Monday, November 30, 2009

New Moon: sparkling young flesh on parade

New Moon was number one at the box office for a second week in a row and I kind of contributed to that. Technically, I did not pay to see the movie since a friend kindly provided a movie pass but I was in the audience, and, boy, did I have a good time! I laughed until I cried.

I had fears for my safety when I saw the pack of tween girls unloading from a stretch limo outside the cinema but the 9:30pm showing proved to be the smart choice. Half the audience in attendance were also treating the movie as a comedy, including a group who cackled loudly even when the only thing on screen was a character standing in a field, while the other half were probably fans of the series who were too ashamed to express outrage. Nevertheless, we sat in the back row to prevent anonymous vigilante justice from coming down on our heads.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) continues to be the worst literary role model for young girls as she spends the whole movie either pining after pedophile vampire, Edward (Robert Pattinson), or sending mixed messages to underage werewolf, Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Ageism is added to Bella's many neuroses on her 18th birthday as she expresses fear of looking like a "grandma" to the perpetual 17 year old, Edward or acting the "cougar" to the 16 year old Jacob.

New Moon takes any cheap opportunity to have an overly ripe Lautner parade around topless: a cut to the head, a heavy rain shower, joining a pack of werewolves. The fact that the movie sexually objectifies men would be refreshing if Lautner was not truly 16 years old, thereby making any viewer over the age of 19 feel like a pedophile. The alternative is Pattinson, a safe 23 years old, but whose skinny, pale chest drew sounds of pity rather than desire from the audience.

I will admit that the bigger budget is reflected in a better looking movie, but more importantly, New Moon exceeded my expectations, which after the first movie, were quite high. The second installment delivers all the inane conversation and psychotic wish fulfillment of the first one but adds young flesh and romantic suicide to its list of goodies. How can anyone hate this series?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fabulous review! I've only read the first book and watched the first movie. I ended it there. The book (which was my first exposure to the series) was great. I then ruined it by seeing the movie.

K, did anyone else bust out laughing when Bella walked into science class and was seated next to Edward, who looked like he was about to puke at the very sight of her?

celestialspeedster said...

I was first exposed to the science class scene through the MTV Movie Awards parody so it wasn't until I actually saw the film that I realized you can't parody comedy.

Half the fun of the Twilight series are the fans. My Life is Twilight is like a webisode companion to the movies and books. Malene Arpe highlights some of the best comments. My favourite:
"Today I was re-watching a favorite episode of Eleventh Hour: Dr. Hood saves a woman's baby. She then tells him that they were thinking about calling him Edward, but now she's pretty sure she prefers Jacob. I excitedly reminded my cat that that was a Twilight reference."

Dangard Ace said...

All I've got to say. :p

http://applegeeks.com/comics/issue552.jpg