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.

You know, I always knew Miley Cyrus was a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but this latest move marks her as either abysmally stupid or the single ballsiest player in Hollywood.

Seriously.  Stones like CANNONBALLS.  And I’m thoroughly aware she’s a chick–it’s a metaphor.

Anyway, check out what she had to say about it:

“I’ve never seen [Twilight], and nor will I ever. I don’t believe in it—I don’t believe in it. I don’t like vampires, I don’t like any of the stuff, like the wolf that pops out of the screen when I’m watching my TV at night. I feel like it’s seriously, like, people really like get into it maybe because it’s like people always fall in love with the characters I don’t like it, I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t like the shirts, any of it.”

Hmm…now, why would a tween pop icon deliberately, suicidally, denounce the hottest book / movie property for the tween market?  There are several possibilities.

1. Miley is genuinely outraged as a good Christian and is denouncing those Satanic vampire movies. Yeah, I didn’t really buy that one either–because where was she before now?  But it’s a possibility, and anyone giving her the benefit of the doubt has to include that.

2. Miley is genuinely outraged that Twilight is cutting into her profits.  Much more possible.

3. Miley is feigning outrage to stir the pot and get attention because her standard practice of alerting the media to where she’ll be jogging in a bikini top and getting upset when they show up isn’t working any more. Again, even more likely.

4. Miley is too stupid to live.  She doesn’t even realize that she and Twilight share so many fans it’s ludicrous, and to try and get between them and their other love is just, as said above, abysmally stupid.

Which of these is it?  I can’t say.  But it’s pretty likely to be one of them!

New Moon.

Yeah, I know, I’m pretty bummed out about it myself.  At the rate this thing is going it’s going to DWARF the original Stoker.  Dracula is going to get pushed out by…Team Edward.

A little part of me just died typing that.

But it’s no less true for my squeamishness.  The number one pre-selling title of all time, at least as far as Fandango goes, is New Moon.  In fact, at the rate it’s going, there’s a good chance that theater owners will be resorting to little-known techniques like interlocking the reels to reduce the length of show times, or even running continuous loop showtimes, in which there’s no, or at least a minimum of, time between shows to get the most possible in a day.

One way or another, this thing is going to be one of the biggest movies of the year.  The Twifans have already bought their tickets and there will be virtually no competition on that weekend.  The only alternative is Planet 51 and a handful of limited release titles.  Thus, there’s pretty much no way that New Moon won’t take top spot this weekend.

Under normal circumstances, folks, when someone tells me about a Twilight parody, I’m all over it like Lindsay Lohan on a sack full of white powder.  But when you say that the Twilight parody in question will involve PUPPETS, now, there’s just no way you’re going to keep me out.

Yes, one of my least favorite movies ever, Twilight, gets skewered in a grand YouTube experience called “Twilight: The Puppet Saga”.

It is hilarious, mostly because it’s accurate, and because the creator of the film couldn’t stop referring to pretty much everyone except Bella as “Team (Fill in the blank).”  He even had Edward wearing a shirt that read “Team Edward”, and he called him that all throughout the short.

Twilight fans out there–this is what the rest of the world sees whenever it watches that movie.  Seriously.  It’s not fun.

The Screenhead Ten Scale recovers from its newest paroxysm of helpless laughter to hand this sweet dose of puppet fun an eight out of ten for sheer raw awesome.

Or rather, TEAM Awesome.

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.

Look, it’s no secret that I hate Twilight the way Nancy Pelosi hates the free market system, just more often, but even I’m baffled by the emergence of a new teaser poster for the third installment of the Twilight saga, Eclipse.

The teaser comes by way of Bloody Disgusting, and it’s really rather nondescript if suitably ominous.  I’m actually somewhat pleased with this; it shows that even complete wastes of plastic like Twilight can learn.

So what’s got me confused about it?  Well, check the release date on that poster.

Oh, you saw it too?

Yeah…that release date.  JUNE.  Like as in about seven months away June.

What were they doing, filming these two concurrently? I thought the Saw release schedule was an impossible juggernaut in the making but Twilight’s making them look like, well, like the Evil Dead series.  Even I’m impressed, but still, I’m baffled.  What kind of quality can they be putting into this?

And then I slap my forehead and remember, oh yeah…it’s TWILIGHT.

Ohhhhh boy.

Folks, I’m going to advise you up front, what you’re about to see will be disturbing.

Because what you’re about to see may well involve greed on a level so blatant as to rival Enron.  You’re about to see the characters from the horrendous Twilight saga used to hawk Vitamin Water from Sobe.

You can find the ad directly below–I’ve brought it in from YouTube, where I found it in the first place–and watch all you like.  It is downright horrifying.

Oh, sure, the marketeer in me sees this as a great idea to hawk overpriced water to a bunch of tweenagers who are more than happy to plunk down mommy and daddy’s money to get their hands on this crap because they saw it in New Moon or whatever.  But the normal human being in me, the part that hasn’t been infected by marketing, understands that this is a godawful use of licensed characters to hawk product.

And that just cheapens us all.

On October 31, Nordstrom and Summit Entertainment invite Twilight fans to take advantage of a special opportunity to meet select cast members of The Twilight Saga: New Moon at select Nordstrom stores. The cast appearances are being held to celebrate the highly-anticipated November 20 release of the second movie in Summit’s Twilight film saga. Nordstrom launched an exclusive clothing and jewelry collection inspired by the mood and spirit of the film in early October.

Customers can visit nordstrom.com/newmoon for more details about how to acquire VIP access on Saturday, October 31, at 8:00 a.m., to be one of 75 customers to meet the cast.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon cast members will visit the following Nordstrom stores: 

    November 5- Topanga (Canoga Park, CA)**

    November 8- Park Meadows (Lone Tree, CO)*

    November 9- Natick Collection (Natick, MA)*

    November 10- The Galleria (Houston, TX)*

    November 11- Mall of America (Bloomington, MN)*

    November 11- Cherry Hill Mall (Philadelphia, PA)*

    November 11- Stonestown Galleria (San Francisco, CA)*

    November 12- Perimeter Mall (Atlanta, GA)

    November 12- Southcenter (Tukwila, WA)*

    November 13- Aventura Mall (Aventura, FL)

    November 13- Scottsdale Fashion Square (Phoenix, AZ)*

    November 14- Fashion Place (Murray, UT)*

* These malls will also host a talent question and answer forum in the mall which will be open to the public.

** 125 customer VIP packets will be available for the Topanga event only. The mall will not host a talent question and answer forum.

Select Nordstrom stores will also offer customers advanced movie screening passes as gifts with purchase (see nordstrom.com/newmoon for participating stores and details), and will host in-store styling parties on November 14 and 15. Customers can visit nordstrom.com/newmoon to learn what events are taking place at their nearest Nordstrom store and sign-up for email alerts.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon directed by Chris Weitz and starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner will be released November 20, 2009. In the film, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (Stewart) delves deeper into the mysteries of the supernatural world she yearns to become part of–only to find herself in greater peril than ever before. Following Edward Cullen’s (Pattinson) departure from Forks, Wash., and Bella discovers his image comes to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. In time Bella’s frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob Black (Lautner) who has a supernatural secret of his own.

Here is the New Moon film clip of the transformation of Jacob into a wolf looks awesome!  I suspect we will see more clips before the movie opens November 20, 2009.  By the way, New Moon pre-ticket sales for opening day has sold out at one of the major movie theaters  in my city.  It looks like the movie is going to be a big money maker.

So now I’m officially bewildered, having see plenty of the Tempe crew’s work before, I know that usually they love loads of fake blood and a whole lot of nonsensical plot elements, but they’ve officially gone round the bend with Taintlight.

Yes, it’s basically exactly what you think it is.  It’s all about a girl who falls in love with a vampire with perfectly tousled hair. A werewolf who’s into Michael Jackson songs will also show up to contest for the young lady’s affections, and all the while “real” vampires are roaming Bonejack Heights (the town this all takes place in) and sucking the populace dry, with only the vampire with the lovely hair to stand between them and total sanguinary subjugation.

I’ve seen some really awesome Twilight parodies in my time, but Taintlight has to be the most preposterous one I’ve heard yet.  I only wonder if Doctor Bonejack or Teen Ape will show up (those being two of Tempe’s favorite characters).  After all, you can’t have a Tempe horror romp without the Destruction Kings, can you?

Or maybe you can….