Earlier today, I snagged a copy of Katy Perry’s new album.  By snagged I mean that I bought it from iTunes, but snagged sounds better.  I’m disappointed with the album. Katy Perry doesn’t have a particularly strong voice, so the number of ballads made the album feel completely underwhelming.  I sincerely hoped the entire album had a California Gurls vibe, but it was a lot more Teenage Dream than anything else. In any case, the album does have a few good songs, and I suppose it was a better purchase than three cans of  Red Bull.

Having listened to it beginning to end with no pauses, stops, or repeats – the way I always listen to a new album -I decided it was complete pop fluff with one exception: Who Am I Living For?

Check it out (and ignore the certain air of cheese, that seems obligatory when making this sort of video. And the spelling/grammar mistakes, for that matter. I did not make this video):

I am ready for the road less traveled
Suiting up for my crowning battle
This test is my own cross to bear
But I will get there

It’s never easy to be chosen, never easy to be called
Standing on the frontline when the bomb starts to fall
I can see the heavens but I still hear the flames
Calling out my name

I can see the writing on the wall
I can’t ignore this war
At the end of it all
Who am I living for?

This really stuck out as a timely reminder to always consider who I’m living for.

You can suit up to do battle, walk the least traveled road, and bear the most difficult cross, but, at the end of it all, what does it matter if you’re doing it for yourself or for purely selfish motivations?  The thing that keeps me forging ahead, no matter how difficult it may be, is the knowledge I’m not living for me. Although I’m not a particular fan of The Purpose Driven Life, I believe everyone should open the book and read the first line: “It’s not about you!”  Living out our selfishness and narcissistic tendencies may lead to the appearance of success, but it doesn’t lead to purpose of fulfillment.

Here’s a little something upon which I’ve been reflecting:

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Philippians 2:1-11 (The Message)

Tonight I tempted fate.  A one-time Twihard, I dangled myself precariously close to the world of vampires and shapeshifters created by the infamous Stephenie Meyer, with hopes I could see the third film in the Twilight franchise without succumbing to the the Twicrack once more. I’m glad to announce I emerged from the cineplex unscathed, although quite startled.  After the train wreck that was New Moon, I had low expectations for Eclipse. I suppose it didn’t help that every trailer released made the film seem unintentionally hilarious.  I anticipated more cheesy “special” effects, gaping plot holes, and a super-sized helping of the world’s worst acting; I was pleasantly disappointed.

For those of you who have taken the high ground and avoided all things Twilight, I’ll summarize the plot briefly:

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is a masochistic, mopey teenager, who leaves her Arizona home after her mother remarries, opting to live with her father in Forks, Washington. Although Bella is nervous about being the new kid at tiny Forks High School, she assures herself that “nobody wants to bite her.” Enter Edward Cullen, vampire extraordinaire. Edward is part of a large vampire family; he has two parents – Carlisle and Esme – and four siblings – Rosalie, Emmet, Jasper, and Alice.  They all have superpowers, like the X-men, but way less awesome. Edward finds Bella irresistible to his vampire appetite, but Bella assumes he’s an ass for avoiding. Then he saves her from a speeding minivan that will surely crush he with a single bound that would make even Superman jealous.  She falls madly in love with the pigheaded, boorish, mopey Edward, despite the fact he is overbearing, overprotective, and overly comfortable climbing through her window to watch her whilst she sleeps obliviously. Perfect, right?  Pretty much, once Bella learns that Edward is a vampire, anyway. Everything is peachy until Victoria, James, and Laurent, three nomadic vampires, pass through Forks. James decides he wants to eat Bella, but Edward is still undecided about whether or not he wants to eat her or date her. Bella must flee Forks while Edward’s family of vampires begin a search and destroy mission to get rid of James. At the end of Twilight, Edward kills James and they all go back to Forks. And they go to the Prom.

New Moon begins with Bella’s birthday party and lots of annoying quotes from Romeo and Juliet. Bella gets a paper cut, which sends Jasper into a feeding frenzy. The logical solution is for Edward to dump Bella and move the entire family out of Forks so that none of them will eat her. Meanwhile, Victoria is plotting revenge. Remember that. Bella sits in a depressive rut until she starts hanging out with Jacob Black, a native american kid with whom she played as a child. Bella continues to play with Jacob, using him as an emotional crutch while Edward is gone. When Alice uses her psychic powers to check on Bella, she sees her cliff diving and wrongly interprets this as Bella committing suicide. (If this is what Bella’s BFF thinks of her, it speaks volumes about her disfunction, no?).  This spurs Edward on to suicide.  He decides to piss of an ancient clan of Italian vampires called the Volturi so that they will destroy him. His plan is to expose his glittering vampire flesh at high noon in the middle of their crowded city streets – a big no-no, duh! – with hopes they will tear him limb from limb. Alice sees that she was wrong and goes to fetch Bella because she is the only one that can stop him!  Together they fly to Italy, steal a Porsche, and catch Edward just in time. They also meet the Volturi. It is decided that Bella must become a vampire, lest she ruin all of vampiredome by knowing their secrets; Edward does not like this.  Neither does Jacob. And then Edward proposes to Bella, which makes perfect sense because they haven’t even graduated high school yet. Jacob runs off in a strop and Bella is adamant that she wont marry anyone right out of high school because everyone will just think she’s knocked up.

Unlike the previous films, Eclipse actually had a sense of cohesion about it.  New Moon [especially] had a scattered feeling to it; characters made massive, life-changing decisions with flimsy motivation (if any was apparent). The few scenes with the broader scope of characters were not enough to chop up the non-performance given by Kristin Stuart.  And it seemed the goal of the special effects department was to continue in the groan-worthy footsteps of Twilight. I really felt that David Slade was able to chip away at these issues and start to form something that resembled a decent film.

It also helped that someone obviously took screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg out for coffee and explained that a lot of people watching the film – parents, big sisters, boyfriends – have never (and will never) read a Twilight book. Shocking concept, I know. Frankly, I expected more from the woman that cut her teeth as a writer on Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman and Party of Five (sarcasm, I assure you). In any case, coffee was bought and consumed over a riveting conversation which had the desired effect, and Rosenberg wrote the screen adaptation in a way that really explained the backstory and motivation for most of the story.  There is only question I could imagine a Twi-virgin asking the person with whom he attended: “Who are those Volturi people?” And, of course, “Why are those two moderately attractive guys so obsessed with such a mopey, egocentric, masochistic, annoying, homely girl that cannot act?” This is a vast improvement.

As with the prior films, the best acting comes from those in relatively small roles. Billy Burke, who plays Charlie Swan, Bella’s father, steals every scene he’s in. He has great comic timing. And his mustache is pretty legit, too. Ashley Green and Jackson Rathbone play Cullen couple Alice and Jasper; their chemistry is fairly tangible, and it’s fun to watch them together.  Newcomer Xavier Samuel plays Riley Biers, Victoria’s sidekick, and delivers a convincingly painful performance of his transformation to a vampire.  In addition, someone clearly slipped a laxative in Robert Pattinson’s coffee, because he manages to show some emotional range in the film, and – upon a few occasions – actually looks genuinely pained, frustrated, elated, or in love. Perhaps the best casting decision for Eclipse was to replace Rachelle Lefevre (Victoria) with Bryce Dallas Howard. Howard brought a doe-eyed vulnerability to Victoria that added a lot of dimension to the character.

Most importantly, I was entertained. I didn’t expect Eclipse to be a great film. It’s not Oscar worthy. I could rip it to shreds for the negative messages it sends young women or the ridiculous plot line, but that’s entirely beyond the point.  This is not a film one goes to see if one wishes to find food for thought! That would be like drinking Arbor Mist and turning up my nose because it’s not a vintage Shiraz. It’s frivolous fun. And I had frivolous fun watching it! For a film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s brainchild, it’s pretty darn good.

My family sucks at picking movies.  If we were in a life or death situation with no way to save ourselves – with exception to choosing a quality film from the OnDemand menu – we would suffer a slow and painful death. We order pizza, pour drinks, and order the world’s worst films; it has become a weekly ritual. With a selection much smaller than that of a traditional Blockbuster set up at our disposal, we wade through unfamiliar titles and allow ourselves to be conned by the enticing plot descriptions.  Tonight, we (to be fair, it was my mother and I) cast our votes for The Good Guy based on the fact Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore, herself) was in the leading female role.  Here’s the trailer:

Within the first ten minutes, it made perfect sense that Alexis Bledel has been relatively unemployed since Gilmore Girls came to an end. Bledel doesn’t have the acting chops to make an audience forget awkward, shy Rory Gilmore; she is far from convincing as a Manhattan career type.  The plot picks up as Rory (er, um, I don’t even remember her character’s name) is getting serious with her far-too-pretty Wall Street hotshot boyfriend.  Wall Street appears to be the only classy guy at his office of misogynistic salesmen. He also works with Uber-Nerd, whose only personality trait is “niceness.”  Uber-Nerd is the butt of ever office joke; he also wears his blackberry affixed to his belt.  Wall Street coaches Uber-Nerd, hoping he’ll develop some skill with the ladies. Thankfully, Wall Street doesn’t change Uber-Nerd, and it soon becomes clear that Uber-Nerd and Rory are perfect for one another. Only Rory can’t see this because she’s so very enamored with Wall Street.  Rory and Uber-Nerd develop a friendship, and he attends her ladies bookclub, at which they discuss classic literature. Meanwhile, Wall Street and Co. are convinced that Uber-Nerd must be dark and twisty inside – or gay – because there is no way humanly possible that anyone can be that nice.  In actuality, they simply cannot see beyond their own depravity.  Wall Street, we find, has numerous girlfriends; at his lowest point he even hires a hooker when none of them answer his calls.  As Wall Street greets his hooker, Rory meets Kristal (Kristen? Kristy?), his infamous, crazy ex-girlfriend. In a not at all surprising twist, Rory learns that Kristal is actually his current girlfriend. Gasp. This drives her directly into the arms of Uber-Nerd.  The film ends as Uber-Nerd and Rory contemplate a future together and Wall Street uses the pick-up line he offered Rory to hook-up with another unsuspecting, doe-eyed idiot. The End (thank goodness).

The film is littered with some of the worst attempts at foreshadowing I’ve come across since reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (within the first chapter Bella reassures herself that she can attend Forks High because it’s not like anyone wants to bite her).   The book club discussions become a forum for Uber-Nerd to drop one liners towards Rory, such as, “He loved her more than his life. That’s what love is. Everything else is just a distraction. **deep, probing gaze.**”  They read A Good Solider by Ford Madox Ford, and discuss the main character – a former solider, just like Uber-Nerd – and his decision to shatter his perfect facade by making a play for his friend’s girl; at this point Rory informs us that she got halfway through reading the book and realized that she was far too trusting of the narrator and that she believes his story to be utter bull.  Did I mention the fact that Wall Street narrates the film?  (insert facepalm here)

I was even more frustrated by the way that everything in the film was over-done. Wall Street’s friends weren’t just edgy playboys, they punctuated every exclamation with profanity and acted like sexist pigs.  Uber-Nerd wasn’t just a nice, quiet guy – he was a caricature of niceness with few quirks. And his favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. Wall Street wasn’t just a philanderer, he was the Tiger Woods of the financial sector.  The film was completely lacking subtlety and nuance.

Simply put, The Good Guy was absolutely terrible.