Review – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (Part I)

In Breaking Dawn, Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) get married, go on their honeymoon and piss off the Werewolves when Bella gets pregnant on her wedding night.  I have so many problems with this film and it’s only salvation is that the last half of the movie is mildly interesting.

Before the wedding Edward confesses that he used to kill people for their blood.  Bella isn’t remotely fazed by this news and shakes it off because he was killing murderers (“You probably saved more lives than you took.”)  So Bella is pro-vigilante/capital punishment.  On their wedding night, Bella and Edward have violent sex that leaves Bella severely bruised all over her body.  But she doesn’t seem to care because she thought the sex was amazing.  I’m not going to judge if she likes it rough, but I had a problem with it.  I think domestic abuse is a serious problem and by rationalizing the bruises by saying “it’s okay because I know he really loves me” is not a healthy or appropriate response.

One last complaint, and I’ll move on.  Abortion.  (Quite a heavy topic for a movie/book aimed at pre-teens).  After discovering that surprise – a vampire can apparently get a human pregnant, there is a great debate about whether or not the “fetus” should live.  It’s a demon, it could kill Bella, etc etc are all reasons why Edward and others want Bella to abort the baby.  But no, Bella feels a “connection” to the baby and would die for it.  Oy vey.

It’s probably hard to make a movie when the source material is bad.  I thought Stewart and Pattinson were okay, but I could never stand Lautner (it only took 5 seconds into the movie for him to take his shirt off).  The wedding and honeymoon scenes were corny and underwhelming, but I really thought the last half was fairly interesting.  A lot of good things happened at the end, and some of the characters who used to be bumps on a log stepped up and actually did something.  Overall, I’ll be glad when this series is over.

Grade: D

 

Poor Boo-Boo

Terror

This is going up my nose.

Lamest Gone Elsewhere Exclusive® ever: MGM prepping ‘Legally Blonde’ prequel

The Platinum Menace?

Following in the footsteps of other…things people have made…MGM is developing a prequel to the 2001 hit Legally Blonde, focusing on the teenage years of Reese Witherspoon’s Elle Woods.

April Blair (Gummo*) is the writer. Blair’s recent credits include the Jessica Simpson Iraq War drama, Major Movie Star.

The original Legally Blonde was a critical and commercial success, raking in nearly 100 million domestically.  Witherspoon returned two years later for a follow-up, but we’re going to pretend that didn’t happen.

The actress recently produced a second sequel called Legally Blondes (like Aliens, but scarier) that’s due for release this Summer.  That installment is directed by ‘Savage’ Steve Holland (One Crazy Summer, Better off Dead) from a script by Chad and Dara Creasey (Pushing Daises).

The original film also spawned a fairly successful musical that ran on Broadway for almost two years.  It’s currently touring nationwide.

Trivia: the working title of the film is Legally Blonde: Think Pink.  I believe there are, at minimum, seven adult features with the same name.  Expect lawsuits aplenty to emanate from the San Fernando Valley as this inches towards release.

* Ok, Blair was only a Post Production Assistant on Gummo but I had to credit her that way.

Only in Sweden

On April 2-3 the University of Dalarna will hold the annual Existential Film Festival, to discuss whether there is a rise in unhappy endings in modern cinema and its possible causes. The theme of this year’s festival will be “Collapse and Renewal”

Translated from the festival webpage. (Bold text mine)

We think we see a clear trend in which happy endings on the screen are increasingly overshadowed by a dark perspective; No Happy End. Is cinema in this manner reflecting a growing desorientation and confusion in the present, a lack of confidence and a sense of imminent collapse?

We see signs of disruptive forces in the western way of life. A growing climate crisis, a slow and inexorable threat to human civilization, demonstrated in such films as The Planet and WALL-E. A small, growing, super-rich elite, anxious and entrenched behind walls and a rising anger among those outside of La Zona or at The Edge of Heaven. Even films that affect human collapse where humanity and compassion is challenged, as in The Secret Life of Words or Young Freud in Gaza. And how do we respond to this? With inertia and apathy? Or with the mobilization and re-orientation?

Good to see my countrymen continuing to lift spirits after the death of Bergman.

Oi, Lady, We Was Here First

http://goneelsewhere.blogspot.com/

She’s just gonna have to give it up.

Because Walking is So Hard

The Toyota Winglet, the new “Segway killer.”

Trailer for Frank Miller’s Feature-Length Calvin Klein ‘Obession’ Commercial

The co-Director of Sin City + The visual style of that film and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow + Lionsgate + Dick Tracy style characters + Tight-looking budget + ScarJo’s eye for quality + Samuel L. Jackson =

UPDATE: All copies of the trailer have been removed from YouTube.  You can still find a non-embedded version HERE.

No way, no how, not with a gun to my head.

It’s going to be a long Fall.

Because you demanded it: Larry Clark’s ‘Candy Land’

Fresh off the success of their Paramount GI Joe/Transformers deal, toy manufacturer Hasbro just signed a long-term agreement with Universal to develop more…stuff:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hasbro Inc on Wednesday said it signed a six-year deal with Universal Pictures for the film company to make at least four movies based on well-known games like Monopoly, Battleship, Candy Land and Ouija.

The first movie from the deal is to be released in either 2010 or 2011, with Universal releasing at least one film per year thereafter, the companies said.

Of the properties mentioned: I would agree that there’s certainly a story revolving around Ouija boards to be told, although I’m not sure if blowing the dough on a licensed Hasbro-branded version is worth it.

Update: According to Variety, Monopoly might be a Ridley Scott film. I don’t know what to say…

Aw, smurf no. It’s the smurfing smurfs

Hell freezes over.