Saturday, November 22, 2008

the twilight zone

Seeing Twilight last night was an interesting affair. I got to the theater at 6:00 pm for our 7:15 show. I have been to enough opening nights for Harry Potter movies to know that the line forms early. As I stood in line, keeping place for my friends (Christina, Meredith, Jill and her daughter Julia), I had ample time to people watch. The group of teenage girls in front of me had homemade Twilight shirts on- actually probably 89% of the girls in line had Twilight shirts on. They were constantly shrieking over one thing or another. One even tried leading the crowd in a "Twilight! Twilight!" chant- cruise director style. She was quickly berated by the theater manager and went back to the line screetching over Edward and Jacob.
Once we finally made it into the theater we settled in for a good 30 minutes of previews - one of which was a terrifying extended-length preview for a horror movie (but that is a topic for its very own blog sometime). The group of teenagers sitting behind us actually included one of the three boys in the theater. The girl next to him announced loudly several times that their engagement was off because she was in love with Jasper. Throughout the movie this group repeatedly made comments that had Jill and I in stitches.
The movie itself was good, not great, althought the girls in line (who had been to the midnight showing already) had proclaimed it the best movie ever! I liked it but I think, like Breaking Dawn, it grows on you with repetition. I actually liked all of the actors in their roles, with the exception of Jasper. Even Robert Pattinson grew on me as Edward although Christina and I agree that he should have acted a little less high school and a little more like a 100+ year old vampire with some experience and confidence, you know, mature. The movie had some really funny moments and some great one liners... along with the cheesey ones of course. I especially liked Alice, Esme, Carlyle, Emmett, Angela, Jacob, Billy, James, Victoria...pretty much everyone. The director should have gone with about half as many close-ups as she had though. They made it more cheesey than it should have been. There were also some very awkward shots in the beginning.
After the movie we went to a little Italian restaurant for dessert. Yum. Coincidently, the restaurant had a mural inside painted by Edward someone and had the name Bel in the name. We all got a kick out of that. Over Tartufo, Bomba and a Napoleon we dissected the movie and discussed our anticipation for the next one.
Anyway, I plan on watching the movie again, maybe in the theater but probably when it comes out on DVD. I think experiencing it without all of the screams, sighs, and giggles of the teenage crowd I will appreciate it all the more. I have been thinking about it a lot though-- in fact I had a hard time falling asleep last night when I got home. And of course, James woke up with croup around 3 am and didn't go back to sleep for a couple of hours...
Perhaps tomorrow I will write a more coherent, less sleep deprived review but probably not.

1 comment:

Jamie said...

I agree about the movie. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I thought it had a great supporting cast, and I actually loved Jasper's facial expressions. You could tell he was in pain. I'm not sure how I feel about Edward, Jacob, and Bella's actors though. I want to see more of Emmett. Gavin does not want me to see more of Emmett! I was disappointed with the meadow scene, they just stared at each other and I thought that was a really important part of the book. I am hoping the movies will get better as they all continue to work together.