Monday, November 30, 2009

Halfway House: Kristen Stewart Has a Sh** Life, Okay?

Halfway through the day, pause a movie halfway through. What do you see?

Every life choice has its ups and downs. So goes the life of the actressexual. If you champion and obsess over actresses as I have since I was a little boy then every, oh, three to five years you will experience the superstar rise of an actress that you find unsupportable and that you wish the rest of the world would get over. Behold my 2007-2010 model: Kristen Stewart.

53 minutes into Adventureland, Kristen craps on Jesse
Jesse Eisenberg: I think you're incredible.
[pause. inhale]
Kristen Stewart: There's a lot of shit in my life.

I'm not ready for this...
There are many reasons to hate Kristen Stewart so she didn't really need to add taking a dump on adorabnoxious Jesse Eisenberg's dreams to the list. Since the Twilight movies have taken over the world, we will surely be seeing Kristen Stewart in dozens of movies over the next 5 or 6 years. She'll be in demand for every role for a twentysomething.

I'm not ready for this.

How will I tell one character from the next what will all the shoulder shrugging, painful intakes of breath, hair stroking, and general twitchiness that define every Stewart performance? Someone help me see things differently because I know I'll be seeing a lot of her. What am I missing? Please tell me that she'll at least play Joan Jett differently than this because I really want to enjoy The Runaways next year. I love Joan Jett. And I don't really remember her as the mopey, shrugging, self-loathing sort that Stewart specializes in.

So, no wonder that Eisenberg runs to the arms of "Lisa P" (Margarita Levieva) in Adventureland. Anything to break the monotony of Kristen's mannered & mopey miserabilism. As for the movie itself, I'm glad that some people found it so moving and worthwhile but I felt largely indifferent to it, though I did admire its partial commitment to languid summer moods and the tiny sparks of humor. And I liked Lisa P and her bestie dance partner Kelly. Loved the T-shirts, too. And the Giant Ass Panda. I'd pro'lly cheat to win one of those, too.
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