Rudy Giuliani shouts out ‘My Cousin Vinny’ at press conference, film’s director reacts

Maya Rudolph, Jim Carrey and Alec Baldwin returned as “Saturday Night Live” spoofed the last debate between Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. Wochit

“My Cousin Vinny” director Jonathan Lynn is reacting after Rudy Giuliani gave a shout-out to the film during a heated press conference on Thursday.

During the conference, the former New York City mayor and lawyer to President Donald Trump described a scene from the 1992 film in order to illustrate how Republicans poll watchers were allegedly barred from properly viewing the vote count.

“Did you all watch ‘My Cousin Vinny?’ ” Giuliani said. “It’s one of my favorite law movies because he comes from Brooklyn.”

The lawyer then went on to recall a scene in which Vinny Gambini, played by Joe Pesci, asks a witness how many fingers he’s holding up as he stands 100 feet away from her. In the scene, the witness says he’s holding up four, when he’s only holding up two.

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“These people were further away than ‘My Cousin Vinny’ was from the witness,” Giuliani said of the poll watchers. “They couldn’t see a thing.”

Following the conference, Lynn contrasted Pesci’s character with Giuliani in a statement to USA TODAY.

“Vinny may have been argumentative and belligerent but he was good-hearted and honest,” the director said. “Rudy, not so much.”

The director made another dig at Trump’s lawyer in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter Thursday.

“I regard Giuliani’s praise of ‘My Cousin Vinny’ as generous from the man who is currently giving the comedy performance of the year,” he said.

That wasn’t the only thing about the press conference Giuliani drew criticism for.

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An apparent hair dye mishap gave critics of Giuliani another chance to gleefully mock him, with many social media users believing the lawyer’s hair dye was running down the side of his face for a short time during the conference. 

“Here’s why you should hire union hair and makeup professionals,” quipped The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees on Twitter, sharing a photo of the incident.

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Contributing: Joel Shannon

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