Quote of the Day

Today's quote(s) (of the day) come from yet another Nicholas Coppola vehicle, the 1999 Joel Schumacher-helmed cautionary tale 8MM. Both are flying high at the box office right now with Cage's Ghost Rider and Joel's The Number 23. It is thoroughly, utterly baffling that Schumacher continues to be allowed to make movies, as he's made more than a few of the worst ever. But as that opinion is shared by many and has been widely noted, it's hackneyed to even bring up at this point and I'll leave it there. Suffice to say that he must have some REALLY serious, potentially career-snuffing dirt on one or more Tinseltown ballers.

Perhaps his worst (after the Batmans) is 8MM. An even dumber, sleazier homage to Paul Schrader's laughable Hardcore, it's about a P.I. who is hired to find out if a snuff film in which a young girl is murdered onscreen is the real deal or not. His investigations take him into the seedy extreme-video underground in L.A., lorded over by Max California (Joaquin Phoenix). Cage's Tom Welles (the P.I.) finally finds and views the tape, and his histrionic reactions while watching (gasping, biting his fist, weeping - he falls just shy of firing his handgun at the screen) have been much laughed at by Liquid Metal, when recalled.

One of the main sickos involved in the snuffderground is George Higgins, a devout Danzig fan (see his posters) who prefers the terrifying nom de plume, "Machine." Welles finally nabs Machine, who turns out to be pure, undiluted evil, through and through. OR DOES HE?

Machine delivers these lines at gunpoint, in the pouring rain:

[after removing his mask for the first time]
George Higgins: What were you expecting? A monster?

George Higgins: You know the best part of killing someone? The look on their face. It's that look. Not when they're threatened. Not when you hurt them. Not even when they see the knife. It's when they feel the knife go in. That's it. It's surprise. They just can't believe it's really happening to them. She had that look, the girl, when she knew it wasn't just porno.

George Higgins: There's no mystery. Things I do, I do them because I like them! Because I want to!


See what Schumacher and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker have done here? That's right - shattered the barrier between good and evil.

We're all Machines.