American Cinema Is Dead

I hate to break it to all you mealy-mouthed movie nerds out there, but I went to see the Twilight series' latest cinematic scab on humanity Sunday afternoon and i.t. w.a.s. a.w.f.u.l.; I mean: AWFUL.

I couldn't WAIT to get out of there. I figured if I could get her up and moving I could distract her with my antics until we were out the door of the theater, so I looked at Tyler about 20 minutes in and said "don't you have to pee?" with a pleading gaze.

"Not yet" she said.

Of course the one time in my life her Tylenol-caplet-sized bladder WOULD work to my advantage; she's perfectly continent and I'm stuck with an empty bag of popcorn and half a white cherry icee for two more hours.

If you haven't seen this two-and-a-half-hour blighted desert of acting talent, you owe yourself a trip just so you can appreciate how wonderfully terrible it really is. I'd love to go back with some friends, stand up, and scream throughout each awkward, longing, silence. I'd be hoarse by the end, I know that much. It was so fraught with constipated silences it was like watching a silent film learn how to talk.

Also, Edward either gets his butt kicked, or ends up in a standoff everytime he's not gasping out awkward sentence fragments. WHAT IN THE WORLD? Our vampire hero is an average-sized, fairly weak, stutterer who apparently can't have sex or speak in full sentences; and he may or may not be a real vampire. Great.

C'mon. Somebody needs to procreate in one of these movies sometime soon or the entire 15-year-old "Twilight 3" opening night audience is going to spontaneously impregnate.

And what about some she-wolves, eh? I'm definitely going to Twilight 3 just so I can vent my cinematic spleen later, but if I see another pubescent werewolf skin off his shirt for no reason without at least baring his fangs at a she-wolf, I'm going to puke. 6 half-naked guys wandering around in the West-coast woods with no female creatures to be seen is the start of a gay porn, not a good vampire flick.

I give the entire franchise two middle fingers way, way up.