They’re not just narratives; they’re snapshots in time, moments of pure joy.

Just like this scene from The Lost Boys, which came out in July of 1987. This means that they probably filmed in 1986, that moment when the 80s were just realizing what they could really become. It was a time of innocence and wonder; a time when a man needed only purple tights, leather underwear, and some chains to be fully dressed; a time when Jami Gertz had a promising career. (Remember Quicksilver? Anyone?…anyone?)

Full disclosure: this actually takes me back to a time when I was in high school and taking Photography. This was back when you had to know how to wind the film on the spokes in the dark and then pour in the developer and shake the canister, and if you did one thing wrong you ended up with a bunch of underdeveloped splotches and chemical burns on your hands, and then you had to develop each of the prints by hand using a series of complicated machines that they use for background props in movies like Splice now.

With the hours and hours of after-school work necessary to take that photo of your parents’ backyard and make it into something you could pass off as your “Garden” assignment (because your photos of the Botanical Gardens looked like a thin black plate with some cottage cheese on it), you had to have something to listen to as you stumbled around in the darkroom accidentally bleaching the crap out of your clothes. And for whatever reason, the soundtrack to The Lost Boys did the trick, and I must have spent about 800 man-hours that year with it on repeat on my Discman (FOR CDs – WOW, this was long ago).

That is to say: this clip is cheesy and dorky and hilarious, and I am fully implicated in it, because I have heard this song about a bajillion times in my youth, and I probably loved it every time.

Okay. This is the big Eclipse post.

Ten Things About Eclipse has covered the bases.

Yesterday, my piece about The Decline and Fall of the Twilight Empire went up at Tor.com. There, I discussed the fact that as the fandom grows, the quality of actual filmmaking seems to sink like a stone.

(I will be honest, though, looking at my notes for New Moon, I’m not sure if endless music-video tracking shots are any worse than establishing shots with voiceover that then cut to a different location/scene entirely. Still, Eclipse had more to work with and did less with it, so it’s probably still the worst movie of the three. I’ll have to think about this.)

But first, as always, there was The Line.

The line for Eclipse was, in many ways, the smoothest this operation has been run.

Theatres are now aware of what can happen if you keep the long lines bunched up together for hours (STAMPEDE), and this was one of the multiplexes big enough to have it showing on at least seven screens, so they did what any smart theatre would do: they lined up everyone outside by theatre, three deep across the sidewalk, and wound around a city block by 9:30pm, when we did a fly-by and immediately ran away.

The good news is, unlike the first year I went there and it was the fucking Mines of Moria, there were actual plans in place. As soon as the final showing of that theatre’s normal movie was over, they let that theatre in. It was a foolproof plan to minimize crowds, normalize lines at concessions, and make this a smooth operation.

Then they turned off the air conditioning. Let me tell you, when they turn off the air conditioning in a two-story movie theatre full of pining women, it is not pretty.

Also not pretty: the Team Edward/Team Jacob fighting, which reached a fever pitch in our theatre, and proved that keeping everyone penned together outside would probably have led to a battle royale. (Have you ever seen the poster for The Warriors? It was like that.)

Apparently the thing to do this year was to wear an Eclipse Burger King crown with the image of your favorite dude on the front. I counted at least fifty in our theatre alone.

(Bella was also on the crown; no one ever, ever had her in front.)

Two girls had a fight just outside the bathrooms, with one pointing accusingly at the other’s crown: “Of COURSE Edward is the best for her! How can you be Team Jacob? I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND.”

Teenagers: holy crap.

At one point on the way inside, two girls had a Team Edward/Jacob sing-off to “The Boy is Mine,” pointing to their crowns. They seemed to be friends, so it wasn’t particularly invested, and they sort of wandered past the theatre employee, who looked after them for a second, sighed, and said, “Just…what the shit.”

I still think the line winner was the girl in a Cullen crest shirt, looking very displeased with her friends: “I was here early IRONICALLY.”

These kids speak for all of us.

And then it was time for the movie. Oh, was it ever.
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And the Eclipse postmortem begins! First up: Ten Things You Should Know About Eclipse, at Fantasy Magazine. This information might just save your life. (Or, two hours. Whichever.)

4. Howard Shore did the music.
You’ll know because whenever Bella and Edward make out, it sounds like every pervert in the Shire is creeping up on them.

His hand looks like a questing, half-hidden octopus, doesn’t it? (Go ahead, unsee it. I dare you.)

I have an article forthcoming at Tor.com about the franchise in general and the trend in cinematic quality (hint: yeeeeesh), and last up will be the line report and blow-by-blow, because seriously, you guys? YIKES.

Last night, while reviewing what I’ve been working on in handy graphic form (which I will be doing again, because it’s fun and prevents me from actually working), Inception was the last square.

Up at Tor.com today, I talk about what we know about Inception, and what Inception means.

Hint: it means that smart sci-fi movies are thin on the ground these days, and a movie pitched as cerebral sci-fi is an event in and of itself. (Seriously, the only thing emphasized in the trailer is dreams/ideas/the mind, and also how all these people look really great in nice clothes.) This strategy wouldn’t have worked on a movie like, say, Moon, which was one of last year’s thinkiest sci-fi movies, but too indie for its own good somehow, and it ended up coming out in about eight theatres and disappearing off the face of the earth, except for one DVD copy that I put in a time capsule to save for later.

Obviously there’s no worries about that here, because Nolan made Batman cool again, which means he can basically do what he wants, forever. However, I am really hoping that this movie does not happen to suck. A lot of movies by good directors happen to suck, but when Channing Tatum gets tapped for the lead in a dimensional-sci-fi-action-romance that got suddenly greenlit because it’s vaguely like Avatar, I bet a lot of good scripts are floating around that could really benefit from some box-office proof that smart sells.

I’m just saying, in a world where Ridley Scott is remaking his own Alien franchise, Spider-Man is getting a reboot THREE YEARS after the last one came out, and Avatar can win Golden Globes*, we could really use a win, here.

NO PRESSURE, INCEPTION.

* To be fair, many undeserving people have won Golden Globes.

Please note, I apparently don’t have time to write about anything in depth, but plenty of time to make graphics about what I’m doing. Mmm, logic!

1. Reference image for a story I’m working on; originally was used for a story I just finished, but this image had another purpose. (It’s a worker.)

2. If I am not writing a story about someone in a coat of some kind, then I am writing a story about a post-human singularity…in which robots wear coats.

3. This looks like a still from a fantastic movie. It is, in fact, a still from One Night with the King, which is an absolutely terrible movie you will be seeing more of shortly.

4. Ditto. This is from Bathory. Not pictured: Hans Matheson painting a portrait of a baby that’s been stored inside the block of ice. (Oh, it happens.)

5. This is a picture of a juggler. Technically, he’s from an Anthropologie catalog, and he’s probably just a juggler because Hans Matheson found another stand-in. In my imagination, he’s my imaginary circus boyfriend. His name is Ben. You will probably see him again.

6. The novel currently with my agent takes place in a river city. This picture was from , and the time between me seeing it and me right-click-saving cannot be measured with modern instruments.

7. My next novel is set in the 1920s. Researching dance crazes of the time is repellent, grueling work that I absolutely do not enjoy whatsoever, but it has to be done.

8. Because it’s never the wrong time to watch Gleaming the Cube.

9. Inception. I have a piece about this movie lined up for Tor.com; in the meantime, just know that Joseph Gordon-Levitt must have signed an extra wire-work clause or something.