Not Totally Inept

Breath-takingly insightful, if you're really dumb.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Now that hype surrounding the vampire movie "Twilight" has diminished, I can safely file it under "decidedly unimportant", (one of the main qualifiers for Not Totally Inept subject material) and write about it. Let's get started.

Flaw #1: The asian guy was so effeminate he should've burst into flames, especially since this is supposed to be a vampire movie. But not only does he not burst into flames, he asks Bella (main character) to the prom and ends up dating a different girl, which was never explained to my satisfaction. I have to assume his homosexuality is dealt with in subsequent books. I will label it a semi-flaw at this point, and wait to see what exciting discoveries and social challenges lie ahead for this young man.

Flaw #2: Edward, the main vampire character is at least 100 years old, yet he's enchanted by a 17 year-old...Hello, road work ahead, *pLot*-hole warning! I've dated some younger women, and that's my bad--I'll be the first to take the blame for that. But an 80-year age gap is a little over-the-top, even for me. Whatever, I just hope they're happy.

On a related note, Wouldn't it be embarrassing to be a vampire, live for 500 years, practice piano all the time and then still be horrible at it? I could see that happening to me. That's why I will refuse to be turned, if a vampire ever offers. Inability to learn a musical instrument after practicing for 5 centuries would be hard to bounce back from.

Flaw #3: The special effects are so poorly executed, I would've rather the director just showed a black screen during the action sequences and explained what was happening--that would be a less jarring cinematic experience. As it was, I had to watch Edward the androgynous mime as he jumped to and fro, running around the forest with blurry legs. I couldn't tell if I was watching a road runner cartoon, or a vampire movie. Think "Guy in a rubber Godzilla suit knocking down buildings in an unrealistic and uncoordinated way", and then you will begin to grasp the magnitude of what I'm referring to.

Picture of action sequence from Twilight:


In a poor attempt to redeem itself, they play a good Radiohead song at the end of the movie. If you were stupid, you might think this to be a redeeming quality. However, not so, because it had the simultaneous effect of being totally meaningless to the entire target demographic of the film (7-9 year olds), and making me bitter that I'm now at the age where I'm concerned about the lack of musical taste evident in today's youth. This may sound complicated, and it is. It's a veritable rabbit hole of self-despair and introspection. Just take my word for it.

As I understand it, there are 3 more full-length Twilight films slated, which I will tentatively refer to as "3 steaming piles of excrement" until I know differently. Maybe for the second film, the director will watch a fight of two claymation dinosaurs for special effects inspiration. Or here's a suggestion: Watch "Interview with a Vampire", a film in which Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's characters are obviously gayer than a french horn, no ambiguity. That's honest film-making right there.

Vampires with ambiguous sexual preferences--very distracting, to say the least. Let's hope Twilight "II", Return of the Hermaphroditic Roadrunner, handles this delicate subject matter with the same care that I've shown here.