Unguilty, or Five Films I Really Like That I Definitely Shouldn't Really Like But I Do

So blogging didn't really work out for me for the last, ooh, all of 2015.  But this is 2016, baby, and we're strapping the typing gloves back on and kicking things off with a good old-fashioned listicle, like what Ma used to make.  There will be opinions, and there will be capital letters.

This latest triumphant return to the blogosphere came out of a pleasant conversation on the Docklands Light Railway, which is sometimes a magical urban safari skyline, and sometimes sweaty and crowded and full of people who haven't yet learned to take their backpack off and put it on the floor, just like any other tube line, and then what is the point of you DLR just be underground think you're so fancy all up in the sky but you're NOT.

I refuse to call these guilty pleasures because to hell with the idea that a pleasure should be guilty, the mixing of high and low culture produces some of greatest cultural landmarks, namely The Muppets etc etc etc blargh blargh bleurgh starting listing the films already.  What this is instead, is a list of films that I will openly admit to liking while a deep-rooted sense of shame coils around my lower intestine. I know they are not good films, either artistically or morally. I am not proud of myself for liking them. But somewhere along the way, something went very wrong in my cerebral cortex and I wound up with a bunch of DVDs* taking up space in my life of which, whenever someone stumbles across them, I have to say, "Oh, well, yeah, y'know, but like, actually it's got this one really good…" and then trail off into justly abashed silence.

And these aren't ironic either, or films I watch to make fun of, or films I think have an unfairly negative reputation.  There are whole different lists for those. These are bad films and I really like them.

Have mercy on my soul.

5) Night at the Museum, and Night at the Museum 2: Another Night, Another Museum (or whatever) (2006/2009)

Ok.  Ok.  I know.  I just.  Bear with me here.

I know it has a 44% Rotten Tomatoes score (and that's the first one).  I know it has a scene where a monkey repeatedly slaps Ben Stiller in the face (actually, screw you, that's an entirely valid reason to enjoy a film).  I know it has Ricky Gervais putting in a level of effort that is only visible on an atomic level.

But.

I think, quite simply, the reason either of these two films are on my rainy day playlist is that they occupy the perfect centre of the Venn diagram between two things I like very much: movies with gangs where the members all have different special abilities, and the past.  All the members of the gang have special abilities, and they are all from the past.  This is not rocket science.

And the sequel, while lazy and derivative, had more people in the gang who were more from the past, and one of them was Amelia Earhart, so...feminism?

Basically, Owen Wilson is a tiny cowboy and Steve Coogan is a tiny Roman Centurion, and they're enemies and then become unlikely friends. It's both heart-warming and hilarious. Leave me alone.

SO HEARTWARMING

(Honourable Mention: National Treasure, for exactly all the reasons you think.)


4) Down With Love (2003)

Ugh. Ok, so. Ugh. Yeah.

Down With Love, a 2003 'homage' to early 60s romantic comedies starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor…no, I can't even finish this sentence.  There's already too much terrible. It's not that any of those things or people are terrible in themselves, exactly, but somehow when you combine them into one movie, it's a perfect storm of ugh.

Firstly, let's not forget that 2003 pre-dates the serious revival of interest in the feminist movement and things like the 'third wave' and 'post-feminism' were still grimly clinging on by their pink-painted-because-they-definitely-chose-it-themseves-and-it's-empowering-and-not-because-of-gendered-societal-norms fingertips. When you combine that with the sexual mores of the 1960s, in which the film is set, it's just a recipe for ugh, ugh and more ugh. Zellweger is Barbara Novak, plucky girl author of best-selling women's sex book about how to give up men and achieve equality in the workplace, and McGregor is Catcher Block (yep), the quickly-becoming-obsolete Don Draper-esque men's magazine journalist. Oh, but wait.

Between Renee's plan for workplace equality being 'replace sex with chocolate' (WOMEN LIKE CHOCOLATE, SOMETIMES MORE THAN SEX WITH MEN, THOSE CRAZY BROADS), Ewan's plan to nail Renee being 'lie about identity, emotionally manipulate woman into having feelings, bang', and the whole thing turning out to be an elaborate plan to ensnare Ewan into marriage, it could probably send the progress of women's rights back to the Sixties single-film-reel-edly if broadcast with enough frequency. In the name of feminism, we should be hunting it down and scouring its existence from the face of the earth.

But I really like it.

Why do I like it? It's super fun to look at and the design is awesome - it's Sixties, but it's our dumb idea of what the Sixties were like.  Renee and chain-smoking best friend/editor Sarah Paulson (of Studio 60 fame) swish around Manhattan in capes and stupid hats and I want all the things they have in this film. Renee has a remote controlled fireplace. A remote controlled fireplace.

Ahem.

And it's shot in a really fun way, with lots of split screen and simultaneous conversations and general badinage leading to the most inoffensive innuendoes a PG-13 certificate can muster.  In other words, if you've ever seen a Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicle, then it's pretty much that, only with not quite enough irony or commentary to make it smart.

There is a part of me that knows it's not really ok to switch off your values for the ninety minutes it takes to watch a stupid film. I know the 'Battle of the Sexes' stuff on show here is retrogressive and not handled smartly enough to be a 21st century take on 20th century attitudes. But I think we're smart enough to watch problematic things, know they're problematic, and enjoy them all the same. More on that later.

Also there's a remote controlled fireplace, and David Hyde Pierce** gets swallowed by a sofa bed. Some days, I don't need much more than that.

Also Ewan McGregor makes this face.

3) Treasure Planet (2002)

Let's be clear: this is not on the list because it's a Disney film.  It's on the list because it's an utterly forgettable Disney film.  As you may be able to tell from the super cryptic title, it's Treasure Island IN SPACE.  That's pretty much it.  It's fairly faithful to the original novel - obviously not a patch on the Muppets version, but what is? - with the minor tweaks of making the ship's captain female (good), voiced by Emma Thompson (bad), and making Ben Gunn a comedy robot sidekick voiced by Martin Short (BAD BAD VERY BAD).

I mean, objectively, it's just disappointing.  It has a lot of individual things to recommend it but they never quite add up into a compelling whole. The animation is beautiful - Disney finally (in 2002) getting to grips with mixing CGI and hand-drawn animation (SPACE WHALES), plus doing this create-a-360-degree-virtual-set-now-manouvre-the-camera-like-it's-live-action thing, which means that the Outer Space in question has, well, space and depth and dimensions to it. It's pretty.

Basically, this feels like an animator's pet project, a really cool art school exercise and writers, what writers? We don't need writers. Get outta here. But the art, alas, is not why I like it.

So why do I like it? IT'S TREASURE ISLAND IN SPACE.  Troubled-but-cute teenage protagonist Jim Hawkins is a junior delinquent with an Absent Father so it's also TREASURE ISLAND IN SPACE WITH DADDY ISSUES. It gives me feelings.

So yeah, if you mentally delete all the parts with the robot, it's basically Catcher in the Rye meets Star Wars, and that is just fine with me.

MUCH EARLY 00'S SUCH ANGST SO HAIR WOW

2) Sliding Doors (1998)

I actually used to hold this up as an example of romantic comedy done well.  Smart, I would say. Funny and charming, I would say.  John Hannah, I would say.  But I watched it again and ah jeez, it's just terrible.

The 'smart' 'thought-provoking' conceit that Gwyneth Paltrow's life diverges into two distinct timelines (Gwyneth Prime and Gwyneth Beta is how the film does not refer to them) depending on whether she catches a tube or not is, let's face it, the most first year philosophy undergraduate idea ever, and isn't quite rescued by the eleventh-hour magical realism of the timelines converging.  It's aged very badly, sort of an unintentional period piece, from the weird-looking London Underground trains to brandy being the casual tipple of choice for partying yuppies. Forget every BuzzFeed article you have ever read, the most 90s thing to ever happen is Gwyneth Paltrow smoking in a bar while John Hannah tells her she can easily get another job. (As if to compound this, she does. She finds it in a printed newspaper.) And whatisthedeal with the bizarrely heavy-handed product placement for Grolsh? In my twenty-five years of living, I have yet to encounter anyone who says, "Let's go out for a [brand name here]", rather than just "a beer", if they weren't being paid to do so. Not so in the world of Sliding Doors.  In the world of Sliding Doors, they drink Grolsh. And they want you to know about it.

So why do I like it? Well, mostly John Hannah. He's lovely, and your mum probably fancies him. But on further consideration, even he makes a move way too soon after Gwyneth Prime has discovered her boyfriend in bed with another woman, and actually a lot of his hilarious quips come off like someone who sits alone in a darkened room all day desperately trying to emulate human warmth.  So, a screenwriter, I guess.

What could be said, interestingly, is that he represents an early male version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope - he drops into over-worked, straight-laced Gwyneth Prime's life through a series of seemingly magical coincidences, takes her boating and shows her how to laugh/love again. What's also interesting is that this proves the MPDG apparently doesn't work in any iteration ever, not even as a male character, since - as with John Hannah's Manic Pixie sisters from others films - the quirkiness is incredibly forced. He quotes Monty Python! He makes hilarious gags about trying to give Gwyneth Paltrow cellulite! He quips to his sick mum about moving somewhere she can buy better crack! HE'S NOT LIKE OTHER GUYS!

And re Monty Python, if such a study could ever be done, it would be interesting to find out whether the percentage of conversation made up of endlessly quoting comedians/films/television shows until you actually have to kill one of the members of your group to put an end to it has risen since pre-internet days.  Whatever the answer, today John comes over like a cross between that Daniel Radcliffe interview where he thinks he's the only person in the world to have discovered Tom Lehrer and the tedious mate of a mate that you met in the pub who, for fuck's sake, won't shut up about Monty Python, like, we've all seen the Spanish Inquisition sketch SO MANY TIMES I KNOW HOW IT GOES.

And despite all this, I still like it. I will watch it again. What can I say? It affects me. It actually (there I go) does go to a darker place than most standard rom-coms, and it's painful to watch anyone slaving away to support a partner who's "writing their first novel" while in actuality copping off with their ex. Even Gwynnie Beta. It captures the humiliation of infidelity really well and, for what it's worth, does it while avoiding lazy demonisation of the cheating boyfriend, who has several scenes talking candidly about his conflicted feelings to another male chum. I mean, he's still the worst. But that's why there's John Hannah.

The message is that sometimes we get haircuts that don't work out for us and that's ok.

1) Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

Hahahahahahahaha you guys it's a musical about rape.  I mean, basically.  It starts when rugged tight-trousered woodsman Adam strolls down from his 1850s Oregon wood-house into town to find himself a bride (maybe made of wood).  Surprisingly Awesome Milly decides she's plucky and spunky enough to make a go of it, and weds him on the spot. So far, so consensual.

Then it all goes to shit.

S. A. Milly ends up keeping house for Adam's six younger brothers too, all of whom are also tight-trousered woodsmen.  She eventually implements a regime of starvation and occasional ladle-based violence until they begin to say "please".  They learn to dance, put pomade in their hair and meet some nice local girls, and it's all set to be lovely until Adam - who got his bride in matter of hours and thus is crushing it on the Man Leaderboard - tells his brothers the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women.  In song.  The song is called "Sobbin' Women".  It is equal parts insanely catchy and horrifyingly misogynistic.  It is the Blurred Lines of 1950s musicals.  He then encourages his brothers to follow the fine example of the Ancient Romans and erase the word "consent" from their vocabulary.

Thus, the titular forest-dwelling Seven Brothers set out to abduct the titular (hee hee, titular) Seven Brides from the town - really abduct, there are blankets over heads - blindfold them and carry them off to their wooden shack, causing an avalanche on the way so that the boyfriends and families of the kidnapped girls can't mount a rescue until the snow melts in spring.   They are only thwarted in their plans by the fact that a) they forget to also kidnap a preacher (see, it's fine, because they just wanted to marry the women against their will), and b) Surprisingly Awesome Milly kicks them all out of the house and makes them live in the barn all winter, while she and the women form a happy matriarchal commune wait for heteronormativity to reassert itself.  Which it does.  The brothers come to see the error of their creepy ways - except for Adam, who storms off to have a patriarchal huff and only realises he might be in the wrong when the news comes through of his newborn baby daughter, thus suddenly forcing him to reassess his worldview that women are objects - and the town girls start doing things like walking past the window in their underwear and throwing snowballs with rocks in them (the traditional mating displays of 1850s Oregon), and it all ends happily if you don't think about it too hard.

But oh gosh, it's SO CHARMING.  There are handsome beard-men wearing plaid and dancing while they raise barns.  They jump over axes.  I don't know what the point of jumping over axes is, but it seems to prove something to them.  They sing "I'm a Lonesome Polecat", which is approximately exactly as ridiculous and wonderful as it sounds.  The backdrops are so obviously, unapologetically fake, you can see the brushstrokes on the trees.  It has that haze of garish 1950s still-overexcited-about-technicolour innocence to it that makes it extremely possible to turn off the sensible, up-to-date bit of your brain, and enjoy it for what it is.

I mean, just do yourself a favour and take three minutes to watch this:

Did you watch it? Do you see now?  Do you understand how much joy this brings me?  The flawlessly timed petulant axe swings?  The almost heartbreakingly simple insight that "a man can't sleep/ when he sleeps with shee-eep"? The one guy out to the side going full Dream Ballet? The fact that it's done in a single take?

No, I cannot, in all good conscience, hate on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.  It is a part of my psyche, and a part of my soul, and you too are not above it.  You simply have yet to surrender.

Also there's this unintentionally hilarious bit when the girls are starting to soften towards the boys over the winter and the boys start making excuses to come into the house to fetch blankets and things to catch a brief glimpse of their sweethearts and there's one girl who just looks delighted whoever comes in from the barn, monogamy be damned.

Basically, Seven Brides is - our favourite overused word - problematic when viewed in the above terms (it's maybe not actually as bad as I suggested, the movie makes it pretty clear that the girls are into the guys too, both prior to and once they get over the whole kidnap thing).  But it's also joyous and stunningly made and excitingly danced.  It stands apart from all the others on this list because it is, actually, a great film that maybe I think I shouldn't like. But I'm also a thinking human person with a brain, and I'm not going to go and kidnap anyone to get them to marry me because of it. I might sing Bless Your Beautiful Hide as a form of courtship though. I can make no promises otherwise.


*cunning code for 'illegally torrented files on my hard drive'.
**That marks two entries on this list that feature DHP in a supporting role.  Come on, man. You were Niles Crane.

How to Be a Man: the Totally Slammin' Gender Politics of 'The Apartment' and 'Say Anything'

First up, if you haven't seen the two films this blog is discussing, why are you even reading this? Go re-evaluate your life choices, watch those films, and then come back here. If you have seen them, congratulations on having reached the minimum requirements for being an intelligent human being.

There's a lot of excellent discussion these days about how the media constructs femininity in various bad ways. We still live in a world where female characters make up only 15-20% of major characters in films, so it's no wonder our perception of womankind is somewhat skewed. As well as the obvious things like the very narrow standards of attractiveness that women are held to, women are also portrayed largely as being capable only of taking on auxiliary supporting roles: wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, secretaries, etc etc etc. There's a great thing called the Bechdel Test, wherein a work of media has to feature a) at least two named female characters, b) who talk to each other about c) something other than men, in order to pass. It's not an exact science because there are many great, positive works of art that portray women in a well rounded way that don't pass the Bechdel Test (a lot of Jane Austen, for example) and there are equally works that do pass the test but suck in misogynist ass-sucky ways. But all this has been documented elsewhere by people much smarter than me and who devote much more of their time to tracking gender politics in pop culture (yes, there are people who spend more time doing that than me). For further reading, I'd particularly recommend this article on the different between Strong Female Characters and Strong Characters who happen to be Female.

But I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about Strong Male Characters. Or at least, films that portray what it means to be a man in a way that isn't demeaning or patronising. It's kind of sad that the two films I want to talk about came out in 1960 (The Apartment) and 1989 (Say Anything) but whatareyougonnado?* Let's start with The Apartment, one of my favourite films of all time. It's a romantic comedy that deals with the subject of suicide, obviously. It follows the story of CC “Buddy Boy” Baxter (the always effervescently wonderful Jack Lemmon) who works out that the way to get ahead in the monolith insurance firm he works for is to rent out his apartment, one night at a time, to his superiors so that they can have their extramarital affairs there. While it gets him a promotion at work, it comes at the expense of being shunted out of his own apartment at a moment's notice, an undeserved reputation with the neighbours as an indefatigable Casanova, and one vicious head cold. It also (of course) gets in the way of him pursuing his affections for fabulous and vulnerable elevator girl, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine).

The film's central message is delivered by one of the aforementioned neighbours, Doctor Dreyfuss, in the aftermath of Ms Kubelik's narrowly non-fatal suicide attempt, which appears to be Jack Lemmon's fault (it's not, but he has to pretend it is, and this is why you should just go and watch the film): “Why don't you grow up, Baxter? Be a mensch! You know what that means?...A mensch - a human being!” Even though the criticism is wide of the mark in this specific instance (he's actually protecting Shirley MacLaine), it's still an apt summary of the circumstances. Baxter lives a comfortable lie, using what he has to acquire the lifestyle that he thinks he wants. He confesses later in the film to Ms Kubelik, “You know, I used to live like Robinson Crusoe; I mean, shipwrecked among 8 million people. And then one day I saw a footprint in the sand, and there you were.” This admittance of loneliness, though apparent to the viewer from the start (the first major sequence of the film depicts him sitting alone in Central Park at night), can only come after trying and failing to be a man in a myriad of other ways.

By renting out his apartment to his adulterous bosses, he implicitly condones their behaviour and, while he doesn't quite join in with the what would today be termed 'banter', he also tolerates it. It is only after his promotion that he starts trying to woo Fran Kubelik with theatre tickets; in success, he grows more self-absorbed and goes from the man who could count how many colds she'd had to holding an entire conversation with her about his new hat, failing to pick up on her distress at something else. He even starts affecting the speech patterns of his superiors and is given the key to the executive washroom: all in all, he gains entrance to an exclusively male club, one full of wealth, power and, of course, abuse of those first two things. His lowest point comes when he tries to pick up a girl and bring her back to his apartment himself for once which, predictably, ends badly – it is at this point that Dr Dreyfuss has to step in with advice about being a mensch (my latent Jewishness might well account for my affection for this film). The film's climax – its real climax – is fairly unique amongst romantic comedies in that the two romantic leads don't 'fix' each other: quite separately, Ms Kubelik ends her affair with the married head of the company, played by Fred MacMurray (“When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara.”), and Baxter quits his job and thus the whole apartment-renting scheme, relinquishing his executive washroom key along with his high-stakes male persona. “I've decided to become a mensch,” he tells aforementioned married boss. “You know what that means? A human being.” Being a man sometimes means poverty and loneliness, but when the credits roll, C.C. Baxter is the only real man left in New York.

What is particularly wonderful is that a film that nominally looks like it's about saving the damaged, fragile woman from the bad, bad man turns out to actually be about saving the male protagonist from his slide into cynicism. Let's not forget, it's Shirley MacLaine that runs to catch him at the end, it's the woman who gets to ride in on the white horse and save the man from his solitary, poor existence. It's implied, as well, that part of her haste isn't just her sudden crushing self-realisation that Fred MacMurray is, as I said, a bad bad man, it's because she thinks Buddy might be about to hop on the suicide wagon himself. (Interesting how in life, male suicide rates are much higher than female ones, but in film it is always a form of tragic, poetic violence that we see visited on female forms.) It is of utmost importance that she rescues herself: while Jack Lemmon certainly plays his role in nursing her back to health and convincing her of the existence of men that aren't complete scumbags (through being utterly and completely non-pushy, I feel like this film should be shown in sex ed classes), it is her who gets up and leaves Fred MacMurray on New Year's Eve, in their favourite restaurant, while playing 'their' song. That's just as brave as Buddy walking into the office to give back his bathroom key, if not moreso.  Plus it's also just so damn cool.  Sorry, Some Like It Hot, in my book the Best Last Line Award goes to “Shut up and deal.”

Say Anything deals with maturity and manhood a little differently. Now, Lloyd Dobler might actually be my personal hero. He's kind of unique amongst film protagonists in that he doesn't grow as a person or have a character arc – rather, his lack of a character arc is his character arc. He begins the film by saying he wants to be with Diane Court and he ends the film by damn well being with Diane Court. He says it himself to Diane's dad: “What I really want to do with my life – what I want to do for a living – is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it.” He lets others perceive him as a slacker because he doesn't pretend to have interests outside of what he genuinely likes, chiefly kickboxing and the aforementioned Diane Court. Every word out of his mouth is genuinely, brilliantly honest: when he says at a dinner table of wealthy professionals that he doesn't want to sell, buy or process anything to earn a living, what could come across as adolescent naivety is simply a statement of fact. Lloyd knows himself. In this respect, he is the opposite of Buddy, who spends most of the film convincing himself that he could be happy living as something he's not (a cynical bachelor). Lloyd spends most of the film grimly clinging to being himself, when the whole world is telling him it would be easier if he were someone else – or, at the very least, his girlfriend's dad, who comes to represent the adult world and its deceptions. Lloyd makes a better adult than most of the adults in the film because of this honesty.

But what I want to talk about is the moment when this honesty wavers. After Diane breaks up with him (that goddamn pen, I'm in tears just thinking about it) because she thinks it's the right thing to do, Lloyd goes through his dark night of the soul. He refuses to talk about it, he refuses to open up to his trio of female friends, claiming “I'm a guy, I have pride”. It is the only moment where he gives in to self-indulgence or tries to put up a barrier between himself and his girl-space-friends and, rightly, he is called on his bullshit. “The world is full of guys!” snorts Corey, played by the wonderful Lili Taylor, “Be a man! Don't be a guy!” It's one of the most wonderful lines I've ever heard in a film and encapsulates something that every present day comedy in which a schlubby dudebro likes getting stoned with other dudebros until some nice women convinces him to be maybe a little less stoned sometimes, but in a way that doesn't threaten his male friendships that still somehow end up central to the film, misses: guys are homogenous. To be a guy is to make a safe choice. To assume that being a guy in a group of other identical guys who are exclusively (male) guys somehow qualifies as maturity is erroneous and does a disservice to men. Say Anything says that being a man means knowing yourself and being around people who know you and like you because of it, even if it's difficult and sometimes lonely and it means standing outside someone's window with a boombox playing Peter Gabriel.

Lloyd experiments with being a guy when he tries hanging out with the film's collection of erstwhile guys outside the Gas 'n' Sip. The guys (who include, by the way, Jeremy Piven, whom I kind of love solely on the basis of his association with John Cusack) offer Lloyd various pieces of post-break-up romantic advice of the 'nail someone else', 'bitches, man' variety. Lloyd considers the specimens before him, asking, “If you guys know so much about women, how come you're here at, like, the Gas 'n' Sip on a Saturday night completely alone drinking beers with no women anywhere?” Thus proving Corey's other great line true: “I'm a good person, Lloyd, but you're a great person.” Wait, maybe Corey is my personal hero for being so brilliantly perceptive and also brilliantly flawed (“I wrote 63 songs about Joe this year and I'm going to play them all tonight.”) As he walks away from the Gas 'n' Sip, Lloyd says, “Well, that was a mistake.” Being a man is not only about being truthful to and about yourself, but acknowledging bullshit in others, even when not doing so is the easy option.

What I find most interesting about the cases of both Buddy and Lloyd is how, in one light, stereotypically female their situations are. Buddy is a character who watches his ideal romantic partner waste their time on someone else while pretending to be a collected, well put together grown up and, just at the moment when he appears to be losing it, his love interest rides in to save him. Gender flip it and I'm pretty sure Sandra Bullock already made that one. Lloyd falls in love at first sight (kind of, even if it is before the film starts) and spends his time hopelessly devoted to that one person, 'just knowing' they're meant to be together. In the scene where Diane and Lloyd lose their virginities in the car, it is Lloyd who trembles and cries and Diane who holds him. Flip it and you get an unimaginative but much more typical Twilight-esque teen love story.

Boys are not raised in our culture to be 'men', they are raised to be 'not women': they are taught not to pine, not to mope, not to be a 'pussy' or a 'little girl' because the worst possible thing a man can be is a woman. This is the kind of binary that films thrive off, and one that society is increasingly entrenched in (think 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'), because it's an easy shorthand.  Lazy films rely on cliches and stereotypes as shorthand in order to tell a story in 90 minutes and gender cliches are amongst the most common offenders. These two films portray great and truthful male protagonists because they don't subscribe to gender cliches at all – instead, they take the radical view that women might just be people too, messy and flawed, and in doing so, create male characters who – gasp – sometimes act like women. And, indeed, vice versa.  Everything I described about being a man in The Apartment and Say Anything could just as equally be applied to becoming a mature adult woman. This is no coincidence. I picked these films to talk about because they both understand that when we say “Be a man”, you could interpret it as “Be a neanderthal” or “Be a cliche” or “Don't be a woman” or indeed anything else that patronises men just as much as women, or you could interpret it in a way that actually makes sense. Be sensitive to yourself. Be truthful to yourself. Be a human being. Don't be a guy. Be a mensch.

*On the topic of watching films made several decades ago, I went back to the original Star Wars trilogy after my Pegg/Wright post. Do you know what's awesome about Han and Leia? Apart from everything obvious, like them both being blindingly hot and having sexy belligerent tension? He actually asks her opinion. Repeatedly. And he defers to her when the situation is clearly more in her remit than his. It's a mark of how horribly rare that is in action films today that it stood out to me. And this is from a character that's supposed to be full of deliberately retrogressive macho bullshit. You guys, we are doing so badly.

(NB to a footnote: Uh, Star Wars is obviously not perfect in its depiction of women, mostly because there are none and most of them seem to be strippers of some variety. Leia, however, is badass in a way that doesn't consist of her simply amalgamating 'masculine' traits, and therefore is awesome. Remember what I was saying about films that fail the Bechdel Test and yet are great?)

[P.S. to an NB to a footnote: I don't think the scene in Return of the Jedi where Mon Mothma is briefing them on attacking the second Death Star counts because she's not really talking to Leia specifically.]

The Dangerous Book for Girls: Happy Birthday, Pride and Prejudice

Monday 28th January 2013 saw a momentous occasion in the history of publishing, literature, feminism, and the fundamental identity of English prose.  I am referring, of course, to the passing of the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice.  Since this blog is named after (for my money) both the best dramatist and the best novelist in the English language* it seems only fitting that I honour Ms Austen with my own small tribute.

That, and I made a New Year's resolution to update the blog twice a month and I've only got a few hours left to think of ideas.

In all seriousness, this 200th anniversary lark is kind of a godsend for the thematically-frustrated blogger - I could talk about Pride and Prejudice for hours.  (I won't.  Maybe.)  I first read it when I was thirteen, which I think is the perfect age at which be struck by the pure, unbridled pleasure of reading Austen.  You will only read something for the first time once, after all, and coming to Austen with a head full of academic theory or wet-shirt-joke-pop-cultural-osmosis can get in the way of the fact that Austen is fizzingly, deliciously, deliriously enjoyable.  It also marked the first time I committed an act of academic defiance upon being told something was too difficult for me (the second, and only other, was doing far better in my university final exams than someone who spent three years in a cycle of putting on plays, staying up until 3am watching Disney films, necking Red Bull and writing essays in an hour had any right to do).  I remember very clearly the evening I decided I would embark upon what would surely be a formative moment in my development both as an intellectual, and as a woman.  (I must have been a delight for my parents.)  The BBC was broadcasting the final five books of its Big Read series, an attempt to whittle down the nation's hundred favourite books, and the top two spots came down to Pride and Prejudice and Lord of the Rings.  Since then I have read both, and if I say that only one of them induced me to throw it against a wall in frustration because of the fucking Council of Elrond, you will be unsurprised at my retrospective rage when that book won.  Anyway.  Prompted by the vague notion that Pride and Prejudice was not only clearly very good but seemed to carry an intellectual weight that struck a chord with my self-important thirteen-year-old heart, I expressed an interest in reading it.  "Maybe wait a couple of years," suggested my parents.  "You might appreciate it more when you're older."  I was, naturally, furious.  Imagine my (unfounded and confusing to all others) triumph when the book box in my classroom next Monday morning yielded a copy of the very novel.  "Look," I said, brandishing it, "I'm going to read it."  "Oh, well done," said my mother vaguely, which was not, I admit, the reaction I had been hoping for.

I needn't have worried.  From the minute I turned the first page and read that elegant, arch, oft-imitated, never-surpassed opening sentence, Jane Austen settled irretrievably into my heart.  Every subsequent sentence rang clear as a bell - even when I wasn't sure what Jane was actually on about (for god's sake, what is a syllabub?).  Incidentally, I still have that first copy, initially borrowed from school and later definitively nicked when I decided rather unfairly that no-one else would want to read it.  And Pride and Prejudice is the gift that keeps on giving - in the nine years since (there's a terrifying thought), I have picked it up at least half a dozen times and found something new each time.  It's not always a comfortable experience.  Imagine my horror at the age of seventeen, having systematically devoured every other scrap of Austen I could get my hands on (pro tip: the juvenilia, so not worth the time) realising that Austen was the most unflinchingly callous writer I had ever encountered.  Who else writes that fat people in mourning don't deserve sympathy because they're too ridiculous?  But Austen's morality code is based on being smart, not nice, and I don't mean book smart, but street smart: Lydia Bennet isn't 'bad' because she likes flirting with boys or anything so prudish. (Austen basically defined flirting in print, after all, just look at Catherine getting flustered by Mr Tilney's views on landscape painting in Northanger Abbey.  Woof.)  Lydia doesn't get to be a heroine because she has no idea how to handle herself in the society she was born into; Austen's leading ladies all learn how to navigate the choppy waters of the social and sexual minefield that is the mixed metaphor they call life.  It's a tough life with limited options, says Austen, and you have to be tough to survive it.

Not everyone likes Austen, of course, often because of this relentlessly controlled pragmatism that plagues the pages of what would otherwise be early-nineteenth-century rom-coms.  Charlotte Bronte didn't like Jane Austen.  She wrote a letter complaining that reading Austen was like finding "An accurate daguerrotyped portrait of a common-place face; a carefully-fenced, highly cultivated garden with near borders and delicate flowers - but no glance of a bright vivid physiognomy - no open country - no fresh air - no blue hill - no bonny beck." Well, no offence to Charlotte Bronte, but bollocks. (Maybe a bit of offence to Charlotte Bronte - I did cry upon finishing Jane Eyre, but with relief).** Bronte's criticisms amount to the idea that Austen is a series of miniatures, unrealistic and restrained, that all end in - pure fantasy! - marriage.  We won't dwell on the fact that this comes from a writer who literally wrote the book on how you can change a brooding, gambling, womanising misanthrope through the love of a good woman (but only if he's blinded to make up for the social inequality between you).  Austen is precise, economical.  She does not waste words on those who need not have words wasted on them.  Every sentence is beautifully constructed and furthers the story she is telling.  

Yes, her books all end in marriage to solvent men - but crucially, they end in marriage on the heroine's own terms.  No-one would call Austen a feminist, partly because it would be a pointless anachronism, but more partly (you know what I mean) because Austen's happy endings are deeply pragmatic affairs.  Want to have a comfortable life in early nineteenth century England, free from smallpox and gum disease? Marry a well-off man.  Want to have a happy life in early nineteenth century England? Marry a well-off man that you love.  Austen doesn't stint on letting us know how unlikely this outcome is.  Lizzie and Jane Bennet get lucky: they have the writer on their side.  Their three younger siblings present the shadow of a much more likely fate - one shotgun married to an unfaithful rake, one prodded into spinsterhood without a second thought, one sentenced to reform through hanging about with her clever, well-married sisters.***  There's a moment in Pride and Prejudice that I've always found telling - after younger sister Lydia (possessed of "animal spirits", nudge nudge wink wink) elopes with proto-lad Wickham, apparently scuppering all chance of a respectable match for Lizzie, she reflects on the man she herself has lost in the process:  

She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was a union that must have been to the advantage of both. By her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved, and from his judgment, information and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance. But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was.

It's the "judgement, information and knowledge of the world" bit that gets me.  To Charlotte Bronte, no doubt, it sounded passionless, even calculating.  To me, it is a painful insight into the psyche of both a character and writer who found themselves trapped in circumstances in which they could never be their best selves.  Lizzie hasn't just fallen for Darcy as a man, but the life he brings with him, his ability to bring her a world that she wishes to - and cannot - be a part of, looking on from rural Hertfordshire.  In Austen, marriage exists to free its participants - male and female - from versions of themselves they have constructed to navigate the complex onslaught of the social, sexual and financial mores of everyday life.  Marriage is a refuge for honesty, a place that people arrive at when they come to understand themselves most truly, either singly or with the help of a partner.  In the former case it is treated, time after time, as a matter of revelation: Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park finds "exactly at the time when it was quite natural it should be so" that he's gotten over Regency vamp Mary Crawford and wants to marry Fanny Price, Emma Wodehouse has the sudden sparklingly blinding insight that Mr Knightley "must marry no-one but herself", Marianne Dashwood's trials with Willoughby allow her to emerge sharper and surer of herself, and ready to marry Colonel Brandon.  In the other instance, of a couple growing together, Pride and Prejudice is only the most obvious example, trading off its protagonists' titular flaws against each other; Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth have a profound effect on each other during and after their eight-year separation, Mr Tilney leads Catherine Morland deftly towards maturity by subtly (and flirtatiously) cutting away the language of gothic romance she has surrounded herself with.  All are instances of characters finding "knowledge of the world" through their partner and becoming, in the process, the fullest and richest version of themselves they could be.  I don't find that passionless at all.  I find that thrillingly, embarrassingly romantic.

And, in essence, that's what Pride and Prejudice does.  It teaches.  It is an unfailingly, uncomfortably honest book - lies and self-deceptions unravel at speed and Lizzie comes face to face with not only her own failings, but her sisters', her friend's, and her beloved father's.  Reading it is a self-exmaining experience: at the age of thirteen, the tang of well-deserved romance was delicious, at seventeen, I desperately craved Austen's pithy detachment from the world she lived in, at twenty-two, the age I am now, I think I'm finally beginning to understand what she's on about with this companionship and knowing yourself business.  I'm wrong, no doubt.  I'll come to it again in five year's time and my sympathies will lie with Caroline Bingley or Charlotte Lucas or Mary Bennet.  The day will come, I fear, when I find myself in agreement with Mrs Bennet.  But I don't mind.  In these moments of revelation about myself, I come the closest to being an actual Austen heroine that I'll ever get.****

*Sort of by accident, actually.  I swear, at the time I just liked the name, and it wasn't until my mother innocently enquired as to the literary origins of the nomenclature that I understood I was now committing acts of breath-taking arrogance unconsciously.

**Really.  I was in both an airport and my teens, and the heady combination of jet-lag, hormones and interminable religious imagery made me burst into tears on closing the book.

***Actually, Austen apocryphally told her uncle that Mary and Kitty do get married after the book ends, the former to one of her uncle's clerks and the latter to a clergyman near Pemberley, which sounds like Austen placating a tipsy, sentimental uncle to me.

****Apart from the time I got soaked in a downpour on my way to a restaurant where a group of friends were, walked in dripping, apologised for my appearance, and was answered by my best friend staring at me and shouting, "You look amazing!  You look like Lizzie Bennet!" But I think she was drunk.

The Twilight Experiment: Part 3 - Eclipse

So after last time's downer of an instalment, the saga continues with Eclipse and, boy, was this an adventure in screaming silently for 90 minutes. Word on the supernatural grapevine is that they tried to make Eclipse a decent film with realistic dialogue and sensitive cinematography and moral complexity. All I'll say is that it's lucky somebody told me because I sure as fuck didn't get any of that from the actual movie. I mean, this is just horrible. I really suffered for this one. Really. You can thank me later.

Enjoy.

The Twilight Experiment: Part 3 – Eclipse

Much to my delight, we open with news of a serial killer on the loose in Forks. By this point, the Edward-has-a-fridge-for-the-bodies-of-young-women jokes are really just writing themselves, so just pretend I said something about that here, okay? But no, apparently this is an actual serial killer. Btdubs, this is, like, the third time Meyer has used the plot device of a mysterious threat that definitely isn't a vampire turning up corpses that we never get to see because that might actually be cool. At least in New Moon, we briefly thought the werewolves might have done it. (Yeah, I forgot to say because I was talking about Jacob's abs. Sue me.) Except they didn't because werewolves are rad and, as always, it is the vampires who both metaphorically and literally suck.

The serial killer stuff doesn't last, obviously, because there are conversations about marriage between a teenage girl and her 80-year-old lover to be had. I am initially surprised because Bella acts like she almost has a mind of her own for all of 30 seconds. Edward proposes again, she says no. I can only assume that whatever judgement-altering narcotics Edward has her under are starting to wear off. Presumably they are the same narcotics that Tom Cruise uses for Katie Holmes. Oh snap. Scientology burn.

Anyway, Bella then provides her flawless reasoning for not wanting to get married: 1 out of 3 marriages end in divorce. Wait, what? Bella, honey, there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't marry Edward. I have them prepared in thirty-one page document. Colour-coded. With footnotes. This, however, is not one of them given that you literally want to spend eternity with him anyway. Eddie says he'll vampify her if she marries him. Okay, that's win-win, right? That's what she wants. No, that's coercion, she says. Honey. Much as I appreciate your attempts at becoming more than just a mindless dummy strapped to Edward's groin, coercion is what he's been doing to you for the past two films. This – and it so pains me to agree with Edward – is a compromise. Ugh. I hate you both.

Then we get a scene with Charlie, who I like more and more, because he doesn't like Edward and he does like Jacob. In fact, he likes Jacob so much that he ungrounds Bella so she can go see him. Yay! Jacob! Will Jacob be in this more? Soon? Yay! Jacob, however, does not pick up the phone so Bella straps herself into her truck to go find him. It doesn't start. Then she hears a thud on the roof. At last! Classic horror movie territory! And sure enough, BAM! Pale, overly-intense male with countless social disorders sitting in the passenger seat, asking in the husky tones of one who walks a fine line between sanity and throat-ripping if she was about to go and see her only other friend in the whole entire world.

Run, Bella. Run.

But she can't, because Edward disabled the engine. He explains that the werewolves are super dangerous and he has to protect – NO WAIT BACK THE FUCK UP. He disabled her truck? This is the tragic story, ladies and gentleman, of a promising young woman, her induction into a cult and eventual murder at the hands of her sociopath, abusive, controlling boyfriend. This. Is not. A love story.

On a side note, what is all this about the werewolves having no control? Since when? So there was the (rad) werewolf fight between Jacob and Paul (Paul the Werewolf. Really.) that I also kind of skipped over in New Moon because, hey, Jacob took his shirt off and it has been scientifically proven that neither man nor woman can retain basic cerebral functions when Jacob Black's shirt hits the floor. As I recall, Jacob leapt wolfishly to Bella's defence, preventing her from being flattened by an oncoming werewolf. Also he turned into a wolf in mid air, which was by far cooler than anything Edward has ever done. But still, they keep having all these conversations about how Jake could lose control and hurt Bella. We know that Edward apparently finds it a constant effort to resist Bella's super-delicious blood (probably it tastes like strawberries or that amazing sauce from the chinese restaurant round the corner from my house), but we also know that Edward, amongst his many other faults, is a hypocrite. We've seen him flip out when they were getting down with it (even if I do suspect it was more to cover up the fact that Edward is a colossal virgin). And Jasper's freak-out because of a paper cut made the Cullens move away (look, there was a lot of New Moon I neglected to mention). Not to mention every new vamp we come across seems to feel the need to dedicate their unlives to ripping Bella's head off, but that could just be a natural reaction. But werewolves? Nope. Apart from Paul the Werewolf, they have done precisely nothing to indicate that they could be threat to her. Vampire Threats: 70 billion and 2. Werewolf Threats: 1.

Bella goes to visit her mum, which is nice because her mum treats Bella like an 18 year old girl and not a toddler made of porcelain like a certain pouty sparkling someone I could mention. She also does a v good job of explaining why becoming a vampire is a bad idea. Actually, let's just take a moment to think about this: our main character actually wants to become a vampire. I'm confused. Maybe I'm thinking too much along the lines of traditional horror movie tropes, but aren't we always tying to, y'know, avoid becoming vampires? Isn't humanity always better, in the end? The sun on your skin, the taste of food, body temperature above zero? That kind of thing? What kind of effed-up mind wants a girl at the beginning of her life to freeze herself forever in time, locked in an eternity of attending high school with her high school boyfriend, incapable of having children or grandchildren, unable to get a job because she'll always be an unqualified 18-year-old, unable ever to see the only good friend she's ever had, cut off from her parents and loved ones because they think she's dead? Who would want to portray that as a good thing? Oh hi, Stephanie Meyer.

Ah. I've just found this, from the lady herself, on her website:

“I am not anti-female, I am anti-human. I wrote this story from the perspective of a female human because that came most naturally, as you might imagine. But if the narrator had been a male human, it would not have changed the events. When a human being is totally surrounded by creatures with supernatural strength, speed, senses, and various other uncanny powers, he or she is not going to be able to hold his or her own. Sorry. That's just the way it is. We can't all be slayers. Bella does pretty well I think, all things considered.”

Leaving aside the hilarious unintentional truth of the first sentence and the deluded falsehood of the last, this makes a lot of sense about Meyer. She's dreamed up this race of special, shiny, super-powered beings that no human can compete with; how terribly, terribly sad. Genuinely, I am sad for her that she has so little love for humanity. Humanity has a nuance to it that no monster we've ever come up with can beat – probably because monstrosity is always a distorted reflection of an aspect of ourselves. Even if your vampires are beautiful, strong, fast, immortal, can read minds, they just aren't...human. Can you imagine a vampire – especially ones as uptight and po-faced as the Cullens – on a bouncy castle? Failing a test? Getting dirt under their fingernails? No, because vampires exist in fiction to say uncomfortable things about who we are at night, in the dark – who we don't want to be. It's not a life we're meant to choose – at the end of Dracula, Jonathan Harker offers to become a vampire to keep his wife Mina company in eternity, even though it will cost him his soul and probably his sanity, and it registers as a sacrifice. Giving up your humanity is meant to be a sacrifice.

Besides, this fundamental misunderstanding of what monster fiction is for reveals how little understanding Meyer has of how to tell a story. In science-fiction, when the heroes are outnumbered by aliens with superior technology and numbers, do they shrug and go, “Yeah, you're right. We can't really compete with you guys.”? Does Buffy put down her stakes and go, “Y'know, I guess it would be better if the whole world was converted into immortal blood-suckers.”? Nope. Because that would make terrible drama. There's no conflict in shrugging and giving in. Sometimes, if you want a good story, you just have to fight. Besides, having your teenage everywoman, so bland that the average tween girl can easily insert herself into her place, turn around and talk about how much being 'normal' and 'human' sucks and she wants to upgrade to sparkly super-powered vampdom? And then actually letting her do that (uh, yeah, spoilers, I guess)? Houston, we have a problem. It's a horribly backfiring moral.

Yeah. Anyway. Back to the movie.

So the Cullens are chasing Victoria or something. Seriously? She is not a good enough villain for this to be her third movie. Also, I know I didn't mention in my New Moon review (like most of the film, then) but she really didn't even need to be in it at all.

And 18 and a half minutes in – it's Jacob! Yaaaaay! Edward asks Bella to stay in the car. She gets out. Yaaaay! Jacob is in the rain. Yaaaay! Jacob tells off Edward for lying to Bella and keeping information from her that concerns her. Yaaaaay! Bella agrees with Jacob. Yaaaaaay! Bella wants to talk to Jacob and he brushes her off. Yaaaay! Bella leaves Edward to hop on the back of a motorcycle and ride off with him into the sunset while Jacob flips Edward the bird and they have sex. On the motorbike. Because werewolves are awesome. Yaaaaay! Ok, that's not what happens.

Instead, Jacob takes Bella to wherever it is the werewolves hang out. I cannot overstate how much I prefer the werewolves to the Cullens. They tease each other. They kid around. They don't hold grudges. They don't respond melodramatically to paper cuts. Paul (snigger), who tried to kill Bella in the last film, greets her with a shrug and a “hey”. We also meet Leah, a girl werewolf who is bitchy and moody and is mean to Bella so that means a) she probably fancies Jacob because who doesn't? And b) we aren't supposed to like her. Too bad, Meyer. She's a bitchy, moody girl werewolf who is mean to Bella. So. Kind of shot yourself in the foot there.

Bella and Jacob have a conversation about imprinting, which is the werewolf version of love at first sight. I don't like this, mainly because it makes cool werewolves sound like Edward. Anyway, Jacob hasn't imprinted on anyone yet. Spoiler alert: when he does, it's going to make us all very, very angry. Bella tells Jacob she's going to get vamped after graduation. Jacob responds with “not in a month, not before you've even lived” and “he's got his hooks in you so deep”. Are they even trying to present Edward as a good thing at this point?

Speaking of which, back at Bella's house, we get some super-creepy shots of someone fondling Bella's bedsheets and sniffing her clothes. Turns out to be some other vamp but we're clearly supposed to think it's Edward. Edward shows up and immediately realises someone's been in there because when he smells Bella's dirty laundry, he always folds it back up neat so she'll never know. The Cullens once again rally round to protect Bella because they have nothing better to do. Bella points out that, thanks, but she has her own personal werewolf bodyguard. Naturally, Eddie hates this but vamps and wolves form some kind of alliance because Bella is so super-special, her safety is a greater priority than keeping a thousands of years old peace treaty.

So there's some kind of weird (symbolic) hostage-exchange handover where Edward (symbolically) gives Bella to Jacob, who is (symbolically) half-naked. “Doesn't he own a shirt?”snipes Edward. Oh Eddie, does the wind own a shirt? Do the trees? Does the moon? Jacob Black is a force of nature. A thrill ride through the howling, visceral but oh-so-alive forest on a starlit night. Baby, you can't stop him 'cos those abs just won't quit.

Scuse me, I think I need a shower.

So Edward does the douchey I'm-kissing-my-girlfriend-in-front-of-you thing (for a guy that's 110 years old, he sure does know how to do a very good impression of a seventeen year old) and drives off to hunt while Jacob enfolds Bella in his huge, manly arms and takes her to a werewolf party. Werewolf party. Bella Swan, I hate you.

At the werewolf party, we get the backstory on the originals of Werewolves v Vamps: Supernatural Smackdown – a long time ago, some vamps attacked the tribe, so the tribe shapeshifted into big fuck-off wolves and tore them apart. Fair enough. Also, some broad stabbed herself to distract the last vamp in time for her husband to kill it. Right, but why did she need to stab herself in the heart? We saw in the flashback thing that her dead son was in her arms, I know it's callous but couldn't she have sliced him up a little? He only just died. Or if it does need to be living blood, again, why the heart? We saw earlier than a paper cut would do it. Actually, if the vamps been attacking the village, shouldn't there be blood everywhere anyway? Whatever. Werewolves are still cooler than vampires because the entire point of their existence is to defend innocents from vampires. So tell me again, why is Edward the good guy?

Oh look, plot! More killings. Emmet thinks they should go to Seattle and deliver a can of whoop-ass. And he's mean to Bella. I like Emmet. He's practically a werewolf.

There is an Edward/Bella scene so boring it's not worth reporting.

It's Jacob! Yaaaay! This scene reads like a checklist of good and bad things to say to your girlfriend:

• I'm in love with you and I want you to choose me – kind of clingy but fine, whatever.
• I know you feel something for me, you just won't admit it – ok, let's not start getting Nice Guy about this, Jake.
• I'm going to fight for you – ok, not a problem.
• You won't ever have to change yourself for me or say goodbye to anyone – GOOD! GOOD!
• He probably can't even kiss you without hurting you – YEP!
• Feel that? Flesh and blood and warmth – I'LL SAY!
• Let me force myself upon you in a kiss that you clearly don't want - WAIT, WHAT?

Ugh. It's like SMeyer realised that she'd accidentally written a completely likeable character who had much more going for him than her pasty charisma vacuum of a leading man and went “Well shit, this is a pickle. WHAT CAN I DO TO RUIN HIM?”

Oh Jacob. And we were getting on so well. Mind you, Bella then tries to punch him in the face (lady, violence doesn't make you a strong woman. It makes you unhinged) and fails hilariously.

Jacob drops her home and Edward gets all angry because Jake tried to kiss his girlfriend. I find this hilarious that he's getting uppity about Jake kissing her against her will (“next time, wait for her to say the words”) when he only knows about it because he's reading minds left, right and centre (I mean, presumably?). Hey, hey Eddie. Next time you sabotage her truck, wait for her to say the words. Or, um, how about sneaking into her room and watching her sleep? Wait for her to say the words. Or forbidding her from seeing her friends. Wait for her to say the words. This is a fun game.

Anyway, Eddie and Jake have a bit of a fight and neither cover themselves in glory because they act like Bella isn't even there. Despite myself, I wait for Bella to say “hey guys, I think I kind of get a say in this”. Nope. It is to dream.

Daddy Cullen patches her up and Emmet jokes about Bella's clumsiness. I like you Emmet. Then she says she punched a werewolf in the face. No, Bella. You tried to punch a werewolf in the face. You failed hilariously. Emmet says “badass” and Rosalie walks out in a huff and I like Emmet a little less and Rosalie a little more. Of course, we then get Rosalie's backstory because Bella feels the need to confront the one person in the whole universe who doesn't think she's super-special and sparkly. Turns out Rosalie doesn't hate Bella. She envies her. Jeeeez. Turns out Rosalie was vamped back in the 20s (maybe? the flashback looks like a low-budget Gatsby remake) when her fiance and his friends apparently raped her and then beat her up which, I must admit, is pretty hard-hitting for Twilight. Or it would be if we didn't get a nice sanitised version where no actual pain is shown. Daddy Cullen was passing by and decided to vampify her because she was dying. Fine but – why doesn't he do that for everyone? He's a doctor. He must see dying people every day. Does he vamp them too? Why settle on one random chick in the 20s? Isn't it kind of worrying that the only dying people he's vamped were attractive teenagers? Anyway, we then find out Rosalie murdered her attackers horribly while wearing her wedding dress, which is so stupid and cliched, I have to laugh. But basically, Rosalie is sad because she can't have babies. Yawn.

Somehow it turns out that the Volturi – or at least Dakota Fanning – are behind this. Or something? They're there anyway. This plot is weak and confusing. I feel sleepy. And hungry.

Bella graduates and once again, Best Frenemy Jessica reinforces the idea that being a human with your whole life ahead of you is pretty great. Bella manages to miss the point spectacularly. Jacob rocks up at the grad party, apologises, and says he was an ass (when does Edward ever apologise for his actions? Like, ever?) - and then Alice takes over Jacob-cockblocking duties with a convenient vision.

It turns out the Seattle vamps are an army of newborns (i.e. new vampires) that are deadlier than the regular kind, so vampires and werewolves must team up to learn how to fight them because there is a special way or something and I don't really care because VAMPIRE WEREWOLF TRAINING MONTAGE. For some reason, Jasper is fight master and we get to see the cullers attempting to take him down one by one. I like Emmett, so obviously he doesn't succeed. I don't like Alice, so obviously she does.

We then get Jasper's backstory, which is marginally cooler than Rosalie's. Apparently he was a Confederate soldier (rocking the cowboy hat, I must say) who was vampified by some wandering women of the night in scandalously diaphanous gowns to take charge of a – shocker – army of newborns. Then he meets Alice and becomes good. Did I mention I dislike Alice? She foresaw their relationship or some such bollocks. Why? Did he decide it? Cute. Fuck off, Alice.

Bella has a dream and works out that Victoria was behind this all along. Edward says Alice would have seen it in her visions but Bella says she's hiding behind the army and letting someone else make the decisions. Wait, what? In what world does that make sense? I get that Alice sees futures when people make decisions about stuff. But didn't Victoria need to make decisions to come up with that plan? And if she's letting someone else make decisions about her little operation, how is she in charge at all? What if they make the wrong decision? This is stupid. Twilight is stupid. Jacob hasn't been onscreen for nearly ten minutes and I hate everything.

There's some kind of convoluted plan to keep Bella safe by getting Jacob to carry her around because his wolf scent will cover her Bella scent but I'm not really listening because I'm laughing at the plot contrivances that get Bella, once again, up close and personal with naked Jacob. Edward obviously isn't happy but a) he can't walk around shirtless because everyone would feel sorry for him, and b) Jacob is more capable of keeping his girlfriend safe than he is. While carrying Bella through the woods, Jacob talks about their relationship again, casually dropping the bombshells that a) he can sense how Bella feels around him (he uses the word “nervous”, presumably because “supremely horny” would endanger the PG-13 certificate) and b) he let alpha-wolf Sam become the leader of the pack because he's just that cool. Jacob Black doesn't need a pack. He's a lone wolf. He wants to run free, wild, alone through deeper and darker landscapes, experiencing fierce and savage joys no mere human could ever comprehend, as the moonlight shines off his biceps and lights his torso with a nigh-on godlike glow.

I'm going to take another shower.

Also Jasper comes back to report the success of the plan, only now he has an inexplicably Texan accent. Giss huntin' newborns jest brings the old country floodin' back, dun't it? (I don't know, I'm from Wimbledon.) Alice shows up and blithely tells Bella that she's tricked her dad (who she calls by his first name) into basically leaving Edward and Bella alone together in the Cullen house. “You're welcome,” she winks. Alice Cullen: Super Pimp.

But, of course, our chaste teenage heroes, take the opportunity, AGAIN, to talk about their relationship. Jeez. There are so many things wrong with this conversation, I don't even want to touch it but it ends with Bella begging for sex so much that she agrees to marry Edward, basically just so they can bone. Eddie does his best to outright condemn sex before marriage without ever saying the words “true love waits” by explaining that he is literally saving her soul. Oh man. This is hilarious. Wait wait, Eddie. Hey, Eddie. So it's cool that Bella stood by while hundreds of innocents were murdered in Italy before her very eyes (almost) but she can't hop on the good foot and do the bad thing with you, despite the fact that you're going to spend eternity forever anyway? Because that's going to send her to fiery damnation? By that count, she should looking forward to a good roasting on account of all the lying, not honouring her mother or her father, and she sure as hell has been indulging in a bit of coveting the local werewolf's...ass.

But wait, it gets better. He explains that he's from a different era. He wants to court Bella, and ask her father's permission to propose, and wait until they are sanctified as one in the eyes of God before indulging in sinful, lustful carnal embraces. Wait, what? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Edward isn't even that old, for a vampire. He's 110, he says. So he was vamped some time around 1917. He only lived in that society for seventeen years before becoming, essentially, a fixed point in time, and thus fully capable of rolling with the changes of each new decade. He's not a time traveller suddenly dumped into the fast and loose ways of the 21^st century. For god's sake, the Roaring 20s started a few years later, and they weren't no church service. This is why Americans make crap vampires. They have no history to live through. Jasper's Civil War story is about as good as it gets.

Anyway, the upshot is that Bella agrees to marry Edward like we always knew she would, so all that wrangling about not wanting to be a teenage marriage statistic was pointless and token and really infuriating.

Anyway, none of this really matters because next comes my favourite scene in the whole thing. For some reason that I wasn't paying attention to, Bella is spending the fight in a tent way above the battleground. Does this mean we don't get to see the fight? BOO. Anyway. It's freezing and Edward, having the skin temperature of an ice lolly, can do nothing but watch as Bella slowly freezes to death. (On a side note – is cuddling Edward fun? Would having sex with be fun? Or just really, really cold?) But surprise, surprise, Jacob to the rescue because he comes in – shirtless, because werewolves scorn blizzards – and after a little face-off with Eddie, who has absolutely no moral ground to stand on here, jumps into Bella's sleeping bag to warm her up against his muscular, naked body. “After all,” he says to Edward, “I am hotter then you.”

Now, you;d think I might be nodding in agreement here - which I am - but mainly, this scene is just brilliantly, hilariously, unintentionally, smoulderingly homoerotic. Jacob Black, I am going to hold a ticker tape parade in your honour but you might want to stop staring at Edward with such animal intensity while you stroke Bella's hair. Things get even better when Eddie and Jake converse while Bella sleeps. “Could you please at least try to control your thoughts?” snaps Edward like a prissy vicar's wife. Jacob grins and calls him out on his mind-invasion things. Jacob Black, I love you. Stephanie Meyer didn't really write you, did she? Some poor editor who probably lives in a bedsit with two cats invented this glorious, decent, funny, strong character, and she has to sit back while you get all the credit. Poor thing. I think her name is Barbara.

They converse some more about super-sheshul Bella is and how hard it would be to lose her and yadda yadda yadda. Why? Bella has got to be the most undeserving heroine I have ever come across. I get that S Meyer wanted to create an everywoman character, someone with who the reader could easily put themselves in her place, but fuck's sake. Bella isn't even an empty frame, she's horrible and ungrateful and moody and manipulative and can't stand up for herself and apparently can't tell the difference between an abusive relationship and true love. Grrr.

Jacob insists again that she's in love with him too, she just won't admit it to herself. Jake, I don't like when you talk like this. You sound pushy. You sound desperate. You sound like Edward. Eddie admits that if they weren't natural enemies and Jacob wasn't trying to steal his “reason for living” (I thought you were dead), he might like him. Boys, boys, this sexual tension is unbearable.

Mercifully Jacob brings us back from insanity-land by telling him that even if Eddie weren't planning on vamping Bella, he still wouldn't like him. Because Edward is a whiny, fussy, uptight, over-protective, stalkery, controlling old man, and Jacob is a living god. Just so we're clear.

Next morning Edward really pulls off that gold medal in douchebaggery he's been gunning for by tricking Bella into revealing the engagement to Jacob. “He deserves to know,” he says unapologetically. Yep, it's definitely Good Ol' Jake's wellbeing that you're looking out for there. Then, just for extra credit, he tries to pull Bella back from going after him. Nice.

But then in a bid to stop Jake running off and killing himself (because apparently no-one in this series can handle a little teen heartbreak) Bella tells him to kiss her. AT LONG BLOODY LAST. And I don't even need to tell you how it's a million times hotter than Eddie's chaste fumbling, but I'll say it anyway. Because it is.

Thankfully, we do get to see the fight scene, and I have to say, it's pretty cool – even if they do manage to avoid real bloodshed by having the vampire limbs shatter like porcelain. Then again, I guess vampires don't have blood...but then where does the blood they drink go? I'm guessing they don't really have digestive systems, they don't seem to go to the bathroom or do anything too icky and bodily because then they wouldn't be so shiny and superhumanly perfect. So does the blood just sit there? Does it evaporate? Wait, how can Edward even have sex with Bella if – to put it delicately – vampires don't have circulatory systems? That's that moral dilemma solved, I guess. Huh. Vampire anatomy. Who knew.

Anyway, then Victoria and her sidekick – the one who was making all the decisions, so is technically the boss, remember? - show up and a slightly less cool fight scene occurs. A baby werewolf call Seth rips the arm off sidekick guy (it is honestly not worth learning his name), which is badass and Victoria goes to run away. Wait, what? How is this character even a villain? How is she worth three films of being the antagonist? She wants to kill Bella – Bella is right there! Edward has to goad her into coming back to fight him! For the 728^th time, this series makes zero sense.

Anyway, they fight and it looks like Eddie will lose (oh no) until Bella remembers her old campfire stories and stabs herself in the arm to distract Victoria. Well, at least she had her brain in gear for once and didn't go for the full heart-stabbing deal-y. Maybe the story woman was just super theatrical and in the moment it just felt right. So Edward rips Victoria's head off. He's still not cool though. Then he sets fire to her, which, if you recall, is the only way to kill a vampire truly and properly. Except what he does is just chuck a lighter (where did he get it? He doesn't smoke. He wasn't even supposed to be in the fight, so it's not like he was carrying it around on the off-chance he'd have to flame a vampire corpse, is it?) on her body – literally throws it through the air of a cold, windy mountaintop – and not only does it stay alight but her entire body goes WHOOSH immediately. Are vampires made of gasoline? Do they have petrol instead of blood? Is that vampire anatomy? I JUST WANT SOMETHING TO MAKE SENSE.

Alice has a vision of Dakota Fanning approaching and it sends a dread chill into her heart but then again, we all have bad memories of War of the Worlds. Then, out of nowhere, one last vamp shows up and Jacob gets half his ribs smashed. No! Use strained plot contrivances to inject some semblance of dramatic morphine into the turgid corpse of this film if you must, but leave Jacob out of it! The Volturi show up because...I honestly don't know. I think they're supposed to be some kind of vampire police but – and buckle up here, because I'm about to agree with Edward for the second time in the film – as Eddie points out, if they'd shown up half an hour earlier they could have, y'know, done their job.

Making up for lost time, the last of the newborn army gets flamed by the Volturi (the Cullens stand by and watch like the horrible apologists for murder that they are) and Dakota Fanning says the Volturi don't give second chances. Wait, what? Yes, you do! Edward – in a really stupid, half-assed way, admittedly – was prepared to reveal your existence to humanity and you let him waltz off with a coy smile and a promise to be good! You said that Bella had to become a vampire and she's still human! You – you – you are terrible antagonists! Jeeeeeeez.

Bella remembers that her best friend got half his bones smashed up for her and stops by to visit while Daddy Cullen patches him up. I'm hoping for another werewolf make-out session but instead we get – predictably – another conversation about relationships. “Edward isn't as perfect as you think,” says Jacob. “I know who he is,” says Bella. Oh, honey. I almost feel sorry for you. “I am exactly right for you,” says Jacob from his manly, sweaty bed of pain. “With me it would be as easy as breathing.” Jake, Jake, Jake, we know. We get it. But some people, y'know. It's like trying to reason with Creationists. My advice is forget her and move on. Maybe with someone with a slightly greater range of facial expression. Someone who writes a Batman-flavoured blog about pop culture and has her very own cat, perhaps.

So we finish with Bella and Edward sitting in a meadow of wildflowers talking about their wedding. Since you can probably imagine what it cost me to type that, I don't need to say much more. Edward tells her that she's giving away too much, trying to make everyone else happy. That's funny, because to me responding to queries about the guest list and reception with “who cares?” kind of suggests, I don't know, the exact opposite. Bella says that the choice between him and Jacob is "the choice between who I should be and who I am". Wait, what? THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Recognising flaws in your character is not a bad thing, Miss Bella Perfect-Special-Monster-Bait Swan, it really isn't. She continues to justify her terrible life choices by saying she's "had to face death and pain and loss in your world, but I've never felt stronger or more myself". Bella, why does everything you say make me want to hit you in the face? Here's a handy clue: if death and pain is making you feel stronger, it probably isn't really happening to you. What you mean is that a few random people you didn't really know died and now you get to make some pseudo-profound observations on life. Congratu-horrible.

“I want to tie myself to you in every humanly way possible,” says Eddie. Oh, just shag. “Starting with our wedding,” he reminds her. Jeeeez. Eddie, you've managed to cockblock yourself. You awful, awful, prudish, boring fictional creation.

And then it doesn't even end with them kissing. They just kind of...touch faces.

In conclusion, for a movie that's supposed to be the “good” one of the series, this is just horrible. It's not inadvertently funny enough to mock like the first one, nor does it have anything genuinely enjoyable about it like the second one. Great characters (Jacob) do contrived, horrible things and NONE OF THE PLOT MAKES SENSE. The fight scenes are pretty cool but they are few and far between because didn't you know? This story is about romance.

If you are acquainted with any young girls between the ages of eleven and fourteen, pay attention. Now, if you are over thirty and not related to any of them, go and take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask yourself some difficult questions. The rest of you, listen up. Do not stop your young children/sisters/cousins etc from reading and watching Twilight. It really isn't worth the sweat off your liberal, mature brows. But at the same time, try and slip them a copy of Little Women or Anne of Green Gables or Jane Eyre so that when they inevitably grow out of the franchise, good books that don't hate women will be waiting for them, along with Wuthering Heights which will deconstruct everything they ever thought was romantic.

And if, on the very small off-chance that they have not grown out of the series by the time they hit their late teens (for teenage girls are not stupid creatures, only full of hormones), if on that very small off-chance, they are seventeen and still taking the series at face value - kill them.