Twilight, (The Movie) Progress: Viewed

Let me apologize for the delay between actually seeing this movie at the midnight event and doing the write-up for it. You see, it took quite some time for my friends to convince me that the world was worth living in, that there was a reason to wake-up, that I should try to be funny. It has taken me this long for me to regain my will to live after having seen that movie. But first, let me back up.

I am a nerd. Surprise, surprise. I've done the midnight movie thing before. Star Wars, Batman, Spiderman, yeah, I've been there. Never have I felt as out of place as I did standing in line at Twilight for three and a half hours before the movie started. I saw flocks of girls literally chirping. I have no idea what they were saying. It was not English. Perhaps the male ear simply cannot hear the upper registers of fan-girl excitement, but I was left completely out of the loop. However, the excitement of EVERYONE was contagious, and I began lying to myself. "Maybe it won't be that bad. You might enjoy it. You don't know what happens in the second half of the book. Maybe Van Helsing DOES show up." I was wrong.

Skip two hours. I'm now sitting dead center of a theater that has so many girls in it that I would need to be watching football, drinking a beer, and building furniture with my bare hands while getting paid an average of 26 cents/hr more than anyone else in the room in order to neutrilize the estrogen. Luckily I've been saving my allowance of man-cards for weeks for this moment. I embrace the setting and hand them out willingly.

My favorite part of the movie was the very beginning. It's the scene that had Dumbledore and Harry talking about Tom Riddle. Then the previews ended. The movie was much the same experience as the book. That is, I often pulled hair out of my scalp in order to retain my tenuous grasp to the realm of sanity....

(I will now interupt my dialogue to stare seductively at my computer screen and subtely flick my tongue around in my half-open mouth. You see, by doing this I'm doing something BETTER than, you know, having a plot.)

....even though most of the dialogue seems to stem straight from the book, I have to highlight my favorite part of the movie. Edward grabs Bella, throws her on his back, and says something akin to the line, "Hold on tight, spider-monkey." ...SPIDER-MONKEY...ok. This line is not in the book. I will pause as you consider the full implications of that statement. Someone either wrote this line, or God forbid, he adlibbed it, and the director, jumping from his chair, yelled, "YES! I've got to have that line!" He should be held accountable for the murder of no less that 326 of my favorite brain cells.

Also, Edward...let me pause and gather my breath, you see, his name just takes it from me...so dreamy...this guy that is the obsession of every female between the ages of 12 and 25 watches Bella sleep for months without her knowing it. I don't know why this is suddenly romantic. It didn't work for me. That same action is why I can no longer enter the state of Georgia.

Turning the page,
Randon

P.S. To Be Fair (A new section!): Here are things I liked. Bella's dad and Jacob's dad were the only believable relationship/acting. The baseball scene was close to cool. I like the Cullen family dynamics at the dinner (and baseball.) Alice was cute.

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer, Progress: Page 286

Ok. Super beings are defined by their weaknesses. Superman can not be around kryptonite. Green Lantern can't handle the color yellow. Batman is plagued by the fact that he's too awesome. The list goes on. Vampires can not be in the sun. They melt. That is the defining characteristic of vampires. "Blood drinking, check. Wooden stake weakness, check. Sunlight weakness, check." "Ok boys, it looks like we have ourselves a vampire." It's a very simple identification process.

Edward Cullen does not melt in the sun. He GLITTERS. Let me repeat that for effect. Edward Cullen, a vampire, turns into a disco ball in the sunlight. I can't wait to read Stephanie Meyer's next book where a zombie is misunderstood. He doesn't want BRAAAAINS, but instead he holds a deep love of butterscotch toffee. He then teams up with a werewolf who only avoids silver because he thinks it's a bit pretentious. (I think that last bit might actually happen in a later book. I'm scared.)

I'm now going to try to relate Edward Cullen's appeal as best I can from the perspective of a guy. I'll start off by going back to the age of 7 when I played outside using nothing but my imagination. *waves hand in the air* A stick becomes a sword. A woodpile becomes a castle....until something terrible happens. An imaginary arms race.

"My sword is sharper." "My bow shoots swords." "My sword shoots lazers." "I have a pet dinosaur...with a sword." "I have an anti-dinosaur rocket launcher." and so on, and so forth.

Edward Cullen is the female equivalent. "I want a guy that is exotic." "I want a guy that is mysterious." "Yeah, yeah, good one....let's make him rich too." "Great, also, he needs to be muscular." "Oh, well, of course. He needs to be absolutely beautiful." "Naturally, naturally....you think there's any way we can make him glow?" "You mean like some beautiful dazzling object of a man?" "Yeah, exactly." "Sure, we can do that. I'll just make him a vampire." "Vampires sparkle?" "I think so." "Ok."

I will honestly be surprised if Edward doesn't shoot rainbows out of his finger tips, and pull kittens out of his pockets soon.

Turning the page,
Randon

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer, Progress: Page 68

Let me start off by saying that this book has been a great inspiration to me. I had simply so many sarcastic comments running through my head that I decided I needed a place to come jot them down. You are looking at the result. This is my small corner of the internet where I'm going to review (and in some cases, as you will soon see, make fun of) some books.

That said, I do not know why I am currently reading Twilight. I feel that I have been led into a trap. I was told there were vampires. I like vampires. They kill things. People named Van Helsing chase them. Father Callahan confronts them with crucifixes. There are epic battles at night-time, and the town is dormant in the day as the undead lords lurk in their coffins. At no point do vampires examine slides in Biology class. I rest my case.

I've decided to make a Randon-cut of this book. The difference is that I take out every description of Edward being beautiful. For example, "I was in danger of being distracted by his livid, glorious face." (Twilight, pg. 65). I really appreciate that Meyer is reaching out to the Alzheimer's community and reminding us every three lines that Edward is inhumanly (ooo...that was foreshadowing) beautiful, but even lobotomy patients are getting tired of it by Edward's third scene. The Randon-cut of this book so far is 50% shorter by current estimation.

I have found a fun game to keep me reading through the descriptions though. Every time Edward's voice is described as "musical" (I'm not sure how that's even possible), I take it literally. In my mind, the scene freezes; a spotlight hits Edward, and he sings. (Beautifully, of course.) I chuckle to myself and move on. Everyone loves a good love musical about (lame) vampires.

Turning the page,
Randon