New Moon Photos: Edward and Bella Sitting in a Tree

New New Moon photos.

Twilight is a sickness

I went to happy hour with some colleagues last night, and one of them who wasn't quite familiar with Twilight starting asking me some questions about the books/films/actors and I immediately felt the bile rise up in my throat.

I realized while I was explaining things to her that I like twilight just as much as I hate it. I'll peruse Twilight blogs, search perez and pinkisthenewblog hoping to see an update on the cast members and immediately feel dirty afterward. And when I found out there was a twitter account that detailed exactly where Robert Pattinson was in the world--I felt equal measures of disgust and fascination.

It was then that I figured it out.

What I have wasn't a guilty pleasure, or an obsession. It is a sickness.

I binge and purge Twilight.

Its like a disease that I can't control. Impulsive, corrosive, damaging and pleasureful all at the same time.

They say that the first step towards recovery is admitting you have a problem, so that's what I'm doing. I don't know what the treatment is however -- I can't just not read the stuff about Twilight online, and of COURSE I'm going to see New Moon.

Any suggestions on how I can curse myself of this disease will be much appreciated.

If you'd like to indulge your own Twilight Obsession with some twilight blogs, here are a few I find fun to peruse:

1. What the Forks?!?
2. Confessions of a TwiCrack Addict
3. Lion and Lamb Love
4. OH NO THEY DIDN'T

Together we can conquer this addiction. One day at a time.

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!

No, screw that. THIS is the Image of the Day

Robert Pattinson, vampires and cigarettes. Could you ask for anything more?

Pictures of the Day: Get your Twilight fix here!

More here.

Twilight, invading a bathroom near you

Santa Monica City College
Drescher Hall
2nd Floor bathroom
2.23.2009

Robert Pattinson was seen flirting with your momma at the Oscars

Seriously Perez. Who wasn't he seen "flirting" with?







Oh yea, and Kristen Stewart is a hag. Apparently.

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.

The year that was...

Well there it is. 2008 is gone and we're welcoming 2009 with open arms and the promise of change. But before we get too ahead of ourselves let us look back on what was promised to be an historic year.

January


It seems like it was only yesterday that Mariana came to visit. January was an up and down month. A month filled with family, fun, and heartbreak. Or maybe just...car break. My car was broken into on New Years Day, not a great start to 2008.



February


2008 was the much-anticipated election year, and February was when the election debates really started to heat up. I stirred up some controversy with friends and family by supporting Ron Paul, but other than that February was a relatively quiet month. Boyan started working at Newegg at the beginning of the month, and we enjoyed each other's company at lunch.



March

March was the month we said goodbye to Bill Dotta. I can't say again how loved this man was. He is missed by many and forgotten by none.

We also said goodbye to Stephanie. She moved cross-country to tackle the Big Apple.

I made owesome cupcakes and read...a lot.

Oh, and I found this amazing animated food fight.



April
April slugged by. Boyan celebrated his 25th birthday on the 18th. We had a bunch of Elysee people over and it was a lot of fun.


May
In May a bunch of us girls traveled down to Temecula for a weekend of drinking and spa-ing for Ruth's Bachelorette Party!




June
June was a very happy month. On June 8th Boyan and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary, and at the end of the month I left the god-forsaken offices of Newegg for the bright and shiny offices of Demand Media by the sea. It would mark the beginning of a daily 80 mile commute, but it was well worth it to get far away from the People's Republic of NE. Boyan and I invested in a little scooter, so Boyan could get to and from work without me and we looked towards July as a month that would start a new chapter in our lives.

July

July went by quickly and painlessly. Boyan and I adjusted to our new schedules and we wished a Happy Birthday to Mom, George and Grandma. I prepared for my trip to Chicago in August and decided that I would cut off all my hair!

August


I had a blast visiting Chicago for the short amount of time I was there. Ruth was a beautiful bride, and it was fun having all us girls together!



August was the month that I begun reading Twilight. Enough said.

August was also the month that I had to bid goodbye to my dear friend and fellow bibliophile Emily. It was a very very sad time indeed.

September
In September was I blessed enough to stumble upon Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. My appetite for books was as voracious as ever and I continued my spree by reading a total of six books in September alone.

October
The month began in Las Vegas. Or rather, I began my month in Las Vegas for Stephanie's Bachelorette Party. We did what people do in Vegas, and generally had a good time.


I slipped into my 24th year of living rather quietly without fuss or frenzy. The friends that matter called me to wish me a happy one, those who forgot quite simply forgot and that's fine.

I decided to take some initiative with my writing and started taking a class at UCLA extension.

And finally I said goodbye to the rest of my hair. Dawning a new shorter do a la Michelle Williams.

Boyan and I went to New York to visit my dear friend Janea and her boyfriend Jon and we had a wonderful time despite New York being "filthy" as Boyan would call it. We walked more than six miles not including miles tracked inside museums, shops and the like in one day, but we had a blast.







October was also the month that Stephanie got married!




November
I went to Louisiana to visit Emily and it was owesome!


We ate Benoits, and didn't care when we got powdered sugar all over everything.


We saw the Twilight Movie. Then bitched for the rest of the weekend about how god-awful it was.


We went to a plantation and desecrated the Slaves quarters.


I rang a really old bell...I don't think I was supposed to...EMILY MADE ME I SWEAR!


We went to Pat O's in New Orleans and got way drunk off of one Hurricane.

When I got back, I followed Britta's lead and cast my life as a movie.


December
December was a great month. My short story, "The Second Time" was published in The Broadkill Review! I couldn't be happier. I finished my class and got ready for the holidays. Britta was up from San Diego so she accompanied me to my Holiday Party.



And finally the year came full circle on December 30th, when my car was broken into again. Instead of stealing my iPod, they stole my CD's and attempted to steal my stereo but failed. I'm grateful that they didn't break my windows again, but I'm starting to wonder if these thieves really like my taste in music or are just incredibly stupid. Either way, Boyan and I aren't going to stick around to find out.

2008 was a good year as I predicted it would be. Ups and downs and small achievements here and there. I lost about 25 pounds since the beginning of the year, got a new job, got published! And, not to brag but just for my own personal satisfaction, here is a list of all the books I read from January to December:

A Wrinkle in Time (re-read) Madeleine L'Engle
The Secret Garden (re-read) Frances Hodgson Burnett
I Wanted to Write Kenneth Roberts
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much Donna Andrews
Interview with the Vampire Anne Rice
Old Man's War John Scalzi
Murder Melts in Your Mouth Nancy Martin
The Vampire Lestat Anne Rice
The Ghost Brigades John Scalzi
The Queen of the Damned Anne Rice
Xenocide Orson Scott Card
Children of the Mind Orson Scott Card
The Last Colony John Scalzi
Stranger in a Strange Land Robert A. Heinlein
Middlemarch George Eliot
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose Lauren Willig
Twilight (x3) Stephenie Meyer
Marked (re-read) Kristin Cast and PC Cast
Betrayed (re-read) Kristin Cast and PC Cast
Chosen (re-read) Kristin Cast and PC Cast
New Moon (x2) Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse (x2) Stephenie Meyer
Breaking Dawn (x2) Stephenie Meyer
The Gunslinger Stephen King
The Drawing of the Three Stephen King
The Host: A Novel Stephenie Meyer
Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
Battle Royale Koushun Takami
Untamed Kristin Cast and PC Cast
Uglies Scott Westerfeld
Pretties Scott Westerfeld
Specials Scott Westerfeld
Extras Scott Westerfeld
Revolutionary Road Richard Yates
On Writing Stephen King

That's a whopping 35 for those of you keeping count. And thats not including the books I read more than once (which would bring it up to 40, an average of 3.5 books every month. That's about a book a week!).

2008 was a very successful year. I only hope 2009 is bigger and brighter.

Oh! And one last note. I just want to say...Happy Birthday Joanish! Happy 25th! And congrats on Law School, I'll be seeing you soon in San Diego. Love you.

I'm g'wan to Louisiana, my true love for to see

You never thought these two worlds would collide did you?

I'm going to Louisiana to visit Emily on Friday! Countdown to LA and Twilight starts now!

Emily Faget je t'aime

My friend Emily made this for me. Hilarious.

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.

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?