I think France should apologize for the stupid awful High Tension.HERE THERE BE SPOLIERS. BEWARE. I’M NOT HIDING ANYTHING BECAUSE THIS MOVIE SUCKS.

OK. First off. France needs to make slasher films? Has America and Takashi Miike not slaked your blood lust?

The movie starts out with two college girls, Marie and Alex, headed out to the remote family homestead of Alex so they can study for the weekend. Jarringly, we see creepyoldfatdisgustingguy getting a non-breathing blowjob from a decapitated head in his stupid repairman van in the middle of nowhere. This scene has no later bearing on the “film”.

So, girls go home, meet the family — mom, dad, adorable tot of a child brother — and go to bed. Well, Alex goes to bed. Marie sits outside and smokes, watches Alex shower from a distant window, then goes inside to masturbate while creepyoldfatdisgustingguy pulls up to the remote farm and kills dad. This rouses Marie from her wonderful lesbo fantasies. She hides — it’s all very dramatic — and sneaks downstairs to see Mom brutally murdered. She finds Alex all chained up, watches the 8 year old tot get blasted with a shot gun, tries to call the cops on a dead phone line, and ends up in creepyoldfatdisgustingguy’s maintenance vehicle with Alex, who is a shreking sobbing mess.

OK.

And Alex has a horse’s mouth.

Anyway, creepyoldfatdisgustingguy stops at a gas station. Marie manages to pick the truck lock with her giganamous butcher knife and runs inside for help. But creepyoldfatdisgustingguy follows her, kills the kindly gas station teenager, and hunts her. Eventually he tires, as he has SHIT TO DO, drives off, and she phones the cops.

Up until this point, I will admit tension. I will admit… it was pretty good, for a stupid random slasher movie half in French. But at this point… alright, Marie is ALL FREAKED THE FUCK OUT, and the cop is asking normal cop questions, and she HANGS UP THE PHONE because they won’t send a car RIGHT THE FUCK NOW because THEY ARE ASKING HERE WHERE SHE IS so she SCREAMS AT THEM AND HANGS UP. Then she takes the dead clerks keys and drives off after Alex.

Do French cops not have a call tracking system?

So, big ol night slicked road chase. Whatever. Creepyoldfatdisgustingguy turns off to a wooded road, Alex follows, but with her lights off. I don’t think turning your lights off but traveling 5 feet behind the car you are tailing is a great police proceedure, but who am I to say?

Apparently I am smart, because he tricks her, and ends up behind her, because HE CAN SHIFT TIME. He runs her off the road. Did you see that coming? Anyway, CAR FLIP. Alex crawls out, beaten and bloodied, and runs for safety. In a greenhouse.

Are all French people this stupid?

She actually does the coolest thing I have seen in a while. She’s crouching, trying to hide, and she grabs a wooden stake that is part of a barbed wire fence. No, I do not know why that was there. Anyway, she pulls it out of the ground, and starts wrapping it up, making herself a big old cludgeon. It’s pretty cool.

Then she makes her way toward the light of creepyoldfatdisgustingguy. But he hung his light on a belt! See! Cuz he’s so smart! And then he attacks her from behind! With a plastic bag! And she collapses, and talks all sexual about Alex. And so Marie grabs her cludgeon and beats him silly.

And keeps beating him. And he dies. So she at least is smart.

The cops show up in a fucking MINI at the gas station. They watch the surveillence video.

Marie grabs his keys and heads back to the creepyoldfatdisgustingguy’s maintenance truck. Unlocks it. Is so glad to see Marie. But Marie is screaming DON’T TOUCH ME and freaking out!

Why?

This is one of those stupid identity confusion movies! Where the killer is really the hero! Did you see that coming? Did you? I bet you didn’t. I bet you weren’t quaking in your gut fucking HOPING that wasn’t the case like I was!

MARIE IS CREEPYOLDFATDISGUSTINGGUY! Yes! That’s right! DEEP DOWN INSIDE EVERY FRENCH LESBIAN REALLY JUST WANTS TO BE A FAT OLD MAN.

Marie chases Alex, sometimes as herself, but mainly just as her inner self, CREEPYOLDFATDISGUSTINGGUY! Love love love, hate hate hate, chainsaw chainsaw chainsaw, and Marie is in a psychiatric ward.

LIKE ALL LESBIANS APPARENTLY NEED TO BE.

Seriously, France? I thought you were above these cliches. I thought you were CULTURED. I was OBVIOUSLY WRONG.

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

That’s right! You can no longer be annoying on the internet!

I want a new planet.

And you’re all doody heads.

Though the president is very powerful, he can not make laws.

The president can suggest laws. The president can call individual congressman and threaten, beg, and cajole them to make laws. The president can use the bully pulpit and appeal directly to the people to ask Congress to make laws. The president can promise that if these congressmen pass the laws the president likes he will make them a delicious sandwich. The president can hold his breath and pound his fists and threaten to run away. But the president cannot make laws.

The president can observe a vexing situation that seems to run counter to common sense, shake his head, and say aloud, “There oughta be a law,” but the president cannot make that law. The president cannot even write up that law and submit it with his name on it. The president needs someone in Congress to submit it for him.

The president can only sit in his office and sign or not sign laws other people make. Sometimes this makes the president feel like a total pussy. Then the president realizes he is commander-in-chief of the armed forced and an island country is about to get a can of “police action” opened up on them. This makes the president feel better.

Though, apparently, he can add something called a signing statement to any bill he likes that basically says — and I am quoting a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues here — “I will only comply with this law when I want to, and if something arises in the war on terrorism where I think it’s important to torture or engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading conduct, I have the authority to do so and nothing in this law is going to stop me.”

If the president can just attach a rider to a law saying “But I’m totally exempt, when I wanna be,” I guess that explains why he’s never bothered to veto anything, ever. “I know we have this FISA court, but I’m not gonna use it.” “I know American citizens have rights, unless I charge them as an enemy combatant.” “I’ll sign your little anti-terror law, but I’ll superceed it.”

I really don’t like the idea that the president — ANY PRESIDENT — is above the law and totally unaccountable to the people. I’m pretty much left speechless at this point.