Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn Part 1

I'll be honest, I am a fan. I've read all the books, I own the soundtracks. I have many, many posters and other bits of Twilight memorabilia in my study that I've saved from work. In fact I was known by my Sony reps for wanting this stuff, one rep saved me an awesome poster - I'm only 5'2 and this thing eclipses me (get it).
I've seen all the movies, I know how bad they can be. It's not about good acting or about making sense (we know vampire babies make no sense). We all know Twilight cannot win an Oscar. It's not happening. Ever. But that's not why we love Twilight. They only way to understand is to read the books or fall in love with a vampire. 

The film opens with the much anticipated wedding. Finally we get to see the happy couple finally be happy and one of the longest wedding kisses on film. The film starts well heading into the honeymoon where the couple finally consummate their love. Twilight has been littered with themes of forbidden love and intense passion, it's the whole point of the books. So when it finally came down to it, the intimacy was short and sweet. Fan's didn't get the pay off they wanted all for the sake of keeping it PG-13. But saying that it was tastefully done with only a little bit of side boob (always important). And then nothing for awhile. The film takes a turn down the boring side as we watch Edward distract Bella with exciting, on-the-edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting games of chess. Yeah. Chess.

                                           Breaking dawn reference alert!
 
I was really impressed with the acting quality of this film. Kristen Stewart mumbled a lot less, in fact she seemed a lot happier in this one (maybe because it's almost over). Rob Pattison was solid and I have to say Taylor Lautner proved he was more than a 6 pack giving a great performance. I really think Bill Condon has done the best job so far with his cast. None of it was embarrassing to watch, except for the were wolves' pack meeting where the Alpha Sam sounded a lot like James Earl Jones's Mufasa from "The Lion King". 

The movie's plot explores the consequences of Bella and Edward's honeymoon surprise pregnancy and also details Jacob taking his rightful place as an Alpha male in his own small wolf pack. The film sticks very close to the main events in the book, but gladly it splits focus well between wolf pack and vampires. The film condenses chapters in the book dedicated to Jacob and gets it all out in a nice neat way.

Truthfully, breaking dawn is my favorite book, but I skip the Jacob parts because I found him painfully annoying. Taylor Lautner isn't. Taylor doesn't let Jacob wallow in self-pity in this film, he's trying to move on and we can see that with his own wolf pack. Don't get me wrong, he's still impulsive and smarmy with a strong sense of righteousness - but I'd rather watch Jacob than read Jacob.

Bella is a bitch. Let's be honest. She is selfish. She forces Jacob to hang around even though he's still in love with her. All his actions so far have been because of her. It's even because of her that he imprints, her "death" leads him in that direction.  There were some great effects on Kristen, apparently the skeleton effects on her body were all CG and were used to great effect.  Also the birth scene was the highlight of the film, cleverly cutting shots together so we don't see everything but we know from Bella's view what's happening to her.

The film feels very short unlike the other Twilight films. But I think that's because if you think about it, not a lot happens. It's all build up to the birthing scene and to Jacob's imprinting (which was a little cheesy).  Overall Breaking Dawn Part 1 is a good addition to the film franchise, it won't win over any new fans or an Oscar, but it will satisfy fans until part two is released. If your a fan you'll love it no matter what anyone says about it.

3/5

Buffy Fest

So instead of watching any movies this weekend I've decided to revisit Buffy Season 4 instead. Has to be the funniest season of all with the most laugh-out-loud moments. I'm half way through the season, here are a few of the best moments so far:
Spike and Buffy forgetting their hate and planning a wedding.
Spike and Willow's conversation about performance issues in the neck biting area.
Xander confusing mime for heart as mime for boobies in the episode "Hush" and the hilarious slide presentation Giles gives to the scooby gang, complete with stick figure diagrams and blood.

I was a late-comer to Buffy and season 4 was my introduction to it when I was in high school. Truth be told I've probably only watched these episodes a few times, so I still get a surprise while I'm watching.  Back to it, need to get in as much Buffy before I return to work tomorrow!

Behind

I have way too many movies to watch at the moment and not enough time. About a month ago I got a copy of "The Hole" in 3D directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins). When I have a spare two hours I will watch it and write up my review here. I've been super busy at work with set up and take downs of sales. We are getting into the busy end of the year for DVD's and its not going to slow down anytime soon. And since I booked my wedding date last month I haven't done anything wedding-like either. So I'm neglecting everything! Also I've come down with a cold and have been in bed since yesterday afternoon :( And there is no DVD player in my bedroom!
I will get off my ass I promise.

litany against fear

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

- Bene Gesserit quote from "Dune" by Frank Herbert

Rango ...good but long.

It's been a bit of a slow day for me. I enjoy my Sundays off work and they've become a bit of a lazy movie/tv day for me. Mostly I was watching the movies and reno 911 episodes I've taped over the last few weeks(months) and deleting them off my PS3's hard drive. Today I decided to watch Rango while I ate my disgusting can-soup lunch. The soup was no good, but Rango was surprisingly entertaining despite being perhaps 20 minutes too long for me.

Rango follows the generic fish-out-of-water plot of many animated kids movies, similar to "Flushed Away". Rango is a neglected pet lizard that lives a lonely existance. His only friends are a plastic palm tree and a plastic fish toy in the tank that he lives in. He dreams of adventure and gets it when his tank is destroyed after falling out of the back of his owners ute.  He ends up in a small town in the desert called "Dirt" and quickly takes up the persona of a gun-slinging sheriff. After a massive blunder the town's water supply is stolen and bigger conspiracy is at play here. His lies become bigger than him and he begins to believe that he really is a hero.

What I most enjoyed about the film was it's animation style. The film has a very distinct artistic look and is beautifully animated. While I was watching it I couldn't help but compare a few of the characters to Tim Burton's female characters of "Corpse Bride" with their big eyes, heads and thin necks.

There was a good mix of action and comedy, especially scenes with the hawk. The spectacular chase scene was exciting and definitely an inventive take on a western chase sequences. My only gripe is that the story seemed to slow down a little towards the end, especially when Rango and a mis-fit crew journey to return the town's stolen water and again when Rango is exposed and leaves the town. But this is only a small gripe. The script is veryt and has many nods to classic western films and even a Clint Eastwood-esque character thrown in there to complete the homage. Most of these references will probably go over kid's heads, but adults watching will certainly appreciate them. There is a light romance between Rango and a strong female lizard called Beans, that is underplayed, but what makes this plot point perfect is that there is no sickly sweet romance so that young kids will not be put off by it.

Overall it was really good and I see why the director decided to keep all these crazy off-beat characters and crazy plot points in the film even if it did drag the flow of the story. This is released on DVD this week (July 7) which is perfect timing since school holidays start this week. Should keep parents happy and kids occupied.

8/10

Engagement Party

So I had my engagement party on Saturday and it went really well. I was so excited about it and I was so worried that no one would turn up, but everyone did! The venue looked amazing, Cookie had pink and orange balloons delivered and set up in the room. Everyone loved the food but I hardly got to eat any of it - and the cake! OMG the cake - it was a massive white vanilla cake with butter cream icing and the decorations on the cake matched the engagement party invites with little love birds sitting on a branch. It looked very home-made and was yummy. And when you cut into the cake the inside cake was orange and pink marble effect. I only just finished eating the cake today and it was so tasty.

I got my hair and make-up done and wore extremely painful shoes for the first hour of the party. I'm just so amazed at how quickly the party went, but the time it was 4.30 I thought that only an hour had gone by. I'm now a little worried that my wedding day will go so quickly also. I don't want to be too drunk or miss out on eating all the good food.

It was a great day and everything went smoothly and I was all talked out by the end of the night. The party was over by 7pm so we went home and the girls took me out to the cinemas to see "Bridesmaids" which was surprisingly funny and not too overly sentimental. I thoroughly enjoyed it and the organic popcorn which was sweet and salty. YUM.

So the engagement party is this Saturday and I need to organise a cake and balloons for the party decorations. What is a typical engagement cake? I keep finding pictures of cakes covered in love hearts. They are all kind of boring to look at and so girly. I don't get why they are so girly - and the cakes all seem so silly.

I really like the idea of having a bride's cake and groom cake, which is a very American thing to do for a wedding. Two cakes may be over kill - but I like the idea of the man being represented because after all, it's his wedding too. I don't think men like flowers, pearls, ribbons, bows, love hearts and other girly things on their cakes. It wouldn't surprised me if most men didn't even give a shit about the look of their wedding cake.

I think that I want something simple and yummy for a engagement cake since my wedding cake is going to be kinda geeky. I have so many ideas running in my head that I wish that I could just do everything - except it would be the most expensive wedding ever.  I think it's time I came up with a date for the wedding. Getting sick of telling people that I don't know.
Meanwhile I've been reading the latest sookie stackhouse book and I'm loving it. After I read this I'm going to start reading game of thrones ;) god i love that show.

First thing is done - I'm organising my engagement party for the 25th of June. YAY. Now I just have to hurry up and do some invites and then pay for the damn thing. Relatively cheap for an engagement party. I thought I would be spending more. I'm paying for food and drink only. Room hire is included in the fee.

Now I need to draw up some invites. It would probably be easier to just pay someone to do it but I was thinking of just printing some off myself. The wedding invites are what I should be spending my monies on. I was looking at Scandinavian art earlier, and I found these Darla Horses. I really like the patterns and brush work on them so maybe I can slip this into the invites? I really need to use photo shop. And I really need to buy a printer. I think that would help a lot. lol.

Went out to dinner last night with friends and the Cookie man...lol he doesn't like being called that. Went to Mad Mex on chapel st, it was really yummy and then we went to san churros and ate churros. I had the spanish hot chocolate - it was more like chocolate sauce it was so thick! We saw Gracie there, an old friend who we need to catch up with pronto. 

It's mother's day today so I'm going to go see my nonna and mum.  And I finally got my ring back from the jewelers, so I can show my nonna. My engagement ring broke the other week. I had only been wearing it for two weeks and one of the little claws around the diamond just broke off. I was so upset because here I was trying to be so careful with it and it still broke. I was mostly wearing it on a necklace while I was at work because when you do what I do, which 70% of my job is putting out DVD's on a shelf, you kinda have to use your hands. I get scratches and little cuts sometimes from putting my hands in between the shelves to get to stock, and the ring just kept getting knocked around. Also on a side note I realised that for someone who is right-handed, I use my left hand a lot.

So I have my nice shiny engagement ring back and now I can finally show it to all the people who haven't seen it yet. It was getting embarrassing telling people I was engaged but didn't have my ring on me to prove it. Some people kind of think that if you don't have a ring your not engaged. I'm kinda like that, but as long as a rock of some sort was used during your proposal - your engaged.

Anyhoo, might go look at some more wedding porn. thank you offbeat bride. you are my new favorite website :)

Obsessed with being obsessed

I have a confession to make, I am completely obsessed with wedding magazines. I especially love the features on real couple's weddings. Obviously some of them have been professionally planned and all the photos are professional, but I can't help but love their ideas and I want to steal them all! 

It's gotten to the stage though that I've been having wedding dreams, I haven't even set a date yet and I'm already stressing about the ceremony and the reception. I have to admit though that a few people's comments have gotten to me. But after reading my new bible Offbeat bride, I have a new sense of "whatever". I mean who gives a shit if someone else thinks that my ideas are kiddie - its my effing wedding! I will not dress my bridesmaids in olive. I refuse to serve boring wedding cake. I don't want what everyone else wants - I am not everyone else. Although I guess thats what every bride thinks of themselves.
 

Getting engaged has been one of the most exciting things to happen to me of late. I don't remember being this excited ever. I was really excited when I met Kelly Clarkson last year - I mean the build up for that was crazy. At first we didn't know if we were going to meet her, and then it looked like it wasn't happening, and then suddenly we were walking through the back entrance to Rod Laver Arena and standing in line waiting to shake her hand.

This engagement has been much the same. It all started when our close friends decided to get engaged and do the whole married thing. Cookie and I have talked about it in the past, at one stage for about 5 seconds we wanted to do it badly, but after I moved back to Melbourne and we began living together we didn't feel that rush to want to walk down the aisle. We were comfortable functioning in our own special way. We didn't need a piece of paper to say that we were legally a couple - we just knew it. I am not a romantic person either - I would say that I have my moments, who doesn't, but I've never really considered myself to be that girl. The type of girl to settle down and do the whole shin-dig of a wedding.

So when Lydia and Deniz tied the knot in a beautiful elegant, fun wedding that was when I started to think "Well maybe this wouldn't be so bad". I didn't know I wanted a wedding until I was at one! I mean the cake alone was enough to make me re-think all my pre-conceptions of boring weddings. Look I haven't been to may weddings, singing at them with a choir in primary school doesn't count because I honestly have not much memory to go on, BUT the weddings I have been lucky enough to be invited to have been wonderful.

Maybe it was the cake, the free booze, or the fact that in a few years I'll be approaching 30 (which scares me half to death), I suddenly really really really wanted to get married.

There is a moment in Twilight Eclipe, where Bella expresses to Edward that she wanted to get married - not for the cake, the dress and fab engagement presents - but because it was a way to bound her and Edward together in every way possible. You can't get closer to a person than by marrying them.

So getting back to it, the idea of an engagement was in my head. And I started hint dropping like nobody's business. Turns out that Cookie was receiving the hints loud and clearly and was planning his own surprise. So when Cookie said he wanted to go to the Gold Coast for a holiday it wasn't just to do the theme parks, it was to propose. And I guessed it weeks before hand, but I didn't believe it until he was kneeling on the balcony floor of our hotel room with a tiny ring in a giant box in his hand. I still didn't believe it - and I won't go into detail but I did swear...alot.

So now we are engaged. It's been two months now, I've only worn my ring for about two weeks of that - and most of the time it was securely tied on a necklace. So now the fun part begins. I get to plan two parties. An engagement party and then a wedding. I'm very excited but I have no idea where to begin. Lydia gave me a book called "Offbeat Bride" and I've read it over and seen the website. It's perfect for me because it's totally what I need right now. I need someone to say to me that yes my ideas are good and if you want to have a mario and princess peach cake then go ahead! So thats what I'm doing. I'm going to create a wedding that reflects mine and cookie's taste in the finer things in life. Like video games, music and maybe a few film references thrown in for good measure. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna surprise everyone and maybe I'll remember to blog and share whats going on in the lead up to the wedding. Thank you so much for reading and please share any comments you have below! xoxoxoxoxo ev