Kristen Stewart – Falling Rock National Park

Dear readers,

You have been so supportive of me these past five years. You read and responded (favorably sometimes!) to my fan fiction. You engaged with me in many a late-night discussion (long past twilight and into the breaking dawn!). You and I have been down that long road. But the end had to come. Twilight, the best series of movies the world will ever see, is over. Shed a tear for that girl and her vampire boyfriend. Their story now belongs to the better angels of our nature.

What follows is a little trip down memory lane. Share with me, dear readers, some highlights of this beautiful love story, one last time.

That scene where Kristen Stewart sees the vampire boy in the woods and he’s eating a deer and she’s all like, whoa.

That scene where all the vampires see each other in a Whole Foods and they do that thing where they look away as they’re walking towards each other and then at the last minute, when they’re passing each other, they glance up and do a quick nod.

That scene where Kristen Stewart and the werewolf stoner get into a fight and the werewolf mauls her and then when she’s in the hospital dying he realizes he probably should’ve been easier on her.

That scene where the vampire goes out to hang with his bros and Kristen Stewart is like “where are you going?” and he says “out” and she says “I thought we were staying in to watch season 4 of The Wire.”

That scene where the vampire gets crucified for his beliefs.

That scene where the werewolf backpacks across the Southwest and becomes a Buddhist and moves to Boulder and sells beads on Pearl Street.

That scene where Kristen Stewart doesn’t know who else is watching “Girls” because after she started dating the vampire she let all her old friends sort of fade away and now her whole life is hunting homeless people, killing them, draining their blood into a bucket, and bringing the bucket to her vampire boyfriend.

Thanks for sharing this amazing journey with me! I don’t know what I’ll write about now that Twilight is over, but I guess I’ll keep the blog open just in case another supernatural teen romance comes along.

In the absence of any real news this week, I’m going to write about what I’ve been enjoying these last few days. Adventureland

There are movies in which plot is king. That’s probably the majority of movies, actually. Then there are movies in which a bunch of cool people hang out for a couple of hours. Adventureland is that kind of a movie.

A few hours after watching Adventureland, my brain was still humming along to the rhythm of the movie. I wanted to hold that particular feeling. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen in my whole life, but it was pleasant, and fun, and funny. It gave me a good feeling and for that I have to share it with you, dear readers.

Jesse Eisenberg plays James, an overly-literate Jew who just graduated from Oberlin, drives an Aries K Car, and reminds me not at all of myself. James plans on moving to New York in the fall and attending Columbia’s school of journalism (because he admires Charles Dickens’ travel writing so much). These plans are thwarted when his father is “transferred” (we are not told why, although it might have something to do with the fact that he drinks nonstop everytime we see him) and his parents have no money to fund these extravagances. James finds gainful employment at the local theme park, Adventureland (what is the theme, you ask? ADVENTURE!).

In spite of Eisenberg playing the lead, Kristen Stewart (playing Em) truly steals the show. She takes the thankless role of “love interest” and fills it with that indefinable quality that makes men trip all over themselves and act even goofier than usual.

Here, as in many movies unfortunately, the guys are defined by what they do (or want to do) and the girls are defined by what is done to them. In spite of this, Stewart makes her character deeper and more involving than the script provides. I was so interested in her, ah, acting that I checked to see what other movies she’s been in. Turns out she is best known for being in some teenage vampire movie. Crazy, right? I never would have guessed.

Throw in hilarious performances by Martin Starr, Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, and you’ve got a real winner. While not as hilarious as Superbad (the director’s previous film), Adventureland is extremely addictive in the same way the best TV shows tend to be. I only wish Adventureland was episodic; as it is, we only get 100 minutes with these characters.

The Complete K Chronicles, by Keith Knight

I never got a newspaper that carried the K Chronicles when I was younger. That’s a shame, because it is quickly becoming one of my favorite comic strips. I can only wonder how obsessed I would have been if I started to read the K Chronicles when I was 12.

Better late than never; I’m about halfway through this impressive tome. At 500+ pages, it truly feels like a “complete” collection of work. Still, I have to wonder what Knight feels like when he sees years of his life condensed into a single book. I imagine it is the same as an editor at National Geographic must feel when he sees decades of the presented on a single hard drive. Information is getting more compressed, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. At least, I hope not.

Each episode of the K Chronicles is overstuffed with words, pictures, and jokes. Instead of the four-panel format, each K takes up a full page (usually 9 panels). Knight can tell whole stories in the space. Unlike some of the terrible comics that forever recycle the same lame jokes and stock characters, K deals in the real and the now. You won’t find any lasagna jokes (I haven’t yet at least), but you will see fresh takes on race, class, gender, from a black man living in San Francisco.

Also, he’s got a weird fixation on sheep. It gets funnier the more you read, trust me.

Adventureland and The Complete K Chronicles have absolutely nothing in common as far as I can tell. If I was writing reviews for a real newspaper I’d have to find something to close this post, shoehorn some weird “and so they both blah blah blah the end.” Fortunately I’m a hack blogger, so I’ll just say ROBERT PATTINSON IS TOTALLY HOTTTT!!!!!