I remember work the day after the election, and the uncomfortable silence was noticeable, even in the hallways (I was living in a liberal part of Pennsylvania at the time, so I think the sense of shame was especially strong).

Ahem, Britney Spears has been a published author since 2001:

I guess the Matrix sequels are old enough that “overextended two-part action movie about malevolent AI” is a bankable idea.

I had Eye of the Beholder on SNES and never made it out of the first dungeon. I could defeat the creatures but couldn't find the door. But I loved selecting my party. It was also the rare game that used the Mario Paint mouse.

Couldn’t agree more - there’s a great bit in Bruce Campbell’s autobiography about trying to make a TV edit of Evil Dead 2 for basic cable, and they found that without the gore the movie is kind of grim and unpleasant. But people's aversion to gore can be hard to overcome. 

If it was actually between “The Notebook,” a movie that I’m sure has plenty of fans, and “In the Zone,” a global highlight of 2000s dance music, I think we’re living the better timeline.

The scene where Shaun shoots his mum is similar - it’s genre pastiche, but by that point the characters are so well established that there’s no room for comedy. Instead, the movie releases tension by having David act like a huge fucking asshole. Then David gets ripped apart, which is a reference to George Romero, but…

Evil Dead 2 is gory, which is as much a turnoff as scariness for weak-hearted viewers (especially when humor comes from the gore, and the audience’s familiarity with the genre).

He wears pants so can’t see his... wolf-dork. 

I loved The Monster Squad as a kid, but there are parts that have aged poorly. Although I’m sure my kids would ignore the word “homo,” the part where the boys bribe the older sister with nude pictures they’ve secretly taken, or all the stuff about virginity, just like I did when I was little.

This weekend I watched the new Haunted Mansion movie with my son. He’d already seen it in the theater last summer, but he wanted to watch something scary before Halloween. Which invites that question of why they released a Haunted Mansion movie in the summer and then released (quickly counts) zero kid-friendly horror…

In fairness, the Supreme Court has been staunchly against any regulation of offensiveness for decades, which is why we have unfettered access to DH Lawrence novels, R-rated movies, and porn. But this Court has an unprecedented number of right-wing Gen-X dorks, and you just know that Barrett, Gorsuch, and Rapist think…

Sorry, but “planehugger1" has decided what isn’t offensive, and they’re like the Supreme Court on the subject.

“As long as we view this time someone exaggerated a Jewish person’s nose as different from all the other times someone exaggerated a Jewish person’s nose, it doesn’t to be a trend.”

A highlight of my childhood was getting a copy of Maximum Carnage for $5 from a video store clearance rack (they were making shelf space for Dreamcast games, iirc). Pretty sure I came back the following week and got X-Men Mutant Apocalypse from the same rack.

Is Ultimate Alliance 3 a good game? I loved the first one (but it’s no longer available unless I connect my old Xbox 360), but I didn't really get into the second one. And they all felt like a step down from X-Men Legends 2, despite Spider-Man. 

“The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior was a brainless punk, and I’m smarter than him.”

Watch out, last year I implied that Halloween in the 21st century United States is a children’s holiday and got a surge of people angrily asking if I’d ever heard of (insert much earlier, non-US tradition).

Yes, the connection between divine fervor and American greatness goes back to Cotton Mather and his ilk. It was the rationale for stealing native land, slavery, and the Cold War. This country was established by zealots, and that zealotry never really made its way out of the national character.

It's ironic, isn't it?