This year was all about a boy wizard, a Bumblebee, and a sparklevamp. Joining Harry, Sam, and Edward in 2011′s box office toppers were two groups of wedding-oriented train wrecks, several superheroes, and a bunch of upstart Southern domestics. Over in DVDs, a couple instances of horse power and some evil geniuses joined the fray. So which films topped the box-0ffice? Click through to see 2011′s most popular movies. READ FULL STORY »
Who will be the biggest star to come out of the Twilight series? With the franchise entering its, well, twilight years (the second-to-last installment is out this November), most of its cast members have already tested the waters of fang-free stardom: Kristen Stewart had last year’s The Runaways (and is gearing up for one of the rival Snow White pics); Robert Pattinson headlines next week’s Water for Elephants; Anna Kendrick got an Oscar nod for 2009′s Up in the Air. That leaves Taylor Lautner, the series’ well-muscled werewolf, who’s already being pegged as an action star in the making. But will he be able hold his own outside Forks?
Judging by the first trailer for his new thriller Abduction (below), we’d say the odds are in his favor. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Kimberley FrenchLots of things in life, including movies, are love-it-or-hate-it. But when you listen to the two clashing camps of opinion trying to shout each other down over the Twilight books and movies — let’s call them Team Rapture and Team I Can’t Stand This Garbage — you really get the feeling that its members are standing not just on opposite shores but in opposite worlds, on distant planets in enemy solar systems. You get the feeling that they’ve had, and are talking about, two entirely distinct, utterly non-overlapping experiences. It’s no wonder that the twain shall never meet, or even pretend to be civil.
To recap: Either you’re a hater or you’re a Twihard. Either you identify with Bella Swan as a fresh and noble ordinary girl who has a small touch of the extraordinary about her — a lovely wallflower who blooms under the gaze of her courtly vampire beau — or you think that she’s a drippy, passive doormat in thrall to the kind of male-centric romanticism that should have died out around the time of Gone With the Wind. Either you think that the stories are tepid, meandering, and wishy-washy repetitive, or you think that they coast along on wistful currents of yearning, loneliness, and desire. Then, of course, there’s the Great Edward Debate, which got played out here last year in the fury of responses to my New Moon post. Is he a swooningly idealized James Dean/Heathcliff/Brad Pitt figure, an amorous obsessive with just the right touch of otherworldly danger? Or is he a blood-guzzling “stalker,” an erotic harasser who will break into your house and stare at you while you’re asleep because he’s the kind of guy whom any sane girl would avoid at all costs?
What fascinates me, listening to the noisy battle of Team Rapture and Team I Can’t Stand This Garbage, is that the war of opinion over the Twilight saga isn’t just a disagreement about books and movies. It touches something deeper, something that pop culture has always touched and even defined: key questions of what love and sex and romance should look like and feel like, of what they should be. READ FULL STORY »
