so i updated my blog for the time in, like, months and it yielded a grand total of 1 viewings.
That's cool. That's cool.
Okay, I'm a little bit wounded. i handwrote my post - being all authentic and sharing-is-caring about it. I bet MI5 are filing away my handwriting style for future reference as we speak.
If I end up in Gitmo, I'm totally blaming you all.
So anyway, I'm starting from the ground here which is liberating in some ways. i'm not going to bother check my spellings or capitalising everytime i use the personal pronoun 'I'. cos really, it's not worth it and my writing is still readable (just a little sloppy). I'm going to enjoy instead, a freewheeling, stream-of-consciousness writing style where i can type whatever comes into my brain.
I was going to write a review of 'Snow White & the Huntsman' a few weeks ago. that was until i realised that the entire film that had filtered through my eyeballs had not registered in my brain at all. like AT ALL. nothing. Nada. I felt like the guy from Memento trying to piece together the memories of my life. That's usually a good warning sign that the film isn't very good. Visually, it captures pretty images and steals good bits from other films like LOTR and Princess Mononoke but trying to hang it all together with a sense of narrative and plot was beyond the film makers remit. Also, Kristen spends the entire film with her mouth open catching flies and has grubby fingernails. I was worried she was going to soil the majestic looking deer creature that bowed down to her. And Thor has an accent like Shrek.
Instead, I'll talk about Breaking Dawn Part 1 which I watched on DVD. I thought my love for Twilight had all but died. My interest has waned with every passing movie. it feels weird to burn through your obsessive love for something so quickly but the fact that Twilight became a global phenomenon and was suddenly everywhere meant that it ground me down to a nub of apathy. I've always hated BD. it's an awful book and terrible conclusion to a once beguiling series. However... i liked the movie.
One thing that struck me was how indebted it was to the first film of the series directed by Catherine Hardwicke. At the time of Twilight's release, there were negative stories coming out about Catherine being difficult; making an awful film that had to be rescued by the film editors and to be fair, there were some clunky moments but there was also plenty she did right. New Moon was full of empty grandeur, Eclipse was action packed leaving little room for romance but Twilight captured the giddiness of first love. It was romantic. The two leads had a chemistry and Catherine coaxed convincing performances out of them. (There was also sparkling which was an epic fail but we won't mention that).
Watching BD, i suspect the penny dropped for the studio heads that actually Catherine deserved credit for what she brought. There were so many references to Twilight in BD such as:
- rotating camera shot with 'Flightless Bird, American Mouth' in the wedding scene.
- the sparkly lighting at the wedding just like the prom scene in Twilight.
- the spliced together montages when Bella changes.
- they used the original music composer
I can only think of four things right now but take it from me, there was a sense of deja vu all the way through the film (you can tell I'm a fan cos I care about this stuff). This guy who directed BD - Bill whoever - didn't bring much of anything to the table (although an A+ on the honeymoon scene *nudge nudge wink wink*) and yet he got to direct the last two films in the series . Surely the honour that should have gone to Catherine?
I've defended her in twilight forums as she's a bit of a divisive figure there - her comments on Rob and Kristen's relationship being one of the crimes against her - but i hope BD was an unofficial tribute to what she did rather than a ripping off of her directorial style.
Weirdly enough, I want to see the final instalment. I'm not quite as ready to let go of the franchise as I expected myself to be. There's a tiny spark of passion that's been rekindled. Weird, huh?
