Most Popular Posts of 2010

You said it, Bella. Time does pass! What a year! I mean, the Twilight blog was only active for about a week in 2009, but I can still say 2010 was our best year for sure. I don't know what kind of growth is good for a blog, but it feels like this thing had a decent amount of growth (TWYWMS= That's What Your Webmaster Said). I want to thank you all for recommending me to people, but I'd also like to thank James Franco, Demi Lovato, Ashley Greene, and Ashley Greene's boobs for being near-constant traffic-earners. Ashley Greene's boobs worked hard this year, and I feel like they are going to have an even busier 2011!

Most Popular Posts

1. The Antisocial Network
2. James Franco Analyzes Twilight
3. Blogging Twilight pt. 20: Fear And Loathing In Phoenix
4. Blogging Twilight pt. 1: Seriously, I Am Going To Read Twilight
5. The Biterion Collection: Twilight
6. Blogging Twilight pt. 12: Lux Aeterna
7. Real Exclusive Gossip, Not Even Joking
8. Blogging Eclipse pt. 15: Werewolf Bar Mitzvah
9. Blogging Twilight pt. 4: Paging Dr. Acula
10. Ashley Greene Is The Reason Demi Lovato Will Be Dead Soon
11. We Will Probably See Ashley Greene's Boobs After All
12. Blogging Twilight pt. 10: Three Characters In Search Of A Jacket
13. Blogging New Moon pt. 1: Romeo & Juliet Are Assholes
14. Blogging Twilight pt. 2: First Sight
15. Writing Twilight: Alice Cullen & The Painted-On Bathing Suit

What this blog lacks in quantity of comments, we make up for in quality. Someone's Tumblr linked to this blog recently and mentioned my "loyal team of commenters." That's you guys!

Most Commented Posts

1. Vacation Homework Open Thread
2. The Antisocial Network
3. Blogging New Moon pt. 5: Meta-Enabling
4. Kristen Stewart Is Probably Going To Have To Apologize For Making A Rape Analogy For Some Reason
5. The Biterion Collection: Eclipse

Happy new year, y'all.

BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN: On Robert Pattinson & Self-Awareness

You want to view Inception as a metaphor for movie-making? Fine, go ahead. To me that's somehow both too easy and too difficult: “it's about movies!” is something you could say about almost any movie, but it also puts too much of a spin (get it because of all of the spinning top imagery?) on the great moments in Inception that I'd rather take at face value. Despite my tendency to over-analyze the works of Stephenie Meyer, I tend to deliberately under-analyze movies. I contain multitudes, I know.

But anyway, if you're going to view Inception as a metaphor for movie-making, one of the most intriguing concepts is that the deeper down you go, so to speak (the number of dreams within dreams you go into), the less stable the environments are, the more obvious it becomes that This Is All A Dream. The same can be said about most movies and books: the longer and the weirder it goes, the harder it is to keep it all together.

This is precisely what is happening with Breaking Dawn; a few chapters in, and I already feel like I am reading fan fiction. My working theory for why this is happening is that S. Meyer has written a series with no particular conclusion to build towards; Bella is going to become a vampire, and the Volturi are going to turn up at some point, but those are really the only threads we've carried with us from the previous three books. This story is so loosely connected to the first three that it feels like someone else is hijacking the story and taking it somewhere else; this is especially true when you realize that most of the few plot threads we've brought with us into BD are going to be made irrelevant soon. The Edge, a staggering piece of Alice/Bella slash fiction, quickly neutralizes most of the dangling plot threads of New Moon, which is where it picks up: Edward, Jacob, Jasper, and Victoria are all brought up and dealt with so the story can go elsewhere (elsewhere being hot girl-on-girl action, but still). Breaking Dawn does not feel dissimilar, and it has even fewer plot threads to dispense with. But even if S. Meyer had extended some of her plot into Breaking Dawn in a meaningful way, we're still “going deeper” by virtue of going on. You can only extend your ill-defined universe for so long.

Because the film versions of the Twilight Saga came into existence after a few of the books had already walked the earth, the breakdown is accelerated for them. The way plot elements (especially the zanier ones) are dropped almost feels like throwing luggage from a ship because you're sinking. Critics lauded the self-awareness on display in Eclipse, but I don't feel like the filmmakers had a choice. (Girls are going to scream when Jacob first appears no matter what, you're going to have to make it slow motion to give them some time. So why not add a ridiculous “badass” music cue while you're at it?) SO ANYWAY, it's fairly interesting that in the audio commentary for Eclipse, Robert Pattinson takes issue with this assessment. He mentions, during a confrontation between Jacob and Edward, the previously mentioned critical sentiment, and seems to disagree with it. He says something to the effect of: why would you want to see actors who act like they are acting?

First of all, Rob: because it's fun. Second of all: that's not quite what it is. In my post about Eclipse, I praised Taylor Lautner's (and Pattinson's!) ability to somehow seem both engaged with the material and above it. The self-awareness is there (“Does he own a shirt?” and “Face it: I'm hotter than you” being prime examples) if you want it, but you can ignore it. That's mostly because the base-level for the self-awareness is the original text (When Edward says “Does he own a shirt?” he's mocking the notion of Jacob's perpetual shirtlessness, which is employed entirely for unironic erotic purposes by S. Meyer. The films criticize the books in subtle ways; I can't decide if this is Melissa Rosenberg's influence or Catherine Hardwicke's. The genesis of all of this is Jessica pointing out the weird incestuous nature of the Cullens in the first film, a fact that goes totally unacknowledged by the books. With that line, Hardwicke/Rosenberg launched a thousand meta ships).

Maybe Pattinson just hasn't read the books, which is why he doesn't see this other level. He's Fisher in the Inception metaphor version of all of this. And it's probably for the best. If you knew where this story was going, would you have signed on in the first place?

PREVIOUSLY: When The World Comes To An End

When The World Comes To An End

FILE UNDER: Awkward Family Photos (along with this one)

I remember New Year's Eve 1999 pretty vividly. We went out to dinner with my father and my cousins, and I was vaguely aware that an aunt on the other side of my family was holed up in her house, hoarding canned goods and bottled water, while we relaxed and ate chicken fingers and wore plastic hats. I knew all about Y2k-- I watched TV constantly, how could I not?-- and yet I don't recall ever being worried in the least. My father and uncle made bleak jokes about airplanes falling out of the sky and roving bands of hillbilly scavengers. They basically wrote a parody of Cormac McCarthy's The Road even though it hadn't been written yet. And I laughed along with them; it was clear to me that there was no real threat. Two adults were right here in front of me and neither of them seemed genuinely worried.

In a larger sense, that night imbued in me a deep cynicism for conspiracy theorists. I equally loathe the people who suggest 9/11 was an inside job and the people who suggest Barack Obama is a Muslim/non-citizen/Antichrist. I also doubt neuroscience, which seems related somehow. Anyway, I can't believe it when I meet people who seem to think the world is actually going to end in 2012, and I meet people like this all the time. Have you forgotten Y2K panic already, you guys? Fool me once, you know? You know, I've never understood that expression. Fool me once: shame on me. Fool me twice: even more shame on me. Especially if you're being fooled in fundamentally the same way. The Mayan calendar had to end somewhere.

On that note, I don't understand how we're dealing with another wave of Jashley engagement rumors. The Mayans just got bored, and eventually Ashley will too.

Previously: Blogging Breaking Dawn: MILF Island

BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt. 6: MILF Island

Hahahahaha Carlisle bought Esme a fucking ISLAND? Rule #1 of Vampire Club: Keep a low profile. So only buy one island, okay you guys? Keep it to one! Otherwise people might notice. Previously: Party Down.

Chapter 5: Isle Esme

Edward and Bella board a series of flights: Seattle to Houston, Houston to Rio De Janeiro. Bella wonders where they could be going, especially when they get in a cab in Rio instead of boarding another plane. She assumes they are just stopping for the night and getting a hotel, and feels “something very close to stage fright” as she realizes that means it's time to fuck. (Of course, that part is still only implied. Like Bella and Edward, S. Meyer is putting off “sex” until the last possible moment. I feel like her honeymoon probably wasn't very good.)

But instead of a hotel, the cab takes them to the docks, and Edward loads Bella and her baggage (both literal and figurative) onto a small yacht. As they head out on the Atlantic Ocean, Bella wonders where they could be going and briefly fears they are headed to Africa. Ostensibly this worries her because she doesn't want to “live on this small craft for any length of time” but really it's because of all the black people, right Bella? Admit it.

If you want it bad enough, there's a lot of sexual imagery in this chapter. The plane ride is “long but comfortable.” On the docks, the boat Edward puts Bella in is “smaller than the others,” but “sleeker” and “more graceful than the rest.” It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean, right Edward? Once he starts piloting the boat/penis metaphor, Bella notes his skill and realizes that he is “good at just about everything.” Wishful thinking, Bella. Edward is going to be as bad at sex as you will be (unless he's been reading Jasper's thoughts while he fucks Alice. Shudder). As the boat “plunge[s] through the waves,” Bella gets “showered with sea spray” in an especially charged image.

Edward points out an island in the distance-- well, at first Bella describes an “irregular triangle” with “feathery” edges. What is wrong with Bella's brain? (Unless that's supposed to be like, a vaginal image? It's possible.) Anyway it's an island, which Edward tells her is “Isle Esme.” First of all: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Second of all: what? Third of all: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Who gives an island as a gift? I frowned. I hadn't realized that Edward's extreme generosity was a learned behavior.

Either that or Carlisle fucked up BIG TIME a while back. All Kobe had to do was get a big-ass ring for his wife, and he (allegedly) raped someone! I can't even imagine the heinous shit Carlisle was up to to have to buy Esme a damn ISLAND. I mean, I can, but I'll spare you. Alice probably had a hand in it, maybe literally.

Bella gets out soaking wet (from THE SEA SPRAY, get your mind out of the gutter) and listens to the waves “slapping lightly” against the boat, in another symbolic preview of things to cum-- I mean come. The air, Bella says, is “warm, moist, and fragrant.” Jesus. Edward carries Bella to a small house and she practically has a panic attack when he penetrates the threshold (OF THE HOUSE). The house apparently has the same bland, IKEA-display-circa-2001 style of Chez Cullen, and there's a huge white (natch) bedroom with a big white bed in the center. The bedroom is warm, “too warm,” and Edward explains that he had that done on purpose. “I thought... that would be best,” he says. “You're about to have a Popsicle in your vagina.” I mean, he doesn't say that, but that is literally the idea.

Edward asks if Bella would like to go for a “midnight swim” with him. These two really behave like 17 and 18 year olds, delaying sex all the time like this. When I was seventeen I was always trying to put off sex (sarcasm)! She says yes, and he heads to the beach while she heads to the bathroom.

On the way, he shrugged out of his shirt, dropping it on the floor, and then slipped through the door into the moonlit night.

I can't even let S. Meyer build up sexy anticipation because there is just NO WAY that anything sexy is actually going to happen. It's impossible, this is Twilight. I read stuff like that and I'm just like “Ha ha, nice try Stephenie.” But it electrifies Bella, who accidentally kind of sounds like she's checking for an STD already.

Did my skin burst into flames? I had to look down to check.

Whoops. Bella goes to her suitcase, looking for something like “a pair of old sweats.” What a seductress! But all she can find is lingerie “with French tags.” Alice packed her bags, remember? Nicely done, Alice. A little creepy you're trying to find the best way to turn your brother on, though. (You know how Alice designed Bella's wedding dress around Edward's taste? Same deal here, you think? Is it like, a lacy burka?) Bella looks out the bathroom window for Edward but can only see his clothes swaying on a tree branch. ALL OF HIS CLOTHES. BECAUSE HE'S NAKED.

A rush of heat flashed across my skin again.

Do you need a minute? I'll wait. Okay. Bella gets in the shower and shaves her legs again. How fast does Bella's body hair grow? Yikes. She gets out of the shower and wonders what to wear. The lingerie freaks her out too much and, unable to make a decision, she has a meltdown on the bathroom floor and puts her head between her legs, in another image that could potentially be sexual if it wasn't so pathetic. S. Meyer is clearly pleased with her stage fright comparison from earlier because she rolls it out again:

This felt exactly like having to walk out in front of a theater full of people with no idea what my lines were.

“How did people do this?” Bella asks. “Swallow [wait for it!] all their fears and trust someone else so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had?” Luckily Bella gets her shit together and heads to the beach in her towel. She spots Edward waist deep in the water and looks him over, admiring “the shape of him.” I thought he was waist deep in the water? Is he... already? Bella takes off her towel and walks naked to the water. Edward doesn't turn around. Why wouldn't you turn around? He waits until she's waist deep and next to him before he looks at her and dismisses her claim that the beach and the moonlight are beautiful. “Not with you standing here in comparison.” So Edward is a tits man! I wouldn't have guessed that. It doesn't stay sexy for too long:

“If... if I do something wrong, if I hurt you, you must tell me at once.”

Well, those are two different things, Edward. You might do something wrong without HURTING her, and you might hurt her in a way that's oh-so-right, you know what I mean? John Mellencamp knows what I mean. Anyway, it's totally unsexy to negotiate like this right when you're getting started; they should have established a safe word on the plane and been done with it.

Edward wraps his arms around Bella when she tells him not to be afraid and that they belong together. In a parting sexually charged image, he pulls her “deeper” into the water. And then...

...we cut to the next morning. HA! TOLD YA!

Big Picture Shit

So if it hasn't been obvious, I've been sort of moving away from analyzing Jashley coverage, mostly because I feel like I have said what I need to say. I certainly won't stop, because A. it's easy to make fun of and B. it brings in a LOT of traffic, but I'm looking for other stuff to write about, new ground to cover. Yesterday's NYT piece on YA fiction was great, and I have been enjoying your responses, but it's not the sort of thing that normally would end up on my radar; Rosanne tweeted the link and I happened to click it.

So I'm asking for your help. If you see something that seems even remotely relevant to this blog, get in touch with me on Twitter. Do you know of blogs I should be reading regularly, twitter accounts I should be following? Let me know.

I'm also occasionally writing bigger picture shit about Twilight as a column for MOBFD. Most of the time, I'll be taking points I have made in brief here and fleshing them out. Sooner or later I'm going to have to issue a grand statement or two about the Twilight Saga as a whole, and this is batting practice. My most recent post, "Informed Hatred," is here.

But if you are still looking for some good ol' fashion celebrity bashing, here's something I wrote a while ago and forgot to link to.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Yikes

Here's Ashley Greene hanging with the Jonas Davidians over the holidays. What the hell is going on? Now I know how Katie Holmes fans felt. This picture will be in my nightmares tonight, and not just because of that Regine Chassagne-looking chick in the middle with the glowing eyes. And that Deadwood-looking motherfucker with no eyes in the back right. But I imagine both of them will having starring roles.

Kids Read The Darndest Things

So the New York Times is having a discussion about why YA fiction is so dark these days. I don't know about you guys, but I grew up on a little series called GOOSEBUMPS that was pretty god damn dark, and that was over a decade ago. I don't know that this is a new trend, but it's not like that has stopped the New York Times before. So okay, I'll bite: what is with all of the darkness ($10 bucks right now says someone talks about the economy) in these kids books these days?

Scott Westerfield, a YA author, attributes it mostly to teenage angst about growing responsibilities, a refusal to accept the adult world that leads to a desire to burn it down. He very tenuously (and in like, ten words) ties a rise in dystopian novels to a rise in apocalyptic novels.

The system is asking a lot from teenagers and not giving them much respect in return, so it’s no wonder that stories about that system exploding, breaking down under its own contradictions, or simply being overrun by zombies are also beloved of teenagers.

That makes a certain amount of intuitive sense, so it must be true, right? I smell another sequel to Freakonomics! Call this guy up, Levitt and Dubner! Anyway, then you get to the bottom paragraph and it all makes sense:

My last two series are about these two extremes: dystopia and apocalypse. “Uglies” is set in a society based on surveillance and control, which is where our “zero tolerance” schools are headed. And “Leviathan” is set in World War I, the historical moment when it became clear that we didn’t need gods to bring about apocalypses anymore, technology would do just fine.

Oh, you wrote books that fit perfectly with your explanation? THAT IS SO LUCKY!

NYT: Hey, Scott Westerfield (I almost wrote Paul Westerberg) why do you think kids are reading dark books?

SW: Well, uh, something something apocalypse and dystopia, school systems, new technology, rebellion! Please buy my book. Please?

I do kind of love that there's a YA book named Leviathan, though. There are definitely some kids who are pissed right now because they got this thing instead of Westerfield's book.

Maggie Stiefvater, another author, wins my heart by immediately laughing off the "dark economic times" argument (before anyone even had a chance to make it! I owe the NYT ten bucks, I guess). Her title, "Pure Escapism," is pretty much her whole thesis, though she doesn't explain why kids are escaping into dystopia like The Hunger Games as opposed to, I don't know, fantasy shit with dragons or whatever, other than the fact that in those books, evil is very easily defined. Is that really true? When the evil is "the government" or just society in general, isn't that less easily defined than like, a dragon? A dragon is a pretty clear-cut villain. The government of Oceania, not so much.

Jay Parini kind of gives an answer to the unasked questions in Stiefvater's blurb, implying that bookish kids feel "gamed" in their high schools, surrounded by thugs and bullies. Of course, he ties it in to the success of The Hunger Games at the end, because of wordplay and how it it so hard to resist. Parini, a poet, notably does not plug anything of his own, but offers Allegra Goodman's book, The Other Side Of The Island as an exemplary work. You get ethics points, Parini (unless he's married to Goodman, which given the tone of the rest of this discussion, I wouldn't rule out).

The same cannot be said for Paolo Bacigalupi, for whom I clicked between my tabs three times in order to spell his name correctly. He does a variation on "dark economic times" by invoking dire environmental times. True enough, but he gets all of that out of the way really fast so he can use half of his space to promote his book. C'mon, Paolo. If you get invited to a party you don't go there and just talk about how a similar party you threw was better. It's because of assholes like you and Al Gore that people doubt climate change out of spite.

Then Andrew Clements offers a pretty simple argument: dark books have been around for so long that they are getting darker. At least, I think that is what he is saying. Either that or it's because of media saturation? Most of his article is just about books he liked to read as a kid. I had fun reading it but I'm not sure what it was about. Andrew Clements seems like that cool professor you had who kept digressing into shit all the time, which was fun to listen to, but then you'd get home and look at your notes and realize they were all just ellipses and question marks. I've got whole notebooks that look like that.

I kept waiting for someone to mention Twilight, which strikes me as just as psychologically troubling as any other book I've ever read (Bella is on par with Humbert Humbert as far as I'm concerned) but they don't. Lisa Rowe Fraustino invokes His Dark Materials, The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter. (HP doesn't really count as dystopian, does it? Other than Order Of The Phoenix?) But when she mentions The Outsiders and the need to "stay gold," I realized that critics don't see Twilight as dark (not dystopian, but the discussion isn't technically limited to that) because they don't realize S. Meyer was trying to write an epic like HDM or HP. They see a romance series, not an (intended) quest for the capital-G Good in which the author confused actual virtue with sexual virtue. Twilight is a romance series, but it's also the second thing. And the fact that kids are interested in it is a more troubling question than an interest in dystopian YA novels.

Michelle Ann Abate writes about how Young Adult fiction really came to be:

Once-taboo topics like violence in S. E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” (1967), sexuality in books like Judy Blume’s “Forever” (1975), and death in Katherine Paterson’s “Bridge to Terabithia” (1977) became increasingly acceptable. Because many of these books addressed what were considered “social problems” (juvenile delinquency or adolescent sexuality) they were deemed “problem novels;” and because many were aimed at a teenage audience, they were deemed "young adult" novels. Thus the young adult genre has been linked with social, political, and cultural concerns ever since.

Well said. She posits that is modern YA novels have become even more liberal (as all art forms are wont to do), there has been a conservative pushback. Guess what book I thought of when I read this:

And that has given rise to a sub-genre of works ranging from William Bennett’s anthology “The Book of Virtues” to Bill O’Reilly’s “The O’Reilly Factor for Kids” to the “Left Behind” series for kids — which aims to offset what they see as the alarmingly graphic, excessively permissive, and plainly “left-wing” agenda of contemporary children’s books by conveying more “traditional” values and conservative political beliefs.

So, what do you think? Is there a reasonable explanation for kids liking dark books other than "they just do"? Isn't this mostly just a kind of airless launchpad for a few authors to lamely prognosticate or do you think they make some compelling points? Is Twilight The O'Reilly Factor For Kids with vampires? Because it feels like that sometimes.

(Thanks for linking to this, Rosanne.)

Another Bullshit List In Suck City

HollywoodLife has selected the six sexiest vampire scenes in 2010, and magically there are two scenes from every vampire game in town. (I love that there are only six and not ten scenes. Are these the sexiest vampire scenes or the "only six remotely sexual scenes involving vampires this year"? YOU DECIDE.) Did you realize there are three vampire games in town, by the way? That seems like too many games. Then again, how many CSIs are there? There should be exactly as many vampire film franchises and TV shows as there are CSI variations at all times; I'm pretty sure that's what the golden ratio is about.

ANYWAY, go over there and vote for an ultimate most-sexy winner if you like. They have a write-in option so I voted for "Alice and Jasper doing anything." (That's probably who I'll write in for MA Attorney General next time Martha Coakley runs unopposed.) Not that my efforts are doing any good:

Edward's promise of eternal marital devotion is running away with it. We need to have a conversation about the definition of sexy, you guys. I'm pretty sure there are some people at Victoria's Secret's Think Tank still working on the exact definition, but they have definitely ruled out antiquated patriarchal virginity-hoarding proposal scenes by now.

Eclipse Originally Featured A Scene Involving Kristen Stewart In Blackface (Not Even Kidding)

Holy shit. This is Kristen Stewart, speaking on the audio commentary for Eclipse during a flashback scene about the history of the Quileute Native Americans (starting at 0:32:28):

"That whole, the whole 'Third Wife' thing, I actually-- the first thing I shot on this movie was, was basically playing that entire scene out as the Third Wife. And it was fairly ridiculous, as I imagined [sigh] it would have been, like they tried to make me a little bit tanner than I am, and I had two braids, it was a little... I'm not sure."

A little... "unimaginably misguided," maybe? Do you think that was the phrase Stewart was looking for? Or maybe "mind-numbingly crass"? Is this fucking thing in the deleted scenes? Please tell me it is. No, wait, please tell me it isn't.

Last Minute Gift Guide

If you've waited this long to finish your Christmas shopping, first of all: what is wrong with you? Second of all, I'm here to help, don't worry about it. There are literally thousands of Twilight-related gifts out there, on the Internet, for every kind of person in your life.

Everyone likes beverages, and everyone likes vaguely racist, child-killing Southern vampires! Okay, at least half of that sentence is true. ($6, Etsy)

Okay, sure, it costs sixteen hundred dollars. But it might be an expensive guitar (the listing doesn't actually specify the make! It sure looks like a Fender, but it could be a Fander, which is almost as good). And can you really put a price on the letter "R" as allegedly written by Robert Pattinson? I guess you can. ($1599, Etsy)

This is not at all disturbing! Wrist wounds= totally connotation-free fun! ($3.5, Etsy)

Sorry blondes, but it's not like you guys use tote bags anyway. What, are you going to put books in them? Ha ha ha! Blonde jokes are coming back in 2011, I'm ahead of the curve. ($20, CafePress)

It rhymes! It's a pillow! It's vaguely sacrilegious! Hat trick! ($20, CafePress)

If the release dates of the Twilight films are kind of like 9/11 to you, this way you can NEVER FORGET, because they are on your shirt! ($32, CafePress)

I'm a little pissed I don't own one of these already. The rainbow is the nicest touch. The perfect accessory for your combination New Year's/DADT party! Is anyone having a combination New Year's/DADT party? Can I come? ($4, CafePress) On a related note:

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that... I didn't know I could get it printed on a thong, though! God bless the USA, huh? ($13, CafePress)

Happy Holidays, dear readers. I'll be back on Sunday. Not much rest for the wicked, you know?

Ashley Greene Just Found Out About DADT Repeal Or Something

Why is she just now RTing a CNN link from four days ago? I mean, it's excusable that she's just finding out about it, girl is busy, but how did she come across a tweet from CNN from four days ago? That shit is BURIED on their feed. Does Ashley Greene have access to a TIME MACHINE? Is that why it seems like her movies never come out?


Also, notice that this is not a positive nor negative statement about DADT. You can take the girl out of Jacksonville but you can't necessarily take the homophobia out of the child of an undoubtedly Republican family and girlfriend of a Log Cabin Republican (GET IT GET IT). So anyway, this raises a lot of questions.

Blacklisted

So for two or three days now I've had the 2010 Black List [pdf] open in the first tab of my browser. For the uninitiated: the Black List is a list of the top unproduced screenplays, as voted on by Hollywood producers. It's a formerly insider-y document that has, in the last several years, become a normal end-of-year Internet Event, like the best movies of the year and the worst literary sex scenes of the year and so on. Presence on the Black List does not necessarily indicate quality; one of the top scripts in years past is now this fucking thing. It's also not exclusively for niche/indie fare, much as I wish it was. Rian Johnson's (Brick, The Brothers Bloom) script for his next film "Looper" is on here, but so is some new likely piece of shit from Kurtzman and Orci (Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen).

Anyway, it warrants mentioning here that Abduction, the new Taylor Lautner movie, (which probably actually has already been filmed?) is on here, in a 14-way tie (A 14-WAY TIE!) for seventh place. Click to enlarge:

Notice that this film is being produced by Tailor Made Entertainment. You guessed it: it's a production company founded by Lautner's father Dan, specifically geared at producing movies for Taylor Lautner. REALLY? REALLY?! YES, REALLY. We just recently discussed Incarceron; do you think one of the stipulations for Tailor Made productions is "one word titles"?

Fun Dan Lautner story: I have a friend who works for HASBRO, and Taylor Lautner and his father came to visit their offices (maybe six months ago) since Taylor will be playing Stretch Armstrong (the script for that film, if it exists, is notably absent from the Black List). My friend reported two things: that one of his female co-workers told him that if given the opportunity, she's "strip naked and fuck [Taylor Lautner] in front of everyone," and that Dan Lautner is "super fucking fat."

Anyway, give the Black List a read if you have a chance. At some point after you've read thirty or forty ridiculous premises (I mean, every premise sounds ridiculous summed up in three sentences, but still look at this:

The story of one woman's struggle for redemption as she fights to stay alive and unite with her mother and young daughter, all while staving off viscous by a ruthless army of Yakuzas who have trapped her in her apartment.

Oy gevalt) they will all start to blur together, but you'll notice things like, for instance, Abduction is not the only film in a 14-way tie for seventh place that involves confusion over a kidnapping. That's right: there are two films tied for seventh place about confusion over a kidnapping. That's enough, Black List, okay?

Earlier today: Happy Birthday, Twilight Blog

Happy Birthday, Twilight Blog

Today is the one-year anniversary of this blog, you guys. On December 22nd 2009, I posted Blogging Twilight part 1. Over 150,000 words later, we're still here. Yikes. Anyway, indulge me this informal poll on this momentous day: how did you find out about this blog? What on earth brought you here? Let me know in the comments, and as always thank you for reading.

Blogging Breaking Dawn pt. 5: Party Down

BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt. 5: Party Down

Previously: "How Soon Is Now?" and "Alice Cullen Sets Bella's Khaki Skirt On Fire." Also, today is Jackson Rathbone's birthday. So close to Christmas! What a drag.

Chapter 4: Gesture

The reception starts, Bella says it's “twilight over the river” (hey, she said the name of this saga!) and the sun is setting behind the trees. Edward and Bella are greeted by various extraneous characters; Seth Clearwater is there with his mom, whom Bella observes with her always-withering eye. “Her face was thin and fierce,” she says. You can't be even a little charitable toward the less pretty on your fucking wedding day, Bella? Later Edward will ask if Bella has seen herself in a mirror yet. When she finally does, she rhapsodizes about how gorgeous she is for a while. Such a nice girl.

She sees Billy Black and weirdly muses for a whole paragraph at how he's so magical and exotic and shit. What the hell is that about? I assumed this was a dry party, but... Anyway, she notes that he seems very at ease despite his knowledge that a breach in the treaty will be coming very soon. She wonders if instead of war, there will be “a truce” between the wolfpack and the Cullens. Oh, I was wondering where we were going to get a plot from! There you go! Way back in New Moon, Jacob reminded Edward that the treaty precludes the biting of anyone. Bella is (theoretically) going to be bitten very soon. And of course, I doubt the treaty has any kind of provision excepting cases paranormal marriage/consensual biting; the werewolf founding fathers didn't have a lot of legislative foresight. As history shows, Native Americans are really bad at treaties.

Bella finally meets the Denali vampires. It's uneventful; they seem like nice enough ladies. They apologize about the whole thing where they abandoned the Cullens at the eleventh hour, and one of them makes a joke about how she still doesn't have a husband. “Keep the dream alive,” responds one of the others. This is all in front of Bella, by the way. The Denali vampires are like your mom's weird younger sister who always makes all these self-deprecating jokes about her personal failures and you laugh but mostly to keep from feeling uncomfortable. Thankfully, they shuffle off so Deputy Mark (he did get mentioned more than once! I guess I need to eat my hat or something) can greet the newlyweds.

We get a few nice wedding details: they do the thing where they feed each other cake, Edward actually swallows it (you're welcome?). Then Edward removes Bella's garter with his teeth and throws it in Mike Newton's face. YA BURNT ONE LAST TIME, Mike Newton! But seriously, that's going to be it for Mike Newton, right? Can we throw some of this dead weight overboard or are we going to keep adding characters? Bella dances with a bunch of the dudes at the party, including Mike Newton (ugh he's already back) but Edward cuts them off because Mike is (it is strongly suggested) is thinking about how much he'd like to fuck Bella's fucking face.

Bella has the aforementioned moment where she looks in the mirror and thinks about how much she'd like to fuck herself, basically. (Thought-reading-wise, this has got to be a rough day for Edward.) When you couple it with S. Meyer's obsession with pointing out the dark skin of the Quileutes, Bella's obsession with her own skin looking like “cream and roses” is a little troubling. Really, the excessive whiteness of the gorgeous Cullens is itself a little troubling; also S. Meyer always qualifies talking about the beauty of the Quileutes by exoticizing them – it's like, textbook self-loathing white supremacy. BUT ANYWAY.

Edward becomes aware that Jacob is lurking in the woods outside the party. I don't want to think about what he's doing out there. But really: he came to see Bella. Of course Jacob is going to show up and ruin this (marginally) interesting scene (that was already a little ruined anyway). Edward doesn't tell Bella (or us) anything about Jacob being there until he walks her to the edge of the forest; I half expected him to be like “blow me.”

Jacob comes out and hugs Bella hello, she immediately starts weeping with joy. Dude's only been gone for fifty seven pages, Bella! Relax! Edward excuses himself because he owes Rosalie a dance, Jacob very deliberately holds Bella's hand to his chest. They start dancing, not to the music playing a few yards away, but rather “the rhythm of his heart.” That's some heart you got there, Jacob! Can it do waltzes and shit? They talk for a long fucking time about how nice it is to see each other. There's a lot of predictable re-hashing of Jacob's angst over, you know, EVERYTHING. Dude did just throw a several-week-long temper tantrum after all, never forget. But Jacob stops being apologetic and starts edging toward apoplectic when he says he's going to remember Bella like this and he trails off, suggesting basically that he's going to pretend she died. Bella feels bad. “My relationship with Jacob used to be so easy. Natural as breathing,” she says. When, exactly? Haven't they always been strained by Jacob's pressure to make it something more? Their relationship was natural as breathing in Twilight, when it barely existed, I suppose.

Bella tells Jacob she's not being changed tonight after he assumes as much. He implies that she's putting it off; she says she doesn't want to spend her honeymoon “writing in pain.” Well, maybe you shouldn't have waited to lose your virginity until now, kid! Oh wait, she means the vampire thing. Jacob says it's not like she can have “a real honeymoon” with Edward anyway, so why wait? Bella weirdly snaps and tells Jacob she is going to have “a real honeymoon.” He is taken aback.

Can we talk about how weird it is that everyone is perfectly capable of understanding everyone else's vague euphemism for sex? At no point does Jacob go “Whoa, wait, you're going to have SEX with him? Are we talking about the same thing?” When he expresses his disbelief, he still uses the fucking phrase “a real honeymoon.” I'm a smart guy, and I'm especially good at decoding sexual euphemisms, but even I would ask for clarification before I freaked out like Jacob is about to.

Like she's the nervous virgin bride herself, S. Meyer still can't quite bring herself to be explicit. This scene is still written to sail over the heads of younger readers like some of the earlier conversations about sex in this saga. (Notably, one of the only times the word “sex” is used is during a discussion about NOT having sex between Charlie and Bella.) The problem is (if you can sense where this story is going) understanding the fact that they are going to fuck is going to be important. This is not the time to be quaint! S. Meyer would rather her story not make any sense to younger readers than have to admit the truth. This is the YA fiction equivalent of Abstinence-Only Education.

So when Jacob realizes Bella and Edward are going to fuck, he gets very angry. He says it's a “sick joke.” Jacob's outrage about paranormal sex carries some uncomfortable echoes of the sort of people who object to interracial marriage. And as always, when S. Meyer is invoking a controversial issue (domestic violence, child molestation) the side she seems to agree with is the wrong one. Because Jacob's objections (Edward could kill her, it's unnatural) have been expressed by Edward in the past and will be again very soon. It's bothersome how S. Meyer is both comfortable with creating symbolic parallels to social taboos and then coming down on the very firmly established wrong side. Is Sam Uley going to take multiple wives in this book too? Is Bella going to be impressed by the healthy relationship(s) that result? Jacob grabs Bella and starts shaking her, asking if she's lost her mind. Edward and Seth appear and free Bella from Jacob's clutches; Jacob threatens to kill Edward. Just as abruptly, the wolves appear from the forest and pull Jacob away.

Bella and Edward return to the party, where Bella notices the Cullens all trying to hide their stressed out faces. Jasper and Emmett are hovering near the edge of the dance floor, apparently still ready to jump into action. (Rosalie and Alice are presumably dancing with each other, you're welcome.) I like little details like that; it's a pity they have to come in the midst of such thematic ugliness. Bella tries not to be upset about Jacob; she makes plans to “flagellate” herself for this later. I'm sure Alice packed a whip or two in your suitcase, Bella, don't worry.

As they dance, Edward starts hesitating about the sex. Jacob's getting karmic revenge on Bella, setting in motion the chain that's cock-blocking her like this. Edward starts mumbling about how he should let Jacob kill him for even thinking... and Bella is like “WHOA.”

“You and me. That's the only thing that matters. The only thing you're allowed to think about now. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” he sighed.

Wow! That was like a quantum leap in terms of Bella's agency, did you see that shit? Emmett asks to dance with Bella, and after that she gets passed around the dance floor for a while. When she finally returns to Edward, Alice appears and starts telling them it's time to leave for the airport. Edward and Bella won't stop kissing, and there's a kind of funny scene where Alice hovers around them making various threats and growling quietly trying to get them to stop. Alice is mollified when Bella finally goes with her to change out of her dress and thanks her for the wedding.

“Everything was exactly right. You're the best, smartest, most talented sister in the whole world.”
That thawed her out; she smiled a huge smile. “I'm glad you liked it.”

Bella has a tearful goodbye with her mother and an actually-kind-of-moving farewell to Charlie; he's leaning up against a wall hiding because he's crying. Awwwwwww.

“I love you forever, Dad,” I told him. “Don't forget that.”
“You, too, Bells. Always have, always will.”

I don't know what's going on with all those commas, but whatever. They get in the car, which has a bunch of Alice's only very gently worn designer shoes hanging off the back (“Thug lyfe!”-Alice Cullen). As they pull away, the last thing Bella sees is her parents: Phil has his arms wrapped around Renee, but Renee is holding hands with Charlie. It's a weirdly progressive moment for Twilight, and just a great moment in general.

And then of course Bella hears a piercing howl coming from the woods because Jacob fucks up everything, always.

Happy Birthday, Jackson Rathbone

via 247Greene

It's Jackson Rathbone's birthday, everybody! Send him good vibes. We're counting on this dude to end this Jashley thing, he needs our well-wishes. Jackson: you've got like, four more months of shooting to make it happen. Use it wisely.

Related:

I Can Think Of At Least 31 Problems With This List Of The 31 Sexiest Vampires

Two Minutes Hate: Jackson Rathbone

Twilight News Tonight: Incredulous Photo Edition

The Biterion Collection: Dread

Thousands Of Graphic Design Students Are Weeping With Impotent Rage

How To Make Dexter Cookies: A Recipe By Zac Little

Last year I posted this recipe over at the now-defunct angryfilmsproductions.com. I'm reprinting it here in case you all need some last-minute ideas for holiday parties.

So the hardest part is going to be the dough, which is just a ridiculous amount of powdered sugar and an inconceivable amount of flour. I mean, there’s other stuff, but mostly you’re going to be shocked about how much flour there is. I did a size comparison for you, since you might not be able to determine the size of the bowl on your own. Look, it’s bigger than Jesus. Get it? You get it.


That’s half because I doubled the recipe. There is a recipe by the way, and it’s probably the same in every cookbook. It was invented by somebody—Julia Child’s great-grandmother, probably—and we’re stuck with it whether or not it is the optimal sugar cookie recipe, which is probably isn’t. But it does the job. But just look it up because I’m not going to write the whole thing out. You need butter, eggs, almond extract, vanilla extract, and baking powder, and obviously you need an oven and a bowl, and probably other stuff.

And then you need to stir it, and you’re going to need a tool for that. I’ve got this mass-destruction looking Hamilton-Beach thing we’ve never really been able to find a use for. It looks like it could do a number on somebody’s kneecaps, but it turns out it’s not very good with dough.

What I did wrong was I didn’t wait for the butter to soften, so after 20 minutes of mashing that tool against the bricks of butter I was ready to throw the whole bowl into the front yard and be done with it.
But I persevered, and eventually I had something that sort of looked like dough. That’s when you cover it and put it in the fridge for two hours.

If you’re wondering “when do I start drinking?” This is where you start drinking.


By the time the dough is ready you should be prepared to tango with it again. Use a rolling pin to flatten it out—if you’re like me this will take several tries. And don’t forget to lightly flour the pin and the surface on which you are rolling, because otherwise all of your dough will get stuck to the pin and you’ll want to fucking kill yourself. Eventually the dough will look like a Mercator projection of Russia, which is when it is ready.


You can use a gingerbread-man cut out if you want, but I couldn’t find a good one, so I just did my man outline freehand. You can also trace a GI Joe or something, but use pencil, not pen, so you can erase it off the dough before you put it in the oven.

Once you’ve got the man, you’ve got to dissect him. Think like Dexter. Where are the optimal cuts so you can fit the whole body in the trash bag?

There’s a second way if you don’t have the patience for cutting up the body, which is just to cut a bunch of nonsense shapes out of the dough. You have to figure that dismembered body parts sitting in a bag at the bottom of the ocean would eventually stop looking like much of anything.

You’ve got your shapes, so sprinkle them with sugar and cook them. While they’re cooking (375 F for 7 minutes or so) you can get the next batch of dough ready. If you’re like me you’ll get ahead of yourself, so make funny shapes with the dough for laughs.

In case you are wondering what your penis would look like if you ever mashed it up with a rolling pin, this is what it would look like:

Once the cookies have baked and cooled, you have to decorate them. If you don’t have any ideas but you’ve got plenty of frosting, you can practice designs on your face.


I recommend black and red frosting, but if you want to get really gory you could incorporate some green. These are how mine turned out.

Now take a break and restore your electrolytes. Making cookies is draining and you’re not done yet.


The presentation is the key. Emeril once said “give me a sprig of parsley and a slice of lime and I could make your own ears look like an appetizing meal!” Or anyway, the story goes that that’s what he said to Jimmy Hoffa.

You need black trash bags and twist ties. Distribute the cookies evenly and bag them up.

Now your countertop should look like the Bay Harbor Butcher’s dumping ground, but for added effect, if you wrap the bags tight enough, you can always sink them to the bottom of a fish tank as a nice little display.


There you have it! The perfect stocking stuffer for your loved ones, co-workers, cab drivers, whatever! It works for everyone! Provided they watch Dexter. Otherwise explaining yourself is kind of difficult.

Ashley Greene Can Deal Better Than Keith Olbermann

So Ashley Greene and Joe Jonas have apparently just been wandering around New York being friendly to people for the last few days. The interweb wizard over at 247Greene has been collecting first person accounts here and here. Meanwhile I am formulating a theory that they are much better looking, as a couple, when drunk. See above. I think I'm on to something here.

Meanwhile, I haven't been covering the AG Haters on Twitter lately, because for one thing, @FuckUJashley blocked me.

Ha! Victory? It's weird that a free speech advocate would block someone, but whatever. Speaking of petty internet behavior, you might have seen that earlier this week Keith Olbermann quit Twitter in a huff after being repeatedly accused of rape apologism (if that isn't a word already, it is one now). Yet for all that is being hurled at her, Ashley Greene continues to (sporadically, vaguely) tweet strong. Maybe it's because her haters are a little more inept? Just as a for instance:

WHOOOOOPSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Think before you tweet, kids.

Week In Review

Ashley Greene & Joe Jonas, kinda drunk probably

This week, Bella's biological clock stared ticking. Then she got married. Don't spend too long thinking about those two sentences in tandem or you'll want to stop reading. Also, I wrote some fan-fiction. I feel like Breaking Dawn is going to be a particularly rich source for fan-fic writing.

Elsewhere in the Twilight Universe, Robert Pattinson shared his (probably fictional) dreams of becoming a rapper. A trailer for his new movie, Water For Elephants, was released and we all had some thoughts. We also learned that Joe Jonas is sort of a masochist. My important question about Ashley Greene's lunch or dinner with Jason Hueman (do you think he decided to become a colorist because his last name was HUE-MAN?) has gone unanswered.

I also shared my top ten movies of 2010, none of which were Eclipse. Did it make your top ten? It's okay if it did, I won't make fun of you. But you'll have to justify that to me. Rosanne tells me that S. Meyer's commentary on the Eclipse DVD is particularly egregious; I put off watching those special features last week but I'll get to it (and we'll discuss it) soon.

Photo via Just Ashley Greene [Previously]

Joe Jonas Likes To Punish Himself And Other News

I really loathe being told to "peep" someone's "exclusive chat" but I do it anyway, because I have something called journalistic standards. Look it up; it was invented by Bob Woodward and HL Mencken, independently but at the same time, like radio and the theory of evolution. Anyway today I read an interview with Alyson Stoner (who is somehow associated with the Jonas brothers? I'm not going to bother researching it that much). Every link to this article keeps quoting her saying Ashley Greene seems nice and "knew her place" on the Jonas tour. I have no idea what that second thing could mean, but it really doesn't matter; everyone is burying the lede on this. Here's Stoner discussing Joe Jonas:

Well, during his workout sessions before the shows, Joe would wear like five layers of trash bags that would help burn that many more calories as a way of punishing himself in case he was eating really unhealthy beforehand. But he was always training and like super focused, super amped and excited.

Yikes! Isn't that what almost killed Martin Lawrence? Ease up, Joe! You can have a piece of pizza without whipping yourself like that albino dude from The Da Vinci Code. Anyway, the interview theoretically goes on from there, but I have an ethical objection to "slide shows." They are used to boost page views, and that's cheap. The only honest way to boost pageviews is to endlessly reference things you've already written and link back to them. Oh by the way have you guys read my most recent piece of fan-fiction?

Anyway, speaking of peeping, some photos leaked of Demi Lovato flashing her cleavage in a mirror. Ho-hum. I mean, don't get me wrong, her cleavage is nice, (I'm not going for a cheap "ho" pun back there by the way, c'mon, what do you take me for?) but this is a scandal? [via Gawker]

Top Left: What the hell is that guy? Bottom left: B-Girl Shorty, pre-face punch.

You want a real scandal? Jason Hueman, the "celebrity colorist," tweeted last night that he had a "FUN!" dinner with Ashley Greene & Joe Jonas. Yet over at AshleyFreaks, they are calling it a lunch. Well, was it a dinner or a lunch? Is Jason Hueman one of those insufferable people who calls lunch "dinner" and dinner "supper"?

Sofia Coppola talked to NY Magazine in an article published earlier today about her interest in Twilight and vampires. The genesis of her new film Somewhere (which looks great) is weirdly connected to Twilight! How exactly, I can't really summarize. It's hard to come across as mumbly in print, but Coppola somehow manages.

Peter Facinelli, Kellen Lutz, Nikki Reed, and Elizabeth Reaser all stopped by a children's hospital the other day. That's nice, but they couldn't get ANY of the good Cullens?

Lastly, f you are in the New York area, Ashley Greene will be signing autographs at Best Buy or something as part of a marketing push behind the Eclipse DVDs tonight. I didn't look into it too deeply, I don't even know who (if anyone) is doing Boston. We've probably got Harry Clearwater or some shit.

WRITING BREAKING DAWN: Alice Cullen Sets Bella's Khaki Skirt On Fire

In the ideal version of Breaking Dawn, this would follow Chapter 3. The (theoretical) end to Bella's human life will hopefully signal the end of her awful, broken brain, but for sure it will at least signal an end to her choice in clothing. Alice made as much clear in the original text. Allow me, if you will, to drive the point home.

"Alice Cullen Sets Bella's Khaki Skirt On Fire"

Alice Cullen was already in the closet, pulling out turtlenecks and long skirts with violent speed, when her sister Rosalie hopped gracefully through the window. “This doesn't seem necessary,” Rosalie said softly.
“People said that about the Nuremburg Trials too, you know,” Alice grinned.
Rosalie sat on the edge of the bed and watched the clothing start to pile up at her feet.
“Shit, Rose,” Alice said, holding one garment in her hands for a moment before tossing it into the pile, “you can't tell me a straight girl would own this much flannel.”
“Still holding out hope, huh?” Rosalie smiled.
“Shut up,” Alice said. She found Bella's khaki skirt and lifted it triumphantly over her head. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: I give you exhibit Alpha and Omega.”
“Okay, so Bella's fashion sense is terrible. I'll give you that.”
“Rosalie, the editor of Duh Aficionado magazine called - they want to put you on the masthead. Her fashion sense is fucking tragic, okay? It's fucking genocide.”
“But I'm saying: won't buying her a new wardrobe be cathartic enough for you? We really have to have a bonfire?”
Alice stopped and glared at Rosalie fiercely. “I can't even begin to convey to you how I have suffered this past year, looking at this girl, and knowing what I could do with her.”
“Are you talking about her clothes or... something else?” Rosalie raised an eyebrow.
“Her clothes! She could have it so much better than she has. Could be treated so much better.”
Rosalie arched her eyebrow higher.
“By her clothes, I mean.” Alice coughed and stared at the pile of clothes on the floor.
“Alice,” Rosalie said softly. “She married him. I know that is hard for you to accept. But nothing will ever happen between the two of you.”
“Ever?” Alice said, trying to almost physically force away the doubt. “You think she's going to be content fucking Edward for all time?”
“She'll never know anything better,” Rosalie said. “Inertia, you know?”
“Fuck.” Alice sank gracefully to the floor. “You're right. Inertia. I'm sorry I dragged you out here.”
“It's okay. This will be fun! I'll gather some dry wood.” Rosalie stood.
“No, we don't need to have the fire. It was a silly idea.”
“We're not leaving until we burn that skirt, at least.”
Alice looked up at her sister and smiled. "Thanks Rose," she said weakly.

Every Thought I Had While Watching The Water For Elephants Trailer

• This looks fancy! The Circus! Is Robert Pattinson going to play a lion-tamer?
• Where the fuck do I know this music from? It's driving me crazy already!
• What kind of guy sees an old man standing out in the parking lot and is like, "Oh, get the wheelchair!" Hal Holbrook doesn't need a damn wheelchair, buddy!
• What's the name of that actor who looks like a cross between Hal Holbrook and Kurt Vonnegut?
• Hal Halbrook was so awesome and sad in Into The Wild! He was so dapper and charming as Albie Duncan on The West Wing! What is he doing in a silly, Titanic-like frame story?
• There's Pattinson! This is the least ridiculous I think he has ever looked.
• Hans Landa! Okay, I'm on board for this movie.
• There is going to be some bizarro-indie imagery in this film.
• Can anyone think of a GOOD movie that had a frame story? I can only think of Titanic and Benjamin Button. Not a wise choice, writers!
• Is Robert Pattinson going to SPEAK ANY WORDS in this trailer?
• Okay, there you go.
• Reese Witherspoon is going to play the rarest of all Manic Pixie Dream Girls: The Manic Historical Pixie Dream Girl!
• Clearly when we see this movie we will find out why there is pie all over Robert Pattinson's face, but for now we will have to live with the mystery.
• Watch out for that shovel, Rob!
• Life is the most spectacular show on earth? Yikes.
• What's with the font for "Water For Elephants" toward the end? To me that font says "it's 1995, and Paul Reiser is going to be the straight man opposite Johnny Depp."
• What the hell was that last image? Reese hugging an elephant that's sitting by a fire?
• "Opening Soon," the new E.P. from Band of Horses.

That looks pretty good though, huh? What were your thoughts? I want to know literally all of them. And if this trailer gets taken down, let me know and I'll find another one.

BLOGGING BREAKING DAWN, pt. 4: How Soon Is Now

Jesus, it's the wedding day already? I have to say, structure-wise, this is unexpected. If anyone had held me down two weeks ago and forced me to guess what would happen in Breaking Dawn, I'd probably have predicted that the Volturi or someone else would get in the way right before Bella and Edward's wedding. And then the Cullens would have to fix the problem while also trying to get the wedding happening on time, so as not to arouse suspicion. I'd have given you something remarkably similar to the plot of The Hangover, in other words. But that is not going to happen! They're getting married right now! S. Meyer really wants to get to the fucking!

Part 1: Vampire Blues
Part 2: Old Soul Song
Part 3: Planned Parenthood

Chapter 3: Big Day

Bella wakes up and kicks herself for having a weird fertility nightmare the night before her wedding. Show don't tell, Bella. Trying to shake these zipper blues, she makes Charlie some pancakes. Both of them are fidgety and grumbling about the day ahead of them: Charlie has to wait around and obsess about the fact that Edward will be fucking his daughter soon, Bella has to spend the day in Alice's bathroom. Bella got the better deal. There's all kinds of great Bella/Alice stuff to take out of context in this chapter by the way, starting here:

“Alice will be working on me all day long.”

Alice shows up then, hair “smoothed into sleek pin curls around her pixie face,” and drags Bella from the house. Charlie's all like, “Pop-pop doesn't get a treat?” as they bail. Alice starts bitching out Bella for the bags under her eyes; she's really throwing herself in to this sister-in-law thing already I guess. Alice says Bella will be able to sleep on the plane tomorrow, and Bella realizes wherever she and Edward are going, it will require a plane ride that will start tonight and continue into the following day. Edward is trying to buy as much time as possible before he has to have sex, huh? Or are they going to join the Mile High Club their first time out? I'd be impressed. Hell, Alice would be impressed.

“Damn, why'd I have to lose my virginity before the advent of commercial air travel?”-Alice Cullen

Alice says she's packed Bella's bags for her already, and that it's time for Bella to get over her “aversion” to new clothes. “I'm going to burn that fucking khaki skirt the moment you're out of town,” she says. As they pull into the Cullen driveway, Bella sees that Alice has re-used the “twinkle lights” from the graduation party. (Hey S. Meyer – that seems kind of out-of-step with Alice's character! Doesn't she never wear the same outfit twice?) She puts her hands over Bella's eyes (hot) as she guides her into the house; Bella's not allowed to see the décor yet. Clearly there is going to be some wedding porn in this chapter; Bella identifies several different flowers by smell. I'm not going to list the kinds here, because I have a penis. Also: that's some nose you got there, Bella!

In Alice's bathroom, she's got all of her “paraphernalia of a beauty salon” out on the counter (so I guess she put the usual paraphernalia away) and Bella sits there while she “masked, buffed, and polished every surface of my body.” Every surface of her body? Rosalie turns up and shocks Bella with her enthusiasm; she braids Bella's hair per Alice's instruction. Another great out-of-context line:

Alice moved back to my face.

We hear that Jasper has been dispatched to pick up Bella's mother and Phil at their hotel. Um, that doesn't seem like the smartest idea, does it? Trusting Jasper with that responsibility? Suddenly I'm stressed out. Alice leaves to go get dressed (she doesn't get undressed in front of Bella, which is disappointing and surprising) and returns in a silvery thing that S. Meyer fails to describe any further. I'm just going to assume it is primarily made of body paint. Also: hey, what does Bella's wedding dress even look like? The only sense we get is that it is old. Renee comes in after Alice and gushes over it: “You look like you just stepped out of an Austen movie.” An Austen... movie? Not an Austen... book? (The Algonquin Round Table at Renee and Phil's house is more like the Algonquin Pool Table.) A quick IMDB search reveals that one of the visual effects supervisors in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is named Emily Austen, but I can't imagine that's what she means. It's possible, though. Anyway, if this is all I have to go on, I'm picturing Bella's wedding dress as like, an antique bureau or something like that. Like Alice has spent the whole day rubbing her with furniture polish.

Renee is excited about the wedding; we learn that she's been in town for two days and Bella's been hanging out with her as much as she can. So we skipped two whole days? Again: note how quickly S. Meyer seems to want to get to this. And in two pages, note how quickly she seems to want to get it over with. She's in such a rush that she stops making sense altogether for a minute:

My mother's voice sounded a little distance away, and everything in the room was slightly blurry. “Such a creative idea, designing a theme around Bella's ring. So romantic! To think it's been in Edward's family since the eighteen hundreds!”
Alice and I exchanged a brief conspiratorial look. My mom was off on the dress style by more than a hundred years. The wedding wasn't actually centered around the ring, but around Edward himself.

What? Also: what? Grammatically, it sounds like Bella's mom is referring to the year of the ring, not the dress. And when Bella says “off by a hundred years,” which direction does she mean? Is the ring or dress from the 1900s like Edward? That would, you know, make sense. But it doesn't explain Bella's turn of phrase. When we're making a big deal about the old time-y nature of the dress/ring/groom, and someone overestimates the age of it, you don't exchange a brief conspiratorial look. You say, “no, it's not that old.” I'm half-worried that S. Meyer is trying to suggest the dress/ring is from the seventeen hundreds. Was she paying attention when she wrote that Edward was born in 1901? Does she think 1901 was in 1776?

Charlie comes in then, and he and Renee have a gift for Bella: two “hair combs” that used to belong to her grandmother, with two sapphires newly installed. Something old and something blue, see? I can see how if you were looking forward to Edward and Bella's wedding, you'd enjoy this kind of stuff. But for the rest of us, this happens:

“That's something old and something blue,” Alice mused, taking a few steps back to admire me. “And your dress is new... so here -“
She flicked something at me. I held my hands out automatically, and the filmy white garter landed in my palms.
“That's mine and I want it back,” Alice told me.
I blushed.

Ha! Thank you for that, Alice. Anyway, then suddenly the wedding is happening. Alice gives Bella a pep talk and then Charlie takes her arm and they follow Alice down the stairs to where Rosalie is playing the piano and everyone else is waiting. Bella is too busy blushing and being nervous to note much of the surroundings. That happens a lot, have you noticed? It sure must be nice having a narrator who isn't particularly observant. That way you don't have to worry about detail!

She catches sight of Edward, who breaks into a smile of “exultation” as she approaches. Charlie takes Bella's hand, and “in a symbol as old as the world” places it into Edwards. Well, it's a symbol as old as the civilized, western, patriarchal world. I guess there are certain religious types who think that is the same thing. We don't get the specifics of the vows (obviously – what, is S. Meyer going to do a Google search or something? No way!) but Bella says they got the minister to change “till death to us part” to “as long as we both shall live.” Heh. Bella realizes she's crying when she tries to say “I do.” Aw. They kiss, and Bella gets so absorbed in the kiss that the audience gets audibly uncomfortable. That's a cute (and rare) detail. (Cute Story: In my wedding pictures you can clearly see the pastor getting uncomfortable with the length of our kiss. He was a jackass, I'm glad we pissed him off. With our LOVE.)

And then it's over! S. Meyer rockets through the wedding stuff because, you know, we've got to get to the sex! Of course, if you got a good sense of where the last chapter was steering us, you'll realize that she's not eager to get to sex for sex's sake. Oh no. We've got to get to the sex so we can get the sex over with and then get to the consequences. That is all S. Meyer ever wanted out of this.

It's weird: all of Eclipse seemed to be a build up to this moment, and yet S. Meyer doesn't seem to relish it or all. She's all too eager to get past it. Why? Because now that we're here, the wedding has just become a plot device to get us to the next thing. That's fine until you remember how many other events we've blistered through in order to get to other plot points in order to get to this. Everything ultimately just becomes a plot device in the service of the next plot device. I feel like we're just plodding through every milestone in Bella's life, trying to get it over with. And here's the rub: she's going to live for-fucking-ever.

Thoughts?