Screenhead

Admittedly, when I went into New Moon this morning, I wasn’t expecting anything good.  My experience with Twilight was only a few months old, and it still hurt to think about that slow sludgy mess of sparkly emo boi vampires dragging the genre down with it.

But when I grit my teeth and walked in,  what I got was something somewhat different from what I was expecting.

Just to catch you up on the plot, we’re still with screechy loser Bella Swan and her sparkly emo boi vampire boyfriend Edward.  Only now, we discover that werewolves are also thrown in the mix (it was probably supposed to be a surprise but they tipped their own hand on this point MONTHS ago) and for some reason, both vampire Edward and relative newcomer werewolf Jacob Black are all very much into this pasty cipher of a girl who seems to exist for no other reason than to give the teenage girl fans in the audience an easy point for self-insertion.

Yes, there’s still plenty wrong with this whole thing.  One, none of these people can act worth a fart in a stiff wind–Kristen Stewart still seems dazed by the whole thing and is acting like she’s been suffering a concussion since about ten minutes into the first movie.  Robert Pattinson is a willowy mess–when he takes his shirt off and reveals his new “six pack” it looks like nothing so much as a man in desperate need of a SANDWICH.  Taylor Lautner is the girliest macho man I’ve ever SEEN.  He’s trying DESPERATELY hard to be some kind of bad-ass but then everything he tries is toned down so hard for the consumption of the tweenagers in the audience.  It’s like someone told him, “Be a bad boy, but don’t actually be THREATENING.”  He’s doing his best, I think, but he’s doing it under terribly strained conditions.

Also, why isn’t White Wolf suing holy hell out of Summit, Stephenie Meyer, et al for copyright violation?  I remember the nature-boy werewolves and cosmopolitan corporate vampires back when I was one of the handful of people playing the Rage card game back in 1995!  Now all of a sudden it’s a major motion picture and I don’t think White Wolf’s getting any taste on this.  They DO still have the license at last report even if it’s been sold more times than real estate.

But, like I said originally, this was better than I expected.  If for no other reason than the only way it could be much worse is if Stephenie Meyer personally came to theaters at random and gouged out the eyes of one of the viewers.  There was more action in this, and a developing storyline that still seems rather limited (White Wolf, for Pete’s sake, it’s werewolves versus vampires.  You did ALL this long before them!), but is actually somewhat bearable.

There’s still plenty of slow parts in this, though, and lots of reason to be unhappy, though not nearly as many as the FIRST Twilight installment gave us.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, naturally, agrees with me and hands over a five out of ten to a vampire franchise that may well be starting to look up.  If it continues improving at this rate, Breaking Dawn’s going to be a non-stop bloodbath and even I’ll be impressed.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Author Stephanie Meyer talks about her story in the recent New Moon Featurette.  Actors offer their insight into their characters and how they relate to Meyer’s story. It’s like a who’s who of Twilight vampires.

If you are like me, who loves to see how scenes are created, then you’ll love this featurette because it’s all about setting up the scene.  I have posted this scene in full, but this is how they created the scene and made the actors look so strong and violent.  Even the stunt coordinator talks to us about setting up the violence. 

While watching, see if you can catch Robert Pattinson holding a cup of tea while wearing his robe as the stunt coordinator goes over some moves with him for the scene.  Somehow it’s surreal to see an actor holding a cup of tea while discussing a fight scene with a crew member — it’s so British.

Popularity: unranked [?]

So maybe Peter Berg wasn’t the best choice to handle the upcoming remake of Dune.  He walked off the project very recently, leaving Paramount to fill in the hole as best it could, and man, do they ever have an option.

They’ve sent out scripts to two new director possibilities, and you won’t believe who they are.

Neill Blomkamp and Neil Marshall.

Oh yeah.  District 9 and Doomsday themselves are going after Dune.

And even better, chances are Berg took Robert Pattinson with him back when R-Pattz was thinking about tackling Paul Atriedes.

Between two prime directors with actual sci-fi cred now possibly handling the Dune remake, and the fact that Rob Pattinson likely now has nothing to do with Dune, suddenly I’m feeling like getting into a happy dance out here.  There’s so much joy and win in this news post that I may well faint from the sheer happiness of it all.

Popularity: unranked [?]

If you’re not as freaked out as I am by the thought of Robert Pattinson playing Paul Atreides in the upcoming remake of Dune, then you’re a much, much stronger man–or woman–than I am.

Why am I freaking out?  Simple.  There’s not even the proverbial snowball’s chance  that some putz whose biggest roles were a sparkly vampire and Cedric Freaking Diggory can handle the lead in a major sci-fi franchise film like Dune.

Dune is an institution.  A really WEIRD institution, granted, but Dune is like the Hellraiser of science fiction.  There have been so many versions–mostly books, granted–of this movie that it qualifies for franchise status.  And to put the sparkly vampire emo boi in charge is downright insulting.

I just can’t see him tackling a big role in a genre he has no experience in.  And besides–his big draw is to teenage girls.  What teenage girl is going to want to sit through DUNE?

I’m not very pleased with this development at all.  But maybe I’m overreacting.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Bringing smiles to the faces of 14-year old girls everywhere, a new teaser one-sheet for Twilight: New Moon has been released, showing off the three major players.

An exclusive scene from the film is set to be presented by Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner at the 2009 MTV Movie Awards on May 31.

Due out late this year, New Moon follows Bella’s increasing friendship with werewolves, which sees her loyalties being tested.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Hyde Park Entertainment has successfully lassoed in Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz and Robert Pattinson to make them star in the period drama Unbound Captives.

The film will mark the directorial debut for actress Madeleine Stowe who also penned it. It follows a woman (Weisz) whose husband is killed and her two children kidnapped by a Comanche war party in 1859. She is rescued by a frontiersman (Jackman), while Pattison is set to play the son.

Stowe and her husband actor Brian Benben penned the script under the pseudonym O.C. Humphrey back in the early ‘90s. Shooting starts at the end of the year.

Popularity: 1% [?]

You may well have been waiting for the review on this one with baited breath.

Yes, that’s right…today, just for you, my dear readers, I have descended into the valley of the shadow of suck and I have emerged on the other side, stronger for my trials but at the same time weak and weary from the road.  It took me just two hours to walk down that misery trail…but it felt like five.  Maybe even five and a half.

That’s right, I watched Twilight, and it was indeed as bad a movie as I had feared it would be.

The plot is fairly simple, and not too bad in and of itself–in Twilight’s world, vampires exist, but they’ve been heavily modified for the clear consumption of twelve year old girls.  Their condition is spread via the transmission of venom, they move with alarming speed that ALMOST but not quite looks like teleporting, they have superhuman strength, and they drink blood.  Any blood will do, surprisingly, but human is best.  Oh, and forget about the whole “sunlight and crosses” thing–sunlight just makes them sparkly (no, I’m NOT kidding) and crosses don’t seem to have any effect at all.  I seem to recall them walking past a couple without incident.  The only way you can actually KILL one of these things is to, according to the film itself “tear (them) apart and burn the pieces”.  So of course, a transplant teenager from a recently broken home named Bella is going to move within a few miles of one of these sparkly vampires, and naturally, they fall in love.

If you too can taste bile at this point rest assured you are not alone.  Twilight is easily one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through.  This isn’t hyperbole, either.  This is sheer truth.  This movie HURT to watch it.  It caused me physical pain, mostly in my stomach but a bit in my head.

First, the acting is a solid lump of huge embarrassing failure.  Kristen Stewart should not be allowed within thirty feet of a camera ever again and Robert Pattinson’s every word makes me cringe.  It doesn’t help that they’re given some of the most overblown lines on the face of the earth, either–if Edward Cullen whined one more time about what a monster he is I was going to shoot him myself just to put him out of MY misery.  Let alone his–this guy is one of the biggest emo jerks I’ve ever seen.  What made the whole thing even harder to swallow was how it whipsawed so frantically between different KINDS of suck.  First it’s overblown, then it’s angsty.  Then it’s just boring and they spend twenty minutes talking about stuff.  It takes fully twenty minutes for the first interesting thing to happen in the movie, and frankly, it’s not that interesting.  Then they’ll spend roughly ten minutes TALKING about the interesting thing that happened!  And just when I think that’s over, suddenly my pretention meter starts pegging because Bella’s talking to her friends about what “strong, independent women” they are.

Perhaps the worst thing about Twilight is the fact that it is only the first in as many as six movies.  The misery has only just begun, folks…it’s only just begun.

And I’m not looking forward to anything else that comes out of this franchise.  This is as godawful as movies get, and I’m not eager to see how they tear open the floorboards and start digging now that they’ve found the bottom of the barrel.

Popularity: 1% [?]

It looks like Twilight star Robert Pattinson will work with Summit Entertainment in the romance-drama Memoirs.

Allen Coulter, whose credits include “Hollywoodland,” “The Sopranos” and “Damages,” is looking at taking the helm to direct Memoirs.

The script, originally penned by Will Fetters, follows on a pair of star-crossed lovers who meet and fall in love while under pressure to deal with family tragedies that jeopardizes their relationship. Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married) is aboard to rewrite.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The appearance of New Moon has caused Twilight star Robert Pattinson to drop out of the romantic drama Parts Per Billion. The film – which also stars Rosario Dawson, Olivia Thirlby and Dennis Hopper – tells the story of three couples who face love, joy and fear as a cataclysm unfolds around them.

Representatives of the star claim the Twilight sequel caused the actor to clear his schedule for the first quarter of the year. Pattinson can next be seen in the limited release Little Ashes which is scheduled for release on March 27.

Popularity: unranked [?]

We all know how chick-flick Twilight fared at the box office, which essentially guaranteed a gazillion sequels. But you would think they’d have the decency of not spending so much more money on the sequel? Well, no, in fact they are increasing the budget from the first movie’s $37 million to quite a lot more.

First victims of the increased budget are Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart – two unknowns – who are set to net a cool $12 million from New Moon, the upcoming sequel; they earned a meager $2 million in the original by comparison.

New Moon continues the story from the original, moving to various locales including Alaska and Italy; it also introduces werewolves into the franchise.

Popularity: 1% [?]