Kill the sparkly vampire! Kill him!

From Blip TV .

Twilight Watch, Part 5: The Final Chapter

I give up.

I tried, I really did.  

I can't read any more.

I just can't face it.

Sigh.

I'm on page 51, and the thought of opening it and reading fills me with dread.  I can't stand the thought of talking about it any more.

I list all the books I own that I haven't read yet in the back of my current notebook.  I've been doing this since high school.  The same list has been carrying over since then.  I cross off the books as I read them and then transfer the list to the next notebook.

The list is now crazily out of hand.  There are lots of books on it I can't wait to read.  

Life is short, life is hard.

I really can't waste any more of it reading something I can't stand.  I just can't bear to think about it any more.  I'd rather write about books I like.

Sorry.

There are stories about girls who date vampires that are great.  This isn't one of them.

Twilight Watch, Part 4: Chapter One Completed! Only 470 Pages Left!

I finished chapter one of Twilight a moment ago, and I'm really making an effort to pretend I haven't read anything about it.  This is, of course, impossible, but I am trying to be fair.  

With that in mind, I think I'm beginning to understand both this book's rampant popularity, and the affection its fans have for it.  I need to be clear.  It's really poorly written (shockingly so, I thought), but more than anything I've read (that's been professionally published), it reads as if it was written by an actual fifteen year old.  Its first person narrative is completely and utterly solipsistic, and it's clear Stephanie Meyer is in no kind of control of the tone.  The young girl telling the story is in some ways an incredibly realistically portrayed kid.  She is self-centered as only a sixteen year old could be, convinced that she is a unique snowflake.  She talks about how she doesn't fit in, how she is "different".  By day two she has a lunch table full of incipient friends, two boys crushing on her, and she's already met her very own Jordan Catalano, the mysterious and ludicrously handsome Edward Cullen.  Twilight is exactly like My So Called life, had Angela Chase been the head writer and show runner.  

Bella is pale, obviously pretty but not in an obvious way, she's bad at sports and is seemingly the center of everything at Forks High School pretty much immediately.  Another way of putting it is that Bella Swan (the name.  I ask you.) might be the biggest literary Mary Sue since Dorothy Sayers created Harriet Vane.

More to follow.  Hopefully we'll get to the vampire stuff soon, because I have lots to say about that.

Twilight Watch, Part 3: Page One

I opened the book to begin reading and the first thing I read is:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

thou shalt not eat of it;

for in the day that thou eatest therof

thou shalt surely die.

Genesis 2:17

Yikes.  

At least I now know why there is a large apple on the cover.  It's all about the sex.  Maybe I should read at least a page.

There's a grammar mistake in the first sentence of the preface.  She needs a little help with her comma usage.  This is why I never read The Da Vinci Code.  The syntax in the first paragraph was so awful I couldn't read any further.  I'm having the same problem here.  

Where's my red pen?!

Twilight Watch, Part 2: The Arrival

It's been more than a month since the last installment of Twilight Watch.  I still haven't seen the damn film.  It's starting to fade from the multiplexes and it's beginning to look as if I will have to wait for On Demand.  Sigh.

I think the best thing I can do is to just continue The List I've been working on for the past few months as that was the whole point, right?  Okay.  Here goes.

Catherine Hardwicke: As far as I know, she is the only production designer turned major director in the history of American movies (as always, if I am wrong, please let me know in the comments). So far she seems to have avoided the cinematographer-turned-director disease of pretty, pretty films with story problems. I was super excited to see her first film, Thirteen. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am completely obsessed with anything that has to do with teen girls. To say I enjoyed Thirteen in no way implies that it was any good. It's a melodramatic film, full of after school special clichés. Even though I was aware of all that when watching it, I still found it hard to shake. For all its silliness it feels right in how it's pitched emotionally. Sadly, the reality of teenage life is often more like bad television then good art. A few years ago I began listening to a lot of Britney Spears for a project I was working on, and I was amazed at how dramatic all her songs were, how emotionally raw and over the top. And then I got part of why she became such a huge star- her songs aren't any good, really, but they feel like being in high school.  While writing this I took a look at the reviews for Thirteen, and honestly they kind of weirded me out.  All of these middle aged men giving positive, serious reviews to this film about thirteen year olds having sex and wearing really hot clothes and lying to their parents, just made it seem really prurient.  Andrew Sarris wrote one of the few negative reviews, pointing out how creepy it was watching this film in the theater with a bunch of grownups.  Thirteen is the only film of Hardwicke's I've seen.  I really want to see The Nativity Story.  I have no idea how Hardwicke treats the subject matter, and I think I have a fantasy about single, teen, pregnant Mary of Nazareth deciding that telling a really elaborate lie about the messiah is a better plan than being stoned to death (I remember a TV miniseries about Jesus from the '70s that had a scene of Mary worrying about being stoned to death, it really stuck with me).  I have a feeling I will be disappointed, but that will be more my problem than the movie's.  The Lords of Dogtown is somewhere on my Netflix list.  LA skaters have never really interested me that much, but I've heard it's pretty good.  And now Twilight.  Sigh.  The worldwide take is nearly $280 million. It cost $37 million to make.  It's a monster hit.  I have to see it.

Then suddenly, things get even more interesting.  Catherine Hardwicke has been fired from Twilight's sequel, New Moon.  According to Summit Entertainment, this was a mutual decision based on scheduling.  Anonymous reports inside Summit say Hardwicke was "difficult" and "irrational".  Oh, for Christ's sake.  Irrational?  She just helmed a low-cost blockbuster.  Suck it up Summit.  She is being replaced by Chris Weitz whose most recent project was The Golden Compass, which cost $180 million and was a US box office disappointment, but did well internationally.  I'm not the hugest fan of the His Dark Materials books.  I liked the Golden Compass, and more or less enjoyed The Subtle Knife, but I thought The Amber Spyglass was a mess.  I found Weitz's film to be pretty unwatchable.  American Pie box-office aside, he is hardly a risk-free choice.  This makes no sense.  I hate to be a shrill feminist scold (actually that's a lie:  I fucking love being a shrill feminist scold), but please name one male director who has been removed from a film series when the first installment was a massive, money creating machine. Right, never.

I really have to see this film.  Damn.  And read the book.  I do have some news.  I ordered the book from Amazon.  It has arrived, in fact it's sitting here in my lap, still in its brown cardboard shipping box.  I'm going to open it right now.  Hold on.  Okay.  Here it is, all 498pp of it.  Damn.  I guess I should read it, right?

Stay tuned for Twilight Watch Part 3: The Reading

Twilight Watch, Part 1

I just can't do it.  I almost bought tickets online to force myself to go, but I know I would rather waste the twelve dollars than watch. Sigh. I cannot, I repeat, I cannot. I feel that I must. I've been writing about female directors, with a special emphasis on American women. Genre films are of particular interest to me.  The goal has been achieved. A film directed by a woman has a monster opening weekend- 70 million dollars. Domestic! Gift horses. Mouth. Sigh. I am incapable of either seeing this film or of keeping myself from counting teeth.

The film is Twilght. I have not seen the film and I haven't read the book. I have no right to comment.  There is a 2:15 matinee.  It's now 1:52.  Can I make it?  I still really, really don't want to go.  I'm really pleased for Catherine Hardwicke.  

That's a total lie.  The entire thing makes me angry.  Updates on my attempts will follow.

There is clearly no pleasing me.