A hype the size of Twilight isn’t well suited for a regular review; cinematography, casting choices and dialogue are long overshadowed by an international wave of obsession. And that’s okay. But if you haven’t seen it yet, you might be wondering; should I watch Twilight? What’s all the fuss about? Or would I only agitate the fanbase by watching it, hating it and saying so? Am I better off left in the dark?

I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore.

If above quote makes you gag, the answer is “no”. “No, don’t watch Twilight.” If you did pass the first test, please read on. In a nod to the theory that all stories originate from a handful of very basic plots; it is Romeo and Juliet, Ennis and Jack, only half the characters are technically already dead from the start, and there’s fangs and treeclimbing involved. Curious yet? I wouldn’t degrade such an intensely written story to the essence of another story; Twilight is unique in its own way. The question is; do these unique qualities amuse you, or annoy or even bore you near to death?

The Smell of Success
When Bella moves in with her father after her mother remarries, she starts at a new school. Introverted, enstranged and slightly awkward, her new life seems to revolve around survival, until a boy from her biology class grabs her attention. Edward Cullen is known to be good-looking, but distant, and his behaviour seems to be rooted in arrogance at first sight. But when Bella looks closer, she finds a more shocking, exciting truth behind Edward’s aloof behaviour. Edward, on his part, seems fascinated by Bella - particularly responsive to her smell, actually. I would be lying to myself if I pretended this would be a spoiler (because everyone knows Twilight is about vampires) - the smell of her blood drives Edward wild.

It seems there are a lot of smell-related matters revolving around Twilight, the smell of a success that has been achieved mostly thanks to English actor Robert Pattinson. Some of you may remember him from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where he played Cedric. Robert has managed to make many a heart beat faster, especially whilst in the skin of broody Edward Cullen. Every detail of his private life, including the rumour that he smells bad (who doesn’t like a dirty boy?), has been broadly measured out by the press. There is no lying; if young, handsome men who brood well annoy you, you best not watch Twilight. Edward’s mysterious behaviour and his intense bond with Bella are the core of this film, and so you either need to be able to channel into a teenage girl energy (which is likely easiest for those of us who are, or were once, such teenage girls) or you need to just love, love, love vampires. Either way. Otherwise, you will probably drop out halfway into the film.

So Explicitly Innocent
Twilight doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind. One minute it seems to be preaching abstinance (wait, wait, wait before you do it, or you’ll die). The next, it seems to be awfully fatalistic and nearly erotic for a teen film. Let me put it this way; I wasn’t a teenager that long ago, and when I was a teenager, we watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and that’s hilariously lightweight compared to Twilight. So there are a bunch of cliches passing by - the impossible love, the question of immortality, the place of the freak in society - I found while watching it, that it’s actually still quite heavy. On the one hand there is this dominant element of puppy love and blue eyes, the next there is Edward’s indeniable tendency towards masochism. Well, if you live forever, I can imagine you get so bored that you just start looking for trouble. He wants the one thing he can’t have, and he seems awfully eager to sacrifice his unlife for it. The first thing that would pop into mind is the word “emo” - emo teenagers are gonna love this trip. Torture, fatalism, enstrangement, feeling like a freak, etcetera, etcetera (if you’re reading this, emo teenager, you will grow out of it).

I didn’t even think teenager movies were fun when I was a teenager - I didn’t even think kids’ movies were fun when I was a kid, but this teen movie had me wrapped around its undead finger, having me move along in every wave intended, wondering what I would do if I were Bella. If you give Twilight a chance, it will very likely swallow you whole. Unless any of the previous remarks has made you gag, in which case you shouldn’t continue reading.

The Revenge
Twilight is based on a series of books, and so it’s unlikely you will find yourself disappointed by the sequels. Pirates of the Caribbean was not a trilogy, and you can tell from the “quality” (insert sarcasm) of the sequels (I dread the upcoming Jack Sparrow spin-off). Twilight isn’t going anywhere, either, but the story was written to be long - very long. So sit tight. This ain’t over ’till it’s all over. Should you watch Twilight? If you don’t hate stories about star-crossed lovers, if the sight of Robert Pattinson doesn’t affect your mood negatively, if you’re willing to be dragged along into the eternally torturous question of “love or life”, if you can watch 80% of all films without dropping out after a few minutes - yes. It doesn’t matter if the cinematography is good, it doesn’t matter if the casting was done well enough for the book’s standards - just sit down and be ready to unconsciously be injected with a whole lot of teenage angst, subconscious self-torture and werewolf chases. Oops, was that a spoiler?

It’s unlikely that I am the only film fan allergic to anything that resembles hyping; worry not, it comes not from a love of snobbism, but rather that I like making up my own mind about a film without feeling like anyone is trying to tell me what to think. Somehow when I think “award season hit”, I think “boring”, mostly because there can be so much snobbism in this phenomenon. Season 2008 fractured my relationship with The Dark Knight for good, as fans all over the world harrassed everyone available about how TDK was the best film ever made. I dislike the notion that there is one film a year that is good, and the rest fades in comparison. It’s not realistic. Slumdog Millionaire’s winning streak had me doubting wether I wanted to see it or not. Was this a hype, or was it an actually good film? It didn’t help the sentiment that Slumdog Millionaire won both more and less prestigeous prizes against genius underdogs like Hunger, In Bruges and Happy-Go-Lucky. I loved these three films and thought to myself; how could Slumdog be so much better that it wins everything, leaving these small masterpieces with nearly nothing?

The answer was found when I sat myself down to watch it anyway. Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of Jamal, an orphan from the slums of India. Jamal becomes a contestant on India’s version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, and as he answers the questions, we are taken back in time to see his tough life as a young boy with no home or family. The story of his life is heartbreaking, and it soon becomes clear that the outcome of this gameshow can make the difference between absolutely nothing and absolutely everything; and it’s not just the money.

Slumdog Millionaire is an adapted screenplay, based on the book by Vikas Swarup; the screenplay is written by Simon Beaufoy. Slumdog is by no means one of those shining-dialogue films with quotes that can be eternalized or kept close to the heart; the strength of Slumdog is not in the dialogue, it is in the magic of the story. You will be swept away into a world you’ve never seen before, but is all too real, and you will laugh and cry. The genius cinematography (which can be accredited to director Danny Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle) takes you on a journey where you will very likely try to resist blinking, just to not miss anything. The story and cinematography alone make this film a solid winner.

The actors do their jobs well; although they are not the main strength of the film, but they aren’t a weakness, either. Especially the child actors are astonishing, breathtakingly believable. These children are amazingly coming literally straight from the slums; they are not trained actors, they have likely never acted before in their lives. The children were present at the award ceremonies, but were notably sent back to the slums afterwards, which shouldn’t be a surprise to those who know how the film industry works.

A moral strength that is worth noting, is the fact that this film in no way portrays life in the slums with upperclass pitty, something I did sense in films such as Beyond Borders and The Constant Gardener; also solid films, but nearly drowning in a sense of pitty, wallowing in the beauty of poverty, almost a visit to the zoo. Slumdog Millionaire simply shows the life there as it is, without  scored shots of starving babies, and brave poor people singing songs. It’s a matter of fact film, quite like The Kite Runner, that allows you to relate to characters from a completely different world

So is Slumdog deserving of its winning nearly every award possible? It’s certainly not undeserving. I highly recommend this film, I highly recommend you watch it - and you will not have a bad time, even if it turns out to be ‘not your thing’. Because truthfully, its indeniable quality doesn’t change the fact that it’s not necessarily my thing. As you may have noticed in my order of treating subjects; I’m more of a dialogue film fan. Tarantino, Scorsese, Shane Black, Martin McDonagh. Even still, I can appreciate many films that are less powered by dialogue, but in the end Slumdog just felt too impersonal for me; it felt like the kind of film that everyone likes, but nobody is really in love with. It’s very deserving of its critical acclaim, but it could have spared a few prizes for McQueen, McDonagh and Leigh.

I keep hearing people on television call Watchmen a superhero movie. It now makes me wonder if any of the people who have called it this have actually seen it.

It takes a very sick and demented mind to think of any of the main characters in this movie, save maybe one, as a superhero. It would also take a lot of exaggeration to call any of them crime fighters. It is the story of five people with far above average fighting skills, costumes, nicknames and very serious personality disorders.

It works for what it is trying to do; it is trying to show that if there were actual superhuman crime fighters out there that everyone relied on/hated, as in every other comic book movie, they wouldn’t have the patience or personalities needed to run a huge enterprise or deliver pizzas. This movie tells the story of sociopaths, egomaniacs, heroes turned two-dollar whores and one glowing blue man who thinks on such another level he can’t see the point of dealing with Earth anymore.

The one problem with this movie is the length. There are certain movies that need their near-three hours to tell the story that needs to be told (Benjamin Button, The Departed, Titanic). Then there are those like Watchmen. This movie, like the Cold War it takes place in, seems to be drawn out and turned back in on itself over and over for no good reason at all. It just seems everyone’s story could have been told and nothing lost with a lot of the film being left on the cutting room floor.

That is not to say the movie wasn’t good. Director Zack Snyder took me exactly where I thought Frank Miller would take me with The Spirit. That movie ended up being one of the worst I’ve seen in quite some time. This movie returned me to the feeling I had the first time I saw Miller’s Sin City. The film noir narration that doesn‘t come off as corny. The awesome half-drawn, half-live action cinematography. The superhuman people dealing with all too human problems. Not the “I can’t get my girl to understand my double life” problems. More of the “My parents expected me to do this/I’m a workaholic who’s not sure I care about work” problems. Only with a dark twist that involves super-crime fighters attempting to rape other super-crime fighters and realizing the kidnapped girl you’ve been looking for is not alive when you see two German Shepherds fighting over her chopped up leg. (This review contains no spoilers of any significance, I assure you.)

Snyder’s attempt to show how history as we know it changed due to The Watchmen was interesting to me as a history buff, if not a bit confusing at times. You witness one of these “crime fighters” as the actual shooter in a graphic reenactment of the JFK assassination in the first five minutes of the film. This makes me wonder if that had something to do with the fact that Nixon was president in 1985 when most of the movie takes place. It’s never explained. There are interesting tidbits, such as the quote, “I think if we would’ve lost this war (Vietnam), the people would’ve driven themselves crazy. But we didn’t. Thanks to you.” Makes you think.

This movie is definitely a must see for any fan of the graphic novel or any comic book/ graphic novel that comes close. If you liked 300, or especially Sin City, chances are you will like this. For the rest of us, as long as you don’t mind a 2 hour and 45 minute movie or the thought of seeing pregnant women shot dead and a blue, glowing penis just hanging there whenever it’s better half is onscreen, I would give it a shot.

I sat down to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with huge expectations. Somehow all the commercials had made me truly believe I was about to see something epic. This is usually a bad thing. Sports teams, movies, local bands or anything else I try to focus my short attention span on usually crash and burn when I expect them to be great. (Or I’m told by others they’re great.) In the glorious, and quite curious case, of this movie, it was all that I expected and then some.

The movie, which tells the entire life story of a man who is born with the body of an 80-year-old and as his mind grows normally his body ages backward, was directed beautifully by David Fincher, whose genius can be explained simply by saying that he pulled off a scene between a man who looked to be a shriveled up 72-year-old and a cute playful, 8-year-old girl and not only made it innocent but almost made it romantic.

The characters were beautifully cast, with Cate Blanchett as the love interest, Daisy, and Thomas Flemying as the biological father who leaves him after birth but catches up later. If you don’t know who plays Benjamin Button, you are obviously not a real person, and this site is not called Real Reviews for Odd Things Living In The Woods. I would just say you’ve been living in a cave, but even Osama bin Laden knows Brad Pitt stars in this movie.

The scene stealer in my shamelessly biased opinion was Taraji P. Henson, who plays Queenie, the woman who finds Benjamin on the doorstep of the retirement home she runs and raises him as her son. Henson has been one of my favorite actresses since I saw her in Baby Boy and is most well-known for playing the pregnant prostitute who reluctantly sings the hook for the song, “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp” in Hustle&Flow. Although that movie was a favorite of mine, and deserved the Oscar attention it got, this movie should bring Henson to the mass and, lets be honest, more diverse audience she deserves.

The movie is also littered with other great characters, such as Tylda Swinton’s Elizabeth Abbot, a woman stuck in Russia for reasons she can’t control and stewing over her dashed dream of being the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Captain Mike, played beautifully by Jared Harris, was another character that played a shorter role than others but made such an impact the movie couldn’t have been done without him.

The thing that made this movie such a curious case for me was an ongoing relationship it held in my mind with another movie: Forrest Gump. As I began seeing actual commercials for this movie I had heard about while they were filming , I remember leaning over and telling whatever sad friend was sitting next to me and putting up with my drunken blabber, “That movie looks like it could do to the first half of the 20^th century what Forrest Gump did with the second half.” And maybe it was for this reason that I so quickly began picking up the similarities.

The characters were the main sticking point to this argument I began formulating as I watched. From the similarities between watching Daisy and Queenie grow old, just as we watched Jenny and Sally Field’s mother character grow in Forrest Gump, to the long, Southern drawl of the two main characters. Also, the significance of correspondence between the love interests (postcards) and the way in which historic news was broken to the main characters through news broadcasts truly cemented my belief that someone pulling the strings back there had something to do with, “Run, Forrest, RUN!!” And alas, I come to find out that the screenplay was written by Eric Roth, best known for the screenplay for everyone’s favorite movie quote manufacturer.

This is, when all is said and done, not a bad thing. And the similarities are noticeable but it is far from a rehashing of the Gump story thrown in a different era and given a strange plot twist.

The cinematographer of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Claudio Miranda, deserves a shout out for beautiful scenes, most memorable being the scene in which Benjamin Button is brought in a preacher’s tent and “healed” in front of the congregation, and the shuttle lift-off witnessed by Ben and Daisy in Florida, which has been shown in most of the ads.

As much as I would love to sit here and continue to ramble on about the symbolism, used by Fincher purposely or not, throughout the movie, such as the significance of women removing their shoes and the hilarious character who keeps telling Ben the stories of all seven times he’s been struck by lightning, but this review has gotten far too ridiculous. Hopefully, you walk away from this review thinking what I was thinking when I left Benjamin Button, “Man, that was long…..but it had to be.” And David Fincher used every minute perfectly.