Twilight: The Movie

Well, I went to see the movie twice. This was not intentional. Overall, I think the movie does a pretty good job of representing the book. However, there are things I didn't like.

Bella arrived in Forks in January not March. They didn't make it look cold enough. No big parka on Bella. No snow. Bummer.

I really got tired of looking at Kristen Stewart's mouth. How many close-ups of her mouth does 1 movie need? If her mouth wasn't hanging open, she was biting her bottom lip.

They left out a few of my favorite parts. The scene where Edward kisses Bella on the stairs and she faints. The blood typing and subsequent fainting in Biology. I'm hoping these scenes will show up in the deleted scenes when the movie's released on DVD.

I can't say I was too happy about the actors who portrayed Bella & Edward. I'm not sure who I would cast if I could, but there have to be actors that better fit the characters. Edward didn't dress as well in the movie as I thought he should.

I loved the music in the movie. After I saw it the first time I rushed out to get the soundtrack. I think I'll eventually come to the conclusion that while I'm not entirely happy with the movie, they did a pretty good job condensing a 500 page book into a 2 hour movie. I definitely like the book better.

The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen by Mitali Perkins

Perkins, Mitali. The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen. New York: Little, Brown, 1993

Until her grandparents come for a year long visit, Sunni’s life is perfect. She has friends. She even has a crush. But her grandparents change that. Overnight, Sunni’s mother transforms from a successful academic into the dutiful Indian daughter. She wears saris and cooks traditional Indian food. Sunni feels like she doesn’t know her own family any more. She certainly doesn’t know who she is.

She tells her Grandfather, “I wish Mom and Dad had stayed in India. Then I would be one hundred percent Indian, like those cousins Didu is always bragging about. Or if I had been born here and had been American—I mean really American—you know, born-in-the-U.S.A. and all that patriotic land-where-my-fathers-died stuff. Maybe then life would be less complicated” (87-88).

To see how Sunni reconciles the two parts of her identity, American and Indian, read The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen by Mitali Perkins.

The Girl, the Dragon, and the Wild Magic by Dave Luckett

Luckett, Dave. The Girl, the Dragon, and the Wild Magic. New York: Scholastic, 2000.

Rhianna has a logical nature. She would make a great mathematician or cook. The problem is Rhianna’s not studying math or cooking. She’s studying magic. Magic is imprecise. Magic doesn’t have rules. She tells her mother, “Mother…I tried. I studied, I really did. But it all gets mixed-up, somehow. It all comes out wrong. I get confused. There are no rules…nothing ever makes sense” (15). Rhianna is about to be expelled from magic school because she’s a dunce when she learns something very important about her self. She’s a Wild Talent. Her magic is very powerful and hard to control. It also drains all the other magic around it. To find out how Rhianna copes with her Wild magic, read The Girl, the Dragon, and the Wild Magic by Dave Luckett.