Scanners
Scanners, back in 1981, was a little like The Matrix of its day: a poor movie redeemed by a few ideas nicely presented. I won't even venture a guess as to what the genre of "The Matrix" is but "Scanners was a horror flick. Techno-pharma-horror to get really granular. But the really big thing that "Scanners" had was an exploding human head. This was accomplished (tip of the hat to the folks at IMDB) by "filling a latex head with dog food and rabbit livers, and shooting it from behind with a 12-gauge shotgun." Clever. The leading Bad Guy in one of his earliest leading Bad Guy roles was Michael Ironside and it was directed by David Cronenberg who has quite the resume of (ahem) inexpensive horror movies.

Why all the who-shot-John about "Scanners?" Because we have a whole new reason for heads to be exploding all over America. The African-American wife of the presumptive Democrat nominee for president has accused leading Republicans of being "unpatriotic" for raising questions about her gold-digging husband (watch it! -Ed). Specifically: In an interview with Telemundo, NBC's Spanish-language network, Teresa Heinz Kerry said, "To have a couple of people, who escaped four, five, six times and deferred and deferred and deferred calling him anything regarding his service is in and of itself unpatriotic. Unpatriotic."

To question John F. Kerry's service is "unpatriotic." So to question him is to betray the country. L'etat c'est John Forbes Kerry. Nixon was accused of being an imperial president but his approach to leading pales before the hubris of someone who believes a person's life is the nation. This is particularly grotesque after the constant whinging of the Democrats that Republicans are accusing Kerry of being unpatriotic when no Republican representing the Bush administration has ever thus accused him.

When you go out tonight, beware of exploding heads.