Liveblogging My Twilight Film Experience
Posted by Eric Bee | November 23, 2008
10am: Wife and I are speeding the mean streets of suburbia en route to the matinee showing of “Twilight,” the apparent heir apparent to the Harry Potter throne of nerdish literature obsession and fantasy-lite followers everywhere. Everything in me screams that this thing is going to suck. Being a vampire movie, the pun isn’t lost on my wife, who laughs every time I say that. We’re meeting her work buddies, who are all female and all fans of the books. I’m expecting their boyfriends and husbands to share the same lost look I’ll have, our gazes wandering to posters of the upcoming Punisher movie and politely smiling while they swoon at press photos of Twilight’s cast.
Maybe this little jaunt will give me clarity to recognize why this thing came out of nowhere to suck up the minds and hearts of Hot Topic consumers everywhere. Maybe this will just make me want to see the new Punisher movie. Maybe I should just eat my popcorn, endure, and use the experience as Cohabitation Credit toward one day of uninterrupted Xbox gaming. Anyways, we arrive, park, pay, and we’re strapped in for monster melodrama. On with the show!
10:17am: Reel one of “Twilight” looks like the cinematographer built a “BORED” filter for his rig. The unhealthy levels of desaturated color inspires depression. Also, characters are introduced at breakneck speed and stereotyping. Sullen teen? Loud hipster? Broad-faced jock? Check, check, and check. I measure the importance of these characters by the amount of chatter by the Teen Girl Squad in front of our row. High chatter means “important guy in the story appears” and a swift kick to the back of their seats.
10:53am: Edward, the main vampire stud, sulks onscreen and the ladies go wild. His emotions range from “shrugging” to “uncomfortable feeling in stomach” to “pinched spoiled milk face.” Bella, the heroine of the tale, is smitten with him. This all makes me wish I could do high school all over again. I’d cake my face in white makeup, wear lipstick, and sulk around like I lived in Robert Smith’s hair. Prom dates would fall from the sky, I tell you.
11:20am: In this world, vampires can live in sunlight. However, their skin gets all glittery and shimmery. Either these things are expatriates from Club Libby Lu or they’ve just let their Soul Glo.
11:54am: BIG FIGHT SCENE. In a ballet studio, of all places. No reason is given for the emotional tie to Bella, but the place does have a lot of mirrors for some kind of weak “Enter The Dragon” homage. I wish the villain just said, “Meet me in a mirror factory.” Having abandoned logic by this point, it would have made the movie better for its nonsense.
sometime later: I’ve given up on this movie. The reason Harry Potter films are so good was the magic and charm the books had were realized perfectly onscreen. It didn’t just adapt the story, it adapted the imaginations of its reader. Twilight is probably a decent enough story, hitting all those teen-angst emotional benchmarks like forbidden love, confusion, loss, and other Livejournal tag categories. But the film doesn’t have any charm or feeling to it, just skating through the motions and hoping the fan base is big enough to understand that when Edward stares at Bella, he’s thinking everything on pages 220 to 223. If you haven’t read the book, you’d assume Edward was nodding off. It would explain the paleness.
that night: I’m playing the hell out of Fallout 3 while my wife watches, sulking. She’s clacking away at her computer. I think she’s liveblogging this.
