ceebeegee | Entries tagged with twilight

Oh, on the way back I watched the Sex and the City sequel. I don't get at all the clutching of pearls over how terrible this movie supposedly was. It's a comedy, guys. Yes, it's over the top. Yes, there are lame puns. Did any of the reviewers ever even watch the show? At its heart the movie is about being a woman--working, mothering, partnering--and more importantly, female friendship. I mean, some of these reviews are...unbelievable. Really, openly misogynistic--the Salon review actually muses that it would be "kinder" for SJP et al. to be "shot in the head or skinned alive by Arkansas rednecks," complete with a graphic of SJP being stabbed. The posters responding to the reviews just slamming, savaging the appearances of these women. They're not just "ugly," they're an offense to human eyesight everywhere. They're all too old, too hideous. One poster actually quoted her 15 year old son saying "false advertising--not in the city and not sexy." (Oh, well, if some 15 year old BOY doesn't think four women 40 years and old and over isn't sexy, hand me the razor blades now!) They're "degenerate," "bitches" (they're called this a lot), "desperate," "frantic." Another poster "forsees" a murder-suicide pact between SJP & Matthew Broderick. Really pretty creepy. Disturbing. I see some of this over-the-top hatred for the Twilight series as well--(I'm not talking legit criticism--I am the last person to defend Twilight's actual literary merit--they're not well-written, but they are FUN. I'm talking about non-stop ranting). If you don't like it, DON'T WATCH IT. See how easy that is? Do you think spend my time watching and trashing Transformers or whatever fanboy franchise there is out there? I could care less what someone else watches, if it's just mindless fun--which both Twilight and SATC are. Oh, but wait, there's another element in here--as one poster on Salon put it:

And for many of the commenters here, piss off, you sexist, misogynistic pricks who can't stand that after 60 plus years of television there's FINALLY a show in which you are NOT the center of attention.

And that is really the crux of the overreaction to Twilight and SATC, IMO.

*I love how gossipy all the wolves are. I guess when you have a literal pack mentality, you're that much more interested in everyone else's lives. "So I heard that Sam hooked up with Leah the other night at the party." "Ew, no way! Sloppy seconds, anyone?" "Shut up, you guys!"

*So, if there's only one way to kill vampires (tear them to pieces and set the remains on fire)--why do they need to eat? What if they never fed, would they die from starvation?

*How, when the werewolves killed Laurent, did they start a fire to burn the pieces with no opposable thumbs? I suppose they phased back but I really like the idea of a bunch of enormous wolves standing around a bunch of vampire body parts, awkwardly trying to light a match.

* Edward is a complete dick to Bella when he's breaking up with her. I honestly don't know if I could get past some of the things he said, no matter how altruistic his ultimate intentions were. "You're no good for me"? "I'm tired of acting human"? DICK. And then taking all of her pictures of him? The hell, is he Joan Crawford? And then later on when he's explaining he ended things to keep her safe--okay, maybe I could accept that explanation--oh yeah, except your disappearance contributed DIRECTLY to her near-murder by Laurent and also placed her in great danger from Victoria. Who is an awesome villainess with her "fire on the water" hair. ANYWAY. After saying he did it all for her, he said all these terrible things for her, then he says how hurt he was that she believed him so easily. Edward, you're 17 and still a virgin so I gather you have limited experience with women. Let me explain something. When your BF is standing in front of you coldly saying "you're not good for me and I'm getting the hell out of Dodge"--IOW, when your worst nightmare is coming true--you don't think rationally, you don't think "hmmm, this doesn't sound like him. Let me apply the Socratic method to determine his true agenda." It's not as though breakups come with an exit interview. You're far too hurt. You react. It is pretty tacky to say calculatedly cruel things to get your GF to break up with you, and then turn around and essentially blame her for believing it.

*I think Edward gets off on over-protecting Bella because he can sublimate his own homicidal urges toward her.

*Ashley and I were talking about Jacob's growth as a character--she does NOT like how he went from happy, nice guy to aggressive, not-as-nice guy after the werewolf gene kicked in. I said that I saw the werewolf transformation as a metaphor for adolescence (specifically, male adolescence)--he grows much taller, packs on the muscle, becomes short-tempered. Ashley gave me this "put down the crack pipe" look and said "you are giving her [the author] WAY too much credit."

*Jacob's personality transformation notwithstanding, I adore Jacob in Eclipse. He is cocky *and* unafraid to declare himself, and I love how he gives Edward shit. The one thing he does that I dislike is when he forces the kiss on her which is pretty obnoxious. (And good on Bella for clocking him.) But he makes up for it when he's holding her in the sleeping bag to keep her warm--I love it when he says to Edward "now you can go keep an eye on things while I take care of your girlfriend for you." I just love that kind of sassiness in a guy. (That is, I love it when it's real and not feigned--feigned over-confidence is annoying as hell, and very easy to spot.) And when he says in front of Edward "Your lips are still blue--want me to warm them up as well?" Oh yeah! It takes [body parts] to pull that off in front of the boyfriend. [Body parts] and sassiness!

*And I have to say, Bella's chemistry with Jacob is much more interesting than that with Edward. Hit that, Bella. Hit that with a stick.

*What English vicar in the 17-century named his son Carlisle? As if. He would be named Thomas or Edward.

*I'm really curious about the whole vampire metabolism--do they never go to the bathroom? What about their hair growing? It just seems weird that they apparently have no metabolism whatsoever--so why do they need to eat?

*Forks High School has an incredibly lax attendance policy. People skip class right and left with no consequences whatsoever.

*No way in hell would Bella get accepted to Dartmouth without a personal interview. I got into Mount Holyoke and Bryn Mawr, both very selective schools even in the demographic drought of the '80s, and a personal interview (either at the school or with an alumnae representative) was required for both.

*Why the HELL didn't Alice see Laurent about to kill Bella? Or Jaspers' near-attack on her?

*The fight at the end of Eclipse is awesome. I seriously cannot wait to see that filmed. Riley's disembodied hand inching its way across the ground? Edward ripping off Victoria's head? AWESOME. And good for Edward for dropping the noble, civilized shit and actually FIGHTING for the girl you love. I love it when Jacob and Edward square off. The Leader of the Pack standoff between them in the school parking lot is kick. Ass. Jealousy in a man can be tiresome when done to death--sorry my game is better than yours, ex-BF, too bad, so sad!--but a little (emphasis on little) healthy display of possessiveness is a good thing.

( Deeeeeper Thoughts )

I've found some absolutely hilar recaps/commentary from one LJer,

cleolinda and have been spending the last few weeks at work giggling over them. What I love about her tone is it's equal parts snark and shameful fascination with the series. Some excerpts:

From "New Moon in 15 minutes":

So Jacob teaches Bella the safe and responsible way to start and stop the motorcycle, so that she can then completely ignore him and go roaring down the road while Imaginary Edward (Bellaaaaaaaaaa) and his handwringing (Bellaaaaa, I told you to wear a hellllllllmeeeeeeeet) pop up to distract her (Don't you need a license for one of these thiiiiiiiingsssss) like obstacles (If I were real I would so tell on youuuuuuuu) in a bad video game.

and

Casa de Swan... After Dark

JACOB: Bella! Can I climb into your room, even though I'm mostly naked and it's late at night?

BELLA: Wait--I don't--you're asking first?

JACOB: What? Of course! What kind of creep would just show up in a girl's bedroom?

My favorite commentary is the one for Midnight Sun which, for those who haven't read the books, is Twilight from Edward's POV. It is awesomesauce. When Bella first slo-mo floats into class and he gets a whiff of her, he spends the whole class planning to snap the necks of all the other students so he can kill her. He's like totting up the collateral damage. It's seriously cool and a welcome dash of testosterone. Like the other books, it is over-written--God, can Edward emo--but lots of fun.

From

cleolinda's Midnight Sun commentary:

Your impotent fantasies of smearing Death-Van Tyler across the pavement distract him from his VAMPIRE GLITTER VENGEANCE RAGE, RAAAAAAGE!

This kills me. I have been randomly texting to Courtney VAMPIRE GLITTER VENGEANCE RAGE, RAAAAAAGE!

Also:

Bella's like, well, if the sun doesn't crisp you out then why weren't you in school, WHY WEREN'T YOU IN SCHOOL, HUH? I CAN'T STALK MYSELF, YOU KNOW, YOU GOTTA KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE PRIZE HERE.

*Sigh.* Good times.

I have drunken ALL the Twilight Kool-aid, every last processed red sugary drop of it, and licked the inside of the cup. It is some good cheesy fun and I do not feel ashamed of indulging my inner (eternal) 17-year-old. I confessed to Ashley a few weeks ago, when she was at my place helping me redecorate the living room, and she told me that Courtney (Kochuba) had turned HER on to the books. Yes! Two other intelligent women who love this shit--I'm not alone!

I've now read the first two books, and seen the first two movies. And yes, and also read what there is of Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edward's POV. YUM. In my opinion, the first movie (Twilight) is better than the book, and the second book (New Moon) is better than the movie. However all four are thoroughly enjoyable. I like the first movie better because 1) I love Catherine Hardwicke as a director and she found the edgy darkness and the oh-so-necessary HUMOR amid that gooey tale of Twue Wuv. Stephenie Meyer has obviously hit a nerve with her narrative but damn, she overwrites. Okay, SM, Edward looks like a Ralph Lauren model/god/angel, WE GET IT. But you know, these books are from the POV of a teenage girl--of course she's all dreeeeeeamy about his looks! Anyway, I love the humorous scenes in the first movie like the grin on Edward's face as they walk through the crowd at school for the first time as A Couple as everyone whispers around them--that grin is pure teenage boy, it says "hey you guys, I finally got a GIRLFRIEND." Also love when he introduces her to his family and they just do and say all the wrong things and he's completely mortified. ("Mom! Stop embarrassing me!")

And I liked the changes from the book, because the book has almost NO plot--it's 300+ pages of breathless exchanges between Edward and Bella, until as one site puts it the plot arrives late to the party, drunk, in a beat-up '53 Chevy pick-up truck. It drives away about fifty pages later and crashes into a tree, gets sent to the hospital, and is rarely heard from again throughout the course of the series. The movie remedies this somewhat, as they show the nomads attacking humans throughout the story. (And looking aw-ful-ly tasty, I gotta say. The nomads, not the humans.) And a lot of the characters are frankly more interesting in the movie--Bella, Charlie, Edward and James are all vastly improved by the acting. Charlie and James in particular--in the novel James is just this overly-polite sadist, a trope that has been beaten into the ground, but he's given all sorts of extra creepiness in the movie. And Charlie! LOVE him in the movie, the guy who plays him is just so damn awesome. Even Bella has more of a personality. Really, the one thing I didn't like was casting Nikki Reed as Rosalie--NR is a terrific actress and with her natural brunette she's very attractive, but she doesn't look remotely believable as a blonde, her coloring is just too dark.

And finally I must mention the awesomeness of the baseball/nomad confrontation scene. At first glance you might think that a scene involving vampire baseball stands an excellent chance of being completely lame. Fortunately Hardwicke avoided the pitfalls by 1) dressing them all in old-fashioned, striped baseball jerseys and hats, 2) scoring the scene to Supermassive Black Hole and 3) escalating the tension between the Cullens and the nomads with a seemingly endless sequence of tight-eye closeups, culminating in a crouched-stance face-off between the two sides when James tries to attack Bella. It is a total vampire baseball rumble and completely awesome. All it needs is a jazzy Leonard Bernstein score.

One more final note--Alice's neck-twist in mid-leap during the fight at the ballet studio? SO AWESOME. She really is a great character.

( Commentary )

...a commenter wrote

For all of Twilight's ridiculocity, nothing quite compares to their take on the vampire's "weaknesses" (or lack there of). Namely the fact that, instead of simply burning up in sunlight, these vampires sparkle like a stripper covered in glittered body lotion. For those of you not taking notes, this means that the Twilight vampires are not only excessively fast/strong/charasmatic but are also no longer inhibited by the only thing that should be keeping these bloodsuckers in check. So then why bother hiding at all? "Oh, people will know were different if they see us sparkle..." You f**king EAT people! That's a pretty good reason to not give a f**k what they think! That'd be like humans giving up their top spot on the food chain because we were afraid the cows might judge our sense of fashion.

It made me laugh.

I read Twilight over the weekend...

...

...and I liked it.

I used to love romance novels in high school and college for their pure escapism--my favorite one is called Royal Seduction by Jennifer Blake. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've reread it--classic Ruritanian story with a Balkan prince who sweeps into Lousiana looking for the mistress of his older brother who was murdered in their bed--said mistress just happens to be the lookalike cousin of the heroine, for whom the prince mistakes her. He kidnaps her and takes her to his bed--"a passionate punishment that proved she'd never been anyone's mistress" as the back cover copy breathlessly informed us--and even as he realizes the enormous mistake he's made, he refuses to give her up. What makes this book great, besides its classic elements of handsome prince, beautiful maiden, etc.--is how very well-written it is. Seriously. Genre fiction is not at all by definition bad or weak--Gone with the Wind is a romance (an epic one, to be sure) and it won the Pulitzer. Arthur C. Clarke and C.L. Moore, both highly respected authors, wrote genre fiction, as does Larry McMurtry. At any rate Royal Seduction's hero Rolfe is an intellectual who plays a lot of headgames with Angeline and she responds in kind--at one point, discussing his plans to track down her cousin, he says "fortuna favet fortibus" and she replies "fortune may favor the bold, your Highness, but it will take more than that to find a woman who is not there." Rolfe also has this peculiar, very poetic way of speaking that drove me wild--he says things like "you are the twin of my soul, half of my whole, a partnered swan without which you will die, singing." Yeah. Add to that devastatingly good-looking and an incredible fighter (he has a cadre of bodyguards who are a major part of the story, all of whom revere him) and you can see why I lapped this stuff up.

At any rate you can see why I enjoyed Twilight--sure it's silly (and certainly its prose is pretty pedestrian, not even close to Royal Seduction) but it's pure escapism. When the first movie came out last year, I'd never heard of the books and had no interest. Then when I was flying to Italy, I fell asleep just as they started showing it. I woke up, all bleary and exhausted, during that scene in the forest when he tells her "you're like my personal brand of heroine...I can't stay away from you." Even in my stupor I remember thinking "okay, NOW I get why so many teenyboppers love this story." A guy who looks like a Greek God, can protect you from anything and anyone, is all broody and angtsy and needs you that badly? That is crack to the fantasies of a thirteen-year old. Of course they love it. And for a Mormon author writing a series of books wherein very little sex (from what I understand) is had, there is some hhhot stuff going on there! Maybe teenage girls will hold the boys in their life to a higher standard--Edward's standard--and demand to be respected, which is even more hilarious since Edward is played by Robert Pattinson who, in the words of Dickipedia, is "a dick actor, model, and musician best known for playing Edward Cullen in the film adaptation of Twilight, and very likely the reason your wife or girlfriend has stopped having sex with you." (PS, Dickipedia, he is NOT a dick! :) He played Cedric in Goblet of Fire and for that alone he's awesome! Oh, Cedric...)