Operation Pink Herring

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!

249 days

It's been awhile since we talked about The Wedding, hasn't it, Internet?  

Lately I seem to alternate between having wedding on the brain 24/7 and, um, not.  I'll spend about a week doing nothing but looking at wedding stuff online, calling wedding-related places, flooding my Joel's inbox with links and ideas and sending my mom seven hundred picture of possible DIY centerpieces we could make.  And then... I'll get tired and look at some lolcats.  I've been telling myself this is fine, no worries!  We still have nine months until The Big Day!  That's enough time to grow a baby, so surely it's plenty of time to plan a low-key wedding.   Except I just counted, and it's actually eight months, so, um, nevermind about that baby thing.

Every time I look at my online checklist and see all the little red exclamation points screaming at me, my inner worrywart starts to panic a little.  What are do you  mean you still don't have an officiant!, the annoying little voice screams at me.  You'd better get Googling, STAT!  

But really, I think we're making excellent progress!  With 249 days to go, here's what we've accomplished so far:

1. Met with a caterer.  Still no idea on what we'll actually be serving at the wedding, but pish posh.  We met with the caterer!

2. Got the entire bridal party set.  Check and CHECK!

3. Met with a florist and gave them general guidelines for the bouquets and boutonnieres. This is what our bouquets will look like:   

They'll be using these pictures as a guideline when they make the bouquets, except they'll be using flowers available locally at the flower market the week of the wedding to replicate the looks above.  (Better for the environment than shipping in specific blooms from California or South America, and also better for our budget, since this option costs about 60% less than dictating the exact flowers for all the bouquets.)

Our centerpieces will look like this:

We'll be using cut hydrangeas in antique mason jars that I've been staking on ebay.

4.  Made a Save-the-Date card.  Just waiting for Joel to approve it and I'll be ordering it from Tiny Prints with my 20% off holiday coupon!

5. I ordered a few samples of invitations to consider.

6.  I bought a dress.  Now, perhaps you remember me saying something back in May about buying a dress.  You'd be correct, and that's the problem with archiving my life here on the internet.  As much as I like that dress and as much as I love a bargain.... I just loved another dress so much more.   So I bought it last week, and I LOVELOVELOVE it.  Itwill be here in May-ish.  Just trust me, OK?  It's perfect.  (Anyone need my other one?  Paloma Blanca, new with tags!)

I know that there is still much to be done, but things are really starting to move along!  Dare I say that this whole wedding thing is actually kind of fun?  

Mission... accomplished?

It's now 11 days into November, so Mission: Put Together is, um, over.   Or something.

I'm pretty disappointed in myself.  I had the best of intentions for this installment of M:PT, but I honestly just don't know where they went.  I woke up most mornings late, as usual, and with zero motivation to put together a cute outfit.  And then!  Then, when I did have something post-worth on, I'd forget to take a picture of it.  I think I posted a total of about five or six photos during the entire month -- I'm not going to look because I'm afraid I'll find out it was even less than that -- and I was similarly negligent in checking the pool.  I can't even bring myself to make a wrap-up mosaic right now.  Sorry, M:PT.   It surely wasn't you; it was all me.  Let's blame it on the tragic end of yet another year of Daylight Savings, OK?

Speaking of photo pools that I shamefully neglected, it's really too bad that Whip It Up! is over because last night I invented a new recipe.  Oh, it's nothing fancy: just a simple dish I like to call Macaroni Reduction.  All you need to do is accidentally add five times the amount of milk called for by the recipe on the box (dude, 1/4 cup and 1 1/4 cup look pretty damn similar), and then you boil the whole thing down until the extra milk has burned off.  You can also dump some in the sink if you're impatient.  It's just a little something I whipped up last night on the fly.  Enjoy!

(It takes real talent to ruin boxed Mac 'N Cheese.  Shouldn't I win some sort of award or something?)

Thanksgiving, observed

I'm not sure how it began, but over the past few years my family has developed a tradition of moving the traditional Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.  I think it sprung originally from my brother's angst at trying to find a way to make it to two Thanksgiving dinners on the same day - one at our mom's house, and the other with his fiance's family - but honestly, I can't remember.  It's possible that I just couldn't deal with the thought of battling holiday traffic on the NJ Turnpike and demanded we rearrange the calendar.  

I know that a lot of people would have trouble celebrating Thanksgiving on any date other than the "real" one, but I think moving the holidays is a stroke of sheer genius.  There's no seven-hour backup at the Delaware bridge toll.  There are no hurt feelings over missed holiday visits. And I get to celebrate the holidays with my family AND spend the long holiday weekends at home with my Tivo.

The first instance I can remember of us moving a holiday to suit our needs was Christmas of 2001.  I'd just returned from my semester abroad in Spain and my mom had booked us a family vacation to Hawaii.  The only catch: we were flying on Christmas Day.   Now, it's pretty hard to be upset about going to Hawaii in December, but we all felt a little bit sad about "missing" Christmas while we were stuck on a 12-hour flight.  That is, until my mom declared that we wouldn't be missing Christmas after all - we'd just be celebrating it a day late, on December 26th.  In  Honolulu.  

That was an emergency solution, but it's worked out so well that we've now started scheduling our own dates for Thanksgiving and Christmas whether there's a conflict or not.   We usually keep it pretty close to the real holiday (except for the time my mom moved her birthday from February to June so we could go hiking in Mohonk for her "birthday").  This year, the weekend before Thanksgiving seemed like a logical date to hold our own personal Turkey Day... until I remembered that, uh, I sort of already had plans on November 21st.   So... Thanksgiving is tomorrow for the OPH clan!   I've spent the week baking pies, and tomorrow we'll make what will hopefully be a short and traffic-free drive to my brother's house in NJ for a true holiday feast.   I can't wait.   At best, the holiday lovers among us get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice.  And at worst, those of us who are lacking a bit in the holiday spirit department will get to enjoy a four-day weekend at the end of November at home with nothing to do but watch an ungodly amount of television.  Win-win, if you ask me.

Vamp the vote

Don't forget, people:  there's always the option to write-in your candidate of choice!   

(Photo courtesy of the fabulous heidikins, who came upon this shirt in a Utah mall)

So, what are you all sicker of: hearing about the election, or hearing about my Twilight obsession?  (Don't answer that.)

Happy Halloween!

Joel was a little bit skeptical about our costumes -- he thought no one would be able to tell who we were dressed as.

 

(Annotated version in flickr if you click on the image).

But I think the resemblance is pretty clear, don't you?

An especially Happy Halloween to all my fellow vampire-nerds out there!