Quotes – The Birdcage

A staple of my family’s collection when I was a teen, I find much of this movie extremely hilarious, perhaps more so than is normal (or so my friends tell me, anyway). This Robin Williams / Nathan Lane take on La Cage aux Folles was by no means universally liked (78% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but all I can say is that I find certain lines very, very funny and addictively quotable. Perhaps it’s nostalgia for where I grew up, or nostalgia for Robin Williams back when (remember those days?), or just my own sense of humor, but whatever the reason, I often turn to this film on a rainy day (yes, literally and figuratively). It must have something to do with Hank Azaria’s – sorry, Agador Spartcus’s – “natural heat”…

Here are some of my favorite lines:

[when asked about a football game] How do you think I feel? Betrayed, bewildered… [pause] Wrong response?

So this is Hell. And there’s a crucifix in it.

One does want a hint of a color.

I made you short?

- All right, I’ll bite, where are you going?
- To Los Copa.
- Los Copa? There’s nothing in Los Copa but a cemetery.
- I know, that’s why I’m packing light.
- Oh I see. You’re going to a cemetery… with your toothbrush. How Egyptian.

- What are you doing?
- What?
- Why are you giving him drugs? What the h*** are pirin tablets?
- It’s aspirin with the “a” and the “s” scraped off.
- My God, what a brilliant idea.
- I know.

- Who put Playboy in the bathroom?
- It’s what they read.
- Don’t add! Just subtract!

- No good?
- Actually, it’s perfect. I just never realized John Wayne walked like that.

For more quotes, go to IMDB. For Entertainment Weekly’s look at “funny film dads” Armand and Albert Goldman (remember, the “d” is silent), click here.