Last night was the premiere of TRUE BLOOD (Season Six)!
Best lines of the episode…
Arlene: Well, I got news for you, Andy. Life ain’t fair. And there ain’t no Santa Claus, neither. And when you stick Mr Happy in someone’s hoo-ha without a raincoat on, babies come out! Now get your butt inside and face your responsibilities!
Andy: Well, hog tits, Arlene!
TRUE BLOOD will hold me until Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Boardwalk Empire and Dexter return!
I was going through the most excellent articles over at The Eye of Faith {Vintage} blog when I came across the image of a lovely young lady…
(A very young Maila Nurmi)
I doubt many of you would recognize this girl as she looked in her younger years.
You’re probably more familiar seeing her like this…
(Maila Nurmi as Vampira)
Yes, Maila Nurmi played the legendary character Vampira.
(Check out that waistline!!)
Dark, lovely, creepy… her character Vampira quickly became a cult classic.
Vampira is a kind of entity (and you can call her a woman though she is androgynous) that survives in this world. I, Maila Nurmi, am not.” - Maila Nurmi
Maila Nurmi [December 11, 1922 – January 10, 2008]
Requiescat In Pace
At last... It’s finished. It’s done.
Our long national nightmare is finally over!
Last night, I watched the last… oh Lord, that word never tasted so good in my mouth… The Last Installment of The Twilight Movie Saga – BREAKING DAWN (Part 2)!
[The Twilight Saga - BREAKING DAWN (Part 2) DVD cover]
I suffered through those five movies… a dozen or so hours of my life that I can never get back… and now it is finished.
OK, here’s the deal… Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy and nine or so other actresses who portray Renesmee as she grows up), the half-human half-vampire child of Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is maturing at an alarming rate. In a matter of a few months, she grows from infant to about 9 years old.
Mayhem ensues when… The Volturi [1] find out about Renesmee. To them, she is an abomination and must be destroyed. Aro (Michael Sheen) and Jane (Dakota Fanning) are particularly enthusiastic about killing the Cullen tot.
My two cents… For all my whining and whinging, Breaking Dawn (Part 2) is not awful. It’s not great but it definitely not dreadful. Unless you’re already a fan of the Twilight Saga, don’t bother seeing this movie. But if you are already a fan, you will probably find Breaking Dawn (Part 2) the best of the bunch.
Bottom line… Not as wretched as I thought it would be.
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[1] The Volturi are the largest, most ancient and most powerful coven of vampires. They enforce the laws of the vampire world. They equivalent of royalty in the vampire world.
I was making my way through the Zombie Serengeti (aka the Walmarts) yesterday, when I noticed the DVD version of Breaking Dawn (Part 2).
I bought one.
Hard as it is for me to believe, this is the last in the Twilight Saga movie franchise.
Our long national nightmare is over!
I suppose I will watch it soon. Probably next week.
Stay tuned!
A dear friend of mine forwarded me this photograph and I have been completely dippy about it ever since.
(Vampyra, the winged vampyre kitten)
Is this the cutest thing in the world, or what??
I want one so badly, you’ve no idea!
I will call her Vampyra. And she will be mine and she will be my Vampyra!
Last month, after years of putting it off, I began watching the Twilight Saga movies.
I’ve not read the books nor do I intend to read them.
This weekend, I watched the third in the Twilight Saga series, “Eclipse.”
Once again, I did not burst into flames nor did blood spurt from my eyes. I think I am building up a resistance.
OK, here goes (as per Jeremy Wheeler, at Rovi)…
The third film in the Twilight series explores a love triangle between Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward (Robert Pattinson), and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) as the werewolf pack and the Cullen clan join together to fight a new breed of vampires. Melissa Rosenberg provides the screenplay for the Summit Entertainment adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel, with director David Slade calling the shots behind the camera. Bryce Dallas Howard joins the cast as Victoria, the role originally played by Rachelle Lefevre in the first film.
Riveting stuff, eh?
(He’s getting sparkly!)
Bella Swan continues to act like an idiot, wanting to be turned into a vampyre but somehow balking at marrying the decaf cappuccino of vampyre fiction, Edward Cullen, and Edward Cullen continues to act like an idiot by not wanting to turn Bella into a vampyre but somehow wanting him and Bella to spend the rest of their lives together notwithstanding the fact that during the course of the last three movies, she has already become older than he is.
Mayhem ensues when… the Seattle murders catch the attention of the Volturi – the vampyre aristocracy and ruling class – who commanded that Edward turn Bella into a vampyre. See above paragraph as to why the two dimwits haven’t done this already. Oh and by the way, seriously ticked-off vampyre Victoria is très fromaged at Bella and tries to exact revenge on her for being responsible for the death of Victoria’s boyfriend (he’s killed in the first movie)
Reviews for Eclipse have generally been much more favourable than for the first two movies.
Lisa Kennedy at the Denver Post – “While the new Eclipse remains foremost a flick for devotees, it has sturdier pleasures and takes on its emotional ambitions with renewed dedication.”
Tim Martain at The Mercury – “Eclipse reinvigorates the Twilight saga, giving the fans what they want as well as being good enough to keep casual viewers interested.”
Katarina Vangopolous at MovieDex – “Eclipse surprises with (much needed) improvement; the first real blockbuster of the franchise.”
(I was cheering for Victoria [Bryce Dallas Howard] at this point! “Do it, Victoria! Do it!”)
To say Eclipse enjoyed only rave reviews is to toy with the truth.
Rafer Guzman at Newsday – “In a rare moment of insight, the teenage but immortal vampires in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse complain about being “frozen” in their lives, unable to “move forward.” So is everyone involved in this deathtrap of a franchise.”
Brian Orndorf (BrianOrndorf.com): “It’s interesting to see each film make Bella into an even bigger creep than previously imagined, with Eclipse turning the indecisive heroine into a mean-spirited provocateur unworthy of all the attention lavished on her.”
(Dakota Fanning as the delicious red-eyed Jane of the Volturi)
My two cents… Saying that Eclipse is the best film in ‘The Twilight Saga’ so far isn’t exactly lavishing praise on the movie. The fundamental flaw was and remains Bella Swan, both the character and Kristen Stewart’s portrayal of her. I can see teen girls swooning over the male characters every time they take off their shirts (which is rather often, really) and joining Team Edward or Team Jacob with the alacrity usually associated with American Civil War’s initial volunteers… but Bella isn’t a very nice or even interesting person. It becomes harder and harder for me to see why the other characters in the movie are so dippy about her, let alone audience members.
As for the story line and film production, it’s generally not bad, which I did not expect to find in the Twilight Saga.
Bottom line… Twilight fans will love it and the casual observers will not be put off by it. In fact, they might even become interested in sticking around for the next movie. And the next.
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Last week, after years of putting it off, I watched the movie “Twilight.”
This week, I watched the second in the Twilight Saga series, “New Moon.”
(New Moon – DVD cover)
Once again, I did not burst into flames nor did blood spurt from my eyes.
OK, here it goes (as per the DVD blurb)…
The romance between mortal Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison) grows more intense as ancient secrets threaten to destroy them. When Edward leaves in an effort to keep Bella safe, she tests fate in increasingly reckless ways in order to glimpse her love once more. But when she’s saved from the brink by her friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lodner), Bella will uncover mysteries of the supernatural world that will put her in more peril then ever before.
Mayhem ensues when… Bella acts like a self-destructive idiot and the supernatural shit starts to hit the fan. As Michael Dequina of TheMovieReport.com observes, “Ostensible heroine Bella is such a weak, needy, pathetic co-dependent who stirs up so much sh*t for those she purportedly loves that it’s hard to muster much rooting interest for her.” Well put.
Simon Miraudo of Quickfliks goes further, describing New Moon as having “excruciatingly lazy storytelling, atrocious performances, listless direction and a core storyline that is both uninteresting and somewhat disturbing.”
RottenTomatoes.com gave it a 28% on the ‘freshness scale.’
My two cents… this movie moves at a glacial pace and is painfully long – a deadly combination in any movie. Add to it the downcast tone of the film and you get a long, slow downer. Who wouldn’t love that? Well, apparently, may do. Die-hard Twilight fans will not be disappointed because… well… they have a lot of emotional investment in the franchise already and bring a lot of enthusiasm with them. And New Moon gives them what they want… lots of torturous, self-centred teen angst. Lots of pining and yearning and sexless frustration. Lots of relentlessly shirtless hunky guys.
(The Volturi)
There is one tiny bit of fun that I thoroughly enjoyed. Dakota Fanning as the red-eyed Jane, a member of the Volturi… a kind of vampyre aristocracy that both rules and enforces the law. It’s rather a small part I but had a good time during those scenes.
Bottom line… This movie isn’t about vampyres and werewolves. It’s a ‘woe is me’ lament about the pain of abstinence because your mind is telling you “no, no, no” but your body is telling you “yes, yes, yes!” As for your heart… well… it’s way too busy being whipped and flogged while chained to the bed to care.
Next stop… The Twilight Saga: ECLIPSE! And may G-d have mercy on my soul.
Well, I finally did it.
After having it sit on my computer shelf for almost a year, I finally slapped the DVD of Twilight into the old puter and fired it up.
As I did so, my Catholic school upbringing welled up inside me, bringing with it a half-forgotten snippet of prayer to my lips. “Libera Nos a Malo!” [1]
As you’ve probably pieced together by now, I did not burst into flames upon watching Twilight nor did blood spurt from my eyes.
It’s not a great movie. It is not really a good one, either. But I don’t think it deserves all the crap heaped on it over the last few years.
It’s not horrible. It is not wretched. It did not make me want to pull my head off.
It did make me frustrated and upset. Not because it is insipid and tiresome and BORING (which it is) but because of what it does to my beloved vampyre lore. That is what really kills me about Twilight. An entire generation of young people growing up with this decaffeinated espresso vampyre image.
(Toute la fang gang!)
Sparkling? Doesn’t feed from humans? 100 years old and still hasn’t gotten over the tortured teen angst thing.
Really? Seriously??
What’s the effen point!? Who wants a sanitized, toothless vampyre?
Apparently, lots of people! And that is the sad part of Twilight.
People who’ve drunk only orange-flavoured pop or eaten only margarine think they have an idea of what orange or butter taste like. But those of us who have tasted real freshly squeezed orange juice and real fresh butter can only shake our heads and pity them. They think they know.. but they SO don’t.
I guess that’s what Twilight made me feel most of all. Pity.
Yeah, I guess that’s it.
I don’t hate Twilight fans. I pity them. I feel sorry for them… for all those poor misguided souls who read the books and watch the movies and think they know what the world of vampyres is really like.
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[1] From the Pater Noster. A supplication to the Almighty to “Deliver Us from Evil!”
As a ‘bat fan’, I looked at the following headline with interest…
Seems that the hopeless romantics over at ScienceDaily.com have gotten into the spring spirit!
“There must be something in the warm breeze. A study on bats suggests that bats produce twice as many female babies as male ones in years when spring comes early. The earlier in the spring the births occur, the more likely the females are to survive and then reproduce a year later, as one-year olds, compared to later-born pups, according to Robert Barclay’s research published in PLoS ONE.”
(The Big Brown Bat, Eptesicus fuscus [1])
“The early-born females are able to reproduce as one year olds, whereas male pups can’t,” explains Barclay, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. “Thus, natural selection has favoured internal mechanisms that result in a skewed sex ratio because mothers that produce a daughter leave more offspring in the next generation than mothers who produce a son.” Barclay analyzed long-term data on the variation in offspring sex-ratio of the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, a common North-American species that consumes insects.
(Is that a 4-bat pile-up or 5? [2])
“In this species, more eggs are fertilized than eventually result in babies, so there is some mechanism by which a female embryo is preferentially kept and male embryos are resorbed early in pregnancy,” says Barclay. But, he adds, the biochemistry behind the skewed sex ratio is unknown. In other words, female bats can choose to give birth to female baby bats… we just don’t know how they’re going it!
Well… a girl has to have SOME secrets! 
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[1] Brown bats have the ability to select the sex of their offspring, as they produce more female offspring in early springs. (Credit: Photo by Ken Bendiksen)
[2] Credit: Photo by Bull Snook.
Pam De Beaufort!
What a delicious part!!
The writers of the HBO television show True Blood really outdo themselves when it comes to providing dialogue for Pam, masterfully played by Kristin Bauer.
Here’s a bit of background on the character Pam for those who are not familiar with the program.
A former prostitute during her lifetime, Pam was ‘brought over’ (i.e. made a vampyre) by Eric Northman in the late 1800′s in London, England. She was released from Eric sometime in the early decades of 20th century. She has resided in the USA from the beginning of the last century. After the Great Revelation when vampyres came ‘out of the coffin,’ Eric called for Pam’s service in the newly founded Fangtasia bar in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Nowadays she serves him willfully and is his second-in-command. She has never sired a vampyre.
Here are some of the precious gems that True Blood’s writers have fall from her beautiful, smirking lips.
“I don’t know what it is about me that makes people think I want to hear their problems. Maybe I smile too much. Maybe I wear too much pink. But please remember I can rip your throat out if I need to. And also know that I am not a hooker. That was a long, long time ago.”
“I am so over Sookie and her precious fairy vagina and her unbelievably stupid name. F**k Sookie!”
“I’m gonna shove my fist up your ass and use you as a hand-warmer.”
“Did I miss something? Are we girls now? Did we join a book club and read some queer chick lit memoirs and are bound together by estrogen or sisterhood some other feminist drivel?”
“This is not just about your relationship, you infatuated tween. There’s a bigger picture.”
“Let’s go to the ladies room and stare at ourselves in the mirror.”
Each year, her character becomes stronger, more fleshed out and more interesting… and a lot more fun!
Can’t wait for True Blood Season Five, expected to premiere in June 2012.
