Twilight Saga Review (2008 – 2012)

Alrighty, I know this is Thursday and there should be a book review, but that will go up tomorrow. I have to complete this run of Twilight Thursdays properly. Might as well disrupt my OCD for one day 😛

Recently I sat down to watch these with Natasha for a Shitfest 2015 entry after I had read those godawful books (which most of you have read all about over the last few weeks). At any rate, I was not watching them alone. In actual fact, I was not going to watch them ever, at all, but after some mild forceful coercion, the Kidney won out and I prepared to watch them. Prepared, because I faffed around for ages, prolonging the inevitable. But eventually it happened.

However, something was soured for me. Completely. They are by no stretch of the imagination good movies, but I have read the books (ugh), and in terms of that, it cannot be denied that they are actually pretty decent adaptions. How does that work? Crappy books get loyal adaptions and remain shitty movies, while good books get crappy adaptions and ruin stories? Gosh, the world we live in. I really should consider another career.

Two big reasons that I actually made it through these movies:

1. Jackson Rathbone is absolutely ridiculously fucking hot and yummy and he happens to portray the one character I simply adore;
2. The fact that Natasha damn near bolted me to the couch. And found it highly amusing to watch me wallow in my unhappiness. My bestie is sadistic…

Huh, what? Sorry, sorry, got a little sidetracked there. I am back. Okay wait, last one…

However, after surviving these movies (and believe me, I had my doubts along the way that I would), I cannot help but have a soft spot reserved for them because I had ridiculous amounts of fun watching these with Natasha, ragging them blind, clinically assessing the type of adaption they were from the books, both of us having feminist freak out sessions because Bella is a useless lump and suicide is not the answer when your love moves along, but really, ripping it apart was a sheer blast. This does not make them good movies, I want that on the record. I don’t know if I can watch these again, or if I could ever view them on my own, but with the Kidney it was well worth it.

Ten points to Gryffindor. Bella evidently missed the lesson.

Alright, enough waffling (see, even now I am still procrastinating). I am going to talk about some things, but I will keep myself (mostly) in check.

The Good:

• Casting choices. No, seriously. Most of the casting was done pretty well in here. Most of the time. The performances were also about as good as you could get on this level (a bit… uhm… wooden at the best of times, but they all tried). Michael Sheen was pretty entertaining, even when he ventured into territory that was a little dodgier than was required.
• Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson actually managed to bring some passion to a really dead relationship (in the books – in there it was just poison, no passion), and they have to be given credit for it, even if they were a little wooden at times.
• The Volturi’s outfits when they came for their showdown. Really good. You can’t blame me… you know how I get about the sweeping cape-like look… eeek. Plus there were all black and red and luscious and lovely.

• Jackson Rathbone. I would just like to take a minute (again) to wax lyrical here about how insanely gorgeous the man is. I mean, how hot is this guy?! He isn’t in many other things, which is a serious pity, and I have always enjoyed him. I guess I will take what I can get.

• Obviously I enjoyed the way the baseball scene was cobbled together, and not just to get an eyeful of Jasper… I swear… *super innocent whistle*
• The wedding scene was really well done. I will have to give them credit for that.
• Pattinson has the world’s most smug smile to demonstrate when Edward is getting his way, and I love it. I can’t help it, he starts smirking and then I do, too.

The Bad:

• Some things were changed from the book to add more drama. As if things weren’t melodramatic enough.
• Some extremely questionable effects, which is unacceptable in the later movies (where they got so much worse) considering the budget increased. How is it that the smaller budget films managed to look that much better? It evades the limits of my understanding. While we are at it, how you could see which sets were backdrops and what not. Awkies.
• I was actually really, really looking forward to all the betting between Jasper and Emmett. Absolutely no such luck for me there, and it was the one thing that actually provided significant entertainment in the books. They were relentless.
• Bella was whiny in these films, but seeing as it wasn’t internal dialogue for us to wade through like the books (thank goodness), it was more bearable, but I still wanted to shake her and slap her. She does not need Edward to breathe, there is no need to kill yourself if you cannot be together. The things this story taught young girls. Ugh. The feminist in me is revolting again just thinking about it.

• The wolves communicating with each other telepathically (which would have been bearable if done correctly). I actually cringed. Like holy crapsticks….
• That baby that they made up as Renesmee? Good gracious, that thing was just creepy. WTF was angelic about that?! #confused

The What-The-Fuck:

• The love story between Bella and Edward. Goodness, true to the books it just came out of nowhere and became an obsession. I just… I don’t… what… it’s… so dangerous and creepy and scary and dodgy and poisonous and… eeeeek.

Somebody checked off that list here with examples.

• Always the descriptions about how dreary and overcast it is in Forks (in the books). Which is fine. Twilight and New Moon both stuck to that concept for the movies, but the last three? Vampires everywhere in the sun with no freaking sparkles. And not because I am into the sparkles, this is purely based on consistency and continuity…. because who cares? Chuck it right out of the window.

• Natasha’s biggest gripe (and I am wholeheartedly behind her on this): all these books and movies teach you is that you can only be a real woman after you have gotten married and popped out some kids. Nice, really, very classy. I cannot be complete without a man, a ring, a rugrat. Men are what women need to be whole, apparently. Our very core and essence. Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. What the fuck? Are you kidding me?!

Stephen King was so totally right about this. He also went on to say what he wanted about Meyer and her godawful books here, and actually had a girl criticize Stephen King for knowing nothing about real books. OMG?! REALLY?! Yes. Quote? “Steven [sic] King doesn’t know what a real book was if it hit him in the face. He’s just a bloody guy who is jealous of Edward’s good looks.” – I don’t even know if I want to comment on that.

• The fact that this is some huge phenomenon actually hurts my head. How did this happen? How?! It’s twisted and creepy and toxic!
• How a love story could become so massive when it is flat, bland, unsexy, completely devoid of passion, but rates highly in the dangerous and toxic department. Is this what girls want nowadays? Stalker husbands, controlling boyfriends? I am so confused. Or I am too independent. I don’t know.
• Naming your child Renesmee. Seriously, what the fuck was up with that?!
• That even in the movies, Meyer’s supporting characters are still the ones you want to know more about. That is just something that boggles my mind, that she writes the most useless mains, but her supports are really good. I don’t understand.

• How they took one of the things that was actually excellent in the books (the history of the Quileutes, their legends and why they are as they are) and managing to bone it completely. That wasn’t even the right history, or the same, or told as gracefully. Meh. What the hell was the meaning of this?! It’s embarrassing to say the least, ruining the one thing that worked. Offensive.
• I will never understand how it was socially acceptable for Jacob to be head over heels in love with Bella and making out with her and lusting after her and hating Edward to death, but then imprinting on their daughter (like OMG) and she becomes his life… because that isn’t a little sick and incestuous at all… no ick involved!

Then there was this article, one of the millions of articles you would find on the matter of how the cast hated the movies I know, but still. Also, this one had me giggling quite a bit, it really captures how silly things were at the best of times in the first book, Twilight. The AU-DA-CI-TY, I tell you!

So, overall, I have definitely watched infinitely worse movies in my life. I have, sadly. I am sure you have, too. I wanted to hate and despise these more than I did. They still sucked. They are Shitfest worthy. But maybe because I had way too much fun on the viewing experience, it lifted them all up for me a little. But I can recommend them if you are looking for a movie to watch with your bestie and trash beyond any and all logical reason.

Rapid Review: Dread (2009)

“I suppose that is the worst part of it all. You live with the notion that the thing that causes you the most terror could come back at any time.”
– Jonathan Shaw

SYNOPSIS: Three college students producing a documentary on the true nature of fear are slowly drawn into a world of nightmares when one member of the group begins exploiting the phobias of his fellow participants in hopes of seeking salvation from his own dark obsession. – via Rotten Tomatoes

So let me be honest, right off the bat. I am petty enough to have decided to check this out, purely for science. Jackson Rathbone. Yes, the selling point for me. However, instead of a mediocre flick with plenty of eye candy, I lucked out. I got to watch delicious for 108 minutes as well as have a really interesting film play out. Could you imagine my score?! I hardly could! Anyway, moving on to the movie itself. Dread starts and you are almost not quite certain what is to happen, and things jump really quickly from Stephen meeting Quaid and them becoming friends. However, that dooms nothing when Quaid seems to have an obsession with fear. His idea for a film thesis could have really bombed – exploring fear, but instead provided us with the base of a pretty darn good B-movie. Things are trundling along slowly, typical regular fears like clowns and spiders and wet tissues (I don’t know), but when Cheryl shares her story, things immediately get deeper and darker. I was not bored for one second of this movie. As it progressed, it got so much more intense. The pacing is slow, but it facilitates making these characters to people we come to know, and gives time to focus on Quaid’s strangeness, watching him devolve into madness, slowly but surely. He seems to take the project way too seriously, and has his own messed up past that flashes up throughout the film. I really liked that they did not throw away everything they were working towards by shoving in Quaid’s greatest fear as an actual character, because that would have been a surefire way to ruin everything. The movie was shot well. There was this one stalking scene that was hunter and prey, and prey is also hunter, and it was just done phenomenally – quiet, deliberate, not leaning on jump scares or anything like that. The dialogue was also not terrible, and the performances were good. Jackson Rathbone is not just pretty, he can act, too. Hanne Steen was just so good as Cheryl, and Shaun Evans deliverer Quaid to us with such finesse. Another something I have to admit, I read this short story by Clive Barker, and I think that the movie tapped into the fear and dread far better than the short story did. A rare occurrence, but the movie provided characters we got to know and cared about, as well as explored the fears and dread of the characters more, which is important, fleshing the story out properly. Overall, Dread was infinitely better than I expected, though it still has some flaws. I can definitely recommend it to anyone that likes a horror with a little more of a solid foundation – a nice little hidden gem!