I know that this is… thirty-three years late, but they’re talking about making another Vampire Chronicles movie, and there are rumors that Robert Downey, Jr. is being tapped to play the twenty-something, blond, bisexual vampire known as Lestat de Lioncourt. A brief discussion this afternoon lead me to summarize Interview with the Vampire thusly:

Woe is me! I am a monster! And wearied by the endless passing of the years! Emo, emo, emo! (repeat for three hundred and forty pages)

District 9: 30 Second Review

Here there be spoilers, tread ye carefully.

D9: is shot in a pseudo-documentary style.

The Blaire Witch Project: We did that first.

Captain Jack Sparrow: Cleans up real nice.

Batman: Is kind of annoying in this one. And named “Melvin.”

Three Piece Suits, Fedoras, and Tommy Guns: Are awesome.

A Bank Gets robbed.

A Dame: Gets picked up.

This Movie: Goes on and on and on and on and oh sweet God please just make it stop.

God: Ignores my pleas.

This Movie: Is like fourteen hours long, and nothing happens.

The Credits: Roll.

Thomas: Thanks God that it’s finally over.

Shut up.

I don’t care that your boyfriend is dating a skank. It doesn’t matter to me - or anyone else in the theater, I dare assume - home many babies she’s had, or by how many different men. If I was interested in that little drama, I’d turn on Springer. But I didn’t. I came here to watch Hulk smash.

Also, for the love of all things Holy, close your mouth when you chew.

The Incredible Hulk - 30 Second Review

Ed Norton: learns how to meditate.

William Hurt: is a jerk.

Liv Tyler: can’t act.

Tim Roth: mutates.

Abomination: angers Banner.

Hulk: smash.

The Incredible Hulk - Slightly More Than 30 Second Review

Spoilers abound, tread ye carefully.

Nostalgia drops by for another visit.

Terminator 3 did not happen.

Thomas is pleased with this.

The War with the Machines is raging. Finally.

John Connor is a post-apocolyptic prophet. Or is he? (Of course he is. Spoiler!)

Marcus is a poor man’s Arnold.

Moon Bloodgood is an awesome name.

The Post Apocalyptic Rape Gang is pretty much mandatory, I guess.

Marcus SMASH!</hulk>

Thomas had to think about the HTML code for that </hulk>.

Kyle Reese is a punk teenager.

Loud Mechanical Groaning Screeches are bloody terrifying.

An Off Switch That Can Be Triggered By Broadcasting Anything on a Certain Frequency is a really stupid idea.

An Off Switch That Can Be Triggered By Broadcasting Anything on a Certain Frequency is a really cunning ploy.

Digital Arnold is back!

Thomas kermitflail!

SkyNet has some nice digs.

Thomas thinks he’s been in that building…

Thomas adds new software requirement: “don’t accidentally create SkyNet.”

The Future is not set.

Spoilers abound, tread ye carefully.

James T. Kirk is a troubled youth prone to emotional outbursts and acts of rebellion.

Spock is a troubled youth prone to emotional outbursts and acts of rebellion.

Thomas senses an Epic Bromance in the looming.

Uhura is fly.

Thomas really did just write that.

Bones, Scotty, Sulu, and Checkov are spot on.

Sulu has a freaking expandable sword in his backpack.

Thomas wants a freaking expandable sword.

When Your Only Tool is a hammer.

Every Problem looks like a nail.

Nero’s Only Tool is a planetary-scale strip mining machine.

Nero’s Every Problem looks like a geological disaster of unprecedented proportions.

Transporters, Phasers, and Communicators are still awesome.

The USS Enterprise still makes me want to be an astronaut when I grow up.

Time Travel allows J.J. Abrams to make a sequel, a prequel, and a reboot, all in one movie. And it makes sense. And it’s awesome.

Leonard Nimoy does the greatest voiceovers ever.

Space is still the Final Frontier.

Wolverine and Sabertooth: fight in literally every American war ever. Despite being Canadian.

Deadpool: is an uber-sarcastic mercenary with katanas. This is going to be awesome.

Deadpool: disappears for the next 85 minutes.

Sabertooth: likes the killing a bit too much.

Wolverine: peaces out.

Many Many People: get stabbed.

Wolverine’s Girlfriend: also gets stabbed.

Wolverine: So, about that metal skeleton…

Wolverine: OW OW OW OW OW WHY GOD OH WHY OW

Many Many Other People: get stabbed.

Wolverine’s Girlfriend: Surprise! I’m not dead! But I was lying about being in love with you! Except I really wasn’t!

Wolverine: buys that.

Deadpool: is back. His mouth is sewn shut. The Merc with the Mouth’s mouth was sewn shut. Because:

The Script Writer: is an idiot.

Many Many Other Other People: also get stabbed.

The Movie: mercifully ends.

James Bond: drives like a maniac.

James Bond: is still a Parkour champion.

Woman Sitting Across The Aisle From Thomas: shares her disbelief with the entire theater.

Thomas: will cut you if you don’t shut up.

Random Hot(ish) Girl: goes back to see the guy that tried to kill her.

Thomas: facepalm

James Bond: drives a boat like a maniac.

The Vast Global Conspiracy: is vast, global, and conspiratorial.

Hot Chick From the Home Office: waits a respectable five minutes and twenty seconds before sleeping with James Bond.

A Bunch Of Things: happen.

Thomas: is confused.

Thomas: is bored.

Thomas: is daydreaming about User Interface Design.^*

The Bad Guys: are defeated?

James Bond’s Dead Lover’s Evil Fake Boyfriend: is caught.

Bond, James Bond: is never said.

Shaken, Not Stirred: is never said, either.

Jason Bourne: does it better.

^*Seriously. About an hour and something into this, I realized that my brain had gone on a little vacation, and was thinking about the cool stuff I can do with the JavaFX library.

This morning, I intended to wake up at 6am (which is sleeping in for me, these days), go to the office, and get a jump on all of the stuff I have to do for next week. Instead, I hit the snooze button until 7, then shut it off and slept till 10.

I decided that the office could wait until tomorrow - or even Sunday - and I didn’t have to be anywhere for another few hours, so I had to decide how to kill the rest of my day. And since I haven’t quite had my fill of emo teen vampire romance angst, I went to see Twilight again.

First off, I really like Robert Pattinson. His fake American accent sounds strangely like a fake European accent, but other than that…

RPatz, as he has been loving dubbed by the Twihards, was handed a football. This confused him, because what he calls a football, we call a soccer ball, and what we call a football, he calls “that thing you play with that’s kind of like rugby, but without all that sissy padding and time outs, right?” Regardless, there were words written on this oddly-shaped sports implement: “Edward Cullen is a Self-Loathing Manic Depressive.” And RPatz, God bless him, took those words to heart, and ran that football right into the end zone.

RPatz has said, in various interviews, that the more he read the script for Twilight, and the book upon which it was based, the more he hated the character he was being asked to play. And then he had a revelation: Edward hated himself, too. He saw himself as a monster, torn between his love for Bella Swan, and his thirst for her blood.

But this wouldn’t have worked without Kristen Stewart (KStew)’s Bella. In the book, the explanation for Bella’s attraction toward Edward basically begins and ends with “damn, he’s hot.” In the movie, they do make mention of the fact that Edward is attractive (Jessica, Bella’s friend, says “he’s gorgeous, obviously,” in case the audience missed that fact), but that doesn’t really seem to be what attracts her to him.

KStew’s Bella is just as touched in the head as RPatz’ Edward: the more Edward tries to push her away, the more she pursues him, and the more dangerous he is revealed to be, the more attracted to him she becomes. They’re both self destructive, both rushing into a relationship that will, in all likelihood, end their lives as they know them, because it’s the only thing that makes them feel alive.

One of the best illuminations of this is in the infamous meadow scene, where Edward and Bella finally have a candid discussion about Edward’s unique condition. Edward backs Bella up against a tree, caging her in his arms; he moans that he can’t tell what she is thinking, and begs her to tell him. Bella says, simply, “I’m afraid,” and the look on Edward’s face is heartbreaking. He stumbles backward, and tries to mask his emotions, but it is clear that her words have devastated him. Even though he has been trying to convince her to stay away from him, even though he is himself convinced that he will destroy her, he never actually thought that she would reject him. But then Bella comes close, touches his face, and says, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of losing you.”

It’s this interplay that makes the story work. The movie isn’t long enough to make true love believable, but it is long enough to make obsession understandable. Both Bella and Edward are mysteries that need to be solved, an mix of danger and romance that is irresistible to both of them. This is made most clear in the hospital scene; when Edward tells Bella that she should go to live with her mother, to get away from him, she isn’t even able to make a coherent reply. All she can do is stutter “what are you saying,” and “I don’t understand,” and “no,” over and over again, and when Edward relents, and tells her that he will never leave her, nor send her away, Bella says firmly, “you can never say that again.” This may have been the best moment of acting in the entire film; it totally conveyed the depth of Bella’s devotion to - and dependency on - Edward Cullen. As far as Bella is concerned, without him, she is nothing.

I still maintain that this is fantastically unhealthy, and I think the reason RPatz and KStew were so god in their roles was the fact that they understood that it was unhealthy. They didn’t try to find the redeeming qualities in their characters; rather, they embraced their flaws, and played them for all they were worth.

The fugue between fate and free will is also an interesting theme. Although it isn’t said outright until the very end, a lot of what happens in Twilight is driven by the fact that Alice, Edward’s clairvoyant (and awesome) adopted sister, foresees that Bella will one day be a vampire. Edward clings desperately to the hope that his sister is wrong, that he will be strong enough to be with Bella and leave her human. Bella, on the other hand, fervently hopes that Alice is right, that she will one day be with Edward forever. Edward sees Alice’s vision as a curse, and is fighting to change it, while Bella sees it as a promise, an clings to it hopefully.

I was disappointed.

Not by the movie, which I thought was a reasonably faithful translation of the source novel, which is also to say it was a trashy teen vampire romance that I have no business liking and can’t get enough of. No, I was disappointed by the fangirls.

For weeks, I’ve been reading about people from whom Twilight may as well be Holy Writ, people lining up days in advance to get thirty seconds of the actors’ time, people who literally scratch their necks so that they are bleeding^* when they get to Robert Pattinson,the poor fool duped into playing Edward, the sparkly, no-fang-having, vegetarian vampire.^**

So I was sort of hoping for a train wreck. Instead, I got a reasonably well-behaved crowd, and a reasonably well-crafted movie.

Let me share a little secret, folks. It’s a lot harder to be funny when I’m not angry. But I’m sure going to try. Here we go: the Twilight recap:

Fangirls: Excited twitter.

The Screen: Twilight Logo!

Fangirls: Squee!

Thomas: Hopes someone passes out from sparklepire glee.