When I purchased my ticket for the Thursday night midnight show of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, I had no idea what I was in for; not because I hadn’t seen any of the previous Twilight films – I have, in fact, seen them all – but because I had never seen a Twilight film in a theater before, much less on opening night. The Twilight subculture befuddles me, as I’m sure it does any non-initiate of the series. Having seen all the films, I still feel like I’m viewing them from afar, like it’s some strange anthropological project of a phenomenon whose worth and value I will never fully understand. Twilight seems to encapsulate the drastic changes that have taken place in big-budget event filmmaking in the last thirty years. Rather than a film made with the intent of mass appeal (like franchises ranging from Indiana Jones to Jason Bourne), the Twilight films play almost exclusively to a specific – but dedicated – demographic. Of course, one could make this argument about many film franchises. Everything from Star Trek to The Dark Knight certainly have rabid fanbases at their core, but the audiences for these films seem to be “filled in” with a significant amount of casual fans. For example, I once viewed the Harry Potter films similarly to the way I now approach Twilight – not in terms of filmmaking quality, mind you, but in terms of being a cult phenomenon surrounding a fictional narrative that I [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr dresses up in layers and layers of rain gear to brave the estrogen storm that comes with the showing of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part I. After enduring that non-masterpiece, he dances down a few screening rooms to watch the new Happy Feet movie. Confounded by the gelatinous goop that masquerades as movies this weekend in American cinema, Kevin eventually curls up in a ball and softly weeps.

Much has been said, screamed, analyzed, obsessed over and dismissed about the Twilight series over the years that sometimes it is easy to forget it all began… with a book. That book alone created a fandom that was quickly compared with another famous book series (Harry Potter), but once the books were brought to the big screen, that fandom seemed to reach a whole new fever pitch and rocketed its leads Robert Pattinson (Edward), Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob) into superstardom (whether they were prepared for it or not). Seeing these books (or any book, for that matter) brought to life is always a matter of living up to the expectations of what people had imagined and envisioned while reading. While scene and character descriptions are usually included, the one wild card that is rarely described when reading is the music. Author Stephanie Meyer certainly noted the music that helped influence her while writing, the films themselves were essentially a blank slate for the Chop Shop’s music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas to inject life and movement into.

As the “worldwide phenomenon” that is The Twilight Saga of films (adapted from Stephenie Meyer‘s equally as popular and blockbuster-selling quartet of novels) has progressed through the years, it has become increasingly difficult for those not already inoculated into the cult of human-vampire-werewolf love triangles to process, enjoy, and understand just exactly what they’re seeing on screen. Which is a nice way of saying that the tale of Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, and a whole mess of other humans and mythological creatures has spiraled almost totally and nonsensically out of control. Following their star-crossed high school courtship, unsteady human Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her smoothie vampire suitor (Robert Pattinson) have decided to take things to the next level. For most eighteen-year-olds (or ostensible eighteen-year-olds with Edward’s immortal appearance), that would mean getting down in the carnal sense – but for Edward and Bella, that means getting married (his choice) so that Bella can finally be turned to match her lover and his family (her choice). These are certainly big decisions for a girl who is barely an adult, but they’re made immeasurably more difficult by a hairy problem – teen werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), who is just as in love with Bella as Edward is. That’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 in a straight-faced nutshell. Yet, even fans of the series must admit that the final entry into Meyer’s series is absolutely crammed with elements that, at their best, could be described as bizarre. [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Let’s just be honest here – if you’re into The Twilight Saga, you’re into it. If you’re not into it, well, you’re probably pretty into making fun of it. Luckily for both factions of fanhood, today’s first full-length trailer for the penultimate entry into the massively popular film franchise based on Stephenie Meyer‘s massively popular book series, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, delivers everything that anyone could want from it – showcasing some of the film’s most important scenes (you better believe it’s wedding-heavy), alongside some truly boggling facial expressions. It’s, in short, just as vampire batshit crazy as the rest of the franchise has been so far. Maybe even more. Sink your teeth into the first full trailer for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 after the break.

There were people camping out for the notoriously crowded Hall H line up to two days before the Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 panel kicked off the events in that hallowed space. I hope they had a sense of humor because at least 500 seats remained open throughout the event, and late-comers’ wait time was non-existent. Regardless, the fans were out in full force, screaming at just about everything that moved on the stage. Director Bill Condon set a tone for the discussion (that wouldn’t last long), talking about the joy of joining a story already in progress. “It’s all third act. I started out in horror movies, and in the second act [of Breaking Dawn] it turns into a really cool horror movie.” All talk of horror ended when Kristen Stewart was asked about the wedding scene.

While enduring the mild pain caused by Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I thought to myself, “Man, this Sam character is a real prick. What type of people actually like this person? This is the best savior we could get?” I then realized that I often find myself thinking this nowadays. We rarely get great, likable heroes or genuine badasses on film anymore. Most are either mopey, passive, or do morally questionable acts. I’m not referring to anti-heroes — although, I do include one on the list — but, rather, the unintentionally lame mainstream characters that aren’t the most compelling or charming. A few of these not-so-heroic characters aren’t due to bad acting. As you’ll notice, Leonardo DiCaprio made the list for Inception, where he gave a solid performance. While I wouldn’t say that most of the actors featured here impressed anyone, DiCaprio and a few others certainly did. Here are ten mainstream characters that exhibit very little heroics:

With its tropical setting, make out sessions under waterfalls, and questionably ethical male lead, Twilight: Breaking Dawn (Part 1 of a 2 Part Series) might very well be the Cocktail of our generation. They’re basically the same movie except for the vampire fetus that will eventually fist-pump its way into existence. This trailer gives a sense of the scope of the film, the scope of the vampire-on-human sex, and the scope of the lavish wedding that makes all of that intercourse legitimate. Watch for yourself and try to explain the music choices:

Let’s say you’re a greasy-haired young man of the 1930s, on the cusp of completing your Ivy League studies in veterinary medicine (which is apparently animal doctoring and not war fighter doctoring), when tragedy strikes. Your whole life is stolen away. Your first instinct is to hop on the first train out of town, right? Of course it is. That’s exactly what happens to young Jacob (Robert Pattinson) in Water For Elephants. He loses his parents (the only family he has) and jumps aboard a train in the dark of night only to find out he’s accidentally joined the circus. He proves his worth enough to stay by impressing the iron-fisted ring master August (Christoph Waltz), but he ends up impressing August’s wife, Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), a bit too much, and the elephant pile gets higher just in time for the company to buy an elephant meant to save all of them.

There’s nothing all that glamorous about Jeff Buckley’s life. By all accounts, it was tough-to-average until he started getting his foot into the recording world’s door. He put out a strong, dynamic album called “Grace,” but he died in a drowning accident at the too-young age of 30. Buckley is a great target for a biopic – sort of a grungier version of The Glenn Miller Story without the uniform or as many pawn shops – and according to the Daily Express, Robert Pattinson wants the role. They have an insider quoted as calling it to the bleachers on behalf of Pattinson, but no comment directly from the actor, so it’s all questionable. Still, it’s bound to be a fascinating role to play – even if the article seems to overplay the Oscar possibilities here. So will Pattinson get the role? It’s unclear. The Express also calls out James Franco, James Marsden, Ryan Gosling and perpexingly Johnny Depp (who is aged out of this role more than Jon Hamm from Superman). It all depends on the interest level from those and other actors, because all of them have more cache to be cast. On the other hand, the resemblance between Pattinson and Buckley isn’t a passing one. Again, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, not only because it’s early on in the process, but because there are several elements of the story that seem grandly un-authoritative. The ultimate thing is that someone out there (specifically [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

So it’s not as exciting as a picture of a woman’s hand grabbing a down comforter in joy/pain/agony/or a genuine love of down comforters, but the first look at The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn features Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart either right in the middle of, right before, or right after the thing that adults do. It’s been no secret that the final installment involves some legally and religiously sanctioned love-making, but it just doesn’t seem right without the glitter. See it for yourself and let us know your opinion, after the jump:

Somewhere out there, a movie geek already lamenting the death of exclusivity and the sacrosanct nature of heroes just broke into the tears he or she has been holding back. “That guy from Twilight” is going to be in a movie with the director of Videodrome. According to The Wrap, the young actor will replace Colin Farrell as the star of Cosmopolis – playing Eric Packer, an insanely wealthy man who treks across a huge slightly-futuristic metropolis while someone’s trying to assassinate him. There will be speculation about whether this will help Pattinson move beyond Twilight, but…he already has. He’s been in two minorly successful indie flicks, and he’s appearing in Water for Elephants later this year. In fact, there are probably a ton of people out there that don’t even think of him as the Twilight guy either because they haven’t seen the movies (and also don’t own Hello Kitty merchandise of any kind) or because they’ve seen his other work. This sounds like a great pairing, and an opportunity for Cronenberg to rip a great performance from a fairly sleepy actor who can’t seem to express emotion beyond lovesick irritation. Colin Farrell would have been better, but Pattinson will be more interesting.

There’s a splash of Big Fish somewhere in there as well, but the trailer for Water For Elephants, based on the incredibly popular novel of the same name, displays a tone straight out of a watered down (for elephants) Moulin Rouge and a just-as-schmaltzy version of The Notebook. There’s even the Old Man Remembering His Antique Past element. This movie could turn out to be an incredible spectacle, and the presence of two Oscar winners is nothing to scoff at, but there’s something inherently soporific about Robert Pattinson that it will have to overcome. The trailer isn’t as exciting as it should have been, and hopefully the film will triumph despite its disjointed advertising. Water For Elephants hits theaters April 15, 2011, and you can see the trailer in even higher def at Apple.

Summit Entertainment may not know this, but the world is supposed to end in the fall of 2012. This is why studios such as Paramount, Warner Bros. and others are unleashing a slew of films that summer — titles like The Avengers, Star Trek 2 and Christopher Nolan’s sequel to The Dark Knight. Fans will need to see these films before Roland Emmerich’s wet dream finally wipes humanity off the map. Even so, Summit is hedging its bets on the Mayans being wrong, scheduling The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 for a November 16, 2012 release. The Bill Condon directed film will be “the astonishing conclusion to the series illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.” Perhaps we’ve all been wrong all along about the apocalypse. Perhaps Twihards are the chosen ones… and their reward for surviving the fall of man will be the final Twilight film. Don’t laugh; it could happen.

Hollywood turned in its assignments early this week with releases on Wednesday and Thursday. Now Fat Guy Kevin Carr hands out his grades for the latest installment of The Twilight Saga and the big screen adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Squeeeeee! Kevin and Neil run around the Magical Studio in the Sky without their shirts on, desperately trying to shape-shift into a werewolf so they too can be worthy of sickly-looking Bella Swan’s fickle infatuation… yet they still have a better time than they did when they saw The Last Airbender.

Eclipse, the third film in the famed Twilight Saga, left not a dry or empty seat in the house last night as it steamrolled its way to the all-time midnight opening record. It also claimed the record for widest release of all time, starting its box office journey in well over 4,400 theaters. By the end of the night it had earned more than $30 million dollars, eclipsing (get it?) the record held by its franchise predecessor, Twilight: New Moon (which earned $26.3 million on its opening night last year).

In this line of work, there often comes a time when the ability to be objective comes in handy. When it feels great to throw away prejudgments and biases and give a movie a chance, no matter how bad its bloodline may be. Such is the case with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. There’s bad blood in this family — really bad blood — in the form of two films that were poorly constructed and shoddily executed on just about every level. But like any interesting rebellious child, Eclipse breaks the mold at the hands of a craftsman. It becomes something new — something oddly watchable, at times enjoyable and surprisingly unlike what has come before.

Calm down. They aren’t really making Edward Scissorhands again, and they definitely aren’t hiring Robert Pattinson, but it raises a great question: put yourself back in 1989 and imagine Tim Burton has hired you to cast his next movie. Please don’t let him down.