‘Twilight: Eclipse’ is going to make a lot of young fans very happy. Easily the most well made and thematically satisfying of the three adaptations of Meyer’s popular books, Eclipse boasts better effects, better acting and better direction either Twilight or New Moon. The three leads, Lautner, Pattinson and Stewart, like the leads in the Potter films, have grown as actors and do what they can to give the triangle between Bella, Ed and Jake some kind of weight and pathos. With Bryce Dallas Howard creepily smirking her way through the role of Victoria this time out, there’s plenty in this blockbuster to satiate the raving legions who worship at the altar of all things Ed and Bella.

For everyone else, this one is still a giant bust.

Bella Swan has been back and forth over the issue of whether or not Ed Cullen, the pasty vampire with the hair that won’t quit, is her destiny. At the opening of this film, which includes poetry in a field of wild flowers, Bella longs to be ‘changed’ by Ed, and Ed wants her hand in marriage in exchange for this. Although she’s quite clearly ready to give up her human life and trade it in for an unnatural one (one even Ed seems loathe to give her), she actually recoils at the thought of marriage. Strange that she would find that marriage has a permanence that being undead doesn’t.

On the Edward/Bella front, that’s the film’s main dilemma. Bella, who doesn’t seem to mind leading on two supernatural creatures at the same time, also has to deal with Jacob Black, the Native American werewolf who thankfully traded up his fright wig for toned pectorals. So excessive is her shirtless prancing in this film that even Ed has to ask ‘Don’t you ever wear a shirt?’ Easy for Ed to say. If the series ever saw him without a shirt, audiences would need special order sunglasses just to cut the glare.

Jake believes that he and Bella should be together and he does everything he can to ensure that she won’t be turned at the end of the month, after graduation, where she’s ready to leave everything and everyone she knows behind. Strangely, it’s Jacob in this film who comes off more than a little possessive and creepy. Bella never really calls him on it, but he simply won’t relent. While she does slap him for forward intimate advances, in the end Bella justifies his irrational pursuance by reciprocating feelings. Of course, by this time, she’s already more serious with Ed than she’s ever been.

For those who thought they were showing up to a fantasy adventure and not just the detailed fever dream of a teenage girl, there’s a subplot involving a roaming pack of vampires in Seattle who seem to be amassing an army for the purposes of tracking down Bella. It is suspected by Ed and the rest of his clan that the vampire Victoria, whose mate Ed killed, is behind this army.  As they approach the final showdown, Ed and Jacob, and the vampires and the werewolves, must join forces to protect Bella.

David Slade is a welcome change as a director, and he brings a darker sensibility to the evil vampires that is welcome for a series that has mostly been milquetoast to this point. For the most part, he also gets some mileage from the beautiful wilderness scenery and under his watch, the special effects look markedly better, although those wolves still seem a bit ‘plush’ for my taste. Where he gets hung up is on the romantic relationship which still demands to be taken seriously even though it exists on such a level of imaginary feeling that it could be a satire of itself. Take, for example, the scene in a tent between Ed, Bella and Jake. Bella is freezing and she needs the shirtless Jake to warm her up. So that’s what he does, cuddling and cradling Bella, while sitting there talking with Ed. The scene is ridiculous for any number of reasons and it has no purpose for existing other than to set up a scene where Bella gets to have both men fawning over her.

At the end of the day, that’s where I get off the bus regarding the Twilight saga. It’s poorly constructed as a story, albeit well made as a movie. For its target audience, who made the decision long ago on whether or not to join this world of chaste vampires and amorous werewolves, it might just be the movie event of the season.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

Brewster, this is so cool!

Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night is shaping up as the best cast horror remake we’ve seen so far. A month or so ago it was announced that Anton Yelchin would play the lead as Charlie Brewster, a B-movie loving teen who discovers that the charming single dude next door is actually a vampire, sans sparkles. Then, Colin Farrell landed the role of the lady-killing (literally) bloodsucker, Jerry Dandridge. For fans of the original, who watched Chris Sarandon chew his way through role back in 1986, Farrell’s casting came as a sign that maybe the creative team here knows what they are doing afterall.

Well, chalk up two more wins for casting. The definitive next generation Dr. Who, David Tennant, has just been cast as Peter Vincent, who was played by a neurotically mannered Roddy McDowell the first time around. McDowell’s fraidy-cat who pretended to be a ‘vampire killer’ on late-night tv was the highlight of the original film, along with an occult-obssessed, high-strung teen named Evil Ed, who served as Charlie’s friend and sidekick.

Evil Ed has just been cast too, with Christopher Mintz-Plasse taking over the role. Christopher was most recently seen as the treacherous sidekick Red Mist in Matthew Vaughn’s Kick Ass.

Tennant is an interesting choice for the Vincent role, and he’s a bit younger than McDowell was when he picked up the stake and hammer.Looks like there are also some script/character changes that suit Tenant’s persona a bit more. Apparently in this version, Tenant’s Vincent will no longer be a horror tv show host, but instead a Las Vegas stage magician whose act involves supernatural themes. This actually makes sense, as the concept of the late-night host ended with the 80s, when the likes of Elvira and Dr. Morgus vanished with the emergence of cable. Today’s younger audiences will be lucky to remember even Joe Bob Briggs, who had a hosting stint on TNT in the late 90s.

That’s pretty much all the major roles cast, with Toni Collette rounding out the central cast as Charlie’s mom. The only major character left is Charlie’s girlfriend, unless they have managed to keep Dandridge’s ghoulish man servant, which would likely seem out of place in a more modern version.

Looking forward to seeing the final product on this and hoping that Gillespie can bring enough menace and quirk to the proceedings to justify a remake. Otherwise, what a waste of a good cast.

The final trailer for the third installment in the Twilight saga premiered on Oprah on Friday, and now it’s available online. Check it out below the official plot synopsis for the movie:

“In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Bella once again finds herself surrounded by danger as Seattle is ravaged by a string of mysterious killings and a malicious vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, she is forced to choose between Edward and Jacob knowing that her decision has the potential to ignite the struggle between vampire and werewolf. With her graduation quickly approaching, Bella is confronted with the most important decision of her life.”

Well, I’m not anticipating this very much. I’ve seen the first two, and did not enjoy either, although New Moon was slightly more watchable. Anyway, I hope all of you Twilight fans enjoyed this sneak peek.

The third film in the “Twilight” series was helmed by director David Slade (30 Days of Night) and opens in theaters and IMAX on June 30, 2010.

With a franchise this popular a fan base this rabid, nearly every day gets to be a Twilight related news day.

However, on this final day of March, it’s more so than usual. Fans of the films  have a couple of new pics from David Slade’s upcoming adaptation of Eclipse to help tide them over until June 30th, and readers of Meyer’s work have something else to get excited for.

On the picture front, we have 3 new stills featuring Bella, Ed, and Jacob, all in various forms of interaction/confrontation and another shot of the Cullens family lounging in the misty forest. You can check all three of them out below.

On the literary side of things, Meyers has just recently announced that she’s finished a spinoff novella from the Twilight series, which will be distributed for free online. Following a secondary character from Eclipse, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner will expound on the exploits of its titular hero. In addition to the electronic roll out, the novella will also hit bookstores on June 5th, 2010, preempting the film’s release date and no doubt cashing in on mounting excitement.

So, tell me fans, does Bree Tanner, whoever they might be, really warrant his/her own story? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

As an outsider to the cult of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, I confess to not understanding the draw of Bella Swan and her pasty, blood-sucking paramour.  Having not read the novels and seen only the  frustratingly bland and often risible  first installment, I was less than eager to catch-up with New Moon.

After watching it, less-than-eager seems far too naive a stance to have taken. Significantly more stilted, cloying and nondescript than its predecessor, Moon stares full-on into the flat, gray abyss of teenage gothic longing and sexual repression. I now understand the draw, but am baffled by the lack of taste with which the series handles its themes.

Last time, wobbly, vacant-eyed teen Bella got all goo-goo over even more vacant-eyed and self-absorbed (though the series want to sell it as self-possessed) Ed Cullen, part of a local vampire clan. Their chaste courtship in the first movie was the stuff that narcolepsy is made of. I’m at a loss to think of a film with a less lively couple of lovers at its center, and I’m counting that scene of the snails mating to classical music in Microcosmos.

Stewart and Pattinson, both proving acting chops in other films, simply don’t generate together the heat or conviction necessary to make anyone–save for the most easily swayed–want to follow them. Some claim that the innocence of their relationship hampers that flame. Nope, not at all. See Kiera Knightley and Matthew McFayden in Pride and Prejudice or Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in the recent Bright Star to see burning passion and commitment without carnal action.

 In fact, the relationship between Bella and Ed doesn’t come off to me as innocent; instead it’s more than a little creepy. First time through, Ed says “You are like my heroin” and Bella, little more than a blank slate, fawns over him for it. He’s shifty, controlling, and even his selflessness, exemplified in this movie by sending her away from him forever because she makes his family crazy(all that warm white girl blood I guess), could be interpreted as surly indecision. We know he will be back, and that Bella will probably be waiting.

Ed wants her out of danger. Even though they are parted, whenever she finds herself in a scrape, he appears to her as an Obi Wan-esque ghostly image. When she figures out what triggers these supernatural Skype moments, she starts seeking out danger and adrenaline rush so she can dial up her brooding beau. Seriously, Bella, he dumped you. Stop trying to get his attention with idiocy.  

Left alone, it isn’t long before she’s attacked by some of the vampires from the first movie and then rescued by her American Indian bud, Jake Black, who has clearly spent the summer on the 300 diet before being reunited with Bella. I suppose its a spoiler of sorts if you live in a cave, but Jake, and the rest of his ‘clan’, are werewolves; he’s just recently discovered that special time in a boy’s life when he starts changing at will into a large CGI Alsatian. Jake takes his shirt off, Bella stares at him, and thinks “It’s been awhile since I’ve pined for a grumpy, emotionally-inaccessible monster”. Yea, that’s pretty much it. Plenty of ‘will they/won’t they’ moments, but not anything that made me care either way.

For a movie with vampires and werewolves based on a fantasy series that is overwhelmingly popular, you would expect much more to actually happen here. Even Chris Weitz’s heavily truncated last adaptation, The Golden Compass, had more going on in its passages than this tepid loaf of half-narratives and paper cut-out characters. I didn’t miss Edward, but his absence makes this film even more arbitrary than the last one.

Moon doesn’t work very hard to make us think Jake and Bella have a chance, and Bella can’t be bothered to understand his lycanthropy in the same we she accepts Ed’s vampirism. She may like washboard abs, but not as much as men the same color as the washboard. As for Edward, he goes to meet a coven of elder vampires headed up by Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen. Eventually, the whole movie has changed setting and the characters are all racing around Italy looking desperately for a plot that matters.

As I’ve said before, I’m no Twilight fan, but I take no pleasure slagging the series simply because it is popular or it happens to be the kind of story that usually sits best with 13 year old girls. The truth of it is that Moon isn’t very interesting and a lack of actual repercussions or consequences for the characters’ actions, coupled with a very simplistic and silly view of teenage obsession, renders it almost negligent as entertainment for the younger crowd.

As a heroine (not the kind Ed likes) Bella is pathetic, her taste and approach to men eerily echoing the same kind of behavior that lands real world women in abusive relationships. Wietz, nor anyone else working on the film, seems to see this, preferring instead to assume it is just a lightweight fantasy. The truth is that New Moon is far, far less than that; its training wheels for brooding angst.

movie rating:

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

To prove I’m not a complete grump, here’s a sequence, featuring Ed and Bella sharing an important conversation, from this summer’s upcoming ‘Eclipse’ (From what I hear, this can be found on the WalMart version):

Bluray Special Features:

*Note* Die-hard Twilighters, you may have to poke about at the various retailers for the version you want, as there seem to be several of them out there. Walmart, Barnes and Nobles and Best Buy all boast different sets with different features. I’ll leave the task of determining which is best to you.

The version I’m covering here is the one disc Bluray edition.

Although not jam-packed with all the goodies the others might have, this one disc actually has some fun stuff for fans of the series. 

There’s a quite good audio commentary with director Chris Weitz and Peter Lambert, the film’s editor, that is remarkably lively considering the film it’s attached to. Weitz seems quite happy with the movie, the shoot, and his actors. If you enjoyed the film, this is definitely worth a listen. I was more than happy to listen to these two talk over the rest of the picture.

The big extra on this disc is a six-part ‘Making Of’ documentary that covers all of the shooting, the props and costumes, some funny anecdotes involving Kristen and Rob filming some of the forest scenes, and a nice peek at the special effects work on the wolves. Gene Siskel used to be fond of saying “Is your film as interesting as a documentary of the same actors eating lunch together?” New Moon and it’s ‘making of’ feature prove perfectly what Siskel was talking about.

Pattinson and Stewart, and even Lautner all come off as funnier, more charming and energetic than their onscreen counterparts. It looks like every0ne really enjoyed making the film and it was a good time on the set. Strangely, for me, none of this translates to the final product. I was honestly a bit surprised by that.

Oh well, it’s clear that I’ve missed the boat on this one, but if this is the trip you are looking for, I’d recommend the Bluray; the forests are greener, the werewolves more ripped, and Ed pastier than you can hope for in regular old dvd. If you are the kind of fan that made it through my trouncing of the movie just to find out what’s on this disc, seeking out one of those meatier versions might be the best way to go.

And finally, a scene I was hoping to catch on this disc but isn’t anywhere to be found. Sigh!

It’s really starting to look like the rampaging Hollywood parade of “hip” vampire films is never going to end, and now the queen of the “hip” film comedy, Amy Heckerling is throwing her trendy, stylish hat in the ring with Vamps. The movie’s plot reads like Sex and the City with fangs and (more) bloodsucking, and it seems now that actress Sigourney Weaver will be stepping in to lend her credibility and bankability to the Alicia Silverstone-starring comedy.

Weaver definitely has the acting chops necessary to bring something emotional and wise to the proceedings. She will reportedly be portraying Ciccerus, the mother of two hobnobbing vampire socialites, one of whom will be played by Silverstone. The story goes that the two young vamps will fall in love and be faced with the familiar choice between their human lovers and their vampire immortality. Sound like all the other undead melodramas? Don’t worry, it’s a comedy, and supernatural laughs are something Weaver knows well from her classic performances in both Ghostbusters films (and next year’s third installment as well.)

Weaver is something of a catch in Hollywood right now, coming hot off the multi-billion dollar heels of Avatar, but let’s not forget that Vamps is designed as a comeback vehicle for Silverstone, who hasn’t had a really lucrative or worthwhile role in over a decade. Then again, this is Heckerling, who originally shot Silverstone to fame in 1995′s Clueless, so if anyone can make her a star again, I guess it would be her.

What do you think of a rich vampire comedy? Can Silverstone ever be a star again? Will Weaver’s involvement be enough to carry the film? Sink your teeth into our comments section and give us your answers.

Oh the sweet misery can end! Or is it begin?

The full teaser trailer for Twilight Eclipse is here, for your endless perusal. I’m looking at this thing, and though I did Bryce Dallas Howard’s look in the movie, it’s still doing nothing for me.

Twilighters, since I’m most unqualified for this, how does the movie look to your eyes? Better or worse than the previous entries? Faithful to the books?

Seriously, let’s hear your thoughts on it. And look for our Remember Me review with Rob Pattinson coming tomorrow.

Let the angst begin:

Twilight fans, be warned. This isn’t the trailer, or even the teaser trailer (which debuts tomorrow evening at6:00 a.m. PST), but rather ten seconds from the opening of it. I’m not guessing that’s going to matter for most hardcore fans though.

You will get ten seconds of Kristen Stewart, Rob Patt, and Taylor Lautner bringing those heart-warming glares to bear in a misty wilderness setting, and if you watch the teaser roughly 20 times, you will have more or less watched enough of it to count as the trailer.

I’ve not liked any of these movies so far, but I’m willing to be optimistic about this, at least a little. David Slade, the director of 30 Days of Night, is helming this one and I can only hope for a crossover where those vamps fight these.

Let the mania begin! Here’s ten seconds of Twilight Saga: Eclipse!

Stay tuned tomorrow morning when we bring you the full trailer!