allow me ruminate, dammit.

How hot is this poster?!

I originally had no plans to take to my blog to talk about New Moon, because -- while I'm finally OK with admitting I'm a Twihard -- I didn't want to contribute to the collective Twitteratti that is making everyone else want to put a gun in their mouths.

Nevertheless, this is my blog, and I need to realize that it's perfectly fine to indulge my obsessions so long as they don't become destructive and/or all consuming (thanks for go-ahead, Dr. Kelly!). That being said, I'm simply going to expound on Twilight v. New Moon. This isn't review so much as observation; so observe me observing.

Given I saw New Moon two times in 24 hours, I can't say I didn't like the movie. I obviously did. I know how to walk into a movie like this and reduce my critical eye to that of an untreated, nearly blind syphilitic (STD reference is intentional and appropriate), able to enjoy spoonful after spoonful of schmultz because, look, there's pleasure in the lowbrow if you just get over your ego for a couple of hours. And so I "eee!"-d a bit when the title came across the screen; I clapped when Edward did his first slow-motion walk across the school parking towards Bella; I gaped and then cried when Jacob took off his shirt; I snapped my fingers and said "Yeah, bitch!" when Dakota Fanning was all "Pain." You watch for moments like these that speak do your immature whims, not Oscars and accolades.

Still, if I have to be comparatively critical, I liked Twilight better, and here's where I'm going to get all first-year-film-major on you. There are moments when New Moon certainly exceeds Twilight. The overall scope of the story is more easily managed by Chris Weitz. That is to say he's able to take the remarkability of vampires and wolves and capture it with more technical savoir faire. It just felt like a bigger, meatier movie with him at the helm. However (and this is a big however), I really really missed Hardwicke's direction when it came to the emotion of the story. One of the reasons I was unable to stop watching Twilight over and over again was due to her ability to take the complexities of teenage emotion and attraction and desire and channel them through Bella's experience. Across the board, any emotion a teenager has is going to be affected by some type of angst, and no one does adolescent angst better than Hardwicke. Watch 20 minutes of Hardwicke's raw masterpiece, Thirteen, and you'll understand that. So when I saw New Moon, I just couldn't help but wonder what she would have done with Bella's gyre of despair post-Edward walk-out. And even Bella's recovery at the hands of Jacob would have been more treated, more palpably wearisome and painful. Hardwicke noted in the commentary of Twilight that she inserted a lot of Thirteen-type shots and scene set-ups that were, for me, really effective in conveying the story. And while she got a few knocks for having a directorial style that was too narrowed and sometimes careless, I actually felt it worked in the movie. The fact that she would approach certain scenes with a "let's-just-film-and-see-where-it-goes" mentality made for a movie who's instabilities only enhanced the themes of the books and the nature of teenage main characters. I'll cite the first time Bella comes to The Cullens in Twilight, when we get the whole dancing in Edward's room/climbing through pine trees/Edward playing the piano to example how she can seriously set a mood and capture sensibility.

It's a pity Hardwicke never got her shot at New Moon, but given her lack of experience with CGI, it could have been an embarrassing disaster. When it's all said and done she got to introduce the world to what will -- lamentably, perhaps -- become one of the greatest love stories ever told. Weitz did an OK job with his turn, but I'm glad there will be some new blood in Eclipse with David Slade, who directed 30 Days of Night, where vampires looked like this:



So if anyone is going to bring a darker, more mature element to this franchise, it's going to be Slade. Let's hope for an epic werewolves + The Cullens v. new vampire army battle.

Seth