I have this really specific idea of what I want my future life to look like.  It involves seeing a lot of movies.  Like, every good movie that comes out.  In the theater.  But the reality is that I almost never go to the movies and when I do, it’s usually to see something I know will be bad, because we make an event out of it with themed food and alcohol.

I don’t know when I expect this future movie-going life to begin.  I guess when I’m not so busy, but I have the feeling I will always be busy.  I like being busy.  The answer is probably never or when there’s someone in my life who regularly suggests we see that awesome movie that just came out and also buys me popcorn.  Or nachos.  And Red Vines.

Something about turning 27 made me think I should probably stop putting off the things I want to do for that imaginary point in the future where they magically come together.  Of the many things that fall into this category, watching movies is pretty low on the list, but it’s not really about the movies.  It’s the life that regularly going to see movies might be a part of.  One in which I’m not constantly thinking of all the other things I should be doing.  One in which I don’t work late most nights.  One in which lazy Sundays are a real thing.

So it’s not only about the movies, but I really do want to see more of them.

Several months ago, I made a goal to watch one movie a week at home. This Summer (perhaps because I have no idea what to do with evenings not spent working) I have been watching many more than that.   I no longer have the ability to do only one thing at a time, so my laptop is usually on my lap, but to keep myself focused, I sit right in front of the TV and turn all the lights off (this did not seem like weird behavior until I wrote it out).  It’s like I’m in a theater, but the screen is much smaller and I can pause at any time.

Because I like goals and a clear direction, I set out right away with the plan to watch every Coen Brothers movie.  I need things to talk about at those cocktail parties I never go to, you know?

Spoiler free.  And not really a review at all. I always recommend seeing and reading for yourself.

So I read Never Let Me Go and then I watched the movie.  Controversial statement: I liked the movie better.  At least I did at first; I grow less sure the more I think about it.  The plot was the same, but the tone was so different.

The movie is beautiful and dynamic.  It has so much feeling.  It is incredibly sad.  The book is far more understated, but somehow so much more tragic. Big feelings are sweeping and simple, but real feeling is so mixed with apathy and uncertainty and defensiveness that too often things don’t work out the way they should.

What the book does so well is show how the smallest moment can have such a major impact on a relationship.  One conversation can set something in motion that will change everything.  And so often you can’t even see it happening.  Or you don’t believe things can be different than they always have been.  So you let it happen.

“It never occurred to me that our lives, until then so closely interwoven could unravel and separate over a thing like that. But the fact was, I suppose, there were powerful tides tugging us apart by then, and it only needed something like that to finish the task. If we’d understood that back then—who knows?—maybe we’d have kept a tighter hold of one another.”

It makes me think of the friendships I had and lost in that awkward transition from Elementary School to Middle School.  I had really good friends in Elementary School.  Smart and kind girls who never let me down; the worst I can say about them is that they used to tease me for zoning out and staring off into space.  I wasn’t that great in school and they were all in a gifted program.  Their parents were happily married and mine were bitterly divorced.  But they never made me feel any of those differences.

Then we got to Middle School and things slowly fell apart.  My best friend went to another school. The rest of us were in different classes and we started meeting new people.   I became friends with a girl who let me down and I was too slow to forgive her, because all I knew of friendship was people who never would have hurt my feelings like that.  One conversation in the morning before school out where the buses parked and that friendship was over, and it weirdly changed the direction of my life, because I didn’t have my new friends and I didn’t really have my old friends either, so I turned my attention to being a good student instead.

It only makes me sad when I stop and look back.  I don’t think of the connections I have with people being that fragile.   But, those girls from Elementary School could have been lifelong friends and now the only one I speak to is the one who went to a different school and then moved a thousand miles away (really, the friendship that seemed least likely to survive).  And I don’t really wish to reconnect with them now, but I do wonder how things might have gone if I’d fought to keep us all from drifting apart the way we did.

When it’s happening, you can’t see clearly. You don’t know it’s the end.  And maybe it’s better to let some people go.

I really never expected to be a Jane Austen girl.  I’m cynical, I hate flowery language, and I’m terrified of marriage.  The first time I picked up a copy of Pride and Prejudice I was in middle school and I couldn’t even get through the first few pages.  It seemed like it was written in another language.

I didn’t bother again with Jane Austen until my junior year of college when I had to read Sense and Sensibility for a class on 18th Century Literature.  I was struck.  There’s this kind of dignified desperation to so many of Jane Austen’s characters that just speaks directly to me.

It’s not the fancy dresses or the proper greetings.  Or perfect Mr. Darcy, because if you notice, he’s socially awkward and he messes everything up pretty badly.  I don’t know precisely what it is.   I could talk about the characters for ages and still not properly articulate why they mean so much to me.

The film adaptations succeed so well at capturing the magic.  I started again with Sense and Sensibility and then I was stuck for a long time on the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth (the man can wear a sweater), and soon after that the new version of Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly and Matthew Macfayden came along.

I remember a professor I had in undergrad telling us about a friend of hers who, whenever she had a bad day, would put in her tapes of the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice to calm herself down.  I have the same emotional dependence on the newer version.  It doesn’t just make me happy.  It makes me sad too.  It injects some magic into my life.

I watched it last night for the first time in a while and at the words, “Netherfield Park is let at last,” I was already swept away.  But, it broke my heart too, because the happy ending doesn’t devalue all the pain and uncertaintly it takes to get there.

I was going to start this post by saying I’ve never described anything as transcendent before, but then I remembered that I study theology, so I talk about the transcendence (and immanence) of God all the damn time. But, I’m not talking about God now. I’m talking about art in its many forms.

I’ve thought a lot about the transcendent quality of movies before. They have this way of not just taking me somewhere else, but putting me in a place where I can look at my own life from an angle I’m not used to. It’s a different perspective and it’s new every time.

When I watch movies in a theater, at a certain point, I often find myself staring at the screen, but thinking of my life and all the things I want to do. Somehow watching the lives of other people play out makes me want to do more with my own.

I had this experience again a couple weeks ago when I went to see Up In The Air. It’s not like the movie made me think to myself, “I want to be an expert traveler like Ryan Bingham” or I could see myself in the story arc of Natalie. It’s nothing literal. But, as I was in the movie, I had a strange feeling and when I left, life looked differently than when I walked in. It occurred to me that I could live differently than I do.

I often experience music this same way. It doesn’t happen always, but sometimes when I’m listening to Simon and Garfunkel, every line makes me think of a hundred different things that are all immediately relevant to my life.

It’s the reason fiction meant so much to me growing up.

It’s not just the art itself. It’s also the experience of the person producing it. There’s something very moving about realizing this thing that seems so impressive that it possesses a transcendent quality was produced by regular people. We can all do the same.

Usually the feeling is fleeting. It’s not mine to hold onto, but a part of it stays with me, complicating the way I see the world and my place in it.

But, please, you know it wasn’t me.  They’re both adorable, but given my choice of the older, colder, and more serious emo one or the younger, more energetic, angsty one, you know I’m going to make the boring choice.  It’s Edward for me.  Lisa is the one who’s had a change of heart.  I think it was the muscles that got to her, because at one point during the movie she leaned over to say, “His abs are awesome.”

I love Twilight for the same reason I love cheesy action movies and pop music: it’s so much fun.  “Insanely fun,” as John Green put it. I flipped through those pages like I was under a spell.  I got several friends to read them too.  And then we got to look forward to the movie.  And then we got to see the movie and cheer along with everyone in the theater when Edward first appeared.  And then we got to talk about how embarrassingly bad the movie was as we watched it over again.  And then we got to make our plans to see New Moon: Saturday, in celebration of Lisa’s birthday, and following some food and drinks (to ease my second-hand embarrassment for all the awkwardness).

Lisa and I stopped exchanging gifts years ago, but when I went looking for cards and came across a Twilight one, I couldn’t resist.  I might have thought twice if I’d known it would lead to an awkward conversation in the check out lane where I would pretend to know a great deal less about Twilight than I actually do.  I guess I have some shame after all.

My expectations for the first movie were really low and yet I still managed to be disappointed.  This time I had almost no expectations, because I haven’t paid much attention to Twilight in the last year, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I’d had a lot of cherry vodka, so I might need to watch it again to be sure, but I think I really liked it.  The quality was better, the acting was better, and it was funny–surprisingly, surprisingly funny.  The kids from school, especially.   I probably wouldn’t recommend the movie to someone who wasn’t already a fan, but at least this one was a joy to watch.

I haven’t picked up New Moon since I finished reading it a year and a half ago, but I actually really like the plot.  I totally bought the idea that he would leave her, thinking it was the right thing to do, and that she would be that upset.  Twilight really isn’t any different than all the love stories that have lived in literature and movies and music forever.  If Romeo and Juliet killed themselves (which always seemed so stupid to me), then I think Bella can be sad for a couple months and maybe jump off a cliff for funsies.

I never did buy the love triangle in the books.  Mostly because Jacob seemed too young and immature to me (and apparently I like ‘em old).  Thanks to Taylor Lautner, I bought it a little more in the movie.  I really did feel for the guy when she said, “Don’t make me choose, because I’ll choose him.”  That would have shattered my 17 year old heart.  That would shatter my 25 year old heart.

The Italy stuff seemed kind of weirdly tacked onto the end like action scenes always seem weirdly tacked on to Stephenie’s books, but it was all very pretty and dramatic, so I think it worked.  When they were standing in the chamber and Bella was like, “No, kill me instead,” Lisa and I were like, “What is this?  Bella sacrificing herself.  I don’t believe it.”  Mocking Twilight is half of the fun of being a fan.

And when at the very end Edward was all super emo again (you’d think he could be happy for a minute at least) and said he would only turn her under one condition–that she marry him–we were like, “Nooo, don’t get married.  Go to college!”  Because we’re big snobs.

You should know that I do not have highbrow taste in movies.  Or did you get that from my discussion of 17 Again?

So, as part of August Movie Month, I was watching House Bunny.  It’s the story of a Playboy bunny who gets kicked out of the mansion.  With no money or home, she talks her way into the job of house mother for a sorority of misfits who are about to lose their house because they have no pledges.  In order to keep her job, she has to help the girls get 30 new pledges.  They start with makeovers, of course.

I used to hate that cliche plot point where everything is turned around once the girl gets a makeover.  You know, She’s All That style.  New look equals new personality.  But, as I was watching this movie, I found myself thinking, “please don’t be too good for the makeover scene.  I really want to see some makeovers.”  I don’t know what’s changed.  Maybe it’s because I have an interest in makeup I didn’t have before.  Maybe I’m finally willing to admit that the way you look changes the way you feel about yourself, which changes the way you act.  Or, maybe I was just up for some movie fun.

This movie doesn’t have the best of reviews, but I think everyone can agree that Anna Farris is amazing.  She plays a super hot, ditzy girl with a heart of gold.  The other characters are similarly unrealistic, but still fun.  Even Rumer Willis was good in her back brace.  Then there was adorable Colin Hanks.

My favorite part of this movie is what other people probably disliked about it: you think it’s going to make a certain point, but then it kind of makes the opposite point, but not really.   The girls get their makeovers and everything is better and they get to experience being popular, but then they turn into snobs, so they check themselves and reject their house mother who turned them that way.  Then they realize they were wrong for blaming her and they try to find some balance between their old and new selves.   And then Anna Farris tries to impress Colin Hanks, but all of her old tricks (playing dumb and hard to get) don’t work on him, so she has the girls help her look smart, but that doesn’t work either.  So then she goes back to her old life at the mansion, but she’s not happy being a centerfold, so she goes back to the girls at the sorority and Colin Hanks forgives her.  So, it’s like the message is to be yourself, but with a makeover? Or, different strokes for different folks?  I don’t know.  But, I like that messy kind of point that doesn’t try to make a comedy profound.

Did I mention that the bitchy, villain girl’s name is Ashley?  Of course it is.  Anyway, if you like this kind of movie, then you’ll probably enjoy House Bunny.  If you don’t like this kind of movie, then you’ll probably think less of me.

There’s one crush I’m not likely to ever get over.  I don’t know what it is about Jake Ryan.  Oh wait, I guess it’s that he’s adorable and timeless and he chooses the awkward, red-haired sophomore over the hot, blond senior.  She’s feeling invisible and he shows up in his red sports car, which might as well have been a white horse.  It’s a story designed to give girls unreasonably high expectations, but if the guys get their manic pixie dream girls, then we should get Jake Ryan.

John Hughes’ classics came out when I was still really young, but because I had older siblings, they were a major part of my growing up.  I’m just happy that I didn’t have to grow up in a world without Jake Ryan’s bored expressions and sweater vests.  So, thanks John Hughes, for all that you created.

So, I was writing this post about the things I want to do, but haven’t gotten around to, because, you know, I’m human or whatever and pretty busy, I guess.  Big on that list was Watch Movies.  I used to always read the movie reviews in my local newspaper and now I listen every week to Filmspotting.  I hear about movies when they’re still in production and I say things like, “I really want to see that when it comes out.”  But, then it does come out and I never go see it.  Like, ever.  Not even when it comes to video.  Not even when the DVD price is reduce to $10.  Never.  And, then when someone brings it up later, I have nothing to contribute besides, “Oh yeah, I meant to go see that movie.”

The thing is that I really like movies.  I love fiction period.  But, to see it all brought to life has the potential to be so affecting.  Not that it takes much for me.  I have grown a little too cynical for most romantic comedies, it’s true, but I will pretty much cry at anything remotely serious.  My worst was crying at Drumline when it came out that the guy couldn’t read music.  Oops, Spoiler Alert!!!

This is all to say that I made the impulsive decision to try Netflix again, because the watch instantly feature is amazing and I thought I’d give actually watching movies another go.

So far I’ve watched Step Brothers, Bewitched, Becoming Jane, and The Cider House Rules. Let me hear your recommendations!

East of Eden is probably one of my favorite books, but what’s for certain is that Cal Trask is for sure my favorite fictional character.¹  I never got Holden Caulfield the way other people get Holden Caulfied, but Cal I got.  I haven’t read East of Eden since I was a teenager, but I think of Cal often and I think he’s still relevant to me now.  I mean, I’m only a hundred times more angst-ridden today than I was then.  What’s so interesting about Cal is that he tries so hard and yet fails over and over.  Maybe that makes him an anti-hero, but it’s his awareness of what he lacks that makes him so interesting as a character.  His dad and his brother are simply good, but they don’t see what’s happening around them.

East of Eden itself is an impressive book.  I tire sometimes of Steinbeck’s descriptions.  If you’ve tried to read The Grapes of Wrath, but could never get past the extensive description of dust in the first chapters, give it another try, because it gets a lot better.²  I should read East of Eden again as a Californian; it’s a character in itself.  The story in East of Eden is really interesting, but it’s the relationships between the characters or maybe more so the characters’ motivations that leave me thinking, “how did Steinbeck do that?”  It’s genius.  Magic.  Somehow he even pulls off a biblical allusion.³

I’ve been wanting to see the movie East of Eden for years, especially because it stars James Dean as Cal.  I finally got a chance to watch it this weekend.  The movie was kind of disappointing to me.  I’m not a big fan of old movies or of soundtracks that basically scream at you how you should be feeling at that moment.⁴ While James Dean is totally enchanting, he just wasn’t Cal for me.  There was a lot about his performance I liked.  He does the loner thing well and he has kind of a charmingly awkward way about him, but I just kept thinking, “that’s James Dean.”  It’s not just that he’s an icon; the character was a bit different–more dramatic and over the top.  I’m of the philosophy that books are books and movies are movies, but I guess when you love a character so much, all those reasonable thoughts go out the window.

I didn’t know much about James Dean, though I’d recognize his image anywhere.  I know I’ve already overused the word “interesting” in this post, but he really did have such an interesting look.  And an interesting character.  If I’d ever known him in real life, I probably would have either hated him or been in love with him.  On the one hand, he really was Cal Trask, but on the other hand, he was unpredictable and a rebel and someone who liked to mess with people.  According to a documentary on the East of Eden DVD, he had his heart broken by a girl who then turned around and got engaged almost immediately, so he showed up outside of the church on his motorcycle, making all kinds of noise.  He also may or may not have been gay or bisexual.

He died when he was only 24.  He’d made three movies, but only the first had been released.  I knew that he’d died tragically in a car accident, but I’d always imagined a Rebel Without a Cause-like scene where he was speeding around a corner or something.  The reality is that he raced cars and was actually on the way to a race (his mechanic with him in the car) in Salinas–John Steinbeck country–when a college student turned right in front of him.  He tried to avoid hitting the guy, but he couldn’t.  Jimmy, as his friends called him, was the only casualty of the crash.⁵  People were just falling in love with him when he died.  There were a lot of Elvis-like conspiracies that he wasn’t really dead.  People also ransacked his apartments and a bunch of his personal items have never been recovered.  Even the car he crashed in quickly disappeared.

I’ve never used a footnote to reference Family Guy before.

1. Bobby Hill from King of the Hill is my second favorite fictional character.  You just can’t deny that kid.
2. Don’t give it another try until we’re in better economic times.  It will only freak you out now.
3. Most simply, Cal and his brother Aron are Cain and Abel
4. The music in this movie totally reminded me of the Distracting Trumpet scene from Family Guy.
5. Can you imagine being the guy responsible for James Dean’s death?

When I think back to recent decades that I was either not a part of or too young to remember, I can’t help but believe that they were experienced not as reality, but history. Like, I know that politically aware people living in the late 1960s knew they were living through a dynamic time in American history and it could be argued that we’re living through a similarly intense time, but in my head they experienced it very differently from the way I experience the present day. I can hardly believe they thought as much as I do about getting to work on time, about lunch, about what’s on TV (not that there were many options back then).

It’s not just the day-to-day that’s missing when I think back in time. I can’t stop myself from thinking that those decades were really experienced in the same way we experience them now through movies. The colors are different–pastel in the 50s, vivid in the 60s, faded in the 70s, and neon in the 80s. I’m pretty sure everything that happened before the 50s was in black and white. Things were just simpler.

Of course that’s all nonsense and I’d do well to remind myself of that frequently. I’ll also remind other people when they go on and on with their “Back in the day . . . ” talk. As far as I can tell, people always broke laws, teenagers always had sex, the younger generation never felt like they were taken seriously, and the older generation always thought the younger generation was too entitled.

But, sometimes it’s nice to indulge in a romanticized version of history. I can imagine that if I was Lizzy Bennett I wouldn’t be bored to death because there was absolutely nothing for me to do. And, if I was in college in the 1960s, I’d choose participating in the student movement over apathy. And if it was the early 1970s, I wouldn’t spend every moment terrified of my brother getting drafted. And if I was a grad student in the 1980s, I’d sit studying in my scrunch socks, my hair in a side ponytail, with no internet to distract me.

There’s just something magical about times passed. About the feeling, about the culture, about the seeming simplicity, and especially about the music. Movies seem to bring it all to life in such a stylized, enchanting way. My favorites include Forrest Gump, The Graduate, and The Big Chill. All pretty obvious, I know, but for good reason.

I’m talking about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, of course.   It comes out today!  And, every time the actors are interviewed, they say that the new movie is much darker than those previous.  I won’t be seeing the movie until Saturday, because I’m old and I work very early in the morning.

There haven’t been many reasons to write about Harry since I started blogging, but you should know that we’re in a long-term relationship that began when I was a senior in high school.  I’d been given The Sorcerer’s Stone that Christmas, but it took me a few months to get around to reading it.

I had this really distinct feeling when I first started reading about young Harry Potter.  For all the reading I’d done, I’d never felt that way before.  Or since.  I thought, “I could have written this.”  I wasn’t thinking that I could have written something like it, but that the world of Harry Potter could have come from my head.

I realize now, of course, that I am not nearly clever enough to have invented any of it.  I must have been crazy to think that.  But, J.K. Rowling inspired me to work on my own fiction.  I’d been writing for years, but I’d never taken any of it seriously.  Reading Harry Potter made me wish that people would one day read about my characters too.

Every movie release is like an event!  And it’s been too long since the last.  I’d post a picture from two years ago where I’m wearing a scarf in the colors of Gryffindor even though it was about a million degrees outside, while Lisa is wearing a Ron t-shirt and holding a wand, but that would be just too embarrassing for the both of us.  We got pretty decked out to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.   You understand.

I’ve never been a big Ginny and Harry fan, so I’m most looking forward to Quidditch!

Over the weekend, I saw He’s Just Not That Into You. Going in, I’d heard from people who hated it and people who loved it.  As for me, I liked it.

As Lisa put it, it’s basically an American version of Love Actually. But, a little less charming because there were no British accents. I feel stupid saying that, since I know some of you reading are British. I’m just saying, move to the United States, and that accent will get you somewhere!

One place where this movie had Love Actually beat, though, was in the interconnections between characters. The connections felt real, but were intriguing like a puzzle. I think it’s a really great way to tell a story. Honestly, though, it’s a lot easier to pull off a love story when you only skim the surface.

For those who don’t know, the he’s just not that into you idea is that if a guy likes you, then he will call you and he will ask you out. Otherwise, he’s just not that into you. And, it doesn’t matter that your best friend’s cousin’s dog’s former owner dated a guy that never called her back, because he lost her number, and then they reconnected after a chance meeting 5 years later. Those stories are the exception and not the rule. The rule is that if a guy doesn’t call, then he’s just not that into you.

But like any big declaration made early in a movie, of course the whole idea gets flipped on its head. Because the moral of the story is that it’s better to put yourself out there and risk pain and humiliation than it is to date like a cool customer and close yourself off. Actually, what I thought was quite clever about the movie was that there’s still some truth to the he’s just not that into you idea, but it’s not the whole truth. People are more complicated than that. We do things we know are stupid. We love people who will never love us back. And, we protect ourselves behind layers of mixed signals.

So, I set the whole premise up in the traditional girl waiting for the guy to call scenario. You could say this is sexist, but while it’s no longer a model that’s set in concrete, it’s still very much entrenched.  I think it would have been more dishonest for the movie to act like there’s no stigma attached to women asking men out.  Plus, we do see the other side of the coin.  We see a guy who doesn’t get the message that she’s just not that into you, and as for the strongest couple (in my opinion) of the movie, she didn’t wait for him to call.  She made the move.  There are also gay couples, though most of the gay men were pretty stereotypical and there for comic relief.

He’s Just Not That Into You was full of the real life awkward moments that shows like The Office force us to endure.  It’s funny how obvious it is that a girl isn’t into a guy, but right there in the middle of it all, he can’t see it.  As for me, my signals are clear.  If I’m attracted to someone, then I act like I’m not interested.  And, if I’m really not interested, then I’m pretty friendly, which possibly makes me look interested.  As you might guess, this doesn’t work out so well for me.

There was one couple that had been married several years, and then he cheated on her.  That just added a little more reinforcement to my major fear of marriage.  After the movie was over, I turned to Lisa and said, “I’m never getting married.”

There were some interludes in the style of When Harry Met Sally. Probably the best scene in the movie was of these two black women (all the principle actors were white) sitting on a park bench.  One of them said that she’d always thought she’d never been dumped, but when she really thought about it, she’d been dumped by every boyfriend she’d ever had.  All of those lines like it’s not you, it’s me and I just need to focus on my career right now and I’m not ready for a relationship, yeah, dump dump dump.

The end was pretty sweet, but the cheesiest line in the entire movie–”You’re my exception”–was delivered by the character that was supposed to be above all that crap!  Come on Mac guy!

I had low expectations for Twilight. These expectations were based mostly on my (I’ll admit it) dwindling interest in the series. I thought it would be hard to translate. It’s not a complex story, but it is a delightfully cheesy romance with some action thrown in at the end. There wasn’t a big budget. I wasn’t sure about Kristen. And, the clips and trailers all seemed very inconsistent–some being awesome and some being cringe-worthy. I love Rob–he’s had me in his pocket since he played my beloved Cedric Diggory–but I didn’t think he could carry the movie alone.

No need to worry. The movie was surprisingly good. At the very least, it was decent. But, really, it was better than decent. I liked the look of the film, and though there were some rough parts in acting, writing, and special effects, they weren’t enough to ruin the film.

The theater was packed with tweens. I mean, Lisa and I were clearly the oldest people there. And, I felt my age, because these tweens were loud, some of them yelling things like “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” way before the movie began. There was a particularly annoying group that kept yelling at the other girls to “shut the fuck up.” Yeah. But, I was so wooing along when Rob first appeared on screen. Ah, Edward.

Rob did well. Okay, maybe he overdid the pained expressions, but when he was playing cool and confident Edward instead of tortured and suicidal Edward, I was putty in his hands. That crooked smile. The Hair was on point too.

I liked Kristen as Bella. I don’t really like Bella as a character. She’s whiny and (especially in the later books) way too self-sacrificial. She lets herself be manipulated. Kristen herself seems quite the opposite. She seems very strong, and I wasn’t sure I would believe she was falling in love with this strange guy she just met and declaring they’d be together forever. Bella still seemed to lack character and interests and goals, but she wasn’t annoying. I believed her.

I was okay with the way they translated the book into a movie. It seemed to me that even people who haven’t read the book would enjoy the movie. Not that I’m the best judge of this. I don’t understand how people who haven’t read the Harry Potter books can possibly understand what’s going on in the movies, but they do.

I think I’ll see it again once the theaters are no longer packed with tweens.

Random Thoughts:

• The movie so so so made me miss the Pacific Northwest. Twilight is full of these grand, sweeping shots of trees and water. And, the rain. Funny that in my current location just outside of LA, this is the furthest I’ve ever lived from water. I’m used to Puget Sound being right there. I won’t be able to stay away forever.
• I swear Rob was wearing eyeliner in the restaurant scene.
• The people of Forks were very racially diverse–like, way more so than I’m sure the actual inhabitants of Forks are. We’ve got diversity in the major cities of Washington, but not so much in places like Forks way up on the peninsula.
• Lisa and I LOLed when they were surfing at La Push. There’s a reason people don’t flock to Washington beaches. The water is freaking freezing. I can’t even imagine. I’ve never even seen people surf off of Cannon Beach (the beach in Oregon where that scene was actually filmed).
• Jacob’s wig was terrible.
• The baseball scene was awesome.
• They should have skipped the entire dazzling sun scene. It was just weird and the effects were terrible.
• I’m glad they weren’t scared of technology. Bella had a cell phone and a laptop.
• The special effects were bad, but I loved the stunt driving.
• I’m just realizing now that they way downplayed the every boy in school is in love with Bella theme.
• Damn you Bella for making me want to grow my hair out again and dye it darker. I didn’t even care that those curls weren’t nearly as wash-and-go as we were supposed to believe.

Okay, the more I think about this movie, the more I want to pick it apart. I think the movies that follow will benefit greatly from higher budgets.

It seems like there’s a new wave of people discovering Twilight. I love reading everyone’s blogs as they fall in love with Edward. It’s inevitable, right? I move around the blogosphere making insightful comments like, “Yay!! I love Edward.” But, I fell in love with Edward and Twilight months ago, and it’s hard to maintain such strong affections for a fictional character once you’ve stopped reading the books. For my initial reactions, I’ll defer to this post I wrote in May:

I first heard about Twilight some time ago, but it didn’t sound like anything I’d be particularly interested in. Then, I saw the movie trailer and something caught my eye. His name is Robert. So, I picked up the book on a whim. It’s pretty good. But, the exciting part is that for the first time in forever, the world totally overwhelmed me. I could feel the Washington rain. And, okay, that’s not much of a stretch for someone who grew up in the Northwest, but still. I saw past the annoyance that usually burns inside me when 17 year olds talk about how they’ve found the loves of the lives. I didn’t care that the main character was naturally thin and cutely clumsy, and, oh yeah, every boy in school wants to date her. The lines blurred between my life here in California where I work in a library and have all these worries pulling on me, and Bella’s life in Washington where she’s adored by a vampire who looks like Robert.

Now that the books are done, and Midnight Sun is on hold for at least a couple years, there’s not a lot to look forward to. Except–oh!–the movie is almost here. Lisa and I have our tickets already, and we’ve long been planning to dress up Harry Potter-style and go as pale Washingtonians. Thankfully, that couldn’t come easier to us. Break out the fleece and rain jackets! Hurry up and get here November 21st!

We haven’t decided yet whether we’re going to show up to the movie sober. You see, unlike some people, I do think the movie is going to be good, but it is bound to be awkward. Rob is as smooth as they come, but I doubt even he can pull off those Edward lines. Edward is just plain cheesy. It’s part of his charm. I’m thinking that alcohol will make me feel less uncomfortable while I’m watching, because when I’m sober, I’m the kind of person who walks aways from my TV when the awkward levels get too high (like, for instance, on The Office).

For my thoughts on Breaking Dawn and getting to meet Stephenie Meyer (okay, that’s a stretch), click here.

When I first saw a commercial for Mama Mia a few weeks ago, I said, “I want to see that!” A friend quickly talked some sense into me, reminding me that I don’t like musicals. It’s the truth. I’ve tried over and over again, but I just don’t like them. Maybe if they were a little less cheesy and the songs were a little shorter . . . . But, I took a chance (ha!) and saw Mama Mia anyway. Yeah, I’ll probably never watch it again, but it was a lot of fun. Most importantly, Mama Mia got me thinking. I like Abba well enough, but would I really like musicals if they were full of the kind of depressing-sounding, introspective music I like? The answer? Yes! I came across Once, a modern-day musical.

It’s an Irish film that was shot for less than $200,000, and features the music of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová. Maybe you’ve heard “Falling Slowly.” Okay, so I’m not alone in thinking it’s awesome. It kinda sorta won an Oscar and Grammy. The video below features “Falling Slowly” and some clips from the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoSL_qayMCc