critic's corner

WARNING!!! if you are going to see the twilight movie, and have not yet done so, do not read this post unless you want to be irreversibly biased!!

saturday night, i went to see twilight as a sort of "congratulations!" to myself for all the craftiness i'd produced lately. i had heard mixed reviews from others who had already seen it, and went in with an open mind. i guess i would have loved this movie if i was a teenager who had no convictions concerning character development. i thought the guy who played edward looked the part all the time (although, seriously, he should pump some iron) and acted the part about half the time (edward is 100 years old and has a mind that moves about a thousand times faster than humans' - he should talk in coherent sentences - like a grown-up!). i really disliked the actress who played bella. i thought she looked the part, but her interpretation was "bella with a 'tude." bella is supposed to be non-confrontational and extremely mature - this girl did not get that memo. and maybe she thought she was being intense, but it just boiled down to a lot of staring. also, i thought the actor who played jasper was totally wrong for the part. number one, he's supposed to look old enough to be in college. number two, giving someone blonde highlights does not make them a blonde. number three, his interpretation of jasper's uncomfortableness around humans looked like a 12-year-old with stagefright, or someone who's just realized they ate a whole pan of super-lax brownies. there were also a number of small things that bugged me throughout the movie (body language, positioning, awkward silences), but too many to list out here. so, overall, i was disappointed with the movie and i'm not sure what to expect if they screenwrite the rest of the books. on a side note - i did not like jacob in the books, but thought he was adorable in the movie - pleasant surprise! unfortunately, there were not enough pleasant surprises for me in this movie, and i would have to give it a thumb's down.