25 Things

This has been all the hell around Facebook and I caved and did it – reluctantly at first, but ultimately quite willingly. I’m very pleased with the list of 25 things I came up with (I think the original prompt was just to write 25 little-known facts or anecdotes or quirks about yourself and then tag people to do the same). My list:

1. I drink water compulsively at restaurants, but nowhere else.

2. I have to wash my hair daily.

3. I am terribly compulsive about my play counts in iTunes. If I listen to a song more than halfway, I shuttle the slider all the way to the end of the song before moving on so that the song gets its proper credit for being listened to. As a result, I have no excuses for some of the songs in my library having as many plays as they have.

4. My top five favorite songs, in order, are: “Starálfur” by Sigur Rós, “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap, “The Dumbing Down of Love” by Frou Frou, “Parting Gift” by Fiona Apple, and “Nothing Better” by The Postal Service.

5. “Starálfur” by Sigur Rós is, bar none, the most gorgeous song I’ve ever heard. Its lyrics, when translated from Icelandic to English, are mind-numbingly ridiculous and stupid. This saddens me.

6. I would love my first dance at my wedding to be to “Just The Way You Are” as sung by Maggie Gyllenhaal in the movie Happy Endings.

7. I hate seeing movies by myself.

8. I hate eating meals in public alone unless I have a legitimate reason to not have an eating companion, such as being on my lunch break. I realize that to the general public, this shift in “reason” is unnoticeable, but it still makes me intensely uncomfortable to have a good book as a dining companion.

9. I only recently realized that I’m a very picky eater. Foods I hate: mayonnaise (I think I once referred to it as “The Devil’s Jizz”), unmelted butter (like on bread), anything with a cream sauce, brussels sprouts, butternut squash (any winter squash, really), sweet potatoes, mushrooms, olives, pickles, melted cheese on things (pizza’s fine, though), most cheese except for sharp cheddar or parmesan, generally all creamy spreads (like suspect aiolis that might be on sandwiches), green bell peppers (red, yellow, orange, though? Delicious!). I’m sure there are more.

10. Until recently, I owned what I thought was an average number of pairs of underwear, but it turns out I was way off! So I promptly went and bought some more underwear and surprise surprise: now I don’t do laundry as often as I used to.

11. I find string theory and astronomy to be fascinating. In the case of astronomy, I don’t do anything to pursue this interest, though. In fact, I have a lot of areas of interest that I enjoy reading about, but that’s about it. Like, I find architecture to be interesting, but I would never be an architect. Science, sociology, psychology, etc. All interesting, but not enough to ever remotely consider pursuing as a career.

12. I wish I read more. I read pretty regularly, but I feel like there’s a lot about a lot of topics that I could learn if I just picked up a book instead of updating my Twitter or watching TV during my evenings.

13. Mulholland Drive (artsy, pretentious, highly dramatic) has been my at the top of my Top 10 list since high school, but I think I could watch Mean Girls, Bring it On, or Just Friends on a loop without much effort. (For the record: Just Friends is, objectively, a pretty terrible, homophobic movie. But it’s hilarious. Anna Faris rocks my world.)

14. I sing in the car. Loudly.

15. I find the experience of being on a film set to be exhilarating. I love every part of it, and I can’t explain why. From small high school film projects to my recent escapades as a P.A. for reshoots on the reality show I currently work on, I find every aspect of production to be interesting, even if you’re just lugging equipment around and getting coffee for better-paid people.

16. I find written correspondence to be a lost art form and try to keep up as penpals with some of my friends. Recently, I’ve been terrible about this (sorry, Tara T!), but I still find the act of writing a letter out by hand to carry so much weight in our technology-driven generation. And technology is great, but I still think there can be a place for older forms of communication.

17. I have a lot of professional confidence (bordering on cockiness) but a nearly complete lack of personal self-esteem. I’m working on this.

18. I enjoy cooking a lot but haven’t seemed to have found the time to do nearly as much of it as I did in Santa Cruz.

19. I think I bitched and moaned about Santa Cruz way too much given how much I really ultimately loved my time there.

20. Similarly, I think I focus too much on the negatives of L.A. life when in reality I’m having an absolute blast down here and, on the whole, doing quite well.

21. I want to be a screenwriter but find the process of screenwriting to be terribly intimidating and difficult. It’s slogging through all the preparation and story mapping and character development before you get to the really fun stuff of actually writing the damn thing that can be frustrating. There’s nothing more satisfying to me, though, then reading through a scene you’ve written and being so satisfied with what you’ve been able to accomplish.

22. I tend to think that things are in turmoil in my life when in reality, I think I’m a relatively stable person in most aspects of my life. I’m trying to learn to just not freak out about everything and enjoy life as it goes by as opposed to idealizing the past and yearning for the future.

23. If there’s a number associated with the volume level (like on a TV or in a car or on our audio tuner in Santa Cruz) I get really uncomfortable if it is on an even number. I like it to be on an odd number or, preferably, a prime number.

24. I really find it annoying when people say that they have self-diagnosed OCD or minor OCD or whatever. Like… seriously just because you like things organized doesn’t mean you have OCD. To completely go against what I just said, though, I do have some compulsions. I count syllables in songs until I get to a prime number and then I start again. But it has to reach a prime number exactly at the end of a line in a lyric or something, I can’t just arbitrarily stop it at a prime number. I also have this tapping system with my toes that I do along to songs or to syllables when people are talking. There are like… ways to nest up taps and then cancel them out. I also count stairs, as well as steps between cracks in the pavement (I generally like to keep it to prime or odd numbered steps between cracks in the pavement). I can safely tell you without checking that our apartment building has 16 steps and I do believe the F&DM building had 19, a landing, then 6 more steps going downstairs.

25. I secretly think I could be really good at improv.

BREAKING NEWS: Oscars once again offer few surprises

::sigh::

Every year I think the Oscars will do what I want them to do and every year I get a little disappointed once the nominations are announced.  And I realize that they are merely one of many year-end awards, but still, today I woke up and read the list and just thought really?? The Reader for Best Picture? No love for Sally Hawkins or a surprise Best Director nod for Mike Leight for Happy-Go-Lucky? No surprise Best Picture love for WALL•E? (Seriously, Academy: it’s O.K. to like animated films in the Best Picture race.)

Nice surprises included Melissa Leo actually getting nominated for Frozen River, Taraji P. Henson getting a nom for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Kate Winslet getting a nomination for The Reader in the lead category. Supporting actresses this year can now breathe a sigh of relief because they all have a shot of winning (well, not Amy Adams… she’s like the Queen Latifah in Chicago of this year where if someone from Doubt is going to win, it’s clearly going to be Viola Davis).

With that, let’s break it down by category:

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
No surprises here, save for The Reader. Just because a film is produced by the Weinsteins and is about the Holocaust doesn’t mean it’s actually good. I just saw this on Tuesday and I was immensely disappointed.
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 3/5

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk
The only nomination here I can get really excited about is Danny Boyle’s, but even in his case I’m kind of lukewarm on it. It’s just not a very interesting group this year. Daldry, though, has made three films and been nominated all three times. That’s pretty cool. Too bad The Reader is by far his weakest film.
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 4/5

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
This is a two-way race between Penn and Rourke, yes? I’ve not seen Jenkins in The Visitor, so I’ll be sure to check that out before the ceremony, but beyond that, I just hope Brad Pitt doesn’t win. Nothing against him, but he wasn’t the strongest part of Benjamin Button by a long shot.
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 4/5

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader
Surprising to see Winslet here for The Reader, but only because she was campaigned so heavily for supporting. It’s probably for the best that she didn’t end up with a double nomination, because now I think she’s a clear leader for a win here. She’s simply due. Nice to see Melissa Leo in the mix – I’ll be sure to see the film before the ceremony. I’m almost rooting for her as a placeholder for Sally Hawkins, who was snubbed here. That’s alright, though: she can take comfort in her majority of critics’ prizes she accrued this year.
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 3.5/5 (I don’t think anyone thought Winslet would be nominated here for The Reader but we assumed she’d be nominated.)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
Really, Michael Shannon? Other than that, all that needs to be said about this category is that Ledger is a lock.
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 4/5

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – Doubt
Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
I have no beef with any of these performances. Really, anyone winning here would be fine by me, though I’m rooting for Tomei. Hers was a personal favorite performance of mine (she’s the heart and soul of The Wrestler), though this is probably gonna end up going to Davis or Cruz. How nice, though, if we end up getting Javier Bardem giving girlfriend Penélope Cruz the Oscar. It’d be a nice moment (and yet another Best Supporting Actress win for a Woody Allen-directed actress).
PREDICTION ACCURACY: 3.5/5 (Kate got nominated, but in lead.)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Frozen River – Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky – Mike Leigh
In Bruges – Martin McDonagh
Milk – Dustin Lance Black
WALL•E – Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon
I have In Bruges sitting on my TV and I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. Ultimately, though, Frozen River is perhaps the biggest surprise here, filling a slot on the Oscars’ obligatory “Independent Films are Good, Too!” checklist. It’s a shame that this is Happy-Go-Lucky’s only major nomination, but whatevs. It’s just an awards show.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Roth
Doubt – John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon – Peter Morgan
The Reader – David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire – Simon Beaufoy
Another category that’s hard to get really excited about. Meh.

Overall, the year at the Oscars looks to be representative of everything that the Oscars are sometimes derided for, with their total shunning of blockbusters and disregard, on the whole, for films that didn’t come out in the last two months. It just reminds you that the whole enterprise is 90% maneuvering and politics and 10% based on actual quality. Sometimes that 10% is enough to push you through to being invited to the big night, but all too often, deserving nominees get trampled by films with bigger ad campaigns.

“Time for lunch… in a cup!”

I’m actually fairly on schedule this year with my Best of 2008 list over at WBW.  I had a lot of fun putting the copy and graphics together for this one.  Photoshop is rapidly becoming a beast that I’m gaining a hold on, where at first it scared the bejeezus out of me to even attempt doing something.

And here I’ll launch another section of the blog: the lists page.  I love me a good list.  My roommate and I often spend nights after work making various Top 10s (we recently put together our ideal five women to co-host The View… good times). So I think I’ll start sharing them ’round these parts. And what better way to start than with this year’s best films?

In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun

Of course today’s inauguration of Barack Obama as our nation’s 44th President is all kinds of historical.  That’s a given.

This morning I had to drive about an hour to do a drop-off for work in Santa Monica, so I caught pretty much everything in the car, listening to NPR.  And as I drove down Santa Monica Blvd., I couldn’t help but cry.  Like, literally cry at the magnitude of today’s significance.  And for some reason, the ensemble classical piece by John Williams seemed incredibly fitting in tone.  When Itzhak Perlman started getting all virtuosic on his violin, there was such a freeing sense in the music.  All the disparate instruments (and how disparate were they?  I mean honestly: piano, violin, cello, and barely-there clarinet?) seemed to be going nuts with their own lines but were still playing together as a unified whole and I started crying.  I cried in my car because I had no other way of expressing my immense joy.

For what feels like the first time, I am absolutely 100% proud to be an American.  I wear the badge with honor now and feel as though the country is finally headed in a direction that I can get on board with.  And I think that sentiment is true for most of my generation, so if nothing else, Obama has been successful thus far instilling a sense of patriotism back into the population at large.  I felt today that I wanted to pursue a career in politics.  Like I wanted to enact change.  Like I wanted to become an active citizen and stop being passive about issues I care about.  And this is from someone who isn’t generally moved to do such things.

I also found Elizabeth Alexander’s poem to be quite fitting as well.  (Whomever programmed this thing did a top-notch job.)

But on an even more serious note:

That hat? Honey, no.  That is a bedazzled bow.  HSN would turn that away with the note “too tacky.”  Love you, Aretha.

Music Moment: Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You”

I downloaded Kelly’s latest on a whim (thanks iTunes on 3G on the iPhone!) and took a listen and it’s pretty damned good!  It’s a little bit like “Since U Been Gone” meets “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” but notice that nowhere in that is a mention of “Never Again” from her ill-fated foray into rock on her last album.  Seems like Kelly’s now going with music master Clive Davis’s advice on this one and sticking to her more pop side, and I couldn’t be happier.  It’s good to have you back, Kelly.  B+

Side note: What’s with iTunes advertising the song with “suck” as “s**k”? Can we not say suck anymore? Do they really think that we’ll think the song is called “My Life Would Sick Without You”? Or “My Life Would Sock Without You”?

And the nominees will be…

For what it’s worth, here are my predictions for who will be nominated for an Oscar Thursday morning.  (This whole entry turned into a much more involved excursion than I originally intended.  That sort of thing usually happens when I start talking about the Oscars.)

BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL•E 
Wild cards: Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader
My personal ballot: Cloverfield, Happy-Go-Lucky, My Blueberry Nights, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL•E
My thoughts: I’ll admit that WALL•E is a long shot and my placing it here is steeped in personal bias.  But the ballot for the Oscars weighs first-place nominations more heavily than lower place nominations.  And I feel that a lot of people would put WALL•E first or second (if they’re putting Slumdog first as I also think a lot of people are likely to do).  The Dark Knight is the other wild card here, and I think Frost/Nixon will end up getting lost in the shuffle.  Ultimately, this is Slumdog’s Oscar to lose.

BEST DIRECTOR

Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant - Milk

Wild cards: Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler), Stephen Daldry (The Reader), Jonathan Demme (Rachel Getting Married)
My personal ballot: The Coen Brothers (Burn After Reading), Wong Kar-Wai (My Blueberry Nights), Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky), Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), Andrew Stanton (WALL•E)
My thoughts: I wouldn’t mind seeing Aronofsky slip into the mix here, maybe in place of Howard.  I liked Frost/Nixon quite a bit, but it’s a very difficult film to love.  I appreciate it and understand that it’s well made, but beyond that, there isn’t much to get passionate about with the film.  Milk has been overrated, I think (another good-not-great film), so I wouldn’t mind seeing someone slip instead of Van Sant, but like Best Picture, it’s all pretty moot: this is Danny Boyle’s to lose.

BEST ACTOR

Clint Eastwood - Gran Torino
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Sean Penn – Milk

Wild cards: Josh Brolin (W.), Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road), Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
My personal ballot: Josh Brolin (W.), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Synecdoche, New York), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk), Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
My thoughts: This is a solid category.  The performances I’ve seen (all but Eastwood and Jenkins) I’ve thought were pretty great.  I really like Brad Pitt, but if he’s gonna get an Oscar nomination this year, I’d really really rather prefer it were in Supporting for Burn After Reading.  He just didn’t have to do much in Benjamin Button. 

BEST ACTRESS

Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road

Wild cards: Cate Blanchett (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Kristin Scott-Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long)
My personal ballot: Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky), Evan Rachel Wood (The Life Before Her Eyes), Naomi Watts (Funny Games), Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)
My thoughts: Hathaway, Streep, and Winslet are all locks for nominations.  Hawkins is close and I hope she doesn’t fall through the cracks.  I’m throwing Melissa Leo into the mix because there’s usually an unsung indie darling that slips into this category and Laura Linney isn’t in anything this year.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Dev Patel – Slumdog Millionaire

Wild cards: James Franco (Milk), Eddie Marsan (Happy-Go-Lucky), Brad Pitt (Burn After Reading)
My personal ballot: Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight), Emile Hirsch (Milk), Bill Irwin (Rachel Getting Married), Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight) 
My thoughts: I’m surprised Bill Irwin hasn’t latched onto the Rachel Getting Married buzz train that I think Rosemarie DeWitt will ride to a nomination (see below) – he was excellent.  And Heath Ledger is so good in The Dark Knight that he overshadowed another strong performance from Eckhart.  If only they had saved Two-Face for a third Batman film.  Dev Patel I think will slip in based on Slumdog Millionaire‘s deafening buzz it’s been generating.  Hoffman’s great in Doubt – too bad it’s a lead performance.  Honestly, though, how awkward if someone other than Heath Ledger ends up winning this. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Penélope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Kate Winslet – The Reader

Wild cards: Amy Adams (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire)
My personal ballot: Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Hope Davis (Synecdoche, New York), Viola Davis (Doubt), Rosemary DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
My thoughts:  Well, four of my favorites I’ve prognosticated, so I can’t complain about this category.  DeWitt I think will gain enough momentum from support for the film and from admiration for Anne Hathaway.  She’s just as good as Hathaway, though Hathaway’s getting all the award buzz, which I have no problem with.  I’d really like to see Marisa Tomei walk away with this, though.  She’s the reason The Wrestler is as emotionally-affecting as it is.  It seems like her entire career of the past ten years has been role after role of her justifying her much-derided Oscar for My Cousin Vinny.  Consider it justified, Marisa.  With The Wrestler, and earlier work in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and In the Bedroom, she’s proven herself to be a versatile supporting player and I hope she gets another Oscar that people can agree she deserves.  (Though Hope Davis was far and away the best part of Synecdoche, New York in a very difficult comedic role.)

Cannonball #2: The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The book’s short, so this review will be short, too.  In fact, at 199 pages, including Acknowledgements and Notes, it just barely misses the mark here for the cannonball rules, but I read the introduction, too, so I’m counting it.

What Atwood has here is a re-imagining of The Odyssey and, being the feminist writer she is, she’s told it first person from Penelope’s perspective (Odysseus’s wife), as well as working some explanation about the hanging of twelve maids that I assume happened in The Odyssey.  It’s been about seven years since I read it, so I’m fuzzy on my epic poem specifics – apologies all around.

There’s a lot to appreciate here, but not too terribly much to like.  It’s a quick quick read: I finished it in a day using only down time at work.  Taking that into consideration, this is a lot like another svelte book I love – On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan – in that Atwood crams a lot of really interesting ideas into a small space, so it’s to be commended on that front.  Where it’s dissimilar from McEwan’s novella is that it’s not that poignant, nor does it have a sense of necessity.  It reads a little bit like a creative writing exercise where Atwood was asked in some fictional grad class to reinterpret a classic piece of literature and she ran with it and sketched some things out… and then got it published.

Ultimately, I’m far from disappointed with it, as there are a lot of interesting devices at play, such as a chapter with an imagined modern-day courtroom scene where Odysseus is put on trial for the murders of the twelve maids or the intercalary sections that recontextualize the Greek chorus as the twelve maids, but the biggest plus of this book was that it was short.  Not very high praise.  I’m a huge fan of Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and while The Robber Bride was distractingly male-bashing, it was still highly entertaining and well-written.  This was an interesting experiment, but offers little beyond that, so I’m looking forward to reading another of Atwood’s novels over her shorter work.

Those with fears about flying (myself included) got a jolt today…

Doesn’t this sound like the pilot episode of a J.J. Abrams show?  The show could be about how all the passengers’ lives intersected after the crash, but also before or something.  And there’d be mysteries – lots of mysteries!  And also some overarching sci-fi/fantasy thing whose true meaning will only come together in the final episodes of the series.

…

Seriously, though.  How happy are we all that this didn’t turn into a major loss of life today?  Glad everyone’s safe and sound.  The pictures are freakin’ nuts, though.  It’s so weird when stuff like this actually happens and the lines between fiction and non blur more than we’re generally comfortable with.

Obligatory update where I explain why there haven’t been too terribly many updates around here in the recent weeks.

I got my paycheck for last week’s work-week today.  Here’s a breakdown of my week:

Regular rate: 40 hours
Regular overtime (1.5 rate): 20 hours
Doubletime: 10.5 hours
6th day rate: 12 hours

So I guess I even topped out on overtime hours, pushing me into doubletime.  This is a roundabout way of explaining my total consumption by work right now…  Alas, not a lot of reading has been accomplished, and general upkeep of this site has been sparse, but it seems that things are a little less crazy ’round these office parts.  (Though I am thoroughly pleased with the robust check I was cut for this week.)

I have managed to watch some good TV, though, so hopefully I’ll be getting some thoughts up about the current season of Damages (loving it), the current season of Real World (FINALLY loving it again) and hopefully you’ll be seeing a Breaking Dawn review up here soon.  My weekend is clear, so it’s time to detox, catch up on missed reading, and generally regenerate some forward motion.  :-)

Cannonball #1: Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

My excuse for this book?  My roommate made me do it.

Nah, it’s not all her fault.  But she did start it, hyping the books and letting me borrow them.  I’ll admit that Twilight had its moments, though it was pretty terribly-written, and the film is a modern-day camp classic in the best way possible.  New Moon, though, was probably one of the hardest books I’ve ever had to read because it was so unbelievably boring.

With Eclipse, the third of four in the Twilight saga, Meyer has crafted the best book of the series so far.  The problem is that even as the best book, it’s still a chore to get through and there was an equal amount of satisfaction and dread as I finished the damned thing.  Satisfaction because it was finally over, but dread because the longest book in the series still awaits me and I don’t know how much more poorly-written teen angst I can take.

Eclipse once again finds protagonist and narrator Bella Swan in mopey mode.  In the first book, she was angsty because she was falling in love with vampire Edward Cullen and in the second book, through idiotic machinations of the plot, Edward dumped her for her own safety and then moved away (don’t get me started) so she was pretty much insufferable, but she then found the time to develop a close friendship with werewolf Jacob Black.  Now, with Edward back in the picture, we have a love triangle.  There’s also some hoo-hah about an approaching army of vampire children under the control of the evil Victoria who are coming to kill Bella.  Because she can’t do anything without attracting evil vampires.

What makes the book bearable for some stretches is the fact that we FINALLY HAVE SOME DRAMATIC CONFLICT.  Sweet Jesus were the first books devoid of any real narrative drive.  With the conflict between Edward and Jacob, there’s finally some tension.  Of course, Meyer doesn’t really know what to do with this, so most of the book consists of Bella with Edward when he bitches about Jacob or Bella with Jacob when he bitches about Edward.  It’s vaguely diverting, but it’s also vaguely annoying.  What a pleasant way to spend 600+ pages!

Meyer also has a tendency to place Bella outside the main action.  During the final showdown, Bella is stationed somewhere else with Edward who then uses his vampire powers to read the minds of the people at the actual battle and then NARRATES WHAT’S HAPPENING.  This is a classic case of telling over showing and it’s simply inexcusable storytelling.  Meyer’s writing style also leaves a lot to be desired: Mariah Carey songs have more complex vocabulary and sentence structure, and though I’ll grant her some leeway given her target audience and age group, there’s just no panache in Meyer’s style.  J.K. Rowling managed to make the Harry Potter books interesting for a broad audience while still gearing them towards children.

Yet there’s something about Meyer’s central story here that, even in spite of my numerous issues with the books so far, makes me want to read the final book.  Most of it is morbid curiosity – I’m kind of fascinated by the prospect of what crazy shit Meyer might pull in concluding the series.  But some of it is genuine interest in the central characters.  They’re written poorly and they’re thinly-drawn, but for some reason you can’t help but root for Bella and Edward.  I have no idea why, and that fascinates me.