Warning: This Puzzle Contains Bad Language
by Ian Tullis and Mike Selinker
Answer: HARLEM NIGHTS
This quote is a run-on series of repunctuated and restyled lines from each of 27 terrible* films—specifically 27 of the 28 films that won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay from the award's debut in 1980 to the most recent in 2007. Each line is missing a word. Here are the correctly punctuated and complete lines, in all their glory:
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002): "I'm haunted by the kiss that you should never have given me."
- Inchon (1982): "Where dramatic license has been deemed necessary, the authors have taken advantage of this license to dramatize the subject."
- Catwoman (2004): "But there was no obituary, because the day that I died was also the day I started to live."
- Leonard Part 6 (1987): "This was, I believe, the first recorded instance of a CIA agent being eaten alive by a rainbow trout!"
- Dirty Love (2005): "Can we get a price check please on the super size maxi pads for the woman who keeps bleeding all over the store?"
- Gigli (2003): "In traditional Tai Moi Chai, there are five levels of digital orb extrusion."
- The Postman (1997): "U.S. Mail... Restored United States... Do these people really believe that shit?"
- Freddy Got Fingered (2001): "He's rigged a pulley system so he can eat sausage and work on his stupid drawings."
- The Lonely Lady (1983): "It means your stories vividly demonstrate the inadequacy of liberal values in the face of evil!"
- The Flintstones (1994): "Well, the machine went haywire and the rocks got crushed up and mixed with the water, and it got onto Cliff."
- Hudson Hawk (1991): "History, tradition, culture... are not concepts! These are trophies I keep in my den as paperweights!"
- The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990): "Conversation with Zuzu Petals was like masturbating with a cheese grater: slightly amusing but mostly painful."
- Striptease (1996): "Oh yes your honor; I found a new job... I'm working at the Eager Beaver!"
- Can't Stop the Music (1980): "Anyone who could swallow two Snowballs and a Ding Dong shouldn't have any trouble with pride."
- Cocktail (1988): "I left a can of Spam in your refrigerator... I hope your Brewers Yeast doesn't take it personally."
- Battlefield Earth (2000): "They told me this planet was ugly, but this has got to be one of the ugliest crap holes in the entire universe."
- Howard the Duck (1986): "Every duck has his limit, and you scum have pushed me over the line!"
- Mommie Dearest (1981): "What's wire hangers doing in this closet when I told you: no wire hangers ever?"
- Showgirls (1995): "They're going to see a smiling snatch if you don't fix this g-string."
- Basic Instinct 2 (2006): "You know how some guys are into blondes, and some guys are into killers?"
- Wild Wild West (1999): "I only have one request: that you aim for my heart, my heart which has loved this country so much."
- Indecent Proposal (1993): "Suppose... I were to offer you one million dollars for one night with your wife."
- I Know Who Killed Me (2007): "She knew how to turn her life into a movie and watch things happen."
- An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1998): "I got my script back and didn't recognize a single word of it."
- Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! (1992): "His ass was the grass and I was the lawnmower."
- Bolero (1984): "I've come all this way to give you something you may not even want - my virginity."
- Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985): "I want, what they want, and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had, wants!"
The missing words read YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ALL OF THESE STUPID STORIES GOT TROPHIES BUT YOUR TROUBLE CAN BE OVER WHEN YOU KNOW WHICH ONE MOVIE SCRIPT WAS NOT HERE. The only unquoted honoree, from 1989, is HARLEM NIGHTS.
*Terrible, except for Howard the Duck. We absolutely love ducks from outer space around these parts.