Twilight

"When you can live forever what do you live for?"

I wish he just jumped into the river and never surfaced.

Evidentally, you live for repeating high school forever and dating girls who are a century younger than you. Doubtless you've already heard plenty about this movie. I'm late to the party, but I couldn't pass up the chance to say a few things about what a spectacularly hilarious movie this was. Without trying, this movie had me shaking with silent laughter in the theatre, laughter that then became quite audible. I'm asking myself where exactly I should start. Wisdom might dictate some cheapshots at the source material, but I don't think that's really necesary. Suffice it to say, girl moves to new place, girl starts school and meets boy, boy is vampire. luvs ensue lolz.

      Now that we've gotten that thrilling setup out of the way, I can talk about the movie itself. Catherine Hardwicke directs, and if you haven't heard of her, that's because this is one of maybe three movies directed. This is to her credit, as this movie is composed like a high school A/V project. Now I don't think movies need to jump around at the speed of light, but the scenes in this movie slog on and on for agonizing minutes, while the characters do what barely qualifies as interacting with the most awkward dialogue possible. Bella is the most appalling Mary Sue character imaginable, a pale sort of standoffish girl who for some reason has a billion friends, and as many boys trying to be her boyfriend. The rest of the characters are equally cookie cutter. But what about the actors portraying them? surely they must have some redeeming qualities.

This is her expression. Forever.

Well... no not really. The only actor in the movie who seemed to act like a real person, and not a incredibly simplified and stupid caricature of a person, was Billy Burke, who plays Bella's dad Charlie. Now this might be because Charlie is a generally laconic fellow who doesn't appear too much, but I think that he is generally a likeable guy, albeit not very interesting. Robert Pattinson does a reasonably bad job, but I forgive him because of his open contempt for the whole project. Kristen Stewart delivers the performance you'd expect, what with her being a completely zoned out weed fiend. One particular quirk of hers that I really enjoyed was her method of emoting. Whenever Kristin thinks it's time to show emotion, then what it's actually time for is lots and lots of blinking.In particular there is one scene very near the end of the movie where she suffers some sort of verbal seisure, which is accompanied by the most furious bout of blinking I have ever borne witness to.

    So I've explained why the movie is bad, but why go see it? It's the seriousness with which this movie executes its absurdities that makes it entertaining to watch. Marvel at subtle questions you might have, like why it isn't creepy to Bella that some hundred plus year old bloodsucker watches her sleep at night, or how stupid a whole scene devoted to vampire baseball is! If you can live forever, is this really the best you can do?  Dazzle high school girls in Gloomville, Washington?