Friday

Last night the family watched Twilight during its opening. Judging from my visit to the theater last Friday night for the new James Bond movie for its opening day, Twilight is not as popular. Either that, or the Twilight people have to go to bed sooner and were therefore not out as late. However, as happened at the Bond movie, I had to sit too close to the screen and the muscles in my neck are sore again. And, the camera work involved a lot of extreme close-ups, which is hard on the eyes if you're only 30 feet from the gigantic screen. But too close to the screen or not, the extreme close-ups wouldn't have been as bad if the actor playing Edward Cullen hadn't been wearing so much red lip color. The book didn't mention anything about him having unexplainably red lips. In a lot of the scenes, they were the same color as Bella's. There were a few parts that were overdramatic, and could have been much more successful if they hadn't been played with such emphasis, like when Bella walked into Biology class, and she walked in front of a fan, and Edward could not contain himself. I don't think a fan was needed for Edward to know what she smelled like, given that they already should have been extremely sensitive to scents (maybe I'm getting vampires confused with werewolves, though). Bella's voiceovers were too much, too. I found myself formulating cinematic scripts to effectively replace what she was saying in voiceovers. Most of the voiceovers might just have been taken out altogether; but I read the book, and, therefore didn't need her explanations. More subtlety, less drama, I say. Another disappointment was that it was too unbelievable how Bella could have fallen in love with Edward so fast. A lot of scenes and characters were just as I'd imagined them, though, so not all aspects were disappointing. It wasn't horrible. After the movie someone told me that the author of Twilight had an appearance in one of the diner scenes, which I hadn't caught. Someone calls her Stephanie. I don't remember that part. Unfortunately, I almost want to see the movie again and sit further back so I can see the whole thing. On the other hand, I hardly ever want to watch a movie twice.