Deadspin
I know I've been writing a lot this week, and I swear, my actual job really does keep me plenty busy, but Daulerio informed me of an impending change at Deadspin that I had to weigh in on. In about 15 minutes, Gawker Media is introducing automated, ad-produced sponsors posts. That means: No more movie quotes, ever again. I was surprised by how sad this made me.
To be entirely honest, there were weeks in which I put as much mental energy into deciding what the movie quotes were going to be than the I spent on the rest of the site. (This will likely not strike you as a surprise.) The whole thing started because, well, I absolutely hated that I had to write a sponsors post; it felt like ad copy, and only chumps like Drew do ad copy. But, you know, back in 2005, Nick Denton had us writing posts on an Etch-and-Sketch, which was then flown by carrier pigeon (very, very carefully) to Hungary, where tiny, hairless, meth-enhanced Indonesian children pedaled bicycles to power the servers. (I never quite understood why Nick bothered to fly the children to Hungary from Indonesia. I was afraid to ask.) Posts hit the site roughly 37 days after they were initially written. We've come a long way. Kind of.
That is to say: I wasn't in much of a position to complain about anything, considering my only other career option at the time involved harvesting horse semen. Now that I think about it, that's not all that different than the days of Barbaro, really.
Anyway. I kind of feel like we're losing something by not having the movie posts anymore. It was the only time on Deadspin I got to do what I really wanted to: Just quote Woody Allen all day. It took restraint I didn't know I had not to make every movie post a Woody Allen post. To deaden the pain, I tried to pick movies that I loved, hoping someone out there would recognize them. This rarely happened. Fortunately, Daulerio would pick movies that, you know, people actually watched and enjoyed. A coarse plebian, that guy.
So, because this is the last ever sponsors post with movie quotes, I thought I'd just list all the movies I used. Beware: There are a lot, so this is one of those posts that runs long and ruins your workday, apparently. For the record, I don't love all these movies ... but I do love most of them.
Here you go, in order:
Glengarry Glen Ross
This Is Spinal Tap
The Big Lebowski
Army Of Darkness
Annie Hall
A Fish Called Wanda
Rushmore
Being John Malkovich
Friday
True Romance
Clerks
The Naked Gun
Requiem For A Dream
Best In Show
Zoolander
Dr. Strangelove
Ed Wood
Punch Drunk Love
The Incredibles
Heat
Brazil
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Beavis And Butt-head Do America
Ali G Indahouse
Do The Right Thing
Airplane
Cool Hand Luke
Election
Brick
L.A. Confidential
South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Taxi Driver
Sin City
Lost In Translation
The Departed
The Straight Story
The Truman Show
From Russia With Love
Nashville
Love And Death
Double Indemnity
The Talented Mr. Ripley
A Christmas Story
Eddie Murphy: Raw
Children Of Men
The Good Shepherd
Junebug
The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
Hannah And Her Sisters
Million Dollar Baby
se7en
Vertigo
Pootie Tang
The Upside Of Anger
Bob Roberts
Four Rooms
Grindhouse
Shaun Of The Dead
Clue
Darkman
28 Days Later
Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind
Donnie Brasco
"Freaks And Geeks"
From Dusk Till Dawn
"The Sopranos"
The Manchurian Candidate
The Iron Giant
Transformers: The Movie
Trees Lounge
Back To The Future
"The Simpsons"
Broadcast News
The Natural
The Limey
Three Kings
You Can Count On Me
Unforgiven
The Fly
In The Company Of Men
The Royal Tenenbaums
Kingpin
Aliens
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Dog Day Afternoon
Miller's Crossing
The Squid And The Whale
The Conversation
Superbad
Gremlins
There Will Be Blood
Blade Runner
Once
Edward Scissorhands
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
No Country For Old Men
Zodiac
Short Cuts
Rambo
Michael Clayton
Body Heat
Repo Man
Sideways
Lone Star
Funny Games
Good Night, And Good Luck
Crumb
I Am Legend
Mean Girls
The Aviator
Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Ooops. My first repeat. Sorry.)
The Spanish Prisoner
Top Secret
Manhattan
Tootsie
Lady In The Water
Singin' In The Rain
2001: A Space Odyssey
A sad day indeed.
