Movies in the Park @thegrovela

Every Thursday night in July and August, the Grove plays free movies as part of its Movies in the Park series. Of course, when I saw the “in the park” part, I was a little confused. Last time I checked, the Grove was an outdoor shopping mall. Did that mean that the movie was taking place in Pan Pacific Park, which is right next to the Grove? Deciding to cut through the shopping complex just in case, I came upon bleachers and a big blow-up movie screen in the middle of the plaza in front of Nordstrom. I figured this was probably what I was looking for.


The movie playing that night was The Twilight Saga: New Moon. It’s embarrassing to actually admit that I went to see this, mostly because I didn’t think the first movie was very good and I refuse to read the books for reasons I’ll explain below. In my defense, I only saw the first one out of curiosity, since it was nearly impossible to ignore all the media buzz surrounding it. In fact, it made me feel old to be clueless about something that was so enormously popular. I remember the whole Harry Potter craze, in which I’d wholeheartedly taken part, breathlessly waiting for the next book/movie to come out.

The first Twilight movie, however, didn’t really impress me. The overload of teenage angst, the long bouts of staring, and Kristen Stewart’s dialogue, which mostly consisted of sputtering, were a bit much. Curious about whether the books were worth reading, I asked my sister, who has devoured all of them, to give me a synopsis of the series. As she related all of the plot’s twists and turns, I knew reading the books would be a frustrating experience, as I have a low tolerance for extreme drama and weak-willed heroines. Yet enough time had passed since I’d seen the first movie to make me curious about the second installment. And besides, it was free. And we all know how I feel about free.

I got to the Grove a little before 7:15, when general seating was supposed to open. You could get in at 6:30 if you ordered food from the picnic menu, provided by several restaurants in the Grove. Determined to keep the whole experience free, I decided waiting around for a bit to get in was just fine with me. At 7:50, they finally let us into the sectioned-off area. Up front, there was an emcee asking the audience Twilight trivia. For each question, a bunch of tweens would eagerly raise their hands, screaming to be called on, sometimes even before the question was done being asked. Once most of the prizes had been given out to those who answered correctly, the emcee announced that he had a lot more T-shirts left over. All of a sudden, a mass of tweens swarmed towards the front and screamed and shouted for the emcee to throw them a shirt. It made me very glad to be up in the bleachers, where I wouldn’t be trampled by some 13-year-old intent on possessing her own piece of Twilight memorabilia.


During the movie, it was clear that there were a lot of Team Jacob fans in the audience, as every time Taylor Lautner took off his shirt, screams and catcalls echoed throughout the plaza. In contrast, there was only a smattering of half-hearted cheering during the one time that Robert Pattinson took off his shirt.

At this point, I don’t think a Twilight movie would be complete without the long angst-ridden stares and “I’ll kill myself if I can’t be with you” dialogue. Still, it wasn’t an unpleasant way to spend a night, even if the highlight was ogling the ripped body of a minor (at the time). And I’ll probably end up seeing the rest of the movies, too, since I’m a sucker for vampire movies (pun intended!). Beware, though: seeing such movies may cause you to cough up cheesy puns for 24 to 48 hours.

Alice in Wonderland is playing next Thursday, with Up concluding the Movies in the Park schedule on August 26th.