Faking Porn, Fart 2.

Somewhere along the way, the tween girlie movie series TWILIGHT transmorphed into the painfully overwrought “THE TWILIGHT SAGA,” like there was something extremely important happening between all these vampire models standing around doing nothing and all these werewolf models standing around doing nothing with their shirts off.

So we arrive at the conclusion of author Stephenie Meyer‘s series, fully titled, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2. There’s no real import or meaning to the title, but it takes up a lot of syllables, which in the minds of tweenies and weenies who haven’t yet read any real authors, makes it sooo grown up, like, totallyyyyy.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a newly-created vampire (a newborn) and she and vampire hubbie Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) have birthed a bouncing baby CGI monstrosity, which they name Renesmee (played by a real life Mackenzie Foy after she grows out of  computer diapers). Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is still hanging around the Cullen vampire residence like a dog fart after lasagna.

The usual crepuscular cast of Cullen vampires stand around and share line-reads (Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz). Meanwhile, vampire Maggie Grace (known for being TAKEN a lot) sees Bella’s child from afar, and thinks it is a human child that has been bitten and turned into a vampire (which is a sin, as the King James Bible tells us in St. Paul’s Letters To Dracula). She reports to Senior Vamp Dude, Aro (Michael Sheen, leader of the Volturi, which in Latin means “heavy mullet”), who is just waiting for a reason to kill something so that the movie can allow everyone to stop standing around and doing nothing.

This non-issue is what the movie turns on. All it takes is for someone to say to Aro, “Bella is the mother, and Edward is the father, even though we know he looks kinda gay, but trust us, he had The Sex with that brunette chick.” But a battle brews, and so the Cullen clan spend the better half of the movie “recruiting” sympathetic vamps from around the world who will “stand witness” for them, and say what I just said above. Torturous scenes of vampire models standing around pledging their allegiance to not making the movie interesting in the least. I swear, if these people didn’t have super-speed and occasionally run in fast-motion, there wouldn’t be ANY action in this movie at all! (And when they stand around, I find it hilarious that they always stand in pairs, coupled-off and each couple facing each other, like 14-year-olds at a house party scared that someone is gonna move on their boo. Hmm, I guess, exactly like their demographic!)

“You wanna have more of that Pretend Sex?”

Speaking of sex, again the movie goes to great lengths to tease youths with slow motion shots of Bella’s naked elbow and Edward’s nude hip bone, before cutting away to them covered in a bed together or in a field of flowers wearing clothes, implying that they did something that only your bigger brother does with cheerleaders. What it is, you’ll never know…

Which raises the whole “baby” question: Since when can vampires have children?! So their sperm and ovum still work like living tissue even though they’re undead? Which means vampires can theoretically overrun the world. Because they’re immortal. The TWILIGHT-heads are gonna counter with, “But she got pregnant as a human, and he ‘turned’ her (bit her on the bum) as she was giving birth, so the baby wouldn’t kill her on the way out.” Sound medical procedure. Which still means his seed is living tissue that carries genetic code; which means that vampires can still take over the world if they used this method on thousands of women.

You lost me at vampire sperm.

Movie opens with a montage of Bella discovering her powers, keeping her thirst for human blood and her acting in check. Instead of a nearby human, she kills a puma about to pounce on a deer, to slake her blood lust – oh, good decision! The predator-to-prey ratio is so low in these parts precisely because of numbskulls like you, who think that killing the puma is noble due to being raised on nature documentaries that paint the predators as “evil.” The millions of expendable deer deforesting the vegetation around here thank you, vampire maiden!

She arm-wrestles Kellan Lutz and wins because – woman empowerment. She can generate a mental shield that protects her loved ones from harm, while another vampiress generates shocks like Electro, while others just make up powers as they go along, because – vampires, yeh. She stands glistening in the sun: “I was born to be a vampire.” Sure, honey.

The art of Looking Menacing While Standing With Your Boo.

I must say, though, Stewart looks absolutely gorgeous here. No more the winsome pouty lass with the irritating pause-acting, she has lost her baby-fat and blossomed, with lush eyelashes, luscious waterfall tresses, desire-brown contact lenses, full cupid-blood lips, her straining A-cups propped up by a B-bra creating an hourglass figure, and even her acting has improved vastly, maybe up to the level of Shatner-adjacent.

But narration was a bridge too far. During the recruitment montage, Stewart narrates like she’s about to hiccup, with a passion reserved for GPS directions, expositing every character’s backstory and special power. Are we watching a movie, or listening to the audiobook?

Jacob, who is still somehow hanging around due to his insipid excuse of “imprinting” on both Bella and Renesmee, reveals his hairy ass to Bella’s father Charlie (Billy Burke), who was unaware he was in a movie series about vampires and werewolves until now. He comes to visit Bella at the Cullen residence, sees their freaky CGI baby, asks her what’s wrong, to which she answers ‘nothing,’ then drives out of the movie forever.

“Whoopsie! I’m a thriller!”

After nothing continues to happen quite a lot, the Volturi, led by pale-faced Aro, march to battle, all dressed like Michael Jackson. The Cullens and their allies are ready, all standing in the snow in couple-pairs, so that Aro won’t make a move on their boo.

Remember, these people are empaths and psychics and are endowed with other powers far beyond human reasoning and imagination, which means they all didn’t have to put on their sports bras and come tramping out here in the snow in the first place; Aro could have sent a trusted aide to mind-meld the relevant info and bring it back to him. But no. Here we are. The conclusion to the most anticipated Young Adult series in history. And it ends with – nothing happening.

Alice Cullen (stunning Ashley Greene) holds Aro’s hand – and there is a massive, pitched, badly-staged skirmish, where legends die and heroes fall. This is it, folks! It doesn’t get any more exciting! The final grand battle of Twilight! Destiny bellows and fates collide, and—-

Alice releases Aro’s hand. Oh, it was just a vision. “After what happened here today, they’ll never forget.” Uh, but nothing happened. In the distance, we see the breaking dawn… Oh, I get it! It all makes sense now—wait—

What?

END

Breaking Wind, Fart 1.

The two-part laborious conclusion to the most trivial love story ever told, TWILIGHT: BREAKING DAWN PART 1, opens with a wedding sequence, exactly like the one in THE GODFATHER, with two small differences: it’s not about New York Crime Families, and it’s not good.

Edward the Vampire (Hayden Christensen doppelganger Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan the Human (mind-numbingly unwatchable Kristen Stewart) marry. So why is Jacob the Werewolf (Taylor Lautner) still doing his third wheel impression like a fart that won’t dissipate? Hey dude, why are you hanging around? It ain’t romantic, it ain’t manly, and it sure as hell ain’t “imprinting” – that pathetic rationalization you’ve given to your doe-eyed whining. I won’t stoop to stating the obvious here, because everyone over 15 knows what Jacob wants – and it’s not to be Bella’s “friend.” What he wants starts with ‘f’ and rhymes with fuck.

Edward and Bella travel to an exotic location where they proceed to have pretend sex in the surf by the light of the silvery moon. Oh yes, here we go– CUT TO: The Next Morning. Whaaaaat?– After young boys and dumb girls have been waiting 3 whole years to find out How To Have Tween Sex, director Bill Condon and writers Stephenie Meyer and Melissa Rosenberg deny them this small favor? Sucks to be virgins, don’t it, kids?

The bed is shattered, which means they either had:
a) a violent lay,
b) a bad carpenter,
c) a sharknado,
d) Ikea,
e) termites.

She proudly shows him her bruises from coitus, which means he’s doing something right, yet every time she reveals a bruise (like the juvenile practice of showing off your hickeys at school), his meager acting skills register some kind of remorse. The next day, she is with child. Because that’s how babies are made, kids. You see, when a man loves a woman, he puts his…

… and then a monstrous baby grows within two weeks, threatening Bella’s life because she’s still only a human. Though she begged Edward to “change her” during their dry-humping courtship and though he should have transformed her into a vampire before impregnating her, I guess logic has nothing to do with anything by this time in the film.

Proven by the fact that the werewolf clan speak of being “threatened” by the birth of Bella’s hybrid-spawn, the likes of which would apparently topple empires and crack planets. How? Dunno. But “the tribe must be protected.” Uh, okay, guy, run through the forests naked some more and that’ll fix everything. The werewolves discuss the birth conundrum by mind-talking amongst themselves while growling. The meaning of Stupid just went up three notches.

In one of the best comedies of the year, Bella becomes emaciated and lies dying in the vampire clan’s cottage, a basketball shoved up under her dress to make it look like she’s pregnant, while the vampire clan stand around like teen models blowing a lot of hot air, while Edward mopes about with his Tragic Acting Face No.7 and Jacob hangs around like a wet dog smell.

At one point, the vamps give Bella human blood to drink because they discern that “the baby is thirsty.” Jacob, in the room, though as usual with no reason to be, wisecracks, “I think I’m going to be sick.” This, from the guy who mauls intestines and bowels while on all fours covered in fur.

Bella eventually gives birth to a bouncing baby demon. Jacob, as usual, is at the birth with no reason to be, looking up her dress. Bella starts dying in a rush. And the primary thing on both Jacob’s and Edward’s minds is the promise that Edward made to Jacob – that if Bella dies, Jacob can maul Edward’s intestines on all fours. Right, the woman you both “love” is dying in front of you, and the only thing you can think of is each other. The Native Americans have a word for that: fagalas. Surprisingly, Jacob is the first to give Bella mouth-to-mouth. Well, not so surprisingly: three years he’s been waiting to blow in her mouth – while Edward looks on wondering whether to act like a man and beat the shit out of him, or just act.

Insufferable Kristen Stewart lost a lot of weight for this role, and by movie’s end, on her death bier, she looks skeletal (which means she must have missed at least two meals) – but don’t go counting Oscars yet. Losing incredible amounts of weight doesn’t make you RAGING BULL. She’s still insufferable, just skinny and insufferable.

It’s a cliffhanger folks, so you’ll just have to wait and see whether Summit Entertainment sues Bella for breach of contract by dying in this film even though she was contracted for one more TWILIGHT movie. (Oh, I guess it’s not such a cliffhanger after all…)

END

Goolies Not Groovie.

I really wanted to like HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: an animated comedy with a cute concept (iconic screen monsters gathering at a resort set up by Dracula, far from the persecution of humans) and a simple boy-meets-girl story, featuring the talents of director Genndy Tartakovsky (the wild mind behind DEXTER’S LABORATORY and THE POWERPUFF GIRLS) and writer Robert Smigel (the insurrectionist TV FUNHOUSE and the absurdly funny YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN); even Adam Sandler producing and starring as the voice of Dracula didn’t turn me off, as Sandler’s recent output has been skewing towards the good side of bad.

But as it goes forward HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA goes backward, with storyline that doesn’t make sense, and arbitrary magic – that last bastion for limp storytellers – and then conveniently forgets to use that magic when it’s needed most.

Dracula (voice of Sandler) has not only created this resort for monsters as a refuge, but has concocted a fiction that all humans are bent on murderous intent toward monsters. We have no idea how he can continue to perpetuate this fiction with all the monsters that patronize his resort, because one would think that the monsters, being from the outside world, are encountering humans daily and assessing their threat level accordingly. The movie is for kids, we remind ourselves, and move onward… Drac has also instilled this irrational fear of humans in his “teen” vampire daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez), who is celebrating her 118th birthday, and wants to explore outside the stifling walls of the resort. That’s a fine ambition – but – her desire is to visit a “human village.” The illogical storyline gives us no indication how or why. Consider:

When ideological media tries to indoctrinate us on Pearl Harbor’s “surprise attack,” Columbus “discovering America,” or Barack Obama’s “death panels,” we can pore through unlimited amounts of other media to mitigate the spin. But in HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, Mavis is never seen absorbing any contrary information to counter her father’s spin – no monsters chat with her about the outside world, she is never seen on the internet or reading a travelogue, or doing anything that would plant a seed of doubt about her father’s word. Why then, does she want to visit the human village to “make new friends”?

Turns out this human village is fake anyway – with the zombie butlers of Hotel Transylvania masquerading as bloodthirsty humans, employed by father Drac, to scare Mavis home in case she wandered outside the resort walls.

Even when Mavis returns from the village in fear, movie never once indicates she has to overcome a fear of humans. When teen Jonathan arrives (Andy Samberg) and she discovers he’s human, she still can’t wait to get it on batty-style. In other words, the filmmakers were aimlessly trying to create the trope of the sheltered princess, to no avail.

Yes, it’s for kids – but do you really want your kids exposed to this contradictory trash?

Jonathan the Valley Boy hiker stumbles upon the resort and is ordered by Dracula to pose as Mavis’s birthday party planner until Dracula can sneak him off the grounds. But Jonathan endears himself to the patrons with his down-to-earth charm (i.e. stupidity) and captures Mavis’s heart with… uh, I dunno, his stuttering excuses? His cluelessness? The fact that he carries the only properly-formed penis of all her monster acquaintances?

So though the tagline is a funny premise – “Even Monsters Need a Vacation” – the film skews to that worn chick-flick trope of teen love against all odds. Stephenie Meyer in the front row gulping down popcorn…

When Jonathan admits to Mavis that he is human, she maintains, “I still want to be with you.” Whatever that means in Disneyspeak. Is she going out in the deadly sunshine with him on picnics? Is she comfortable consuming human blood in front of him? Are they going to tell his parents she’s undead? Is this a significant leap in tolerance across species lines? Rick Santorum did warn us that tolerance for other lifestyle choices would lead to man-on-dog; did he ever foresee bat-on-dope? Undead-on-alive?

Hey, it’s for kids, which apparently means it can be illogical and stupid. Meanwhile, all that money spent on producing this swill could have been spent on your kid for a better education system and healthier food in schools…

All the OG monsters are here, those classic icons of horror that made our grandma wet her bloomers: Frankenstein (Kevin James), The Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), The Mummy (CeeLo Green), The Invisible Man (David Spade), Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz), and there is much sideshow and background creativity in all the monster-centric gags. I don’t mind so much that these once-horrifying paranormal entities are being made to look cute and silly; it’s that it is happening in this badly-written movie.

Straight from the Because-It’s-For Kids bin: Direct sunlight is fatal to vampires, so Jonathan shows Mavis a sunrise from behind a ledge – but wait – if she is in shadow, how can she possibly see the sunrise? Because It’s For Kids. Drac eventually comes around to liking Jonathan – because it’s for kids. The human tourists that the monsters feared so much turn out to be loving fans of the monsters – because it’s for kids. Yes, everything’s for the kids – except quality entertainment.

Drac sees a snippet of TWILIGHT and laments, “This is how they represent us? Sheesh!” But waitaminute – look at HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: This is how they represent you? Sheesh!

END

The Tween Team.

So it has come to this. After the vampire wars and the werewolf killings, after the tempest of accepting a human unto the clan of the undead, after the dark skies of Forks presage death raining  rivers of blood, TWILIGHT ECLIPSE has come to this, the most chilling decision mankind has ever faced:

Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Edward (Robert Pattinson) is a vampire. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is a werewolf.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward’s acting resembles being doped with chloroform. Jacob can’t act.
WINNER: Team Edward.

When Edward takes his shirt off, his skin sparkles in the sun. When Jacob takes his shirt off, chicks orgasm.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward’s abs are pasty and soft from snacking on Bambi. Jacob’s abs are washboard from all that doggy styling.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Edward and Jacob both love Bella (Kristen Stewart).
BOTH LOSERS.

Bella flaunts her boy’s botty in front of Jacob – and won’t do anything with him. Bella flaunts her pea-tits in front of Edward – and HE won’t do anything with her.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward gets to go on innumerable talk-dates with Bella and her insufferable pause-acting; Jacob gets to pout that Bella never goes on talk-dates with him.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Bella relegates Jacob to The Friend Zone, and never has sex with him. Bella takes Edward as her boyfriend and never has sex with him either.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward whines that Bella wants to have sex with him. Jacob whines that Bella doesn’t want to have sex with him.
BOTH LOSERS.

Edward looks like he’s run into a brick wall. Jacob looks like a brick wall has fallen on his head.
BOTH LOSERS.

Jacob never meets Bella’s luminous school friend Anna Kendrick, while Edward, through hanging with Bella, is always around the perky Kendrick.
WINNER: Team Edward.

Due to never meeting Kendrick, Jacob also never meets the douchebags that hang around her and Bella like a wet dog smell.
WINNER: Team Jacob.

Bryce Dallas Howard appears as a vampire, and the same thing happens to me as when Jacob takes his shirt off for chicks.
WINNER: Team Poffy.

Edward’s hairstyle looks like he put his finger in a light socket. Jacob also looks like he’s put his finger in a light socket, but based on past glories when it cascaded like a luscious waterfall:
WINNER: Team Jacob

Bella agrees to marry Edward. Bella wants Jacob to remain her Just Friend.
BOTH LOSERS.

Team Edward and Team Jacob team up to battle a clan of vampires that wants to kill them because of their hotness or something, in a CG battle so spectacular I almost woke up.
BOTH WINNERS.

Music video and TV director David Slade helms this project like a music video and TV director, from the overrated Stephenie Meyer novel for tweens.
WE ALL LOSE.

END

It was a Monster Mash!

How does Kate Beckinsale run in those stilettos? She is one of the most beautiful women on this ugly planet – but that Boris-and-Natasha accent is a real turn-off. Her Transylvanian is worse than Don Cheadle’s cockney.

In VAN HELSING, Beckinsale is Anna Valerious, a European village warrior woman with big hair, big sword and tight pants, whose quest is to destroy the monsters terrorizing her village. She is joined by one of the other most beautiful women on the planet, Hugh Jackman; curly cascading locks, magnificent chest, azure piercing eyes, aquiline nose, lips like sugar — waitaminute! Am I talking about him or her again?…

VAN HELSING is an old-fashioned monster tale with new-fashioned sex symbology. This ain’t your daddy’s Van Helsing. Vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing was introduced to the world in Bram Stoker’s lavish 1897 novel Dracula, and in all successive media, we’ve grown used to Van Helsing as a crotchety old curmudgeon with a wooden stake in upraised fist ululating at the lightning. But Jackman is more like Ted Nugent hunting caribou in a loincloth (and without the idiotic Republican ideology); witch’s hat and rock star hair, flouncing floor-length leather and a repeating crossbow, his Playgirl muscles on standby for the final werewolf-vampire battle.

This Van Helsing is a hired assassin for Mother Church, hunting all manner of supernatural and unholy beast. They call him “The Left Hand Of God” (how Christian of them, as if that euphemism absolves them of their mortal crimes). He also gets bitten by a werewolf (shove that in your Van Helsing canon!), so his blood becomes mutated, his body becomes hairier than Paul Stanley’s chest and he grows long steely claws; in other words, he becomes Wolverine.

And he’s hunting… Dracula (Richard Roxburgh), who seems to have a clouded past with Van Helsing, calling him Gabriel in an avuncular tone, rather than Abraham (but in that pseudo-Transylvanian, so it sounds like Gabryelle, with umlauts and stuff).

All the old monsters are here, with in-your-face technological upgrades. Modern CGI animates gigantic werewolves, more powerful and vicious than we’ve ever seen, pale-blooded nude harpies devoid of nipples, vampire bat-babies and Frankenstein’s Monster (Shuler Hensley).

And there’s even Dracula’s craven assistant named Igor (Kevin J. O’Connor), who, whenever Dracula calls his name, must answer in that monster lisp, “Yesh, Mastah!” as he does that body-turn with arms flailing loosely.

David Wenham is Van Helsing’s friar sidekick, who is the voice of plot, outlining tales of intrigue with the convenient device of archaic tomes that always have pictures to illustrate exactly what he describes. This old cinematic technique – even in this fun-filled romp – is wearing on my patience. There are always PICTURES of the horrors that someone describes, like the listeners (audience included) cannot take the storyteller’s word for it unless we see those medieval hand-drawn Bosch-esque devil-drawings in a magnum volume guarded by monks. Even Beckinsale’s high tight corset doesn’t make up for that annoyance.

Dracula is trying to drain Frankenstein’s monster for the juice that will sustain his bat-babies. (Don’t even ask; I guess since Friar David read this plot from a medieval hand-drawn Bosch-esque magnum volume guarded by monks, it must be credible.)

A lot of work was put into this lavish production – most of it done by those computer nerds we take for granted – but Dracula himself is not selling me. Being fey is not a downfall when playing Dracula, but Roxburgh is not even selling the fey – only when he becomes a computer-nerd-created monster to battle Wolverine’s computer-nerd-created werewolf does he approach any level of monster mash.

And then – it was a graveyard smash!

END

Lycan-nope.

My, what big eyes Amanda Seyfried has!

RED RIDING HOOD is a reimagining of the children’s tale about the talking wolf that eats grandmother. What better way to represent an anthropomorphized lupine than making it – a WEREWOLF?

As this mysterious werewolf stalks a medieval village, we constantly ask ourselves, “Why don’t I feel any foreboding or tension? Why does it all seem like a school play?” Maybe because all the Fear has been leached in favor of the love triangle between three teens. And as we all know, the world revolves around the petty dalliances of Teen Models.

One look at the director of this piece and it all makes sense: Catherine Hardwicke, TWILIGHT. All the better to Chick-Flick you, my dear.

In this TWILIGHT-for-werewolves, Amanda Seyfried is teen Valerie, who loves teen woodcutter Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), but her parents have arranged her marriage to village rich kid, teen Henry (Max Irons). Valerie’s grandmother is Julie Christie, who bequeaths her the infamous red riding hood; her parents are Virginia Madsen and Billy Burke. (Yes, that Billy Burke; the father of teen Bella in those vampire movies is the father of teen Valerie in this werewolf movie. Cross-pollination or treason?). Lukas Haas inhabits the middle background as a young priest.

Though the werewolf is regularly appeased by offerings of small animals, it has now killed Valerie’s sister – so her wedding is postponed until the sexy teens can stop being virgins and pouting about “being together” (sound familiar?) – oh, and until the werewolf is killed.

Then Gary Oldman arrives like a Big Bad Wolf. Oldman is Solomon, professional werewolf hunter. And his most interesting tool is his big iron elephant. Not a euphemism, he has a big iron elephant that is a prison for werewolves, and doubles nicely as a torture chamber for annoying teens.

He tells them: The Wolf is someone from the village! Dun dun daaaaar!

The actual Big Bad Wolf effects are blackly and hairily fantastic, as to be expected with the state of technology, and like the fairy tale – it speaks! It inexplicably entreats Valerie to come away with it, which might go towards solving the mystery of who it is. And as we speculate on whether it is blond Henry or brunette Peter (as in Peter and the Wolf?!), the secret is revealed – where else? – at Grandmother’s house.

Problem with this romance-thriller is its PG-13 glaze; the only thing “dark” about it is the village studio set lit as nighttime, and its tween rating means a dearth of sex and violence, all promises and no deliverance. All the better to TWILIGHT you, my dear.

A sensual soundtrack, lush set dressing, and ominous Gary Oldman with silver-tipped fingernails cannot save this movie from being a dog.

END

Dead – and Mumbling It.

Kristen Stewart mumbles her way through another TWILIGHT movie.

Synopsis of NEW MOON on the BluRay cover: “In the second chapter of Stephenie Meyer‘s best-selling TWILIGHT series, the romance between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen gets more intense.”

And by more intense, they mean he almost gets to second base.

Stewart once again plays Bella Swan like she has avian flu, mooning after her vampire bf Edward (Robert Pattinson), whose man bits she has never touched let alone seen. He leaves town (bleary Forks, Washington) because his family can’t stand the sight of her blood, and so that another vampire clan will not harm her to get back at him. Naturally, leaving a demonstrably unbalanced, sexy 20-year-old alone in a town haunted by vampires and werewolves is the best thing they could have done to “keep her safe” – kinda like George W. Bush saying he cared about soldiers’ lives while sending them to die in illegal wars. Now, where was I?…

Bella’s constant begging for Edward to “change” her (i.e. bite her and transform her into a vampire) reminds me of those gay guys who WANT to be infected with HIV. (As if gay guys weren’t vilified enough already for being weirdos, there is a strand of REAL weirdos out there who crave infection either because their partners are infected so wish to join them, or so they won’t need to be “safe” after being infected, or that they feel left out of the “in” clique, etc.)

Against all Edward’s Obi-Wan spirit requests of “don’t do anything stupid” Bella takes a midnight ride with a stray biker – don’t know what she was thinking: maybe he would avoid touching her the way Edward avoided touching her. And the “dangerous biker” very courteously drops her off without touching her. Surprised she didn’t fall madly in love with him as well. Maybe because he was such a badass he came to a skidding stop, which almost broke a fingernail…

Bella turns her mooning to werewolf-in-training, Jacob (Taylor Lautner, who hasn’t yet evolved enough to button a shirt); he is part of a clan of werewolf boytoys, who prove to be almost interesting, until they try to act. Bella proceeds to not touch Jacob the same way she not-touched Edward, Just-Friending him with a vengeance, until even he tells her to piss off.

The cool werewolf effects kicked in just before I fell asleep.

So here are the sex symbols for a new generation of tweenies: anemic dullard Kristen Stewart, whose intolerable pause-acting is somehow meant to convey – sultriness? wariness? appendicitis?; soporific Robert Pattinson, who looks like something smashed into his face, and ‘roided Taylor Lautner, who looks like something fell on his head.

All three principals constantly talk about “belonging with each other” yet all they actually do when they’re WITH each other is talk about belonging with each other. It’s like sex hasn’t been invented yet.

TWILIGHT NEW MOON is not a love story or romance – it is a teen-model descent into soporific hell. And not in that good way, like when Satan claims your soul.

Speaking of the Prince of Darkness, shouldn’t His black influence be prevalent in any tale of vampires or werewolves? What happened to all the mythos enshrouding these dark entities? Director Chris Weitz and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (as well as author Meyer herself) disregard all canon, as people turn into werewolves instantaneously, painlessly and without a hint of full moon; as vampires skulk around in daylight without their skin burning off – on the contrary, sparkling! – and not the slightest whiff of worm-infested coffin soil.

Edward decides to kill himself because he erroneously believes Bella has been killed. This, in a world of psychics, empaths and CELL PHONES. The Romeo and Juliet train is in motion and nothing logical is gonna derail it. Laughable that the writers analogize the greatest love story known to man with their beige bore-fest.

Bet this was the pitch meeting scene: To stop Edward killing himself, Bella must do a desperate dash through the streets of Italy during a religious festival, dodging red-garbed monks, as the bell tolls midday and Edward in slomo starts to expose himself in sunlight and thereby get killed by the religiousness of the monks. The vampire council doesn’t like this, yet where are they when he is slowly unbuttoning his shirt and Bella is running in that man-style to stop him? Apparently, their council chamber is just upstairs – too lazy to walk the twenty stairs to tell Edward he’s a prat. Bella dives on Edward – and I mean that in the most non-sexual way you can imagine it; kinda like a puppy dives on a tennis ball – telling her she loves him and his flat face is overjoyed to see her. Cue magnificent tears of romantic joy from teen girlies.

I dare anyone over 30 to watch this movie without rolling their eyes, needing an aspirin, slapping someone, defenestrating their BluRay, or begging to be put out of their misery.

The only two saving graces of NEW MOON are those fake-looking CGI wolves (they’re massive, at shoulder height standing taller than a man) and Michael Sheen, exceedingly delicious as Aro, the head of the vampire council. (In the UNDERWORLD series, Sheen is the head of the Lycans – the werewolves; talk about audacious crossover!)

And I feel sorry for 16-year-old boys worldwide, this TWILIGHT film series having bred a whole generation of mumbling and moaning high maintenance girlfriends who never put out and erroneously think Just Friends is a viable option; who believe true love means lying in a meadow with all their clothes on and watching your skin coruscate… yet who must follow those very same high maintenance girlfriends into theaters to watch this dreary slop if they ever hope to make it to second base…

You poor bastards.

END

Loopy Lupine.

THE WOLFMAN starts as a remake of the classic 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. film THE WOLF MAN, and ends somewhere between BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.

That ain’t so bad, but not what it was aiming for.

Director Joe Johnston (JURASSIC PARK III, HIDALGO) pays homage to the horror pioneers by including all the old conventions in his remake: the classic poem “Even a man who is pure of heart…” (which is not arcane Euro legend, but penned by writer of the original WOLF MAN, Curt Siodmak), old villager’s tales of lycanthropes, the moon appearing preternaturally large and full – at least ten nights in a row, the full-body jump through bay windows, arms and limbs dismembered, and the fiery finale in a lavish mansion.

Benicio Del Toro is Lawrence Talbot, who returns to swampy 1891 England and his ancestral castle to investigate the mysterious death of his brother. He is greeted ambivalently as a prodigal son by his father Sir John Talbot (Anthony Hopkins, phoning in some kind of distracted cross between Hannibal Lecter and his butler in REMAINS OF THE DAY).

Lawrence is distracted himself by his brother’s widow Gwen (Emily Blunt), and he is tailed by a detective (Hugo Weaving) creating the template for reporter Jack McGee in THE INCREDIBLE HULK television series – always showing up after the fact.

The Wolfcuke

When he visits a gypsy camp one night, Lawrence is bitten by a werewolf. And we all know what happens then: your body grows long wolfy fingers, your back muscles expand and your shirt rips off, your paws grow massive and your shoes explode – but your pants stay on. Really tight – like the Incredible Hulk.

Rather than take after the CGI wolves in the stillborn TWILIGHT series, or even the rampaging wolves in the UNDERWORLD series, I was glad to see THE WOLFMAN’s wolf-man design emulated the classic Lon Chaney look – a wolf-headed man with barrel-chested human torso, just slightly less hairy than a Middle Eastern teenager. The white ripped shirt and black vest with Elizabethan trousers stretched tight complete the classically Euro lycanthrope ensemble.

There is nothing intrinsically “wrong” with this lush production – the effects are superb and naturally much better than the 1941 version or any of its sequels (I still remember as a kid being dissatisfied with Chaney’s onscreen transformation – the slow dissolves from one makeup point to another – even though it was supposedly “Hollywood magic”); the gore teeters on the cusp of gratuitous and ludicrous, the night forests are eternally backlit by kliegs, and the story is changed minimally to accommodate a wolf-on-wolf deathmatch finale. Danny Elfman’s soundtrack alternates between LORD OF THE RINGS and BATMAN BEGINS. The most uncomfortable aspect is that maybe this production takes itself too seriously. And ends up funny.

The interaction between Hopkins and Del Toro seems forced – they are meant to be estranged father and son, yet they seem like they’ve never ever met before their dress rehearsal. Art Malik as the butler is a strange piece of casting pie. And there is hardly any chemistry between Lawrence Talbot and Gwen, as they share but one kiss, so her distraught chase after the hunters to save him as The Wolf seems a little forced. But Anthony Hopkins as a pudgy, blondish wolf is priceless.

I fear the faults in this movie may be ours – the moviegoing audience. Are we too cool to take in an old-fashioned tale of simple legendary horror without trying to read everything as a homage to arcane movie references or a nod to modern ones; without trying to see irony or cynicism behind everything? Even this production felt it needed to add a “twist” to the original tale to hold our interest. Have we outgrown the old monsters?

And just how many nights of a full moon can the Earth stand anyway?

END

Bloodless.

A chick falls in love with a fey vampire. They don’t have sex. The End.

Vampires used to be scary once. The iconography of the blood-drinking psychotic, the shape-shifting coffin-dweller, reached a horrifying zenith with the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker (published 1897). Then came the startling film NOSFERATU (1922). Modern media has progressively been bleeding out all the horror and sex from the dark, disturbing legends, starting with the camp Christopher Lee DRACULA movies of the 60’s and 70’s, followed by innumerable copycat movies, comedies (ONCE BITTEN, 1985) and overexposure (SESAME STREET’s The Count, BLACULA 1972) that turned vampires into laughingstock clichés. Anne Rice’s Lestat novels, made into INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (1994), went for the jugular on sexiness with Bradley Pitt and Mapother Cruise on fey overdrive, while UNDERWORLD (2003) went hogwild on skintight butt-leather and lace corsets (though its vampires were dangerous not because of their psychoses, but their big shiny guns).

Coppolla’s BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992), though an ambitious failure (due exclusively to its supporting cast of Keanu and Winona), succeeded in bringing back the sex and danger, and also succeeded in conveying the tragedy of being Dracula (aka Count Vlad); that it was a curse, purveyed achingly by the brilliant Gary Oldman.

And now we arrive at the anemic TWILIGHT, exorcising every ounce of sex, danger and tragedy from vampire iconography – leaving us with a tale for 12-year-old girls seemingly written BY 12-year-old girls.

No surprise: novel by Stephenie Meyer, screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, directed by Catherine Hardwicke. A little more action, a little less estrogen please!

Set in rainy, depressing Forks, Washington, eternally in twilight (not in a sexy libidinous way, but in a rainy depressing way) Kristen Stewart is Bella, a “troubled teen” – excuse me while I whip out my Troubled Teen Flow Chart – who meets the Dangerous Outsider in school, Edward (Robert Pattinson), and falls for his enigmatic moodiness and flat face.

Poffy Cullen – intense teen heartthrob

Pattinson (whom we are told is a sex symbol even though his face looks like he’s just run into a brick wall) delivers all his lines like he’s in a coma, and Stewart delivers hers in a wavering monotone like she’s on the brink of orgasm. Discovering Edward is a vampire is apparently not that big a deal – if her monotonal surprise is anything to go by. Edward tells Bella that his family are goody-goody vampires who abstain from subsisting on human blood, but rather drink the blood of animals. (Keep Fluffy away from him!) For this reason he can’t even make out with Bella because it will drive him into a sensual bloodlust.

But that’s okay with Bella, who would much rather lie in the grass with him with all her clothes on and talk inanely about stuff that not one male in the audience cares about. The one time they’re about to spank it, Edward pulls away and tells her it can never happen. Bella (a character created by three chicks that have no idea What Men Want) is still okay with that because only a 12-year-old girl can believe that true eternal love involves no coitus. But lots of interruptus.

Edward moons morosely when Bella’s childhood friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) comes sniffing around. Jacob looks oddly Native American (aided by Gil Birmingham, a true Native, playing his dad), yet he’s werewolf-y enough for tween girlies to think he’s peachy keen as well. Other peachy keen “teens” include Anna Kendrick, Kellan Lutz and Cam Gigandet: runway models for the middle background.

Edward, who proclaims himself psychic, confesses to Bella, “I can’t figure out what you’re thinking.” A stab in the dark: how about, “I want to have sex with you, dude.” The first thing Bella notices when she walks into Edward’s room is the absence of a bed. If course – because it’s the first thing she was looking for. He tells her, “I don’t sleep,” then flips her onto his back and goes frolicking through the trees in lieu of clitoral stimulation. Bella doesn’t mind in the least. After all, her underdeveloped 12-year-old mind believes she wants to “be” with Edward “forever” without thinking it through past the stage of lying in a field with all her clothes on and gazing at his Hayden Christensen lite impression.

Bella wants to “be” with someone who is going to outlive her; with whom she will never coax juice; someone who can never go on a normal dinner date because he doesn’t eat; someone who avoids sunlight; that she can’t share experiences with because he’s already experienced everything; that she can’t teach anything; someone who will never be amazed by her; that she can’t grow with psychologically, that she can’t grow old with physically; that she has absolutely nothing in common with, except that they’re both underactors.

Probably the only action that threatens to happen is a cringeworthy scene when a rival band of vamps intrudes on Edward’s family playing baseball among themselves during a storm. Then nothing continues to happen, thank god. Or I might have to write about something.

END

Overwrought Underworld.

Guns, Gore and Grrrrrls in growling leather.

The Salad Dealer

UNDERWORLD gives a shot in the arm, so to speak, to the vampire and werewolf iconographies, updating/reimagining both to be in an ongoing millennia-aged war that is escalating, plopping them in modern day Europe (or somewhere with underground rail transport and rain that won’t quit) with automatic weapons and computers. And leather.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale, who would soon marry the director – luckiest man alive, Len Wiseman) is a vampire “Death Dealer,” with guns bigger than her acting abilities and leather so tight and curve-hugging my Carnal Nerve nocturnally emissioned. She’s a lethal stalker and killer of werewolves (“lycans” in sexy new street cred).

Story is interesting twist on the legends, yet if you enjoy werewolf slash vampire movies, this may or may not be your cup of blood. You see, whereas all other werewolf and vampire movies have been correctly slotted into the horror genre, UNDERWORLD is an “action” movie whose characters happen to be vamps and thropes. We’re in their world now, so their intrinsic alienness is the norm, rather than an anomaly. Movie can get on with the shooting and running and blood-fests as common occurrence between the two “races” (just as any two given races on Earth at any given point in history will engage lovingly in shooting and running and blood-fests). Subsequently, dialog is childish, and action is filmed in that style that suddenly slams into slomo to accentuate the flounce of capes and the thrill of tight butt-leather, with no meaning other than for the sake of capes flouncing and butt-leather bouncing.

Latent werewolf, Michael (Scott Speedman) is bitten by a vampire – to breed a hybrid race that will win the war for the lycans, who are jealous that the vampires have such cool leather. Even though he’s a transgender, Selene inexplicably falls for Michael. Because he’s hot, I’m guessing. But vampire-werewolf love cannot be. So it is written in the ancient scrolls of the TV Guide. For advice on her love life, she calls on the Dr. Phil of vampires, their sleeping king, Viktor (Bill Nighy), who in hibernation looks like a zombie husk of a mummy, until he is revived by fresh blood, whereupon he looks like Bill Nighy (i.e. a zombie husk of a mummy).

Casting Kate Beckinsale was not a mistake. Garbing her in such tight leather is. Because I am blinded to anything else when she is onscreen. She is just too breathtakingly beautiful, too achingly sensual– Those pointy incisors; those devil-blue eyes– Look at that cutie go! Two-fisted gun barrels blazing, Hard Guy Overcoat flouncing, rain dripping pruriently from hand-grab spinner waist in leatherbound corset, spike-heeled boots and porcelain-creamy neck–

Uh, what was the question again?–

END