New Moon

I'm really ashamed to admit it but I saw New Moon exactly 2 days after it was released. I only saw Twilight this year so I have no idea how I allowed myself to go with a friend to a Friday night screening with the screaming masses of teenage girls (and a few rogue boys).


Seriously I have not seen the Twimania before close hand. I know I've seen the previews around the world and all the girls lining up for a view of Rob Patterson but I was not prepared for the line just to get in to our seats.


Then more embarrassingly the screams, applause whenever Jacob took his shirt off. Dear lord, I looked at my 33 year old friend and silently our eyes said: 'We're too old for this shit.'


The actual movie: okay. I think I love to hate the book series, the author and the films. Bella is so damn annoying as I've said before, more so in the book and I don't really get the deal with Edward. Jacob though in the movie has really buffed up and the girls in the cinema really loooved him. The wolves special effects in my opinion were pretty well done, seamless and you know kinda cool.


There was actually a bit of muffled laughter and ewws when Edward took his shirt off towards the end. Actually felt a bit sorry for Edward and his lowly excuse of a six pack and general pastyness (I can say it cos I live it).




On a completly different tangent, my friends and I were having this discussion about young girls on Saturday night and it has been on my mind for some time. What is with their attitude and the way they dress now? I was 12-17 from 1996- 2001 and there is no way I was ever that fashionable or knowledgeable about certain behaviours (read: sexual) at that age. I was wearing cargo shorts and having movie marathon sleepovers not sliding myself into bloody leather leggings and posting cleavage enhancing profile pictures on facebook.


It was only 8 years ago but I really felt like I had a childhood, which I am supremely grateful.
I never had a boyfriend in high school and while this seemed like the end of the world in the late 90s, right now I am glad.
What I remember most about high school is the great times I had with my friends and the silly stupid kid stuff we did. Like filming our own horror movie at 15 and when I did actually hit 18 and start going out to clubs I wasn't a supreme confident queen swanning around I see now binge drinking 4 nights a week and using the disabled toilet if you know what I mean.
Maybe I've hit middle age at 25 and these darn kids today are just normal in our progressing society but I still treasure my adolescence for what it was, glamorous or not.

Thanks to behindblondiepark.com for the image.

Speak and others

I finished Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson on about the second day in Bali. I got some kind of platinum edition from Borders, it has some extra interview with the author, a new foreword (there's a movie based on the book? Probably going to be slightly more educational and up to date than what we were forced to watch in Health ed class - Sarah T- Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic circa 1975, yes I went to a public school) at the back and an interesting page layout but I think that's all that's platinum about it.

I got lured into this book by the awards it has won, and the secret that Melinda has and which I was curious to find out about and how it affected her. Ultimately it is revealed she was raped and she calls the police to help her but they also break up the huge Summer party she was attending. She gets back to school the following year and her friends have disbanded into other groups and everyone knows her as the girl who broke up the party. She has not told anyone about the rape.

I can imagine this book being popular on school reading lists, although in my experience in high school we had a drama teacher who did not give us the option of studying the Australian play Black Rock which was also turned into a film in 1997 with Heath Ledger in a small role. It dealt with the rape and murder of a young girl in a surfing town and how the truth comes out.
Our teacher said that he didn't want to bring that (meaning the issue of murder and rape I'm guessing) into the classroom.
Admittedly I never read the play but did watch the film which had rape scenes and were hard to watch. But also avoiding the issue is not going to help raise awareness. Surely at the age that we were at the time (17) which was around the same age of the characters in the play/film would have had longer lasting effects than watching it when we were a bit older and had 'been around the block'.

I still remember watching the film Threads in social studies when I was 14 and it terrified the shit out of me. Another friend in the same class still remembers too. It dealt with the after effects of a nuclear explosion in Britain and while it scared me, it was a real no holds barred look at what could happen if that situation occurred and knowing this and being terrified of it is power in a way.
Didn't mean to turn into a rant but it happens.
In more lighthearted news, Bali was so relaxing, I also read Larry Doyle's I Love You, Beth Cooper, I got a lot of mosquito bites, went horse riding, fed a few very hungry elephants (they eat 200kg a day!) and have started reading Valley of the Dolls.

Edit: Speak came out in 2004..must have missed that one. And it stared the always great Kristen Stewart. Sarcasm, sorry I can't work out who's more overrated her or Megan Fox.


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511F9YA7EFL.jpg for the image.