New Moon Midnight Madness

If you hit the comfort of your bed between 3am and 4am this morning, you might have just been someone out past closing time at your local Cheers bar or perhaps you were just someone who got lost in the excellent choices of Thursday night television over at a friends place - but most likely you were actually a die-hard Twi-hard, just getting out of one of the multiple midnight showings of New Moon. If you were of the latter, then you should have been pleasantly surprised to find that having to wait all night for the comfort of your bed was, many times over, worth the wait (unlike the last time that you might have put forth the effort to see a midnight showing of another certain vampire themed love story).

Late last night, gaggles of twittering, giggling teenage girls piled into the multiple theaters at the Atlantic Station Regal that would house the premiere of New Moon. They began to fill the seats around nine o'clock, the most hardcore of the fans arriving hours early in order to procure the perfect seating arrangement for the special event. The proceeding hours were spent gossiping about Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, swooning over thoughts of Taylor Lautner's chiseled abs and debating the pros and cons of Team Edward verses Team Jacob. High school students, grad students and adults who should know better, from all over the Atlanta area, came together to celebrate their love/obsession for everything Twilight - and let's face it, that's pretty much just Edward. Morgan King (18), Brein Millea (19), and Kiersten Smith (18) were just one of several groups of girls that arrived at the theater early enough to claim some prized front-and-center seats. They confessed to being all Team Edward but differed on their opinions on the much-criticized Twilight. "I loved it because I'm a true fan...A lot of people think that the movie sucked because it didn't do the books justice but I think that if you love the characters, you love the movie anyway", Morgan argued. Brein and Kiersten had slightly different thoughts on the first film. "The acting, we thought the acting was quite comical but we still enjoyed it. We still had fun. It was just more hysterical laughing, most of it". No matter their differing opinions on Twilight, they could all agree upon their excitement about seeing New Moon. "There's a different director right, so I think that it's going to improve and I'm looking forward to that", Brein and Kiersten agree.

A slightly older group of women could be found a couple rows up. Twilight Mom Gina Roche (39) and sisters Tina (24) and Katie Hrinda (24), all Atlanta locals (and incidentally all Team Edward), took time away from their smartly packed Twilight-themed crosswords and word-searches to discuss the merits and downfalls of having read the novels before seeing the films. "I was not a huge fan [of Twilight]. I was slightly disappointed but I loved the books so much, I think that had a large part to do with it", Tina said. However, she is was still very excited about seeing New Moon. "It looks like they did a much better job on it". Katie agrees wholeheartedly with her sister. "I was not a fan of the first movie. It was very disappointing." Katie is taking a unique approach to the viewing of New Moon. "I'm trying not to be too excited so I won't be disappointed if it's not good", she reasons. Gina, mostly likely one of the very few in the crowd who has not read the books, had a very different opinion on the first movie. "Because I did not read the books, my perspective is, I loved it! But if I read the books, I would be interested to see how I felt afterwards".

As for the film itself, shockingly after the quality of the first movie, it was a stirring and quite thrilling ride, even for those who already knew all the twists and turns. Under the gentle and knowledgeable ministrations of director Chris Weitz, the acting was elevated several notches from the previous film's performances, which was extremely helpful in taking down the level of cheese and corniness and allowing for more time to "ooohhh" and "ahhhh" instead of giggling uncontrollably. Most prominent in the improvement area were the three main actors, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and young Taylor Lautner. Lautner, though young and still in need of some polishing, gave both an uplifting and heartbreaking performance as Jacob Black. Not only did he obviously train physically to keep his role, he also proved to be someone worth watching over the next few years, showing that he has what it takes to become an excellent and versatile actor. Stewart and Pattinson also both showed signs of having got to know their characters on a much deeper level than for Twilight. Stewart's Bella was much warmer and much more accessible in this film and Pattinson proved Edward could be more than what the swooning girls force him to be, which is merely an objectified sexual being. As for the developing relationship between Bella and Jacob, Weitz's tendency towards close-ups and medium close-ups gave the audience an intimate and emotional view of their story - most likely with the effect of giving those of Team Edward a moment of doubt over their chosen alliance.

All in all, the film was far more enjoyable than its predecessor and certainly worth missing bedtime for. Feel differently or want to throw your weight into the yay-New Moon camp? Make your opinions heard below.

Review: 2012

Roger Ebert once wrote, "A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that." Now, I'm not saying that Ebert is wrong. On the contrary, I completely agree with this statement. But Ebert has always been very close-minded when it comes to movies. He tends to wear his Snob-Goggles while watching films, which leaves very little good opinion for "action pictures", as he says. All great, Oscar-worthy films tell a capturing and emotional story (ie, see A Beautiful Mind, Million Dollar Baby, No Country for Old Men, etc) but that does not necessarily mean that every capturing and emotional story will always be Oscar-worthy. A good story doesn't have to be complex, nor does it have to parallel the current state of our country or be dubbed "a true story". In fact, I am of the opinion that a good story, a good film, is one that instead does the opposite - or at the very least shows us how very much worse (or better, for that matter) our situation could be. 2012 does that, and is therefore, in my humble estimation, a good film.

I have always enjoyed Roland Emmerich's films. Independence Day is a complete, brilliant classic and you should probably back away slowly from anyone that tells you different. He's had some misses; don't even get me started on Godzilla and though I never saw 10,000 B.C., I did not hear great things. But I thoroughly enjoyed The Day After Tomorrow, perhaps even more so than 2012. That could have just been due to the movie's Gyllenhaal-shaped eye-candy, but 2012's yummy Russian pilot certainly held his own in the in that particular department. All in all, I would say that Emmerich's love for world-ending disasters is not a bad or far-too-repetitive thing, as some have claimed, but rather a great thing for those of us movie-goers who enjoy watching a intense three hours of our world going to shit. And it was a fun three hours. In fact, though I was sure I would need at least two bathroom breaks for such a lengthy film, I was far too enthralled with 10,000-feet tall tidal waves and with Yellowstone blowing it's top while the always-appreciated Woody Harrelson provided much-needed comic relief. I did not once get bored and my eyes were unceasingly and willingly glued to the canvas of destruction that was in front of me. They even teared up a couple times, I'm ashamed to admit.

This is not a spectacle film with no real, genuine story attached to it. This is spectacle film that portrays a world-shattering event and with some surprisingly smooth storytelling, follows around a few, very different individuals through that event. It is a very effect method, one that many other films have followed in the past, to show different angles of the same story. See, not all effect-heavy films are without a good story to give them credit. 2012 may not have offered up a great or original story, but it was a good story.

The point, along with the fact that this movie IS worth seeing in theaters, is that you do not have to walk out of every movie a better or different person than when you walked in. You don't have to remember the movie for the rest of your life - or even until the following day. A great movie doesn't have to be Oscar material to fulfill the purpose that movies have have since The Great Train Robbery in 1903; to entertain, to provide escape, to tell a story, to thrill an otherwise thrill-less audience. 2012 serves these purposes - John Cusack is just an added bonus.

Joss Whedon's Letter to the Terminator Owners

I'm not really sure how anyone can not love and adore Joss Whedon, but just in case you are one of those dumbos, just take a little look at this Open Letter to the Terminator Owners that Joss wrote on Whedenesque yesterday. This is honest to goodness genius stuff people, and he just pulls it right out of his genius a**. I could not even DREAM about being as bada** as this man is. I know you hear my praises for Joss a little too often and maybe I should tone it down a notch...but really...why? I'm not the only person with eyes wide open that sees him for what he really is; a god in geek clothing. No joke. I'm pretty sure the Greeks even had a very specific god that was actually Joss Whedon. Not a god that moved mountains or controlled the sea or fell down on unsuspecting, beautiful mortal women as a shower of rain and impregnated them, to the horror and shame of their mortal husbands. No, this was a god that entertained, a god that moved people, not mountains or oceans. Not a god that worshipped wine and scantily-clad women, but a god that worshipped the light and dark of humanity and strangely-clad lesbian women. I'm almost 99% sure that there was a god just like that up on Mount Olympus...they just forgot to add him into our mythology textbooks. Which is a horrible misdeed, if you ask me.

Luckily, the world took pity on those that have come after the times of Greek gods and though beautiful mortal women will only have to explain the normal suspicious pregnancy to their husbands and not the god-like kind, we have been sent the real Joss Whedon; a modern day Geek (not to be confused with Greek) God to brighten up our lives, to move us as easily as Zeus moved mountains and Poseidon moved the sea.

And if that doesn't convince you, he would also give Christan Bale's John Conner a throat lozenge. Because we all know he REALLY needed one.

Check out Joss Whedon's comments about his "letter" here.