To be honest, I can’t make up my mind about “Twilight” movies (or books for that matter). “Too bad it’s hilarious” or just “too bad”?

To be honest, I must admit “Eclipse” movie was a slight improvement. Directing was better, script fas a bit more coherent, and even (even!) acting was a little less horrible. Don’t get me wrong, the movie was bad, messy and embarrassing. But it was more watchable than the previous instalments. Now that’s something, isn’t it?

“Eclipse” has its wonderful, campy, narmy moments, but there are not enough of them to make up for nonexistent story, empty dialogue and overall pointlessness of the movie. There’s also the issue of music- along with indie songs there is a serious (way tooo serious) and “epic” score. Such music is accompanied by trashy dialogue and scenes in which absolutely nothing happens. It tries (badly) to tell us meaningless dialogue along the lines of “Jacob is my friend, I want to see him” is extremely important, but it fails. The effect is somewhat amusing, thought, and it does approach the “trash gem” line.

As for the actors, I must say Kristen Stewart blinked a little less so she was less annoying, but she still looks completely bored (I don’t blame her). Robert Pattinson manages to be strangely absent and unnoticeable, which is a gift, given the fact he’s always there. He is there, but we just don’t see him. I don’t know how they did it, but it’s a good thing, because he still acts like he really, really needs to go to the bathroom every second he’s on screen. Young Taylor Lautner looks a bit older here, so his abs match his face a little better. His acting, which was almost unwatcheable in the previous movie, is a bit better- but only a bit.

All one can say about supporting characters is “blah”. Humans are not important, vampires don’t look like vampires, wolf pack is one huge fan service. Dakota Fanning and Jackson Rathbone are the only one who deserve a mention, and not for the same reason. Fanning can act, and she’s good- as good as you can get here (which is not far). She is the only one who managed to turn an extremely weak material into something “ok”, which means the girl is really, really talented. As for Rathbone, we all know he can’t act, but somehow he does look unnatural enough to pass for a vampire. The “I’m about to crap” face works better on him than Pattinson, that’s for sure.

The worst things

Special effects were embarrassing to watch. Wolf pack, I’m looking at you. But there were other trashy effects so if laughing at those is your thing, “Eclipse” won’t disappoint. And I do admit, they were a bit better than “New Moon”, but still highly cringeworthy.

Also: makeup. It’s bad beyond words. Edward, who is supposed to be the most gorgeous guy on Earth, looks like a drag queen on a bad day (nothing against drag queens, but I don’t think that’s the look they wanted to achieve.)

The plot. Strictly speaking, it’s not filmmakers fault. We all know what was the source material. Simply put: it was boring. All they did in the movie was talking. And since we all know how uninspiring characters are, listening their endless dialogue was not a highly amusing thing to do.

The best things

The best things were the above mentioned narmy moments. No words to describe such scenes as “Edward, I promise, I’ll go to college and I’ll let you buy me an expensive car, and I’ll marry you, just please, fuck me!”. The legend of the third wife is also a gem, and so is homoerotic tent scene. Another good thing was the infamous scene in which Bella orders Jacob to kiss her under the fake mountains, with “epic” music in the background.

Dakota Fanning’s portrayal is the only non-narmy thing that was good in this movie.

The Verdict?

All in all, “Eclipse” is not clever, or ironic enough to pass for camp. It still takes itself way too seriously. It’s not even trashy enough to be “too bad it’s good” in a narmy way. But there’s certainly a potential.

Not to mention, the best is yet to come: “Breaking Dawn”, the ultimate wonder of trash literature, is going to be adapted in not one, but two movies. With a good attitude and inspired crew, we might be having a camp classic on the way.

Rating: ** jefflions out of *****

See also

“Eclipse”: The logic behind a boring mess (my book review)
“New Moon” movie: Not worth the LULZ
… and other “Twilight” spittings

… Because I don’t like female authors?

Ok, this isn’t easy for me to admit. I am not even sure if it’s true. I don’t even know if it’s sexism or something else, but there are so many male authors on my favourites list- and only a few females.

You might say it’s not surprising. After all, there were- historically- more male writers. Women of the past didn’t enjoy the freedom to write and to get their voices heard. It is, more or less changed today. Still, number of male writers is still higher.

Not to mention most of the so called “classics” are written by men. It’s not surprising for anyone to have more males on the list of favourite authors.

But there’s more. I seem to dislike most of the books written by females. It’s not like it’s impossible to find many books written by female authors these days. But it seems I don’t get them. And I’m not even talking about the so-called “chick lit” garbage that we all know it’s a poor excuse for literature. I’m talking about serious books. Why don’t I like them? Or to say it better: why don’t I like them as much as I like those written by men?

Why isn’t it easier for me, as a woman, to identify with stories written by females? Am I so brainwashed with testosterone-filled world to see anything different as a good thing? But hey people, I do not believe in male vs female writing. I do not believe men write differently than women- I swear, I don’t. I do not think it’s possible to say whether a writer is a man or a woman. I don’t think testosterone or estrogen guides anyone’s heart, mind or muse. I think the whole “men and women are soooo different” issue is rubbish.

In short, I don’t think females write differently than males- but I still seem to prefer literature written by men. (On the other hand, I enjoy academic books and essays written by female scholars. But that’s not the same).

There seem to be only a few female authors I enjoy reading. One of them is one of my favourite authors (and, along with Ian McEwan, my favourite living author). I’m talking about Toni Morrison, of course. Her novels are one of the best I’ve ever read, and “Jazz” is easily in my top 10 books. The way this woman writes is unbelievable and beyond amazing. (The funny thing is, I had no idea author was a woman (or black for that matter) when I first read “Jazz”).

Except for Toni Morrison, I like work of Pearl Buck (ironic, isn’t it? I mean, for these two ladies to be my fav female authors?) I also like, in a very nostalgic way, Charlotte Bronte (but I guess that’s because Jane Eyre was perhaps my favorite book when I was a kid). And… And I can’t think of more authors at the moment. And it’s not like I don’t read.

This trend, I’m afraid, goes beyond literature. My favourite musicians are men. Maybe it could be explained with the fact I prefer deep voices and to give it as a reason for preferring male singers. Maybe. But literature?

So, am I sexist?

PS-As a little gift, here’s one female musician I like. In fact, I’m really into this song these days, it is amazing on so many levels and it inspires me. And only really unique songs can truly inspire an author. A female one, in this case.

Dear readers,

I am sorry for not updating in a while. It happens. I was a) busy and b) suddenly sick of the Internet. Yes, yours truly was actually losing interest in the Internet. I suspect it was temporary, but still…

It happens, I guess. I completely lost an inspiration for blogging- and those senior readers know it happens to me from time to time. I don’t like to blog randomly, without any idea or structure within a post, so when I’m not inspired to write something coherent, I don’t write at all. I guess it’s the same for other bloggers, but those smart out there always have an idea for at least 3 posts in advance, so they can always use those ideas. Others simply don’t care about writing randomly. Or not updating often.

All in all, I’m here. Sorry for my late replies to your comments/emails/blog posts. Hope to be more regular these days!

And now, something really cute:

I took the Political Compass test, and here’s my result:

Economic Left/Right: -7.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.08

It basically means I’m at far left when it comes to economic issues, and I’m a libertarian in social matters. Also, it shows my disgust for authoritarian regimes and right-wing ways of handling economics (whatever that really means).

More or less, I’m close to be an anarchist.

Ok, the graph doesn’t explicitly show these tendencies, so I ended up being on far left and moderately libertarian. But since I show disgust for most of the political ideas, I’m surprised I didn’t end up in a corner of the chart or something. I hate most of the political systems known to man, past and present.

As for anarchism, I do not believe in it, but I guess getting anarchism result is logical. However, I don’t really support anarchy; I don’t believe it could work, so you could said I don’t believe in it either.

Now, I understand anarchism gets a really bad reputation (and it’s not that I don’t get why). But anarchism, as a political philosophy, is not about violence, or destroying private property, OR listening Sex Pistols and wearing t-shirts with angry messages. The problem with anarchism is that it works much better as a social critique of other political systems, than an actual system that can work. Also, there are many different, even conflicting anarchisms, so it’s not like we’ll see anarchy at work any time soon.

Take the Political Compass test: politicalcompass.org

At the moment, it sucks to be broke because:

You can’t go to a Bob Dylan concert in Belgrade (June 6th 2010).
You can’t go to Krapina, see Neanderthal site and visit relatives.

Oh well. I just wanted (needed?) to share this one.