Monday 16 November 2009

Twilight - What do I do now?

This was the big movie of the year ..right?? It's the new thing, the whole shebang, books and shit,....right??? Well maybe I'll watch it one day, but it's been on in the background for the last hour and nothing has made me look up from my laptop. Go figure.

4 comments:

Nick aka Puppet Angel said...

LOL - You so ain't the target audience for this, mate. Not unless you’re a fourteen-year-old hormone flushed girl. Or her mother.

I find this quite fascinating.

For some reason the whole Twilight thing - books for kids, specifically girls - has broken out of its target market to become the huge worldwide pop culture phenom it now is. A bit like Harry Potter I guess but an even tighter original demographic.

Over the summer I watched with great curiosity as every lunchtime one of my colleagues (a 44yr old woman) devoured the last of the books Breaking Dawn. She adores them and keeps trying to get me to read 'em as she knows I love me my supernatural/horror fiction. But I'm just not interested. Mainly because I did get around to seeing Twilight the movie and thought it was at best average with a pretty weak, shallow and uninspiring story. The cast were all fine - especially Kristen Stewart (who is actually a good actress) as Bella and Billy Burke (one of those 'I know that guy from stuff' actors) as her dad. But the vamps were such a dull and boring bunch. Except for Ashley Greene. She's very cute.

I don't mind admitting that I can occasionally be a soppy old romantic but I just couldn't buy in to the whole teen mopey romance thing here. It just didn't ring true. It's all so chaste and lifeless. The same thing (first love, forbidden love, a young girls journey to womanhood etc.) was done a hell of a lot better and more convincingly by a certain Mr Whedon in his own vastly superior vampire based tale more than ten years ago.

But having said all that I'm not a Twilight hater. I refuse to take part in that. As long as it makes people happy then that's cool.

Despite the first film being at best so so I'll probably get around to watching New Moon sometime as well. Mainly cuz its got werewolves in it. Okay...shitty looking CG werewolves maybe. But werewolves nonetheless. And I do love lycanthropes. Oh, and did I mention that Ashley Greene is very cute?

sickboy said...

Clearly a lot to say about a poor movie. I found it (what I saw at least), quite dark and dreary.

Hormonal girls and werewolfs. Well that's been done before and I think it worked quite well. Ginger Snaps anyone. Is there an original idea anywhere??????

Nick aka Puppet Angel said...

Nope. No original ideas, mate. This is Hollywood lets not forget. It's about demographics and known brands to be exploited. Creativity and orginal thinking comes waaaay down the line.

But these big book/movie pop culture phenoms fascinate me - especially after the whole Harry Potter thing completely passed me by. I'd never even heard of it until the first movie was in the cinemas. What is it in the collective mind that makes a certain book/series of books and then their movies become massively popular while others that are arguably far better (the ones I usually like) don't?

I like that you mentioned Ginger Snaps. Coincidentally I re-watched Ginger Snaps 1 & 2 last week after seeing Jennifer's Body - a film that has far more in common with Ginger Snaps than Twilight does. Ginger Snaps is brilliant! Love it. And Ginger Snaps 2 is pretty darn good as well.

Rob said...

I'd just like to say, I AM a Twilight hater.

I absolutely insist on taking part in that.

It totally makes me happy, which is cool.

Seriously now, bordom is the worst sin a movie can inflict on it's audience. And while I may not be it's target audience, I was bored into the seventh level of a mystical Chinese hell. Awful.