When it comes to the Twilight series, both the books and the movies have been, umm, less than stellar. The pages that I read way before the first movie was even released told a redundant story that has affected the genre it discussed negatively and the movies took it upon themselves to worsen it even further. The story is so concise that I managed to tell the few thousand pages to a friend in one paragraph. If that’s not a concise summary, I don’t know what is. When it comes to the final Twilight book, any reader of the series can attest that there’s almost nothing that happens in it – or at least in its second half – so the decision to split it into two movies was purely for commercial reasons, which is very obvious.
One thing to say about Breaking Dawn Part 2 though is that, while it is still a weak movie as far as movies go, it’s well above the average for a franchise that has become synonymous with cheap quick money… and it’s also much better than its corresponding half of the last book installment in the Twilight Saga. Much better actually, which goes to show exactly how good the book was.
Bella, now a vampire, is adapting to the changes that her condition imposes. But she has uncanny self-control, enabling her to run away from human blood even on her first hunting trip. The daughter she almost died giving birth to has grown immensely in the two days during which Bella underwent her transformation. And her daughter keeps growing before her… until a vampire sees her and reports her to the Volturi, the council governing all vampires, as an immortal child: children turned vampires, which are also illegal and cause an automatic death sentence on their maker. So the Cullen clan starts preparing for a final showdown against the Volturi, asking for the help of anyone who could listen.
The script of Breaking Dawn Part 2 is mechanic. The acting is robotic. The direction is fill in by numbers. The actors give these looks that try to penetrate into your soul way too many times, eventually ending up becoming just awkward. Kristen Stewart is better as Bella in this movie than she has been in the previous ones. She actually smiles… more than once. Rejoice, maybe? Robert Pattinson still looks and sounds constipated in every single scene he acts. Taylor Lautner is still here only to get the girls in the theatre to scream at the sight of his abs. He shows them once, for the record. But you’re not here for their acting, which is more often than not borderline comical.
The score by Carter Burwell, on the other hand, is pleasant to listen to. The departures the movie takes from the book are also quite shocking. That’s probably the only reason why I left the movie feeling that it wasn’t all too bad. So for readers of the books, prepare to be positively surprised as well as shocked towards the end.
For everyone else, here’s how it breaks down into: if you’ve been able to tolerate the previous movies then you’ll find this one much better. If you couldn’t stand the previous movies but watched them begrudgingly, then this one will still be better. If you have absolutely no idea what Twilight is and wish it to remain this way then lucky you should steer clear.
As the movie opens worldwide tomorrow, almost everyone will draw a sigh of relief as this part of cinematic history comes to a close. And what a [insert any derogatory adjective you want] chapter it has been. However, for such an underwhelming and depressingly horrible movie series, Breaking Dawn part 2 ends it with a bang – or as good as a bang that could be for the standards that Twilight has set for itself. The series’ die-hard fans (or twihards as they call themselves) will be happy with it.
It looks like they’re toning down the “love story” approach for the promotion of this final movie and moving more into “Bella is now a vampire” realms.
Perhaps this is the smarter way to approach the final (and most useless) installment in the Twilight story. The final book, to begin with, has nothing going on. It’s a brick (about 800 pages) where Edward and Bella get married and have sex. She gets pregnant and delivers after a record-speed pregnancy during which she almost dies so he turns her. When she wakes up, they have more sex. The baby is thought to be a baby vampire and the rest of the movie is them preparing for a battle… that doesn’t happen. Diplomacy for the win!
Sorry for ruining it for you. Not really.
No, I won’t be watching it when it comes out.
No, it won’t be a good movie.
No, the trailer is not representative of the content of the movie.
Yes, it will make a lot of money.
In a nutshell, watching this movie will hurt your eyes and ears. Caution is advised.
That’s how much The Hunger Games has grossed in its opening weekend, enough to place it third on the best opening weekends list of all time, behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Dark Knight. The Hunger Games has, therefore, grossed more on its opening weekend than any other non-sequel movie ever made.
That’s even more than the $142 million Twilight: New Moon made on its opening weekend. Here you go, yet another reason as to why The Hunger Games is not Twilight.
The appeal for the movie has been attributed to an array of factors ranging from the critical acclaim the movie has amassed, the high interest fueled by an engaging marketing campaign, the fandom of the books, to the wide range of audience that have seen it: interest was high among both female and male viewers.
The Hunger Games has also become its studio’s biggest hit ever in just three days. The previous best for Lionsgate was $116 million for Fahrenheit 9/11.
The next installment in the books Catching Fire is slated for a November 2013 release. With the reception this one has gotten, Catching Fire will be a volcano.
I had no intention to write such a post. But when I saw people on various platforms saying that The Hunger Games is just another Twilight, I simply had to step in to say no. Just no. And I think I am a qualified person to make the comparison. How so? Well, I’ve actually read both book series before the hype for their movies set in.
1 – The Books
There is a drastic difference between the themes of the books to begin with. The Hunger Games does not have supernatural human beings, let alone vampires or werewolves that have been so ruined in their portrayal that they’ve become a common source for jokes. The main characters of The Hunger Games are not driven by their incessant need to be loved but by their primal instinct for survival. Both may be intended for young adults and have a central female character but when it comes to the plot, protagonists and reception, the two series couldn’t be more different. Twilight is a fantasy love story, while The Hunger Games is an adventure about survival. That alone create a huge difference in the central elements of the book: where characters in one search for a boyfriend, the characters in another prepare for a revolution.
This brings me to point 2.
2- Katniss Everdeen and Bella Swan:
Bella’s struggles in Twilight is to choose between the sparkly vampire Edward and the transform-at-will werewolf Jacob. Her character is also nauseatingly one dimensional, useless and completely infatuated with mundane things, making her unlikeable.
Katniss is the exact opposite. Where Bella had things handed for her on a silver platter (boyfriend trouble don’t count as life problems), Katniss has to survive a world where the government has made the people hungry, where her mother is disconnected from the world and where she has to care for her only sister. Katniss’ world does not revolve around a boy, unlike Bella.
Bella is driven by her infatuation with Edward. Katniss is driven by her need to survive a cruel world. Katniss is a character young readers should look up to. Bella Swan is not.
3 – The Movies
Both movie series are turning out to be immensely popular. The Hunger Games has grossed over $25 million from midnight screenings alone. Twilight movies have broken records. Where they differ, however, is in the drastic critical reception. The Hunger Games has an aggregate score of more than 90% of positive reviews. Every single Twilight movie has been certified rotten by critics. You can read my review of The Hunger Games here. I didn’t even find it in me to review the latest Twilight movie. Enough said.
Perhaps both The Hunger Games and Twilight can be considered as a “teen” series. How that’s a bad thing, I’m not sure. The difference remains that one is absolutely relevant to what we’re living through today: revolutions, war, famine while the other lives in lala land. The fact remains that people need to get it in their heads that not anything that rings true with young adults needs to be compared with a preceding cultural phenomenon. Twilight was compared to Harry Potter. The Hunger Games is being compared to Twilight. How ridiculous, I know. When will such unfounded thoughts end? I have no clue.
It looks like Ellen Degeneres has a small role in a very crucial moment in the new Twilight movie: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.
You don’t believe me? Well, check it out:
Well, I wasn’t entirely truthful. She doesn’t quite have a role. But it’s still hilarious (and probably the only nonexistent highlight from the movie I still haven’t seen.)
Since I have a twihard following, I figured they’d be interested in seeing this. Everyone else, don’t mind this post.
After pictures from Breaking Dawn’s Sex Scene (and only scene I’m interested in watching for that matter) leaked back in April, a video of a few seconds from that scene has leaked today as well.
I’m beginning to believe these are intentional leaks to build the hype for the movie as viewers are probably waiting the most to see Bella and Edward hit it off.
Those who know me are well aware that The Vampire Diaries is, currently, my favorite TV show – by far. It combines all the elements that I like in a TV show: suspense, twists, shockers and a fantasy storyline.
Say all you want about the whole vampire obsession which spread like wildfire with Twilight, but The Vampire Diaries is not Twilight. Let me put it this way, The Vampire Diaries is so much better than the Twilight books and movies that they are rendered more useless than they already are. They are rendered irrelevant.
I hadn’t blogged before about The Vampire Diaries because I didn’t know what I was supposed to write. After all, you can’t really write a synopsis of the show without giving too much away and you can’t review episodes because they would contain spoilers.
But don’t worry, this is pretty much spoiler free.
The latest episode, aired yesterday, of The Vampire Diaries (titled “The Sun Also Rises”) is one of the most epic TV episodes I have ever watched. It is an episode that doesn’t let down for 45 minutes, constantly escalating an already red-alert level storyline. You are basically taken to adrenaline stratosphere level – and no, I am not exaggerating.
This could have easily served as the season finale. It had everything you could ask for as a conclusion to a TV show season. But it’s such a big episode that the writers probably thought the viewers would be morally scarred if they left the season at that. After “The Sun Also Rises”, we need some form of resolution.
But “The Sun Also Rises” starts setting up the pace for season three. And by the looks of it, it will be even better.
Finally, have you ever watched something and it got so stuck in your head that as you walked around and remembered parts of it, you basically got goosebumps? That was me today as I headed towards an exam and the only thing I could think of was how epic the episode was. And yeah, I basically aced the exam also.
The newly “released” set of pictures, featured in People Magazine, can be found here.
The newly leaked video from the sex scene can be found here.
If you like this post, then “like” us on Facebook.
For the twihards who are interested in this, two pictures have surfaced of the sex scene (yes, they actually do it) in Breaking Dawn.
This is probably the most exciting part of the whole movie as the book royally sucked and I’m glad they actually decided to show the characters doing something, unlike Stephenie Meyer’s near Victorian-esque approach to the issue: yeah, they did it, you’re just not allowed to know how it happened.
This leak follows yet another picture leak, posted earlier, of the same scene.
[EDIT]: I have been asked to take down the pictures. If you still want to see them, let me know in a comment.
This year’s award season to celebrate the high quality 2010 movies is over. The Academy has spoken and The King’s Speech is the big winner.
The ceremony opened up with a very funny bit of montage with this year’s hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, doing acting bits in the Best Picture nominated movies. We were able to watch them be part of Inception, The Social Network, True Grit, The King’s Speech, etc… and it was quite awesome. Anne Hathaway had some awesome lines, notably when, during her “role” in The King’s Speech she says: “we come from the future with good news… we have smaller microphones” or when she freaks out Natalie Portman in Black Swan as the green duck.
And then they started their opening segment which was very dull apart from a couple Hathaway lines about how it’s been a great year for lesbians and how getting naked isn’t enough anymore to warrant a best actress nomination, taking a stab at herself for her mostly nude movie Love and Other Drugs.
Soon after that, Tom Hanks came on to present the first two awards of the night, Art Direction (Alice in Wonderland won) and Cinematography (Inception).
Then, Kirk Douglas came up to present Supporting Actress and I honestly thought it was torture. He kept pushing on the nominees’ buttons and it was pretty interesting to see them getting prepared for the results only to see him divert the subject elsewhere. Melissa Leo won this, as expected, although many had predicted an upset (myself included). Melissa Leo then a very horrible acceptance speech where she dropped the F-word, only to become the night’s go-to joke about acceptance speeches. Literally, everyone who won something referenced her in his acceptance speech.
However, soon enough, it began to look like The King’s Speech was not going to own the night as many had predicted. The race was as close as it can be. Soon enough, even Alice in Wonderland had two Oscars.
Supporting Actor went to Christian Bale, as was pretty much expected. So if anyone believes the combination of a Screen Actors Guild Award and Golden Globe doesn’t make you a lock for an Oscar win, this night proved you wrong. The “weakest” frontrunners in the acting categories came out unscathed and victorious.
In the meantime, Anne Hathaway continued a pretty overzealous and energetic hosting job by dressing up as man and taking a stab as Hugh Jackman (Or Huge Jackass as she named him) by singing and dancing about it. And just when you thought she dwarfed Franco beyond measure, he comes up on stage in pink drag. That was probably his most memorable moment. He just looked like he didn’t want to be there.
Continuing with the awards, Inception received both Sound-related awards, to raise its total to three, leading the night. The Social Network scored two quick wins for Best Original Score and Best Adapted Screenplay, as expected.
Then there was a bunch of awards for short films most of us hadn’t watched. Oprah then presented the award for Best Documentary. Inside Job won. I thought Oprah looked dead tired.
Documentary was soon followed by the nerve-wracking Film Editing. It has become known that the movie that wins Film Editing is the favorite to win Best Picture. And in a night where the combination of the awards handed out so far didn’t single out a clear frontrunner, this award looked like it might seal the deal. The Social Network won this and adding to its Adapted Screenplay and Original Score, it looked like we might have a Social Network sweep – again.
Russell Brand and Helen Mirren presented Best Foreign Language Film and Helen Mirren came across yet again as a superb class act by addressing the audience in fluent French. All hail to the queen!
For you animation lovers, this year’s animation phenomenon Toy Story 3 went home with the gold, winning two Oscars, one for Best Animated Feature and the second one for Best Original Song.
Speaking of Best Original Song, there were four performances, the highlight of which was A.R. Rahman and Florence Welch from Florence and the Machine singing “If I Rise”. It was a chills-inducing performance and the song deserved to win. Gwyneth Paltrow sang nominated song “Coming Home” from her latest movie “Country Strong” and I thought she did well. Randy Newman, the writer of Toy Story’s theme song “We Belong Together” mentioned how weird it was not to have a fifth song nominated. And I agree with this. “There’s A Place For Us” by Carrie Underwood for the movie Chronicles of Narnia deserved a nomination.
Later on, Inception reclaimed its title for top movie of the night by earning its fourth Oscar for Visual Effects, a much deserved win – although my heart also wanted Harry Potter to snag its first Academy Award. Which reminds me, The Wolfman won for best makeup. And I thought it was an abomination how this movie gets to flaunt an Academy Award and the whole Harry Potter series has none. Having said that, Deathly Hallows Part 2 better bring it at next year’s Oscars!
Speaking of Harry Potter, there was a funny segment as well about how “musicals” have been an important part of the business this part year. The segment comprised of dialogue parts from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, The Social Network and Twilight, among other movies, transformed into song. I thought it was pretty cool, actually.
And since it’s not the Oscars without a proper “In Memoriam” segment, Celine Dion sang a beautiful rendition of “Smile” to a montage of the pictures of industry people that have left us, commemorating their memory.
Continuing with James Franco still looking like he’d rather be anywhere but the Oscars, we get to the final and most important stretch of the night. The last four awards: Director, actor, actress and picture.
Director comes up. Drumroll, please… and what do you know, it’s our first major upset of the night. Presented by last year’s undeserving winner Kathryn Bigelow (yes, I think The Hurt Locker is such an overrated movie!) Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech overtakes David Fincher for The Social Network, who looked like a frontrunner for this category. Tom Hooper delivered a remarkable speech, telling the story of how if it weren’t for his mother, The King’s Speech wouldn’t have been made. I have to say, British people make the best acceptance speeches. This win, however, brings us back to square zero in our movie frontrunner race. Best Picture is back up for grabs.
The Best Actress category was announced by last year’s Best Actor winner, Jeff Bridges. And honestly, I much preferred last year’s nominees introduction. It just seemed so bland and rushed this year around, like they simply wanted to get it over with. These are five women who gave it their all to be where they were, at least give them the decency of properly introducing them. I still get goosebumps when remembering how Stanley Tucci introduced the great Meryl Streep and how Oprah introduced newcomer Gabourey Sidibe last year… No surprise here, however, Natalie Portman won this. She acted surprised and I thought it wasn’t that credible. Sure, you’re happy and all but come on, you’ve seen this one coming since December. It’s not like Jennifer Lawrence or Michelle Williams or even Annette Bening had a late moment surge in votes. She looked very pregnant and gave a pretty boring speech. I was thankful she did not mention her “sexual activities” with her fiance but she enumerated too many names than I care to remember. Last year’s speech by sweetheart Sandra Bullock beats this by a country mile!
Contrast it with this:
Then it was time for yet another expected category with Best Actor. We all knew Colin Firth was going to win this, but what made the category extra-special was Sandra Bullock’s introduction of the nominees. She walked the line between seriousness and humor so meticulously. She radiated with confidence. I think she should host next year’s Oscars. She is just all kinds of awesome! So yeah, Colin Firth won. He opened up his speech about how he might have hit “the apex of [his] career” and then his speech became another snooze-fest. You’d think after all the rehearsals in the movie he won for and the fact that he is British and it’s in their genes to deliver awesome acceptance speeches, he’d do a better job.
And then it was time for the moment of truth. Which movie would turn out a winner out of the two that are seriously left battling it out?
The King’s Speech came out triumphant, bringing its total to four Oscars, tying it with Inception for first place. The whole cast and producers came on stage, a speech I did not care about ensued.
Following The King’s Speech “expected” win, the P.S. 22 Chorus closed the night with their rendition of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, the winners joined them on stage. And we’re out people!
All in all, I felt last year’s Oscars had more prestige. I thought they didn’t give the movies nominated for Best Picture their due. Each movie had a segment introducing it last year. This time around, the movies were parodied and barely mentioned when their category came up. Maybe the Academy personnel should care about delivering a better ceremony show suitable for the Oscars than a show to attract young viewers?
