The other cool part about movie night last night besides my friend who took me, was that he took me to Cinetopia. OH MY GOSH!!!!
Never been there before or even heard about it. This is how going to the movies should be. Next time, I want to be in the adult only area to see a movie. But even in the general side of the theater, the seats were comfy..I had plenty of room to sit and I’ve got these wide hips to accommodate and they had these hard plastic trays that fit in the drink cups that support any drinks, food, whatever you have. There was a chef in the LOBBY doing some type of grilling that people could take to their seats. If I’m going to pay an arm and a leg for a movie, THIS is the type of theater I want to go to. The owner is building a second one in Beaverton next to Washington Square.

So, as per my morning routine, I spend an hour reading up on Twilight stuff and once again, everyone is going off on how vampires rule the roost for 2008. I’m not sure if the media is being dumb or they’ve been told to play up the vampire angle but seriously, they are missing the main reason for the appeal of the Twilight saga. Completely.

I’ve had countless conversations with other women who have loved the series. When I had to start riding the bus to get to work thanks to the snow, just about every woman who saw me reading one of the Twilight books had to speak up. And while the stories of how they got their hands on the books were all different, one thing kept them in love with the series. Not the vampires, although everyone loved the new vampire mythology that Stephenie created. It wasn’t the bad boy angle. In reality Edward and Jacob aren’t even close to being “bad boys”. What grabbed every women who read these books was the trust these characters created. There is no question that for Edward and Jacob, Bella is their entire world. Everything they do is for her. Both want her to be better off then when she entered their lives and they do everything they can to make sure she is better off then before. They are dependable and constant in their affections and you don’t doubt them for an instant. Add that to the emotional journey these books take you on, as if each emotion is your very own, and you create a fantasy that most women love to be part of.

Lets face it, short term intimate relationships are considered “normal” these days. I don’t know why this is what is pushed in pop culture, but there you go. Men and Women get to be selfish jerks to each other and this is supposed to be healthy behavior.

Yeah, right.

Then a little book series comes along about a constant relationship between two imperfect people who fight to make it work against the odds and everyone goes nuts. This is what they want. Someone who sticks around, partners with them, pampers them, cares about them, strives for the best with them. Do they make mistakes? Oh yeah. Do they learn and try to make it better? Absolutely. Do they give up? No. Now I know some people will point to New Moon as proof that Edward isn’t constant, but come on girls… why did Edward leave? Because he fell out of love? He was feeling capricious? Hardly.

This is the reason why Twilight is such a phenomenon, because we all want a relationship that we can count on. Some of us are lucky enough to have that already. Some of us hope for that in the future. Its not the vampires, werewolves or being teenagers. No matter the age, we want to be in in a relationship that lasts through the highs and lows of life.

We want to be able to depend on that. And for a moment, reading Twilight, we can.

While we do the final packing before we start moving everything tomorrow, the sci fi channel is doing a Highlander marathon. I loved this series and I missed so many of them thanks to working the odd hours that I did. I’ve already seen one that I never saw before. Love it!

I saw a clip recently for a movie called Little Ashes. Its a movie about three friends, Salvadore Dali, Federico Garcia Lorca, and Luis Bunuel. In this particular clip, Dali and Lorca are in the same room but working on their separate projects. Its quiet, intimate, companionable and made me miss those quiet moments.

What I wanted to link to, however, was a film critic for the Dallas Fort Worth News. He does a video blog for the website and he’s a joy to watch. He simply loves movies and that’s a critic that I can listen to. His name is Gary Cogill and he’s like a big kid with a unlimited pass to the Saturday matinees. He did one of my favorite reactions to his interview with Robert Pattinson and this weekend he gives us his review of Twilight. The reason I liked this review is because he understands about teen angst and being surrounded by teenagers the first time I saw it, I know exactly how teens react to this movie. So watch it HERE.

I got to be in the last segment talking about the music and he asked me about how I liked the series. This morning I found the clip on the stations website. Here’s my 2 minutes of fame. I’ll post my review of the proms and the Twilight movie as soon as I’ve gotten a little more sleep.

I will say this. I really liked the movie but my recommendation for any Twilight book fan is SEE THE MOVIE TWICE! You’ll spend the first time mentally checking off what they used and what they didn’t. The second time you’ll just enjoy the movie for what it is.

This is a fantastic film. Well told, well executed, the music and flow of the story is excellent. The twists and turns of the story flow and unfold to tell an excellent story about a group of people who were overwhelmed by death of loved ones and are tring to make a new life for themselves, free from the pain of living in the towns. Only to have another problem to deal with.

Willam Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Pheonix, Adrian Brody, Bryce Dallas Howard and everyone else in this movie all give wonderful performances. This story takes you in and holds you captive. The unfolding of these characters’s stories holds you in suspense in all the right spots, frightens you in all the right spots and reveals itself in all the right spots.

If you can’t tell, I loved this movie. It was excellent. And while it doesn’t need to big screen so you can wait for it to come to video, you won’t feel you wasted your money by seeing it in a theater either. Both myself and my friend really enjoyed this movie.

The Village

I’ve heard all sorts of reviews of the movie. Some reviewers feel that the really cool if drawn out fight scenes make up for there not being much of a story line, or much of a progression of the story line. I probably would have been ok with that if it wasn’t for the drawn out for no good reason to the plot line sex and orgy scene at the beginning of the movie.

The fastest way to show an audience that you have no story is to fill 15 minutes with sex. We already know that Trinity and Neo are dedicated to each other. It opens with Neo worried that he’ll lose her in a fight. I discovered a long time ago that movies that rely on sex to fill the time have no real story and don’t make good movies. I have no problem with love scenes, but I’m just not into gratuitous skin and nipple shots.

And this movie did not get any better as it progressed. While I enjoyed the philosophy bits and the exposition when it happened, most of the movie feels like little vignettes that don’t really go together. The fight scenes are dragged out, and while real cool, get boring after awhile. And compared to the wonderful flow and depth of the first movie, it just gets old. The CGI doesn’t disappoint. And they do some interesting things with the shots and perspectives they show you.

I do not really recommend this movie. Go to your friends get the relevant story points from them and wait for November. My babysitter said that his friends had mentioned that the preview for the last movie at the end of the credits was better then the whole second movie. I agree.