It’s Friday! There are movies! Let’s talk about them!
“Cafe de Flore“: Jean-Marc Vallee’s dazzling existentialist romance can’t really be described, only experienced. So, y’know, get on that.
“The Descendants“: Alexander Payne finally makes another movie, and George Clooney is terrific in it. And if “Oscar contender” means “expertly made movie about grown-up issues which doesn’t need to pander to its audience”, then sure, it’s an Oscar contender.
“Happy Feet Two“: George Miller dives back into his digital wonderland for a sequel that’s at least as crazy and surreal as its predecessor. And while no ‘toon really benefits from the presence of Robin Williams or Hank Azaria any more, this one does have a hell of a finale.
“Laugh At My Pain“: Kevin Hart’s concert film famously grossed a lot more money than “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star” at the US box office in September. But in fairness, so did every other movie released that month.
“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One“: Your favourite broody couple is back, and this time they’re discovering the joys of marriage, sex and monster pregnancy BECAUSE STEPHENIE MEYER IS INSANE.
“The Whale”: Hey, remember a documentary called “Saving Luna” that Susan really hated a couple of years ago? It’s back, recut by the filmmakers, who also snagged Ryan Reynolds to read the new narration. Glenn doesn’t much care for this version, either.
There, that’s everything. Oh, and Morgan White has released the first trailer for “The Rep”, a documentary on repertory cinema he’s been working on for the last year and a half. I pop up about three minutes in, if you’re curious.
From the commercial for Breaking Dawn, it looks like they skipped the whole “Bella wakes up after her wedding night, sees Edward’s horrified face when he notices he’s covered her with bruises because of his vampire strength, and wonders what SHE did wrong, was she not good enough.” I was actually hoping they would leave that in, hoping that its blatant nature MIGHT get through to people about the whole abusive nature of this relationship, but I’m sure it would have gone over the heads of dedicated Twihards. Can’t wait to find out about the whole birth scene followed by Bella becoming a vampire thing, if they stayed true to the book or toned it down? If she endures the agonizing transformation from human to vampire without making a sound because it would make Edward feel bad? *vomit* Or did they save that all for part 2? Dole out that oh-so-romantic self-negating stuff in small doses?
It’s all in this film, though the childbirth sequence is tastefully staged for a PG-13 rating. The motivations are different — in the film, Bella is silent during her transformation because she’s more or less dead. But the domestic-abuse metaphor rears its ugly head elsewhere. Oh, does it ever.
I really do worry about the generation of teenage girls that will build their princess fantasies around this series.