Guest Review

It's that time again, ladies and gents. The only reason any of you should ever visit here - the Guest Review slot. Enjoy:)

A Review of “Breaking Dawn: Part 1”
or, This Isn’t a Review, Because Fuck You, That’s Why



Seeing the posters go up for a new Twilight movie doesn’t disturb me in the way that it disturbs some people. To be honest with you, I’m largely indifferent to the entire Twilight franchise. I know, I know. I hate everything. I should, by any and all logic, hate the Twilight films with the kind of passion I save for child molesters, people who use poor grammar on the Internet, Glenn Beck and the person responsible for the Mean Girls sequel. 

I just don’t care though. I really just don’t. 

I actually started writing this review after I first saw Breaking Dawn, on the day that it came out. (Yeah, that’s right. I saw it twice.) It came out last year and I still haven’t finished reviewing it, as Kyle graciously pointed out mere hours ago. I thought for sure that no one gave a fuck about this movie anymore and I wasn’t even going to finish it, but then right as he reminded me that I had an outstanding review (outstanding in a way separate from my other adjectively outstanding reviews; outstanding in nature, not in content) something horrifying came up on my Facebook news feed: 

“I want a love like Edward and Bella’s ♥”, it said. 

You know what I want, unnamed-Facebook-friend-who-I-can’t-bring-myself-to-unfriend-because-your-pathetic-life-is-good-for-my-self-esteem? I want to wake up tomorrow and find myself in a world where people don’t take romantic cues from excessively long, poorly written fictional works penned by women-hating Evangelical stay-at-home mothers who studied at a glorified community college and have delusions of grandeur. 

Looks like neither of us will get what we want. Ever. (And look, I’m not implying that you’re going to end up in a borderline abusive relationship with someone who probably skinned cats for fun during childhood as a direct result of your sheer desperation to forge a relationship with someone mysterious and committed and dreamy... Oh, no, wait, I totes am...) 

Anyway, I got to thinking and wondering what Bella’s Facebook page (or Timeline, for all you fancy fuckers utilizing the new feature) would look like, and subsequently, I realized something fucking horrifying: It would look exactly the same as That Girl From High School Who I Hate’s Facebook page.


Bella Swan: Edward 
1 hour ago

Bella Swan: Ew, have to start hitting the gym. NY resolutions, lose weight, get fit, be happy!!!!
54 minutes ago

Bella Swan: Hmm, what should I make for dinner tonight?? 
45 minutes ago

Bella Swan: Reading Wuthering Heights as I make yummy food for dinner. Sooooo good!!!!!!
29 minutes ago

Bella Swan: went from being ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘Engaged’
10 minutes ago

Bella Swan: Broke my leg – LOL!!!! So clumsy!! Lucky I have Edward to look after me xoxox
3 minutes ago

Bella Swan: I love sweet potato! Nom nom nom nom nom. 
30 seconds ago


There’s something about the character of Bella that seems to be so appealing to teenage girls, suburban mothers (mine included), and gay men, and it’s this:

She’s a fucking idiot. 

Bella Swan is unabashedly, unashamedly, uncaringly stupid. She’s clumsy. She’s thoughtless, selfish, naive and stubborn. She manages to have low self-esteem and deep-seated self obsession, simultaneously. Bella Swan, like Becky Sharp (of Vanity Fair—the book, not the magazine, for those of you who are illiterate or just revel in your own ignorance) before her, is a character with no redeeming qualities, totally lacking in self-awareness and completely and utterly willing to define herself by her rank amongst peers and through qualities on a checklist. 

Sadly, a large number of teenagers and suburban mothers and gay men (none of which are groups of people I have any mal-intent towards, for those of you about to cry discrimination and gather up your lynch mob or fire up the gas chambers or whatever it is you people who hate unpopular opinions do these days) are attracted to this. 

The only good thing about the character of Bella Swan is the fact that she is played by Kristen Stewart in the movies and dubious choice of hairstyles and surliness aside, Kristen Stewart is fucking hot. In fact, I kind of like her surliness. Sometimes when I’m reading tabloid articles about her and Robert (of the Hair)—mostly in line at the supermarket, or getting my hair cut by a small, effeminate Asian man who insists I call him ‘D’—I fondly imagine K. Stew dominating Robert of the Hair, and it brings a smile to my face (and a moistness to my—no, I’m kidding. Or am I? You’ll never know!).

Unfortunately, they fucking ruin that in this movie. She’s all gross and anorexic and, SPOILER ALERT, drinking blood from a Sippy cup and shit...

I mean, look. Let’s be honest. The cast of the Twilight movies is fucking attractive. I mean, this is the franchise which lead to Cam Gigandet being shirtless in everything, and Ashley Greene’s naked pictures being posted on the Internet in places that are easily found via Google, and it’s also the movie franchise that launched Anna Kendrick’s career. (And God, she’s so cute! I just want to have sweet, long-term relationship sex with her and then cuddle and watch cat videos on Youtube with her for hours afterwards.) 

I can’t condone any of that, really. 

But it’s like, in this movie, they deliberately set out to ruin their entire cast of hotties. I think Taylor Lautner’s chest muscles have literally devoured his neck. 

(I mean, when was the last time that kid ate a fucking carb? How old is he, like Justin Beiber-age? Someone take that fucking kid to a burger joint and feed him something that doesn’t list protein as its main ingredient. Also, does he date? The kid drives a Lambo so it’s safe to assume that he pulls bitches, and he probably banged Phil Collins’ hot daughter when they were in that movie together, but does he take girls to restaurants and, if so, what does he order? Is she obligated to order something nutritious as well? Or, does a muscle:fat ratio like his mean that you don’t have to take a bitch to pre-penetration dinner? Is that why so many guys seem married to the gym?)

Ok, sorry, I got off track there. The point is, this movie is lacking in plot AND eye candy. I only expected one of those two, so the fact that I got neither really irks me. I paid good money; I should be able to tune out and imagine a magical threesome with me, Ashley Greene and Kellan Lutz as I watch them cavort around the big screen.

Understandably, I felt obligated to pay attention to the plot of this movie and here’s the main problem I have with the storyline:

Bella and Edward love each other very much but Edward won’t put his P inside Bella’s V unless they’re married. Therefore, it seems apparent that the overlying theme of this particular movie, at least, is that teenagers should abstain. 

Or, get married at eighteen so that they can have freaky, dirty, illegal break-the-bed sex on a private island somewhere off the coast of Brazil so that, when the female of the partnership invariably gets pregnant at eighteen, it’s all totally above board. 

I didn’t make that shit up. There is a private island, and they do break the bed. 

Let me backtrack here and give you a summary of the plot, thinly stretched as it is. (Stretched thinner than, say, the skin covering Kristen Stewart’s pasty face. As thinly stretched as, say, my patience with the kind of people who quote Twilight quotes under Personal Quotations on social networking sites; perhaps, even, thinner and more stretched than a— you know what? This probably isn’t the place for jokes about the act of taking someone’s virginity… nevermind.)

Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart) have graduated high school and while they were at their graduation ceremony they handed out the invitations to their upcoming nuptials but they have to send a few in the mail to people who don’t even go to their school, like Bella’s mother and Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the werewolf who Bella Friend Zoned with unprecedented masochism. It is at this point that Jacob runs away to pursue being a wolf full time and Bella doesn’t even realize he’s gone until he shows up at her wedding, at which point she takes great delight in telling him that she’s going to fuck her vampire husband. At this point she goes on her honeymoon and fucks her vampire husband, then IMMEDIATELY falls pregnant and decides that, despite the fact that Edward would like to procure a hasty abortion, she would like to keep the child. It’s at this point that shit gets real.

I think. It’s all a blur of all the people around me gasping and weeping and orgasming every time a male character walked on the fucking screen. 

Now, I’m not saying that the Twilight films condone bad parenting. I’m just saying that if my kid came to me at eighteen years old and said that they wanted to get married, and I was aware that we had previously discussed abstaining from sex until marriage, I’d probably tell them to log onto Redtube or Youjizz and search “mutual masturbation” or “how to give a blowjob” or something, not clap my hands with glee and start buying expensive furniture made from dead Albanian trees…

Look, I can’t even talk about this movie anymore. Like, I can’t even bring myself to be funny or acerbically witty about it or anything. I’m just so apathetic to this entire fucking franchise and, if anything, it saddens me.

There are two good things about this movie, and I’m going to address them now and then never speak of it again. The first is the soundtrack. The second is the fact that there’s only going to be one more Twilight movie, and then I’m never going to be subjected to sitting through another one with my mother ever again. 

Should you go see this movie? Do whatever you fucking want, I don’t care. What would I rate it? I fucking wouldn’t. 

PS, Stephanie Meyer: Fuck you. If you make a useless 5 second cameo in the last movie, as you have in every other movie, I swear to God, I’m sending your kids pamphlets about abortion and prophylactics and also homosexuality. I will send pornographic content to your children on their respective eighteenth birthdays, along with a note that says “Just try the tip, just to see how it feels! It’s not sinful if it doesn’t go all the way in!”, and when your daughter comes home pregnant at eighteen I won’t even feel bad because, according to your books, you’d be TOTALLY OK WITH THAT.

Batman: Year One Review

And here it is, finally, the movie version of one of the most respected and revered Batman stories of all time: Frank Miller's Year One. Helmed by Batman Animated vet/creator Bruce Timm, Year One paints a fascinating, often dark and disturbing, re imaging of Batman's beginnings and ranks with Under The Red Hood and Dark Knight as one of the best Batman movies, animated or otherwise.

The story, however, is as much Gordon's as it is Batman's. It begins with two arrivals - Bruce Wayne after 12 years abroad and Lieutenant Gordon, as punishment for trying to clean up the last precinct he was at. This is a different Gordon, and a different Bruce Wayne, to the ones we've seen in previous interpretations. Wayne is younger, angrier, more inexperienced and Gordon is shown as much more capable and driven he is normally given credit for, and it's his story that really shines in Year One. His fear for his pregnant wife and unborn son in Gotham's dark world brings to mind Brad Pitt's dilemma in Se7en, thankfully without the brutal ramifications. Batman's story is fantastic, and the change of perspective and presentation shed knew lights on old events, but it is one we are familiar with so it loses out next to Gordon's.

The art direction is fantastic and well up to the quality we've come to expect from a Bruce Timm production. The character designs are all faithful to their comic counterparts, though often younger than we're used to seeing. It's nice to see the images of the comics in the credits for people like me who have never had the chance to read the story, and to see how strikingly similar they are to the movie.

The voice acting is also superb. Bryan Cranston (of Breaking Bad fame) delivers a believable and very human Gordon, Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) is fantastic, if a little underused, as Detective Essen and Benjamin McKenzie delivers a very different, and surprisingly effective, Wayne/Batman. While in my heart, Kevin Conroy will always be the voice of animated Batman, I have to admit he wouldn't have worked in this interpretations. McKenzie brings an arrogance, youth and uncertainty to both Wayne and Batman that Conroy couldn't deliver. Eliza Dushku also stars as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, who's origins wind, almost sensually, around the twin stories. She also shines in the included Catwoman short film, which is the best Catwoman I've seen so far. I hope to see more of her and that interpretation.

Clocking in at just under an hour, Year One still manages to pack in more story than the average 90-100 minute film. Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery's direction is flawless, not a single frame of film is wasted, and the pacing is masterful. Don't let the animated style fool you, this is a very dark, very adult, and very fantastic interpretation of the Batman universe. It's filled with fan service, with hints at characters such as Vicki Vale, Hervey Dent and more scattered throughout. About all that's missing is a strong Batman theme, though Christopher Drake's score is effective, if not very memorable.

This is a film to be enjoyed by all, from the most die-hard Bat-freak, to a first time watcher. I can't recommend it strongly enough. if you've ever enjoyed anything to do with Batman, then this film is for you. I guarantee you will enjoy it.