Good gravy.

I have absolutely NO self control. I was trying to be good and just bide my time and be surprised along with everyone else...but I couldn't. Nope, I just had to do it. It was sitting there, practically waiting for me to just give up.

What am I talking about, you might ask?

I'm talking about the fifteen (yes, FIFTEEN) whole minutes of the Twilight movie. Fifteen, glorious, uninterrupted (well uninterrupted by editing, not by fans), beautiful, whole minutes of the movie. I didn't want to ruin it for myself. I spoiled too much of Breaking Dawn, and I've seen so much of the movie already...but I just couldn't do it. So, I dug (and dug) and finally found a YouTube video of the fifteen minutes. Catherine Hardwick premiered the clip at the Rome Festival where she, along with Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, held a press conference about the movie. The clip was shot from a fan in the audience, so the quality isn't fantastic. A few times you can't hear a word because of all the screaming fans...but,

IT. WAS. FREAKING. AMAZING.

The clip is of when Edward takes Bella to meet his family for the first time. Not only do you get to see all of the Cullens in character, but you also get to see some special effects. It travels from Bella meeting the Cullens to Edward taking Bella out running. Well, in the movie he's not really running; he's more like...flying, really. It's kind of odd. I didn't like the fact that it looks like he's flying, but I like it when it shows him crawling up the trees. Most of the stuff in the 15-minute clip has been seen before, through the TV advertisements, trailers, and the sneak peek in Penelope. The newest stuff is the Cullen family, and at the end there's this beautiful sequence of Edward finally playing Bella her own personal lullaby. "Bella's Lullaby" is surprisingly haunting...it's nothing of what I expected. I guess it could hardly be called a lullaby, and in an interview I saw with Catherine Hardwick, I guess they call it their "Love Theme." It's sad but sweet, much like the relationship between Edward and Bella. There's the longing within the music--longing to be happier and softer, but yet the music stays its course. I think the composer, Carter Burwell (he did No Country for Old Men), did an excellent job at pegging the relationship between Edward and Bella. The final sequence of Edward at the piano is breath-taking, and probably my favorite piece of the movie I've seen so far.

Last night I watched Thirteen to get a better look at Catherine Hardwick's directing style, and I think it'll go well with the movie. She tends to shoot movies as if they're a documentary. There's a lot of hand-held camera shots rather than track shots, and the lighting she chooses is very unique. I think it'll go well with Twilight, because you can say a lot with hand-held camera shots. The Edward/Bella relationship is actually quite unstable, and Edward is always unsure of himself around her. There's a primitive aspect of the vampires, especially when hunting, and both these aspects can be demonstrated by the unstable, sometimes shaky direction of a documentary-styled filming process. I think, too, you get a nice little throwback to the fact that the books are all from Bella's perspective, and the hand-held camera makes it feel like you're seeing something out of someone else's vision, rather than a uninvolved third party. The lighting of the movie that I've seen so far is interesting. I think the first train of thought towards vampires, as far as coloring and lighting go, tends to be dark reds, black and dark gray. However, the lighting in the movie is very light. Very light blues, light gray, some green and white seem to have common reappearances. This to me makes more sense than reds and blacks. Vampires are technically dead, and death to me is associated with white (color leaving the face) and blue (ice; blood-drained). Also, the green aspect is very ironic to me. Green is associated with nature, and the whole problem that the Cullen family struggle with is the fact that they're so unnatural. They try to blend in, in an area that's full of natural things, but yet they can't--their dead white faces stand out against the alive, green trees of the Olympic Pennisula.

Remove the fact that I'm an obviously over-obsessed fan of Twilight. Looking at the 15-minute clip, combined with everything else I know and I have seen of the movie, there's definite intrigue. These people really planned everything out--they didn't just rush forward and say "let's crank out the next big franchise." Although the movie is already getting pimped-out, marketing-wise, I think there could be some interesting studying of the film. Hardwick is a fascinating director, the actors are all so varying and unique, and the music is so unexpected--you put that all together, and I have a feeling when you sit down and watch Twilight, chances are you'll probably see a movie you never expected to see. I know the books by heart now, pretty much, so I know how the story-line goes. I have a feeling, however, that it'll be as if I'm being told this story for the first time when I watch this movie.

I'm so excited for it, on so many different levels.

P.S. If you want to watch the clip, I'm not going to post the actual video right on my blog, for those of you who don't want it to be spoiled. However, I will tell you to click here if you do want to see it. Like I said earlier, it's bad quality and the fans are kind of annoying, but to me it was worth it.