Trisha’s Quote of the Day: When movie critics stop being neutral and start having opinions

After I saw the movie, my 13-year-old daughter asked me if I was “team Peeta or team Gale,” referring to the District 12 boy who is Katniss’s “star-crossed” lover in the Hunger Games arena and her hunky best pal back home. The question also evokes Twilight,” of course, which has gotten a lot of fan-girl mileage out of the competitive objectification of Jacob and Edward.

For the record I always thought Bella should ditch the pouty, sparkly bloodsucker and run with the wolves, though as a grown-up film critic I know I’m supposed to remain neutral. But I have to say that it did not occur to me, watching The Hunger Games,” to think very much about who Katniss’s boyfriend should be. She seemed to have more important things to worry about — and also, to bring it back to Leatherstocking and his kind, to be a fundamentally solitary kind of heroine.

—New York Times film critic A.O. Scott on what makes The Hunger Games movie (and book) different from Twilight.

Announcing the Twilight contest winners!

We here at Geeking Out About… are pleased and proud to announce the winners of our very first contest ever.

To recap, the rules of the contest were as follows, and liberally liberated from the LiveJournal Daily Quiz:

  1. On Monday, June 28, we posted 10 trivia questions pertaining to the Twilight movies, the books, and/or the fandom.
  2. Entrants were to answer those questions in the most entertaining way possible. These answers didn’t necessarily need to be correct.
  3. All of those answers were emailed to us on or before July 9 and myself, co-editor Jillian Pullara and lead movie reviewer Lyssa Spero each chose an entry whose combined answers we liked the best. We also chose Honorable Mention answers to feature in this announcement post because hey, we like publishing funny things.

At this time we’d like to thank LJDQ co-moderators Angledge, Chaosvizier, and LoveLlama for going on hiatus last week and driving traffic towards us.

Each grand prize winner will each receive a $15 gift certificate to either Amazon.com, iTunes, or the online retailer of their choice. In an additional change from the previous rules, we will also be selecting six honorable mention winners who will each be receiving a little “surprise” gift by regular U.S. Postal Service mail as a thank you for participating.

So without further ado, let’s start the show! Continue reading “Announcing the Twilight contest winners!”

Trisha’s Link of the Day: Who Stole My Twilight?

In preparing for our Twilight-themed trivia contest—you have only 8 more hours to turn in your submission!—I read up as much as I could about the saga; however, I think I’ve just discovered the very last article I will ever read about it.

Enter one Tom Barrack, the head of a $16 billion multi-national investment firm whose hands are deep into pockets the Station casinos you see off the strip in Las Vegas and whose firm may even be still in the running to buy the troubled Miramax studio. Apparently Barrack was bored on his yacht off the Turkish shores one day and ended up reading the first three novels when a business meeting was unexpectedly canceled.

He was so inspired by the tale that he fired off a lengthy internal memo to all his employees, which was leaked to the Wall Street Journal and posted for all to see: Continue reading “Trisha’s Link of the Day: Who Stole My Twilight?”

Geeking Out About… presents: Twilight: New Moon the Commentary and Discussion Notes

As of this posting, you have a little over 15 hours left until the deadline to submit your answers to the trivia questions posed in our very first contest ever here at Geeking Out About.com. The trivia questions are here, the rules are here, and if you’d like a little insight into what we thought of the second movie and the Twilight phenomenon as a whole—although by now, I think you can hazard a guess that our thoughts are not in favor of it—you can download our commentary and discussion notes, below:

https://www.geekingoutabout.com/wp-includes/Podcasts/New-Moon-Commentary.mp3

https://www.geekingoutabout.com/wp-includes/Podcasts/New-Moon-Discussion.mp3

Over the weekend, we’ll be busy busy choosing the finalists and recording yet another podcast; good luck to all!

Geeking Out About… presents: Twilight the Commentary!

As of this posting, there are a little over 48 hours left until the deadline to submit your answers to the trivia questions posed in our very first contest ever here at Geeking Out About.com. The trivia questions are here, the rules are here, and if you’d like a little insight into what we thought of the first movie, you can download our very first podcast ever, below:

https://www.geekingoutabout.com/wp-includes/Podcasts/Twilight-Commentary.mp3

Tomorrow (because it’s still about 15 minutes to midnight over here!) I’ll post up our shorter commentary to Twilight: New Moon, and over the weekend, while we’re busy choosing the finalists and recording yet another podcast, you’ll be able to listen to our thoughts about the first two movies.

Good luck to all!

Twilight trivia contest deadline extended!

So after peeking into the geekingoutabout@gmail.com Inbox and seeing three entries to our first-ever trivia contest, I thought it was perfect because there are three prizes to be won (a $15 gift certificate to Amazon.com, iTunes, or online retailer of your choice). Then, I thought that maybe that was making it way too easy for the three who submitted to win a prize; therefore by fiat, I have decided to extend the contest deadline by one more week. (Sorry, folks!) That’s right, you have seven more days (or until midnight on July 9, whichever comes first) to enter the first-ever GeekingOutAbout.com contest by answering 10 trivia questions in the most entertaining way possible (which may also involve being wildly inaccurate).

Did I forget to mention that in addition to winning this fabulous prize, selections from the winning entries and runners-up will be published for everyone else to enjoy? Or that if this contest goes well, future contest will feature better prizes?

If you have questions about the contest, ask ’em here, and I’ll be glad to answer them.

Fun and fabulous prizes in store at the end of June

In the interest of being responsible reviewers, there are some times in which we here at Geeking Out About.com will read, watch, or experience something that’s outside of our comfort zone in order to provide the most coverage. For example, in preparation for her “First Night Flicks” review of Twilight: Eclipse, lead movie reviewer Lyssa has decided to watch both Twilight and New Moon back to back in one day.

Being the loving, and caring editors we are—and just because we’re into the idea of doing some MST3K-style commentary on two potentially horrible movies—co-editor Jillian and I decided that she shouldn’t have to do this alone. So, we’re going to join her for the first two parts of this epic saga of a human-vampire love that was never meant to be.

“But what is this thing about fabulous prizes?  I want fabulous prizes!” Well, we’re glad you asked… Continue reading “Fun and fabulous prizes in store at the end of June”