Easily the most trippy movie I have ever seen.

It’s an animated movie about a land called Pepperland which is destroyed by the “Blue Meanies” (the Meanies achieve this by using giant apples and a large floating glove). Young Fred, captain of the Yellow Submarine, then travels to Liverpool, and enlists the help of The Beatles.

That’s basically the plot. The rest is nothing more than a crazed animated drug trip with Beatles songs. It predates MTV by several decades, essentially inventing music videos.

And it is awesome.

Really, I don’t know how to describe it. Just search for clips on Youtube, or get the video/dvd, or whatver. But find a way to see it.

Title: Dream Chaser
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Genre: Supernatural Romance

When a romance novel contains as much hokey dialogue and deus ex machinas as this, it better have some damn good sex scenes to make up for it.

Well, it doesn’t really. But we’ll get to that later. First, the synopsis.

Xypher is a demon who was once a Greek dream god. He now lives in Tarturus and is eternally tortured by Hades. But, he gets lucky and strikes a deal to live for one more month so he can have the ultimate revenge on the weaselly bitch who got him into this predicament. Meanwhile, in New Orleans, a medical examiner named Simone Dubois is attempting to find the killer behind a series of grisly murders. Oh, and she can see the dead. And a teenaged ghost stuck in the 80s lives with her. Isn’t that hilarious? No? Anyway, she bumps into Xypher and gives him a blowjob. Oh wait, but that’s after other demons bind them together by special Atlantean bracelets that will destroy them both if they move too far apart or if one of them dies. How will it all end?! I won’t spoil it for you.

The Good: There are hints of an interesting, complex world behind all the descriptions of hawt guys. And…ummm…hmm. Yeah, I guess that’s it.

The Bad: I’ll go out on a limb here and explain what will make me appreciate a sex scene. You see, I don’t like sex scenes that can be summed up with, “and then they had sex”. Hell, if I justed wanted titillation I could watch porno. No, with book sex scenes, I look for something more. The sex has to add something to the story or characters, vital to the point of taking the scenes out means you’re crippling the plot or confusing the fuck out of your readers.

Admittedly, I may be asking too much from this book. I mean, sex scenes that are supposed to do more than get me hot and flustered? What kind of snobby, Nietzsche-loving elitist am I?

Let’s move on to something more basic, then. Characters. They are flat. There was no sense of personality; many of the characters’ actions felt like they existed because the author ordained it, not because they were natural extensions of personality. The author seems to think that “depth” means “pulling at reader’s heartstrings by piling abuse after abuse onto total hottie”. It doesn’t.

And then there’s the dialogue, undoubtedly the worst thing about this book. There were many pop culture references that sounded forced and awkward coming out of the mouths of Sumerian and Greek gods. There was no distinction from one character to the next; everyone sounded sarcastic, their words more fitting for a TV show quip than an actual conversation.

Grade: C-

Title: The Visitation
Director: Robby Henson
Year: 2006
Rating: PG-13

The Visitation in a nutshell: A small town is enraptured by the presence of a young man with healing powers, played by greasy-faced, rat’s-nest haired Edward Furlong. Edward fuckin’ Furlong, folks.

The Visitation belongs to that genre of religious-themed horror movies that focus on a main character who has lost faith and only regains it upon the realization that the Devil does exist. The Exorcist and The Prophecy were great examples of this. This movie? Not so much. In fact, hardly at all.

Synopsis: As I said, Edward Furlong plays a young stranger named Brandon Nichols, who beguiles a small town into thinking he’s been touched by God. His proof is the ability to raise dogs from the dead and heal the ailments of anyone who asks, shown through jittery, nausea-inducing camerawork to clearly tell us something WEIRD is going on.

In a short amount of time, every townsperson becomes his personal bitch, the only notable holdout being Travis Jordon, a former priest who lost his faith in God after his wife was murdered. Although Travis now proclaims to be an atheist, he becomes suspicious that Brandon’s gifts are actually a facade for evil, and that his true purpose may be in stealing people’s souls. All I can say is, no shit Sherlock.

The Good: Martin Donovan is pretty good as Travis, the jaded priest, though his broad forehead and widely-spaced eyes remind me of a shark. It would have been interesting to see him cast as Brandon instead of Furlong.

The Bad: Continuity errors (during one scene, when the point of view is switching between two characters, the sky through the window shifts from day to night), sparsely-drawn characters (belligerent sheriff who should not be trusted with a gun, Jesus-crazy wife who speaks in tongues, clueless outsider who moved to a small town for a safer environment), and Edward Furlong. Who the hell decided casting him would be a good idea? Brandon Nichols should have been an ambiguous figure, not someone who looks like they just cleaned the vomit off their shirt after last night’s binge. And with the acting range of exactly two modes: Prozac haze and screaming like he’s trying to pass a kidney stone.

On a more technical note, the effects were pretty bad, too. As in, ‘stuff pale blue contact lenses in the actors’ eyes to show they are possessed and use green smoke and flying black specks to represent the actual demons’ bad.

Rating: C. Your average, shallow horror movie, made a little bit worse by the presence of Furlong.

Christianity needs to re-vamp itself and make it more modern to compete “wit teh hordz of izlam lol”, according to a recent text message sent to many church-goers.

Among other things, the selfy-styled “txt mssg” calls for churches, whether Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox, to talk in hip modern terms such as “lol” and “noob”. The Bible shall be re-interpreted this way. For example, one of the new messages is “gsus wil poon infidle noobz”. It also says that churches should offer “Intense Gaming Action” for anyone bored by the sermons but who still want to attend church “coz its cul n stuf”. From now on Jesus shall be referred to as “Gsus” and the Lord can be named “Gud”.

This has been met with some controversy by Christians, especially amongst the dead Christian community. “This is quite clearly a problem,” King Richard the Lionheart’s ghost was heard saying. “If someone doesn’t like Christianity, screw them. We’ll just chuck ‘em out and build an empire! Let us crush the Muslim infidels!”

Many people have offered alternative ways for Christianity to attract new converts. For example, Morris Morrison from Boston says that the faith should “paganise up” to please customers. “We could have pagan-style orgies,” he told The Daily Trudgeon yesterday. “Priests could have sex with young members of the church, too. Like what a lot of Catholic priests have been doing lately, except they’d be over eight years old and female. Oh yeah, and we should totally sacrifice infidels and captured slaves to God! That’d be totally bitching. I hope President Bush gets to work on that in Iraq.”

Several critics of the recent “txt mssg” proposal were beaten to death with sticks by furious drug-addled teenagers yesterday. A few people died, but no-one really cares.

Remember: Gsus luvz u al. Amn.

Happy Smiles Corporation has the perfect solution- why not read other people’s mail! We know it sounds crazy, but there could not be a better way to start your day!

Larry Morrisby never knew his wife was sending love letters to his brother until he signed up for our program!

HSC has “connections” in the government, and as a result we pledge to give all our customers letters from other people! For the insanely, pitifully inexpensive price of only $19.95, you can get a letter from a complete stranger!

If you feel like the ultimate loser, then just read this letter from Henry Johnson, London, UK, as he pleads with his girlfriend to come back for him!

Need a bit of excitement? Then read this thrilling letter from “Your Friendly Local Godfather” to Samantha Smith, telling her that if she doesn’t pay the ransom money for her child he’ll have a finger chopped off and mailed to her every day! And it includes the first finger!

Want some romance in your life, ladies (and maybe gentlemen)? Then we’ll give you the secret love letters between Sam Ribbons and Maria Vincetti! They’re married… to other people!

Vincent was very interested in what racy things Scarlett had to say to her lover!

So, come on, folks! What are you waiting for! Dial 1800-HAPPY SMILES LETTERS WHICH ARE AWESOME AND COOL SO WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR C’MON-000!!!

It quotes selectively from the Qu’ran. In the sense that, it only quotes from one section of the Qu’ran (“Surah”). And it splices it up with movie footage of Islamist fundamentalists ranting about how they are going to kill Jews and Westerners.

Now, if this was a movie against Islamic theocracy then this would be fine. But it’s not. It says that *all* Muslims are anti-Semetic terrorists, which is fairly obviously a pile of bullshit.

You could make a video like this for *any* faith. For example, Catholicism. Just take a few isolated paragraphs from the Bible, scenes of the IRA killing people and children being molested, and there you are. Every Catholic is a child-raping terrorist!

I’m not a typical romantic by any means, and honestly, February 14th fails to persuade me to join the mushy side no matter how much chocolate it offers. In fact, I even lean the opposite way and wonder why we need a holiday specifically for showing our swains how much we love them when it’s quite possible to show that every day — and without the need of flowers and candy. Well, maybe the candy.

No, I’m talking about the people who are bitter and angry that they can’t celebrate it. Yeah, it’s a bummer knowing that most of your friends, coworkers, and (*gulp*) parents will receive a nice dinner, red roses, and hot sex while you’re stuck with the Sad Single Special of a gallon of cheap ice cream, a Meg Ryan movie, and your hand. But you know what? It’s fucking annoying listening to someone whine, and if I’d have to choose between sitting next to a couple tongue-fondling each other’s tonsils or someone bitching about overcommercialization and the meaningless ritual of it all, I’d gladly take the fondlers.

Maybe they’d even let me in on some of their action.

It was just your average day for Steve Wondercop. He was in the middle of immensely satisfying sex with an attractive young blonde when the phone rang. He pushed the blonde away and answered it in a suave, badass tone. “Yes who is it” he said in his suave badass tone. “Chief Policeman Thing Gordon O’Connor,” said the CPT Gordon in a voice that wasn’t suave and badass but was actually Irish. “Okay what’s happened” asked Steve as the blonde gave him a massage. “Some sicko murderer’s gone and murdered a guy” said the Irish Gordon. Steve nodded. It was time to do his Stuff.

When he got to the scene of his crime he met up with his sassy brunette sidekick Sugar Bangs and his less sassy brunette sidekick Will Plumber. He nodded to them, conveying a thousand words with a single nod of his head (which he directed to them). “Hey Steve oh god why can’t I be more like you” said Will. Things between Steve and Sugar were more awkward however as they had slept together a week ago. They avoided eye contact.

  When they got inside Will had to go vomit since there was a terrible crime scene. Fortunately Steve was jaded to this sort of thing and his manly strength could withhold it. There was the Chief Policeman there too.

  “Hey guys” he said in an Irish accent. “Looks like there’s been a murder. This guy over here had his head knocked off by a golf club. I think it was the notorious Scottish gangster Scotty “Scottish” Spooner.”

   “You’re wrong there Chief” said Steve. “Oh okay then” said the Chief. He was not actually very good since he spent most of his time trying to find pots of gold at the end of rainbows. But he was better than his evil and lazy second-in-command (first mate of the police pirate ship if you will) Wilbur Wormface. WW as he was known or sometimes WW1 as a joke was bald and fat and he hated Steve.

   “No you’re wrong Steve!” said WW1 (lol) as his belly bounced up and down and he used armpit grease to make his bald head shinier. “No you are wrong WW1,” said Steve. “You see, there is a ‘P’ over there.” “What do vegetables have to do with this” said WW1 stupidly. Steve glared at him. “I meant like the letter you idiot.” WW1 was shamed into silence (and eating chocolate coated dim sims).

    “You see,” said Steve dramatically, “this was the work of the Phantasm of Terror.” There was a Shocked Silence. “But I thought he died!” said WW1. “Well you thought wrong” said Steve. Then he added wittily: “And your mum is fat”

  Everyone laughed. WW1 ran away sobbing.

  “Now” said Steve, “we must kill the Phantasm of Terror. You see, I have a Plan.”

This movie sucked, plain and simple. And no, that wasn’t an intentional pun.

I usually write a synopsis but frankly I think it would be a waste of space for this movie. This is the basic plot: Vampires attack Alaskan town that lives in darkness 30 days out of the year. People scream. Vampires scream. Everyone dies. Especially those in the audience.

The Characters: The best horror movies have characters that you can connect with; this movie ain’t one of them. Josh Hartnett plays the main character (which, really, tells you all you need to know). There’s also his estranged wife, handy with a gun. The rest of the townspeople are personality-free, walking meat waiting to be slaughtered in a gush of CGI-blood. And of course the obligatory Renfield-type character who tried to act weird and threatening but just ended up annoying the fuck out of me. Jeez, if the vampires are recruiting people like him to serve their cause it’s no wonder why they’re such a rare breed.

The vampires are actually pretty cool, primitive and bestial, but with their own rudimentary society. A nice change from the godawful Anne Rice prettyfaces that have infected vampire movies for decades now. And kudos to giving Danny Huston the role of alpha vampire. He looks slightly like a Wal-Mart cashier dragging himself out of a particularly heavy binge, but that’s better than your usual alluring, gorgeous head vampire with the rock-hard abs, right? Right?

The Dialogue: Mediocre. Nothing howlingly bad, but nothing good either. Bear in mind that 75% of the dialogue consisted of screams.

The Setting: The Alaskan lands looked beautiful until the sun went down and you were left staring at people with snow crusted on their greasy beards. There was a nice sense of isolation in some of the beginning scenes, but that also faded once the sun went down.

The Verdict: C-. The look of the vampires saved this from getting a D. It’s not bad enough to be campy or MST-worthy, so there’s really no point watching it unless you want to see a different kind of vampire.

He is in the middle of a bloodbath. Well, sort of. Okay, so there’s only two people there. You sicko. Two people is still a bloodbath. You just think that a bloodbath has to be a thousand people or something because you’ve played too many video games. Anyway.

ELF: My friends… they’re all… all…

Out of the forest a dwarf shows up.

DWARF: Hey dude.

ELF: Oh. Hey.

The dwarf surveys the scene, noticing the fact that there is a bloodbath FINE TWO DEAD PEOPLE.

DWARF: Whoa, what happened here?

ELF: Uh… we were playing marbles.

DWARF: But they’re dead!

ELF: It was a really intense game of marbles.

DWARF: And why aren’t there any marbles here?!

ELF: They… melted.

DWARF: …

ELF: Look, I already said it was a really intense game, okay?

DWARF: Fine. Be that way. I still don’t believe you.

ELF: Look, I was going in for a big shot with a marble and it got loose. And ripped through their necks. And then hacked off their hands and feet. Then tore out their hearts. Then stole their wallets.

DWARF: Right. Well, you can’t trust men, I always say.

ELF: … Huh? You’re not a guy?

DWARF: … Er, no. I’m a girl.

ELF: Uh, how do you tell the difference?

DWARF: Sorry?

ELF: Well, you lot all look the same.

DWARF: … Excuse me?

ELF: All dwarves look the same.

DWARF: WE DO NOT!

ELF: How so?

DWARF: For a start, I’m wearing lipstick! And mascara!
ELF: I just figured you were gay.

DWARF: Ugh. You men are all the same.

ELF: Okay, you’re definitely a chick. … Wanna have sex?

DWARF: What?!

ELF: Sorry, I couldn’t think of a good pick-up line.

DWARF: Get the hell away from me, you slimy creep!

ELF: … Is that a no?

DWARF: UGH!

ELF: Wait, dwarf chicks can reproduce right?

The dwarf stares at him.

ELF: Well I saw this movie where dwarves are made by factories. Factories with robots.

DWARF: … That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.

ELF: Fine, be that way. You were probably programmed wrong or something.

DWARF: DWARVES AREN’T MADE BY ROBOTS!!

ELF: Is it possible for dwarf chicks to get PMS? What with you being horrible genderless freaks of nature-

DWARF: I. Hate. You.

The dwarf runs off. ELF is left there scratching his head. Suddenly he hears a low growl behind him. He sees an OGRE!

ELF: Oh, hey- OH GOD IT’S YOU

Meanwhile

DWARF: Lousy… Stupid…

PEASANT: HEYHOW’SITGOING

DWARF: Uh… hey.

PEASANT: MYNAME’SSIMONWHAT’SYOURNAME

DWARF: Uh…

PEASANT: WHOALOOKTHERE’SABIRDONTHATTREEAWESOMEDUDE

DWARF: Yeah…

PEASANT: WAITDIDYOUCOMEFROMTHATDIRECTION???!!!!

DWARF: Um…

PEASANT: YOUMUSTBEPRETTYBRAVEESCAPINGFROMTHEOGRE

DWARF: … Ogre?

PEASANT: THEONEWHOLIVESOVERTHEREHE’SABADASSOGRE

DWARF: Wait, there’s an Ogre over there?!

PEASANT: YEAHHE’SREALLYBADASSHEKILLEDTWOMEN

DWARF: Oh god… I left ELF there!

PEASANT: ITHOUGHTYOUFOUNDHIMINSENSITIVEANDIMMATURE

DWARF: I do. But… deep down… I love him!

PEASANT: OHGODWHATATWIST!!!!

DWARF: Yeah. And now I have to rescue him.

Meanwhile

ELF: It was you! You killed my friends! How can you even look at yourself in the morning?!

OGRE: Urg.

ELF: But… why? WHY?!

OGRE: Urg.

ELF: Wait… of couse… the man in black… the Jade Monkey Jewel… it all makes sense now…

OGRE: Urg?

ELF: You killed them so you could harness the power of the Jade Monkey Jewel. You were the man in black all along. I should have known!

OGRE: Urg.

The OGRE reaches forward to kill ELF.

ELF: Wait, no! Stop! For the love of God, don’t-

DWARF: I SHALL SAVE YOU

ELF: … okay then

DWARF: You see, I know the Ogre’s weakness.

OGRE: … Urg?

DWARF: Guns!

The dwarf whips out an AK-47 and pumps the son of a bitch OGRE with more holes than a lump of Swiss cheese. Meanwhile, I’ll think you enjoyed the oddball indepent music we played in the background. It’s pretty underground. At least, it will be til Scrubs uses it.

ELF: Whoa! You’re the ma- dwarf! Yeah!

The dwarf blushes.

ELF: Listen… I have to tell you something… I… I love you.

DWARF: I… I love you two.

ELF: Listen, dwarfy… I have something to show you.

He whips out a diamond ring.

ELF: I stole it from one of those dead guys. Anyway… My love, will you marry me?

The dwarf starts crying.

ELF: Okay, if you don’t want to then…

DWARF: No, it’s not that. ELF, I want to.

ELF: Then-

DWARF: But I can’t. You see, when I was a child, I swallowed a large stick of dynamite. It is going to explode in ten minutes.

She kisses ELF on the lips, tenderly. Then, sobbing helplessly, the dwarf walks away into the sunset. ELF sighs, then turns to see the PEASANT.

PEASANT: OHMANTHISISDEPRESSING

ELF: It sure is, Simon. It sure is.

PEASANT: HEYWANNACOMEWITHMETOPLAYMYCOOLVIDEOGAME?! YOUCANSHOOTKIDSANDFRAMEITONBLACKPEOPLE!!

ELF: All right.

As they walk away to play PEASANT’S awesome video game, a single tear rolls down ELF’s cheek. He clenches his fist.