These are the happinesses of my childhood

I Love You, Ewan McGregor...I mean Phillip Morris

Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo

I love Hayao Miyazaki. I think I saw Princess Mononoke in the theaters three times when it came out, and Ponyo looks amazing. Make sure to watch the video in HD.

The 2009 Twilight Movie Awards

I feel it necessary to comment on a history-making event that occurred last night, because in a world where GM is filing for bankruptcy, and Air France flights are going missing across the Atlantic, it's important to take time to consider important matters, like how Twilightastic were the MTV Movie Awards last night?

I feel compelled to comment on the movie-awards for some reason, so here we go.

There were a few things that really stuck in my mind from last night:

1. The MTV Movie Awards are now the place to tease your summer blockbuster.
Here are a list of the movies I remember which premiered "exclusive" clips of their upcoming releases:

G.I. Joe
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Twilight: New Moon
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2. The Twilight Movie Awards
These movie awards were serious Twilight overload. Twilight cast members swept every category they were nominated for, including Kristen Stewart's win for Best Actress over oscar winners Kate Winslet. Overall Twilight Mentions include:

1. Twilight scene in the intro credits.

2. Robert Pattinson was the first celebrity shown in the crowd as Andy Samberg walked on stage before his opening number, and was by far the most paned to celebrity in the audience.



3. Andy Samberg saying "If you played Edward Cullen throw your hands in the air" in the beginning number.

4. Andy Samberg just saying the word "Twilight" before introducing a presenter as a "bet."

5. Jim Carrey referencing "the good-looking twilight guy" during his award acceptance

6. If you visit the MTV Awards website, 8 out of 24 pieces of content are Twilight content. That's 30 percent of the page for those of you keeping count at home.

7. Andy Samberg's home-made New Moon trailer

8. Everytime RPatz was on stage they panned to KStew and vice versa.

3. I called almost every winner
Honestly, how rigged are these things? Who even saw "Yes Man" with Jim Carrey? How in gods green earth did I know Miley Cyrus was going to win for best musical performance or whatever the f*ck award she was given? And Ashely Tisdale for best breakthrough? I thought breakthrough awards were given to NEW actors. She was given this award for High School Musical 3 for gods sake.

4. MTV is getting smarter
Andy Samberg said it in the beginning of the show, "Welcome to the MTV Movie Awards, the only awards show that is on tonight!" And what did they do in order to get people to watch? They aired the show right after the season finale of The Hills--which is totally how I got hooked into watching it.

With that being said, here are a few one-offs I'd like to state.

1. I can't believe Twilight won as many awards as they did.

2. I thought Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's Best Kiss act was really well done.

click to watch

3. I think Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling did it better.

4. I thought Kristen Stewart sounded less stoner-brat when she accepted her award for Best Actress.

5. And even more stoner brat when she presented the trailer for New Moon.

Could she act any less excited or any more stoned?

6. Eminem looked genuinely upset when this whole charade happened.

But considering that they both have something to promote, I have a feeling it was staged.
Update: Kudos to Eminem for being a good sport.

7. I thought the "Generation Award" given to Ben Stiller was hilarious--I was a little put off by how long Kiefer Sutherland kept up his act. I was also a bit surprised that Ben Stiller took it so well, they pretty much repeated what a terrible actor he was over and over and over again.

That's it. Like I said it was twilight overload, which means I was put in that awkward position of loving and hating it all at the same time.

I would like to mention though, before I sign off, that three out of my top 4 search keywords in the last week were:



Which means my evil plan worked! I know its not a ton of traffic, but it's still pretty funny right?

Official New Moon Trailer

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD


Premiered at the Twilight Movie Awards

Bad Writing

This movie looks intriguing, but I'm not quite sure whether or not watching it will give me a complex.

I already know a lot of what I write is crap, and I agree with the comments made around 1:26 of this video about bad writing being about falseness--the inability of the writer to articulate in words their view of the world (although I resent the fact that he chose "her" as his pronoun of choice. I know he had to as it's proper but plenty of "him"s produce crap as well). I think a lot of bad writing happens when people try to write about things they don't know well enough to describe. To me, writing requires the author to show the reader the world they already know from a new perspective, and do with authenticity. My problem I think, is that I have trouble pulling together words and descriptions so that they sound real and not completely fabricated. Or, that's the problem I'm having with my current story.

Back to the movie--I'll probably see it, but I might have to crawl into a hole for a couple of months afterwards.



Let me know what you think.

How was your Memorial Day weekend?

I love three day weekends. They give you the chance to really enjoy your surroundings, try new things, go new places--and that's exactly what I did.


Los Angeles National Cemetery by Boyan

On Friday I went to the Magic Castle with Ivelina, Nancy and Boyan. I don't have any photos except this one before we left as they don't allow photos inside the establishment.

We had a great time, and I got to participate in our first show (although the magician was kind of a perv. he also called me a "suburban brat" which isn't a way to win hearts and minds). I got well drunk and saw some fun magic. I can't wait to go back for dinner! Thanks Nancy for bringing us with you.

On Saturday Boyan, Heidi and I went down to Newport to visit the Moms and George, and on Sunday we saw Janea and Jon off before their flight back to the Big Apple.

On Sunday night Boyan and I watched the BEST MOVIE EVER MADE. I don't say this lightly, but honestly, Starter for 10 has to be the best movie I've seen in a long time. It was brilliant and cheesy and brilliantly cheesy. The British equivalent of a coming of age college movie. Amazing. I happened to catch it because I have "James McAvoy" as a keyword on my TiVo (I know you aren't surprised). And Catherine Tate is in it! Come on!



On Monday Boyan and I lazed about. I started re-reading Jane Eyre despite myself, and I got about 20 pages of editing done. I figure I'll do 10 pages a day, and it should only take me about eight days to finish editing the entire piece before I start writing again. Thank.God.

That's it. My update for now. I had to post something quickly after that last post about RPatz's abs. It was too embarrassing to pull up my blog and be confronted with a half-naked picture of Edward Cullen.

Until next time, here is some Regina Spektor and Beirut for you, because right now I'm not listening to anything else.

Robert Pattinson's Six Pack Abs

Okay, so I totally titled this post with SEO in mind (naughty laugh). Say what you will but I get traffic from twilight searches so there you go.

Anyways, I was perusing some twilight blogs and stumbled across this photo of RPatz filming in Italy.

My friend Liana thinks his abs are painted on, but I'm not sure.



I don't know why, but I've developed a bit of a love/hate relationship with all things Twilight. Maybe it's because the writing isn't that great, or maybe it's because KStew is a total stoner brat--but either way a little piece of me dies every time I see something in the blogs about Twilight. I think it's because I was so invested in the books for such a long time--the absolute fantastical world of it all. Whatever it may be, It's fun to watch the images of the movie coming out during filming, and I can't wait to see what an amazingly cheestastic catastrophe New Moon is going to be when it's finished.

By the way, I would go CRAZY if I had people yelling at me like this:



Poor Rpatz. If I were him I would wear ear plugs, or blast music or something. Jeebus.

How to Be

I don't think you even need to ask if I'm going to see this movie, but if you were wondering, of course I am. I actually think it looks funny, and I love dark comedies (especially British ones).

Times are tough when...

Boyan and I went to the movies and saw "I Love You Man" last night. Before we left for the theater we did the normal check: wallet, keys, cellphones and Student I.D.s.

So, we were shocked when we went to AMC to learn that Student discounts are now only given on Thursdays. THURSDAYS. Can you believe it?

The movie, by the way, was pretty funny. Not the funniest movie I've ever seen but I laughed pretty hard and would recommend it to others.

It also has a pretty amazing soundtrack. You should check it out.

Inside all of us is a wild thing

I recommend you watch this in full screen.



I was never really into this book when I was younger, but I appreciated it's originality. Regardless this movie looks like it's going to be amazing. I can't wait to see it.

Away We Go Trailer

This movie looks amazing.

The Limits of Control

This looks really awesome, but I can't explain why.

Grey Gardens coming to HBO

Jezebel posted today that a new Grey Gardens is coming to HBO starring Drew Barrymore.

It's a remake of the 1975 documentary that depicts the life of the eccentric aunt and cousin of Jackie O, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale.

The original documentary looks fantastic (see below) but the new version looks great also. You can watch the trailer on Jezebel here.

If I could be anyone in the world...

I would pick one of these ladies. Either Audrey or Coco. I wish I could understand what they're saying in the trailer.

New Harry Potter trailer gave me goosebumps!

HOMG I'm so excited! I'm so happy they took the extra time to do the movie right.

The greatest soundtrack ever

A tribute to the last post and the greatest soundtrack that was ever created.

Alright Wolcott, you hate Stephenie Meyer, we get it.

I was compelled to pick up this month's issue of Vanity Fair for several reasons. First, Kate Winslet is on the cover and I love Kate Winslet. Second, there is a large spread for Nike and LIVESTRONG.com in this month's issue. Lastly and most importantly, there was an article about the upcoming film version of Twilight.

Where I was hoping to read about the movie I was disappointed to find a half-assed under-researched criticism of the Twilight Saga by James Wolcott. I'll be the first to admit that the books have their faults, but Wolcott's review did little to shed new light on the series or the phenomenon of its cult status. Instead he chose to compare it to Buffy and the slew of young-adult vampire books that have hit the stores since Twilight became a mega-success--touching on points that have been discussed and making comparisons that had been made years ago when the books first came out. It wasn't well written (he referenced Sarah Palin for christ's sake), and most of the article was wasted on quoting passages from the book that do little more than criticize Meyer's writing style. Here are some choice quotes:

"Happily, the forthcoming film of Twilight (based on a sample tasting) sweeps away the trite chatter of Bella's interior monologue and the clumpy pace of Meyer’s storytelling with one swoop of the camera across the mist-wreathed pine forests of the Pacific Northwest..."

But wait, there's more:

"Meyer’s "Twilight Saga" is light on bloodsucking lore, heavy on high-school humdrum. "My fourth hour class got out late, and the lunch table I always sat at was full by the time I arrived. Mike was there, Jessica and Angela, Conner, Tyler, Eric and Lauren. Katie Marshall, the redheaded junior who lived around the corner from me, was sitting with Eric, and Austin Marks—older brother to the boy with the motorcycles—was next to her." Glad we got those seating arrangements sorted out!"

"In the novels it gets monotonous having Bella sigh over how breathtaking Edward is every time he materializes, subjecting the reader to dumb-bunny clunkers such as this beaut: "Edward stood in the halo of the porch light, looking like a male model in an advertisement for raincoats.""

So he didn't like the books. He thought they were poorly-written. Fine. Explain it with a little less disdain. Give me reason to take your opinion seriously. I felt like I was reading a book review in the Daily Bruin rather than Vanity Fair. Read it for yourself and let me know what you think.

Please, just please with the Twilight obsession already

I caved in. I re-read all the Twilight books. It only took me a week.

After reading them the first time, and feeling as if the characters and the story had been removed from me like conjoined twin that I had grown to love but was draining me of much-needed resources (how is that for figurative language?), I decided to poke around on the internet and see what other people were saying about the series.

It was then that I read Eventide's review of Breaking Dawn on Amazon. I read it, absorbed it and then kept the ideas Eventide had implanted in my subconscious in mind when I re-read the stories myself.

And you know what, she was right. When I re-read the books, I did so analytically. Removed of the infatuation with the characters, and the hunger to know what was going to happen, I could look at Bella and Edward, and the stories in their entirety and see the flaws that I had not noticed before.

Bella's complete lack of character development bothers me. The fact that she never had a single self-serving desire in the book that wasn't related to the well-being of someone else--or inflicting pain on herself to help or to remind her of someone else. What did Bella want to be when she grew up? What types of movies or music did she like (besides classical music and literature)? Did she have any interests outside of her love for those around her? It's disturbing when you think about it. I hate the name Renesmee--no matter how hard I try to make it make sense-- it still makes me want to gag. I hated the happy ending this time around. I hated that there was no epic battle scene--that nobody died. In the land of fantasy created by Stephenie Meyer, I was able to put assume her reality for the 2500 pages it took her to tell the story until the very end--when the fairy tale came crashing down on me. J.K. Rowling knew that happy endings aren't real, and even though I cried when people died in Harry Potter I knew it had to happen and I was okay with it. I wasn't okay with the bullshit Happily Ever After that Stephenie Meyer gave us in Breaking Dawn. And that's why she isn't the next J.K. Rowling.

Overall I'm glad I re-read them. It has helped me remove myself a bit from the story, helped me get over the grief of having the characters out of my life--and like the best friend whose parents got a job on the other side of the country, I missed them and but eventually moved on. Even though I was a bit disappointed after re-reading the books, I still have an affinity for the characters. I've moved on, but I have happy memories.

I'll still wait in line to see the movie at midnight the day it opens (good news is the next P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast book from the Marked series is coming out at the end of September. So I'll get my fix of bloodlust then to last me until the movie comes out in November). And I'll read Stephenie Meyer's other book Host, because my mom bought it and I can read it for free. I'll also definitely be reading Midnight Sun, Twilight told from Edwards perspective (stealing ideas from fellow Mormon author Orson Scott Card Mayhap? I think so.) So I'm not totally turned off by the series. I'll probably read them again in the future. But I'll take them for what they are--or rather how Boyan likes to describe them--teen vampire romance novels. And you know what? I'll still like them.

TCM to WGA: Funny cause it's true