Oh, Twilight.

It was with some measure of reluctance that I went to see Twilight on opening night with my good friend and fellow Twilight-lover-for-all-the-wrong-reasons, Emma B. She started me on the series. After I admitted to her that I was knee deep in a series of young-adult fiction books about witches that I so loved reading during my adolescence that I had to snatch them up the second I found them on eBay, she was all "Oh? Have you read Twilight?" It's a good friend that doesn't judge you for reading young-adult fiction, then encourages your literary dumbing-down with more young-adult fiction. Then she GAVE me the first book. How could I resist? Now I'm almost finished with Eclipse and I swear, while it's not high literature by any means, it is darn fun reading.

Opening night is a bad, bad thing in Los Angeles - I went to see a few movies on opening night there and nearly killed some people and vowed I'd never do it again, even since I moved to Mississippi. Emma B. was all "no, we're doing it" and I agreed and it turned out to be freakin' awesome. I couldn't help but be caught up in all the giggly madness - it's hard not to be enthusiastic about something when you're surrounded by 15-year-olds who GASP every time Edward Cullen comes on the screen.

The movie was... good in it's awfulness. I mean, the book is by no means well written, but it's certainly well marketed and well aimed. The movie is the same way. Bella is every bit as annoying and pathetic on screen as she is in print, and Edward is every bit as smoldering and angsty. How a dude can be 100 years old and still be a freakin' whiny emo teenager is beyond me, but dang if he ain't. Still, the legend of Edward dazzled *snerk* every girl in the theater.

We were bad, though, Emma B. and I. We've had GREAT fun with the sparkly vampire thing. It's so completely absurd that we can't help laughing at it, and Emma B. calls them "sparklepires." So when the time came that we knew that Edward was about to reveal his true sparkly self, the whole theater went silent. Girls were holding hands and shaking their legs, waiting with drooling anticipation for the coup de sparkle. Sure enough, Edward jumped into the sunlight and sparkled like he was covered in body glitter, and while the whole theater was in silenced awe, Emma B. and I completely lost it. We got the crazy giggles, and the more we tried to stop, the more we lost control.

You see, he didn't just step into the sunlight and start sparkling... there were sound effects. The same sound effects used for anything else that sparkles... a kind of "sssshhhinnngggg." The absurdity of a sparkling vampire combined with sound effects just proved too much for me and Emma B. to handle. We got a few dirty looks from the in-luuuuuv teenagers around us, which only encouraged us. The church giggles... in a vampire movie. Good stuff.

I don't have much negative to say about the movie. It was delicious, the same way that a Twinkie is delicious. You know it's bad for you, and badly made, and will last forever (um, kinda like a vampire) but it's good. One thing, though... Edward? Yeah, there are more attractive actors. Someone whose beauty is supposed to absolutely awe, Robert Pattinson ain't. He's a good looking guy, but not so much with the dazzling. Jacob was better looking. Also, they could've picked someone a little older to play Carlisle. The only other thing I've ever seen Peter Facinelli in was Can't Hardly Wait, and every time the guy was on the screen I couldn't get "Amanduuuuhhhh" out of my head. Distracting.

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen worked for some, though. Emma B. and I walked out of the theater, giggling uncontrollably and making sparkly noises, and saw a man in front of us attacked by a 10-year-old declaring her love and marital intentions for Edward Cullen. From what I could tell, they weren't together - he seemed like he just wanted to get the hell out of there before any of his male friends caught him - but her love for Edward was so deep that she felt compelled at that moment to accost a stranger and let him know of her intentions. "I'M GOING TO MARRY EDWARD CULLEN! *giggle giggle giggle giggle*" Sad, but cute. I had the same feelings about Harry Connick Jr. when I saw him on Saturday Night Live in 1990. He's not a fictional character.

I think I totally want to go see the movie again. My love for teenage movies is no secret, and there hasn't been a teenage movie of this caliber since the early part of the decade. Anyone wanna make that walk of shame and see the movie a second time?