Filmonic » Twilight

Summit to re-release Twilight

Liam — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:13:45 +0000

Oh my god it’s happening again! Save yourselves! Summit Entertainment have decided to re-release Twilight into selected theatres again due to fan demand. For one night only on November 19th (the day before New Moon opens) fans will be able to see the film that launched this whole vampire and Robert Pattinson craze. According to Variety some places may offer discounted admission prices so if you’ve never seen Twilight now is your chance to see it on the cheap!

While I’m not a fan of the films this is quite a cool move by Summit, and studios should do this more often. Marvel should consider releasing Iron Man again a day before Iron Man 2 opens, and the same with other studios with upcoming sequels. The big screen will always be a better experiences even if you own the film on DVD and Blu-ray.

Review: Thirst Satisfies

Dave — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:47:07 +0000

I’m a sucker for vampire films (pun recognized, but not intended) and spend an unusual amount of time thinking about the origins of the mythological trope and the rules of the monsters that have resurged into the spotlight, only being outpaced by superheros in today’s pop culture landscape.

I’m willing to accept that this might give me a pre-bias for Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s newest thriller, Thirst, because it does vampire well. Thirst presents a vampire story where the monster isn’t the basis of the entire plot and when romance enters the fray, it’s not the central point of the story.

Twilight is a Mormon romance between an idiot little girl and a vampire who happened to be turned when he looked like Robert Pattinson. True Blood hinges on the premise that vampires have “come out of the coffin” and sets its action in backwoods Louisiana, which is visually fantastical in the first place, to lull you into the premise before going crazy with inter-vampire politics and an obsession with drawing out the rules of vampires (It’s season 2 and I’m still not sure what powers a vampire’s Maker has over his/her Ward). Twilight’s vampire love says “look but don’t touch” while True Blood’s all about the sucking & f*cking. Thirst plays like a fever dream in comparison.

Song Kang-ho plays the man-of-the-cloth, Sang-hyun, who genuinely wants to help save lives by exposing himself to a deadly tropical virus so he can be a guinea pig for a new, ineffective, vaccine. Of 500 godly subjects infected, he is the only one who survives the horrible last stage of the virus: violently puking blood. As he’s dying in the quarantined hospital, he’s given a transfusion of infected blood that brings him back to life.

Suddenly, he’s a man of Christ again; a healer of the sick. His boils and pustules from the virus begin to disappear and he’s reunited with a family from his past, the drunken Madame Ra (Kim Hae-sook) and her near-mentally handicapped son Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun). When Sang-hyun was an orphan being raised by monks, Madame Ra used to let young Sang-hyun play with her son. Also present in the household is Tae-ju (the talented Kim Ok-vin, who effortlessly swings from hurt and sexy to creepy and dangerous), an orphaned girl semi-adopted by Madame Ra.

Tae-ju is a lot like Cinderella from the first moments we see her; quiet, subservient and treated more like a pet or a nurse than a daughter. She has thick calluses on her feet from running aimlessly through the city at night, running from how trapped she feels. Madame Ra refers to her as a puppy and Tae-ju herself says she’s been the family’s dog for years.

To his horror, Sang-hyun discovers he needs blood to keep the deadly virus at bay, the healing factor of a vampire is the only thing keeping him undead. At first, he quietly feeds on a coma patient by sucking blood through an IV like a straw. One of his mentors, a blind and wheelchair bound monk lets him feed off his wrists occasionally. Sang-hyun also finds himself lusting after Tae-ju, an attraction she seems to return.

And that’s the summary of the first act, the titular Thirst takes over from there and takes the audience on a wild, twisted ride through the negative consequences of unbridled desire. Sang-hyun has dual thirsts, one for blood and one for sex with Tae-ju. His priesthood is quick to go as Tae-ju flirts with him. She thirsts for freedom from her suffocating life, but knows she can’t attain it while she’s in a forced marriage to Madame Ra’s retard child.

Throughout the beginning of the film, the plot lurches forward while Park and cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon create an atmosphere of foreboding. Park’s script, adapted from Émile Zola’s novel “Thérèse Raquin,” has a lot of humor, but the laughter gets more uncomfortable as the film turns into a noir flick about a seemingly-innocent and abused wife using sex to goad a priest into murdering her husband.

As soon as Sang-hyun breaks his no-killing rule, the film snaps and Park, the same director that brought us Oldboy in all its disturbing glory, jumps from sequence to sequence taking apart his main character in brutal fashion.

The film has a little misogynistic slant to it, when we learn that Tae-ju uses her sex to manipulate and will go to excessive, emotionally devastating and self-mutilating lengths to get what she wants. When the love story sours and Tae-ju decides she thirsts for a new type of freedom – the freedom to kill – the message seems to be that when a girl discovers the power of her sex it is both empowering and terrifying. Kim Ok-vin plays her part as half-mad/half-succubus and 100% predator.

Thirst’s plot isn’t as coherent as some will hope. But the movie is a mosaic of imagery, violence and genuine questions about desire and ethics, love and bloodlust.

It just happens to be about vampires.

The reason that Thirst is such a shining example of a vampire movie in the times of vampire-saturation is because it’s not a monster story or a love story. The vampire, culturally, has always transformed itself to become what we fear. Very early on, a vampire was just a curse that would kill family members or infants in the Dark Ages. Bram Stoker made vampires about sex, Ann Rice made them about loneliness and tormented feelings about your identity, Stephanie Meyer made them sparkle.

But vampires are none of these things. They were meant to be romantic because evil is always tempting and seductive, not because a strong, eternally young stud is what every teenage girl dreams of. Vampires work best when they are used as they were intended to be: as a metaphor for the evil we fear; what’s lurking in the dark, what looks like such a gift even when you know its hell masquerading as heaven.

Thirst shows us a man becoming a monster by showing us what happens when you give into desires you know are wrong. That monster just happens to be a vampire priest.

If you can stand subtitles, seek this one out.

Twilight DVD release date

Liam — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:59:33 +0000

It has been announced that the DVD for Twilight will be released on March 21st.

The Two-Disc Special Edition DVD will include extended and deleted scenes, three music videos, a commentary with director Catherine Hardwicke, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, a featurette on the “Comic-Con Phenomenon” and an in-depth, seven-part documentary, The Adventure Begins: The Journey from Page to Screen, that takes the fan through each step of the film-making process.”

You can pre-order your copy by clicking the image below!

Twilight (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Catherine Hardwicke not directing New Moon

Liam — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:04:04 +0000

Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke will not be directing it’s sequel, New Moon. The news first broke on Deadline Hollywood, where it stated that Hardwick “was ‘difficult’ and ‘irrational’ during the making of Twilight”. However, Summit Entertainment quickly released a statement on the matter:

Summit Entertainment and director Catherine Hardwicke jointly announced today that the filmmaker will not be directing the next installment in the newly minted “Twilight” film franchise. Summit’s targeted end of 2009 or early 2010 release of the film, New Moon, does not work with Ms. Hardwicke’s required prep time to bring her vision of the film to the big screen. Thus as has been done before with many successful film franchises, the studio will employ a new director for New Moon.

All eyes will be on Catherine Hardwicke tomorrow during the European press tour in France. Was she fired by Summit or does she really have prep timing issues?

New Moon to Start Filming in March

Liam — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 01:03:45 +0000

I am sure everyone is fully aware of Twilight and the huge amount of money it has made since it was released. As of now the film has tripled it’s budget, so it’s no surprise Summit Entertainment want to get their fangs out again for a second round. After the huge opening weekend Summit officially greenlight the sequel, New Moon, and now Kristen Stewart told Ryan Seacrest on KiisFM that filming would begin as early as next March.

I haven’t seen Twilight and don’t intend to. Infact I am getting tired of writing the word ‘Twilight’, so it’s a good job the next movie won’t be called ‘Twilight 2′ otherwise I would simply boycott writing about it.

New Moon On It’s Way

Liam — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:14:16 +0000

On Friday Twilight was released in the US and earned a whooping $35.7 million, which was the second biggest opening day gross outside of summer after Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which grossed $40.4 million on its first Friday in November 2005. After those big numbers it doesn’t really matter whether it was any good or not (it has a Rotten 44% on Rotten Tomatoes), therefore Summit Entertainment are moving forward with the sequel, New Moon.

From the press release:

Summit Entertainment announced today that the studio is officially moving forward with the production of NEW MOON, the second installment of its filmed franchise TWILIGHT, the action-packed, modern day vampire love story. The movie will be based on the second novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series titled, New Moon. The first movie in the TWILIGHT franchise, the self-titled TWILIGHT, arrived in theaters this weekend to sold-out showings.
Stephenie Meyer stated, “I don’t think any other author has had a more positive experience with the makers of her movie adaptation than I have had with Summit Entertainment. I’m thrilled to have the chance to work with them again on NEW MOON.”

Twilight Reviews

Liam — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:25:39 +0000

Reviews for the vampire film Twilight have started to pop up online. After around 70 reviews the movie has a rotten 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, however despite the reviews the movie will probably be the best movie ever made for hardcore fans. Although I’m sure there will be a small majority of fans who will think it didn’t meet their expectations.

Here is an overview of the reviews so far:

Cinematical:

Vampire purists may shudder, and the male population in general may grimace, but, despite the missteps, Twilight succeeds as an action-oriented modern-day fairy tale with a strong romantic appeal.

Arrowinthehead.com

TWILIGHT is a Harlequin Romance for thirteen year old girls. They will look past the poor pacing, the not quite so special, special effects and the overly long running time. It looks good enough and has pleasant enough leads to warrant the many squeals the audience I saw it with gave. But I will say that the locations were quite beautiful so it only adds to the attractive cast.

Entertainment Weekly

Getting Catherine Hardwicke to direct Twilight was a shrewd move, because the youthquake specialist of Thirteen treats teen confusion without a trace of condescension: She gets their grand passions and prickly defense mechanisms. She has reconjured Meyer’s novel as a cloudburst mood piece filled with stormy skies, rippling hormones, and understated visual effects. What Hardwicke can’t quite triumph over is the book’s lackluster plot. On screen, Twilight is repetitive and a tad sodden, too prosaic to really soar. But Hardwicke stirs this teen pulp to a pleasing simmer.

Screenrant:

Twilight, at least for a select group of ladies, has been THE most anticipated movie of 2008 – and their wait is finally over. The question is: Was it worth it?
For them, yes.
For the rest of us? Eh, not so much.

L.A Times:

It’s very much to the credit of director Catherine Hardwicke and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg that “Twilight” the movie really gets this. This film succeeds, likely unreservedly for teens and in a classic guilty pleasure kind of way for adults, because it treats high school emotions with unwavering, uncompromising seriousness. Much as you may not want to, you have to acknowledge what’s been accomplished here.

Chud:

I almost feel bad for Twilight as a movie. It’s cheap and shoddy and often mediocre, and if it had just come out and been a standard, middle of the road teen release, people might have looked at it with a less critical eye. Instead it comes into theaters as the blockbuster-elect, selling out shows a week in advance and fomenting teenybopper riots at publicity events.

Summit Entertainment Hire Writer For Twilight Sequels

Liam — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 22:36:33 +0000

It looks like Summit Entertainment are betting on Twilight making tonnes of money when it is released next month, as they have acquired rights to the next three novels in Stephenie Meyer’s vampire series, and have also hired Twilight writer Melissa Rosenberg to write the scripts, based on the books “New Moon” and “Eclipse”. It is interesting to note that the fourth book “Breaking Dawn” has not attached a writer. This is most likely because Summit want to see how things go with the trilogy before setting off on a fourth adventure.

In other news, the soundtrack to Twilight became #1 on the Billboard 200 this week, becoming the third No. 1 soundtrack this year after Juno and Mamma Mia! It also knocked AC/DC off in the process. [You can get your copy by clicking here]

Twilight Clip On Heroes

Liam — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:42:09 +0000

Twilight fans may be interested to know that an exclusive clip will be featured during Monday’s episode of Heroes (9/8c on NBC). The clip will be introduced by Robert Pattinson, who plays Edward in the film.

The film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Jacob Black, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Nikki Reed and evolves around seventeen-year-old Isabella “Bella” Swan who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington, and finds her life in danger when she falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen.

Twilight will be released on November 21st in the US, and December 19th in the UK.

Final Twilight Trailer!

Liam — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:15:20 +0000

The final trailer for Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight has Youtubed it’s way online. The film stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Cam Gigandet and here are a couple of fan reactions from Youtube that will get you all excited for this final trailer:

OMG!!!! I’m gasping for air!!! i’m sooo excited!!! This has just made my day!! I made my mom watch this and she was just rolling her eyes at my reaction. I think I scared her because I was soo happy!!! EEPPP!!!

THIS IS SO AMAZING!!!! I have tears in my eyes, seriously! I haven’t been this happy in a LONG time! This movie is going to be absolutely incredible! I can’t wait!

OMFG. THE APPLE PART WAS SO COOL. 8D that makes me wanna bounce an apple off my shoe and make it land in my hands like that.

You get the idea….Watch it below!