Before we begin, if you have not read the books, you should buy/borrow/shoplift them now because they are amazing and the movies can only dream of being in their shadow, in terms of awesomeness.
other series/movies
Well, I didn’t want to and I didn’t have to but it ended up happening anyway–I watched all eight seasons of Monk. I mean that as no disparagement of the show; I like it and I’ve watched it in the past…it’s just that I’ve seen it relatively recently and didn’t want to sit through it again. But a few weeks ago, in a bout of severe insomnia, I popped in a disc thinking the upbeat voices and music would lull me into sleep and well, eight seasons later, here I sit. It’s like if you’ve ever come home from work and you’re so freaking tired and annoyed and you sit down in front of the TV with an old bag of potato chips you haven’t tried yet and, you’re not enjoying them, but you have a few anyway before deciding to try something else. Only, everything else is in the kitchen and that’s at least twenty feet away. And so, even though they’re neither nutritious nor tasty, you eat the whole damn bag of chips anyway. And you’re still hungry and you’re still desperate and no one is watching so you even lick the damn foil when there’s nothing left. That’s what this marathon session felt like to me. I didn’t want it, need it, or benefit from it, but I was just too tired to stop.
I’m not going to write some long treatise on Monk. This is more some random thoughts and opinions I have on the show as a whole, written in the most elegant style possible: bullet-point style! So, just some general notes.
- I thought they made really good use of their guest stars. I mean, you recognized them, but the roles weren’t written for them with winks and nods or anything. They were just well-written roles. I was especially pleased with Andy Richter as Monk’s man-crush; I guess that would be my top choice this time around. Least favorite would probably be Tim Daley playing….Tim Daley. Not bad, just least favorite. So Sharona thinks his playing a hit-man would go against his nice guy image and be a turn off, he’s happy for the advice and rejects the part, then George Clooney gets it and he’s mad at Sharona? Playing a violent hit-man would still go against his type, I don’t know why we (figuratively) get the whum-whaaamp trumpets of comic whoops. I was also disappointed by Richard Schiff’s turn, just because he was only in one scene and I would like to have seen more of him.
- It was also cool to rewatch the show because some people who were not famous originally (to me, at least), are now very recognizable. Dwight! Richard! Claire! That hobbit guy! Michael! Coach Sue!
- Michael Richards was originally supposed to be Monk. It might be unfair of me, after all, I only know him as Kramer, but for the life of me I don’t think he’d bring a tenth of the humor, the subtly, the pathos or the innocence that Tony Shalhoub brought to the role.
- Natalie’s back story–while plausible–seems a bit much. Raised as a super-wealthy Davenport heiress, she revolted and married an upstanding but humble Navy Fighter Pilot. At the same time, she dealt black jack in Vegas and developed a really bad gambling problem. She also threw a man out the window in Vermont to defend a friend and spent time in a jail for it. Also, she was an exchange student in Greece and became a sometimes-nudist there. And her teenage daughter doesn’t seem to know a lot of this. This biography is, of course, possible, but after such an interesting and varied life it seems a bit sadder to see it reduced to being Monk’s girl Friday, handing him wipes and being on call 24/7 for all his (often childish) needs. Continue Reading
Here’s the new Breaking Dawn part II trailer:
Okay, is there anyone out there who eagerly awaits the films because they enjoy them unironically, and also haven’t read the books? I can’t imagine the group is very large, but for those three of you in existence: spoilers! Okay, so Twilight part 5’s success will have almost nothing to do with marketing, because those who go because they love to laugh and hate won’t be deterred by bad marketing, and fans of the books already know whether or not they want to see ‘the-one-where-the-love-triangle-is-resolved-via-pedophilia’. But for unspoiled people in that small group…I would be so disappointed if I went into the theater expecting what the trailer offered only for the movie to be like “j/k, there won’t be any actual fighting in this film; enjoy our multicultural vampires, product placement, and domestic bliss though. Oh, and also, Jacob will no longer appear shirtless.”
And I might be the only person I know who liked the anti-climactic ending to the fourth book. But the difference between book and film is that the released information for the book didn’t resolve around the idea of some epic throw-down between the Cullens and the Volturi, and so you didn’t spend the months of pre-release tension expecting the book to have a plot that just doesn’t happen. A quick reader can knock these books out in a day, so it’s just the length of time it takes for maybe 200 or so pages to anticipate a smack down that doesn’t come. And so I think it’s really more following where the story ends up taking you, rather than being tricked. I think.
And of course, it’s good it ends where it does, because, since the Volturi were able to maintain their global power over all vampires for a millennium they’d have to be pretty efficient at wiping out opposing groups, and so if they lost to a band of vegetarian vampires they’d be completely undermined as antagonists. And though their winning would be more realistic, death, desolation and despair for our main characters would be the most thematically incongruous ending ever for the most wish-fulfillmenty ever series I’ve ever encountered (I added all the ‘evers’ because it’s a saga; hyperbole’s invited). Also, if the Cullens won that would leave a huge power vacuum in the global vampire community, and watching different groups trying to fill that void (à la drug cartels or the mafia) would be an actual interesting story, and so there being no fifth book to cover it would be really irritating.
But I do ramble on. And I don’t know why I’m being so serious when I’m the kind of viewer who enjoys Twilight more unironically than I’d like, but still, I primarily go for the LULZ. But here’s the thing: the strong, vital core of the series is the all-consuming, eternal love shared by these two weird people. And (so long as you like them to begin with), the books do a great job sucking you into this relationship that doesn’t hold up to reality, kind of like a potent opium dream. So why the bells and whistles in the marketing? There are more frames of new people than there are of Bella, Edward, or the two of them all put together. If you didn’t know anything about the series I doubt you’d have any guess that it was the conclusion to the most demented love story of our times. Which would be fine if there were actual action in the movie; there were some previews of Titanic that revolved entirely around the violence and action and pain of the sinking and barely acknowledged Rose and Jack. But Titanic actually was an action story as well as a love story. Breaking Dawn isn’t.
I want to see their stupid magic house. I want to see Edward “chivalrously” offer Bella the neck of his deer. I want to see the corniness of their splendiferous perfection. In short, I want what New Moon promised for us. I want this:
Anyway, I predict that this movie will make roughly one bergillion dollars.
And, may it please, please end in the always awesome words of Cleolinda Jones:
…it was the best series starting with a teenage girl in love with a mysterious boy in her class that ended up with a teenage girl defending her growth-accelerated mutant hybrid baby from an ancient clan of evil vampires with her magical psychic shield that I ever read, THE END.
And now for some very random thoughts about the trailer:
- This is the Volturi in their every day robes. I really hope they flew a commercial airline on their 12-hour flight to Washington because that shiz would be hilarious.
- What in the hell are the makeup people doing to Michael Sheen? He goes from looking like this in the second movie:
Aro in New Moon
To this in the fifth:
Aro in Breaking Dawn II
- I might be alone but I think Kristin Stewart looks very pretty in the vampire makeup. Mind you, the difference is negligible, like when Emma Watson was supposed to be homely in the beginning of Goblet of Fire and stunning after her makeover, but still.
- Once upon a time Maggie Grace and Ian Somerhalder played brother/sister on the very famous hit show Lost. Now Maggie Grace plays a very minor, plot-devicey character in a Twilight flick and Somerhalder plays most people’s favorite vampire from The Vampire Diaries. But I guess they both win, because neither have to wake up and be Matthew Fox.
- For some reason, the Jacob-Renesmee love affair looks much less creepy when Jacob is an oversized canine. I’m not sure why. But I recommend he transform for any scenes the two share. Also, I’m not Team Jacob but I would be so, SO pissed if I had invested my energy in him and he ended up mooning over the mutant baby.
- Are they seriously not going to show Taylor Lautner shirtless once? And just put him in skin-colored shirts? What does this mean?
The Bloody Details 