Well, folks, it’s finally over. The Twilight Saga rang its final bell this past weekend with the release of Breaking Dawn: Part II on DVD and Blu-ray. Chances are, the fans out there have already secured a copy and have had it on a continuous loop since it hit the streets. If you happen to be the significant other (or father or super good best friend) with a Twi-hard making you watch the last installment in the franchise, you’ll want to knock back a couple drinks in the process. Raise your glass to the end of an era, an end of a franchise, and an end of body glitter in the multiplex.

Well, Twi-hards, with the release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part II on DVD and Blu-ray this week, the series has come to a final close. (That is, of course, until Lionsgate decides to reboot the franchise or Stephenie Meyer cranks out more stories in this universe. ‘Cause we all know that’s gonna happen soon enough.) To help tie the final two chapters of the saga together, Lionsgate has also released the extended edition of Breaking Dawn – Part I. Both movies feature a commentary by director Bill Condon. Now don’t worry too much. While I (and many of the writers here at Film School Rejects) am not a fan of the series at all, I can respect the fan base. This won’t be a lengthy article goofing on the flaws of the series. Instead, let’s break down what the director has to say about wrapping up the series with a one-two punch of the final book brought to life on the big screen. And on to the commentaries…

The 33rd annual Golden Raspberry Awards — or Razzies — were held yesterday in Santa Monica, and for the first time in the series’ history, the Twilight Saga took the top (dis)honor of Worst Picture. Excluding the initial installment, each of the Twilight movies have been nominated for this award, but the final sequel, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, has seemingly been chosen as representative of the whole franchise. Kind of like the negative parallel to how Return of the King won Best Picture for the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy. Breaking Dawn – Part 2 also won Razzies this year for Worst Actress (Kristen Stewart, whose award also credits Snow White and the Huntsman), Worst Supporting Actor (Taylor Lautner), Worst Screen Couple (Lautner and Mackenzie Foy), Worst Director (Bill Condon), Worst Ensemble and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel. It lost its nominees for Worst Actor (Adam Sandler was chosen for That’s My Boy over Robert Pattinson), Worst Supporting Actress (Rihanna won for Battleship over Ashley Greene) and Worst Screenplay (That’s My Boy was preferred). The film had also been up against itself in the Worst Screen Couple category, with Pattinson and Stewart losing to Lautner and Foy.

Warning: the following post contains a bit of a spoiler about the end of Warm Bodies. Read on at your discretion. With a decent opening weekend gross mostly attributed to young, female moviegoers, Warm Bodies is supposedly confirming its status as the new Twilight. Of course, the vampire love story made a lot more money and received mainly negative reviews, while this new zombie romantic comedy (or zom-rom-com), is certified fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and received a B+ CinemaScore grade but only earned about a third of what it cost to produce. There’s an expectation for Warm Bodies to have strong legs, however, through word of mouth. And hopefully that buzz extends to more male viewers, who should appreciate that it’s not as sappy as it seems, even though its main message is the cheesiest of cheesy: “love conquers evil.” Sure, we’ve seen the power of love employed as a weapon by The Beatles and to turn Darth Vader and to keep The Princess Bride‘s Westley alive, but over time the idea that “all you need is love” has become corny enough to ruin the ends of Ghostbusters II and The Fifth Element, among others, with too much sentiment.

While many would like to think that snark was something born of the Internet age, the fact that the Razzie Awards for Worst Achievements in Film are now in their thirty-third year pretty demonstrably proves that to be untrue.  There’s an uncomfortable truth at the center of all this, which is, to snark, to pass judgment, to make fun of things that fail publicly and spectacularly—it’s all kind of fun, at least in a sick way. If it wasn’t, something like The Razzies wouldn’t be able to stick around this long. In recent years, however, the film industry’s laser focus on building franchises and sticking to the same formulas has taken a little bit of the fun out of seeing who gets picked on for being the worst of the year. A crop of usual suspects has developed, making the announcement that the latest Twilight movie and the latest Adam Sandler comedy have earned the lion’s share of the nominations something of a tedious formality. So, here we are, having yet again sat through another Twilight movie and another Adam Sandler comedy, and, sure enough, it seems that they’ve once again gotten the bulk of the nominations. If there’s any new narrative going on, it’s that Madea’s Witness Protection seems to have annoyed the people who vote for the Golden Raspberries more than usual. Perhaps that’s due to Jack & Jill making men in drag a more contemptible offense after last year, or perhaps it’s because they’re trying to set

What is Movie News After Dark? Tonight, it’s beside itself… We begin this evening with a photo of Gary Oldman and Michael K. Williams on the set of Robocop, in which they both will undoubtedly bring their usual level of quality. It’s unrivaled, the sort of awesome that exists in this one still image. The only thing that could possibly be better would be some sort of random, inexplicable Peter Weller photobomb. But lets just leave that up to the photoshoppers, shall we?

The Ingredients is a column devoted to breaking down the components of a new film release with some focus on influential movies that came before. As always, these posts look at the entire plots of films and so include SPOILERS.  By the end of Breaking Dawn — Part 2, it’s clear that the Twilight Saga, as one long story about vampires, werewolves and a chaste teenage girl, is first and foremost a romance picture. This may not sound like a revelation, but in the past four years we’ve all looked at the series in terms of how it transcends the traditional “chick flick” ghetto to dabble in elements of superhero and horror genres, potentially wooing male moviegoers in the process. Interestingly enough, the finale features a sequence that is very much aimed at fans of genre cinema just before pulling a 180 and concluding with an ending that the same audience will find mushy and sappy as (their personal) hell. While romance figures into most film genres and even dominates the conventional Hollywood denouement for movies no matter what audience is targeted, most of these features are not classifiably romance pictures. The love stories are secondary or even tertiary in importance to plots primarily concerned with adventure or disaster or some treatment of good versus evil. And although there are antagonists strewn throughout the Twilight films, there aren’t really good guys and bad guys in proper terms. Instead there is simply love and family versus threat to love and family.

This week saw the countdown to the end of the Twilight movies, though we didn’t pay it much attention. Kevin gave us a drinking game to play while watching the whole series in marathon form, but that’s it. Maybe we were all too busy still appreciating the greatness of the latest James Bond — a series that fortunately didn’t conclude after only five installments — or skipping through to wonder about the future, as in whether The Mortal Instruments is the new Twi-like sensation. We did, of course, review the final Twilight Saga film, and we remind and invite you to check out that and other reviews of new releases (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2; Lincoln; Anna Karenina; Price Check) as well as an interview with Anna Karenina director Joe Wright. We also watched a lot of trailer, including new spots for The Host (from Twi-lit author Stephenie Meyer), Oz: The Great and Powerful, The ABCs of Death (Red Band) and, yeah, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. We also saw some short films that readers seem to have enjoyed a lot, including The Sleepover and Dragon Baby. Now, check out our biggest and best stories and original content from the past week after the break.

As someone who’s somehow resisted the pull of Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight books but has seen all five films, I feel confident saying the first three movies (Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse) exist on a sliding scale of awfulness. They’re bland, lacking in anything resembling emotion or humanity, poorly acted, terribly written and insulting to the concepts of free will, family, gender equality, canine care, individuality and love itself. Breaking Dawn Part 1 changed some of that for the better. The themes were still offensive to rational people who prefer a uterus be connected to a functioning and free-spirited brain, but director Bill Condon managed to inject a degree of humor and zaniness to the proceedings that embraced the entertainment value inherent in the story but missing from the earlier films. Basically, he made it fun. And thankfully, he returned to helm part 2. To recap part 1, Bella (Kristen Stewart) the human and Edward (Robert Pattinson) the vampire have married, fornicated and given birth to a baby they felt it necessary to name Renesmee. While still a fetus the little scamp had sucked the life from its mother leading to Bella’s death shortly after Edward decided to perform an emergency Cesarean with his teeth. He acts quickly and bites her again, this time in an attempt to save her life by turning her into a bloodsucker, and it works. She opens her inhuman, crimson eyes, and the credits roll. Oh, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) the werewolf pees on Bella’s newborn daughter

The wait is over. The saga is nearly complete. The second half of Breaking Dawn comes to theaters this week, and the estrogen will flow. Twi-hards and Twi-moms around the world will be watching all four Twilight films leading up to the sure-to-be unepic conclusion. You may be forced to sit through one – or all – of these films before attending a showing of the new film this weekend. If that sounds like hell on Earth, you might want to have a drink… or two… or fourteen while watching the films with your significant other.

Why Watch? A young woman sleepwalks onto a midnight subway train rattling its way through a quiet city and curls up with “Twilight” for her third read of it. She’s a big fan, but a young man begins challenging the idea of changing the lore. What does it really mean to be cursed? Is being a vampire supposed to be so glamorous? If you were a vampire hunting on the midnight train, which passenger would you feed on? Al Loughner‘s short isn’t just a flash in the pan trying to snake away some of the Twilight sparkle. It’s a smartly set up, gracefully executed conversation with a brutal reality at its core. It makes the argument against the de-fanging with flair while building an atmosphere of dread. Even though the climax is an obvious one, the reveal is done cleverly, and the production doesn’t shy away from showing the red stuff and a little bit of (ironically pretty) make-up work. What will it cost you? Only 8 minutes. Skip work. Watch more short films.

In the new movie Pitch Perfect, a boy (Skylar Astin) introduces a girl (Anna Kendrick) to The Breakfast Club. It’s a believable scene, on it’s own. Even if I don’t necessarily think the 27-year-old John Hughes film, classic status notwithstanding, is a hugely important thing to the generation currently heading into college, I can accept that the guy is a movie soundtrack dork who seemingly loves only titles from before his birth and that she genuinely has never seen it. But it is a bit much that the signature Brat Pack film’s ending, with its iconic Simple Minds tune and Judd Nelson freeze-framed fist thrust, is played over and over, and the film figures so prominently into the romantic plot throughout. It all just feels like something from out of the mind of a thirty-something screenwriter rather than that of these modern-day teen characters. And the movie’s writer, Kay Cannon, is indeed a child of the ’80s and admits that The Breakfast Club is something she loves from her youth. Apparently, though, Say Anything was originally the teen movie of that era to be honored and made fun of in the new a-cappella-based comedy. She also is a big fan of Hughes’s Weird Science but couldn’t make it work. But for kids born around 1995, which is the target audience as well as the roles on screen, aren’t there more relevant films to reference? Maybe Mean Girls, Bring It On, Twilight, Rushmore, Juno, High School Musical, Superbad or — going

Welcome to the weekend. I am the new FSR editor specifically covering Saturday and Sunday, and I’m kicking off, as I will each Saturday morning, with a recap of the site’s coverage from the previous seven days. I’ll start by getting the formality over with in linking to my own “Better Know a Reject” introductory profile. I’m actually not full of myself, but that post didn’t really fit anywhere else in this roundup. Now, let’s play catch up.   TIFF Begins First of all, this week saw the start of the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, and our man Andrew Robinson is on the beat. Ahead of the opening, he offered a list of 12 Most Anticipated Movies playing the event, including new works from the Wachowskis, Terrence Malick and Joss Whedon. First up from Andrew’s onsite coverage is a review of the “interesting” but “a bit uneven” documentary Far Out Isn’t Far Enough. Also reviewed as part of the fest, Rian Johnson’s Looper got an ‘A’ from newly joined Reject Louis Plamondon. Dredd 3D is screening at TIFF as part of the Midnight Madness program, and we took a look at a motion comic prologue to the upcoming action film. We also checked out the trailer for TIFF selection A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, an animated epic that should obviously appeal to fans of the British comedy legend(s). Fans of the troupe should also read Cole’s list of 6 Filmmaking Tips From Monty Python.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that usually doesn’t get political. But it’s time someone takes a stance on Twilight. It had to be done. This aggression will not stand. One of the best things going in this business — of movie blogging — is Marvel rumors. They’re going to keep us all employed at least until the second Avengers film comes to term, if not longer. Kudos to Rob Keyes at ScreenRant for his astute dissection of how Doctor Strange may fit into Thor 2. Yes, Viggo Mortensen. Yes.

Through his work on things like the first two Star Wars films, Temple of Doom, and the Robocop series, Phil Tippett has established himself as something of a legend in the world of creature effects, puppeteering, and stop-motion animation. One thing he was never able to do, however, was create his own animated short. He tried, earlier in his career, to put together a project called Mad God, which he describes as being, “an experimental, hand-made, animated film, set in a Miltonesque world of monsters, mad scientists, and war pigs.” Unfortunately for fans of interesting and weird animated things, it never quite got finished. As Tippett recently explained to Indiewire, “I started shooting on 35mm film way back in the early 90s and then the project kind of fell into disrepair when the digital age hit. So I had to recalculate and spend a lot of time re-engineering our business from photographic to digital, so Mad God kind of went on hold.”

Ladies and open-minded gentlemen, this is the weekend for which we have been waiting ever so patiently. Years of watching our fellow sisters remove clothing and undulate for the good of “story” has finally paid off, and we will have our day in the sun. Our fearless prince, director Steven Soderbergh, has reached into the depths of his vast (yet dwindling) bag-o-tricks and presented us with a simple masterpiece that has been on the tip of wagging tongues for months. Magic Mike is the product of a genius, and while it isn’t a perfect film, Soderbergh’s dedication to objectifying his male cast is reassuring and welcomed. It is about time ladies get a fluff movie that isn’t about shopping, shoes, or relationships, but instead two hours of glorious female gaze. These men are hotter than this Texas drought I’m currently suffering through, and I appreciated every moment I had with them. But what makes Magic Mike something of dreams is the film’s playful self-awareness that it is, in fact, meant to be a sort of man droolfest. Soderbergh knows what he’s doing, and instead of alienating his audience he embraces them, offers up a beer, and presents six sexy, shirtless men on a platter for the world to see. I’m sure a discussable plot is in there somewhere (and I will leave that to our film review), but I am more interested in reflecting on a handful recent films that paved the way for this glorious moment of shirtless wonderment.

I’ve made no secret of my slight distaste for the Twilight franchise. In fact I’m pretty sure some of my previous maligning comments will come in handy should you ever need to eat through the various hulls of The Nostromo. However, it’s fair to say these movies make a decent amount of money. It probably has something to do with, um, well, wow, look at all that money it makes! As we approach the release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, because a story that epic is demanding of two movies which together comprise one giant disaster, whispers are already being shouted that the studio is planning to reboot the series once it takes it final, excruciatingly slow, bow. If you ask me, and we know you didn’t, Summit’s pathetic ploy to hold onto this cash cow long after it’s fully milked plan will require of a vastly different approach to “filmmaking” than the one to which we’ve heretofore been subjected. If I had to come up with five ideas for the Twilight franchise reVAMP, I’d write this piece I was assigned and categorize them thusly…

Seems like only yesterday that Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) were out playing footsies in the forest as teenage girls and their older man crushes are prone to do, but the fact that one half of the couple is technically the walking dead was never enough to get in the way of human nature. So after much brooding, pining and moping Edward the vampire sunk his mysteriously functional member deep into his young bride’s fleshy crevasse, and now, several months later, they appear to have a seven year old daughter. EW has posted the first look of Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy) on their Fans Only Facebook page, and in an apparent tribute to the Twilight series’ message of neediness and approval it requires you to “like” them for a glimpse of the girl. It’s a staged shot, as opposed to an actual frame from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, but I imagine the blank expressions will be the same. It may also be as close as Bella will ever get to a sandwich. The final film in the blockbuster franchise follows the new parents as they try to protect the fast-growing Renesmee from the Volturi even as they’re discovering the child’s impressive psychic abilities. Sadly, Edward and Bella are too distracted by the threat of a vampire army attack that they neglect to notice the real danger is much closer to home. Uncle Jacob (Taylor Lautner) just asked the young girl if she’s ever seen his

The past few weeks have been incredibly exciting for anyone following the curious case of Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele, the sexually adventurous stars of E.L. James’s erotic romance e-book Fifty Shades of Grey. What started off as a Twilight fan fiction has turned out to be at the center of an American literary explosion not seen since James’s own inspiration was up for auction at Little, Brown, and Company in 2007. Now the foreign erotica import has not only been snatched up for seven figures by a literary arm of Random House Publishing known as Vintage (I am shocked, honestly), but as Kate Erbland mentioned Monday it has also been optioned by Focus Features and Universal. This has been a very busy month for the British author, and I don’t even have the heart to hate her for it. As an unabashed fan of erotic romance novels, I was taken aback by the fervor this bondage novel has caused, but not for the reasons many of my colleagues and friends share. Although I do tend to favor BDSM in cinema, bondage in erotic literature has never been my favorite. I’ve often felt it to be far-fetched, overly clinical, and even a bit stale. I mean, as clinical and stale as sexual power play, leather cuffs, and object insertion can possibly be when story and character development take a back seat.  This isn’t to say something like Fifty Shades of Grey couldn’t change my mind, because it instantly intrigued me

Maybe our science fiction writers have failed us with all their damned pessimism, or maybe we’re all just obsessed with the world ending because it’s definitely going to stop spinning this year. Either way, everyone on this doomed planet is currently obsessed with the cold, distant Dystopian futures of hits like The Hunger Games. Now it’s time to figure out what it all means (which also means a bit of psychoanalysis). Good thing the Jennifer Lawrence-starring flick has people hungrily dissecting it for meaning. The results? Old Jewish heroines, our cinematic past, Occupy Wall Street, unspoken sexuality and the anti-Twilight.