CHOLO BORDEAUX

I have white-guy-face-blindness like Paul and this movie is maaaaaaaaad weird. Every now and again I'd mentally reverse the genders and it would get even more weird. I'd bet June doesn't make it to the end of the movie.

GUYS: VAMPIRE JACOBS LADDER KISS Everything after the initial surgery scene is the world seen through the filter of Jeff Fahey's delusional brain! That's why when he wakes up and no one does anything (which [the waking-up-in-surgery] is a pretty big deal from what I understand!) and also why he's the only one who sees visions! This is also why no one believes him: he's stringing together coincidences with the bare thread that is the psycho-arm hypothesis and no one's buying because even these laymen know what this god damn psychiatrist does not: your brain controls your arm! Not the other way around! Jeff Fahey for real is shitty to his family and justifies it as arm-related. Jeff Fahey hallucinates the doctor's explanation into a what-has-science-done-type evil speech. Jeff Fahey kills Legs and blacks the memory out of his brain. Jeff Fahey hears about Art-Arm dying by accident and his broken brain determines it was by murder. Jeff Fahey imagines his struggle to overcome the detective in his car is actually him struggling with the 'killer' in a comically improbable chase scene. Jeff Fahey seeks out the doctor and completely fabricates the son/body-part-tank scene as he actually kills them in a delusional fugue state. It seems like a stretch but consider this: at the end, except for Jeff Fahey, everyone connected to the psycho-chop-shop scheme who could refute his account is dead and he makes a super creepy joke about fighting for the arm! This is why the diary is a reoccurring thing! This is through Jeff Fahey's eye's and he is an unreliable narrator! I mean, the movie ends with ominous music and a zoomout with the killer hand front and center! TL;DR: The trauma of the arm transplant triggers psychosis

I didn't take Asian-American Studies, so I had to google Patusan to see if it was real (it's not). I guess it's meant to be Indonesia(?) but ninjas and Leslie Nielsen's armor are both Japanese (???). Also some sad news: Ernie Reyes Jr suffering from kidney failure. He has a gofundme that is nearing completion, though there are apparently two gofundmes, which is a little confusing. Still, get well soon dude.

There is something vaguely racist about how half-vampires must be subservient to full-vampires. We're told They Come First, but we're never told why; the implication is that it's because moroi can do magic, but dhrampir get super human strength and speed, which seems p. dope tbh. The whole situation is not helped by the line about the noble familes, which comes after a scene of pasty white kids doing magic, where Rose explains that "some are more special than others." Re: Strigoi: So theres apparently a vampire academy wiki (http://vampireacadem...emy_Series_Wiki) where I found that strigoi are not able to walk on holy ground, so I guess we're working in a 'hell and religion are real'-style-vampire-universe. This makes the whole religion thing a bit complicated. What's powering their magic? Common vampire origins of the religion-as-real setting include demon-human-hybridization, the devil, or (in Russia) people who had rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church in life. That would mean that there is an Original Sin (Remix) sort of thing happening with the dhrampir/moroi, where they try to pray away their demonic tendencies. In that case St. Vlad is like the vampire Jesus, the one demon-tainted vampire who became the opposite of a strigoi: a vampire that gives life. Since Lissa can also do life-magic, is she the second coming of vampire-jesus? If she can only bring things back from near-death, not full-death, is she more of a saint? So many questions. Can vampires make it into heaven? Do they stay vampires in heaven, or are they cleansed of their demonic side? If vampires go to hell, are they rewarded? How does god feel about this whole vampire situation? The devil? Are there vampires of other religions?

In the same way that Inherent Vice captured Pynchon's peculiar writing style, so does Vampire Academy perfectly replicate, on the big screen, the corniest and most hackneyed of YA fiction. From all the actors being weird off brand versions of bigger names (not-Olivia Wilde and not-Ian Mcshane), to the sexualization of bloodsucking and the tacitly acknowledged lesbianism it implies between the two leads (it was 2014 they should have just gone for it), to the zoinks-worthy reveal that these vampires are good eastern orthodox christians, this movie left my mouth agape at every turn. It is nothing but chunks of exposition wrapped in quote unquote quirky quips tossed tied up in terrible teen angst. It is by far the best worst movie I have seen in some time. Solid choice.

This movie has a secret subplot: Serena duping Luis out of her witch powers. Notice that when Serena gives Luis a palm reading and discovers that she is the reincarnation of her old "friend" she urges Luis to trust her, that only by trusting her will she be able to harness her powers. Remember, in the scene where they make funny money Serena only directs Luis. Luis casts the spell. Notice also how ecstatic Serena is to have found her reincarnated so-called "friend": she doesn't say she's so happy to see her, she dances around singing about the money (subtitles people), is distraught when she finds the money ruined. Notice also the evil laugh ("you won't believe it") when Serena first looks for the book to show Luis her pre-incarnation. The book is Magick Majorum New Faces of 1652; the age range of Luis's pre-incarnation is 1636 to unknown. In the scene with the frog prince spell we can see that Serena can prepare the spell, but she can't do it alone. In order to complete it she says to Luis "Relax; now gimme the juice" and she takes her hand. When Serena gives Luis the popularity spell we see Serena pull out her chemistry set and say to Luis she will use "the last of my powers" that she was saving for a "mink coat...to wear in the ice age." (Serena immortal?) in order to cast the popularity spell. And at the very end Luis throws her amulet to Serena, an amulet which we are told is the source of Luis's power, or at least some type of force amplifier. This part is key: the viewer is lead to believe Luis is surrendering the amulet by choice, when in fact her surrendering it has been engineered. How? Recall that Serena is more than happy to fulfill all of Luis's wants, no matter how petty (being popular? having a sex slave?) for nothing in return. Why would she do this? To keep Luis buttered up and under her sway? No. Serena is doing the magical equivalent of forcing your kid to smoke a whole carton of cigarettes so that they get sick. Curing by excess. That is why she is dismissive of Luis's concerns of authenticity, why she urges Luis to continue, why she uses the last of her power on such a petty wish: she knows she will get the power back. Serena wants Luis to overdose on her powers, so that she would surrender her amulet willingly. It's all there!!! From here it's purely conjecture. Considering the name of the book Luis's and Serena's faces appear in we can assume that 1652 is around when they first became active as witches. Remember that Serena says "I know what it's like to be 16, I've been 16 four times." From 1652 to 1989 she would have to live something like four 80-90 year lives(easier with witchcraft?) to show up in 1989 in old age. In that same book we see Serena born in 1610 and pre-Luis in 1636; by the time pre-Luis was 16 (the earliest time they could start being witch friends) Serena was already 42. Perhaps Serena has tried to take the amulet by force in the past and failed, resulting in a mysterious end to pre-Luis? In the Magick Majourm book we see the descriptions say that Serena is burned at the stake for being a witch, whereas Luis is merely questioned and released, and dies at an unknown time (and presumably, since there is no written cause of death, in an unknown way). Perhaps magic fades with age? Perhaps Serena has only few powers left and the gift of the second sight is one of the lasts, and one she parleys into taking another witch's power (remember how witches are like one of the main archetypes for evil and might do something evil like that???). I'm just saying. Peace.