TWILIGHT BREAKING DAWN: PART 2 - tangerine dreams for marshmallow minds

The most epic battle in 3 millennia—the ultimate showdown between primordial powers and nascent love riddled vampires—the terrifying collusion of man and beast—with special effects not eclipsed since Star Wars and the divine acting talents not yet equaled in the history of teen cinema—the supreme denouement—a film for the ages. Sure.

This has got to be one of the most baffling bad series of films ever made. They are obviously not made for someone like me—I'm clearly not the demographic—I am not a wanton teenage girl or a dejected mother. That said, why should I say anything about it at all? Well, I always try to keep an open mind. Even if something does not seem to appeal to me, I will generally try to give a shot anyway because you never know what you may learn or even come to cherish. So in comes Twilight. Surely this has very little, if anything, good to say about anything. 

I believe I comprehend. A teenage girl, not beautiful per say but rather average, someone like you—becomes the obsession of the 'hottest' supernatural guy around. Ok. You certainly reciprocate. You fall in love, like real love, your first love, über crazy lovey dovey love. You might say, well alright, what's so bad about that? Every teenage fantasy. I guess what I find terribly disingenuous and downright insidiously malicious is that ideas like this seem to be treated as something that should be your sole desire or lifelong goal of wish fulfillment and the idea of everlasting love being the only thing that matters in life. Not reality. Who cares, its a movie, you say. A fantasy, no less. I guess I wouldn't, except for the unconscionable amount of unseemly interest and swoon by the millions. Young girls want to believe in this drivel and do. The doddering writer, Stephenie Meyer, seems to be exploiting her own unrealized teenage feelings. 

It's possible to have good teenage or any age fantasy narratives without appealing to an emotional pseudo-reality. Harry Potter for instance. Films like Twilight plant fatuous ideas into young people and only set them up for disappointment. Likewise, the filmmakers did a piss poor job on all the films. The special effects are of kindergarten quality as well as the structure of the story. They also seemed to dumb down the whole enterprise. Teens are far smarter than you think—they should be treated as such—yet, if you tamper with their developing, sensitive emotions you are bound to come out on top. Thank you Ms. Meyer for the imminent destruction of countless teen psychologies and handing pharmaceuticals the next generation of drug dependent sociopaths. 

Recommended Viewing: Harry Potter Saga - Lord Of The Rings Saga - Star Wars Saga

              Bob Scale: The Critic: 4.0   -   The Fan: 2.4

             MetaCritic: 53

 Rotten Tomatoes: 51

                    IMDB: 5.8

COSMOPOLIS - a nightmare drive through consciousness

David Cronenberg's latest moving art piece was nothing short of intriguing if not entirely baffling. Did I like it, yes, will you....

I would be adverse to pinning this movie down to any sort of genre or stereotype but to quickly sum it up I would say it's a grievous, cynical, social satire inspired by the contemporary titular novel penned by Don DeLillo. Each scene comes to us in a series of nearly strict vignettes. It's a film of many tales, some of them important, some of them not, I suspect. Cronenberg bounces around from pseudo, atypical contemporary marriage woes to farcical economic depictions to the deep metaphysical nature of life and death. Yet, most of the dialogue is absurdly cryptic and thus you will have to dig very deep to find the subtext; not for all the scenes but many. Wtf will be an apt response that enters your mind often enough.

If you took a few of the sequences out of the film and told me that a college film student shot some of the scenes, I would believe you. Some of them almost seem poorly acted... but this is Cronenberg and typical of his style. Not for everyone. I find his films bizarre, violent and completely unique in the filmic landscape. Cosmopolis is no different. The cinematography is, as always, stunningly sublime and the last sequence is a particularly fitting example of this. You will witness an eye gouging, giant rats on the streets of a dystopian New York, wacky mystic diviners, in your face nudity and intensely long interior limousine shots. In a word - disturbing.   

Recommended Viewing: Videodrome - Crash - A History Of Violence

              Bob Scale: The Critic: 7.5   -   The Fan: 7.5

             MetaCritic: 59

 Rotten Tomatoes: 64

                    IMDB: 6.1