The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2

The End of An Era

★ ★ ★ out of 5 buckets | Matinee or DVD

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Rated: PG-13 - Sequences of violence including disturbing images, some sensuality, and partial nudity

Release Date: November 16, 2012

Runtime: 1 hour 56 minutes

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Director: Bill Condon
Writers: David O. Russell, based on the novel by Matthew Quick
Cast:  Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Billy Burke, Mackenzie Foy, Maggie Grace, Jamie Campbell Bower, Christopher Heyerdahl

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SYNOPSIS:  After the birth of Renesmee, the Cullens gather other vampire clans in order to protect the child from a false allegation that puts the family in front of the Volturi.

REVIEW: Dream Girls and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 director Bill Condon returns to put the final stake in the coffin for the franchise with the final installment to the Stephanie Meyer series of supernatural young adult books. Melissa Rosenberg, writer of all but the original film, returns to scribe the film that will have to say goodbye to Bella, Edward, and Jacob. 

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart, Snow White and the Huntsman) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, Cosmopolis) come back from the brink as Bella gives birth to their half-vampire/half-human daughter Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1). Bella is then turned into a newborn vampire by Edward in order to save her life. Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner, Abduction), as part of his werewolf nature, becomes imprinted to Renesmee and pledges to protect her at all costs.  While Bella becomes more familiar with her new powers and needs, Renesmee grows at an astonishing rate. When Cullen cousin Irina (Maggie Grace, Taken 2) witnesses the child exhibiting vampire powers, she flees to Europe to report to the Volturi leaders Caius (Jamie Campbell Bower, Anonymous), Marcus (Chistopher Heyerdahl, Hell on Wheels), and Aro (Michael Sheen, Midnight in Paris) that the Cullen coven has broken the laws by creating a child vampire - an immortal - who must be destroyed. In order to avert a bloody battle, Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli, Loosies), Esme Cullen (Elizabeth Reasers, Young Adult) and the rest of the clan decides to persuade their friends to become witnesses to the miracle that Renesmee is - and to prove that she is not something to be feared or killed.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 brings the saga of Edward, Jacob, and Bella to a spectacular close. For fans of the film series, this final installment will delight and not disappoint. For the fans of the Stephanie Meyers book series, I am sure that the classic words will still be spoke ... "The book is better.". For the uninitiated, this is not the movie to jump on board with. If you were not a 'twi-hard', Breaking Dawn will not turn you into a sudden blood thirsty or rabid fan. But the film has its moments of coolness, levity, and fierceness.

The cast of characters is vast. Like the Harry Potter series, Breaking Dawn builds each story on the back of its predecessor. You care for the characters because you have become quite attached to them over the course of several films. Now, as the eve of the final battle against the Volturi approaches, familiar and new vampires come to the aid of both sides. Soothsayer Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene, The Apparition) and Jasper Hale (Jackson Rathbone, The Last Airbender) disappear through the middle of the story, even though Alice is a prize that Aro covets. Strongman Emmett Cullen (Kellan Lutz, Immortals) and others from the clan, including Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed, Catch .44), look to defend their family, and the newest hybrid addition. Carlisle recruits powerful vampires from around the globe, ranging from elemental master Benjamin (Rami Malek, Larry Crowne) to war veteran Garrett (Lee Pace, Lincoln) to sideliner Alistar (Joe Anderson, The Grey).

As Bella settles into her new cold, undead skin, she and Edward are faced with married life together, a child like no other, and the rising threat from the Volturi, the story plods along until the final stand-off. Fans get their share of bare abs and intimate moments during the quiet first act. When Alice foresees that the Volturi are heading to the wet West Coast to claim the child and purge the Cullen clan, the story becomes somewhat more interesting as the Cullen family head to different parts of the planet to recruit others to their aide. Bringing together such a varied and eclectic group of blood suckers changes the family dynamic and offers cool visuals, but the story finally reaches its destination as the Cullens and their witnesses face off against the Volturi and their guards on a field of freshly fallen snow. The vampires and the werewolves show their powers and fighting skills in the final battle against the ancient power-hungry self-appointed monarchs. The white backdrop remains uncharacteristically pristine as opposing sides rend limb from limb, ripping heads from the sinewy connections to necks and shoulders. For the characters you have grown to love, be prepared to lose some of the them to the wings of war.

I was never a huge fan of The Twilight Saga, neither in book nor film format. Put off in the earlier films by the adolescent love triangle and Stewart's lip-biting, brooding, wishy-washy Bella, I had started coming around to liking Bella's character at the end of Breaking Dawn - Part 1 when she delivered Renesmee and started her blood-letting journey as a glistening vampire. But although more strong-willed and ready for battle, Bella still doesn't command the respect that she needs in order to carry this final chapter to a close. The gathering of the Cullen witnesses is interesting in both locale and variety of  vampires, their powers, and their personalities.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 closes the book on vampire/werewolf/human girl love triangles. While the concept of vampires versus werewolves is not new - see Underworld or the Universal Monsters - Stephanie Meyer's version of glamoured skinned blood suckers and tribe packs of wolves enthralled a generation of young adult movie goers. Whether you're on Team Jacob, team Edward, or a general Twi-Hard fan, you will like this last installment. For the rest of us, The Twilight Saga may have been just a huge suck of time.

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Liberal Arts

Knowledge is Sorrow

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Rated: NR
Release Date: September 14, 2012
Runtime:  1 hour 37 minutes

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Director: Josh Radnor
Writers: Josh Radnor
Cast:  Josh Radnor, Elizabeth Olsen, Richard Jenkins, Allison Janney, John Magaro, Zac Efron, Elizabeth Reaser

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SYNOPSIS:  When 30-something Jesse returns to his alma mater for a professor's retirement party, he falls for Zibby, a college student, and is faced with a powerful attraction that springs up between them.

REVIEW: Josh Radnor, star of the CBS hit comedy How I Met Your Mother, is becoming a renaissance man with forays into writing and director feature films. In 2010, Radnor surprised at the Sundance Film Festival with HappyThankyouMorePlease where he won the Audience Award and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. When he finished Liberal Arts and presented it at the festival, the film was snatched up for distribution. Does triple threat writer/director/actor John Radnor serve up another hit? Let's take a look.

Thirty-something college graduate Jesse (Josh Radnor, HappyThankYouMorePlease) works at the admissions office of a New York college, an avid reader of literature and graduate of an Ohio college with a liberal arts degree. When Professor Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins,The Cabins in the Woods) looks to retire at Jesse's alma mater, Jesse returns to his own campus and finds himself transcending to an earlier, more knowledge-hungry, care-free time of his life. While on campus, Jesse meets 19-year-old old soul Zibby (Elizabeth Olsen, Silent House) who captures his imagination. When Jesse returns to New York, he and Zibby stay connected through hand-written letters and a burned CD of classical music that Zibby found awakened a new awareness in her during her Music Survey course. Jesse and Lizzy realize that there was a strong attraction to each other and try to figure out what to do about it.

Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge ... For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1:18

Josh Radnor would be the first to tell you that he was working through something when he wrote the script for Liberal Arts. Looking to learn a lesson about the prospects of aging and of one's mortality, Radnor creates a story that is fueled from personal experience and personal growth. An alum of Kenyan College in real life, Radnor did take a real trip to his alma mater and realized that he had matured to a point where interactions with the younger generation still attending college would seem suspect.

Liberal Arts is a romantic dramedy in the best sense of the genre, the script following the trials and tribulations of Jesse by using several perspectives and opinions to light the way. Jesse interacts with the 'end of the road' Professor Peter Hoberg who wants to escape the prison that a few decades of working at the college has made it for him. During his wanderings through the campus, Jesse also encounters a young student Dean (John Magaro, The Box) who is both emotionally distant and a kindred spirit who enjoys the same book that shaped his own younger mind. Jesse can relate to both his own youth in the form of Dean, as well as his mounting fears that his second favorite college professor confides to him concerning his impending retirement.

Smartly written with poignant prose and dialogue, Radnor has mastered translating the written words into compelling dialogue. A perfect example of Radnor's craft coming to life can be encapsulated in a cafe bench debate between Jesse and Zibby over the pros and cons of 'Solar Sun, Lunar Moon', a campy vampire romance novel, and its place in literature. Is literature relegated to prose that compels and enriches, or is it something that you can enjoy just as fun? The conundrum that Jesse poses about literature in its totality is that 'literature is created to combat loneliness', but the more you read the less you exist in the real world.

Centered around the struggle of the yearnings of the idealized past, the drifting wayward existence of the the present, and the fears of an unknown future, Josh Radnor's story is made all the better with stellar performances by Radnor, the stunning and enthralling Elizabeth Olsen, and Richard Jenkins. Add in characters like a Romantic Literature Professor Judith Fairfield played with grace and diction by Allison Janney (The Help), a young spiritual guru Nat played without irony by Zac Efron (The Lucky One), young troubled student Dean played by John Magaro, and a wistful book store employee Ana played by Elizabeth Reaser (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1) - plus the Ohio college campus as an Autumn oasis of enlightenment and higher learning - and you have a refreshing, intelligent film worth viewing.

Liberal Arts may be an independent film, but ranks high on the list of films with something to say and a beautiful way to say it. From the new perspectives found through a pair of headphones and a burned CD, to the lost art of hand-written letters, to the influences of the written word on the expectations of real life, Liberal Arts is measured by more than degrees. 

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WORTH:  Matinee or DVD

Young Adult

Embracing the Past

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Rated: R Language and some sexual content
Release Date: December 9, 2011
Runtime: 1 hr 34 min

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Director: Jason Reitman
Writers: Diabo Cody
Cast: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser

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SYNOPSIS: Small town popular girl escapes to the big city of Minneapolis and becomes a ghost writer for a series of young adult books. But after her divorce and after receiving a birth announcement from her now married ex-boyfriend, she returns home in an attempt to rekindle a romantic relationship with him.

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REVIEW: Jason Reitman, director of Aaron Eckhart's Thank You for Smoking and George Clooney's Up in the Air, reteams with writer Diablo Cody with her new script Young Adult. Cody returns to the big screen after her 2009 effort, Jennifer's Body, and small screen writing for cable. After winning the 2008 Oscar for Best Writing - Original Screenplay for Juno, expectations for Charlize Theron's Young Adult run high.

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron, Monster) seems to be living the big city life in Minneapolis after marrying and escaping away from the small town where she grew up. But a divorce and the news of her ghost writing on a series of young adult books coming to a close after her next submission set her on course to depression. While she struggles to find the words to write down for the book, she receives a birth announcement from her now married ex-boyfriend Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson, Watchmen). The email sets her on a quest to return to her home town to rekindle her romantic relationship with Buddy, in spite of his current martial status. Along the way, she confided in crippled Matt Freehauf (Patton Oswalt, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas) about her plans for Buddy, who points out the lunacy of her intentions.

Reitman's films always have an element of realism and truth in them, and Young Adult is no different. Coupled with the timely words from Diablo Cody's script, Young Adult is a story of perceptions and hard realities. Charlize Theron's brings to Mavis Gary a character weighed down by an oppressive anchor of success deemed as failure. Every goal achieved is a pale gauzy veil that tries to cover over the loses she so desperately wants to regain. Oswalt's Matt Freehauf envies the life Mavis doesn't seem to relish, forced to hide behind crutches and the small town due to a "hate crime" that occurred while he was in high school. Matt does, however, tell Mavis at every turn how insane she is for her depression and desperate plans, even while they talk over a tumbler worth of garage stilled bourbon. Mavis regales Matt with stories of how unhappy Buddy is with his wife Beth (Elizabeth Reaser, Twilight Saga) even though Matt overheard most of the conversations firsthand and recollected the discussions differently.

Diablo Cody's dialogue is crisp and clever, both for the characters and for the characters in Mavis' last young adult book. With references like "textual chemistry", Cody surely has her fingers on the pulse of the current generation. Her scripts also includes dialogue gems like Mavis' retort, 'I'm cool with it. I got baggage, too,' when Matt reminds her that Buddy is a married man with a newborn child.

With a narrowing or a squint of the eyes, Theron conveys as much without a word as she says. When she sees Buddy and Beth's new baby for the first time, her thin smiles becomes overwhelming disdain as soon as the mother turns away. Her performance is painful and raw, even as Mavis spends hours painting on a foundation of beauty and bliss to impress.

Not a feel good movie by any stretch Young Adult is, nevertheless, a true representation of what happens to all of us when we reflect on our lives and its successes and failures. What we consider defeats, other see as triumphs. The depressions of loses that keep Mavis from realizing and reveling in her successes is something that everyone can relate to. Who hasn't gone to their high school reunions to bask in the glory days and former romances, desperate to impress with something more than what we have actually accomplished?

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WORTH: Matinee or Rental