You Asked...

I apologize that my blogging has been sporadic for the past few weeks. At first, I was just taking a little break after DUCF, but NOW my workplace has blocked Blogger (not to mention Facebook, Myspace & Flickr). We were previously told we had ½ hour of personal time online which I sometimes used to at least start my posts, but now they claim these sites pose security risks and result in loss of bandwidth. Whatever. I could go on, but I won’t in case Big Brother has tapped into my blog and are spying. And if so, you have WAY too much free time on your hands…beat it.

On to business: Jenny asked (thanks for your comment and for asking!) what I thought of the Twilight movie. I guess I never did really follow up. I know you've all been holding your breath.

I had planned all along to take the afternoon off and see it alone on opening day. In the meantime, I ended up loaning my books out to 3 friends and two more had read it on their own, so six of us went. I saw it again a week later with another friend who didn’t want to see it alone. I actually liked it a little better the second time. Here are my thoughts on the movie (SPOILER ALERT…DON’T READ BELOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOVIE):

+I loved seeing all the characters come to life! Talent-wise, I thought everyone was cast beautifully. Physical appearance-wise, the only two people who didn’t live up to my expectations were Rosalie (Nikki Reed)—she is gorgeous, but I was picturing someone delicate and almost ethereal-looking—and James (Cam Gigandet)—he was too skinny and pretty, plus his voice was not at all scary which I pictured in the book.

+My fave actors were Rachel LeFevre (Victoria) and Kellan Lutz (Emmett). I also really liked Taylor Lautner (Jacob) who was way cuter in the movie than in real life (I think it was the long hair) and Billy Burke (Charlie) made Movie Charlie more appealing than Book Charlie.

-I know Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) was supposed to be tormented, but he just looked awkward. Plus, unless you read the books, you don’t know he’s tormented. You don’t know WHAT his prob is. Just that there may not be enough fiber in his diet.

+Loved the music and the placement of the music. My fave was Robert Pattinson’s Let Me Sign during Bella’s "venom-induced haze" at the end and Radiohead’s 15 Steps at the closing with Victoria letting her evil red hair down (insert maniacal laugh here).

-Where was my meadow scene????!!!! The physical contact??? Just the small gestures like her tracing his hand with her finger in the Italian restaurant and in the meadow and him touching her face at school? GONE! In the book, the meadow scene is a turning point in their relationship and signifies the exchange of trust and tenderness. In the book, he was just pissed as he revealed his sparkling-ness. He was yelling at her, for Gawd’s sake.

+ I lu-huved the baseball scene so much in the movie. In the book, I hated it. Book Baseball Scene was dorky, and it cut into my Bella-Edward time. Loved the Movie Baseball Scene’s slow-mo running and baseball bat whacking.

+/- Robert Pattinson: while I find him super dreamy, I thought his bug-eyed angry faces were silly. Also, in the book, he was very confident about everything (well, except for his ability to resist killing Bella)—she’d get mad, he’d laugh at her. He “dazzled” the women in the school office, in the restaurant, his female classmates and it was amusing to him. Movie Edward seemed self-conscious which I think is endearing, just not so true to Book Edward.

-I wasn’t scared of any of the vampires (except Victoria a little). Even in the book, I was always a little freaked out by the Cullens in general. They weren’t the least bit scary in the movie.

-The RUSHING! I know there were budget constraints, and they were trying to lump a 500+ page book into 2 hours, so why the invented time wasters? I didn’t care to see the Nomads killing the townspeople or the diner scenes. Also, I know people liked the scene where they were fixing dinner for Bella and the graduation cap thing, but I didn’t care for it. I would have much rather had watched the relationship building between the two.

+ The lush aesthetics of the Pacific Northwest were captured nicely.

+And last but not least, the kiss scene…sigh. “Don’t move”…double sigh.

What do you all think? Agree? Disagree? Also, it’s been confirmed that Director Catherine Hardwicke will NOT be directing New Moon. While I think her passion was great, I’m okay with her departure because I didn’t totally love Twilight as a movie, and I’m hoping a new director will not make the same mistakes. Also, it sounds as if she was not on board with their time table, and I do think that Summit needs to strike while the iron is hot and do the back-to-back thing like Peter Jackson did in Lord of the Rings. They did LOTR on a tight timeline, and I think it turned out great! Nobody wants to wait 3 years to see each film.

Sorry, Jenny. Betcha wished you hadn’t asked!