“I leave you alone for two minutes and the wolves descend.”
– Edward
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The Setup
Fun fact: 50 Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan fiction! In honor of the final 50 Shades movie coming out this month, we thought we would revisit its roots and watch the shining star of a film that burned bright and fast only to be quickly snuffed out shortly after 2012: Twilight.
The Food
We at Munch are decidedly #TeamJacob. That werewolf mane? Can’t imagine a life without it. We bristled at the mention of Edward (henceforth referred to as E-word because his name is like a hairball in our mouths) and honestly don’t feel like we should give that sparkle boy the time of day. But I guess we have gotten ourselves in a little bit of a hole with the fact that he is a major part of this first film.
So, we worked hard at putting a meal together that would protect Jacob and Bella from those evil Cullen vampires. It wasn’t enough to see them banished: we had to concoct fail-safes so that the truest and most pure love that has ever been would persist. We couldn’t stop at just what pains the vampires in the Twilight-verse. No. We needed to dive deep and make it impossible to break up the holy union of Bella and Jacob. Bellcob (Swack?) must be a thing!
We started with the obvious choice: garlic. We boiled whole cloves of garlic, wrapped them in pancetta, and broiled them in the oven. We ended up with a salty, savory snack that we couldn’t get enough of which also happened to work perfectly at repelling both vampires and our loved ones. Really though, we plan on sending a box of these to Bella so that she gets hooked on these tasty morsels. Every time E-word goes in for a kiss, he’ll be like, “Eww… Did you just eat an entire clove of garlic?” And the lack of intimacy will eventually drive them apart. Foolproof.
Of course, a more direct approach would be to just stab E-word through the heart with a stake. We did a quick practice round with some tri-tip and skewers. We marinated the tri-tip in harissa and yogurt so it would be slippery and red like a heart. Even with this added challenge, we got it right on the first try. Since we had all this extra skewered meat we decided to throw it on the grill and have some kebabs. Also, this makes a great meal just in case spontaneous vampires happen because multiple wooden stakes are within arms reach. It could happen to you! BE PREPARED.
For dessert, we made a sunshine cake, which we know worked on vampires of yore, but all it seemed to do was sparkle like E-word does in the sunlight. Ugh, disgusting. Does he have a promotional relationship with Zales? On the plus side, it gives us the opportunity for some role-play with some E-word cake. We thoroughly enjoyed cutting the cake up and wolfing it down.
The Drink
We had to have one last way for Jacob and Bella to protect themselves, just in case we failed in driving E-word away or missed his heart with our impressive stake skills. We prepared The Holy Water for them because there’s nothing quite like bringing religious H2O to a vampire fight, and we served it in a silver glass with a silver straw for added protection. You can never be too careful when it comes to vampires. Rum, cognac, citrus, and bitters make this cocktail an already potent drink even before it’s topped with a flaming lime full of green chartreuse. It would be a shame to have to toss a glass of this at E-word, but if that’s what it takes to get Jacob and Bella together, by golly, that’s what we’re going to do.
The Rules
The synergy in these rules can be a doozy, and unfortunately for us, there wasn’t nearly enough Jacob in this film (not that our livers would have liked it).
🏜 Drink when Edward looks thirsty.
🤤 Drink when Jacob looks huuungry.
🍆 Drink whenever Jacob and Edward would definitely rather be boning than fighting.
The Movie
They really didn’t give Jacob time to shine in Twilight. They only gave him two or three lines, but he made the most of it. Whenever he looked at Bella, his eyes spoke volumes. Also, his beautiful, long, flowing mane of hair, which was definitely a high point of the movie, spoke volumes to our hearts. The fact of the matter is though, that we like Jacob with long or short hair. It is versatile, while Edward can only pull off one look, and even that look is inferior to both long AND short-haired Jacob.
But do you really want to know what the best thing about Twilight is? It did do a great job at was showing how stupid and creepy Edward is. He was constantly looking at Bella like he wanted to eat her, and we were really confused about how into that Bella seemed to be. It’s is just soooo frustrating that she has a hunky dreamboat like Jacob right there but she goes for the creeper who treats her like garbage and then reveals that he’s a freakin’ vampire! Ugh. He also constantly puts her life in danger by encouraging her to hang out with his vampire “family” and does all this dumb traipsing across treetops while calling her “spider monkey.” What if, god forbid, she had lost her grip on him? She would have died, that’s what would have happened. We are all woefully unprepared to grapple onto a shiny buffoon. Reckless. Edward’s callous lack of respect for the living is prevalent throughout the movie and we were getting extremely frustrated with him. He’s 100 years old. You’d think he would know better. Bella should know better!
By the end of this movie, we were so confused about why Bella wasn’t on Team Jacob with us. Honestly, we think Jacob deserves better. He deserves better than Bella, and heck, he deserves better than Twilight. Can we please get a Jacob movie that is really just a new version of Fifty Shades of Grey but will actually just be called Fifty Shades of Black, because it would feature the most handsome man around, Jacob Black? Thank you, we will be coming by to collect our checks later.
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The Reviews
André: Confused. Why did people get so into this series? It’s terrible drivel. Every single scene is so dumb, I can’t believe someone actually wrote it, an editor didn’t cut it, a publisher published it, a producer decided to produce it, and a director decided to include it in the movie. That means there are at least five people in this world with absolutely no taste. And also, can I just say Robert Pattinson plays a terrible Edward? He overacts in every scene and it is totally unbelievable that anyone would ever fall in love with him. Sorry, Robert, I know you didn’t have much to work with.
Leanna: I unconditionally and irrevocably dislike this movie. I saw this movie when it came out (I still blame you, Galia, for making me spend money on this film) and really wanted it to be good. I was, of course, disappointed. Watching it a second time around with very low expectations, I found that not only were they met, but I actually had a fun time making fun of all the ridiculous lines, longing glances, and random action sequences. We’ve watched other movies that premiered during our high school years whose humor and messages haven’t aged well. I think this movie was fun to watch because it was bad when it came out, and somehow time has made its mediocrity laughable and enjoyable in its own way.
Ben: 25%. Oh, Twilight. You were so close to being that movie that is so bad it is good. The first 30 minutes you showed me was a beauty of a magnitude that is rare when so many people signed off on the look and style of this beast. Too bad you had another 90 minutes to bore me, to try and infuse some sort of danger and plot, and to make me consistently hate Edward more. Your color style was a choice that was perfect for early Instagram filters and has not aged quite as well as one would hope, and your dedication to very specific passages in the book that were clearly never spoken out loud is memorable. But you wanted to be big, you wanted to be known as a quality piece of media, and something woke you up to restrain your more interesting sensibilities. I am sure the Twilight series would be really different now if you had been able to truly show what you wanted to be. Unfortunately, it was never meant to be.
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