So, Slinkerwink has a top-rated diary about how the House GOP is now turning to crime thrillers for inspiration on how to stick together.
Thick as thieves, I believe the term is.
The movie in question is "The Town", which I've actually heard is a great crime drama (it gets an extremely impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoes), though I haven't seen it myself yet.
The story involves armed robbery, kidnapping, betrayal and psychotic killers. Sounds right up the Republican Party's alley.
Here's the trailer (and I suspect that sales/rentals of The Town are probably about to go through the roof in light of today's House GOP news, just like sales of white Ford Broncos shot up after the O.J. Simpson "chase", but that's a different diary):
Anyway, this led me to think about other "inspirational" movies that the GOP might consider viewing to help them keep their edge:
Glengarry Glen Ross; I'd imagine that the House GOP caucus' meetings go something like this:
Here's the scene from Boiler Room which I immediately thought of when I first read Slinkerwink's diary--it shows a bunch of 90's "pump & dump" investment scammers who watch Wall Street for inspiration from Gordon Gekko, completely and utterly missing the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT OF THE MOVIE, just as the real-life GOP doesn't seem to grasp that they're the bad guys here (note: Ben Affleck is here again):
Here's what I imagine is a pretty good reenactment of how yesterday's meeting went (thanks to zenbassoon for the reminder):
But if you really want a movie that COMPLETELY crystalizes the modern Republican Party in all of its' "glory", there's only one answer:
Everyone knows how amazing Goodfellas is, but the specific clips used in this particular trailer are jaw-droppingly dead on for describing the modern GOP:
"As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States."
"Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut."
"It meant being somebody in a neighborhood that was full of nobodies."
"There was $30 billion a year...and believe me, we tried to steal every bit of it."
"If we wanted something, we just took it...and you didn't even think about it."
"To us, it was better than Citibank."
"I was living in a fantasy. For most of the guys, killings got to be accepted. Murder was the only way that everybody stayed in line. You got out of line, you got whacked."
"For us to live any other way was nuts. Anything I wanted was a phone call away. We were treated like movie stars with muscle. We had it all, just for the asking. It was a glorious time."
Note: Yes, I know, I should include The Godfather, but that was the OLD Republican Party; they were always criminals, but at least they used to have something resembling a code of conduct; they used to try to look respectable.
The new GOP doesn't even have a pretense of respectability, honor or decency, so I left the Godfather out of the list.