Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Are you SURE you want a new post?


Seriously, I had NO intention of making a Twilight post.  Really.  But, my good buddy Joey has been politely suggesting I post new art instead of the decade old junk I have been posting (my words, not his).  And believe it or not, I actually do have a few new things to post- but they're not really at any stage at which I'd like to present them.  So, I'm left with this.  God help me. 

These actually came first.  As you can see by the dates, they were done on New Year's Eve/Day- so if I were a smart man, I'd chalk it up to the alcohol.  Except I wasn't drinking.  Nope, my usual NYE tradition is to sit down with a bunch of movies and watch them till I fall asleep, then wake up and keep watching.  This year, for a number of reasons, I wasn't really feeling the desire to watch movies- the ones I picked weren't catching my attention, my mind was distracted, I was just pissed at something, take your pick.  But weirdly enough, though I was all over the place and in a not-good mood, I did feel like drawing.  Except for the fact that I had no idea what to draw.  As usual.  What to draw, what to draw...

I borrowed Twilight from my niece because I figured if I was going to keep hating on it, I should at least try to watch it first.  Then go on with hating, but informed hating.  Hating out of ignorance is so gauche.  'Hate out of knowledge', that's my motto (well, that and 'not in the face!' but that's another story).  I didn't watch it then- what are you, crazy? the night was already sucking- but it was lying there in my line of sight.  I saw the cover of the dvd case and thought to myself- 'dude, his face would be SO EASY to caricature.'  So, struck by the urge to draw ANYTHING, I took a stab at it.  And, honestly, I kind of like it.  Silly, not terribly accurate (I'll leave that to many other more talented people), but I thought it worked.  So, drunk on my 'success', I decided to try to draw poor Bella.  That one didn't turn out quite so successful as Edward- her face is just too boring to really sink my artistic teeth into (though she's certainly a pretty girl in real life, just not a very striking face to parody).  She did have those nice gothy eyes, so I tried to give them a little life.  Overall, I did get a kick out of it, and was surprised by how well it worked, even as an exercise in drawing something I had no interest in- except to HATE!

Cut to This past Sunday.  Bored.  Boredboredbored.  What to watch?  No fresh netflix, and not ready to dive in to the last season of The Sandbaggers just yet.  Hmm... LotR?  Too long, too late... Hitchhiker's Guide?  Nah, not feeling the humor.  Well not that kind of humor.  Hmm... Jeez- There's friggin' Twilight.  I should probably get this over with.  So, I sat down and watched it. 

And you know what?  It was actually pretty go----  HAH!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  LIKE I'D ACTUALLY SAY IT WAS PRETTY GOOD!  Please.

It didn't suck as badly as I thought.  Make no mistake, it wasn't all that great- the acting was... uneven, the effects very low-grade (when I heard ILM worked on this I nearly spit out my beverage), and the story... well, I know it's not written for me, but neither was Harry Potter but I can still get something meaningful out of that.  What meaning I get out of this was, 'I'll never be able to predict what's popular.'  But for all that, it wasn't terrible.  There were some amusing moments in there (like the random synaptic firings of someone remembering they'd once been told a story of a trip to a theater where they showed a really bad copy of a John Hughes teen movie) and I really did get a kick out of VAMPIRE BASEBALL.  I also liked Alice- she strikes me as batsh!t crazy. 

As I've described it, It's a SciFi Saturday movie as produced by the Lifetime Network.

And all things being equal, from what I've heard, I'd rather watch this a dozen times than read the book once. 

And that, my friends, is why you've got this as your new art.

Oh, and one last Twilight observation.  The soundtracks for both of the movies are actually really good.  The music is easily superior to the films, and the lead tracks ('Decode' by Paramore for Twilight and 'Meet Me on the Equinox' by Death Cab for Cutie for New Moon) are both do a fantastic job of conveying the emotions I think the films are trying (and failing) to get across.  If you want a good summary of the movies, watch the videos.  Shorter, and better.

Okay, one more thing.  Sorry for any inadvertent puns in the above- it was how my mind processed this stuff.

Cheers!

Music: 'Meet Me on the Equinox'- Death Cab for Cutie (It's a really good, dark song- honest!)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not in the face!!