (1942)
“You’re just the afterbirth, Eli, slithered out on your mother’s filth. They should have put you in glass jar on a mantelpiece.” – THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007)
“Go f*** yourself, you WRITER!” – THE CLOSER (2004), which seems like “art imitates life” after the WGA/SAG strike drama this year.
“You’re somewhere between a cockroach and that white stuff that accumulates at the corner of your mouth when you’re really thirsty.” – CON AIR (1997)
“From what I hear, you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a f***ing boat.” – BILL DURHAM (1988)
“Conversation with Zuzu Petals was like masturbating with a cheese grater: slightly amusing, but mostly painful.” – THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FARELANE (1990)