Twilight TMI

So Bill Simmons (aka The Sport’s Guy) is a writer for ESPN’s page two and he often does play by play articles for anything from March Madness to the Oscars. While I won’t be able to capture his wittiness I have stolen his idea by doing a play by play blog-a-thon for the 24 hours leading up to seeing Twilight. Roll your eyes (yeah that means you Jenny), I don’t care I had a blast.

THURSDAY NOV. 20

9:30 PM – 24 hours until the movie. Since finding out last November that Twilight was going to be made into a movie I have avoided the actual book like I avoid all things Steven Seagal. I have had way too many movies ruined by pairing the reading of the book too close to watching the movie. The whole time you just sit there in torture as they butcher the plot (i.e. Harry Potter 5, The Other Boleyn Girl…). So while I have shamelessly followed the making of the movie, I have pretended the book didn’t exist (except in August when the 4th installment came out). Basically I’m explaining all of this just to say that last night when I wanted to psych myself up for the movie I wanted to do something other than read the book. So I ended up listening to Bella’s lullaby on YouTube (the official one from the soundtrack, and the fan favorite) then I watched Can’t Hardly Wait – Because it’s hilarious and has Peter Facinelli in it (who plays Carlisle Cullen).

“Ah-man-DUH”.

Weak I know. Hey at least I’m not making a t-shirt to wear to the movie, which I was totally tempted to do. Don’t mess.

FRIDAY NOV. 21
6:30 AM – Just woke up and promptly reminded Brad about the movie tonight, somewhere within his slumber he managed to conjure up a disgruntled “humhu…” – which I took to mean “I am thrilled! I can’t wait to spend my Friday night sitting among 12 year girls shrieking for a pasty English kid.” This is going to be a good day.

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8:00 – At work. Checking the Twilight Lexicon – they’ve posted a message saying they won’t be up and running until Saturday so all the fans can enjoy the movie without hearing any spoilers. Boo.

8:01 – Read reviews from MSNBC, MTV, US Today, LATimes: not great. Still not discouraged!

12:00 PM – Sweet! NPR says “Twilight is enjoyable” – I’m sold. I’ll just ignore the 30 other bad reviews I’ve read… hmmm.

12:05 – Side note: While checking the news feeds I found out that Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz named their baby boy Bronx Mowgli Wentz. What the what? Do they have an endorsement deal with Disney?

3:43 – Just read that Twilight made 7 million at the box office on midnight screenings alone (3rd highest behind The Dark Knight and Episode III) and that Fandango is reporting that they are selling 5 Twilight tickets a second. Glad we got ours in advance.

3:43 – Side note – just read a short blurb about how Fox is actually going to make an Arrested Development Movie. Hopefully it won’t translate in to an R rating. If you’ve never seen the show go rent/buy the DVDs (well, on your way home from seeing Twilight of course).

4:30 – Leaving work. T-minus 5 hours until the movie starts. I’m making burgers for dinner as a reward for Brad for going to the movie. I’m such a nice wife.

7:00 – This was the earliest I could get Brad to leave the house. What, you don’t want to sit on the floor of a filthy movie theater for two hours? He’s a trooper, although he’ll get his vengeance when we do the same thing for Star Trek (although if you are reading this JJ – you know I’d do anything for you).

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7:22 – We arrive and there are only 30 people lined up so far, luckily they have us lined up inside. Brad earns the distinction of being the first male in line.

7:27 – Just spent the last 5 minutes listening to a 35 year old woman behind us in line talking about how she really wants to buy a necklace from Hot Topic with the Cullen Crest on it. Oh my.

8:10 – There are almost 100 people in line, male count: 7.

8:11 – Twilight fans really have a corner of the black t-shirt/ skinny jeans market. I apparently didn’t get the uniform memo.

8:20 – Stupid high school kids at the front of the line stood up so then everyone started standing up too and pushing forward. Come on people! Like they are going to let us in to the theater more than an hour before it starts and while the movie before us is still playing. Stupid High School kids…


8:25 – Stressed out Manager in a suite just stomped up and down the halls asking customers to stand closer to the walls. Obviously this guy takes his job way too seriously. Calm down man – this is a movie theater not Auschwitz (too soon?).

8:27 – Uptight manager continues to freak out which leads Brad to do impersonations of Dr. McCoy from Star Trek for 10 minutes. “I’m a doctor, not a movie theater manager!” As I die with laughter I’m pretty sure the 12 year olds in front of us think we are idiots.

8:42 – And the best t-shirt award goes to random girl sporting a homemade black shirt with the phrase “I’d like a Cullen burger, with a side of Hale, hold the Jacob.” Ha! Maybe I should have made a shirt…

8:50 – They have finally let us in to the theater. Luckily we got here early enough to get excellent seating, middle and center.

8:51 – Girl behind us is actually crying in anticipation. Ummm?

8:56 – Even though Uptight Manager told everyone that the show has been sold out for 2 days and that we aren’t allowed to leave seats empty all 7 of the dudes are sitting two seats apart. Seriously? Do you really want Uptight Manager to kick your trash at a screening of Twilight? I’m not sure but that might cancel your subscription to Man Weekly.

9:02 – Everyone cheers when the theater ads come on the screen. Oh boy, here we go.

9:03 – Interesting. I just learned that Shirley Temple was originally cast in the Wizard of Oz; they switched to Judy Garland because she was a better singer. Well, you learn something new every day.

9:10 – Tied for 1st place for the best t-shirt award goes to random teen boy (!) taking a seat near the front. Also homemade, on the front it reads “My letter from Hogwarts never came…” and on the back, “so I moved to Forks and joined the Cullens”. Good stuff. Are teens getting cleverer these days? Is cleverer a word?

9:13 – Bathroom time. I heard this mother is 2 hours and 22 minutes long. Sheesh.

9:20 – Brad and I were trying to think of famous female painters (who knows why) and I said I could only think of two, could he think of any? Brad then leans over and says all serious “Yes, Felicity Porter”. Okay, maybe two of you will think that’s funny, but I laughed so loud that that people down the row gave me dirty looks. At which point I realized that they thought I was laughing at the advertisement for St. Jude’s Children Hospital. Yeah, like I’m laughing at kids with Cancer. Come on, I’m not Satan!

9:29 – If I have to see a preview for TNT’s “The Librarian” one more time I’m going to hurl something at the screen… Diet Coke, check. Twizzlers, check. Let’s get the show on the road.

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9:31 – Previews have started. Tons more clapping, I have a feeling this is only going to get worse.

9:32 – Harry Potter preview: Amazing

9:34 – Confessions of a Shopaholic preview: Amazing

9:49 – It has begun.

Sometime during the movie – Crying Girl will not stop narrating every step of the movie and proclaiming how hot Edward is every 15 seconds. Would it be illegal for me to wrap my belt around her head to block her mouth from moving?

Sometime during the movie – Brad just joyously whispered to me “Edward has bushy eyebrows too!” I made the mistake of telling Brad once that he has bushy eyebrows and ever since he’s acted like it’s his plight to endure. Apparently, now he’s overcome that by finding a fellow bushy eye-browed comrade.

11:51 – Movie just ended. I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone so I’ll just simply say it was much better than I anticipated. Just go in prepared for “A Walk To Remember” level cheesiness and you’ll be fine. My expectations were pretty low so I was pleasantly surprised. Kristen Stewart was much much better than I thought, and Robert P was okay. Just don’t actually look at the screen during any of Edward’s scenes for the first twenty minutes. The makeup is awfully inconsistent, but I think they’ll fix that in the next movie.

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There is definitely more good than bad and I could go on for a while, so I’ll just stop there. Now Twilight fans must wait until Monday morning to find out the box office totals to see if the second movie will be made. Rumor has it that it must make at least 150 to get the green light. I hope it does because I think the second movie could be tons better. (***UPDATE: New Moon was officially announced by Summit Saturday morning.)

11:55 – Brad just tried to take a picture of me in the theater and we were informed that it is illegal to take pictures inside a theater and it’s a federal offense if you get any portion of the screen. Okay… sorry about those pictures we took in the hallway; hope Uptight Manager doesn’t track us down.

12:20 – Just got home. What a good night. All in all, Brad even agreed that it was totally worth the two hour wait and the 16 dollars.