How Can You Have A Vampire Movie Where They Bloody Sparkle Or It's A Love Story You're Completely Missing The Point!

I went to see Twilight Breaking Dawn at the Midnight showing on Thursday night/Friday morning. I then went to a special Waterstones' screening on the friday. I've never read the books (I actually can't remember If I've read a book). I'm not even really a fan of the films. Yet somehow I found myself firmly apart of this Twihard hysteria that's going around. Well okay I wouldn't say I was firmly a part of it, but I've certainly contributed to the film's 30 million midnight gross, and the massive weekend haul it's going to take.

I have no interest in writing a review of the film. I'll give you a brief synopsis though and then you can decide if you want to see it; (SPOILER ALERT) - Jacob gets angry and takes his top off. Edward and Bella get married. Jacob comes to the reception and gets angry. Edward and Belle have rough vampire/human sex (either that or there was a nasty case of domestic violence - the 12 A certificate kind of stopped us getting to see it). Bella becomes pregnant because the free condom Edward got from the Health clinic broke. Jacob gets angry about this saying they should have used his JLS ones.The wolf pack decide they're going to kill the baby Bella is carrying. Jacob gets angry about this.  Bella has the baby. Jacob gets angry about this. Bella dies. Jacob gets angry about this. The wolves and the vampires fight. Jacob gets angry about this. Bella wakes up a vampire. Somewhere, off screen, Jacob was probably angry about this. The end (until part 2  - cha-ching!).

This franchise certainly divides people. It's like Titanic all over again. That film seemed to be universally hated (granted mainly by men - it's actually a really touching piece of cinema and a great comment on the class system at the time, or it's a film about how some women like men who look like twelve year old boys), yet it smashed box office records.

Granted Twilight is popular, but for all the people who love Twilight there is another person who moans about it. Why is it the film equivalent of marmite? Is it because women love Lautner's Abs while men hate him cause they want those abs but like beer and pizza too much to get them? Is it that women love R-patz' dreamy gaze and smile and men think he looks like a crack addict? Do men think Kristen Stewart can't act, but women.... probably agree? Or that women (and me) love a good love story, but men would rather watch Bruce Willis blow terrorists up? Women like their vampires sparkling in the sun, but men like their vampires dripping with the blood of the latest virgin they've seduced?

Or maybe it's just pure escapism. Men watch Bond movies and wish they were him. Driving fast cars, sleeping with stunning women... so what's the difference between women watching Twilight and dreaming of it being them on the screen having rough vampire sex with that guy who was in one of the Harry Potters?

One of the aims of cinema should be to provide a form of escapism; Twilight certainly does this for a large number of people.

People who criticize it for being a terrible vampire movie are missing the point. It's not a vampire story. It's a love story set in a world with a vampire back drop. The same way Titanic was a love story that just happened to be set on a ship that unfortunately hit an iceberg. Sure that adds to the emotional impact of the movie, but it's not what the movie is about. The world will always love a good love story, because Hollywood will always make it look better than how it plays out in real life for us all (No I've not forgotten DiCaprio dies in Titanic, but you get the point).

Of course I'm clearly stereotyping here; Yes the film certainly had a target demographic, but some men like Twilight, and some women hate it (though I'll be honest there were not many men in the cinema on Thursday night... ). So here's to the final chapter of the movie next november, Breaking Dawn Part 2, or its alternative title 'The angry topless wolfman, and his battle to maintain perfect abs'.

On a much more comical note, a woman said I had a look of Robert Pattinson about me on the Thursday night (I really don't, other than the fact we're both men, debatable on my part, who have heads). At first I was pleased, but on further inspection she did say that comment right after I'd said he looks like he's always high on Crystal Meth. Not really a compliment afterall then...

Living In A Sitcom Or Why Do These Things Happen To Me?

The other night a friend of mine made an observation about sitcoms (The Inbetweeners in particular), saying he doesn't know how they get the ideas for the banal and ridiculous situations. I told him it's just life, and we all live in sitcoms, we just don't realise it half the time. He needed an example, so I reminded him how only last week he ate half a take away box (the type you get your cheesy chips and burgers in), because I said I'd give him a tenner if he did. They're really difficult to get down, from the look of it.
To be fair he isn't the only one; I have another friend who regularly eats things on nights out too (he ate a plant long before Will from the Inbetweeners ever did). I only had to pay him a pound as well.

You don't need to be drunk though; I remember being in Pizza Hut once with my brother, and while he was queuing for the all you can eat buffet, someone in front took the last 4 slices of a certain pizza. My brother, being less than impressed, decided he'd get back infront of the guy later on, and rather than taking all the slices of the replacement pizza, he decided to produce a makeshift over glove with his top and pick up the entire base the pizza comes in and bring it back to the table. We were asked to leave.

Then there's just the awkward embarassing moments that seem to regularly occur; One night out when I was 19 I'd been chatting up some girl, she seemed nice and I would have liked to have met her again. Anyway the next day I had a doctor's appointment about a certain area (No before anyone asks, I drink yakult, I am disease free). The doctor asked if it would be okay for a student nurse to be present. I didn't really think about the question and said yes... Well guess who the student nurse was... To be fair I normally have to fork out quite a bit on drinks to get people to look at 'that', so I shouldn't complain. Though of course we didn't meet again...

Now I'd like to say that these sort of events are rare occurrences, but I'd be kidding myself. Cause not a week goes by where something ridiculous doesn't happen to one (or even all) of me and my close friends (in the last month alone there have been incidents involving a corkscrew, a polish man's front door, the fourth best brand of red wine available, half price stickers and a baby, an angry woman at a zebra crossing and a nightclub toilet door). So if you want to know where writers get their ideas for sitcoms, have a look at your own life and think about all the ridiculous moments that happen on a day to day basis, cause that's all they do; they observe. Unless it's just me and my friends... but it can't be, can it?

The Double Standards in Hollywood or How I learnt to Not Say Inappropriate Things the Hard Way

So Brett Ratner has stepped down from producing the 84th Academy Awards next year, and Eddie Murphy will no longer host the awards either. All this after Ratner quipped that "Rehearsals are for fags" when promoting his new movie 'Tower Heist (2011), a phrase which apparently insiders in Hollywood deemed "unforgivable".
Now is it me or are Americans a little more up tight than us over here?
I'm not saying Ratner is, or isn't, a homophobe. I don't know the guy. I also don't condone what he said (especially in the position he is in). I do however think that his comment in no way suggests he is.
I mean I walked past a girl yesterday who, while shaking her I-phone about, said to her friend "my phone's being gay again, it's not working". Now obviously this is a ludicrous sentence - phone's, to my knowledge, don't have a sexual preference (unleess the picture below is a massive phone orgy...)

Nor do they have a gender, but regardless, that girl's comment doesn't make her a homophobe - sure she's without a good vocabulary, and ignorant, but not a homophobe. It's just unfortunate that the word is still used as such a derogatory term without people even thinking. Ratner shouldn't have said it, but an apology should have been sufficient in my opinion.
Then again are these same people pulling the strings, the ones who created such uproar after Ricky Gervais hosted the Golden Globes earlier this year? I watched the awards show recently with my brother... What was all the fuss about? Sure he had a dig at a number of people, and took a few jokes too far, but It's an awards' show and he's a comic! What did they expect? (It's actually very funny,  check it out for yourself below).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvHXzP2SpLA

Then again maybe it's the fact he's British and we're just used to it. With our over the top panel shows where comics can pretty much say what they want...Such as Frankie Boyle on Mock the Week here...

. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEzEKQ0fFxE


Not that this comment didn't land the BBC with some complaints, and he went on to leave the show soon after, but it's hardly stopped Boyle getting work (he's still hosting panel shows himself, and appearing on them).
The again do the majority of Americans even care? Is it in fact just The Academy who would have acted in this way? Would the British Academy of Film and Television have done the same? Did Ratner have to leave?

If so, then is there an issue of double standards here; I mean in 1977 Roman Polanski was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old girl. He still went on to win Golden globes AND an academy award for The Pianist (2002). So with that I think I've finally got it... you can win awards regardless of what you say or do, you just can't produce/host the damn things unless you're squeaky clean... Only in Hollywood...