Operation Pink Herring

Film School

Joel's favorite part of this website is the sporadic, neglected movie review portion in the sidebar.  Assuming that 99.5% of you use a feed reader, I'm pretty sure he's the only person that knows it even exists.   Even though we nearly always watch movies sitting side by side in the theater, this is for you sweetie:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Rating: three out of four stars

Maybe I missed a lot since I haven't read the comics, but I have seen (and own) all three of the other X-men movies, and I love Wolverine.  Who doesn't love Wolverine?  But somehow, in this, the all-Wolverine-all-the-time installment, our favorite badass sort of came off as... well, as a pussy.   Come on guys, we have Clark Kent already filling the role of the reluctant hero.  Wolverine is supposed to kick ass, take names, and steal your motorcycle. I didn't dig the Ma and Pa Kent wannabes that took him in, and also the actual origins montage at the beginning was way rushed.  But Hugh Jackman spent a fair amount of time naked, so there's that.  And seeing the kid-version of Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) was cool.

Star Trek

Rating: 3.75 out of four stars

Now, that was the level of awesomeness I was expecting from Wolverine.  And dudes, I don't even like Star Trek, really.  So much awesome.  Live long, prosper, etc.  Also: nicely done, Sylar and kudos to Harold (you know, from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle).

Terminator: Salvation

Rating: 3.25 out of four stars.

Would have been four stars if the Christain Bale freakout dance remix had played during the end credits. 

And now let's talk trailers.  Specifically, the one that lured me into watching an entire hour of the MTV movie awards last night.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer

My first reaction: Oh god no.  The wolves are terrible, Jasper's slow-motion run is terrible, Bella's papercut is terrible oh my god they're ruining everything AGAIN.

But now that I've slept on it and watched the trailer 20 more times online, I don't think the wolves are so bad.  It's unfortunate that they aired a Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince trailer twenty minutes before the New Moon trailer, reminding us all what really good special effects look like, but honestly... the wolves, they're OK.  Considering the sunlight dazzle fiasco and how bad the wolves COULD have been, they look goddamn fantastic.

And then there's Bella.  Or, I should say, Kristen Stewart, because she is the one cast member who continually reminds us that this is  just a movie and she's just an "actress" and none of this is real.  Which, unfortunately, is exactly the opposite of how Iwant to feel when I think of anything Twilight-related.  So, thanks for that, Kristen Stewart, and thank you for your continued attempts to ruin the Twi-universe for me.  Let me ask you this, have you ever had a papercut?  Did you ever toss aside the offending materials and exclaim "ouch!  a papercut!" while drip-dropping blood on your hosts' white carpet?   I hate you more with every passing day.  I pray for a miracle in which you are fired post-haste and all of the New Moon footage is re-shoot using your long-lost identical twin sister who knows what a goddamn papercut looks like and is able to recite lines AND insert the proper emotional responses.  Hint: proper emotional responses do not equal lots of blinking.

Jasper's lame ass slow-motion run at Bella during the birthday scene is disappointing, but is quickly saved by Edward's response.  And so I'm thinking that New Moon will be very similar to Twilight: lots of lame, easily correctable awkwardness and so-so special effects, countered by Robert Pattinson's magical ability to actually transform into Edward Cullen and remind all of us that Edward IS real and life WILL go on.  Except this time, it looks like Edward will have some help: Jacob.  Friends, I love Jacob.  I adore him. I am so, so glad that they didn't pull an actor switch because I really think that Taylor Lautner is capable of BEING Jacob, perhaps as much as Robert Pattinson pulls off Edward.  And since we know that Edward is going to be scarce in New Moon, let's all breathe a hearty sigh of relief over that one.

I am a little bit disappointed that we didn't see anything from Italy, especially since we know they have filmed the piazza scene, but I'll assume there wasn't time to edit and incorporate it into the trailer.  I am anxious to see Dakota Fanning  as Jane and even more so to see a fully edited clip of Edward walking into the sunlight (please please PLEASE let them tone down the dazzle effect), but I guess they need to hold back something to keep us going these next six months. 

In case you didn't suffer through the MTV Movie Awards to catch the first glimpse of the trailer, here's what you missed: 

• The nominations for best male breakout performance pitted Robert Pattinson/Edward (obviously) against Taylor Lautner/Jacob (ridic since Jacob had all of six lines in Twilight) against the kid from The Chronicles of Narnia.  I found it especially satisfying to see the Narnia kid lose, knowing that he lobbied hard to steal the role of Jacob from Taylor Lautner in the Twilight sequels. Eat that, Prince Caspian.

• Edward and Bella won for Best Kiss and Kristen Stewart ruined the moment by being awkward during the acceptance speech

• Robert Pattinson and Cam Gigandet (James) won for best fight

• Kirsten Stewart won Best Female Breakout performance and then dropped her award on the stage on her way out

• When the cast walked out to do the intro for the New Moon trailer, the music playing in the background was Knights of Cydonia by Muse (Stephenie Meyer's favorite band), off the same album as Supermassive Black Hole. I noticed, and I thought it was AWESOME.   

• Twilight won for Best Movie, showing the true force of Twilight fan power.  It beat out Slumdog Millionaire and Batman: The Dark Knight.  I still haven't seen Slumdog, but I know it won about ten million grammies or academy awards or whatever, but I did see The Dark Knight, and even I, a diehard Twilighter, will admit that Dark Knight was a better movie.  I am really, really impressed that Twilight beat it out, knowing that Dark Knight has its own fairly hardcore fanbase.

• Miley Cyrus beat out Paramore for Best Song (Paramour was up for Decode), which was supremely disappoining.

And because Dakota Fanning was first rumored as being in talks about casting for New Moon ten days after I declared that she'd be the perfect Jane, I'm jsut going to throw this out there:  If Starlight by Muse somehow makes its way onto the New Moon soundtrack, that would be really rad. 

The Twilight movie verdict, having seen it twice now edition

So, there are problems with this movie.  The sunlight-dazzle special effects.  Bella's stuttering that's supposed to seem "real" but just seems stitled.  The awkward scene in the woods where Edward is yelling "as if you could outrun me!"  The spider monkey thing.   The overly pale makeup.

Yes, there are problems.   Annoying problems that could have been easily fixed.

 And people, I just don't care.

The movie is exactly like the series.  I'll admit that pretty much every criticism about the writing and the dialog and the plot holes is absloutely correct.  And I just. don't. care. 

I want to see it again, right now.  I want to see it ten more times.  Every problem the movie had was made more than made up for by Edward.  As Sarah said last night, if there was some way for me to make Edward become real, well... there is not much I wouldn't do.  I'm not necessarily proud of this, there it is.  I'm a sensible, twenty-seven year old woman.  And I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love with a fictional, teenage vampire. 

If you loved the series, you will love the movie, problems and all.

The end.

The Twilight Movie Verdict, 3am edition

The good:

Charlie.  The movie takes him beyond the one-dimensional, dim-witted dad in the book.  He's awkward, but he's funny.  He's great.

Renee.  Ditto.  She's flighty, she's scatterbrained, she texts.  Love it.

Jessica.  So spot on, better than in the book.

Rosalie.  Jesus, what a witch.  She's perfect and she's gorgeous and I love to hate her.

Bella's wardrobe.  Kudos to whoever was in charge of that for making her look like Bella.  I'm sure it was hard to resist the urge to Hollywood her up, bravo.

The necessary Hollywood updates.  Bella's dinosaur, secondhand computer is replaced with a cute Mac laptop and her room looks like a regular teen's room, but not an over-the-top, Hollywood teen's room with thousands of dollars of gadgets and furniture.  Her emails to Renee are replaced with cell phone calls, but there's not a bluetooth in sight.  Her ratty sweats became a nondescript tank top and 3/4 length pajama bottoms.  Perfectly done for the movie. 

The so-so:

Jacob's actor is much better fitting than I thought when I first saw his picture.  To my delight, he actually looks native american, as do Quil, Embry and Billy Black.  One problem: his teeth.  You'll see what I mean.  Other than that, I loved him.  He's not cute, but he's not supposed to be.  If it weren't for the teeth, he'd be perfect.

Kristen Stewart.  Was she just eclipsed (ha!  get it?) by Robert Pattinson?  Or maybe it was the dialog she was forced to work with (more on that in the next section).  Or, maybe, just maybe, I'm just ragingly jealous that she got to kiss Edward Pattinson.   

Stephenie Meyer's cameo.  I doubt anyone who wasn't watching for it would even notice, but I was and I did.  And I just don't see why it was necessary.  I realize it's a vampire flick, but no need to channel M. Night Shamalan.

Use of the soundtrack.  With promise of every song in the exceptional soundtrack being featured in the movie, I had really high hopes.  It's true that portions of each song were in there, somewhere... but the rest of the movie was dead silent.  That works sometimes, if it's done VERY well (think Castaway)... did not work so well here.  Notable exceptions: Supermassive Black Hole for the baseball scene was awesome, the Iron and Wine song at the end made me choke up a little.  Full Moon, played near the beginning, was also used really well. 

The bad:

Tyler is black.  Angela and Eric are Asian.  Completely unecessary and disconcerting attempts to PC-up a story that wasn't un-PC to begin with.  I am pretty sure that the tiny town of Forks, WA isn't exactly diverse and I'm not sure whose idea it was to throw a couple of token minorities into the cast to liven things up, but it was a bad one.  Especially since, of course, the two token Asians are a couple, because whoah, a vampire-human-werewolf love triangle is A-OK, but an interracial high school couple?  No way.  And to add insult to injury, Eric's personality doesn't resemble his character in the book in the slightest.   

The dialog.  Much is lifted from the book, but it didn't need to be.  It certainly wasn't the fantastic writing that made me fall unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Twilight, and they really missed an opportunity to make that better in the movie.

The storyline.  It stuck pretty much exactly to the book, with one notable exception: James's coven is introduced much earlier in the movie.   I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish they'd taken more liberty with the plot.  You can't cram an entire novel into two hours without making some changes, and we skipped too quickly from wondering who that dreamy boy is to understanding that he's a vampire to being in love to running for our lives.  I'd equate it to Breaking Dawn in that it's not bad, but it could have been GREAT with just some minor, thoughtful changes.

The special effects.  I would have far preferred if the entire sunlight-dazzle effect had been left in the book, where they could be properly left up to the imagination.  That small point wasn't really necessary to the plot, since I think we all know by now that vampires can't go out into sun, and no one really cares WHY, do they?  It worked in the book, it looked like shit in the movie.  The rest of it, which was just a few fast-forward zooms around from Edward, was... eh, ok.  It could have been cut and nothing would have been lost.

"Spider monkey"?  What. the. hell.

But most importantly, the Edward: 

You guys, Edward is so ridiculously smokin' hot that he makes 498 pages of Bella mooning over his perfect, glorious existence seem like a shameful understatement.  Robert Pattinson WAS Edward, and Edward was, impressively, EXACTLY as described in the book (which is to say, absolutely, devastatingly swoonworthy 100% of the time).   

I see that I've got a whole lot more words under the so-so and bad sections, and I think that's more because it's nearly four in the morning (the midnight showing thing was certainly an experience) and because some jackhole ran a red light and nearly killed me on the way home (thank goodness I had that coffee at midnight).  The movie did not suck.  It wasn't as good as the book, but I'm looking forward to seeing it again tomorrow. 

What did you guys think?

As Jessie Spano said, I'm so excited and I'm so scared

Happy National Teenage Vampire Love Day!  I just made that up... catchy, right?  Oh, I know, I know.  It's not officially National Teenage Vampire Love Day until tomorrow, but I'm off to the 12:02 showing (not to be confused with the 12:01 showing, which sold out before I could get tickets) of Twilight showing in about an hour, so let's just start the celebrating early!  I can easily say that I have never, ever been so excited about a movie before.  I am going to brave the hoards of trample-happy teenage girls and stay up way too late.  I'm not going to work tomorrow.  It's a national holiday!  I don't work on national holidays.

I'm not just excited, though.  I'm scared.  Over the past couple of weeks, my rabid anticipation for the Twilight: The Movie had slowly begun to morph into apprehension; ZOMG I CAN'T WAIT has gradually mixed with Crap, what if it sucks?  

There's always risk of disappointment when a book you love dearly (to put it very mildly) is being turned into a movie, but Twilight seems to be one of those stories that is ideally suited for a film adaptation.  When I first saw the cast that had been chosen I was extremely pleased -- the only character that didn't match up with the image in my head was Alice, and when I went back and read the descriptions of her I realized that the casting directors got it right and my brain got her totally wrong -- and the fact that Stephenie Meyer was involved in the casting and filming only made me feel better.  

But as the hype grew and grew, I just got more nervous.  Can any movie live up to these standards?  The TV ads didn't help at all -- holy hell, I'd like to know who approved those things.  Since when do movie trailers banner the release date on the top of the screen?  And why is all the dialog cut in 2-second portions and dubbed into different scenes?   Eek.  What if it sucks?  These ads are making it look like it sucks. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO IF IT SUCKS?

But then I read the MamaPop review, and faith was restored.   And my fellow vampire-lovers, I will let you  know if it was squee-worthy or if it sucked when I get home.  And then I'll sleep for a few hours before I drive down to Richmond tomorrow to see it again with my Twilight BFFs.

Cross your fingers, Internet.  I AM SO EXCITED.  (And so, so scared.)

DEAR TWILIGHT: PLEASE DON'T SUCK!