THEIR QUOTES COUNTED

BLAME HOLLYWOOD

“Parents are locked in a losing competition with culture to raise our children.”

--Vice presidential hopeful Joseph I. Lieberman (CNN, Sept. 13)

“Lieberman has this quote about how before a person reaches age 18 he’s seen 20,000 murders on TV or in the movies. It sounds like a lot, but when you do the math, it’s only four a day.”

--Al Franken (New York Post, Oct. 10)

“When you trash the entertainment industry, your poll numbers go up. If I were running, I’d do it too.”

--Motion Picture Assn. of America President Jack Valenti (CNN, Sept. 13)

“Blaming Hollywood is like taking a high-powered rifle out to a field and shooting a cow. The cow is just standing there--mooo!--and bam! I mean, we’re just trying to make money, trying to get people to see our product by giving them a good time and they take that high-powered rifle and say, ‘It’s your fault,’ and shoot us.”

--Producer Joel Silver (Los Angeles Times, April 18)

“I wanted to hear from the people responsible for the actions of the studios, not from some lobbyist. I thought it was strange that [Miramax’s Harvey] Weinstein found time to host a [Democratic] fund-raiser but didn’t have time to appear before Congress.”

--Sen. John McCain, after the major studios chose not to send representatives to hearings on the film industry’s marketing of R-rated movies to children (Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 20)

“McCain is asking the impossible. You can’t guarantee that kids won’t see your ads. He’s asking us to commit to something we can’t do--and then to open ourselves up to legal action if we don’t live up to that commitment.”

--Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Friedman (Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 20)

WHEN BILLY MET ANGIE

“I’m in love with my brother.”

--Angelina Jolie at the Oscars (Daily Variety, March 27)

“I’m now happily involved with someone who’s my best friend. We have a dog and a yard and I have my kids part of the time, and I feel that I’ve become a good father, and it’s something I’m proud of.”

--Billy Bob Thornton, discussing longtime “best friend” Laura Dern, in an interview published shortly after he married Jolie (Men’s Journal, May)

“You know when you love someone so much you can almost kill them? We nearly kill each other. . . . I nearly was killed last night.”

--Jolie (US Weekly, June 26)

“I was looking at her sleep and I had to restrain myself from literally squeezing her to death.”

--Thornton (US Weekly, June 26)

“She [Lara Croft] is always doing something insane. She even sleeps with knives--like me.”

--Jolie, on identifying with her current character (Entertainment Weekly, Dec. 15)

“It’s strange to me that reporters don’t think the beautiful things in my life are worth mentioning.”

--Jolie (EW.com, June 9)

BATTLEFIELD ERR-TH

“I think it will be the Halloween costume of this year.”

--John Travolta, predicting that “Battlefield Earth” would be so popular kids would dress up as his dreadlocked villain character (Premiere, June)

“A million monkeys with a million crayons would be hard-pressed in a million years to create anything as cretinous as ‘Battlefield Earth.’ ”

--Review in the Washington Post

“This bombastic, frantic, frequently ludicrous ‘dream project’ of [Travolta] . . . is truly an insta-camp idiot’s delight. . . . Contrary to prior evidence, it is possible to make a popcorn pic too dumb for the peanut gallery. . . . The ‘Showgirls’ of sci-fi shoot-’em-ups.”

--Review in Daily Variety

“Sitting through it is like watching the most expensively mounted high school play of all time. . . . ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space’ for a new generation. . . . May well turn out to be the worst movie of this century.”

--Review in the New York Times

“I did my research. Critics traditionally don’t like science-fiction. Many critics didn’t give ‘Alien,’ ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ or ‘Blade Runner’ good reviews on their initial releases, but have since revised those opinions.”

--John Travolta, suggesting that “Battlefield Earth” will someday benefit from critical revisionism, adding that he hopes to do a sequel (Salon.com, Oct. 20)

CRASH TEST DUMMIES

“There’s a whole generation of fans that is going to these tests. They find out where there is recruiting going on or they know certain places to go, like the Santa Monica Promenade, where recruiters are always out. They’re professional movie testers, and it’s made the process more and more meaningless.”

--Lions Gate Co-President Tom Ortenberg (New York Times, June 25)

“You ask them if it’s too long and they always say yes, even if it’s 88 minutes.”

--Oliver Stone, on research screenings (New York Times, June 25)

“If you go by test screenings, the movie will be zero minutes long.” --Billy Bob Thornton (Premiere, January 2001, on newsstands in mid-December)

R IS FOR REEDIT

“Many films that should not be seen be minors are re-cut so that they receive a ‘hard’ R rating. This has the effect of not only compromising filmmakers’ visions, but also greatly increases the likelihood that adult-oriented movies are seen by the very groups for which they are not intended.”

--A Directors Guild of America statement breaking ranks with the MPAA and calling the NC-17 rating “an abject failure” (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 2)

“I’ve visited middle America, and people don’t relish [the f-word]. Now, people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles may find it kind of like saying, ‘Pass me the salt,’ but that’s not the way most Americans look at it.”

--MPAA head Jack Valenti, defending the R ratings for bad language given to films like “Billy Elliot” (Entertainment Weekly, Oct. 27)

HEAVENLY FEMINISM

“[‘Charlie’s Angels’] is a movie about totally positive female energy, and I think it’s an important thing that girls can be great at everything they do. They can be in love, be tough, have jobs and not sacrifice anything and be able to fly through the air and look great and be brilliant. . . . And it’s my story.”

--Columbia Pictures Chairwoman Amy Pascal (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27)

“A lot of movies try to make you think. ‘Charlie’s Angels’ tries to make you dream.”

--Director McG, waxing inspirational (Newsweek, Nov. 6)

INSIDE THE ACTORS’ STUDIO

“I think of [the academy members] as hard-working, conscientious individuals who are trying to destroy me.”

--Jim Carrey, accepting a ShoWest male star of the year award, after being passed over by the Oscars for his “Man on the Moon” role (Los Angeles Times, March 15)

“The hardest part was figuring out what a dinosaur sounds like. Then you realize, ‘Dinosaurs don’t talk, so I think I can make a leap here.’ ”

--Julianna Margulies, on doing voices for “Dinosaur” (Premiere, June)

“I have no ambition as an actress. I wanted to care, but I didn’t. I remember Catherine Deneuve saying, ‘Don’t you think it’s amazing that you can just become someone else?’ And I just looked at her and said no. . . . I feel I haven’t even fully become what I am, the potential I was given, and I have to work hard, for 40 years at least, to bring out the songs that I hear in my head. To become someone else seems like a waste of time.”

--Bjork, singer-turned-momentary-actress (Los Angeles Times, Sept. 10)

“When I die, I don’t want to put some lead-lined casket around me that will keep the bugs away for centuries. That’s like wrapping myself in tinfoil--what a waste of underground property. A casket just delays things. I want to get my synergy with those worms as fast as I can.”

--Peter Fonda, getting philosophical at the Avignon Film Festival (Salon.com, April 27)

“People the world over recognize me as a great spiritual leader.”

--Steven Seagal (London Sun, April 12)

“[I would] never date a businessman. Put that in print. They’re civilians. I’m of the alien nation of actors. I am proud to be an alien, and I’m only really comfortable with fellow aliens.”

--Glenn Close, on why she only dates actors (Calgary [Canada] Sun, Nov. 16)

“You look at something you did years ago, and it’s like, ‘Oh boy! What was I thinking?’ I think time makes one more aware of the light and shade in human behavior. Most people get better with time. The sad part is, you get old and ugly as you get better.”

--Mel Gibson (Time, Dec. 11)

“Nobody gives a damn what my problem is. I could literally have a tumor on the side of my head and they’d be like, ‘Yeah, big deal, I’d eat a tumor every morning for the kinda money you’re pulling down.’ ”

--Jim Carrey (Details, November)

CONTENTIOUS CONTENDERS

“I think Rod lost his courage along the way. . . . [The movie is] almost a Goebbels-like piece of propaganda. . . . If your names are Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen, you can’t have a film with a Republican character who is at all sympathetic being released Oct. 13.”

--”The Contender” co-producer Douglas Urbanski, accusing writer-director Rod Lurie of doing an about-face in the editing room after DreamWorks bought the film, which was released three weeks before the presidential election. (Premiere, November)

“One only has to look at the coverage of the [Democratic] convention to see that the owners of this company have sympathies with the Democratic Party. Did those sympathies enter into the editorial process . . . or the decision to buy the movie? Unequivocally, no.”

--DreamWorks’ Walter Parkes (Premiere, November)

“Runyon is, in my opinion, the only true patriot in the film.”

--Gary Oldman, on thinking of his Republican senator character in “The Contender” as “the good guy,” before the film was bought by DreamWorks and reedited (Premiere, November)

“Gary is emblematic of what many actors go through: a kind of Stockholm syndrome in which they begin to sympathize with their captors, and in this case, the captors are the characters that they play.”

--”Contender” writer-director Rod Lurie (Premiere, November)

“I’m surprised that more people have not been murdered in the entertainment industry.”

--Oldman (Premiere, November)

SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO NOW?

“Alec is the biggest moralist that I know. He stands completely behind what he says. . . . I can very well imagine that Alec makes good on his threat. And then I’d probably have to go too.”

--Kim Basinger, discussing husband Alec Baldwin’s purported threat to leave the country if George W. Bush were elected president, in Germany’s Focus magazine (New York Daily News, Aug. 18)

“I never said I’d leave the country, and my wife never heard of Focus magazine and never talked to them.”

--Alec Baldwin (New York Daily News, Aug. 19)

“Kim did indeed speak to a Focus magazine. It was during a press junket. When you do those junkets, the studio forces you to do dozens of interviews with people you never heard of. . . . But my wife and I never said unequivocally that we would leave the country if Bush won. Never.”

--Baldwin, backpedaling, saying he would probably just take a long vacation under a Bush presidency (New York Daily News, Sept. 20)

“Here’s what I really said. I said that if Bush gets elected, I’ll move to Paris, Texas, because the state will be better off if he’s out of it.”

--Director Robert Altman, setting the record straight after being quoted at France’s Deauville Film Festival as saying he’d leave America if Bush won (New York Daily News, Sept. 22)

CARREY VERSUS THE MENTALLY DISTURBED

”. . . gross ignorance and insensitivity . . . tastelessness and cruelty. . . . [Fox is] seeking to dismiss such concerns with claims that the film is ‘only a comedy,’ but for millions of Americans, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are no laughing matter.”

--The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, launching a protest against “Me, Myself & Irene” (Salon.com, June 13)

“We had a lot of dumb people complaining about ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ too.”

--Jim Carrey (Salon.com, June 13)

NUCLEAR FAMILY OF THE YEAR

“At this stage of the game, they don’t do much but eat, sleep and poo--so I don’t have much to do with any of that.”

--Director Guy Ritchie, on his responsibilities as a father (London Mirror, Oct. 30)

“Ah . . . zero.”

--Madonna, on how she rates as a wife, on a scale of 1 to 10 (US Weekly, Nov. 13)

SHAFT. JOHN SHAFT.

“A director has to earn my respect. John [Singleton] failed to do that, so there were some tense moments. I resented that we had to pull him out of his trailer some days to get him to direct. . . . [Come time for a sequel], I’ll be back, but I’m pretty certain he won’t.”

--”Shaft” star Samuel L. Jackson (Calgary Sun, May 5)

“I told him point-blank that I refused to say that white man’s lines. [Co-screenwriter] Richard Price put certain words in my mouth. I’d do it my way and poor John would have Scott Rudin breathing in his ear demanding that he make me say the lines they’d paid so much money for.”

--Jackson (New York Daily News, June 8)

“Sam is opinionated, but I respect that. It was our producer, Scott Rudin, that was the big problem.”

--”Shaft” director John Singleton (Time, June 19)

“Sam objects to everything. . . . If you asked me who is the unsung hero of this movie, I would say it’s Richard Price.”

--”Shaft” producer Scott Rudin (Entertainment Weekly, June 16)

DIETER VERSUS OPIE

“I cannot, in good conscience, accept $20 million and cheat moviegoers who pay their hard-earned money for my work by making a movie with an unacceptable script.”

--Mike Myers, backing out of a deal to make “Dieter” shortly before filming was to commence (Time, June 19)

“He claimed he had not approved the screenplay. Who wrote the screenplay? Myers.”

--A lawsuit filed by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Pictures against Myers (Entertainment Weekly, July 28)

“If I had Brian and Opie in front of me, I’d slap them because they called my Mike difficult. But maybe that’s a compliment. . . . They called Streisand difficult too, all right? And that’s good company to keep.”

--Myers’ mother, Linda Richman, defending him after the “Dieter” imbroglio (Entertainment Weekly, July 28)

DOWNEY VERSUS DOWNEY

“I have undergone a profound change internally. I feel an immense sense of waste and regret for the harm I have caused myself and so many people I care about. . . . [What I did] was wrong in every sense, including morally.”

--Robert Downey Jr., starting a new life (GQ, March)

“I would have been the first to say it’s unconstitutional to put drug abusers in jail or prison. Well, it’s unconstitutional to be a human being and screw up your life that way.”

--Downey, after being released from prison, before his subsequent arrest (Details, October)

“I just want you to know, you’ve ruined my career, and you’ve ruined my life.”

--Downey, to arresting officers in Palm Springs (Washington Post, Nov. 28)

“We certainly hope [Downey] will be part of it. If he is, that will be wonderful, and if not, we have Anne Heche.”

--Fox programming chief Gail Berman, on whether the actor would continue on “Ally McBeal” after his latest arrest (Newsweek, Dec. 11)

‘BROAD’ VERSUS ‘BROAD’

“When Debbie Reynolds first showed up, she said, ‘I’m old and I’m fat and I don’t care.’ Then she got a look at Joan Collins, and believe me, she cared. . . . [When Elizabeth Taylor arrives], believe me, you don’t want to be here. All of the attention in the room immediately zooms over to her, and the other girls are not happy at all.”

--”These Old Broads” costumer Nolan Miller (USA Today, Oct. 5)

“Oh, Joan’s OK. That’s just the way she is. . . . You know, I did that ‘Flintstones’ movie a few years ago and it was a big hit. Joan did the sequel, and it bombed. But she was wonderful in it. She’s just not, you know, a movie star.”

--Elizabeth Taylor, after being told of Collins’ catty remarks about her figure (Liz Smith, Oct. 25)

GIBSON VERSUS BONO

“I thought it was as boring as a dog’s ass.”

--Mel Gibson, star of “Million Dollar Hotel,” on the film, which got bad reviews and so far has only been released overseas (New York Daily News, Dec. 7)

“We had a 600-pound gorilla who was supposed to be our bodyguard on the project, Mel Gibson, and now he is sitting on our head. It’s bad. We can’t get the movie out. . . . I think Mel doesn’t like his performance in the film. . . . It’s not one of those normal, justifiable-homicide-type movies.”

--”Million Dollar Hotel” co-writer Bono (KROQ-FM, Dec. 7)

MURRAY VERSUS LIU

“[Lucy Liu] was upset, but it wasn’t . . . this big knock-down, drag-out, insane [expletive] thing that made us not able to make our movie, it was an argument. . . . Maybe [Bill Murray] went into it thinking, ‘I will save you,’ and I think he left it thinking, ‘I like you.’ I’m a really sensitive emotional [expletive] freak, and I’m so careful of everything I say because I want to bestow love upon people. A lot of comedians are not like that--they want the joke, they want the laugh, and they’re going to get it no matter who gets hurt in the process. And Bill Murray is one of those people. And, ironically, nobody seems to dislike him--they say thank you for making me laugh--so I’m not going to question his methods.”

--Drew Barrymore, on the widely rumored blow-up on the “Charlie’s Angels” set (Rolling Stone, Nov. 23)

“It’s the aggravation that creates the pearl.”

--”Charlie’s Angels” director McG, addressing trouble on the set (US Weekly, Nov. 13)

FISHER VERSUS FISHER

“The best thing Elizabeth Taylor did for me was to get Eddie Fisher out of our house. One of the reasons Elizabeth worked so tirelessly for gays is that, well, frankly, Eddie Fisher could put you off heterosexuals for life.”

--Carrie Fisher, on her dad, Eddie, while presenting a GLAAD award to Taylor (Entertainment Weekly, April 28)

“Carrie’s gone completely out of her mind.”

--Eddie Fisher (Entertainment Weekly, April 28)

YOUNG, GIFTED AND TINY

“I’m for those girls that haven’t had the breast implants and just are their scrawny little selves. . . . The weight issue: Seriously--put a fork in it.”

--Lara Flynn Boyle (“Entertainment Tonight,” July 10)

“We’re all between 5-2 and 5-5 and between 95 and 125 pounds.”

--Sarah Michelle Gellar, on Hollywood’s current specs for young actresses (Rolling Stone, May 11)

“You got to use it while you got it. . . . Any woman who says she doesn’t use her feminine abilities at any point in her life to get something she wants probably is not being honest.”

--Cameron Diaz, on “Charlie’s Angels” (TV Guide, Oct. 24)

“I think I’m the only actress in Hollywood who has weight-gain powder on her kitchen counter.”

--Renee Zellweger, on beefing up for “Bridget Jones’ Diary” (Vanity Fair, July)

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--Compiled by CHRIS WILLMAN