By Mark HadleyMonday 5 Jul 2010MoviesReading Time: 2 minutes
Twilight: Eclipse
Rating: M
Distributor: Hoyts
Release Date: July 1, 2010
The final chapter in the trilogy of films based on Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series arrives at your cinema complex this week. Expect to see doey-eyed teenage girls and surly boys staring you down from billboards all over town.
In the first film Twilight Bella Swan fell in love with the undying teenage vampire Edward Cullen. In New Moon she fended off the advances of werewolf Jacob Black to win through to Edward’s marriage proposal. In Eclipse Bella must choose between a mortal life with her family or an immortal one with her undead lover. Meyer’s stories are extremely sensitive to the idea of eternal life, but Bella’s fears about growing old and the desperation of her love for Edward don’t do her fans any favours. This popular couple amount to a very modern Catherine and Heathcliff with all the selfishness and self-destructive tendencies left intact.
In the final episode Bella finally enters the ascended life of the vampire – a sort of eternal, perfected existence that would remind Christians of Heaven if it weren’t for the continuing fear. Despite gaining the ageless body she desires and the perfect boy to match, she still has to deal with opposing vampires that wish to tear her apart. Not much of an afterlife after all.
The Colbert Report
Rating: CC PG
Distributor: ABC2
Release Date: Week days, 7:35 PM
The Colbert Report shows that Americans really do understand satire – or at least those who realise this is not a Fox News spin-off but a parody of it. Fictional host Stephen Colbert presents a right-wing commentary of the news of the week, with a particular focus on American politics. His senatorial, bully-boy style is inspired by pundits like Bill O’Reilly, and his humorous extremes highlight the extremity of their political views. The content is frequently hilarious, if risqué, and surprisingly politically astute.
ABC2 is screening the ‘global edition’ of this American Comedy Central smash. For ‘global’ read ‘edited’. Having seen original episodes I’ll admit I’m a little lost as to what the guidelines are. Certainly the material that remains is often distinctly American and some of the more international elements like Colbert’s coining of new political phrases (truthy and freem to name a couple) are cut out. However a highlight that survives is Stephen Colbert’s interviews with real political figures. Hiding behind his Republican mask, Colbert is able to challenge his guests to support the most offensive viewpoints that still find air-time on cable television.
Once again we discover that some of the basic assumptions that underpin our lives are actually ridiculous when someone takes the time to say them out loud. The Colbert Report has cult-status on-screen and online, so it’s well worth catching an episode to see what the fuss is all about.