Twilight...the movie

A couple of months ago, I decided to join the craze and read the Twilight series. It's technically a young adult series of books, but I kinda liked it. I had some issues with the writing style, but frankly, the storyline is pretty intriguing. In a nutshell...a human girl, Bella, falls in love with Edward. Who just happens to be a vampire. And who just happens to find the smell of her blood irresistible. There are 4 books in the series; I read the first 3 books within a few days in August, and I read the 4th book in September.

The first book, Twilight, was made into a movie and was released on November 21st. You may have heard of it. As of yesterday, it's made over $140 million at the box office. Shawn and I added $20 to that total and went to see it tonight. I thought it was okay. Honestly, though...I'm not sure I understand why anyone who hasn't read the books would enjoy the movie. I think it might best be explained with some numbers. The book is 544 pages long. The movie is 2 hours long. That's it.

As you can imagine, there are a lot of things that are left out of the movie. I completely understand that this happens when books are made into movies. However, I felt like there was very little character development in the movie. Relationships that were important in the book are completely glossed over in the movie. Elements of personality that will be very important in books later in the series aren't apparent in the movies. And the worst part of the movie? Bella and Edward's relationship. In the books, it's a nice little love story...kinda romantic. In the movie, it seems like teenage hormones and infatuation.

I'm a bit intrigued to see what will happen with the second movie. Like I said, there are some things that I thought were rather important in the books that were omitted or not very obvious in the movie. And apparently the production studio has fired the director because she wanted to spend more time carefully adapting the movie from the book...and the producers wanted to hurry up and start filming New Moon.

Now that I've said all this, if you haven't seen the movie (or the commercials, for that matter) and are intrigued, click here to see the trailer for Twilight.

Last Few Days

How is it already Wednesday night?! Apparently, I've lost track of time lately. Here are some updates from our lives over the last few days.

On Sunday, after church, Shawn and I had a quick visit to the Evergreen Arts Festival. It was nice to find that he and I agreed on some gorgeous pieces of art that we would love to have in our house...if we had a house. And if the pictures didn't cost thousands of dollars sans frames! Sunday evening, we went to an engagement party for our friend Justin. Justin has played rugby with Shawn since they were in college, and he was also an usher at our wedding. He and his fiance, Rachel, aren't getting married until May 2010, but congrats to them!

Because Shawn wasn't able to get home until midnight Saturday night, he changed his return flight to Seattle and stayed home until Monday night. We didn't really do much on Monday, but it was so nice to have him at home with me on a weekday!

I've been doing a lot more reading lately. (I'm sure you're shocked.) I finally gave in and began reading the Twilight series that I've been hearing the hype for lately. It's a Young Adult series of books, so they're all quick reads. The main characters are Bella, a 17 year old human girl (well, she's 17 in the first book), and Edward, a Vampire who looks 18. They fall in love, but as you can imagine...there are some inherent problems in this relationship. It only took me a few days to read the first 3 books in the series. The 4th and final book only came out a few weeks ago, and I'll probably get it later this week. It's entertaining. :)

We have seen a little progress on the potential move. Shawn and I are feeling good about the way things have been going this week. If nothing else, we received confirmation today that the company will reimburse us for all our moving expenses! I'm actually planning on going out to Seattle with Shawn next week. Based on what we've learned in the last couple days, we might actually be able to go together to sign a lease while I'm out there! It'll be like we're a married couple or something! ;)