Amidst my current binge of movie theater a-goin' / bootleg dvd a-watchin' I have indulged in dozens of films lately, including Blood Diamond, Pan's Labyrinth, The Last King of Scotland, and Smokin' Aces, and it has become pretty gosh-darned apparent to me what hot new trend Hollywood is setting:

This 2006-7 winter season, amputation is sooOOOooOOoo IN!

To the folks who get squeamish easily, I'm sorry--you might prefer watching this instead. But for real, every single one of the movies I've seen on the big screen as of late has at least one shot of a body part getting sawed, chopped, chewed, snipped, snapped, crackled, or popped off.

Not to say that it's a new concept at all. We all shuddered at the mere possibility of watching Princess Jasmine's cartoon hand get slashed by Jafar's henchman for ganking an apple, and that took place hella back in the dizzay. Even still, it's not necessarily the image that I was all giddy about seeing when I paid my $11.50 to catch a nice li'l flick.

Now I know this sensitivity to on-screen violence is going to ruin the macho-muscular-motorcycle-rampaging-leather-jacket-with-a-skull- embroidered-on-the-back rebel image most of you have of me--but I have to keep it real, I never really was the type of kid that liked watching Rambo or any of Jean-Claude Van Damme's fine cinematic masterpieces that he filmed during his hey-day. I was much more into shit like Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest and other such films that probably explain why my first impulse upon graduating college left me living in Berkeley eating grilled soy-cheese sandwiches. I also wasn't the type of kid that liked to tear the legs off of flies and incinerate them with magnifying glasses. I was more of the kid who'd catch ladybugs only to have them lay eggs on my fingers, and spend the rest of my recess washing my hands in the bathroom (with that chalky powdered government soap...remember that soap?).

But hey, maybe I'm just less gung-ho about this chopping-off of body parts thing that has audiences flooding the theaters to see all THREE Saw movies--it's just not really my thing...call me a WEIRDO but I like my movie characters to stay as intact as possible. But who knows, maybe I'll be tooting to another tune very soon. I'm already going nuts waiting for Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror which is about a girl whose leg gets cut off and replaced by a bazooka. And THAT, my friends, has to be the most bad-ass concept I've heard of, EVER.