The Poor Moral Lessons of the Film Eclipse

Having recently watched the film Eclipse in order to craft a drinking game based around it, I had the opportunity to notice something peculiar about the characters' arc over the course of the film. Namely, that the inaction of the Cullen family reveal them all to be fairly horrible people. Even for vampires.

Okay, I suppose that's a bit of an exaggeration - vampires are supposed to be horrible, and it's not like the Cullens are as bad as the throat-rippers from Near Dark. They're not a whole lot better, though, is the thing.

No, while we're told time and again that the Cullen clan is supposedly noble and pure and decent and everything you'd want from an adoptive family, their actions paint a completely different picture. While they appear pretty, polite, and positive, they demonstrate no characteristics that anyone could consider 'heroic' or even 'admirable', and through their self-centered inaction, they allow dozens of people to be murdered.

Let's examine it chronologically-

The Ultimate Method of Dealing With Vampires

Kiss of the Vampire, or "Immortally Yours", depending on which title you prefer, is a recent direct-to-video film that acts as sort of a bizarro-world version of Twilight. Instead of the story of a human woman who falls obsessively in love with a vampire, leading to her wanting to become a vampire, and then nothing happens, it's the story of a vampire who falls obsessively in love with a human woman, leading to him wanting to become human, and then far too much happens.

Avod Friday! Twilght's Fools!

There's something about that twilight movie, alright. Something terrible!

Seriously, though, this week on the Avod the Divemistress and myself cover the Twilight movie just in time to miss the video release! Timing!

It's downloadable here (just right click and save as!), or you can stream it directly from the Avod's blog!

God, I just love technology!

HOW TO RUIN YOUR OWN MOVIE: Twilight Edition

Normally I restrict the ‘How to ruin your own movie’ posts to films that feature obscene levels of anticlimacism, that seem determined to give away all of their secrets as early as possible, ruining any drama that might be created. Not this time – although the film does open with one of those voice-overs alluding to an event later in the movie, it’s not specific enough that it ruins anything.

No, the ruining is done by the rest of the film, which makes a concerted effort to suck every bit of drama out of every possible situation, until all we’re left with is a film whose emotional journey flatlines.

First, the romance plot. A strange, pale girl from Arizona moves to a small town in Washington and starts dating a local vampire. The myriad possibilities for drama are obvious. None are exploited.