Quote of the Day (Alexander Payne, on the Problem With Doing a Special-Effects Film)

“I’ve learned that doing a visual-effects film is a lot like having contractors in your house. It’s all hugs and kisses for quite a while, and then you get down to the deadline and they have other jobs that they’re moving on to and you have to say, ‘Wait, no, get back here, it’s not good enough! And no, you’re not charging us any more.’” —American screenwriter-director Alexander Payne, on his special effects-dependent movie Downsizing, quoted in Boris Kachka, “Alexander Payne’s Small Wonders,” New York Magazine, Dec. 11-24, 2017

Movie Quote of the Day (“Election,” With an Unconventional Student Council Speech)

Tammy Metzler (played by Jessica Campbell): [her campaign speech] “Who cares about this stupid election? We all know it doesn't matter who gets elected president of Carver. Do you really think it's going to change anything around here? Make one single person smarter or happier or nicer? The only person it does matter to is the one who gets elected. The same pathetic charade happens every year, and everyone makes the same pathetic promises just so they can put it on their transcripts to get into college. So vote for me, because I don't even want to go to college, and I don't care, and as president I won't do anything. The only promise I will make is that if elected I will immediately dismantle the student government, so that none of us will ever have to sit through one of these stupid assemblies again!”

[The student body erupts in huge cheers. They start chanting "Tammy! Tammy!"]

Tammy: “Or don't vote for me! Who cares? Don't vote at all!”

[They all rise to give her a standing ovation]—Election (1999), screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, adapted from the novel by Tom Perrotta, directed by Alexander Payne