My Weekend (but mostly a Twilight review)

Hello friends,
In order to not feel completely pathetic, I am refusing to dedicate this post entirely to Twilight, which I just finished watching (without even having to wait in line or arrive 5 hours early--I got to the theater 15 minutes early and still got a PRIMO seat--hooray for seeing movies on Sunday morning at the new Cinemark by University Mall, nobody seems to know that it's open yet).

So, first things first...here is my latest obsession:

This HORRIBLE picture of yours truly (aw, come on, I've been sick!) is evidence of how I wasted a good chunk of my weekend--yes that is a Guitar Hero guitar in my hands. Jacob thought it would be hilarious to document it. I was not happy. Anyway, we just traded our PS3 for a Wii and Guitar Hero came with it. Having never played before, I was quite hesitant and the first song I played was a total disaster. But then I guess my decade of piano lessons kicked in and I found that I am not too shabby. I beat the entire game (Guitar Hero III) in 2 days. Granted, it was on easy mode...I'm finding medium mode to be a lot more challenging...but that's no good for my obsession because now I'm even more determined to beat it again. So if you need me, you'll probably be able to find me on my couch rocking out to The Rolling Stones or Poison or something.

Secondly, for all you Bond fans, Quantum of Solace is pretty decent, and I'm not a Bond fan at all. Just make sure you watch Casino Royale first; if my brother- and sister-in-law hadn't given me the rundown of that one on the way to the theater, I would have been pretty lost. Even so, the action sequences are very well thought out and executed, and Daniel Craig has some of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen...so even if I had been confused with the plot, I still would have been entertained. I give it a 6.5 out of 10.

Lastly...Twilight. Unofficial spoiler alert: I'll try not to give anything away for those of you who haven't seen it, but if you haven't you might want to stop reading here. We begin with the bad...
#1: I tried not to be too nitpicky, and I know that Twilight in itself is one hell of a cheesy story, but there were moments when the cheese envelope was pushed too far, even for hopeless romantics like me (like when they just lay in the grass and oogle at each other....waaaaay too drawn out, show us something else please).
#2: The whole falling in love part was rushed--I mean seriously, "I'm the bad guy stay away from me" today, "The lion falls in love with the lamb" tomorrow (ok, that's not what happened exactly, but that's how it felt)...where's the transition? They needed the scene where Bella faints in Biology and Edward takes her to the nurse because it transitions their relationship and basically the entire story. I was mostly ok with the other parts that deviated from the book, but I really thought that was too pivotal a scene to be left out.
#3: Lastly, and this is a big one, Stephanie Meyer's cameo was the LAMEST thing I have seen in cinema for a very long time...she basically ruined the credibility of the film by showing up in the very world she created. If you want to have a cameo, fine...you wrote it, you deserve to be in the movie. But could you at least pull an M. Night Shyamalan and show up as some minor character and NOT yourself? Or couldn't they have had the waitress say, "Here you go, ma'am" instead of "Here you go, Stephanie"? And couldn't she be reading the newspaper instead of typing on her laptap?? I'm just saying, when you show up in the world you created, you destroy the believability of that world even existing. And while we all know Twilight's world isn't real, the success of the books is due to the fact that deep down inside, all we women want it to be.

Ok, ok...enough ranting and raving before I really offend my fellow Twilight fans...here's the good stuff...
#1-The vampires were able to be vampires without looking too ridiculous. I was worried about the growling, hissing, biting and so forth...but the actors managed to accomplish all of the above without overdoing it (even the sparkly Edward part wasn't over the top).
#2-Kudos on the fight scenes, which were spectacular but not too lengthy.
#3-I thought the casting was really good (despite my initial reservations on Kristen Stewart as Bella, I did enjoy the chemistry between Bella and Edward). I quite dislike Jacob Black in the books, but try as I might I could not dislike him in the movie (perhaps because the actor they got is really good-looking...??), so I think that will effectively contribute to the conflict in the sequels (you know they'll make all 4, even though right now they only have New Moon in the works...), at least for me.
#4-Who didn't love watching the Cullens play baseball? Well done, well done.
#5-Despite what I mentioned above, I think they did a really good job of keeping the integrity of the original story intact, cheese and all.
So I'm going to go ahead and give it an 8 out of 10. Take out that cameo and it gets a 9 haha.

Ok, if I write any more about this I will cross the "I'm almost pathetic" line into "Twilight is my entire life" territory, so I'm going to sign off and enjoy the rest of my weekend...probably by playing Guitar Hero or something.