< Back to front page Text size +

Movies with Mitt (Don't tell Ann)

Posted by Michael Paulson August 1, 2009 11:05 AM

A pretty funny anecdote courtesy of McKay Coppins, the twentysomething blogger for MormonTimes:

Axe_Murderer.jpg"If Mormons had cocktail parties, I would probably tell this story at one: When my family lived in Massachusetts, Mitt Romney served as our stake president.

Yes, yes, THE Mitt Romney. It was, of course, before his stint at the Salt Lake City Olympics and his gubernatorial term.

One night, my parents were at Blockbuster and they happened to run into President Romney. They chatted for a bit, and my parents mentioned they were having trouble picking a movie to rent. Much to my parents' surprise, Mitt enthusiastically suggested the 1993 Mike Myers comedy, 'So I Married an Axe Murderer'."

Sadly, there are no more details about whether the Mittster is generally a fan of the Myers oeuvre, or just films about mariticide (that's husband-killing). I have to confess I've never seen "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (should I add it to my Netflix list?) but I was pretty sure it's not a slasher film, given Mitt's faith-based aversion to R-rated films (he told me in 2007 that, although he has seen an occasional R-rated film, at Bain he had passed up an entertainment industry investment because "I did not want to be associated with making R-rated movies or selling R-rated movies"). But, despite its title, "Axe Murderer" is harmless. I looked it up. It's rated PG-13.

Email this article

Invalid email address
Invalid email address

Sending your article

Your article has been sent.

18 comments so far...
  1. I haven't seen the film, but perhaps, given the Mittster's reputation as a venture capitalist, perhaps, judging from the title, he saw it as being an inspirational documentary? While he himself was not involved in these, I'm sure that thousands of people formerly employed at Gillette, Fleet Bank, Bank of Boston, Shawmut and other firms stripmined by management of his ilk would get a gallows laugh out of it.

    Posted by EdA August 1, 09 03:29 PM
  1. Maybe someone pointed this out already. Matricide is the killing of one's MOTHER!

    Posted by Ann Donnelly August 1, 09 03:32 PM
  1. Having lived in Massachusetts while Romney was governor, and see all of the deferred maintenance that is now haunting the place just so he could balance the budget and not raise taxes, you now describe another act of this political chameleon. He will only do what it takes to get nominated and elected president--then watch out.

    Given what has happened over the last year or so, I'm less and less impressed by people who make money from money, and more impressed with people who make something useful, or provide a useful service. Mitt Romney may be a brilliant manager, but so far he hasn't seemed to do anything really significant. He seems to be more of a pretty face than anything else.

    Posted by habakkukb August 1, 09 07:36 PM
  1. Hello! Its a comedy!

    Posted by Catbert August 1, 09 08:04 PM
  1. Hmm... maybe commenters should READ the actual words in the post before postings snarky comments. It's about mariticide, the killing of one's spouse, not matricide.

    Posted by AJ August 1, 09 09:35 PM
  1. Ann,

    Michael did not write "matricide." He wrote "mariticide." That's murdering one's husband, as Michael said. It's what Clytemnestra did to Agamemnon for all his crimes before, during and after the Trojan War. Wife-killing is uxoricide - Latin, uxor, wife.

    Good to know the Mittster has a sense of humor. Does that mean he knows the Claissics, too?

    Posted by reindeergirl August 1, 09 09:38 PM
  1. Yes, but he said MARITICIDE, not MATRICIDE.

    Posted by Parker Moffat August 1, 09 09:50 PM
  1. I've seen the film. It is fun.

    EdA should examine Romney's record instead of going off on him like he was a raider. He wasn't.

    I guess it is also too much to expect that someone writing an article for the Globe would use the proper words to describe things.

    Posted by Emoto August 1, 09 10:05 PM
  1. Ann, the word used is mari-ti-cide, not ma-tri-cide. Mariticide is the killing of a spouse, especially the killing of a husband by his wife. Spoken, they sound quite different, but printed the difference is very easy to miss.

    Posted by AlfaRomeo August 1, 09 10:26 PM
  1. Hi, Emoto. I --am-- familiar with Mitt Romney's record.and broadly familiar with that of Bain Capital.

    Being an opportunist may be advantageous in business, but is considerably less admirable in government and/or politics. If Mr. Romney had thought that he had a better chance at running for governor in Utah than in Massachusetts, do you think that that he would have repudiated the claim, blamed on his wife, that their Utah cabin was their primary residence?

    Incidentally, as far as I know, exactly none of his five sons, all of whom are eligible to serve in the Armed Forces, have done anything to support their country other than trying to help their father become President. Given Romney's strong support for other people's children to make sacrifices in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, It's not too late for any of them to enlist.

    Now, in honesty, I've never met the guy. But given his enthusiasm for adopting and switching positions depending on what is most expedient at the moment, if we were to shake hands, I'd be sure to count my fingers.

    Posted by EdA August 2, 09 01:57 AM
  1. And the point of this blog is ................. ?

    Posted by tahos August 2, 09 09:25 AM
  1. Geez If this this story had come out when he was running and shown he was human, it could have helped. Instead we got those appalling "oceans of pornaography" commercials delivered by religo-right wing focus group generated robot.

    Posted by AC August 2, 09 09:32 AM
  1. I hate to admit it, but apparently Mitt knows his movies. In my view, anyone who can watch Mike Myers performing "Harriet" without laughing is simply unworthy of holding elected office.

    Posted by N. Observer August 2, 09 09:39 AM
  1. ROMNEY 2012

    Posted by The Patriot August 2, 09 10:57 AM
  1. HEAD! It's like an orange on a toothpick!

    Posted by Mike August 2, 09 02:08 PM
  1. Oh my god! A Mormon watched a movie with the words, "Ax Murderer" in the title! He should be thrown out of the church immediately! Alert the Media!

    Oh wait. It's the PG-rated dumb comedy from Mike Myers, "So I married an Ax Murderer". And the writer (or should I say tattler) admits he's never actually watched the movie himself, so he doesn't actually know what it's about.

    My how salacious.

    Really, can you put that leer back in your pocket where it belongs? I've seen this movie. I think you'd actually be hard-pressed to find a more family-friendly film at your local Blockbuster.

    I think you should have gone all the way and demanded that the Globe titled your inane article, "Mitt Romney Pushing People to Buy Lurid 'Ax Murderer" Videos!"

    I'm a Massachusetts Democrat and I'd never vote for the guy as President, but please, have we sunk so low?

    "One time, I was at the library, and Mitt Romney was there, and he asked the librarian if they had any restricted dirty books! Really! It's true! I saw it!"

    Weak. Weak, weak, weak.

    I bet the friends of both Michael Paulson and McKay Coppins do indeed have cocktail parties, they just don't invite witless cretins who get titillated about Mitt Romney watching a Mike Myers romantic comedy.

    Posted by John Casey August 2, 09 03:13 PM
  1. well the Mittster had no problem sitting on baords of hotels where X rated movies make up a large part of the revenue. That is fine, except for him to pretend he turns down opportunities that involve things he doesn;t agree with. Flip Flop, Mitt, you only have 3 more years until you have to figure out which way the wind is blowing and 'evolve' your values.

    Posted by sean August 2, 09 09:35 PM
  1. Whoa, John Casey needs to relax and learn to enjoy a funny little blog entry. It didn't seem to me that Paulson was ripping on Mitt, and if John Casey had actually taken the initiative to read McKay Coppins' article at Mormon Times, he would have known that Coppins actually made fun of stories like these.

    Posted by Al August 3, 09 04:58 PM

Blogger

Michael Paulson covers religion for The Boston Globe. He shared in the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, won the Mike Berger, Templeton and Supple awards in 2008, and is a four-time winner of the Wilbur Award.
E-mail mpaulson@globe.com.

views

Harvey_Cox_cow.JPGHarvey Cox, the Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard University, marks his retirement by asserting a little-used right of his professorship -- to graze a cow in Harvard Yard. Photo, by Barry Chin of the Globe staff, taken on Sept. 10, 2009 in Cambridge, Mass.

archives