Every Monday morning, InsidePulse Movies Czar Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings an irreverent and oftentimes hilarious look at pop culture, politics, sports and whatever else comes to mind. And sometimes he writes about movies.
The big film release this week has to be the first part of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn. It’s easily going to be the biggest grossing film of the weekend, have one of the biggest opening grosses a film can have for the year and satisfy a fan base of people who’ve grown to love the romantic saga of a werewolf, a vampire and the mortal caught between them. Summit Entertainment took a big risk in putting the franchise together and has managed to basically fund a whole bunch of films because of the massive success of the whole Twilight franchise and for that I can begrudgingly admit a smidgen of respect for it. Without that success plenty of other films that people enjoy wouldn’t get made, either, so I can at least justify its place in the world. And I know where people reading this are thinking I’m going with this. I’ve made fun of that entire series on such a regular basis that I can imagine what most of you are thinking right now.
“What silly thing is he going to write about this week to make fun of sparkly vampires, bad CGI werewolves and horrible acting that focus on how you need to have a boyfriend in life?”
Screw all that noise for once. Why? Because this week I’m going the contrarian route and am actually going to try and defend this franchise. Thus, in line with my piece on Michael Bay and the third Transformers film this summer, I present another one of my awesome lists.
or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Sparkles
8. Taylor Lautner is his own drinking game
The dude only takes films where he can take his shirt off. I mean I bet he probably reads through scripts and goes “Hey, can I take my shirt off in the big dramatic scene? I think the script needs to pull that off in order for my full dramatic range to come out. Tell them to rewrite it so I take my t-shirt off or I won’t do it.”
Granted if I had abs like his I would too, and hire someone to lather them up in coconut oil and just point at them whenever people aren’t staring. You can turn it into a drinking game; every time he takes his shirt off you do a shot and by the end of Twilight you’ll be in the hospital being treated for alcohol poisoning.
7. Bella and Edward finally screw
The entire series has been about them not screwing. If anything we’ll get the most ridiculously over the top sex scene in film history. Me, I’m hoping he introduces her to the ‘Reverse Late Night With Arsenio Hall’ … but it’ll probably be dignified with a big dramatic score. It’s one of those moments in story-telling that the whole series has been building up to and it’ll be genuinely cathartic for all the Twi-hards.
6. Really talented people are going to be able to take better roles
The one thing I give Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning and Anna Kendrick credit for is maximizing their paychecks on these films. Being able to not have to worry about money because of this franchise and can take parts in smaller films that allows us to see their talent shine through.
5. Summit will fund good movies because of how successful this one is
I’ll suffer through a movie theatre lobby teaming with the cretins who love this series, making me wait to go to something that’s actually good cinema, if it means there’s money for another film like The Hurt Locker. Film can be a zero sum game when it comes to finance and if Twilight has to exist in order for good indie films to find funding, so be it.
4. Bill Condon gives the franchise another unique look from a story-telling standpoint
Bill Condon is easily the best director to have made a Twilight film in terms of pedigree. There’s something legitimate about a guy with his resume in this sort of franchise; how he tells the final two chapters in this story will be fairly interesting from that perspective. And with seemingly every film in the franchise having a different director, it gives the franchise five films with four directors. It’s impressive how a coherent narrative and tone have been able to come together with four different perspectives and styles to it.
3. There’ll be a lot less screens for bad films
Let’s face it. There’s a crap ton of bad films in theatres right now. With this coming out en masse, that means there’ll be a lot less of them. Twilight is going to hog a lot of theatres and thus a lot of this fall’s bad films still hanging on are going to be showing less. And less bad cinema is never a bad thing.
2. Box office doldrums will be cured for a week
It’s no secret that box office revenues are significantly down this year than they were a year ago. You can blame a recession and escalating ticket prices, amongst other things, but that’s not going to help the theatre owners put butts in seats for a weekend as well as sell hot dogs, popcorn and soda that allow them to maintain a healthy profit. And a big weekend at the box office means more concessions, et al, which is never a bad thing.
1. It is the last true “event” film of the year
I’ll give credit where credit’s due. The entire Twilight franchise, year in and year out, feels like a big to do whenever it comes out. There’s something big about a Twilight film in that people are going to be talking about it, making fun of it, et al, for some time. A film that just pops a weekend box office number and then goes away is common. Breaking Dawn Part 1 is the last big event film of the year and there’s a difference between ‘em.
A Movie A Week – The Challenge
This Week’s DVD – The Iron Giant
There are a handful of films I’ve wanted to pick up for a long time but just never did. And when I saw it in the dollar bin at a Best Buy, I figured why not right? I loved Brad Bird’s earlier work in The Incredibles and am stoked to see what he’ll do with the latest Mission Impossible film; I’d never gone back to where it originally started with the man’s feature films.
The film focuses on a young boy (Eli Marienthal) who has always wanted a pet but his mother (Jennifer Anniston) has never allowed him to. And then he manages to find a 50 foot robot (Vin Diesel) that apparently wants to be his pet and follows him home. From there its wacky shenanigans as the boy tries to keep him hidden from the usual sorts of government types that want to destroy it.
This is the sort of film Spielberg could’ve made, once upon a time, and is the kind of film that Super 8 tapped into earlier this year: about the wonders of childhood amidst the incredible. Set in 1957, though with some modern slang to make it more accessible to the modern audience, the film follows the boy and his pet robot (for lack of a better word) as they bond over him trying to keep him fed off of metal as well as keeping him hidden from the government agent types right out of E.T.
There’s an innocence to this film that makes one think of E.T; one imagines that if CGI effects were what they are now as opposed to what they were in the ‘80s that this could’ve been something Spielberg himself could’ve done. It has all the sort of Amblin trademarks and this is a contemporary version of E.T, I think. E.T is fairly dated when you watch it now; it’s still a great film but it hasn’t stood up with the test of time (I think) and that film’s flaws in story-telling are corrected with this film.
Strong recommendation.
What Looks Good This Weekend, and I Don’t Mean the $2 Pints of Bass Ale and community college co-eds with low standards at the Alumni Club
Happy Feet Two – Penguins do stuff or something.
Skip It – If you didn’t hang yourself within 20 minutes of Jack and Jill, then this’ll probably do the trick.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 – More shenanigans with sparkly vampires.
Skip It – I only say skip this not out of any disrespect towards the film’s quality … but because I imagine you can’t walk into this film without having seen the franchise up to this point and care.
The Descendants – George Clooney’s wife gets in an accident and they’re waiting for her to die. On top of her cheating on him, he’s now going to be worth $500 million bucks. Poor guy.
See It – Clooney’s usually money when it comes down to the end of the year.
Scott “Kubryk” Sawitz brings his trademarked irreverence and offensive hilarity to Twitter in 140 characters or less. Follow him @MMCritic_Kubryk.
