Ultimate Sexiest Beast Edward Cullen vs Damon Salvatore

So EW is less than three days away from crowning their “Ultimate Sexiest Beast”. Their two final contenders: Edward Cullen (Robert Pattison) from Twilight and Damon Salvatore (Ian Somerhalder) from The Vampire Diaries (which was written first!). While they both have their charms, as I write this they are at 50/50. I find it a little nerve racking because I am rooting one over the other. But for the sake of sounding unbiased, here’s some tid bits on the both of the candidates.



Team Edward: Edward is sweet, kind, charming, and a true gentlemen. Color me old fashion, but I love the fact that Edward wants to wait to have sex with Bella until they’re married. No he doesn’t wear leather and he does seem to be quite ridden with angst if he’s not lying in the flower fields stroking Bella’s face, but he has an undying loyalty for the woman he loves and is truly in love with her and is man enough to put her needs above his own. If Bella loved Jacob, he would want her to be happy with him. That’s just wonderful. He completely won me over in Eclipse and I don’t like how his conservatism makes him a target. You can be conservative and sexy. Plus, he’s very mysterious.

Cons: Sparkling is so not sexy. If someone wants to refer to The Cullen family as beautiful, that would be completely acceptable. Sure Edward does have some sex appeal, but the only thing “beastly” about him is that he’s a vampire. I don’t mean to knock Stephanie Meyer’s vampire mythology. She can write whatever she wants about vampires. However, it’s just not sexy.



Team Damon: Damon Salvatore is probably the greatest thing about The Vampire Diaries. It’s really bad when you root for the bad boy to get with the good girl, but I find it hard to stop myself from rooting for Damon. I would have never guessed that Ian Somerhalder would have pulled off such a fantastic job. He’s devilish, charming, sexy, sarcastic, has smoldering good looks, a great body, and he’s a real vampire. He’s a bad boy, but he’s smart and everything he’s ever done has been for the love of his life. He’s twisted, but he’s sweet in his own sick way. There are lots of other great characters on The Vampire Diaries so to say that Damon carries the show would be unfair, but it’s obvious that it would be seriously lacking.

Cons: I can’t think of one that would take away his sexiness. As far as his personality, he’s not the guy you wanna bring home to mom and dad...or invite in the house period.

Sexy Beast: Being “sexy” or attractive period doesn’t always have to do with looks. People obviously can have sexy bodies, smiles, smirks, glares, voices, or eyes, but that’s not always the determining factor. Personalities have a lot to do with it and how you carry yourself. If you’re sexy, you’ve got to be confident in that fact. But “beast” is the thing that makes the choice a little more clearer for me. Being vampires makes them both qualified for that term, but if you’re a “beast” there’s got to be some ferociousness to you and some toughness. It’s not about strength. It’s about that inner monster.

My Choice: Absolutely 100% Damon. Ian’s really got something with that character. I never thought much of Ian on Lost as Boone as far as looks and the character of Damon is a complete turn around. Plus, his body is A LOT better than Rob’s.

I’m pulling for Damon to win. I’ve already voted. I hope he wins, because I think if Edward won it would just be because of his fans that aren’t truly considering the criteria. By definition, I think Damon should take this victory.

ABC's "The Gates" Review

So it’s the summer time, which means I’m over the angst I felt when all my shows left me with a cliff hanger, but there’s still a void because I’m not watching them. The only saving grace is a few summer shows like “Hell’s Kitchen” and “So You Think You Can Dance”. But since I’m a geek and needed something else to watch, I decided that I would give ABC’S “The Gates” a try.

It’s basically a show about monsters that live in a gated community because they want to be safe from normal people because they want to live normally. At first I thought it was vampires, then I pleasantly saw that there were werewolves/shape shifters and then it turned out that there were other creepy neighbors like witches and succubuses, which never really gets done. So the show is an interesting twist on monster mythology.

The non-monsters that we’re supposed to care if they get eaten is a family moved to The Gates because the dad, Nick Monohan, is a cop who had shot a criminal who he supposedly thought was armed. He’s the new Chief of Police for The Gates and is pretty tough on crime. For that reason, when a neighbor goes missing and is mauled in a so called “animal attack” he’s on the case, to the annoyance of the residents.

The second most important character from the family is the son, Charlie, who likes a girl at school who has a boyfriend, a very deadly boyfriend. A love triangle ensues.

I wasn’t too thrilled with it while watching the first few episodes. It was something I barely decided to DVR. I would play it on Hulu while I was working on something on my computer. I’m not too attached to any of the characters and wouldn’t be sad if any one of them disappeared. I’m just not invested into them yet. There’s a line of morality missing for me. And though Charlie isn’t knocking over in liquor stores or anything like that, I just don’t think it’s cool to engage in cheating. And then all the monsters eat people and I don’t find any of them really charming, with the exception of vampire Dylan Radcliff.

Then the fourth episode comes on and it’s typical blah, blah, blah and then at the last five minutes of the episode makes me go “I can’t believe that just happened!” I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. For those who know what I’m talking about, it certainly was reckless and unexpected. However, it proved to me that this show isn’t going to play it safe and that there’s more than what I thought to it. If a show can make me gasp, they’ve got something.

I’m officially a fan. I’m not devoted or addicted, but I’m eggar to see what comes next. I recommend it. While it has somewhat of a slow start to me, it gets better and I think it’s gonna be really good!

Is The Last Airbender worse than Dragonball Evolution? That’s a good question, and one that has been actually raised due to the epic fail that The Last Airbender turned out to be. DBE is pathetically rated at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s pretty terrible. But The Last Airbender even managed to do worse with 8%.

But not everyone agrees with critics and Avatar probably has a younger fan base, which might be harder to please and might not grasp important things like direction or cinematography. So is it really as bad as DBE?

First off, I’m gonna start by saying that I’m one of Dragonball Z’s biggest fans ever. I was into fanfiction, had my computer filled with fanart, and watched it every time it was on tv. I even watched it when it showed throughout the week on Toonami and then on Saturday when they showed every episode that they just played during the week. I was into it!

When I heard some of the changes being done to the movie, I was appalled. First of all, if it’s “Dragonball” and not “Dragonball Z” then it should have been about kid Goku, not high school Goku (especially since he’s as dumb as a rock except when it comes to fighting). Bulma didn’t have blue hair, Master Roshi wasn’t really old, and Chi-Chi wasn’t really herself at all. So the more I heard, the angrier I got.

Then it occurred to me that DBZ is a crazy show. There’s no way that terrifying monsters that turn people into food or talking animals that can drive and pay mortgages on their houses would translate well into film. There’s just too much crazy stuff to make it completely accurate. So while I don’t understand why Bulma couldn’t have a blue wig, I decided to reserve judgement and go see the film for myself.

I was disappointed with the film, but I sort of liked it. It’s not a strong “like”. It’s a “shrug my shoulders, I didn’t want to kill myself and I might actually watch this again if I’m bored” sort of like. It was a bad film though.

Since DB/DBZ/DBGT was over, there was a hole in my heart. Presently, I’m lacking in really good animes. Death Note and Full Metal Alchemist was awesome, but nothing quite felt like DBZ to me. A good show that filled that gap was easily Avatar: The Last Airbender.

I was ecstatic when I heard they were doing a live action film for that show. My younger sister Tina put it in the calender in her phone so the alarm would go off the announced date of the movie. I was still pumped when I heard M. Night Shyamalan was doing it, because I like his movies. When I saw The Happening, I became very leery of him and began to lose faith.

Then I heard a bunch of crazy changes and I got angry, just like I did with DBE. When I heard some of the casting, I was upset. I’m not one of those “they should be Asian!” screamers, but I at least want the actors to look like the characters. Heck! Zuko’s scar is barely visible. It looks like he got smacked in the face, not burned. I remember staring at my computer screen and chatting with my friend on facebook saying “Why aren’t Sokka’s and Katara’s coats blue?” I was really upset!

Then I saw some trailers and I began to get excited for the film again. After all, it’s an easy film to make. The source material is awesome. It’s difficult to decide what to take out and what to keep, but the story is fantastic. The characters have such great chemistry with each other. The humor is amazing. And even though it’s a kid’s cartoon, the show has such serious content that it’s easily expanded it’s demographic.

So I saw the film opening day with an open mind. When I heard the first name mispronunciation, I think I twitched, but I told myself to go on. Then it happened again, and again and I forced myself to ignore it. But then there were so many other mistakes that just didn’t make sense for the sake of the plot. I tried to get over that too, but then the acting was bad and the characters were butchered. How can Asian Americans forgive the act of “race bending” when everyone was so bad? No one can believe the lie of “the best person got the job”. Crap!

So I left the theater angry. My youngest sister exploded as soon as the credits started rolling.

But the question still remains of which movie is better.

I have to sadly say that DBE is the better film. The reason is this, and this alone: The Last Airbender failed miserably on characterization. I can understand changing stories. I can understand taking out scenes or adding scenes or the director making his own race his favorite nation. I can’t understand, but I can forgive the name changes. What I can’t forgive is that the total lack of character. Aang–the fun, loving, goof ball might as well have put on black clothes and makeup because he was Emo. But he wasn’t a “dress Emo because I think it’s cool and it’s how I am” Emo. He was slitting his wrists material. All he needed was some sarcastic and demented remarks. Sokka–the joker–was completely humorless and didn’t have much of a part. Even his tragic love scene barely survived the editing room. Katara wasn’t motherly. Zhao was a punk, instead of the formidable, angry, and arrogant foe. The Fire Lord didn’t even seem like that bad of a guy!

Dragonball Evolution might have been rushed, the fighting might not have been up to par with the show, and the story might have been over all stupid, and fans might have had a lot of “what the heck!” moments, but AT LEAST the spirit of the characters were there. At least they had little moments to appease some people. Goku tried to gel his hair and his spikes wouldn’t allow it. Goku ate a giant piece of chicken and I could go “Oh! That’s Goku!” At least the guy playing Yamcha did his best and actually sounded like him.

I wish Sokka would have said a joke. I wish they would have ruined a cabbage man’s cart. I wish Aang would have hinted that he liked Katara. I wish. I wish. I wish!

But it didn’t happen.

DBE changed WAY more than TLAB, but the problem was that M. Night tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. As a matter of fact, it was perfect. I literally thought there was no way he could ruin this film. A DBZ movie should only be made if you want to see cool fighting. Some of the character’s stories are great (Prince Vegeta), but the show itself is nowhere as good as Avatar.

Sure Airbender had good special effects, but M. Night missed the mark. He must not have realized that he was making a movie based off of a beloved children’s cartoon. He somehow took all the fun out of the story and the characters while also making it cheesier. Congratulations for that, because that seems very hard to me to pull off. It couldn’t have been an accident. That must have taken a lot of effort!

The Last Airbender’s story was better, but that’s a reflection of the cartoon and had nothing to do with M. Night. This was probably his worst directed film. The acting was terrible, the shots were weird sometimes, and there was no character development. The special effects were very cool, but it took too long to bend anything.

I really would like them both to reboot. I’d take the chance, because I did love the shows.

Eclipse OWNS The Last Airbender

After seeing both Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Last Airbender on the day of their openings, I’ve got to say that I really, really enjoyed one over the other and I’m surprised which one it was.

I’m not a big fan of Twilight. I don’t dislike it, but I’m not much of a chick who likes romance flicks unless they’re really funny. I can watch them, but I don’t have much of a desire for it. The first Twilight was rushed while New Moon felt long in some parts. I wasn’t sure how Eclipse was gonna play out, even though the previews were pretty sweet. The truth was that I really enjoyed the film. It wasn’t my favorite film of the year, but so far it’s my favorite of the summer. There was more action, the pace was good, and it was really humorous. Though I don’t really buy Taylor Lautner’s angry face all the time, I really enjoy his chemistry with Robert Pattison and their rivalry for Bella’s affection. I liked that more of the characters lives were explained and it went outside of the love triangle by explaining Rosalie’s and Jasper’s past, which is something the first Twilight film failed at big time.

To some people, saying that Eclipse was the best Twilight film isn’t enough, because they don’t care or like the first two. I’m gonna go out on a limb and admit that I liked it. I recommend not seeing it with a theater filled with little kids but an actual young adult crowd and feed off of the energy they invoke. I had a really nice movie experience.

I thought The Last Airbender was going to be the best movie of the year, when in reality it was probably the biggest disappointment in my movie watching career. Ever. It was a movie that was basically easy to make. The story is so solid that you really don’t have to adopt it, just make it real life. The source material is great. It’s not like Dragonball Z when there’s so much crazy stuff like talking animals and villains that turn people into food and eats them. Avatar was a great and sensible cartoon. I can’t believe how badly it was messed up.

Since I’ve made a video for a Twilight review and will do one on Last Airbender, I won’t go too in depth right now as far as what was wrong in comparison with the cartoon and film, but I will say it was really rushed, some of the shots didn’t compliment the scene sometimes, the pronunciations of the names were ridiculous, and the actors did terrible jobs. They weren’t the characters. Most of them had no real personalities because there was no character developments.

I thought Last Airbender would be able to draw children and happy parents, but the film changed some things about the story that actually made it cheesier. I strongly think only small, as in very young fans of the show will like the movie. Just about anyone older than ten will probably be able to spot the changes and see how it damaged the plot.

I also thought Eclipse might have been a bit darker for a younger audience, but it really wasn’t dark at all, so Eclipse easily translates to a much larger audience.

Eclipse ended up opening up just a little shy of New Moon’s opening gross, but it’s still the second highest opening day grosses ever. Last Airbender is being trashed by fans and critics a lot, so while it might stand to do well, it’ll barely be what Paramount expected.

The moral of the story? Twilight wins. It was more hype than an actual fight.

Twilight Saga: Eclipse VS The Last Airbender

Tomorrow marks another day in tween history: the release of another Twilight film. The Twilight films are based off of the world wide best selling novels by Stephanie Meyer whose success story was rocket fast in the world of publishing. When the films came to be movies, they launched an obsession for tweens, despite Twilight being classified as young adult fiction.

Twilight was only rated so-so if not down right hated in the eyes of many fans, but many of them considered the sequel New Moon to have delivered. With the introduction to the Bella/Edward/and often shirtless Jacob triangle as well as some additional fight scenes that were not in the books (but really helped the film), it was actually a good movie (if you didn’t mind Bella screaming and crying in her sleep for half of the film). New Moon actually debuted with the number one opening day gross ever with over seventy-two million dollars surpassing the Harry Potters, Spiderman 3, Transformers 2, and even the beloved Dark Knight.

But New Moon is easily the favorite book from the Twilight series, so can Eclipse outperform it’s predecessor?

My money is on “probably”. It’s main promotion is for it’s vampire and werewolf war drawing in people who may not care about romance and may not know it’s a romance, but they like seeing things fighting and killing each other. Also, young Jacob actually gets up the nerve to fight for young Bella’s affection instead of staring at her intensely and waiting for her to lean in and kiss him. Edward doesn’t disappear for half the film either so it’s a full on fight for Bella’s love.

If I were a film maker, I wouldn’t put up anything against the power of little girls who beg their mommies to take them to the theaters so they can stare at men too old for them and cry over situations they’re too young to understand. But M. Night Shyamalan has proved to take risks creatively with some of his work. It’s no shocker that he’s taking a risk and putting The Last Airbender on the line against a major contender.

The Last Airbender–known to many as “The REAL Avatar” (sorry Cameron), are looking forward to this highly anticipated film. The Last Airbender is based off of a hugely successful cartoon created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko that aired on Nickeloden and attracted an audience well beyond it’s demographic with it’s brilliant story telling and serious subject manner. It’s easily one of the greatest cartoons of all time. Avatar: The Last Airbender isn’t a love story, though there is romance. It’s a story about young kids with powers who have to fight a world wide war to save the world from a truly evil man and his army. The premise sounds more epic than a random small town girl deciding whether or not she wants to give up her non-interesting life to turn into a good vampire. The show is still very fresh in the fans minds and they were desperate for more stories. So who will win the tween vote?

The Last Airbender has been surrounded with some controversy. Two main characters, Sokka and Katara, are brown skinned in the television series but are being cast by two Caucasians, one of them who plays Jasper Hale in the Twilight series. Another controversy comes from the villain and eventual good guy, Zuko, who is a fair skinned character yet is cast by a boy of Indian descent, Dev Patel, who is best known for Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. While no one is questioning their acting ability, fans of many different nationalities are angered by the race changes and even coined the term “race bending.”

But even with that going against the film, the previews themselves are compelling the fans to give it a shot. Besides the obvious nationality changes, the film mirrors the source material in a lot of ways and the special effects are down right cool.

With Last Airbender coming out in 3D, it also has a chance to outdo Eclipse in sales due to 3D prices being a bit higher, which is how Cameron’s Avatar made it’s groundbreaking amount at the box office.

Eclipse may have two successful films backing it, but The Last Airbender appears to be a film that moms and highly testosterone filled dads will take their kids to see. Besides, with Twilight films subject matter becoming increasingly more adult, such as the eventual impregnation of Bella in Breaking Dawn, the eight year old girls might have to start sitting out of the shows.

So who is going to win the epic battle for biggest movie of the summer? We’ll see this weekend. Twilight Saga: Eclipse premiers June 30th and The Last Airbender premiers July 1st.

Lost "Across the Sea"

Lost...

What is there to say about “Lost”? Well, I’m a little “lost.”

I’m on the fence on whether or not I liked last night’s episode of Lost, because I wanted so many more answers that I never really got. One thing we found out from “Across the Sea” is that the “Adam and Eve” in the cave was the MIB and his crazy adoptive mother and Jacob put them there.

It’s cool to know, but I had an awesome theory that maybe it was Rose and Bernard, since they were all time traveling and what not, but that was a theory from like two seasons ago, so I can accept that I was wrong, mostly because there was no way to ever guess their true identities.

The episode opened up with a line that said “Every question will lead to another question.” It was like the writers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse just wanted to mess with our minds and put it in there as a reassurance that we’re not going to be satisfied. But to be fair, even if they answered every single question, people would still be upset and they wouldn’t accept it all. I heard a lot of people angry about the “Whispers” in the jungle really being dead people. Not everyone is going to be happy. I think maybe that’s an impossible task for Damon and Carlton since the fans have such high expectations.

But I’m on the fence about the episode because I didn’t feel like a lot happened, at least not enough to progress the story line. We got a back story episode about the most mysterious people on the island and we’re still probably going to get way more information from the present. We can only hope that we do! We don’t have a choice.

But now we know that there’s a light on the island that’s perhaps the good of humanity and that’s what Jacob had to protect and now one of the candidates (which I hope is Jack) has to do it instead.

But is smokie now the light transformed into darkness and there is no more light? Is it possible for smokie to be light again? John told Jack that when he had a face off with smokie that he saw a beautiful light. Now we know he was born of the light? Perhaps fake Locke can’t leave the island because the source can’t leave the island because it would go out and then all the light would go out.

But if this is true, then how is the sideways universe functioning?

Why did Ben Linus think that smokie was a judge? How does his relationship with people on the island evolve? It’s clear that he does judge people, like Mr. Eko. It appears that he kills who he doesn’t need and who he knows is no longer a candidate. Smokie is a lot of things to a lot of different people and I didn’t get the feeling that he was THE bad guy until this season. What was his relationship like?

And how much of smokie is really MIB? Certainly his ambition about getting off the island is included and smokie can’t kill Jacob or his candidates, so there’s still a connection. Evil Locke also told Kate that his mother was crazy, which was true for original Locke and MIB. But smokie seems to take characteristics from those he takes period since he yelled John’s famous “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!”

Something I found misleading though was the fact that MIB/Jacob’s brother (before smokie was born) didn’t seem all that bad. His mother was a psycho and Jacob could get nuts when he got angry and saw that his brother wanted to leave. I already suspected that Jacob was a little nuts after he beat Richard so well on their first encounter. So in the previous episode, Carlton and Damon admitted to killing Sun and Jin to prove that fake Locke was surely evil. Now we have this episode that suggests that he was severely misunderstood. I can still accept that fake Locke is evil, but I’m not sure about this whole Jacob business.

Jacob is interesting because he observes people from a distance and doesn’t really know them. He’s seems afraid to interact with them. That’s probably why he never got involved with the people on the island before Richard and that he wanted Richard to delegate for him. But since he doesn’t know people face to face, he thinks they’re good. His twin brother, MIB, lived with people and know that they’re corrupt and evil. So if Jacob really got to know humanity, would he feel so strongly about protecting them or is he simply honor bound by his mother?

I strongly feel that Jack has to be the new Jacob, because I don’t know who else is nuts enough to ruin people’s lives and pester them to get them to the island. Certainly Locke could have, but he’s dead.

I’m not sure if I enjoyed this episode. Well...I didn’t really enjoy it. I’m not sure if it’s good or not, because for the first time I feel really confused because of all the loopholes and the situation involving smokie and MIB that I kind of want to stop speculation and just wait until they tell me what I need to know.

Smallville "Escape"

Let me start off by saying that I find it a little strange that Smallville took so many weeks off and then decided to premier a new episode during Good Friday. It’s a good thing I saw a commercial, because I would have waited until next week to turn on the television.

But anyway, Clark and Lois go on a getaway vacation and it turns out Oliver and Chloe are there. As predicted, Chloe and Oliver are really just booty call type folk and don’t care to be anything more. The romance is ultimately ruined by the awkwardness and also The Silver Banshee.

Now I had seen some images of The Silver Banchee and it just wasn’t very good. Smallville haters really took the opportunity to bash it and I couldn’t blame them. It seemed like they took a very...dead animal approach to it. However, it looked really nice in the dark and instead of looking like dead animals, it was black and white, as it should be. The history was of course appropriated for Smallville, but it wasn’t bad. I thought their interpretation was actually well done...for them anyway.

One of my favorite parts of the episode was when Chloe questioned Clark about his super sex and he looked embarrassed and stated that he was in control of “everything.” It was a funny episode, not hilarious. It was more for chicks I would say.

I do have to point out that I’m really getting sick of Chloe’s dialogue. Her metaphors are driving me nuts! I’d like to get through one episode without her using three.

On with some more important plot advancements, Zod is enjoying his powers and finally got it on with Tess. She figured out that he had powers and used Kryptonite on him. He didn’t know what it was and she won’t tell him. So at the end of the episode, he calls Lois pretending to be “The Blur” right in front of Clark and asks her to find out some information about Tess. She swears not to tell anyone. I think it’s pretty funny.

It was a solid filler. Nothing spectacular happened, but it was enjoyable. If someone was waiting to see something epic to be satisfied from the long break...then I don't know what show you're watching. Though Smallville can have great moments, I've never really been immensely satisfied with epicness.