The Videogum Movie Club: Twilight: New Moon
Let's all go to the movies, and let's all see the same movie, and let's discuss it here.
Gushers, son!
Listen up cool dudes who think that it's OK for guys to be into fashion now, and even cooler girls who know that they're the only ones who can keep themselves from achieving their dreams, let's talk about Twilight: New Moon. Well, first of all let's talk about the line outside of Twilight: New Moon. Did it really need to wrap around the block 40 minutes before the movie was supposed to start? That is too long, and too early. And that is what she said. Where did you all come from? I know that as a 67-year-old man*, it is virtually impossible for me to keep up with popular youth culture--I wouldn't even know where to look!--but I was aware that Twilight was very popular, and this still took me by surprise. What a madhouse! I'm glad that no one threw a bomb into the theater on Friday night, because it would have decimated the 19-year-old-girl-still-wearing-Ugg-boots population of New York! Oh, and can we talk for a minute about the trailers that showed before Twilight? Like, The Lovely Bones? Young women who fantasize about paranormal sex are wayyyyy into rape-murder heaven fantasies. EEK! And I don't know about your screening, but my screening featured not one but TWO romantic comedies featuring Italian magic. And of course there was the trailer for the new Robert Pattinson movie, and of course the ladies in the audience (also known as the audience) all screamed, duh. Would you ask the sun to stop screaming? Would you ask the rain not to scream?
And then the actual movie started. And yes, there was more screaming when Robert Pattinson first appeared on screen, but slowly the screaming subsided. And was replaced with laughter.
On the one hand, the laughter was welcome, because it made me feel less crazy and alone. I really am having a hard time understanding why this series is straight crushing people's minds these days. It's simplistic and painfully overwrought and most of all it is BORING. So the fact that a room full of connoisseurs could still find the humor in Taylor Lautner taking off his shirt for literally no reason made me feel a little less adrift in an adolescent void. The only thing is I am not sure what they were laughing at? I mean, they were laughing at lots of things (PAPERCUT!) but perhaps the worst thing about this genuinely awful movie was just how tedious and monotone it was. You just had to TRUDGE through this damp, gray thing.
And then there was the actual story. Huh? Again, huh? So Edward leaves because he doesn't want to throw Bella across the room anymore like some kind of glittery Chris Brown, and now Taylor Lautner is a werewolf, but oh no here comes the bad vampire from the last movie, but suddenly the bad vampire is no longer an issue, like we literally are just going to ignore that storyline because we need to focus on how there is a vampire court in Italy that changes the vampire laws constantly (you are not in trouble, wait, we decided you are in trouble). Insert cheap, unearned reference to Romeo and Juliet. Edward thinks that Bella is dead...just because? I mean, she's not dead. And his sister Alice, who oh by the way, is for some reason the emotional fulcrum of the entire movie (?) because her and Bella are best friends now (?) although that has never been explained or explored before, like, at all. And P.S. adrenaline junkies: so hot right now. (Now is 2005, right? Or is now 1991?)
Actually, I was wrong earlier when I said that the worst thing about this movie was how dull and monotonous it was. I mean, that was basically the worst thing about it, but it wasn't the worst worst thing about it, because the worst worst thing about it was the weird message it had about domestic violence. UHHHH. Taylor Lautner is like "what if I get mad at you one day, and I am standing too close to you, and I turn into a werewolf, and I carve up your FUCKING FACE?" Well, Taylor Lautner, what if you GO TO JAIL. The movie was like "this is just how werewolves are, and you love them through it all." WHAT. THE. FUCK? Like, I know that we are all empowered young women who are taking control of our own sexuality, but apparently we aren't at all. It's one thing for this movie to end with a marriage proposal, which reminds you that even when it comes to soulless paranormal monsters, you can't have sex until you make things legal in the eyes of the state and God. But to actually pose a basic defense of horrific domestic abuse as a matter of NATURE is insane.
I just don't understand. Seriously. At all. Like, I don't understand the appeal of Twilight, but I don't even understand what is HAPPENING in Twilight. And I definitely don't understand the meaning of Twilight. You have to choose between getting married and becoming a monster, or you have to be in an abusive relationship. With a monster? Explain yourselves, children!
*Speaking of 67-year-old men, when we were being held in the lobby for the theater to open up, the ticket-taker kept calling out for anyone going to see any movie other than Twilight to step to the front of the line, and he kept making eye-contact with a friend of mine with each announcement, as if to say "naturally, you are not here to see Twilight, old man by himself, please hear my important message about your movie, Law Abiding Citizen, or whatever."
Posted by Gabe at 11:45 AM in The Videogum Movie Club
Tags: Kristen Stewart | New Moon | Robert Pattinson | Taylor Lautner | Twilight | Vampires | Werewolves
Between the Twilight movie and the new John Mayer record, it's like Christmas came early for lameasses this year.
Score = 28
This week was the 2012 of movies, with The Blind Side and Planet 51 riding on the heels of this I genuinely am concerned for the modern cinema.
Score = 12
I'm going to see this movie this afternoon, and my expectations are so low that I'll probably end up being pleasantly surprised. Actually, no, I'll probably have my low expectations more than confirmed.
Score = 10
You speak of Italian magic.
Jersey Shore?
More like Jersey Nation.
"If hatin' is your occupation, I probably gotta full time job for you."
-Monsters
Score = 8
For the sake of clarity, by monsters I mean werewolves, vampires, guidos and the like.
Not VideoGum Monsters.
Score = 11
I have family members (UGH) that are twihards, and they said this movie was terrible, something about a new director ruining the work the first director did... I didn't see it, but to be fair, I don't see movies unless they directly relate to 2012.
Score = 20
And now David (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) Slade is directing ECLIPSE. So that's happening.
Score = 10
SERIOUSLY?!? I would love to watch a whole roomful of twihards watching Hard Candy.
Watching their little brows furrow over the pedophile=bad storyline...it could be the next youtubes-of-people-watching-2-girls-1-cup.
Score = 7
My boyfriend saw it at midnight. He said the first director understood teenagers better.
Score = 11
You mean Gabe, right?
Score = 36
No, Hass's boyfriend is Micah Jesse. As if you didn't know that guy was a Twihard.
http://videogum.com/archives/thats_your_boyfriend/thats_your_boyfriend_micah_jes_099931.html
Score = 3
Note: This is HARD to do.
Score = 2
I have family members (UGH) is basically my motto for the next 6 weeks. Happy Xgiving!
Score = 16
When I went to see the first Twilight with my friend, who was Twilight Fanatic MD, everyone in the theater was laughing too. I was laughing my ass right along with them. So after the movie, my friend was saying how much she liked it, and I said, "It was TERRIBLE. No one in the theater liked it either. They were all laughing along with me!" and she told me they were laughing because they were excited they recognized things from the book.
So that's why they were laughing, Gabe. Excitement. Because Twilight fans are essentially toddlers.
Score = 63
Hahahaha. Sad/funny is the best kind of rueful.
Score = 15
The best part of New Moon is when one of the horny 14-year-olds in the back of theater farted loudly during a "tender" "scene" between Bella and Jacob. Now THAT was sad/funny.
Score = 32
"...and she told me they were laughing because they were excited they recognized things from the book."
Wow, denial much?
"No, they're throwing shit at the screen because they think the romantic subplot is believable."
Score = 25
No, she was right. The hardcore Twilight crowd (it was super-hardcore, because it was the midnight opening showing) would absolutely not laugh at Edward. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW DEEP THIS GOES, ETWB!
Score = 14
ALSO, SO YOU KNOW (very important!!): Edward thought Bella was dead because he had read Alice's mind and saw Bella jump off the cliff and nothing else. DOYOYOYOY!
Score = 23
Actually after Edward/Alice saw that, Jacob-the-werewolf answered the phone at Bella's house and told Edward that Bella's dad wasn't available because he was arranging a funeral. (Which he was, it was just not Bella's! Oops!)
Score = 4
True dat, but he was calling because he had seen Alice's vision.
We are two adults!
Score = 38
Actually Edward didn't read Alice's mind. Alice told Jasper she saw Bella die and then Jasper talked to Edward and told him about Alice's vision. Edward then called Bella's house to see if it was true and Jacob told him her dad was planning a funeral.
I really wish I didn't know this.
Score = 8
okay, this actually kind of sounds like high school. just swap out "will he go out with me" for "fake vampire suicide"
Score = 11
I overheard two grown up woman adults talking about this movie as though it re-defined cinema as we know it. Where we're going, we don't need plots.
Score = 54
Where they're going, they don't need ovaries. ( I hope).
Score = 28
The only new moon I saw this weekend was during the Eagles/Bears game. Knowhatimsayin'?
Score = 50
I totally lost it when his ass came out! My boyfriend and I were at a bar and we must've been the only people paying attention because we just looked at each other and cracked up. I think they showed the replay not realizing that his whole ass was out.
Score = 9
I'm kinda glad I fell asleep during this game. Got to avoid the man-ass of Devin Hester and the ass-play known as Jay Cutler's decision making.
Score = 2
Its not just Cutler. The Bears are poo at the moment.
Score = 0
I know what you are saying! Great moment in sports!
Score = 4
That game must have totally made the NFL slashers the happiest people in the sports slash fandom.
Score = 5
I didn't see this movie, so I don't have much to add other than that "Gushers, son!" is now my go-to greeting / expression of excitement.
Score = 5
Apparently vampires and werewolves are like the Hatfields and the McCoys of the pacific northwest. But they also have treaties? And the werewolves, when not being Brokeback Mountaineers up in the woods, protect people from the vampires, but sometimes they are not allowed to protect people from the vampires because of the treaties. I was very confused by the treaties, but that wasn't the worst thing about this movie. The worst thing was that our heroine, young Bella is so insipid and narcissistic that you can't think of one good reason that she should not become a vampire. She should be allowed to join the soulless, because basically she already is.
Score = 20
I just don't understand what was wrong with the old moon.
Score = 76
okay, you guys, i am going to say something now that may result in me being ostracized forever. i am a twilight connoisseur. i have no excuse--i have been to school, i know a lot of big words and can have adult conversations on various topics. the books are so bad, probably the most ridiculous and poorly written novels ever published, and the movies are terrible, they count on the fact that you already know what is happening and have read the books 15 times so they dont need to bother with plot and character development and, you know, like, being given a reason for things to happen (FYI, edward did not read alice's mind. he called home and rosalie told him what alice had seen in her vision which was briefly touched on in the next to last scene when rosalie apologized. just sayin'.) but they are a lot of fun, and for old ladies like me, they kind of take you back to a time when "stuff" really mattered (besides paying off student loans and that out of control visa bill)
anyhow--all this to say that even knowing what was happening in the story and being fully prepared for this movie to suck very hard (no pun intended) this movie was a chore to sit through. at one point my friend even turned to me and said "this is embarrassing." and it was. the effects, the acting, the script, the costumes (oh, lord, why do they dress those vampires so badly!?!) the everything was just wretched. but i still enjoyed the hell out of it.
twilight lives outside of the regular rules. you cant qualify it as good or bad, because of course it is objectively bad. in a way that i have never really seen before. well, maybe C.H.U.D. but i think that's sort of the twilight paradox. the worse and more ludicrous it is, the more people like it.
Score = 19
i see where you are coming from - you like twilight the way i like gossip girl or any number of crappy reality shows. or maybe you like twilight in addition to gossip girl and crappy reality shows. either way, i see your point and completely agree with you... the only difference being that i will wait to watch new moon on dvd.
Score = 10
I had no idea you were one of us (semi-ironic, but mostly serious twilight connoisseurs against our better judgement). I never would have tried to clear up the "Stupid Lamp" situation. How embarrassing.
Score = 17
haha, i knew there had to be others out there. but you really did a public service by posting it!
Score = 2
nice avatar!
Score = 4
I knew it was Stupid Lamb without reading the books, but that may be because I have always found the christ/lamb/shepard similes highly suspect, and thus it made immediate sense to me.
Also, I would just like to thank the really crazy fans (not you guys!) for being around because this ensures that the twilight tag on regresty is going to get lots of use in the next few weeks/months/years. http://www.regretsy.com/category/twilight/
Score = 0
I made most of those things.
Score = 8
Awesome! Keep up the good work. For your next piece, I would like to suggest you capture the magic of the birth of Renesme in either felt or a cat toy. Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?
Additionally, speaking of Renesme, my friends and I were figuring out our 'Twilight names,' made by combing your grandmother's names. Mine would be Elizadoris.
Score = 6
a) renesme is easily the ugliest, stupidest name ever, and i think stephanie meyer owes all the future real life renesmes a blanket apology.
b) that is a fun game! my name would be evelouise or louiselyn (evelyn+louise). fun!
Score = 0
Cat toy is an excellent idea. And I'd be Jatty or Bene. Consider me ready for my human/vampire baby!
Score = 2
That is amazing, and I signed in just so I could upvote you.
-Eilosephine
Score = 1
My admission isn't going to go as far as yours, but I read the Twilight books - all 4 in 10 days - and they weren't as much captivating as enslaving. I couldn't put them down.
Score = 6
i applaud your courage. i think i need to just admit to myself (and apparently videogum too) that i hatelove the series. the books were ridiculous, the movies terrible and rushed and hilarious. AND YET talking about them and laughing and eye rolling is harmless fun, totally like hate watching a bad show. also, team edward DUH because jacob is a child and his face is unwatchable.
Score = 2
wow, i feel so liberated now that it's out in the open. having read some of your other comments in this particular thread, you and i could have some very long, circular, embarrassing conversations on these books. also, it's a relief to see that there are basically enough of us here that we could form a support group.
Score = 0
My teenage brother informed me that he would not be supporting New Moon as the first film was already enough of a distortion of Stephenie Meyer's artistic vision. It was kind of a surreal moment. You never really expect to find out someone you love is a Twihard.
Score = 36
Pretend I posted my inane and only marginally on topic comment in reply to DS3M. (Oh, checkboxes. You are the werewolf to my vampire.)
Score = 22
I did not expect to hear about a teenage boy who is a Twihard. Please elaborate. What does he find in these books, so obviously written for pining 13 year old girls, that is for him?
Score = 7
Well, originally it was so he would have an "in" with the ladies, but it soon turned into so much more. I guess it speaks to him? On some kind of emotionally overwrought teenage angstbag level. Like, he will defend any aspect of the series (the passive voice, the creepy pseudo-romance, Edward literally nomming on Bella's uterus), at length, in detail, which, you know, normally I'd be proud of him, as he is an Athlete and I am a Nerd and we are as two ships passing in the night, but every time I see Twilight on his bookshelf I turn my face away. I wanted him to know what it is to Nerd, but not like this. Never like this.
Score = 17
That is extremely poignant. I think a movie version of this little story would be better than any of these Twilight blurgh-fests.
Score = 9
It's like your brother turned into Col. Kurtz or something, while on his clever stealth mission into the heart of female darkness. I applaud his bravery.
Score = 4
THAT WAS THIS WEEKEND?!?! Damn. I missed it. Presumably that'll be the end of its run and I'll never get to see it now. It's just not fair.
Score = 12
When I saw Twilight II: Twilight Harder this weekend, I was very amused that the entire audience stood up and yelled "Awe hells no" in unison during the last scene. Not one of them had read the book. Actually, that is probably for the best.
Score = 5
Since this is the Pacific Northwest, I'm wondering where are all of the sasquatches at? They're probably the Trenchcoat Mafia of Forks High School for Monsters or whatever. This week they're in mom's basement playing Modern Warfare 2 and talking about what Bella's (or anyone's) breasts may or may not look like, and next week they're rampaging through the high school eating vampire and werewolf faces. When does that part of this franchise come out?
Score = 15
Let's use that Charlie Sheen money to make this movie happen...
Score = 1
I'll give New Moon this, it freed up a lot of seat space in other theaters. I saw A Serious Man (it's good!) and was the only person in the theater. Thank you for sparing me any seat-kickers or wrapper-rustlers, New Mooninites!
Score = 6
I really wanted to see A Serious Man, but unfortunately it was not showing because my local cinema thought it best to show THIRTEEN screenings of New Moon in one day. No, my-local-cinema.
I am a man of constant :(
Score = 18
"I am a man of constant :("
I think that's my favorite use of :( ever. Keep up the :) work!
Score = 8
Aw man, that movie is A Serious WIN, amirite?
Score = 3
My friend and I felt like such creeps waiting in line an hour before it started and assumed people thought we were trying to hit on 14 year old girls
Best parts of the movie: Werewolf rules that seem to include never wearing a shirt and only wearing cut-offs, the shrieking and "AWW!"ing children, and most of all, the woman sitting behind me getting PISSED OFF at all the screaming and storming out of the theater when the movie ended.
Score = 6
My girlfriend clued me into the whole Twilight thing. Its fun enough. New Moon was good. Don't see why its such a big deal that every fckin blog on the planet has to do an article about it proclaiming the death of popular culture and/or correlating this film with setting women back 40 years.
Its a movie, I watched it, I enjoyed it. Not really worth defending to non-believers. Except to say, relax.
Score = -14
by "nonbelievers" do you mean people who don't believe in domestic violence and chronically codependent young women without personalities outside of their relationships with men?
Score = 21
men = vampire/werewolves... yeah.
Score = 1
YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS RIGHT NOW.
Score = 20
It's weird to me that you got downvoted because your sentiment is basically mine.
These movies just make me think of my idea of what many old "double feature matinee" movies were - a vaguely exotic story where good looking people kiss and try to emote (and take their shirts off). My wife loves twilight, and is embarrassed, and hides it. She goes to the movies, sees some bad SFX, sees some beautiful people running around, sees Italy, whatever, acknowledges the things (like the weird domestic violence thing) that don't work and then goes on with her adult life. She doesn't think it's 'good,' and she has great taste. If she posted here you all would never guess she liked twilight. Sometimes I'm pissed off that she has to be embarrassed about enjoying something.
I don't really enjoy it, but there are a lot of things that are way worse, more harmful, and more boring. I've seen dozens of way worse movies than these, for a start.
Maybe it's because some fans reactions are so extreme, that people who aren't fans feel like their reaction has to be just as extreme in the other direction?
Score = 16
I think a) your comment made you come of as less of an a-hole offended by the silly jokes we like to make, and b) on a more serious note, because most of the people who are most devoted to these books and movies seem to be impressionable tweens and teens, and that worries me a little bit, because of the aforementioned problems of holding these characters up as role models.
(Despite appearances, I am not actually a culture snob. Like what you like. I watch NCIS and read novels involving wizards. I am just trying to think of the children).
Score = 7
fuck yeah wizard books!!!
Score = 7
I enjoyed the girl vampire being chased by werewolves to the music of Thom Yorke scene.
Score = 12
I can't get past the fact that Edward always looks like something smells. I laughed every time he popped up on screen especially when Bella was trying to decipher the fart clouds.
Score = 9
Wait a second... Given just how much money this made over the weekend, I have a question. Are they secretly showing porn in multiplexes and you guys aren't telling me? Is "Twilight: New Moon" just a brown paper bag to hide the actual content you were all going to watch? Is this the new "under the bed/back of the wardrobe" for teenagers? Admittedly, it's a pretty good way of hiding it from any actual adults.
Score = 7
Surprisingly they cut out the AWESOME domestic violence scene in the book where werewolf guy pins her up against a wall and literally rape-kisses (rape-rape-kisses) Bella. First she is like UGH NO and resists and tells him to stop and then she just kind of lets him (what) and then punches him (ok) and then runs inside to tell her father (HER POLICE OFFICER FATHER) that this guy rape-kissed her, and her father is like GOOD JOB THERE, JACOB (seriously) and you are like WHAT again, because what.
Score = 53
yikes
Score = 3
That's so romantic! *Swoon*
Score = 9
Does Stockholm Syndrome apply to dads?
Score = 14
No! That jewel is in the next book, so there's still a chance it might make it to the big screen. We can only hope.
Score = 7
OH GOOD. I am genuinely glad they did not keep that horror out. And oops, I guess I mixed up my plot-less Twilight novels.
Score = 7
Twilight 3: Port of Call New Orleans is going to be EPIC.
Score = 17
"Stab him in the chest with a wooden stake again! His SOOOOUL is still dancing!"
Score = 3
i wish that i had gone to see the movie face punch instead. cause that's a great make-believe name for a make-believe movie. FACE PUNCH.
Score = 12
I especially like the shot where we all realized we were sitting in theaters, staring at three people sitting in a theater. META FACE OFF: FACE PUNCH: WHAT ARE YOU DOING ADULTS III.
Score = 15
I loved the movie poster for Face Punch (tagline "Let's Do This"). Thought that was clever.
Score = 11
I'm kind of interested in seeing what "Love Spelled Backwards is Love" is all about.
Score = 7
I just have to say, thank you, Gabe and Monsters (Inc.?). I think I should just go to bed now and sleep the rest of the day because it's not going to get any better than reading this post and these comments.
Score = 8
I don't know, maybe it was because I accidentally paid 15.50 for the X-treme screen at the theater but I really went into this movie trying to get some form of entertainment out of it. But while there were funny parts, and the best part (when the audience cringed noticeably at Edward taking off his shirt to reveal his pale white, ice cold, sparkly chest and painted on abs) I could not get past my all consuming rage at how entirely anti-feminist the film was. It wasn't even just the domestic violence, which is saying a lot, it was the whole plot. how dare they throw in that obvious Romeo & Juliet shot? You can't do that when you have a scene where the protagonist is literally sitting in the middle of the room for months, paralyzed with depression because her sparkly, monster boyfriend left for Rome or whatever, her sparkly, emotionally cold, and sometimes physically abusive boyfriend with zero redeeming qualities. and you REALLY can't do that when you artistically portray this through a camera circling your protagonist for five dizzying minutes. I hate you forever Twilight.
Score = 24
Uh, last time I checked werewolves and vampires didn't give a shit about the rules of man.
"I'll abuse whoever I want to. Deal with it, fleshbags."
-Vampire on the street
Score = 22
I would argue that the men in Twilight are as equally dependent/needy/emasculated, and annoyingly so. The werewolf dude was a total wuss. Edward is a total wuss. Which is why this female dis-empowerment argument does not hold water in my eyes.
Score = -4
yeah cause he was so codependent that he up and left her ass in the middle of the woods where she then collapsed for several hours.
Score = 13
Face it, your Twilight is anti-feminist argument is dumb. Just admit that here for me right now so I'm not forced to write a long reply listing all the reasons why you're wrong (because you are) and I can go back to not being annoyed by you and all the people making this argument when its obviously some cheap lazy justification to hate on this series when in the end... this series isnt worth the effort
Score = -17
So, if I'm reading this right, your argument that "Twilight" isn't anti-feminist is basically two-tiered. The first tier is a.) Men who show dependence on women are wussies, and the second tier is b.) Shut up I'm right.
Your diploma and $100,000,000 check from AWESOME DEBATING UNIVERSITY are in the mail.
Score = 18
Applause.
Score = 2
You do know "emasculation" of men has little to do with feminism, right? I mean, the goal is not really turning dudes into "total wusses". Just the word wuss already brings up so much gender role crap. But whatevs, you are obviously completely right, since you clearly know tons about feminism.
Score = 12
amen
Score = 1
okay, a couple of things.
the ham-handed insertion of romeo and juliet was in the books. it was equally painful and obvious and forced, but we can't blame the movie when it was in the cringey source material.
i didn't feel like the book was so much anti-feminism as it was anti-rational humansism. no man or woman should love another person so much that they feel compelled to commit suicide or sink into a months long black depression or put up with obvious cock teasing and mixed messages. everyone in the movie is totally spineless, male and female. yes, getting dumped is very hard. loving someone who may love you but isn't giving you clear messages is hard. being given false information from your malicious vampire foster sister, based on a mistaken viewing from your other psychic vampire foster sister is hard. so hard! but let's all just take a deep breath, go to the gym, have some movie nights with our besties, read some self-help books...SOMETHING. let's get ahold of ourselves and stop placing all out self-worth on another person's shoulders. men and women in twilight land need to love and respect themselves a good deal more.
i also think a LOT of the craziness that happens in the book is chalked up to this bizarre, unfair idea of supernatural MEGA love, which is more powerful than real love and is the most important thing in the world. in twilight land, it's okay that your new werewolf boyfriend rips half your face off because he is a baby werewolf and everyone knows they are prone to violent outbursts and you should've probably thought of that before you talked back. it's okay to become basically catatonic for half a year when your boyfriend of less than a year leaves you because it's not just love is supernatural MEGA love, so duh you're empty inside without him and no one else understands. it's okay to be best friends with a girl who is clearly just using you to make herself feel better after being dumped and doesn't like you nearly as much as her abandoning ex but MIGHT want to kiss? or maybe not? whatever, it's normal that you put up with her being such a jerk because you supernatural MEGA love her, so self-esteem isn't a factor. every bad decision they make is justified by this once in a lifetime epic supernatural MEGA love that generations of girls will be expecting to experience now. i feel like that's the most unhealthy aspect of the entire series. basically normal love is for lame-os and supernatural MEGA love, where you'll die for it and get your face ripped off, is the only thing that's "real" love.
i'm not previewing or proofing this so i hope it makes sense. living on the edge!
Score = 9
You win! You're Professor What Is Wrong With Twilight.
Admittedly, a field in which a lot of good scholarship is cropping up these days.
Score = 4
a dubious title i will accept with mingled trepidation and pride.
Score = 2
The same unsettling defense of domestic violence was present in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Just ride it out girls. You'll wonder why you didn't see it there before.
Score = 20
I think they really wasted Benicio Del Toro's talent in this movie.
Score = 9
I still can't get over the fact that the series also endorses pedophilia. Edward is like 100 and Bella is 17. Are we supposed to believe he lived (dead?) through the 70's and he actually cares about this stupid girl? The only character they need now is a Ven Helsing/Chris Hansen mix.
Score = 12
i've thought about that, too. i'm 31 and find 17 year olds nearly intolerable (aside from napoleon complex, natch), so the idea that a 100 year old would experience true love with a 17 year old is far-fetched. (hahaha, like THAT'S the part that's hard to swallow.) the kinda try to make bella a very mature 17 year old, but still. she's pretty sulky and uncomfortable, which seems like classic 17 to me. the books make it sound like all the other vampire couples do is hump all the time, so poor edward is probably tired of a new permanent case of whitesparkly-balls.
Score = 4
i've thought about that, too. i'm 31 and find 17 year olds nearly intolerable (aside from napoleon complex, natch), so the idea that a 100 year old would experience true love with a 17 year old is far-fetched. (hahaha, like THAT'S the part that's hard to swallow.) the kinda try to make bella a very mature 17 year old, but still. she's pretty sulky and uncomfortable, which seems like classic 17 to me. the books make it sound like all the other vampire couples do is hump all the time, so poor edward is probably tired of his permanent case of whitesparkly-balls.
Score = 0
It's the success of painfully contrived crap like this that gives me hope as an aspiring writer with mediocre talents.
Score = 17
Edward: say it SAY IT
Krsiten Stewart: ...vampire...
Are you scared?
Scared I might lose you
*Edward then bites and kills Kristen Stewart because he is a fucking vampire and that what vampires do. The he fake-runs to transylvania.*
Score = 14
I think my favorite part was the beginning, with that super-slow revolving (presumably new) moon, that gradually revealed the film's title. "NEW MOON." Smart. It really set the bar for the rest of the movie. You just knew that you were in good hands with these filmmakers and that there was no way there would be any flaws!
Score = 7
Shouldn't this have just gone straight to the Worst Movie of All Time competition?
Score = 3
Despite all the interminableness, I got really excited when you could totally tell it was filmed in Canada because of the Delicate Art Of Parking and Pontypool movie posters in the cinema they went to.
Score = 6
I wish this hadn't been this week's movie club selection, 'cause videogum just helped the thing win so much box office money.
Also, last week, after I mentioned how I couldn't get past page 7 of the book, a co-worker just back from maternity leave (read: a 36 y.o. adult) suggested I read it in french, so I wouldn't get so hung up on the shit-writing and just focus on the 'romance'. Which: ????!?!? The twi-mothers are trying to indoctrinate me!!!
Score = 14
i would have payed to go see 'face punch' though
Score = 7
Oh come on, it wasn't THAT BAD. It isn't art but you're just hating it because it's so popular. Just shut your brain off and watch attractive people be mythical creatures for two hours.
Score = -2
Uhhhh why don't YOU shut YOUR brain off and see what a hollow, lazy argument that is. "You just hate this because it's popular" how about a.) taste is subjective, and b.) just because you agree with the majority doesn't mean you can't still be mommy and daddy's special fucking snowflake. relax, please.
Score = -1
I hated this movie for many reasons... But the main one was this: Aside from West Side Story (when film musicals still told an actual story), I have hated every single revisionist literature film surrounding Romeo and Juliet that has ever been made. Forgive my rant, but I'm pissed because girls want the tragic love story, but can't accept that in the end: ROMEO AND JULIET BOTH DIE.
Score = 11
But it wasn't even a revision of Romeo & Juliet. They just reference it and draw comparisons for the sake of trying to look smart because OH LOOK IT'S SHAKESPEARE GUYZ!
Score = 1
Everyone's said everything about this movie already, probably, so I'll just add that I kind of wanted to see more of Dakota Fanning? She looked pretty sleek, and proper vampire-y and the most she got was an awkward muzak-underscored elevator ride (everyone in my cinema laughed at that. "Vampires, they're just like us!") That battle scene in the marble room was pretty decent, although I couldn't help but chastise the vampires for taking such poor care of their ancient relics. Do you think you can just grow a 200 year old (or whatever) marble staircase overnightm, buddy? Have some respect.
Score = 7
I'd stop there, but Julie Klausner* reminded me, re: werewolves and what they eat WE'RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER MUFFIN!
*I miss her Melrose Place recaps.
Score = 0
Oh gosh darnit, now I have to out myself and say that I agree with EVERYSINGLEWORD in your post. I read the books because a friend gave them to me and I got sucked in because they are fun and terrible and ridiculous and swoony. I saw New Moon, and there's no way I could have figured out what the hell was going on if I hadn't read all 600 pages of the damn book, and I would never recommend the movie to anyone who wasn't into the book and didn't give a crap and didn't think that RPatz was just the bee's knees and who had never experienced the longing and stupidity that all teenage girls live through. And I enjoyed myself at the movie because it is truly mindless fun. And I have a masters degree.
Score = 6
Argh! This is supposed to be a reply to RB's post up top.
Score = 0
look at all that porn!
Score = 0
This is a really great article that really emphasized to me why Twilight is not just a "fun read".
Bite me or don't (new window)
Score = 0