Father Forgive Me, For I Have Read Twilight

So I have to admit a guilty pleasure of mine. The secret is a burden I have been carrying for a while...Twilight. There I said it. Now it's out there in the universe and cannot be taken back. I love the Twilight series. I know this is an invitation for social rejection from most any man, but it's a risk I am willing to take.

At first I absolutely, positively wasn't going to read those stupid books. Over my dead body would you find me reading some romance novel about High School, vampires and werewolves. Puh-lease. Do I look like an idiot? Apparently so...because I was repeatedly told how much I would like them. After about the 104th time of "Oh my gosh you HAVEN'T read Twilight?? Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!!" I finally wore down and bought a cheap version at Wal-Mart. Saying that I could not put the book down for three days straight doesn't quite paint the picture well enough. If I was eating breakfast, I was reading Twilight. If I was waiting for class, I was reading Twilight. If I was bored in class, I was reading Twilight. If I was cooking and could manage it, I was also reading Twilight. And of course in all my other spare time, I was reading Twilight. I'm not saying that this is Pulitzer Prize winning material. Stephenie Meyer is just a great storyteller who can pull you into the book. It's kind of like if you watch Lost on DVD and you tell yourself, "I can't stop here, just one more episode"....and then you watch the first three seasons of Lost in about 5 days (yes maybe that's a true story). She just knows how to keep the reader on the cusp of the next exciting/heart-throbbing/tear-dropping moment. I know, I know, you can go throw up now if you need to.

So with all four of the books under my belt before the first movie even released, of course I am going to go see every single one of them. For Twilight I went to the midnight release. It wasn't that bad because my strategy was to pick a po-dunk theater in the boonies of Utah where they didn't have enough theaters or seats for it to be crazy. That worked out pretty well. Although I did have to stand in line with two single 40 year old women in gothic/vampire garb discussing who would actually get to have Edward when he busted through the door professing his love for both of these slightly unattractive, overzealous fans.




However, I was very disappointed with the film itself. It was like watching a badly done Lifetime movie. New Moon was a little better. I waited until it came out on DVD to watch it, in case it was a waste of money as well. I think it's only redeeming quality was the Ferrari and everything filmed in Italy. Plus, let's not lie to ourselves, Taylor Lautner without a shirt on was pretty much the thing that made us walk away saying it was a good movie.

Slightly let down from the first two movies I complied to go with my mom, aunt and cousin to the midnight release of Eclipse. After all, since I wasn't having to pay, what was the harm? We got to the theater 45 minutes beforehand knowing we wouldn't have a great seat, but probably at least a semi-decent one. Wrong. The entire theater was filled with the exception of the front row. Cinemark thought it would be a genius idea to let people in for seating hours beforehand. However they didn't care to monitor if people were actually going into the theater they had purchased tickets for. You tell me how it's possible to have about 30 people standing at the front of the theater with their tickets for the 12:25 show and there are about 10 open seats. Do the math, Cinemark. I was told that I could sit in an overflow theater where I could hope to get a seat if all the showtimes didn't fill up. This is somehow feeling like the iPhone 4 all over again. So I pulled out my gun and shot all the stupid teeny boppers who were in the seats we paid for. Not really.

With tail between our legs we got rain checks and went later in the week. I was pleasantly surprised. Overall the cinematography, art direction, special effects and acting far surpassed the previous films. It makes me actually look forward to Breaking Dawn. However I have decided to retire my line waiting skills for now and take up something more practical...like the bowstaff.