twilight eclipse

Everything good about the Twilight movies goes away in Twilight Eclipse.

Remember those nice little action montages set to Thom Yorke's "Hearing Damage" or the nice little emo sequences set to Lykke Li's "Possibility"?  Gone.  The soundtrack - which, having downloaded it, I know continues to be good - is barely used (they have freakin' Florence and the Machine and don't use it, people).  We just get the generic "score" instead.  And while the action is okay for a teenage vampire movie, the cinematographic flair that made Twilight and New Moon pleasant viewing experiences has been replaced by choppy, rigid scenes with no emotional or artistic texture.  I blame the new director, David Slade, who seems to be trying to make Twilight as generic and simple as possible.  And honestly, I can watch the stuff in the next two paragraphs with a little teeth-grinding if at least the presentation gives me something. 

The classism-infused love triangle between vampire, human, and werewolf becomes downright intolerable in Eclipse.  I became thankful for the sloppy flashbacks into some of the vampires' early lives just because it meant a cut away from Edward, Bella, and Jacob.  Edward's control-freak-ness goes up a notch in this one, Bella just kind of wanders around looking far more vapid and hapless and dolled up than she did in New Moon, and Jacob is totally masochistically deluded.  Jacob and Edward argue about what's best for Bella incessantly, while Bella either sleeps or says "hey stop" or shoves her fists in her hoodie, looking totally ineffectual.  Bella herself seems totally unable to have a conversation, so maybe I don't blame them, but the entire movie basically depends on all the good vampires and the werewolves risking their lives to protect Bella and why?  At the very end Bella finally gives us some semblance of a sense of self when she explains why she wants to become a vampire, but geez, too little too late.  Bella's previously awesome dad Charlie is reduced to one-liners and hee-hawing about teen sex.  Bella's friends are non-existent.  Maybe this is all supposed to represent her having to say goodbye to her friends and family by becoming a vampire.  Of course, Edward's family continues to consist of boring statues.  None of the villains are scary or convincing or... much of anything.  The Volturi, who I actually thought were pretty ok in New Moon, serve no purpose here, and I actually cringed at Dakota Fanning's delivery a couple times.  All the acting and dialogue is on par with a bad network sitcom.

Then there's the ARRGH social dynamics.  Given the historical record of vampires and werewolves in Washington, I am totally on the werewolves' side.  History: aristocratic (very WHITE) vampire shows up in the 1800s or whatever and kills two or three Indian women.  Werewolves kill the vampire.  The one vampire.  Aristocratic (very WHITE) female vampire shows up to avenge his death by killing the ENTIRE Indian village.  Yes, welcome to the history of the fucking world, thank you so much for showing this to us while at the same time telling us that vampires are awesome, Twilight.  Not only are vampires a symbol of race/class privilege, they're now imperialists as well.  How fantastic.  I cannot wait for Breaking Dawn. 

P.S. My friend, a Twilight fan, really liked this movie, and hated New Moon.  So, FWIW.

the fact that I like this band PROBABLY explains why I wish Twilight was good

I feel like I need to give a shout-out to Lacuna Coil and my favorite album of theirs, Karmacode.  Lacuna Coil is sort of a gothic rock Italian band with two lead vocalists, male and female.  The first song I ever heard by Lacuna Coil was their cover of "Enjoy the Silence," which at the time I thought was pretty theatrical but still fun.  So I downloaded a couple albums, Comalies and Karmacode.  Comalies has some good stuff too - "Heaven's A Lie" and "Angel's Punishment," which believe it or not is not an Akira Yamaoka Silent Hill song - but I prefer Karmacode's overall vibe.  It's a later album, and I think it's a bit more complex musically and a bit more diverse in terms of influences.  They're tending toward the sort of "Arabia Goth" that Arcana currently pwns, which is fine with me.

As much as I like Arcana, though (they make excellent background music for writing purposes), a very deep place in my heart responds much more to Lacuna Coil.  For sure this is where that twelve-year-old on a quixotic quest for romance in DBZ lives.  She's silly, but she's a part of me, y'know.  I love that Lacuna Coil is theatrical and "dark."  I love that they make me feel open-hearted and weirdly weepy.  I love that they sort of seem to belong in Hot Topic.  I think the feeling that I get listening to, say, "Without Fear" or "Devoted" is the feeling I want to, like, evoke in The Novel, for example.  Does it fit conceptually, does it fit the setting or the plot?  Not really.  Ahahaha, how Twilight-ish do those song titles sound?  Following is the video for "Within Me."

I think this goes along with my recent worry/wonder if what I'm really writing is Twilight-esque - and by that I don't mean inspired by Twilight, because the plot was conceived before I heard of Twilight.  I mean treading similar paths.  I'd change nothing, mind you - it is what it is, and I believe in it - but I just kind of wonder if there aren't superficial similarities.  They're probably too superficial for me to worry about, but sometimes the whole humans-and-fabulous-monsters thing pops out at me. 

I should also add that this entire entry makes me fail as a "goth" according to various scales (I'm already on thin ice for not liking The Crow or Tim Burton!), but whatever.