As much as I adore the Twilight book series… the movies are really not that great. Well… the first one was terrible. I haven’t seen New Moon yet.

But we all know that when push comes to shove, I’m a Buffy girl through and through. So I absolutely love this vid:

I’m reminded of the things that I am passionate about (food and books) and what I want to do with them. One day I will own my own bookstore/cafe.

There are several recipes I want to try now, including:

• Braised Cucumbers
• Boeuf Bourguignon (which I finally know how to pronounce now!)
• And even… Aspic. Okay, not really. I can’t imagine eating this.

I’m also filled with the urge to bone a duck. I don’t think that will be on my menu any time soon though.

But I do have a project in mind for 2010. One that combines the things that I love. This could be the start of something beautiful.

A suburban community and a state of mind, The Master Plan explores Christian youth culture in America. Inspired by the neo-icons and modern myths of youth group pop-culture, we find KRISTI, a high-school Senior with seemingly supernatural powers, mystical dreams, and an affinity for existential detective films.

There are a few trailers up on the site – here’s one of them:

The director doesn’t identify as Christian, but it’s clear that he believes his character to be. He is exploring what evangelical Christianity looks like in today’s youth culture. I’m curious to see the whole movie to see how he portrays evangelical Christianity (based on the trailers, he seems to nail it) and how he portrays youth and how they respond to it (not so sure he got that one right).

I’d definitely like to see this.

NEW MOON. I know, I know. I was disappointed by Twilight and I’ll likely be disappointed by New Moon. But still. I have to see it. And the previews look so much better than Twilight‘s.

Looks like another movie I’ll be going to see alone!

Let’s start with the casting. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Ever since the cast was announced, I’ve thought it was all wrong. The posters and pictures I saw just weren’t right. They were pretty actors and actresses, but they weren’t my crew from Forks. But seeing them in costume and makeup I’d have to say that they nailed it, for the most part. I still think Charlie was wrong. And Mike. And Angela. And definitely Eric and Tyler. They managed to pull it off, but it was somewhat off. There was only one that absolutely no way no how did not work for me. Jasper. Jasper was all wrong. Creepy wrong. But the one I thought was the most wrong before I saw the movie turned out to be very very right. Jacob. My oh my, Jacob. Hello my Jacob.

Alice, Rosalie, and Emmett were absolutely dead on. No one else was cast as well as these three. Carlisle didn’t completely work for me, simply because he was too rugged. Plus Peter Facinelli just doesn’t look good blonde.  Bella and Edward were… meh. They grew on me. But it still didn’t really work.

The biggest downfall of the movie was that there was no character development. The best and most famous line of the book was when Edward tells Bella that she is his brand of heroin. In the book, he didn’t have to say that. We already knew. You could feel the heat between the two of them jump off the pages. In the movie, he had to say it because if he didn’t, you wouldn’t have known. There was absolutely no chemistry between them on screen. Which is why I think this movie was a complete failure. There would be no story without Bella and Edward’s love. But that love was not visible on screen. The lines were delivered, but that was all.

There were, however, a few good points. But a scant few. In fact, I’m having trouble remembering what they are. The fight between Edward and James was well played. The baseball game was good. There was a teensy bit of chemistry between Bella and Edward when they were in the tree that made me smile.

Few other nitpicks… the Cullens’ house was all wrong. The prom was wrong. Tyler was supposed to think he was taking Bella to the prom. The way Bella discovered what Edward is was wrong.

Okay I’ll stop tearing it apart now. Bottom line, it fell way short of the mark for me. But it’s a part of the Twilight canon, so I’ll still be buying the DVD.

Wow.

I absolutely loved it. Seriously. Go see it.