The Obligatory "New Moon" Response

It happened.

I broke down and saw the second installment of the Twilight series. My friend Stuart invited me.

Prior to the movie, I took a pretty uppity tone with my friend Stuart. He had enjoyed the first movie and I had not (although my experience was tainted by the fact that I saw it with a boy who tried taking advantage of me in a foreign country…). We have different tastes.

Here's our exchange of texts for the evening after we'd decided to go:

GMB: Thanks for the invite tonight. Do I have permission to heckle?
Stuart: Over what?
GMB: The cheesiness of the movie.
Stuart: Get over it. You know it's going to be good.
GMB: I'm taking a notebook to write down the worst lines. And maybe to sketch Jacob's six-pack
Stuart: You know we are going for the eye candy!
GMB: Not for the complex plot and 3-dimensional characters and their nuanced romance?
Stuart: Literary junkie!
GMB: Call me a snob if I enjoy the abstract and the aesthetic
Stuart: Now, now. It's just playful banter.
GMB: That's what makes this fun. I like to pull out the word 'aesthetic' every chance I get.

Needless to say, I didn't go into the movie taking it half as seriously as the eight sixteen year old girls sitting next to me in the theater. As the moon appeared on the screen and morphed into the title card for the movie, a chorus of cat calls erupted.

Seriously, what is wrong with these girls? (And twenty-something gay men?)
Although I would have liked to have gained some insight to love or how we treat each other in watching this film, the moral seemed pretty disconcerting. Are brooding men with violent tendencies supposed to be attractive?
Let's face it…even if Edward (or Jacob) is so dang cute (and they are…more so Jacob), shouldn't the potential for domestic violence be a relationship deal-breaker?

Social morality diatribe aside, the film doesn't have much to offer that I couldn't find elsewhere:
If I wanted to hear a teenage girl whine about a breakup for an hour and a half, I would go speak with one of any number of my cousins.
If I wanted cheesy lines, I'd go buy some Laughy Taffy in bulk.
And finally,
If I wanted to stare at hot, half-naked men, I'd go to one of many resources on the web created expressly for that purpose.

Instead, read these rejected screenplays for Twilight and New Moon. You'll save time and not even need to test your threshold for pain.