Badges?

It is 95 days until the general election.

Today, I’m asking you to write the meat of this post.

Do you, like me, enjoy tossing out a movie quote here and there to be applied to a real-life situation? Yeah, it’s fun.

Do you, like me, find many of your thoughts and perceptions tainted by the current administration in the White House? Such as this quote from the 1985 film, Back to the Future: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” I hear that and might think, “With the GOP refusing to tax our richest citizens, we soon won’t have any roads.”

Get it?

Your task is to take some of the following movie quotes and look at them under the light of today’s world. Extra points if you share your thoughts in the comments.

Go!

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!” Oliver Hardy as Oliver Hardy in Sons of the Desert, 1933.

“After all, tomorrow is another day!” Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, 1939.

“Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, 1939.

“Round up the usual suspects.” Claude Rains as Capt. Louis Renault in Casablanca, 1942.

“Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” Alfonso Bedoya as Gold Hat in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948.

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve, 1950.

“You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, 1954.

“By protecting others, you save yourselves.” —Takashi Shimura as Kambei Shimada in Seven Samurai, 1954.

“Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Rosalind Russell as Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame, 1958

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” Strother Martin as Captain in Cool Hand Luke, 1967.

“You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” Clint Eastwood as Harry in Dirty Harry, 1971.

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone in Godfather, 1972.

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Peter Finch as Howard Beale in Network, 1976.

“No wire hangers, ever!” Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, 1981.

“They’re here!” Heather O’Rourke as Carol Anne Freeling in Poltergeist, 1982.

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, 1987.

“To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people!” Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda Gershwitz in A Fish Called Wanda, 1988.

“Hasta la vista, baby.” Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991.

“You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessep in A Few Good Men, 1992.

“Oh yes, the past can hurt. But you can either run from it or learn from it.” – Robert Guillaume as Rafiki in The Lion King, 1994.

“Show me the money!” Cuba Gooding Jr. as Rod Tidwell in Jerry Maguire, 1996.

“I’m king of the world!” Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson in Titanic, 1997.

“I see dead people.” Haley Joel Osment as Cole Sear in The Sixth Sense, 1999.

“It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.” Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club, 1999.

“I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland in Cast Away, 2000.

“My precious.” Andy Serkis as Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, 2002.

“Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.” Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben Parker in Spider-Man, 2002.

“It is not our abilities that show what we truly are … it is our choices.” Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002.

“Now you’re looking for the secret, but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.” Michael Caine as Cutter in The Prestige, 2006.

“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained.” Donald Sutherland as President Snow in The Hunger Games, 2012.

“I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup in 12 Years a Slave, 2013.

“Anyone can wear the mask. You could wear the mask. If you didn’t know that before, I hope you do now.” Shameik Moore as Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018.

Finally, here’s a bonus I stumbled across while working on this list. After the opening credits of the 1949 film, Beyond the Forest, this warning card was included: “This is the story of evil. Evil is headstrong – is puffed up. For our soul’s sake, it is salutary for us to view it in all its naked ugliness once in a while.”