Twillight Saga... or Port Charles

I have many friends, whom I love dearly, that are huge fans of the Twillight Saga.  With so much excitement over the latest installment that starts playing in theatres tomorrow, I figured I'd see what all the fuss is about.  So, I finally watched the first two Twillight movies.  Sorry to say, I was not at all impressed.

The first problem was the supposed deep love between Edward and Bella.  When did this happen?  They had very few words and a few relatively meaningless encounters.  They didn't give the viewer anything of substance in order to establigh this undying love.  It was kind of like falling in love with a guy who works the drive in window at McDonald's.

But let's pretend that we do have enough of a plotline to establish that these two are in love.  What about the one dimensional characters?  I am not sure if it was the actors, directors, or the way it was writtien, but there was no passion to these characters.  The words and emotion did not match.  They proclaimed their love with as much feeling as you might say, "Would you like fries with that?"

Another thing that did not escape me is the similarities between these first two movies and the now defunct soap opera "Port Charles".  To give a basic rundown of the vampire story of both....

A young innocent girl comes to town to live with her father.  She meets a nice young man whom she is friends with and he is in love with her.  She meets a vampire and is drawn in to his mysterious demeanor.  They fall in love madly and deeply.  She turns away from all her friends and wants to be turned into a vampire.  He wants her to marry him.  Her best guy friend who also is in love with her, tries his best to make her see that the vampire is no good for her.  She doesn't listen. 

Did anyone else notice the similarity?  Sure, there are a lot more elements involved in the Port Charles storyline.  And Michael Easton and Kelly Monaco put a TON of passion into those characters. 

I did not read the books at all, so I can't comment on that. 

Toy Story 3 - Falling with Style (product review)

My son just got the Toy Story 3 Hot Wheels Falling With Style track.  The concept is absolutely great.  The idea is that this is just like the scene in the first movie (which is replayed in the third one) where Buzz Lightyear is trying to prove that he really can fly and winds up "flying" through Andy's room on the "loopy loop" (as my son calls it).
 
Here's the problem, the car itself is not balanced correctly, especially with Buzz Lightyear attached to the car, to successfully make it through the loop.  My son has a lot of other Hot Wheel cars, so we tried a few other cars and a lot of those ones did work.  I also had to take a few similar pieces from his old "loopy loop" to make this one work better.  The tabs they include to attach the tracks together is a lot flimsier than the ones we got in the Toys R Us Fast Lane brand double loop.
 
I think that if you already have other tracks that can work with this, it would be great.  I need to try a few more height options and see if it works better, but so far, the suggested 30 inches did not work too well with just the items in the box.

VTech's new MobiGo

I have been reading a lot of reviews on the Vtech MobiGo which is slated to be released in August.  (It's already available at Toys R Us).  It seems like a pretty neat toy.  My son saw some of the demo videos online and we looked at the list of game titles that will be available.  He has informed me that he wants the Superhero Squad game for his birthday.  I thought it was even more cute to find out that he wants it because his daddy (a police officer) works with Spiderman to fight the bad guys. We went to Toys R Us last weekend and saw the demo version in the store.  I'd like to get it for him, but we do already have the VMotion and the VSmile Pocket.  He really enjoys those games and they are not compatible with the new system.  It will be a tough decision to invest the money on a new game system.  He does already also have a Nintendo DS, but I'd rather have him put that aside for a little while and play more age-appropriate games.

   

Survival of Scripted Television

I may be in the minority, but I am not a fan of Reality Shows.  I am not into The Bachelor, American Idol, Big Brother, or any of the other shows that have been taking over Prime Time TV.  I would rather watch a scripted show that tells a great story, gives a good laugh, or evokes a few tears.

Over the last few years, I have seen many shows with great potential get cancelled before anyone even knew they were on TV.  For instance, did you see the new show on ABC called Romantically Challenged that starred Alyssa Milano?  If you blinked you might have missed it.  It premiered in April and was cancelled in May.  Four episodes aired.  Yes, just four episodes.  I think it had great potential, but we will never know.  I follow Alyssa Milano on Twitter and that's why I knew the show was on.  It's also how I found out it was cancelled.  Would you believe she heard of the cancellation through a TV Guide tweet?  WOW!  Perhaps ABC wanted to give us more Dancing With the (Fake) Stars (like Kate Gosselin).

Speaking of Kate Gosselin, why in the world do we keep paying attention to her?  Eh, I'm not even going to go there.

With the number of shows that were cancelled without a true ending over the last few years, I think I may want to just give up on new shows.  For instance, what ever happened to Tru Calling, The 4400, The Dead Zone, Moonlight,  The Ex List (another 4 episode run), Samantha Who?, and I am sure there are plenty that I can't even think of at the moment.

Why should I get invested in a new show, just to have the networks pull the plug too soon?

Glad to see some of my favorites return like Castle, Chuck, Bones, Supernatural Smallville, Big Bang Theory, Burn Notice...