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I saw the original "Twilight" almost by inertia, when a friend with far too many HBO channels called and asked me if I wanted to come over and watch a movie. We chose this one because my friend's daughter told her she liked it, but about halfway through we looked at each other and, almost in unison, said, "This is terrible." (Of course, this is the same daughter who told us we would enjoy the insipid "Autumn in New York", too, so we should have taken this new recommendation with a grain of salt). The pasty Edward character almost made me laugh out loud-this is an immortal guy, supposedly, who spends his entire sulky, endless life going to high school. I mean, holy mother of God, what is the point of living forever if you are going to spend it eating cafeteria food, dealing with jocks and goths and memorizing "The Red Badge of Courage'' and "The Catcher in the Rye"? That seems a far worse immortal fate to me than even the one of the poor Knight in The Last Crusade. Bella herself is just a stereotypical high school drama queen, whiny and mopey, no different than any of the terminally self-absorbed chicks you remember sitting in the back of the class and staring at their navels in your own high school. You would think that in a dozen lifetimes Edward would have found someone a little more lively and fun to spend eternity with, but evidently even amongst the immortals there is no accounting for taste. And anyway, Edward is as big a brooder as Bella, and he has no hope of ever growing out of it. Yikes...the two of them together are the biggest downers since Heathcliff and Catherine. Watching their terminal, self-perpetuating despondency makes you wish you had bought a hammer instead of popcorn, because repeatedly banging yourself in the head with it would be endlessly preferable to watching these two stew and sulk for eternity. Nope. If I want to watch lifeless teenagers brood and mope and make bad choices, I can just go a couple miles down the road to South Portland High School and see exactly the same thing...without paying ten bucks for it.
And hell, since it's hunting season...I might even get the added bonus of seeing someone suck on the blood of a deer for food.




