Fang Bang
I wanted to see what the fuss was all about so I watched Twilight. My fear that each close-up of the vampire boy would elicit shrieks of “Eeeeee Cedric Diggory!” were mostly unfounded; the fan-girls reserved their most ardent Awwwws for the sequence in which the vampire Edward takes the mortal girl Bella to meet his pale family.
I kept waiting for someone to tell Edward, “You’re a little pale, shouldn’t you drop by the infirmary?” or “Go easy on the skin-whitening products”, but this is not that kind of movie. Irony and wordplay were the province of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; the key attitude in Twilight is earnestness. Edward is Heathcliff with fangs: brooding, tormented, dangerous. You don’t know if he’s going to kiss the girl or eat her. His “family” has sworn off human blood and consider themselves “vegetarians”. You might think of them as voluntary castrati. They hide in plain sight in the tiny (but multicultural!) town of Forks, WA, where the only people who recognize them are Native Americans with their own secret. (The Native American boy who likes Bella looks like Rafael Nadal; if you take squint hard enough, Edward could be the handsome version of Roger Federer.)
The action scenes are cheesy, but the romance, shot in tight close-ups, is effective. Director Catherine Hardwicke does not condescend to her audience. Of course, Stephenie Meyer devotees will have something to say about her faithfulness to the material. Bloodsucking has traditionally been a metaphor for sex; in this oddly non-threatening vampire movie the lovers get their kicks from abstinence.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 27th, 2008 at 11:48
I hope you’ll be able to also catch the Swedish teen vampire film Let The Right One In. I think this will float your boat a lot more than Twilight, JZ.
November 27th, 2008 at 22:54
if you take squint hard enough, Edward could be the handsome version of Roger Federer…
Plain, wishful thinking!
November 28th, 2008 at 05:37
volume-addict is right.
Let The Right One In is one of the best films to come out this year. I’m on a mission to get everybody I know to watch it. It’s just so heartbreakingly beautiful and full of tender torment.
November 28th, 2008 at 07:23
Do you watch the new Alan Ball series on HBO “True Blood”? Twilight is but a hickie next to it. “True Blood” is one hymen-breaking m*f*.
November 28th, 2008 at 11:50
You know you’re not a fanboy when it’s the cafeteria scene and keep saying “Hey Philippine Flag!” MST3K-style whenever it shows up.
November 28th, 2008 at 15:48
it wasn’t that bad. haven’t finished the book yet but at least the 2 main characters weren’t annoying (bella was quite unsympathetic in the book, at least for me). my only complaints are that it wasn’t too erotic (but hey they’re fricking teenagers so maybe that’s a good thing), the action sequences were lame, and the musical scoring wasn’t very “cinematic”.
November 28th, 2008 at 21:48
I prefer the book than that of the movie. Books are always better than movies, I think so. So my advice, read the book first before watching.