@Jet_Set I got the same. I’m just as smart as you, but no smarter.

This week’s edition of Eric’s Bad Movies at Film.com is “The Avengers” — but don’t get your hopes up for descriptions of exciting avenging action, for the movie contains no avenging whatsoever. It does have bear costumes, though.

I really got a kick out of you guessers last week! As you’ll recall, I gave you these clues:

“Next week’s movie, from the 1990s, was directed by a man who had previously made a very well regarded Christmas comedy. This film’s three leading stars were all prior Oscar nominees (and one was a winner); a fourth would later win an Oscar for something else. This film was based on previous source material and was universally derided as a flop.”

Someone guessed “Baby Geniuses” right off the bat, which isn’t a bad guess. It was directed by the same man, Bob Clark, who had previously directed “A Christmas Story” (and, um, “Porky’s), but it doesn’t meet the Oscar criteria. Neither does Clark’s “Loose Cannons,” which someone else guessed. What we’re learning is that, “A Christmas Story” aside, Bob Clark really didn’t make any good movies.

Then someone guessed — nay, was certain — that the answer was “Diabolique.” It was from Jeremiah Chechik, who had directed “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”; its top three stars were Oscar nominees; it was based on a book; it was a flop. Surely this was it! But no, it was not. As someone else observed, it didn’t meet the qualification of a fourth star who subsequently won an Oscar. Someone else, convinced “Diabolique” was right, even suggested that I had made a mistake in my clue-giving! As if!

It took our old friend Randy to look a little more closely at Jeremiah Chechik’s IMDB page and see that “Diabolique” was not the only terrible movie he directed. He later made “The Avengers,” which stars Oscar-nominees Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery, with Jim Broadbent as the future Oscar winner (for “Iris,” 2002).

Next week’s movie was originally intended as a sequel to another franchise but was reconfigured (and retitled, and recast) when the franchise’s star decided not to make it. The new star they wound up with was a logical choice because the role was very similar to one he’d been playing on TV already anyway. Guesses?

OK, “Twilight” review. I don’t want to write you, and you don’t want to be written. But we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.

@erickohn You can’t fix the economy without cupcakes. Why would you even WANT a cupcake-less economy?

Boy, good thing Summit made such a big deal about not posting “Twilight” reviews until Friday: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/twilight/

@mbrinkerhoff If by “Stephanie Meier” you mean Stephenie Meyer, then yes, we do need to support our kind.

“Hey, everyone! I dressed up as one of the characters from the book! I’m a vampire! I vant to suck your blood! BLAAAH!”

Should have gone to ‘Twilight’ screening dressed in full Bela Lugosi-style vampire costume, but didn’t think of it until later.

For highly concentrated right-wing idiocy, look no further than some of the people who comment on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/68uzev

I wrote a little piece of satire. Tell me what you think.

Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.

Hilarious, right? Except wait — I didn’t write it. Blogger and pundit John Hinderaker wrote it, and not as satire. He was being completely serious.

What? Bush never gets sloppy when he speaks publicly? He almost never makes verbal blunders?! I’m living in a cuckoo clock! I thought even Bush’s supporters acknowledged that yeah, he ain’t the most eloquent speaker, heh heh. Part of his folksy charm and all that. Collecting examples of Bush’s mangling of the English language and general gaffes is a cottage industry. (Here’s a fun list of them!)

I understand supporting an unpopular leader until the bitter end, no matter what. But you’re supposed to do it by accentuating the leader’s positive aspects, not by pretending the negative ones — particularly the most famous ones — don’t exist. I mean, when people stick up for Bill Clinton, they focus on America’s strong economy and general prosperity during his administration. They don’t say, “It’s too bad more politicians don’t follow in Clinton’s footsteps by being morally upright family men who never cheat on their wives!”

The specific reason Hinderaker brought it up is a stretch, too. He was responding to an incident last week where president-elect Obama spoke with Polish president Lech Kaczynski on the telephone. Afterward, Kaczynski reported that Obama had told him the missile-defense project would continue. Obama’s people responded that actually, Kaczynski had raised the issue but Obama had made no commitment one way or the other on it. Hinderaker assumes that Obama spoke ambiguously to the Polish leader, not choosing his words carefully, and hence the confusion. There are several other equally plausible explanations, but Hinderaker disregards them. From there he goes to Obama being a poor speaker in general and not nearly as polished and eloquent as Bush. Whisky tango foxtrot?