Twitter swallowed three of my last night's tweets.
Sparkling haze made it dizzy and obese.
Screaming warnings, the traffic monster eats.
Burning laughs are digested to money.
Anger boils beds in Gestapo porn.
Look what they did, marone, they shot Sonny.
Nasal vampires earn a stapler's scorn.
I watched the Rifftrax of Twilight: New Moon a couple nights ago. Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy were even funnier than they were with the first Twilight movie, and I think New Moon may have been even worse than the first film, though it's kind of hard to say. I will say New Moon generally looks better than the first film, as director Chris Weitz apparently doesn't share Catherine Hardwicke's affinity for incessant colour filters and, although there are no interesting compositions, it's hard to make this scenery look bad;
Particularly as all that green's allowed to come through. Though Edward Cullen's makeup looks even more ridiculous without the blue filters.
I guess there could be something a bit gauche about a bunch of guys making fun of something that's basically masturbation fodder for teenage girls, but surely teenage girls can do better. I'm not saying fanservice has to come with an important message or challenging ideas, but when a story basically amounts to a boring POV girl choosing between two hot guys who are into her for no apparent reason, it doesn't have to take itself so damned seriously. That's what really bugs me, that Bella standing between two models fighting over her because they think she's hot and she won't commit to either because she thinks they're both hot is treated like the most sober reality in the world. Mike, Bill, and Kevin kept making jokes about how Bella was leading on the werewolf guy for some "unreciprocated validation", and I thought of the line in The Dresden Dolls' "Shores of California" about girls wanting a "fickle little bitch romance." There's a scene where Bella's seen clearly choosing the werewolf beefcake over some nerdy guy from school and I actually had a moment where I thought, "If Bella's supposed to be so deep and wonderful, why is this a no-brainer for her?" The thing is, I don't mind movies about beautiful people digging each other. When two actors put in all kinds of time exercising and getting their hair and face done, and cinematographers go to great pains to make them look good on camera, what you're look at is beauty put together as a gift of sorts to the audience. As Oscar Wilde said, those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming--beauty is beauty, and it's natural and good to appreciate it.
So this brings me back the debate about Howard Stern's comments regarding Gabourey Sidibe and how she won't have an easy time finding work in Hollywood. On Monday's Stern Show, Howard played a bunch of different clips of newscasters and television personalities reacting to his comments and Robin Quivers said something about how these are the people who made everyone miserable in high school and now they're pretending to be nice.
At first, I wasn't sure what she meant, but I think I get it now. This is why they don't think it's enough to call Gabourey Sidibe beautiful, it's why they also have to suppress anyone who suggests she isn't. Because they don't believe it themselves. They're full of shit.
This is why Kirstie Alley and Whoopi Goldberg don't see the hypocrisy in immediately criticising Howard Stern's looks in retaliation, as though Stern has some delusion that he's beautiful and isn't partly famous for ridiculing his own appearance. These people can't simply say that whether or not Gabourey Sidibe is beautiful is by definition a superficial matter, because these are superficial people. So one can understand how there are people who think these good looking Twilight kids are in the middle of a truly serious drama despite the fact that they have zero chemistry. Physical appearance is all that matters, and if someone is to be accepted, we have to accept that they're pretty, regardless of whether or not they are.
And that's why Stern's absolutely right in saying Sidibe won't have a good career as a leading lady--because any decent filmmaker is going to see far enough past bullshit to cast actually attractive people in roles for attractive people, and most people want to make and see movies featuring attractive people. A couple people brought up examples to argue against Stern of fat actors who had successful careers in lead roles--John Goodman, John Belushi, Chris Farley. As Stern said in reply, these people were all successful because they're comedic actors, but I would add that someone like John Goodman's success, or Eugene Pallette's or Charles Laughton's, is based on the character suggested by their large size. The reason fat people work well in comedy isn't necessarily because fat is funny, but because fat comes as automatically more real, because most people aren't as beautiful as Kristen Stewart or Robert Pattinson. The charm of good heavy actors is that they illustrate there's more to value in humanity than physical appearance. Which is not something teenagers typically understand.
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