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?

New Moon Finished, Eclipse Filming Begins

Can you believe they've already finished filming New Moon? They're pumping these movies out like crazy. According to what I've read--they'll continue to film until they've finished Eclipse. Crazy!

I hate this movie poster btw.

Official New Moon Trailer

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON trailer in HD


Premiered at the Twilight Movie Awards

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.

Twilight is a force for good in the world

Say what you want about the books, but Stephenie Meyer is inspiring young kids to read, and that can't be a bad thing.

French teenagers bitten by the Emily Brontë bug
Interest in Wuthering Heights has been sparked by references in the Twilight vampire novels by the American author Stephenie Meyer
--from Times Online

Zoey Redbird is back! Hunted is out March 10th

There are quite a few author's I like to keep track of, and mother-daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast are definitely one (or two) of them. So imagine my surprise when I found out today that their newest book "Hunted" was going to be out next Tuesday! It's like Christmas came early! In all the mess and confusion of trying to apply to grad school, and starting new classes, and zooming through Charlaine Harris' books, I totally forgot that a new "House of Night" book was due out this March!

I re-read the books (Marked, Betrayed, Chosen) in anticipation of their fourth book "Untamed" last September, and rushed to Borders the day it was out (the sales clerk had to get the book out from the back they hadn't even put them on display yet). I read the entire book that night.

These books are so much fun. Less tame than Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels, but with a little bit more bite than Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (not to mention that Zoey Redbird is the kind of protagonist that I wished Bella Swan could have been).

I'll be very happy to pick up Hunted next Tuesday. It'll give me a nice little break from Dostoyevsky.

You can read the first chapter here, and listen to the second chapter below:



Also, they made a cool little trailer for the book which you could watch below:



I'm glad to see that the Casts are getting so much promotion, I feel like so many good books fail because they aren't properly promoted, so get the word out Untamed is out March 10th!

The Girl Who Could Fly, Victoria Forester

I visited Stephenie Meyer's site the other day when I was writing the post on her new Vogue Profile, and noticed that she recommended this new YA novel called, "The Girl Who Could Fly," by Victoria Forester.

Meyers has recommended books in the past (specifically Hunger Games) that were pretty phenomenal, and I already mentioned my desire to take a break from reading Crime and Punishment, so I thought I would pick it up and check it out.

So I picked it up yesterday around 4:00 p.m. and finished it when I got home last night. It was a quick read (it is a YA novel after all), and a pleasant distraction for a few hours, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading a milder version of Phillip Pullman's, The Golden Compass.

Kids with special abilities sent to polar isolation to unknowingly participate in scientific experiments? Shrill, beautiful woman who gains the trust of these young kids only to better manipulate them? I know there is no new thing under the sun, but it was too much like other books I've read in plot, and too unlike them in substance to successfully pull off a story that stands out from the rest.

I would say read it if you feel like you'd like a quick mental break on a lazy Sunday. Otherwise, if you've read The Golden Compass, or any other Young Adult novel then you've read this already.

Jezebel: "Twilight's Stephenie Meyer Admits Her Writing Sorta Sucks"

Stephenie Meyer was profiled in Vogue, which means all of us Twilight freaks get a chance to grasp at something in between Twilight movie fixes.

It also means that Meyers' critics get another stab at denigrating her writing.

Jezebel isn't a huge fan of Meyer's books, and went so far as to say that Meyer admitted that she "sorta sucks" in the interview. Even if the headline was written to attract clicks I think it goes a step past sensationalism. Sure she's not the greatest writer, but just because she admitted that she's "still an amateur" and "avoided creative writing in college for fear of criticism" doesn't mean she's admitting she sucks.

We might harbor some resentment towards her for putting off writing Midnight Sun "indefinitely," and even I have admitted that I don't think she's an incredibly talented writer (after reading them twice I might add), but I believe that people are just looking for reasons to hate her.

Listen, writing is a hard, tough thing. You expose yourself and put yourself out there for criticism on a mass scale. People tend to pick on Meyer because her books were ridiculously successful. Okay, so she's no James Joyce but she's not claiming to be either. People read her books and connected with them so obviously she's doing something right.

Meyer went on to say, "I'm not critical of others, but I am very critical of myself." Maybe the rest of us can follow her example.

Stephen King agrees with me...I love it when I'm right

"Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. ... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." Read the full article here.

I totally agree with Uncle Steve--(in fact, I made the same statement last August) although I give Kudos to Stephanie Meyer for finding a formula that sells--she's no J.K.

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.

A Must Read: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I finished the second book in Stephen King's dark tower and needed to take a break from the series for a bit. The books are incredible, but they are a daunting read.

So I picked up The Host by Stephenie Meyer, which was pretty good. Definitely had some things in it that reminded me of Twilight, but I'll let that slide. Overall it was an enjoyable book.

I wasn't quite reading to start the third book in the Dark Tower series after reading The Host, so on recommendation from Stephenie Meyer I went out and bought "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.

I read it in five hours--could not put it down. It was pretty apparent as the book drew to a close that there would have to be a second book and I couldn't be more thrilled. The only sad thing is that this book just came out on September 14th--so it seems I'm going to be waiting a while.



The story is set in America sometime in the future after the collapse and rebuilding of society. Twelve districts make up the country of Parem--each district contributing to the success of the country as a whole. Several years back, a thirteenth district had lead an uprising against the capital and lost. Every year since then, the capital has hosted The Hunger Games to remind the citizens of Parem that of the Capitals power over it's people.

The people of Parem are mostly poor--except for those few districts that contribute to the wealth of the capital. The main character, Katniss is a sixteen-year-old girl comes from the poorest of all Districts--the coal mining district 12. Since the death of her father at 14, Katniss has learned to support her family by hunting and gathering. She's an expert with a bow and arrow, she's also very strong and very well versed in the fauna of the forrest.

When the day of the Reaping draws near it's evident that the Hunger Games are an ominous event. Two children age 12-18 (one boy, one girl) are chosen to represent their district in the Hunger Games, which is basically a survival game to the death. The last one still standing wins.

Every child has their name entered into the drawing for the Hunger Games once they turn twelve. A child can also put their name into the drawing more than once and receive food and resources for their family for the rest of the year. Although Katniss is only sixteen, she has her named entered into the drawing a whopping 24 times. Her chances of getting chosen are higher than most--so when her little 12-year-old sister's name is chosen, Katniss volunteers to take her place.

The Hunger Games are more than just a fight for survival--it's a way for the capital to show control over the rest of Parem. The "gamemakers" or the people from the capital in charge of the game can change the stakes anytime they want, give advantages to anyone they want, or kill a tribute (those children chosen to compete) if they feel so inclined. It's a lethal game with unfair advantages, and there are no happy endings.

Go and buy The Hunger Games. Read it immediately. You can thank me later.

Somebody stop me, the Twilight series is taking over my life.

I don't know why I always do this to myself. Ever since Little Women when I was in 6th grade, I've allowed myself to become consumed with books. I get lost in the worlds the authors create, and carried away in the lives of the characters. When the book (or book(s) in this case) is over, I fall into a deep depression. A kind of grief for the loss of the characters in my life...it's very nearly pathetic.

About two weeks ago, the intern at LIVESTRONG, Emily, forced me to read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. It didn't take long, actually, it only took about 10 hours for me to finish the book. Only the rest of the week to finish the 3 that followed. That's 2,592 pages in less than 30 hours people. Considering I probably read from 8:30-1:30 every night (tuesday-thursday, then on the plane friday and sunday, and again sunday night. Monday night I finished at about 9:30. A total of about 30 hours). It was ridiculous. I was like a drug addict, when I wasn't reading I was thinking about reading. I would sneak breaks during the day at work to have a cuppa coffee and read a chapter.

Well, once that was over I re-read my other favorite vampire series Marked. Which is about 900 pages worth of blood lust goodness. Unfortunately that only lasted 3 days, rounding out last week and leaving me bookless and numb. So what did I decided I was going to do? I read twilight again yesterday. Yes, the whole book in one day. I'm seriously considering re-reading the whole series, but Emily gave me a few books as parting gifts (her departure from the office and our shared love of the series has only increased the feeling of loss), so I feel like I owe it to her to read them first.

It's beyond difficult to read anything else right now. It's like filling a void with these damn books--and as much as I don't want to indulge, as much as I know it will only make finishing them the second time more painful, I do it anyways.

It's almost as bad as when I finished Harry Potter. Who knows, it could be worse. Either way I struggle with the conundrum--do I try and distract myself, read a new book, or work on my own writing. Or do I allow myself to fall into the oubliette of the Twilight series once again?