LolliLove (2004)

James Gunn: James Gunn

Quotes 

• James : [talking about charity causes]  There's also the conjoined twins, which are like, those are Siamese twins, and I remember when I was a kid, I thought that it would be really awesome to have a conjoined twin because you'd always have a playmate, someone to hang out with, no matter what you'd never be lonely, but the reality is much more grim than that. It gets old very quickly, and it's hard to maneuver through like, a restaurant or whatever.

• James : I really can't think of much else but Jesus Christ. He gave himself, and that's what I do with my art. The only difference is, is that Jesus is a totally made up guy, and I'm completely real.

• James : [in a meeting with Larry]  I have some of my artistic renderings over here. Here we go. This is what one of the lollipop covers would look like. The name of this particular piece is "You matter" - that's a phrase you heard back there. And, to you or I, this would maybe, well, that's a very interesting picture, there's something about it that's sort of touching, but to a homeless person, he looks at this, and now I don't want to get too intellectual on you, but this is like looking at a mirror of his inner psyche. A bum looks at this and says, "Oh, wow, this is what I look like. I look like this guy that's got flies all around my head, I got smells coming out of me, I got googly eyes going in different directions! And, oh, I must be a big huge piece of crud!" No, sir, you're not, because "you matter" and then they go, "Whuuuh?"

  [Larry smiles] 

• James : [in a meeting with Larry]  So I also have this piece, this is my anti-drug piece, it's called "High on Joy." A crack addict will look at this and say, "What am I doing wasting my life smoking all this crack when I could be high on joy?" Over here we have a mascot that I've created. His name is Felix, he's created to tune into the Latino community. He's Latino - you can tell he is because he's wearing a sombrero and a poncho, as Latinos do. You may or may not know, but about 75% of all homeless people are Latino.

  Larry : Where did you, uh, hear that?

  James : Well, I've taken my own random sampling with, uh, there's four guys that live like, on my block and three of them are Latino - 75%. I mean, the one guy is black. He could be, like, a dark-colored Latino but that wouldn't really make any sense, because that would mean 100% of homeless people are Latino.

  [Larry nods] 

  James : Felix has a lot of slogans that will appeal, give positive messages to the Latino community. Right here, Felix is saying "No complainin', hombre!" I imagine, down in the barrio, people will be saying this to each other all the time - it's like their own sort of, uh..."What's up, doc."

  [Larry smiles] 

• James : [in a meeting with Larry]  I also imagine some other characters that I'm creating. For instance, I have this guy named "Mustafa"... he's a Muslim... he's somebody who's anti-terrorism. I think that if the 9/11 guys had seen Mustafa giving them a positive slogan before they got onto those planes, they would have said, "Gents, this is not a good idea. Let's do something else."

  [Larry smiles] 

  James : [in character]  Oooooh, my name is Mustafa! No longer fly planes into buildings, no! Love your Christian brothers and sisters!

• James : You're just angry because I shined like a star up there and you sunk to the bottom like a ten dollar rock!

• James : Ideas: In episode six, Mustafa can get a new sidekick, Osama bin Awesome, Osama bin Laden's really cool brother.

• James : We've come down here to help the homeless, and it's a little disappointing because they're all asleep.

• James : You know, one thing from that day, I realized that Jenna could've been raped by that bum that day if I wasn't around, and I've imagined her getting raped by that bum again, and again, and again and again. And so I did a little artistic essay with Jenna getting raped by that bum in various positions of the Kama Sutra. It covers three walls.

• [last lines] 

  Jenna : I want to also appeal to celebrities. We have some celebrity friends that I would like to try and get involved. I would like to maybe have them be spokespeople, perhaps do some of our television, print ads for us...

  James : Probably most of that stuff, they're gonna want me to do, 'cause it's my art... they'll, probably most of the stuff, they're gonna be interested in me doing it. And then I could probably have somebody like Willie Aames as my sidekick or something, right?

  Jenna : Yeah...

  James : ...and John Schneider.

  Jenna : I think it should be somebody of color, because I don't think we want it to just be white people.

  James : Like Whitney Houston could, you know...

  Jenna : Oh my gosh, I would love to get, like, Halle Berry, because she's actually half white and half black, so...

  James : I'm trying to think of another black person...

  Jenna : Um...

  James : Eddie Murphy...

  Jenna : Mm-hmm...

  James : Tyra Banks...

  Jenna : Mm-hmm...

  James : George Huff...

  Jenna : [Thinks]  Mexican people!

  James : Uh... there's still more black people left.

  [Both of them think really hard] 

  James : Bill Cosby...

  Jenna : Well, what about black people we know?

  [They both try to think of someone] 

• James : When I was five years old, I had a defining moment in my life. It was the first time I saw my own artwork, and I was... I was blown away.

• James : Maybe if someone had given a Jew a lollipop with "Dare to dream" on it *before* they had gone to Auschwitz they would have *dared to dream* to get out of Germany and not just given up and gone to Auschwitz and gotten killed.