I was going to write about kids in the movies today but Saturday night was an evening of Twilight so I’m going to start with that movie, since it contains kids. Or does it?
What can I say about Twilight? There are millions of young girls who would devour me more swiftly than vampires if I dissed it. I know this since I saw the extra features for this movie which included 6,000 screaming girls at a forum with the stars, the director and the author. They just screamed at any words coming from the stage. If Robert Pattinson had answered a question ith a non-related word such as “Ketchup.” the hall would have exploded in gales of approval. This movie is the prerequisite sexual awakening movie for the pre-pubescent/early pubescent girl.: the mystery, the violence, the sexual tension, the sexual desire, the Gothic romanticism. It is a rite of passage.
I don’t know how many of you have read Twilight but great literature, it ain’t. Probably not even good lit. Basically, it can be pared down to the classic theme of the handsome loner with a secret tamed by the good girl. We’ve seen it so many times throughout movie history. Ironically, it started very early with a cousin of this movie, the 1931 Dracula. (A topic for another posting: the evolution of the vampire into the sensitive, albeit bloodthirsty, creature.)
But on the plus side the book is a very easy read and the author seems charming. I’ve started to read the first book of the series, Twilight. There's a lot of dialogue and the book has a different twist from the movie version regarding the beginning mating dance of Bella and Edward. The book treats it more benignly; Edward seems to watch Bella bemusedly from afar. The movie moves the sexual tension up a few notches which is necessary for rapid plot development. Novels can languish; movies, except perhaps foreign ones, better shake their tails fast. Edward is moody from the beginning; Bella is mad about this. As appropriate in this feminist age, Edward seems more the romantic gentleman while Bella has a core ball-busting psyche that she barely manages to hide.
And, you know what? It works. Which brings me back to kids in the movies. I had originally planned to write about the Harry Potter series, the Narnia series, and the High School Musical series. In all of these I felt I was watching actors playing characters; I could see the wheels turning; I could see the sausage being made.
With Twilight, I didn’t. Maybe it was watching it in an intimate home setting, maybe it was the delicious and vast amount of Kettle Corn I had made, but I believed this movie. It captured me. Well, I did know it was a movie. I do know that vampires don’t exist. I can’t imagine that raging teen hormones would have kept that relationship so chaste. (We do know that Bella has “been around” since her mom questions her about “being safe”, and I don’t think she means abstinent, when she learns of Bella’s relationship with Edward.) However, saying that, I do think the actors and the director pulled off this vampire fantasy very well.
The whole thing hinges on Edward and Bella. The director could have had top talent in supporting roles but her stars set the tone. Kristen Stewart plays Bella with a touch of “what are I doing here and how do I get out?” and this attitude works because Robert Pattinson must play his role more as a stock character. To have this all work, he, the “vegetarian” vampire, must utter some pretty silly lines of explanation but he’s playing against Bella’s edge and that makes it sound right. Pattinson is the perfect visual vampire but against Bella, he appears in the virginal role. It’s a juxtaposition that works.
It may help that all the actors playing these high school kids are older. Stewart is the youngest at 19. Unlike the Narnia and Potter series, Twilight actors didn’t grow up in the roles but were able to look back for insights. The Harry Potter series shows the problem child actors have. Kids are usually good actors because they are natural; it's like playing a game for them. As they develop into teenagers the awareness they grow into, stifles this young spontaneity. That's why to me the Potter series is becoming more tedious as the stars grow up.
An additional plus for Twilight is that none of the actors are stars. This type of ensemble acting is typical of England but not practiced in the United States. Here, you must become famous or languish, your best hope being character roles.
I know I have to see the movie again for a really valid review (and no, it won’t be like pulling teeth) but I did get a “warm, but not fuzzy” feeling from this movie. Like The Lord of the Rings series, I could suspend belief without protest. So they were vampires. So some of them were good vampires. So in the end, even these good vampires were brutal. So Bella and Edward didn’t have sex. OK, I bought it all. Although I’m not a screaming pre-pubescent girl I’m looking forward to the second movie, New Moon. I know from my glimpse of the bad vamp, Victoria, in the final shot, that there’s going to be trouble ahead.
What can I say about Twilight? There are millions of young girls who would devour me more swiftly than vampires if I dissed it. I know this since I saw the extra features for this movie which included 6,000 screaming girls at a forum with the stars, the director and the author. They just screamed at any words coming from the stage. If Robert Pattinson had answered a question ith a non-related word such as “Ketchup.” the hall would have exploded in gales of approval. This movie is the prerequisite sexual awakening movie for the pre-pubescent/early pubescent girl.: the mystery, the violence, the sexual tension, the sexual desire, the Gothic romanticism. It is a rite of passage.
I don’t know how many of you have read Twilight but great literature, it ain’t. Probably not even good lit. Basically, it can be pared down to the classic theme of the handsome loner with a secret tamed by the good girl. We’ve seen it so many times throughout movie history. Ironically, it started very early with a cousin of this movie, the 1931 Dracula. (A topic for another posting: the evolution of the vampire into the sensitive, albeit bloodthirsty, creature.)
But on the plus side the book is a very easy read and the author seems charming. I’ve started to read the first book of the series, Twilight. There's a lot of dialogue and the book has a different twist from the movie version regarding the beginning mating dance of Bella and Edward. The book treats it more benignly; Edward seems to watch Bella bemusedly from afar. The movie moves the sexual tension up a few notches which is necessary for rapid plot development. Novels can languish; movies, except perhaps foreign ones, better shake their tails fast. Edward is moody from the beginning; Bella is mad about this. As appropriate in this feminist age, Edward seems more the romantic gentleman while Bella has a core ball-busting psyche that she barely manages to hide.
And, you know what? It works. Which brings me back to kids in the movies. I had originally planned to write about the Harry Potter series, the Narnia series, and the High School Musical series. In all of these I felt I was watching actors playing characters; I could see the wheels turning; I could see the sausage being made.
With Twilight, I didn’t. Maybe it was watching it in an intimate home setting, maybe it was the delicious and vast amount of Kettle Corn I had made, but I believed this movie. It captured me. Well, I did know it was a movie. I do know that vampires don’t exist. I can’t imagine that raging teen hormones would have kept that relationship so chaste. (We do know that Bella has “been around” since her mom questions her about “being safe”, and I don’t think she means abstinent, when she learns of Bella’s relationship with Edward.) However, saying that, I do think the actors and the director pulled off this vampire fantasy very well.
The whole thing hinges on Edward and Bella. The director could have had top talent in supporting roles but her stars set the tone. Kristen Stewart plays Bella with a touch of “what are I doing here and how do I get out?” and this attitude works because Robert Pattinson must play his role more as a stock character. To have this all work, he, the “vegetarian” vampire, must utter some pretty silly lines of explanation but he’s playing against Bella’s edge and that makes it sound right. Pattinson is the perfect visual vampire but against Bella, he appears in the virginal role. It’s a juxtaposition that works.
It may help that all the actors playing these high school kids are older. Stewart is the youngest at 19. Unlike the Narnia and Potter series, Twilight actors didn’t grow up in the roles but were able to look back for insights. The Harry Potter series shows the problem child actors have. Kids are usually good actors because they are natural; it's like playing a game for them. As they develop into teenagers the awareness they grow into, stifles this young spontaneity. That's why to me the Potter series is becoming more tedious as the stars grow up.
An additional plus for Twilight is that none of the actors are stars. This type of ensemble acting is typical of England but not practiced in the United States. Here, you must become famous or languish, your best hope being character roles.
I know I have to see the movie again for a really valid review (and no, it won’t be like pulling teeth) but I did get a “warm, but not fuzzy” feeling from this movie. Like The Lord of the Rings series, I could suspend belief without protest. So they were vampires. So some of them were good vampires. So in the end, even these good vampires were brutal. So Bella and Edward didn’t have sex. OK, I bought it all. Although I’m not a screaming pre-pubescent girl I’m looking forward to the second movie, New Moon. I know from my glimpse of the bad vamp, Victoria, in the final shot, that there’s going to be trouble ahead.
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