The Twilight films have created a global pop culture phenomenon. For some, this is only tolerable because it has motivated an entire generation of teenage girls to read. For others, not even that is enough.

As for me, I thought the premise of the first movie – and by extension, the first book in the series – sounded stupid: essentially half of the story was about teenagers not fucking. That’s fine in and of itself, but the rest of the book (with the exception of a few things about vampires and werewolves) was about teenagers either almost fucking or brooding about almost fucking.

As an adult, I can’t relate to that anymore, and that’s exactly why I thought it was stupid. But teenagers obviously can relate to it, as these are the issues that take on all-encompassing importance – doin’ it or not. I vaguely remember being that way, and that remembrance is how I started to gain some understanding into A) why Twilight is so popular, and B) why it actually sort of works as a series of movies. Continue Reading »