The Twilight Saga: New Moon – Review

This weekend I took my wife to see a werewolf’s muscles … I mean … New Moon. I watched the first Twilight movie several months ago, and didn’t hate it. I wouldn’t watch it again, for the same reason I stopped watching Smallville – just too much teen angst mixed into the supernatural stew. I can only put up with so much without getting a distinctly bored taste in my mouth.

But for the woman I love, I can tolerate 2 hours of century-old vampires whose biggest worries in life are the safety and well-being of a puny human (seemingly because she is moderately attractive and has apparently just overcome a stutter – why else would she look like she’s concentrating so hard on every line she delivers?).

All in all, New Moon wasn’t horrible. I guess I’d give it 2 stars out of 5. There were a few good things about the movie – some of the camera work was quite good. But there were enough bad things going on that the overall effect was a little like watching a small town talent show. Some real talent adjacent to a lot of almost talent. And that goes across the board. I refuse to believe budget was a factor in the lousy wolf animation – it seems more like they just didn’t care enough.

I want to comment on the acting here. I don’t think Kristen Stewart is a good actress. I think they made a mistake when they cast her, and now they’re stuck. In fact, it seems like all the real talent in these movies is ending up in the sidelines, the minor parts. That being said, I think the whole story is unfair to its actors. The Harry Potter franchise is running into this same problem. You can’t place a 16-ton dramatic plot on the shoulders of unseasoned, young actors. I mean, if every person in the movie was a Dakota Fanning, we’d be just fine, but she’s one in a hundred million, so you end up with an unconvincing dramatic plot.

You could say that I’m being unfair – that the Twilight Saga is for teens, and teens don’t have as sophisticated a palette for drama. I think that’s selling teens a little short – but more than that, I feel I can judge a movie based on its actual audience, not only its intended audience. Twilight has a large adult following, so it should be an adult caliber franchise. I mean, even the teeny-boppers in the audience were busting a gut when they should have been weeping at one of Edward’s lines. It was a cheesy movie, not a dramatic one.

Also – and I know I’m drawing a line here – vampires don’t sparkle.

A Large, Black Hiccup … Among Other Things

I just wanted to explain the lack of content being posted here in the last couple of weeks.

My personal life has become somewhat busy. In addition to helping a friend of mine solidify some particulars about a fantasy world he has been building for about 5 years, I’ve started my own writing project – which I hope I will be able to discuss a little more here later on.

The biggest reason I’m not here is the unexpected house guest mentioned cryptically in the title of this post. Last Saturday my wife and I found out we were going to be bequeathed wit h Eddie, an enormous black lab. We already have two cats, and we live in a smallish 1-bedroom apartment. Our life is not currently designed to accommodate a large dog.

I’ll try to fire off a proper post later on today. I saw New Moon on the weekend, and I’m bursting with things to say about it.

ABC’s V (Series Premiere) – Review

The network inbreeding has been particularly noticeable this season. I first noticed a number of bit roll Heroes vets have moved into leading positions in NBC’s new hit musical series (who’d'a thunk it?) Glee!. Then I saw Flash Forward, featuring an occasional Lostie as a supporting female, and, much to my great joy, Dominic Monaghan, the beloved Charlie Pace of Lost, as the show’s face of evil. Whether he will remain the face of evil is up for grabs. After all – Noah Bennett was the face of evil on Heroes, and now he’s a lead protagonist.

But all that brings me to my point – another Lostie (with that series wrapping up in Spring, 2010) has found a home as a lead in V, ABC’s new sci-fi remake. Elizabeth Mitchell portrays single mom and anti-terrorist FBI agent Erica Evans.

Now, I’m all for remakes of old sci-fi movies and TV series – after all, Battlestar Galactica was (for the most part) an incredible piece of work. But therein lies the problem. I’ve been completely spoiled, and other attempts have not measured up in the least. I had high hopes for V, which have been somewhat tempered after watching the premiere. It’s no BSG, but it’s better than The Bionic Woman, so there’s hope.

If you’ve never heard of the original V series, the story is about the arrival of an advanced alien race to Earth. They call themselves The Visitors, and they appear human in almost every way. They spend a lot of effort making nice, and convincing the whole world they’re friendly and peaceful. A small group of humans seem to think that’s a crock of crap, and build an underground resistance.

The new version of the series has some notable changes to bring it into modernity. Most obvious is making Erica Evans a single mom. With her son joining the “Visitor Youth”, and herself joining the resistance, it should make for some interesting interplay in an already tense mother-son relationship. They have also brought in the concept of terrorism to feature heavily. Since the resistance is, for all intents and purposes, a terrorist group, the socio-political potential for this post-9-11 series are enormous. I hope they don’t screw it up.

So far, I’m loving the effects – and the acting is pretty good. The writing isn’t bad, but I don’t expect gold from a pilot episode – a TV series takes a little time to really find itself, after all.

I’m definitely going to keep watching. For now.

November is NaNoWriMo!

It’s (inter)NationalNovelWritingMonth!

I have never succeeded in writing a novel, though I’ve attempted it dozens, if not scores of times. The closest I ever came to actually finishing a draft was several years ago during the 3-Day Novel Contest. I had a house to myself, plenty of easy to eat food and coffee, no distractions, and the dedication of a dog to his master. Unfortunately, over a third of the way in to the draft early Sunday morning, the file became corrupted, irretrievably. It was a devastating blow to my confidence. Not even when I put my entire life aside, could I complete a novel. Since then I’ve never really made a serious attempt, though I’ve never stricken the possibility from my mind. I have preferred to stick to short stories and screenplays. I may yet write a novel – but I have no current plans.

That means I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo. But I have deep respect for those of you who are. I’d love to hear some of your reports on the experiences you’re having while working on your 30-day opus. You can leave a post in the comments below, or e-mail your NaNoWriMo anecdotes to me.

At the end of the month, provided I get some response to this, I’ll post a round-up of my favorite NaNoWriMo stories.

Good luck to all of you writers this month! I hope you all win.

Post-Halloween Photo Stream

Entries for my Post-Halloween Photo Contest are here!

Voting will begin on December 1st!

Send entries here!

First entry from Jade Thomson of Toronto, Ontario:

Post-Halloween Costume Contest

It seems that a lot of people have found this site by searching for “halloween costume photos”, when in fact there are none, because I neglected to snap any on Saturday night.

To appease those masses who are clamoring for photos, I have decided to hold a contest. Best Halloween costume photo wins a copy of this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just submit your photo and your name before November 30th. Voting will take place during the month of December and the winner will be contacted in the new year.

Submit your photo!

Why Would Anyone Want to Be in the Movies?

I was lying in bed last night, thinking about Apple computers. Yes, it’s an obsession that borders on illness and I’m seeing a therapist about it.

I was imagining various possible production methods for getting that metallic sheen just right on MacBook Pros and iMacs. That got me wondering just how many Macs does Apple make every day? (About 22,000, judging by their sales figures). Then I started thinking about the fact that there are never enough of any new Mac product available to meet the demand at a launch, which suggests that Apple tends to play it safe, betting conservatively on the popularity of any new product. Wise move.

In the movie biz, betting conservatively isn’t an option (well, it is, but then you either end up with something of poor quality, or something so artsy that nobody understands it, or, if you’re extremely talented, something brilliant that will make you a fortune – which is almost never the case). This is an industry where all the money has to be spent upfront, and then made back in ticket sales, ad revenue, merchandising, DVD sales, etc.

Using Apple’s safe betting model, a production company would write, cast, shoot, cut, print and release the first act of a movie, then wait to see how many people went to see it. Based on those figures, they’d budget shooting the rest of the movie. (This is what happens, to some extent with television.) But, really, who is going to go to the cinema to see 20 minutes of movie? Not me, and probably not you.

Countless films are made every year and many of them don’t make back their production costs – if your name hasn’t appeared in a puff piece lately, there’s no such thing as a sure bet. So why does anyone do it? Lottery ticket sales suggest that people chase impossible odds depending on the size of the payout, and that may be true in some cases. But I don’t think that’s the case.

I think movie-makers do it because of something that happened when they were four or five years old. Their dads took them to see their first movie, and the overwhelming feeling of magic they experienced never went away.

At least, that’s why I chase those impossible odds. Damn making safe bets. Leave that to businesspeople. I’m an artist.

World Beard Championships

While using Stumbleupon to careen wildly through cyberspace, I found this website. It is awesome.

Monsters Vs. Aliens – Review

I finally got around to seeing Monsters vs. Aliens. I wish I had taken the time to see it in 3D while it was in the theater. One character’s animation in particular, I imagine, would have been worth watching that way.  (I refer to B.O.B., the indestructible gelatinous mass.)

There are a few factors I consider when I watch a CGI movie like this one – most of them technical. The first thing I look for is the attention to detail in the rendering of the characters and scenery. Animation software has come a long way since Pixar’s Toy Story, and there is no excuse anymore for objects that shouldn’t be shiny, well, being shiny. Obviously a movie like M vs. A isn’t going to be photo-realistic. So far, since Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, that arena has been left to Robert Zemeckis. I only ask that skin looks like skin instead of plastic, and that hair be flowy, etc. Monsters vs. Aliens delivers. The texturing and lighting was top notch.

The other technical thing I want to see is convincing movement. Especially in human characters. Human gestures and locomotion should be natural, and in this movie, they are. In fact, I found myself considering the lead character, Susan (Ginormica), to be my new benchmark for animated movies that aren’t using Zemeckis’s motion capture tech.

Another must in a cartoon is humor. With a cast that included Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogan, Reese Witherspoon, Rainn Wilson, and Will Arnett, (with recurring cameo’s by Stephen Colbert) all comedic masters in their own rights, it was a sure win.

One thing, or rather one character, really bothered me though. The “love interest”, played by Paul Rudd (and I normally like him) just didn’t measure up. I found that the animators didn’t pay as much attention to him, so his movements seemed a little choppy, and Rudd’s performance was practically phoned in (and yes, I realize the irony of that statement when connected to a voice job).

The script was good, it made great use of the particular talents of each actor (except Rudd), and poked fun at itself enough for me to forgive a cliché plot device here and there.

If you haven’t already seen this one, go rent it. It’s worth watching, especially if you have kids – they’ll love it.

Halloween Costumes 2009 – Next year I’ll remember to take photos

Apparently the most popular person to impersonate this past All Hallows Eve was Lady Gaga. I was only out for about an hour and I saw no less than three young ladies dressed as controversial fashionista/musician. All three costumes were pretty good; one even had a disco ball scepter, which I thought was a nice touch. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I saw no Lady Gagas who ventured beyond a platinum blond wig and a lightning bolt over one eye. It would have been far more bold to dress in a coat of Kermits, body scarf which I can only assume was meant to inspire thoughts of Carrie, or, dare I suggest, the exploding Madonna bustier? Oh well, maybe next year.

I someone dressed as a cookie, which was pretty awesome, and also someone wearing a sandwich board rigged with LEDs to create a pixelated Defender sprite. I also saw a group of six girls, dressed as three pairs of twins.

But I have to say, the best costume I saw was a home-made Comedian get-up. The guy had the bushy mustache and everything.