Pasta Point of No Return

So if you live in Perth, 'pasta' can mean any of these three things:

1) The frozen lasagnes you get in Coles that you shove in the oven when mum's going out and dad can't be bothered cooking

2) The mixed up share plate of goopy creamy yumminess that you share where you try to avoid the revolting pennes and everyone fights over the garlic potatoes (which is not really a pasta, but it is the best bit)

3) The enormous plate you get served at those fancy restaurants with heavy silverware and proper cloth napkins and ridiculous prices, with the tiny knot of noodles in the middle of this colossal Jupiter-sized plate, with a few drops of fancy but inedible sauce drizzled around.

So yeah, that's basically the state of Italian food here in Perth. It could be worse - the French here is non-existant, the Japanese is limited to some seriously good teriyaki and some seriously bad ramen noodles, and the Korean...don't even get me started on the Korean.

But recently, I've found this amazing little place called House of Pasta, which is truly good grub, man. It's a Cafe to Go franchise, but don't judge it on that - it doesn't skimp on quality or quantity. The menu is a mix of old comfort food favourites and weird-but-nice stuff for the eccentric gourmet, and just...I dunno. I'm in lurve. I'm pasta the point of no return.

I watched Eclipse a couple of days ago, and even though I did my usual rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I thought I should talk about it here.

Eclipse is an interesting movie in that there are normally good movies and bad movies, wherelse Eclipse is really, really, good in some aspects and really, really bad in others.

I'm a self confessed movie freak. I'm also a recovering Twilight addict. To tell you what was hot and what was not about Eclipse, lets talk about the other two movies first:

Twilight

This is the first book of the saga, and also the first movie to be made. The casting, I think, was great, with the exception of Robert Pattinson - as I've mentioned earlier, I reckon there are better actors for the job (see my posts The Perfect Edward Cullen (April 2010) and Just a few...random...notes (May 2010)). The special effects were good except for the 'vampire in the sunlight sparkle' - expolding a bag of Michael's glitter onto Rpattz would have achieved a better effect.

Twilight was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, an indie director - indie films meaning the deep and meaningful shit, where the colour of one's shoes shines a whole new light on a deep and meaningful plot. Probably not the best choice for an epic saga of much style and little substance, but it was an interesting take on things. The screenplay is strange, with scenes building up the suspense before disappointing anticlimaxes, and unforgivable plot cuts - I mean, the plot is bad enough already, why make it worse?

New Moon

The second movie, the action and drama and romance is amped up from the suggested themes from the 'deep and meaningful stares' of the indie first Twilight movie. Robert Pattinson goes from half bad to very bad, but the special effects were good and the acting got better from most of the class as Robert Pattinson's acting got worse (I know I'm picking on him - I know it is a hard role to play, but that's really no excuse for being that terrible). Taylor Lautner debuts his brand new abs, but he doesn't blend in too well with the rest of the pack, who are relatively normal looking compared to his glossy hair, smouldering eyes and high Keanu Reeves cheekbones. Bella goes from being a depressingly sad mess to that heartbroken highschooler any girl can relate to, which is great. The trip to Italy is rushed and confusing, and there's no nailbiting suspense leading up to the big scene with the Volturi like there is in the book, which is disappointing.

The director of this film is Chris Weitz, director of the (utter fail) movie adaption of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - so basically, he's already established himself as a director that is shit at translating books to film. So why do it again!? The screenplay in this is still shit, but at least the script improves ever so slightly.

Eclipse

Eclipse is very good in terms of directing - the director for this installment is David Slade, who is a veteran at old-school horror, which is really cool - the movie gets the whole zombie treatment. Kristen Stewart's acting finally lives up to her reputation as the best actress of her generation, especially in her scenes sans Edward...but there aren't too many of those. Robert Pattinson...well, really, Robert Pattinson is being his usual moronic constipated self. Taylor Lautner ups on the drama without being tacky, although much of the dialogue is extremely tacky and cheesy in this movie, which kind of ruins it. Bella finally becomes a character of substance, intelligence and independence wherelse Edward loses all credibility as the next Mr Darcy and becomes a psychopathic controlling freak. The screenplay picks up a little in that the cuts made are good cuts, and the additions made actually make sense.

So there it was: my thoughts on pasta and vampires. They do make a lovely combination, don't they?

Just another thing, something I picked up from my favourite TV series, Gossip Girl. Every blog title from now (including this one) will be a spin on some sort of book or movie title or quote. If you can name the book or movie title or quote (try saying that five times fast ;)), see if you can be the first one to name it in the comments!