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So, after a fever-pitch countdown to inauguration worthy of the Beatles reuniting to resurrect Jesus so He could star in Batman 3, people stating in all seriousness that the election of one man was the culmination of the very idea of democracy, and (most importantly) 8+ years of jokes about President Bush not being good at public speaking to the point where it had been run into the ground like a running gag that somehow circulated between The Simpsons, Family Guy, and SNL at will... he flubs the OATH OF OFFICE!

I don't care who you are, you've gotta laugh at that. It's like enjoying 300 or finding Eva Green attractive. It's just a universal aspect of the human condition. Because, come on, we've all been there.

My slasher movie

It'll be called The Slasher. After a budding author posts her Harry Potter story to fanfiction.net, it's mercilessly roasted by fanficrants, badfic_quotes, everybody gets it on it. The out-of-character comms mock the characterization, the bad sex comms mock the sex scenes. It's the new My Immortal. The writer is so distraught that there's a post on her LJ from her brother saying she's committed suicide. Or... has she?

A year later, all the fen have gathered for a con when someone starts killing everyone that posted a bad review on her story. Moreover, the killer is using cliched plotbunnies from the dead (?) writer's webpage.

"I don't understand. Why did the bees sting her to death?"

"Maybe... because her lungs were full of sex pollen."

My Bloody Valentine 3D-D-D-D

So, the votes are in and My Bloody Valentine 3D wins by a hair that’s projecting out at the audience. I suppose a lot of you were expecting a snarkfest, and I hate to disappoint you, but I really did enjoy myself and in fact I can recommend it mostly without reservation. Now if you wanted a movie I hated, watch The Unborn. So disappointing coming from David Goyer. Really, how many movies do we need where someone is wandering around in the dark, the music goes all quiet, then a bunch of pixels jump out at them. I can’t even bring myself to hate it. It was just absolute mediocrity.

Now maybe you don’t like slasher movies, but in any genre there are good examples and bad examples. I don’t like country music, but I know there are good songs and then there are things sung by Toby Keith. Now this isn’t a classic like Halloween or Scream, but it’s a very well-done slasher movie. Like all slasher movies, it promises sex and gore, and it actually delivers both… in 3D-D-D!

In a newsprint-y callback to the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie (in 3D!), Dean Winchester is the son of the owner of a coal mine. So, if he can rely on the old man’s money, is he a rich bitch girl? Before we can get into anymore Hall & Oates, he accidentally causes a cave-in and traps five miners. This is why nepotism is a bad idea. Can you imagine if your hotel was being run by Paris Hilton?

One of the trapped miners is Harry Warden, who is dug up in a coma. And killed the other trapped miners to conserve his own air. Man, and you thought the guy at your office who didn’t make a fresh pot of coffee after finishing the last one was bad.

He wakes up and has an off-screen killing spree in the hospital (relax, we’ll be getting to the proper gore soon enough). He’s also drawn bloody hearts on the walls, since it’s Valentine’s day and if you decide to just have a psychotic episode, you might as well have a theme. Amusing, one of his victims has been RIPPED IN HALF. Did Harry do that with his bare hands or is there some hospital tool he adapted for that? Because I think I saw that on House last week. “Doctor, the patient’s legs are going to explode!” “Quick, rip him in half!”

Meanwhile, Dean Winchester is coping with his role in the tragedy by going to a party. Held in a mineshaft. I think this town deserves to be the subject of a Michael Moore film. His girlfriend is there, as is Axel with his girlfriend. But before Dean can admit some angsty detail about his time in hell, Harry Warden stops by. Awesomely, he makes his entrance by ramming his pickax through the back of a guy’s head (a guy who just pulled a prank. Jamie Kennedy didn’t cover that one, did he?). His eye sticks on the point and pokes out of his eyesocket AT THE AUDIENCE, woo! How can you hate a movie where that’s the first on-screen kill?

Dean Winchester gets up close and personal with Harry after being abandoned by his friends, namely Axel (naturally, this incredible act of personal cowardice leads to Dean’s girlfriend Sarah ending up with Axel because “he’s there for me”. Real keeper there, Dean. I’d never thought I’d say this, but you’re better off fucking your brother). But before he can be sent back to picking up Smallville residuals, the sheriff shows up and fills Harry full of lead. A convenient cave-in (Harry just stumbles into a support beam, it falls over… BAM, cave-in. Are we sure it’s Dean’s fault there was a cave-in? MacGuyver couldn’t have safety-proofed this cave) means THERE’S NO BODY!

Ten years later and, unsurprisingly, no one has aged a day. Forget about Harry Warden, the biggest problem these guys have is the Kurgan. Sheriff Axel is now married with a kid and a mistress. It’s a bit harder to explain when you go to the second one’s school play. Dean Winchester returns, this time as a douche who’s going to close down the mine. That would make anyone mad… mad enough TO MURDER?

At the same time, Sheriff Axel learns that his mistress is pregnant with his love child, which is understandably distressing. Some might say, MURDEROUSLY DISTRESSING? And there is, as always, the possibility that Harry Warden is still alive and has decided, hey, ten’s a nice round number, might as well start killing again. Or should I say... MURDERING?

Oh, and there’s also some random black deputy who Dean randomly asks “where were you when that blonde was killed?” Oh, so if there’s a crime, it must be the brotha? Thank you, Dean.

So, for the majority of its running time, My Bloody Valentine is an enjoyable romp that makes good use of its 3D technology and, more importantly, of the killer’s iconic pick-ax. It stumbles a bit near the end in trying to incorporate the post-modernity of Scream into a movie that’s thoroughly Steve Miner as opposed to Kevin Williamson, but I'll get to that in a minute.

We live in a world that has, as Simon Phoenix might say, become a pussy-whipped Disney Channel version of itself. Prom Night, a movie best remembered for the prom king getting decapitated right in the high school gymnasium, is remade as PG-13. So you can imagine how refreshingly lemonade-on-a-hot-summer-day novel it is to have a slasher movie that not only features people being slashed, by brings back the “how the fuck did they avoid the X rating?” levels of sex and gore. Much like chocolate and peanut butter, the thought of someone whipping up fake intestines with some obscene combination of ingenuity, corn syrup, and so on (which appeals to the 12-year-old boy in all of us in much the same way the Creature from the Black Lagoon appealed to our forebears) and the thought of someone, somehow, faking out the evil dictatorship of the MPAA… well, that just holds my hand on the way to my happy place.

So not only do you have good kills (which should be the baseline for any slasher movie, but somewhere people got the idea that you could neuter a movie and then release the real movie to DVD as an “unrated director’s edition for collectors: Aztec version”), but they’re in 3D!

Okay, since that’s probably enough for you to decide if you want to see it or not (if you can debate the comparative merits of the Friday the 13th series, then yes), let’s get on to the spoilers!

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It just occurred to me.

America is totally that girl who's been through a bad break-up and has gotten a new girlfriend. And now all she can talk about is how much her new boyfriend rocks compared to her old boyfriend. And all of America's girlfriends are happy for her, of course, but they're also getting tired of hearing how perfect Obama's toes are compared to Bush's and they just know that in two months, America is going to be calling them and crying about how she had a big fight with Obama over whether putting dishes away in the dishwasher is part of doing the dishes or part of common courtesy after enjoying a meal.

Meanwhile, Canada loves hearing about America's new boyfriend and keeps asking for more juicy details because she's gone for so long without a date and at this point she's thinking that maybe she only likes guys... you know... because she's supposed to.