More than anything, Chaske Spencer just wants to keep it real.

This may seem strange coming from the man who just wrapped up a multi-film stint in the massively successful fantasy-laden Twilight series, but a brief conversation with him makes this all too clear.

Take, for example, his perspective on his Twilight character, werewolf pack leader Sam Uley. While he appreciates many things about his animalistic alter-ego, not the least of which are his CGI antics played out on the big screen – “I never thought I would see myself jump off a cliff. I mean it was amazing!” he says – what he most hopes fans will take away from the most recent installments is that which makes the character most relatable – most human.

“What I got from talking to the kids, the fans of Twilight, is that a lot of them just hated Sam. A lot of them did not like Sam,” he recalls with a laugh. “So what I want to do is make him more human, more a character that you can relate to. In the Breaking Dawn film you get this sense that, in the script, he’s out to just kill Renesmee and he hates Bella, but that’s not the case. It’s just that it’s a job that he has to do.”

Similarly, Spencer notes, it’s the human element of filmmaking that has been the most rewarding through his work on the Twilight series and beyond. His bonds with cast and crew from the Twilight films have stayed strong, he assures: his fellow wolves are “like my brothers now,” he says, “and then you have Julia [Jones] and Tinsel [Korey, both costars] who are like my sisters.” It’s like “joining the circus,” he explains. “That’s basically what a film crew is. You join the circus, you all get tight, you’re like a family for a month or two, and then – boom. Maybe you’ll stay in touch, maybe you’ll see them again, maybe you won’t, you know?”

He emphasizes that this is one aspect of filmmaking that continues to draw him in – “Not just working on a character or just being an actor but the stuff behind the scenes.” It’s an affinity for the world behind the camera, bolstered by his recent experience in independent films Winter in the Blood and Desert Cathedral, that has clearly shaped his philosophy on his work and his art. An independent film, he says, is “where the artist comes into work”.

To hear him explain it, it’s answering a call to artistic integrity. He easily ticks off the names of examples and influences, a list that crosses genres and all levels of celebrity. “I grew up watching Johnny Depp,” he recalls, “and like a lot of young actors, I wanted to be Johnny Depp – and we can’t. But he inspires us to stick to artistic credit.” Depp, he notes, had a penchant for turning down big-budget roles in favor of independents, “and he got massive street cred for it.”

He’s quick to cite famous crossover acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam as well. “I always like bands who stretch, who go further,” he says. “You could be working a 9 to 5 job, but you’re trying to find the easiest way to make a living doing what you love, and of course you’re not going to say no to those paychecks.” But, he says, these bands were able to avoid earning the dreaded “sellout” label. Of Pearl Jam, he notes, “They used the tools that they had, and they just gave themselves some self-respect, and they stuck to their guns, and, obviously, they’re a huge group. They turned down Ticketmaster, and fought the good fight, and they’re still rockin’ and rollin’, they’re still touring.”

So what does this mean for Chaske Spencer, an actor moving into 2012 with a slew of major-budget films under his belt and many of these treasured independent efforts in the works? “I enjoy work on a franchise too,” he stresses. “[You] get a good paycheck, work on a big budget. But then you go back and do an independent movie and you can make up for I guess, ah, whoring yourself out,” he laughs.

Make no mistake: he’s grateful for the opportunities that Twilight’s success has given him – especially the freedom to gravitate toward those projects that allow him to emulate those he so admires. “You’ll never hear me talk bad about ‘Twilight!’”, he assures with a laugh. “Yeah, it’s given me a life.”

Jack Sparrow, Alice Cullen, Bella Swan, Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Sweeney Todd and William Turner — Hannah Hindi, 24, and Hillary Hindi, 20, of “The Hillywood Show” online have played them all and more in their online parodies that have arrested the humor of millions.

Hannah (Alice Cullen in the parodies) and Hilly (Bella Swan) are the official hosts of the Twilight Conventions. With Jacob Jost (Edward Cullen), Drew Lorentz (Jasper Hale), Shuan Flynn (Emmett Cullen), Brittany Turner (Rosalie Hale) and Joseph Lewellyn (Jacob Black), they tour the country in costumes and makeup so precise that it’s hard to believe it’s all done by a couple people.

It all started three years ago when Hilly entered AOL’s “Be a Red Star” contest and came in third out of nearly 100,000 video entries.

“People that voted for us became fans and they said, ‘Keep going; this is a really funny idea,’ and we’re still doing it today,” Hilly said.

The girls decided to continue on with “The Hillywood Show,” and 15 webisodes and several film parodies later, the show is an online hit.

About a year and a half ago, their Twilight parody was released; and the show’s ratings skyrocketed. The nine minute Twilight music video parody has over 4.275 million hits.

Both girls have a strong background in dance, and they use this talent as well as an abundance of creativity, wit and hard work to create amazingly entertaining parodies of blockbuster films.

“It (The Twilight parody) did everything for us,” Hilly said. “Before it we only had 50,000 views for our most hit video and that was online for about a year. But for Twilight – in a day it had over 100,000 views.

“It was definitely an eye-opener that we had to keep pursuing this,” Hilly exclaimed.

Less than a week after the Twilight parody went online, the girls were contacted by the Official Twilight Convention to present their video. “We didn’t know anything about Twilight,” Hannah laughed. “We kind of just saw the movie and made the video. And then we got to the convention, and people were going crazy seeing us in our wardrobe. It’s just so crazy how fast everything has happened.”

The highly anticipated Eclipse parody will be released in November. “That doesn’t mean November first though,” Hannah said with a laugh.

“We’re really looking forward to Eclipse,” Hilly said. “We are most excited about that one.”

The parody will be around ten minutes. A few teaser photos have been released.

While Hannah and Hilly were reluctant to give too many details on the parody, they did say this:

“It’s going to include the meadow scene, the tent scene and a lot of the other iconic scenes. It’ll be great,” Hilly revealed.

“And it’s a lot more parodying and funny this time, we cans say that too,” Hannah added.

All of their footage is shot with only one camera. The parodies and episodes are written, directed, edited and produced by the sisters. The parodies are funded primarily through donations and merchandise sales.

“Everything was low budget at first,” Hilly said. “Now the bar keeps getting raised with each and every parody because fans expect it to be just as good or better.”

“We think of an idea then we start scripting it in our heads,” Hannah explained. “We have these really cool ideas, but then we have to ask can we afford this? Is it in our budget, which is like nothing.” Both girls laughed.

The Twilight parody cost around $1,200 to produce, New Moon cost $10,000 and Eclipse will cost $20-25,000 by the time it’s done.

After scripting, make-up tests, casting, prop hunting and location scouting, it takes about two weeks to film a parody — if everything goes well. Then it’s editing time, which takes another two weeks.

The girls have also parodied Dark Knight and The Runaways.

“We try to hit all the things that teens are looking for,” Hilly said. “It’s kind of that whole music video, parodying, pop culture, movie characters mix. We do what people want to see, what’s really popular now.”

So what would they like to parody next?

“Alice in Wonderland,” they answered together.

But who would play Alice?

“We don’t know,” Hilly and Hannah answered together again.

“But we definitely want to do that parody,” Hilly added.

The large-scale dances, detailed wardrobe and makeup, smooth and artistic camera shots, humorous scripts and perfect casting are all done by these two sisters. But who does what?

Hannah shoots most of the footage and handles organization including getting props, schedules and actors together. Hilly does all of the video editing and graphics for the website and show. The girls have an equal hand in casting, makeup, costuming and scripting.

The pair was born and raised in Las Vegas, where all of their footage has been filmed except their New Moon parody, which was filmed in Forks, WA – the setting of the Twilight films and books.

“It was really, really cool because that was our first out of town shoot,” Hannah said.

Bella Swan has been Hilly’s favorite character to play so far. “Only because all the past roles I have done have been male characters; so being able to able to play a girl makes me feel good,” she laughed.

As for Hannah, her favorite character to play has been Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd, who is featured in The Hillywood Show.

While the pair is currently focusing on their parodies, particularly Twilight, their web-series is where it all began and has a special place in their hearts.

“When the series started, it was very sketchy,” Hilly explained. “It was movie characters interacting with each other; but after we started branching out and started focusing on one main theme, we think our show is almost the Glee of movie characters.”

Captain Jack Sparrow is a star character of the show, as are a few other Johnny Depp characters.

“It actually just happened by accident,” Hilly said. “When we started off our show, we had a Jack Sparrow costume and Edward Scissorhands costume on hand; so we said let’s just use those costumes and then we said well I guess we’re going to use other Johnny Depp characters.”

“Our main objective is to get The Hillywood Show on television with a network,” Hilly said.

The pair wants to create a “Saturday Night Live” for teens.

“Really anything that would allow our show to be on television would be great,” Hilly said. “And if we can’t, in the future maybe actor, director, make-up artist – we’d love to be in the industry anyway possible.”

The duo is no stranger to performing. Hannah has been dancing for 17 years and teaching dance for 13 years, according to The Hillywood Show website. She has taken ballet, pointe, jazz, tap and hip-hop.

“I want to work with my sister,” Hannah said about her long-term personal goals. “I would love to be on a project with her. I love acting and I would totally do it, but if I were to choose – I love directing. I love cinematography, having the control to bring out my vision and what I see. And if director didn’t work out, a make-up artist for sure.”

Hilly has been dancing for 15 years. She has taken ballet, pointe, tap, jazz and hip-hop as well.

“I love acting!” Hilly said. “I love it, and I would like to be an actress. Behind the camera is fun, but I really enjoy being in front of it and playing a character.”

The sisters are busy touring and finishing up their Eclipse parody now. While their fame is growing and their talents are plentiful, they’ve managed to remain incredibly humble.

“Without the viewers and Twilight fans and Hillywood fans we would be no one, just hidden away amongst the chaos of YouTube,” Hilly said. “We’re incredibly lucky, and we can’t say thank you enough.”

The Twilight movies have possessed the interest and passion of millions, but what are the best moments? Well, first we have to ask if we’re watching the movies to get lost in a world of true love, transcending friendship and hunky mystical creatures; or to laugh at ridiculously awkward moments, contorted expressions and corny dialogue.

Answer: to get lost.

But what scenes do we love the most in the films? Riding motorcycles, playing baseball, fighting a new born army, kissing vampires, kissing werewolves, punching werewolves, racing through Italy, crashing cars, camping out, wondering if Jacob owns a shirt, climbing like a spider monkeys, drinking Bella’s blood, having flashbacks – there’s just too many right?!

10. “I have a date with Edward Cullen” — “Twilight”

Ahhh, if only that were true, but day dreaming about changing places with Bella isn’t what makes the scene where Bella (Kristen Stewart) tells her father Charlie about her date to play baseball with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). So, what does?

Billy Burke, need I say more. Charlie earned himself an unexpected fondness in the films that he didn’t have in the books. Sure he’s that same cute, protective, humorous father from the novels, but he’s got a lot more spunk. And this moment is classic Charlie.

“He’s right outside,” Bella says. “He is?” Charlie asks, not sounding the least bit excited.

“Yeah, he wanted to meet you…officially.”

“Alright,” Charlie says, snapping his gun closed and earning a roar of laughter. “Bring him in.”

Bella hesitates. “Could you be nice? He’s important.” Charlie draws a halo over his head – love it. Then to round the scene off, “Hey,” Charlie calls as Bella leaves with Edward. “You still got that pepper spray?”

9. Jacob’s a WOLF! — “New Moon”

“What did you do? What did you do to him? He didn’t want this!” Bella screams in Paul’s (Alex Meraz) face – she really does love danger doesn’t she.

“What did we do?! What did he do?” Paul demands, already shaking to change into a wolf. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing, he tells me nothing because he’s scared of you!”Bella yells.

Paul laughs – a bit psychotically; and Bella punches him.

Seconds later she’s running from a wolf Paul, screaming, “Run. Jake, run!”

Jacob (Taylor Lautner) jumps over the railing of his house, and…Woops – guess Jacob’s secret is out! Jacob’s transformation was a turning point of the series. Bella witnessing it helped mend their friendship, which as we all know the series couldn’t exist without.

But that’s not why this seen is so great. No, here it’s all about Bella punching a werewolf for the first, but not last, time.

8. Car Crash — “Twilight”

Aka, Bella finds out Edward isn’t exactly normal.

Bella and Edward exchange brooding and longing looks across the parking lot. Tyler’s van loses control barreling straight for Bella, but at the last moment Edward saves her.

A shocked Bella meets Edward’s horrified stare just before he flees. It’s another turning point in the film, setting Bella on the path that will lead her to that gorgeous meadow with Edward. But more than that, it’s the first of many times that Edward risks his safety for Bella.

It may be corny, but the scene is incredibly romantic. The way they stare at each other and the magnitude to which Edward shows his attachment to this fragile human steals audience’s breaths.

And of course the scene ends with one of Jasper’s (Jackson Rathbone) famous and hilarious looks of rage as he steps forward only to be restrained by Alice’s (Ashley Greene) hand.

7. The Kiss — “Twilight”

It’s hard to pick just one Edward/Bella kiss isn’t it? They’re all so great, but the first kiss is the sweetest as they say.

“How’d you get in here?” Bella asks, shifting closer to Edward on her bed.

“The window.”

“Do you do that a lot?”

A gorgeous smile from one Edward Cullen. “Just the past couple of months. I like watching you sleep. It’s, uh, it’s kind of fascinating to me.” Love that voice of his. “I just want to try one thing. Stay very still…don’t move.” Those are the words that started the most suspenseful, long and just plain hot kiss of the Twilight saga, and had women everywhere on the edge of their seats holding their breaths.

6. The All American Pastime — “Twilight”

What would Twilight be without those good old family, vampire moments? The baseball scene is packed full of small flashes that bind the movies and characters together.

With an awesome Muse song in the background, the Cullens have one cool stunt after the other. From Alice’s pitching to Edward and Emmettt’s (Kellan Lutz) midair collision to Emmettt’s tree climbing, it’s an exciting scene that will make viewers smile every time.

And of course we can’t leave out Rosalie’s (Nikki Reed) look to kill when Bella says, “You’re out,” or Carlisle’s (Peter Facinelli) laughing, “Nice kitty,” that follows.

Then there’s my personal favorite – Jasper. There’s something incredibly sexy about that bat flipping trick he does; and there’s something even sexier about his southern draw when he says, “Oh, I think we can handle that,” to Victoria’s wicked curveball comment.

5. Meet the Volturi — “New Moon”

Volturi – that really says it all. When we meet the Volturi in Italy, Bella has just raced thousands of miles to save her man only to be thrown into the hands of the volatile and menacing Volturi.

The legendary vampires watch Edward and Bella with curiosity and disturbing interest. The slightly manic Aro (Michael Sheen) reads the mind of a drugged looking, but still charming, Edward. We witness Jane (Dakota Fanning) torture Edward with perhaps the most awesome power of the series so far.
Then she turns on Bella, “This may hurt just a little,” an awesome line, followed by a confounded Jane whose powers don’t work on the human – ha-ha Jane. Isn’t it satisfying to see her pissed off?

Felix goes for Bella, Edward intervenes, and the tension just continues to pile up as Felix slams Edward to the floor cracking both it and Edwards’ face. Felix gets a hold around Edward’s neck and Bella screams in panic, “No, please, please. Kill me. Kill me not him!”

We see love so strong nothing can triumph it, a love that compels the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life for another.

The fervent devotion Bella has for Edward continues to be showcased when Aro walks toward her and says, “You would give up your life for someone like us – a vampire, a soulless monster.”

Bella steadies herself and says fiercely, “You don’t know a thing about his soul.”

Hey Twi-hards, are you Team Edward or Team Jacob? Well this time around, you should all be Team Eric, Bella’s human friend played by Justin Chon.

Justin is swinging by Phoenix this Saturday to talk to Blast, and we want to give all of you Twilight fans out there a chance to ask him anything you want. Dying to know if Taylor Lautner’s abs are as impressive in person? Want to ask questions about Eclipse, which comes out next Wednesday? Leave your questions in the comments section below or email them to us (info in the contacts section).

And be sure to check back to see your burning questions answered by your favorite Twilight human!

Dakota Fanning stopped to chat with Blast tonight as she headed to the world premier of her new film “The Runaways.” Fanning stars alongside Kristen Stewart (“Twilight”) as Cherie Currie, lead singer of the legendary band The Runaways. Below is a snippet of our conversation with Fanning — check back Friday for the full interview with the cast of “The Runaways” as well as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.

Melissa Unger contributed to this story.

The Sandra Bullock football drama “The Blind Side” unseated “New Moon” this weekend, raking in $20.4 million in its opening days.

“New Moon” fell to second with $15.7 million after a strong few opening weeks for the vampire drama.

“Blind Side” is about a woman whose family adopts a homeless teen named Michael Oher. It’s based on a true story — Oher is now a rookie for the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaking of vampires, “Transylmania” opened this weekend also with a take of just $274,000 with an average of $272 raised per theater. The movie, in case you’re wondering, is getting bomb (that’s bad) reviews by critics.

Another November, another “Twilight” movie stumbling its way into the frenzied hordes of fervent, feverish teenage girls (…and twenty-somethings…and soccer moms…retirees…). All is well with the world.

What to say about this film?

I avoided the opening weekend, partly for fear of losing my faith in humanity and partly because I’m just not sure what else I can add my well-documented thoughts on this series. “Ha ha, Edward’s still creepy and blank-faced!” just doesn’t have the same ring it did a year ago, I guess.

But nonetheless I felt it was my duty to go ahead and sit through the two hours of intense staring and brooding and awkward stuttering. Maybe I did it because some part of me wanted to see if somehow this film franchise could be redeemed by a new director (…meh), or maybe the soundtrack, or maybe I’ve mellowed over the course of the year and my heart’s grown more gentle. Or something.

Or maybe I was just hoping to enjoy 2009′s great comedy of the year. Actually yeah, that’s exactly what I was hoping. Would the screen go blank for five seconds while Powerpoint slides clicked through “October,” “November,” “December” like in the book? Would there be any more of the fast-forward/slow-motion sharp cuts that I remember so fondly from the first film? Would writer Melissa Rosenberg scavenge painful lines of dialogue from the book so they could pass through the reluctant actors’ lips like last year’s “lion fell in love with the lamb” bit?

So I guess you could say I was looking forward to another installment to the virtual minefield of comedic gold that was the first film.

But I was, to some extent, disappointed. “New Moon” is a much darker book than its predecessor, and like its adaptation, this film was faithful to its source material. And like in the first film, this was frequently to its detriment.

Adapting a well-known and well-loved book or story to the screen is always a two-sided coin; the question that faces the writers, producers, and director is what to take and what to leave. When it comes to a story like New Moon, the built-in audience has already read the story (probably multiple times) and has likely imagined every line of dialogue, every longing glance, every whispered sweet nothing many times over. Any change to that would be sacrilegious in the opinion of a fan-base as rabid as this one.

So for the most part in “New Moon,” they continued to follow the course set by “Twilight” — which is to say, they remained as true to the book as possible.

Of course, the problem in this case is that nothing happens in the book. In fact, there’s an entire section devoted to how Bella does nothing, says nothing, hears nothing, is nothing without Edward. So you might imagine that going the direction of “look how distraught Bella is! She’s just sitting there!” doesn’t exactly make for compelling storytelling.

Unsurprisingly, it completely kills the pace of the movie. And though it picks up, the effort required to climb back from the intentional lethargy meant to represent Bella’s total and complete destruction of self makes it hard to stay awake long enough to appreciate Jacob’s storyline and Taylor Lautner’s performance.

Ah! We’ve reached a good thing. Taylor Lautner is adorable, acts decently well, and his character (like in the books) is the best written by a mile. Not only does he have a personality, but manages to be sympathetic, engaging, and his actions and words actually make sense. But yeah, back to the personality! He has one! By the time he gets some screen time in the movie I’d almost forgotten what that is.

Oh yes, here’s the other big problem of the film. In the books, Bella is left purposefully blank — she’s a vessel given minimal characteristics so that she is easily identifiable for the readers. And Edward is supposed to be every girl’s ideal snugglebear dreamboat, and as such isn’t given much of a personality himself (Envision the following: “What? Edward thinks fart jokes are funny? Gross! He’s so gross!” Personalities: They’re dangerous.).

The only problem with this is that characters without personalities do not traditionally come across as particularly charismatic on the silver screen. As such, the lines like “You are my life” and “I couldn’t live in a world without you in it” feel as hollow as they do in the Star Wars prequels, where two puppets speaking in monotone deliver such lines as “I love you like someone who loves you a lot.”

And in the absence of having any remotely likable or intriguing characteristics to work with, actress Kristin Stewart has only her weird Vulcan eyebrows and unfortunate shortage of eye drops with which to bring Bella to life. Sadly, this means that she spends her time mostly blank-faced and blinks a lot and we are informed that this is called “being sad” and “damaged.”

It is hard to understand why either Edward or Jacob would find Bella’s mopey, miserable mien so alluring. Despite her voice-over telling the audience that she loves Edward or that she feels better around Jacob, there is no discernible difference between her sullen blank stare when she’s kissing her boyfriend, her sullen blank stare when she’s looking out the window for five months, or her sullen blank stare when she is reunited with Edward at the end of the film.

Still, her inability to form words without eight false-starts and the classic Kristin Stewart move of “I’m anxious and upset, look how I’m running my hands through my hair to show this” is infinitely preferable to Robert Pattinson’s pinched and pained performance that was cringe-worthy in just about every scene.

I get that Edward longs for Bella’s blood and that for some reason he loves her a whole super lot and so on and so forth, but really the only thing I got from Pattinson while watching him with Bella was that he kept jizzing in his pants. They kiss for five seconds, he groans and dramatically pulls back. He inhales her hair, suddenly his face twists in something like pain and he turns away. She gets a papercut and I find myself relieved that it’s a bust shot.

All of it was so awkward that the two of them looked like Barbie and Ken dolls with bad makeup, staring at each other and delivering lines so woodenly that they might as well have been reciting the phone book. “I love you, 532 Cedar Lane, so much, area code 302..”

Any attempt at deeper emotion is laughably overwrought and overacted. It’s as though Edward has two expressions; the first, vaguely constipated and the second, “I’m upset but I just got Botox so yeah.”

Still, like in the first film, there are good moments. Any of Bella’s scenes with her dad were more emotional and well-acted than her scenes with Edward; Billy Burke’s subtle worry, pain, and fear for his daughter are more touching than any of the soap opera declarative statements that pervade Edward and Bella’s conversations.

And of course, the werewolves. The CGI was well-done and the wolves looked exactly as described in the book and the “phasing” between hunky shirtless Native American boy (take your pick of which, there were about six of them) to flowing-fur wolf was uniquely done and a pretty cool effect. Less cool was the “Superman”-like exit for each of the werewolves — if they’re about to head back to the reservation, they simply jogged off-screen in their “The Incredible Hulk” castoff shorts where I would assume that they turn into their wolfy alter-egos in a telephone booth somewhere.

And speaking of the shirtlessness, there was shirtlessness. And a lot of it. The whole thing with the Werewolf Club wrestling around half-clothed with their toned, jailbaity pecs and steroidy biceps was so homoerotic that I had a hard time even enjoying the view, and also I felt pervy since all Bella can talk about for the first half of the movie is how Jacob was sixteen.

And then in the last fifteen minutes of the movie, the first seedlings of plot emerge. In a fit of “I can see Edward’s ghostly apparition when I do stupid, dangerous things,” Bella throws herself off a fifty-foot cliff. In a sequence that takes about two minutes, she almost dies, Alice appears, O.M.G. Edward thinks Bella’s dead, and then suddenly they’re in Italy and Bella is racing against time to stop Edward from provoking the Vampire Fab Four into killing him since you know, he can’t live without her.

How does he provoke them? Well, he takes off his shirt and decides to reveal his sparkling bod to a crowd of disinterested humans and thereby commit the ultimate no-no of revealing the existence of boys with airbrushed abs who wear too much body glitter. (Spectator Sparkling: It’s a thing.).

Bella stops him and then they’re in front of the Simon, Paula, and Randy of the vampire world; Aro, portrayed by Michael Sheen, is the likable and actually dangerous-seeming one (Simon), Caius is Randy, mostly useless and forgettable, and then of course Marcus is Paula, who just mumbles incomprehensibly. Dakota Fanning plays Jane, a less-creepy Twilight version of Anne Rice’s child vampire Claudia who has the power of the Cruciatus Curse, or something.

The gist of the “climax” is this: Bella knows too much about the vampires and needs to get dead for this reason. But Alice tells the mind-reading Aro not to worry, that Bella will be a vampire, and then Aro’s like, “Oh, okay, no prob then. We’re totes cool.”

What a relief. For five seconds there I was afraid there was going to be actual conflict. What a tragedy that would have been.

So what’s the final word on “New Moon?” Not as funny as the original (a classic I say, a classic!), but about 123x more dull. If you have insomnia, watch this film. All you’ll have to do is imagine sheep jumping over the New Moon and you’ll be out in five seconds flat.

And, also, shirtless boys.

“In every Sims heart lies a passion,” or so says Electronic Arts, in this parody the publisher of The Sims 3 released today.

Yeah, we’re talking about “New Moon” here, and all its Team Edward and Jacob glory, not to mention the always dazzling K Stew.

How’d EA do recreating the film’s characters? You be the judge!

A lot of things were going on yesterday. Oprah was announcing the end of her daytime talk show. Sarah Palin was touring the country, promoting her new book and jabbing at Obama’s policies at every turn. Surely, Taylor Swift was walking around somewhere telling someone that she wasn’t dating Taylor Lautner.

But ask most any girl under the age of 16 (and their moms, for that matter) what November 20 meant to them, and they’d tell you one thing: "New Moon."

At midnight last night, girls were lining up at theaters all around the world to catch the first glimpse of the sequel. Would it include all the important parts from the book? they wondered. Will the special effects be cool? Will there be enough Edward?

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit I was asking myself the same things as I walked into the theater. And in the end, I was not disappointed.

Catherine Hardwicke’s "Twilight" was lacking in these ways: there was stilted dialogue, awkward special effects and some funny scenes that weren’t meant to be funny. Director Chris Weitz transitioned the cold, awkward world of "Twilight" into a warm, emotional and dynamic "New Moon."

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg seems to have taken a little more time with this script, as the banter between the characters feels natural. She leaves the "lion and the lamb" quotes in the book where they belong.

The movie touches on almost every important scene in the book, which will please die-hard (or Twi-hard) fans. The movie moves quickly, giving about 15 minutes to process every intense emotion that Stephenie Meyer spent 100 pages talking about, so it can feel a bit rushed. But when you realize that the movie is over two hours long, you re-think that assessment.

The only part of the film that was seriously lacking was the wolf pack. Only two of the four have any serious build, and if you’re going to spend half the movie walking around shirtless, you need to at least get rid of the muffin top. Not to mention the fact that the wolf transformations are by turns incredibly realistic and incredibly…not. The wolves sometimes look fierce and other times, look like cartoons, which is a big disappointment if you’ve seen "The Golden Compass." And there’s an unforgivable sequence where wolf pack leader Sam Uley jumps off of a cliff and you feel like you’re watching an animation from the "Tomb Raider" computer game you had as a kid.

Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner have incredible chemistry. Kristen plays the broken Bella very well, and Lautner exudes the warmth of his character. Plus, he’s not bad to look at either. In the end, your heart breaks when he begs her to stay, and the most loyal Edward fans wonder if maybe they wouldn’t choose Jacob instead.

But in the end, the movie brings you back to Edward and Bella, as it should. It ends on a well-deserved cliff-hanger, leaving the Twi-hards squealing until next June, when the third installment, "Eclipse," is scheduled for release.

As “New Moon” becomes the best pre-sold movie in the history of Fandango, here are some interesting thoughts that surveyed ticket buyers gave the website:

• 66 percent say the love story in "New Moon" is the biggest draw in their decision to buy a ticket.
• 57 percent claim Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene) is the secondary character they’d most like to see in his or her own "Twilight" spin-off movie.
• 39 percent of moviegoers plan to take off time on Friday – from school or work – in order to see the movie.
• 27 percent of respondents surprisingly picked "Breaking Dawn" as their favorite book among Stephenie Meyer’s "Twilight" novels; 16 percent chose "Eclipse; 11 percent voted for the first "Twilight" and only 8 percent pegged "New Moon" as their favorite. (38 percent said they love all the "Twilight" books equally.)

“New Moon” hits theaters Friday.

NATICK — Most of the pre-teen girls pressed up against the Hurricane Bells’ stage in the Natick Collection last Thursday night probably hadn’t heard of the band before they got their hands on the soundtrack to “New Moon,” released this October. But that didn’t quiet their ear-splitting screams as the Brooklyn-based band came on stage. The group played two songs off their album to a respectful but impatient crowd of Twi-hards who burst into hysterics the moment lead singer and guitarist Steve Schiltz played the recognizable intro to their “New Moon” track, “Monsters.”

According to Schiltz, however, when “Monsters” plays in “New Moon,” Twi-hards won’t be squealing for Hurricane Bells. Schiltz told Blast that the song he wrote will introduce everybody’s favorite vegetarian vampire, Edward Cullen.

“Bella gets a camera for her birthday,” Schiltz said excitedly, setting up the scene. “She takes it to school and…’Monsters’ is in that scene. It’s the first time you see Edward on camera. He pulls up in the school parking lot and…he walks out and he’s in slow motion. And then that’s when you hear the guitar riff.”

So if you think you can’t wait ’til Friday, do what I do: put “Monsters” on repeat, close your eyes and imagine Edward Cullen is coming to wish you a happy birthday.

Watch our full interview with Hurricane Bells below:

Tanya DeJesus and Melissa Unger contributed to this report.

NATICK — The “New Moon” promotional tour is in full effect, and Kellan Lutz was the man of the hour in Natick, Massachusetts this weekend. Blast was there as the actor, who plays Emmett in “Twilight,” held an autograph signing session for hundreds of Twi-hards from all over the Northeast. The lucky fans who were able to score a wristband for the event waited in line for hours to meet him as the excitement (and the screaming) reached a fever pitch.

Brooklynne Peters and Melissa Unger contributed to this story.

NATICK — “The Twilight Saga” is taking over the world, and Kellan Lutz took over the Natick Collection Mall to promote “New Moon.” The actor took part in a Q & A session with around 500 fans and made sure everyone would buy their tickets for the second installment of the saga, which comes out on November 20th. Watch the video below to see Lutz interact with his fans, answering their questions and joking about his cast mates, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

Fans got to submit their questions before the Q & A session and Lutz, who plays Emmett in “Twilight,” answered some randomly selected questions and made the fans swoon with his charm. Here are some of the questions he got to answer.

QUESTION: How do you feel about being part of one of the biggest movie franchises of all time?

KELLAN LUTZ: You know what? It’s a real, it’s an honor to be a part of something that fans are so loyal to and support. It’s a magic carpet ride. To all of us actors, I think we really are living in this “Twilight” zone and it really hasn’t sunk into how big of a phenomenon it is.

Q: What is you favorite part of playing the role of Emmett?

KL: I love how much fun he gets to pick at Bella, especially in “Eclipse.” Kristen Stewart is amazing. Just to make her laugh when we were shooting and have her crack up. She would be like “I’m sorry Kellan, I can’t take it!” It’s so funny. It’s fun.

Q: What is it like playing a tough big brother?

KL: I have a lot of experience playing a tough big brother. I have a large family and I got picked on growing up and I did some picking on the little ones. So it’s always fun playing the big brother role, especially trying to crack jokes on Rob when he doesn’t get it. Again, we have such a great cast and we’re all, without any of us it wouldn’t be the family that we’ve forged.

Q: What is your favorite non-Emmett scene in “New Moon?”

KL: I’ll have to say just watching the Volturi. I never got the chance to meet them. But Michael Sheen’s amazing. I finally got to meet them while shooting "Eclipse," and they are a great group of actors.

Q: Do you have any secrets you can share with us about "Eclipse?"

KL: I’m topless throughout the whole movie, pretty much!

Q: What are your plans for after “The Twilight Saga” ends?

KL: I’m gonna cry and be depressed. I love being a part of this franchise. To have all you guys, fans, and to play Emmett…I wake up happy everyday and I’m not sad. But when it’s all said and done, I want to be the next action star. I want to play Jason Bourne.

Brooklynne Peters and Melissa Unger collaborated with Tanya DeJesus on this story

It’s hard not to notice Kellan Lutz when he walks into a room. Unlike the vampire, Emmett Cullen, that he plays in “Twilight,” it’s not because of his icy, pale skin or his alternately gold or black eyes. Kellan fills up a room with the warm, jovial personality he shares with his famous blood-sucking character.

But don’t take our word for it. Just ask the teenage girls who waited for hours-upon-end this weekend just to get a glimpse of him as he passed through the Natick Collection on his “New Moon” mall tour. Even without the appeal of his co-star Ashley Greene (“She’s my best friend,” he said), who was supposed to join him (her appearance was cancelled), Lutz, with his blue eyes and movie star smile, had no trouble filling a mall with screeching “Twi-hards” a week before the release of “New Moon.”

But just a few hours before the Natick Collection madness began, Kellan, dressed in black from head to toe, capped off with brightly bleached hair (it’s jet black in “Twilight”) sat down with Blast and a few other reporters to talk about sudden fame, snowboarding and making fun of co-star Kristen Stewart.

Like many of the actors in “Twilight,” Lutz was just another struggling actor before his role in the vampire series thrust him into the spotlight. With a few parts here and there, he wasn’t unknown, but the “Twilight” phenomenon brought him and many of his cast mates unprecedented fame.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know that Lutz plays a lovable, bulky vegetarian vampire in “Twilight” who likes to play off of his more serious, sparkly brother, Edward. Edward is caught in a tricky situation with a human girlfriend named Bella and his overwhelming desire to have her for lunch. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

Those who have seen the movie might not be able to picture Lutz in any other role, though he says it came very close to being that way. Initially, he was offered an audition for the part of Edward, the pensive, pining bloodthirsty lead.

“I had just gotten back from doing ‘Generation Kill,’” Lutz said, “which was seven months in Africa portraying Marines killing people. I did not want to play a depressed, complex character like Edward. And my agent’s like ‘It’s gonna be huge!’ and I’m like ‘Cool!’ *click* (simulates hanging up a phone).”

But thanks to that persistent agent and a change of perspective, Lutz found his way to playing Emmett Cullen, who he claims he is more suited for.

“He’s this happy-go-lucky guy with no fears,” Lutz said with a gleaming smile. “He’s indestructible. He’s this monster. And he just laughs, cause nothing can hurt him…and he just makes fun of Bella.”

Fans of the books know that Emmett Cullen spends most of his time finding ways to poke fun at the saga’s clumsy, red-faced heroine Bella Swan, played in the films by Kristen Stewart. Lutz brought that spirit to the set of “New Moon” and “Eclipse” by ribbing Stewart whenever he got the chance.

“I do!” Lutz said when asked if he liked making fun of people on set. “Especially Kristen…we had some great scenes in ‘Eclipse,’ and it’s fun just hanging out with her, ’cause she’s just such a free bird. Saying the funny lines that my character gets to say and having her laugh when she’s not supposed to…(she’d say) ‘You guys, we gotta go again!’ She’s adorable.”

Lutz shared about a specific scene in Eclipse where, though she tried, Stewart couldn’t keep a straight face due to Lutz’s humor.

“There’s a scene when Bella hurts her arm because she hits Jacob,” Lutz said, “and so Jasper and I walk in, and I say some really funny comments. She tried to go tit-for-tat with the humor, (but) she just kept on laughing.”

Lutz, Stewart and the rest of the ensemble cast for “Twilight” have been working together for two years, giving them time to develop a rapport. But critics wondered if that chemistry would be altered when the decision was made to find a new director for the second film, “New Moon.” Once the success of the franchise became apparent after the release of “Twilight” ( “It opened so high that they greenlit it the next day, which was amazing,” Lutz said) the sequels were put on the fast-track to release.

“Twilight” Director Catherine Hardwicke declined to direct “New Moon,” claiming she would need more time to prepare than the studio would allow. Director Chris Weitz (“About A Boy,” “American Pie”) was quickly brought in, and the Twilight world waited with baited breath to see if he could recreate the magic in “New Moon” that Hardwicke had brought to “Twilight.”

Lutz said that the two directors had very different styles, but each suited the story they told. “Twilight” had to make a vampire love story not only realistic, but compelling, and Lutz said Hardwicke succeeded in making that happen.

“‘Twilight’ is an artsy movie, and Catherine had just such a great independent style,” Lutz said. “She really captured the beauty of what ‘Twilight’ is.”

“New Moon,” which details the heartrending loss of first love, called for a melancholy tone, which Lutz said Weitz was perfect for. “(Weitz is) so chill. He’s so easygoing,” Lutz said. “It didn’t feel like work.”

In “New Moon,” much to the fans’ dismay, Lutz and the rest of the Cullens disappear for awhile, acting in Bella’s best interest.

“All us Cullens wish we could be in that movie so much more,” Lutz said. “But we can’t because we’re sticking really close to the book. And we’re in the movie for the really crucial scenes, but we disappear. We go away for Bella’s safety.”

Now, before the second movie has even been released, the third one is on its way — and yes, there’s yet another director. David Slade (“30 Days of Night”) is following Weitz’s tear-tinged “New Moon” with an edgier “Eclipse,” which just wrapped filming.

In “Eclipse,” the Cullens are back…along with some werewolves, some angry vampires and a very clumsy Bella. This makes for a lot of fight scenes, which are Lutz’s forte.

“In ‘Eclipse,’ I worked so much doing fight training,” Lutz said. “My character’s there for all the action.”

But Lutz wanted to make sure he got in on the real action on set.

“I nagged and nagged and nagged so I could do all my stunts,” he said. “And I was so annoying that finally — I’ve been annoying for the past two years trying to do my stunts — they finally allowed me to do a lot of my own stunts, which is great. ‘Cause whenever I can do that, I put 150 percent into it, versus stunt guys who get paid, you know, to not get hurt. They don’t wanna get hurt, ’cause that’s their job, so they do it, like, 145 percent. I just enjoy doing them. They’re fun to me. I’m a thrill seeker. I like taking risks and getting hurt.”

There’s one film left to make in the series, but Lutz expressed concern that “Breaking Dawn” may never make it to the big screen. Contrary to the pacing of the first three films, Lutz said all of the actors are killing time while the studio has yet to release the names of potential directors, release dates or any other plans for the film.

“We aren’t filming it,” Lutz said. “There’s no word. It’s a real bummer because when we did ‘Twilight,’ we always hoped to continue on with the book series.”

With the success of the franchise came more big-name actors, like Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning. Lutz said he fears that if the studio doesn’t move fast, they’ll lose their cast to other projects, putting the “Twilight” saga on hold.

“Us actors are having offers for tons of stuff now,” Lutz said. “To get the…actors that are a part of this — the Volturi, the wolves, the Cullens, that’s a lot of actors to just say months before we shoot, ‘Hey, can you guys come do this movie?’ ‘Cause we don’t have contracts. Versus the first three films we were all under contract. So nothing’s telling us ‘hold these dates.’ There’s only a small time frame that we could shoot…because of weather. So I hope they make their mind (up) after ‘New Moon’ comes out.”

Lutz said the determination of the film’s future might be in the hands of “Twilight” fans.

“I think it really matters for the fans,” he said. “If they come out and support ‘New Moon’ like they did ‘Twilight,’ and then ‘Eclipse.’ Because we all want to finish this baby. It’s such a part of us and it would just seem empty not to finish the last chapter.”

Lutz also addressed the rumor that “Breaking Dawn,” the longest novel in the saga, might be filmed in two parts.

“I’d hope that they’d want to shoot it all,” he said, “cause it’s such a big book. If they were to split it…there’s not really a clear line. I feel like if you did three fourths of the book and then the last part or something…but I think they would have to shoot it all in one push. Five months worth. But if they don’t greenlight it…”

Portraying a playful vampire and joking around on set makes Lutz’s job sound pretty ideal. It becomes clear, though, that it’s not all fun and games as he described his taxing tour schedule.

“Definitely the hard part,” he said, “is just getting on the airplane and trying to find time to sleep.”

Hopping back and forth between the East and West Coasts and getting three to four hours of sleep on average, Lutz said he relies on the love and support of the fans to sustain him.

“Definitely meeting the fans and the energy that they bring really keeps you going,” he said.

Due to the series’ instant popularity, its stars, and by default, Lutz, instantly lost much of their privacy to the persistent clicks of paparazzi cameras following their every move. Lutz initially didn’t have it as bad as his co-stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, but it wasn’t long before a photo surfaced of him, shirtless, exercising in his own gym.

“Being a part of ‘Twilight,’” he said, “definitely opened my eyes to how nuts it is to be a named actor and have paparazzi follow you and crash their cars trying to get pictures of you. And all you can do is be like, ‘Ha ha. Karma.’”

But the sudden fame will have no lasting effect on his life, Lutz claims. He said he plans on using it to pursue his acting dreams, but nothing else.

“You know, I’m not here to become famous or to be a millionaire,” he said. “I’m just very passionate. You know, I might have to do my hair before I go out more,” Lutz said. “(But) I’m not gonna let anything change me. I think fame or whatever it is we have changes the people around you. And as long as you stay true to yourself, everyone else will get a wakeup call and you’ll find out who your real friends are and who’s in it to get something else out of you.”

Lutz told us that though he enjoys his work, he’s eager to get home after the press tour to spend some time with none other than his mother for the holidays.

“My mom’s very traditional,” he said, “and puts up lights and cooks great meals with little cookies…it’s just great to be with family. I feel like a little kid when I go home. I have a little stocking full of, you know, candy. It’s great.”

He said he also looks forward to fitting in one of his favorite pastimes over the holiday season — snowboarding.

“I have my season pass in California,” Lutz said. “I bring my dog in my truck, and throw my boards in the back. It’s a piece of crap truck. But it’s my baby. I love it.”

Look for Kellan Lutz in “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” which hits theaters this Friday.

In a recent interview with Blast and other reporters, “Twilight” star Kellan Lutz revealed that there are no current plans to film the final chapter in the “Twilight” saga, “Breaking Dawn.”

The first three films have been made, but Lutz expressed the fear that if “New Moon” doesn’t get enough love from the fans, “Breaking Dawn” might never get made, leaving the saga permanently unfinished.

“We aren’t filming it,” Lutz said when asked about the progress on “Breaking Dawn.”

“It’s a real bummer,” he said, “because when we did ‘Twilight,’ we always hoped to continue on with the book series. Like you saw with ‘Aragon’ — the fans didn’t support it enough, so they didn’t make the sequel, which would suck.”

Some may find it hard to believe the the cultural phenomenon that is “Twilight” wouldn’t have enough fan power to propel the series to completion. But with no word from the studio and no actors under contract, “Breaking Dawn” falling through could become a real possibility.

“There’s no word on ‘Breaking Dawn.’ They said goodbye to all the crew in Vancouver,” Lutz said. “Like, a real goodbye.”

The actors of “Twilight” were under contract for the first three films in the saga. But with “New Moon,” the cast expanded, enveloping several big-name actors, including Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning. Suddenly, due to the popularity of the series, the actors of “Twilight” have rapidly filling schedules and less time to wait on studio decisions.

“Between ‘New Moon’ and ‘Eclipse’ I did three films,” Lutz said. “Us actors are having offers for tons of stuff now. To get the…actors that are a part of this — the Volturi, the wolves, the Cullens — that’s a lot of actors to just say, months before we shoot, ‘Hey, can you guys come do this movie?’ Because we don’t have contracts for it. So nothing’s telling us, you know, ‘Hold these dates.’ And there’s only a small time frame that we could shoot in…because of weather. So I hope they make their mind (up) after ‘New Moon’ comes out.”

In the end, Lutz said that it’s all up to the fans.

“We all fell in love with our characters,” he said, “all hoping that you know, we could continue on…it really matters for the fans, if they come out and support ‘New Moon.’ Because we all want to finish this baby. It’s such a part of us, and it would just seem empty not to finish the last chapter.”

“New Moon,” which opens next Thursday, has already passed “Twilight” as the fourth highest advanced ticket selling movie in Fandango’s 10-year history and is on pace to be No. 1, the ticket agency reported.

The new vampire flick represents 75 percent of the site’s ticket sales right now.

“Ever since we started selling advance tickets to New Moon on August 31, the demand has been unstoppable, as the fan base just keeps growing every day,” said Fandango Chief Operating Officer Rick Butler. “New Moon is tracking to be Fandango’s #1 top advance ticket-seller of all time.”

The Top 5 Advance Ticket-Sellers on Fandango (as of November 12, 2009) are as follows:

1. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
3. The Dark Knight (2008)
4. New Moon (2009)
5. Twilight (2008)

According to a Fandango survey of more than 2,000 New Moon ticket-buyers, the first Twilight movie helped fuel the fan frenzy that has carried over to the other installments in the series:

• 55 percent said the first Twilight movie inspired them to read all the books by Stephenie Meyer.
• 51 percent plan to see New Moon more than once in the theater.
• 61 percent said they have read the novel New Moon more than once.

Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (Media credit: KCSPresse / Splash News Online)

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner arrived in Paris on Monday and checked into a luxurious hotel before going out for a late dinner where they met up with Fergie, People reported.

They did a press event on Tuesday and got ready to leave for the next stop on their European “New Moon” press tour.

But Robert and Kristen were among the last to leave.

“[Pattinson and Stewart] were the last ones to leave the terminal to board the plane,” one photographer on the scene told People. “Out on the tarmac, he took her hand, like young lovers. They stopped and looked at each other, their plane, the scene. They seemed very calm, in love. They continued holding hands boarding the plane.”

Let the comments begin.

Forget the wolves. Forget the Volturi. This little snippet reminds us of just why we are counting down the days to November 20. It’s why we’ve bought our advanced tickets. It’s why we loved the books in the first place. Edward and Bella, plain and simple. So before you press play, take a deep breath and make sure you’re not holding anything spillable.

Enjoy.

In a Billboard shocker moment, famed crooner Michael Bublé took out the New Moon soundtrack for number one on the charts this week. This is Bublé’s second week on the charts – bringing in 203,000 records sold in the past seven days according to Billboard.com. “New Moon” was released last Tuesday, October 20 but Bublé came in first for total record sales. The soundtrack sold 115,000 copies in its first week. The news is even more surprising when Bublé’s “Crazy Love” isn’t present on the iTunes top album chart, while New Moon hovers at number six (at the time this article was printed).

Bublé is famous for his smooth vocals, covering classic songs from past eras. “Crazy Love” features “Georgia on my Mind” and “Haven’t Met You Yet”. Bublé’s usual demographic follows him for his unique voice that has hints reminiscent of Frank Sinatra or Fred Astaire. His modern day rendition of old-time classics have become wedding anthems around the world.

In contrast, the “New Moon” soundtrack, released by Warner Brothers records to help excite Twilighters everywhere for the upcoming release of the second movie in the Stephanie Meyers series, is comprised of all original works. Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, Lykke Li, The Killers, Muse and more all wrote original songs exclusively for the soundtrack. The contributors’ list is impressive at the very least, but even more so when you consider the songs were written specifically for the movie.

Paramore, who headlined the first Twilight soundtrack, hang in on the Billboard 200 chart at number 16 with “Brand New Eyes” which was released in late September.

Both “Crazy in Love” and the New Moon soundtrack are available at all major music retailers. The Twilight Saga: New Moon hits theatres November 20..

I debated posting this. I am a Twilight fan, as I’m sure many of you are, but I’m pretty disappointed by the studio’s decision to release so much of the film’s important content before its actual release. I mean, it’s not like we need bait. This film IS going to sell out. It WILL make billions. So why spoil all the surprises? Let’s recount the major scenes we’ve already, well, seen:
Edward leaving Bella
Bella’s depression
Laurent’s attack and subsequent death
Bella’s cliff-diving scene
Jacob’s transformation
Alice’s return
The Volturi

Not to mention the fact that we’ve seen many of Bella’s dream sequences in stills from the movie. But nevertheless, the clips just keep on coming. Here are two more that were recently released that further detail the wolf pack’s transformations as well as a full 45 second fight scene with the Volturi. *Sigh*

Welcome to “New Moon” heaven. Team Edward and Team Jacob will both be pleased to see that over 80 new stills from “New Moon” have been released, just over a month before the movie’s release, in the form of the New Moon Movie Companion. And God bless the Twihard who scanned her copy so none of us would have to go out and drop $10 on Amazon.

See the best ones below.

Catch the rest at newmoonmovie.org

Photo credit: ralphy137, robpattinson.blogspot.com

Here you go, Twi-hards. Just when you thought you’d seen a photo or clip from every scene in the upcoming “New Moon,” you get more. Who knows, we just might see the whole movie without ever stepping into theaters! To view the rest of the pics, visit here.

Photo credit: Ryanseacrest.com courtesy of Latimes.com, also Newmoonmovie.org

All of you Twilighters out there, get excited Stephenie Meyer posted the “New Moon” movie soundtrack track listing on her website today. The soundtrack includes new original work from artists like Death Cab for Cutie, Muse and The Killers. All songs are exclusive to the “New Moon” soundtrack. You can pre-order the album on Amazon.com today.

* DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE “" MEET ME ON THE EQUINOX
* BAND OF SKULLS “" FRIENDS
* THOM YORKE “" HEARING DAMAGE
* LYKKE LI “" POSSIBILITY
* THE KILLERS “" A WHITE DEMON LOVE SONG
* ANYA MARINA “" SATELLITE HEART
* MUSE “" I BELONG TO YOU (NEW MOON)
* BON IVER & ST. VINCENT “" ROSYLN
* BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB “" DONE ALL WRONG
* HURRICANE BELLS “" MONSTERS
* SEA WOLF “" THE VIOLET HOUR
* OK GO “" SHOOTING THE MOON
* GRIZZLY BEAR “" SLOW LIFE
* EDITORS “" NO SOUND BUT THE WIND
* ALEXANDRE DESPLAT “" NEW MOON (THE MEADOW)

The Twilight Saga is an important part of Blast’s coverage. We have a page dedicated to it. We cover every rumor, news item, do every interview and promote discussion of every aspect of the universe. It is, indeed, the 21st century female Star Wars.

But counter to all that giggling and squealing comes a certain amount of disdain.

The most popular article in the history of Blast and its dozen or so blogs is and remains titled “Twilight sucks… And not in a good way.”

In that article Blast reporter Kellen Rice argues about the writing style of the series, citing “sickeningly purple prose (and) the lack of general writing quality.” But the biggest part of Rice’s passionate argument came not as a literary critic but as a woman.

“The books present a female heroine who can hardly take a step without needing some boy to rescue her,” Rice wrote. “In fact, the books represent sexist views in almost every way, from the fact that Bella gives up her ambitions and plans for college to get married to Edward, the fact that she is portrayed as a modern Eve, begging the noble, moral gentleman for sex while he desires to preserve their virtue, the fact that their relationship is dangerously unhealthy, and finally to the fact that nearly every single female character in the book is a hopelessly negative caricature.”

Kellen got a lot of responses. More than 3,600 comments as of Sunday night have come in the past 13 months, (its follow-up article has more than 1,000). These comments included women saying to her: “All of your opinions are completely FALSE!” and “YOU JUST THINK TOO MUCH JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE !”

And this: (punctuation cleaned up)

“Why don’t you goddamn feminists go shave your legs,” wrote a commenter named Kristen. “If you don’t like the idea of women needing help, then DON’T read the books or go out into the real world, because women should just stay in the kitchen and clean. I’m a girl, and I think women usually do need a man to help them with things, and that’s why we aren’t all lesbians. … Seriously, no man wants a girl who’s all about womens’ rights, so shut up and be happy you can vote.”

At first glance, these comments beg for remarks about the girls eventually attending college to get their “MRS” degree and pump out a few kids. They’re laughable, and to come the comments are contemptible.

But are they wrong?

This back and forth argument is nothing new.

Northwestern University communications professor Janice Radway 1984 book “Reading the Romance” is one of the seminal looks at how women are affected by romantic literature.

Radway’s arguments, written before most “Twilight” fans were born, illustrated that both sides are correct. Romance novels, she argued, have the ability to provide escapism and empowerment for woman, allowing them to dream of and aspire to a “a different life,” or “revolt against male domination,” wrote critical theorist Douglas Kellner, in his essay “Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture.” At the same time, however, the books may be understood by some as enforcing traditional gender roles on woman, forcing them to live in a world of female submission to “prince charming” — which is universally seen as an attractive male force.

In contemporary American literature and cinema, no where is this conflict more visible than in “New Moon,” the second installment in the Twilight Saga, due in theaters in November.

In “New Moon,” the male hero, Edward, leaves the female protagonist, Bella, for “her own safety.” Distraught, she goes on autopilot for months, disengaging from reality and eventually putting herself through life-threatening, self-destructive acts to get her man back.

Analysis of Bella’s dangerous rebellion — and author Stephenie Meyer’s writing thereof — can go both ways as well. Some will see “New Moon” as anti-woman and vehemently anti-feminist, while others will see (and have read) Bella’s actions as heroic and empowered.

Kellner touched on the idea of rebellion as well when he cited media scholar John Fiske in writing about how teenage girls in the 1980s saw Madonna’s rebellious fashion statements as empowering examples of how to express themselves.

The only logical conclusion is therefore the same conclusion we can draw in most social science theory: No one’s totally right.

“New Moon,” the sequel to the teenage vampire love drama that’s swept the world with its undying popularity, is selling more tickets on Fandango than any other movie, including all of the currently released films.

In a recent study, Fandango found that “New Moon,” which doesn’t open until November 20, accounted for 37 percent of its recent ticket sales, beating out “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” which had 36 percent and “The Informant!,” which only had 9 percent. “Jennifer’s Body,” raked in 4 percent of sales.

Speaking of “Jennifer’s Body,” Fandango polled users, asking “Which role would you most like to see Megan Fox play?” Thirty-two percent of responders said they want to see the sexy star play Wonder Woman, while 30 percent said Catwoman. But what’s most astonishing is that 13 percent answered “Bella in ‘Breaking Dawn.’” Thirteen percent of polled moviegoers want to see Kristen Stewart get the boot.

Twihards and feminists everywhere, rejoice. The “New Moon” trailer is here.

Here’s the latest synopsis:

In the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenally successful TWILIGHT series, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as BELLA SWAN (Kristen Stewart) delves deeper into the mysteries of the supernatural world she yearns to become part of”"only to find herself in greater peril than ever before.

Following Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party, EDWARD CULLEN (Robert Pattinson) and his family abandon the town of Forks, Washington, in an effort to protect her from the dangers inherent in their world. As the heartbroken Bella sleepwalks through her senior year of high school, numb and alone, she discovers Edward’s image comes to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. Her desire to be with him at any cost leads her to take greater and greater risks.

With the help of her childhood friend JACOB BLACK (Taylor Lautner), Bella refurbishes an old motorbike to carry her on her adventures. Bella’s frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob, a member of the mysterious Quileute tribe, who has a supernatural secret of his own.

When a chance encounter brings Bella face to face with a former nemesis, only the intervention of a pack of supernaturally large wolves saves her from a grisly fate, and the encounter makes it frighteningly clear that Bella is still in grave danger. In a race against the clock, Bella learns the secret of the Quileutes and Edward’s true motivation for leaving her. She also faces the prospect of a potentially deadly reunion with her beloved that is a far cry from the one she’d hoped for. With more of the passion, action and suspense that made TWILIGHT a worldwide phenomenon, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON is a spellbinding follow-up to the box office hit.

U.S. release via Summit Entertainment, November 20, 2009.

Black Island Farm in Syracuse, Utah has a corn maze. It’s not an uncommon sight. The kids love it.

Surprised they allow this kinda thing in Utah. (Media credit/Sky News)

The words “Team Edward” and “Team Jacob” are even carved below their mugs.

The farmer used GPS technology to design the maze, which sits on a 400-acre farm that grows carrots, onions, cabbage, corn, pumpkins and other squash, according to Radar.

If you find yourself in Utah, the maze will be open to the public from September 24 until Halloween. It takes about an hour to get through it, but only minutes to fall in love with Edward or Jacob.

“New Moon” will be in theaters, and so will you, on November 30.

Like this would ever get old.

A new still released from “New Moon” shows Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson locked in a loving gaze.

“New Moon” is one of the most anticipated films of the fall movie-watching season, and you can bet that Blast is going to be all over it as we progress toward release date.

New Moon is the most anticipated movie of the fall season, according to an online poll on Fandango.com.

According to users of the popular movie ticket site, the “Twilight” sequel beats out “James Cameron’s Avatar” and “2012″ as the most eagerly awaited fall flick.

• The Twilight Saga: New Moon: 39%
• Avatar: 23%
• 2012: 16%
• Where the Wild Things Are: 9%
• Disney’s The Princess and the Frog: 7%
• Other: 6%

You can take two things away from Taylor Lautner’s cover story on Teen Vogue: His karate instructor was a blue Power Ranger, and there is no love triangle among him, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

“It’s crazy,” the “New Moon” hunk said. “But the fans help. They’re a big part of the motivation.”

Lautner credited a childhood karate teacher, who also played a blue Power Ranger in the hit series. The karate coach encouraged him to go into acting in the first place, he says.

He also evaded a question about his rumored love interest, Disney’s Selena Gomez.

“She’s a great girl,” he said, saying nothing else.

Summit Entertainment released some new character images from the new Twilight film, “New Moon.”

The images show the characters Alec, Aro, Caius, Jane and Marcus. Enjoy!

DALLAS — Blast has been talking about TwiCon, the nation’s largest fan-run “Twilight” convention for a long while now, and it’s finally come and gone. With 3,000 attendees, the convention centered loosely on standing in lines for specific events like photograph sessions with the cast, autographs and the question and answer session, but the cast, as well as other guests like Bobby Long, Marcus Foster and Sam Bradley, made sure it was all worth the wait.

Jackson Rathbone was probably the busiest cast member at TwiCon this past weekend, attending not only as the actor portraying Jasper in “Twilight” but as a part of his band, 100 Monkeys. They played a concert at TwiCon, and in downtown Dallas, to huge, adoring crowds. Blast was backstage before the TwiCon show, and got to see the boys getting hyped up, and Rathbone having a moment with his family before going on stage. Rathbone also wrapped up the convention with a private question and answer session on Sunday morning after his late-night 100 Monkeys concert Saturday night. Charming, and no doubt as tired as he could be in the same clothes he was wearing the day before, he was carefree as he joked with the crowd. When asked which musician of all time he would pick to play with, he chose Bach. “That would be awesome” Rathbone laughed. “He could be crazy on the piano and I would play some electric guitar. So yeah, Bach.”

Alex Meraz, the “New Moon” actor playing Quileute werewolf, Paul, had a private brunch event with about 250 lucky attendees. Sweet and honest, Alex answered questions, including how Stephenie Meyer approved of his casting and his advice to Taylor Lautner to lay off the weight lifting and weight gaining in between films.

Throughout the weekend, Blast’s favorite Brits became a fan favorite as well. Each took turns playing at the VIP party on Thursday evening, followed by Sage, a musician and friend of Nikki Reed. The sound situation wasn’t ideal, and the boys had to mic the guitars as if they were playing back at the open mic nights they met at years ago in London. The show was still great — intimate and endearing, and they all had more shows at Poor David’s Pub in Dallas during the weekend, and all performed at the Volturi Masque Ball event on Saturday night.

The cast Q&A session, though definitely too short, was hilarious. Between Peter Facinelli’s death defying act of jumping off the stage and running down the aisles of screaming fans and Jackson Rathbone’s snarky answer concerning Peter’s layered birthday acting method, the cast put on a great show. The session included all of the cast attending the convention: Peter Facinelli, Jackson Rathbone, Alex Meraz, Kellan Lutz, Billy Burke and Christian Serratos. Questions were sent in by fans, and while some elicited humorous answers on their own, like when Kellan misheard the question and thought he had been asked “which werewolf would you eat” instead of “which werewolf would you be” a great number of the questions centered around how the actors “prepared” for their respective roles. And while preparing to play vegetarian vampires might have been a challenge in the beginning with “Twilight” most of the development wasn’t that drastic in “New Moon” and could have been answered with “I prepared for my role by going to acting school.” However, Rathbone instead started in on a very complicated technique of acting in order to make things more interesting: Peter Facinelli’s birthday technique.

“Peter told me” Rathbone began, “to get into the darker side of Jasper, I needed to pretend like people know it’s my birthday, but they forgot. Then he said that wasn’t dark enough, so I had to pretend it was my birthday, people knew, but then they threw a party for this girl instead. I thought she was my cake.” After pausing for a moment to allow for the uproar of laughter, Jackson finished saying, “actually, Peter has a book coming out and it’s called, “ËœHow to Act and the Birthday Technique.”

YouTube sensation Evil Iguana Productions (we discovered them!) was also attending the convention as special guests, and premiered their latest “Twilight” spoof, which was received with lots of laughter. While introducing the spoof, Craig Deering asked, “Why another ‘Twilight’ spoof?” to which Allen Murphy answered, “Do you know how many girls love ‘Twilight?!’” He’ right of course, considering at least 2,990 of the 3,000 attendees must have been female, and definitely love EIP.

Check back for more exclusive pictures and interviews from the TwiCon weekend.

DALLAS — Blast did TwiCon, the unofficial Twilight Convention, and we’ll have all sorts of coverage coming up over the next few days!

Here’s a Blast video of Billy Burke, “Twilight’s” Charlie Swan as he answers a question at TwiCon’s Q&A with the cast of “Twilight.”

SAN DIEGO — Being preemptive always bites the journalist in the butt, and of course immediately after our New Moon post went live, Chris Weitz showed the (almost) reunion scene between Bella and Edward and Italy.

And it was beautiful.

Proving that Taylor Lautner being shirtless is old news, the fan screams at Robert Pattinson’s Edward Cullen removing his shirt to incite a response from the Volturi nearly drowned out the sound of scene being shown. And it looks like Taylor wasn’t the only “New Moon” cast member hitting the gym: as the fan behind me repeatedly stated, “You can’t fake that definition.” RPattz has finally got his set of abs.

The scene showed Bella and Alice driving up in Alice’s famous yellow Porsche to stop Edward from revealing himself in the sunlight and causing the Volturi to kill him. Bella runs through a festival going on in Italy to try to stop Edward. Of course the scene ended before Edward saw Bella and they have their long awaited reunion, but the camera work and cinematography was breathtaking, showing a big step up from “Twilight.” Of course, being on location in Italy might have helped.

Chris Weitz needs to create more films not based on religion and relying on CGI. “New Moon” looks like it could actually be really, really good. Guess we’ll just have to wait until November 20 to know for sure.

SAN DIEGO — Chris Weitz, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Ashley Greene debuted an exclusive clip of “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” and what an exclusive clip it was. Showcasing the integration of Edward Cullen into the mostly Edward Cullen-less “New Moon,” the Bella/Jacob chemistry and Taylor Lautner’s smokin’ hot bod, let’s just say the Twilight fans got what they came for.

“I hope you guys are pleased when you see the results,” Taylor humbly told the audience before the clip was revealed. From the screams at the chest reveal (a shot with clearly only one purpose when filmed), they seemed to be.

Kristen Stewart admitted she unfortunately did not do her own stunts in the motorcycle scene that was shown. “Yeah, no,” Kristen replied when asked if she ever thought she would ride a motorcycle for the film.

Taylor, however, did every stunt we could get his hands on (that the insurance company said was okay) Chris Weitz said. “If Jacob is doing something impressive or dangerous in the film, it’s pretty much Taylor doing it,” said Chris. “And Rob just stood there looking good.”

It has been previously announced that Robert Pattinson’s Edward would be involved in the film version of “New Moon” more than he was in the book. He continually referred to himself as a supporting role in the morning press conference and again in the Hall H panel. From the clip shown, instead of just being a voice like in the novel, here Edward is a visual hallucination, telling Bella to “Stop” when she starts to ride the motorcycle and appearing in the road behind her when she is driving away — ultimately distracting her and causing her to crash (and Taylor to take off his shirt, etc. etc.).

“I’ve noticed you are very cold to the touch, with skin like marble and you glow like a diamond when the sun hits you,” Chris Weitz replied when asked if Robert Pattinson resembled Edward Cullen.

The visual and emotional look of Chris Weitz’s take on the saga looks a lot more interesting and less edgy than Catherine Hardwicke’s take to the first film. Ashley Greene even said Portland was a bit edgier than filming in Vancouver.

“I have been stalking Rob for the past 10 years,” Chris Weitz admitted when asked about coming to the film, saying he was excited to actually get to direct the film (though he had not read a “Twilight” novel before he was signed on).

“In spite of how glib I may seem, I really do appreciate the love the Twilight fans bring to this book,” he said.

The final shot of the film was taken in Italy, Stewart said, which was her favorite part of the Italy shooting. Robert seconded her saying the location they filmed at was exactly how he pictured it in the book.

Ashley Greene said she is most excited for the final showdown at the end of “Eclipse,” while Taylor said his is the sleeping bag/tent scene (DUH!).

“I can’t wait to actually get pregnant,” Kristen Stewart said.

“Actually, being involved in the cesarean,” Rob said after with a laugh. “I just can’t wait.”

“New Moon” hits theaters in November.

SAN DIEGO — You know we’re going to put out a ton of articles, interviews, galleries and news stories on Twilight and specifically “New Moon” at Comic-Con International this week, but here’s the first batch of fresh baked photos from this morning.

Blast was fortunate enough to speak with Mike Welch, who plays the Twilight Saga’s lovable human Mike Newton, today about the hype around “Twilight” and it’s upcoming sequel “New Moon” his work with charity, and… meth labs?

BLAST: So how was shooting in Vancouver different from Portland?

MW: Vancouver is one of my favorite cities, not only to film in but just to be in. I’ve shot a few different things over there over the past 10 years. I mean, Portland is great, there’s some great poetry and a great book store up there, but Vancouver, there’s just something about the way the city feels… That’s just the differences in the city, the differences in the films themselves, I mean, totally different. By the time “New Moon” rolled around, we tried to keep it as big a secret as we could [our locations], but it was impossible because all it took was one person to spot Rob or Taylor on the street and in 20 minutes there were hundreds of people there and there was paparazzi there and you know, it was just much more of an ordeal.

BLAST: Speaking of Portland, are you going to be at the Twilight Vampire Baseball Event?

MW: Over the July 4th weekend? Yeah yeah, it’s for charity, it’s a Make-A-Wish event.

BLAST: And you’ve done charity work before. You did environmental charity right?

MW: I won some sort of environmental award for some reason a couple years back… I guess since I drive a Prius or something. I mean a made a couple of environmental videos.

The main charity I’ve been with is Kids with a Cause, and we’re a multi-cause charity, but the ultimate goal is to help kids in need. We started out as a local charity, visiting like, orphanages, burn centers, etc. Now we’re trying to go international and help kids that need some of the basic fundamental things in life so they can pursue their own happiness. It’s been very rewarding

BLAST: So there’s Team Edward shirts, Team Jacob thongs, even Team Tyler’s Van merchandise -”" any Team Mike stuff popping up?

MW: There has been a little bit of Team Mike that I’ve seen. I’ve seen a couple t-shirts, but it was mostly my friends making fun of me [laughs]. I do get people every now and then telling me they are on Team Mike.

BLAST: If you had to pick a side, would you really be Team Mike, or choose between Edward and Jacob? Or are you contractually obligated like I’m guessing Kristen is to be ambiguous?

MW: I actually… between Edward and Team Jacob, I’m actually Team Jacob. I like Edward, but I… and I think it’s more of a gender thing more than anything else. I think Jacob represents more of a practical relationship, so I’d go Jacob -”" but if there is a legitimate Team Mike that emerges, I will be happy to join it.

BLAST: Bella does some crazy stuff in “New Moon.” Did you do anything so daring in high school?

MW: You know, [laughs] one thing that I used to do was go into the local high school with my car with my friend in the passenger seat and do really lame donuts and stuff and every now and then I’d get into little shenanigans like that. The most dangerous thing I did as a kid was, my grandma lived in the senior center, well not a senior center, more of a neighborhood. [Laughs] This is just so lame I can’t believe I’m telling you, anyway, and kids weren’t allowed to walk around unattended so my cousin and I would just walk around and avoid security.

BLAST: That’s pretty bad ass.

MW: Oh now that I think of it “"- when I was a kid, I actually grew up in a mobile home and there was actually what I later discovered to be meth lab right across from me. My neighbor and I would play cops and bad guys and we would spy on them and follow them around and stuff because we knew they were bad, but we had no idea.

BLAST: So has that ass shaking dance [from outside of the diner in "Twilight"] always won you the girls?

MW: Oh sure, that thing has followed me around like you wouldn’t believe [laughs]. No, nothing like that ever seemed to work in real life. I was similar to Mike Newton in high school — I hope I wasn’t that annoying — but that was my angle: “I’m the quirky guy, love me please.” But that never quite worked.

BLAST: So you said at some point they almost didn’t include the movie scene in New Moon? What’s that about?

MW: You know it’s a tricky thing when you try and turn a book into a movie because a movie is only two hours and there’s only so much you can fit in, but yeah, what they originally did was they took that moment between Jacob and Bella and put it in a different scene of the movie. Luckily Taylor and Kristen lobbied that scene for me to Chris Weitz saying it absolutely had to be in, and it’s a good scene. They weren’t really lobbying for me, it’s just, how can you not have that scene in there? Yeah, so I was really happy to hear that, and it was great for me because I got to do Mike’s best scene in the book.

BLAST: Any secrets from the “New Moon” set? Like maybe Justin Chon is really diva?

MW: Well I can tell you that Justin Chon actually has 3 nipples.

BLAST: You’re definitely making that up.

MW: Yeah. [Laughs] It’s funny, because that’s the thing everyone’s looking for, something to say, but these are pretty uncontroversial people.

BLAST: I guess that’s why pictures of the cast smoking cigarettes on set became some big scandal?

MW: Yeah, that’s about as scandalous as it gets.

Who wants to start this “legitimate” Team Mike already?

Today Entertainment Weekly released the first shot of the “New Moon” movie tie-in book cover, featuring a scene very different than on the film’s promotional posters.

In the “New Moon” teaser poster, Jacob is shown as clearly standing between Edward and Bella’s relationship; a foreshadowing concept for anyone familiar with the plot.

However, in the movie tie-in cover, Jacob is shown possessively holding Bella, while she looks like she is trying to pull away from him. An image of Edward’s face is shown over the moon, much like the imagery Stephenie Meyer originally intended for the cover of “Eclipse.”

The real question is: Why does a novel called “New Moon” — a night when there is no moon in the sky — have a sliver of the moon shown on the cover? Only Harper Collins can explain.

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” hits theaters November 21, 2009.

When Blast talked to Craig Deering of Evil Iguana Productions back in November, he was still riding the wave from the EIP “The Dark Knight“ spoof that at that point had earned them over 6,000,000 hits on YouTube and made them instant Internet sensations.

Then, their “Twilight“ trailer spoof, which was the lesser-known cousin of the Batman spoof, earned them a hearty 2,000,000 YouTube hits. In the seven months that have passed since then, Deering and the rest of the Evil Iguana crew have become enveloped by Twi-Hards, and earned themselves free front-row tickets from MTV to the MTV Movie Awards Sunday night.

Bailey “NoMoreMarbles“ Gauthier, beloved “Twilight” YouTube personality and friends of Deering and EIP, received passes to be seat fillers at the Movie Awards from her contact at MTV. She was allowed to bring some “friends” and chose to invite Deering and EIP members Joe Korbel and Tom Latvys. “Of course we weren’t going to say no to that” Deering said.

Though the foursome were originally supposed to be seat fillers for the cast of “Twilight” the company behind filling seats said it would be nearly impossible to guarantee those seats. MTV pulled a few more strings and got them seats at the front row of the pit, “10 feet from everyone” Deering said.

They didn’t get to meet any of the cast “" or make a swipe at Megan Fox’s behind like Deering had joked on his Facebook “" but while they were in L.A. they did get a chance to talk to Christian Serratos who plays Angela in the “Twilight” films.

Deering, who is petitioning Summit to play the role of Riley in next year’s “Eclipse” said he will get a chance to meet the cast of “Twilight” (sans Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson) July 4 at a Make-A-Wish fundraiser in Portland, Oreg. and during Twi-Con in Dallas July 30 to August 4.

When the “Twilight” YouTube spoof originally debuted, Deering and the EIP gang never had any plans to get involved in the Twilight fan culture, but he said he is glad things have changed.

“I’m loving it” Deering said. “I didn’t think I was going to be a part of this Twilight universe thing, but making that spoof was one of the best ideas we had to do.”

Deering told Blast EIP will be making a 15 to 20 minute long “Twilight” scene they will debut at Twi-Con. He also said they are very strongly considering making a “New Moon” trailer spoof, but need some more scenes than the one minute trailer to make an adequately funny spoof. “We might as well” he said.

Though EIP has never worked with or been approached by MTV before, they had the opportunity to make a video before the Movie Awards that MTV put on their Movies Blog site and MTV asked them to continue sending them their videos. Deering said he will be sending MTV the “Eclipse” YouTube petition video in the hopes MTV will get behind their campaign.

Blast previously reported on the “showdown” between “Twilight” screenwriter Melissa Rosenbaum’s choice for Riley “" Channing Tatum “" and fan pick Deering. Tatum was also at the MTV Movie Awards, and Deering said he was apparently sitting about 15 feet away from him.

“I said to Bailey, “ËœHold me back, I’m going to jump him’” Deering told Blast with a laugh. “”ËœI’m going to challenge him to a dance off.’”

Deering said that originally his idea to play Riley in “Eclipse” was a just a joke.

“The fans we were talking to thought we were serious, and they started spreading the word around, and it just got bigger and bigger” he said. “Now we’re going full force and trying to get into this movie.”

EIP got to meet up with T180, a Disney-owned studio that makes a lot of spoofs and parodies, while they were in LA. Turns out not only Blast, MTV and Twi-Hards have had their eyes on Evil Iguana, but Disney has as well. The people Deering, Korbel and Latvys spoke to said they had been planning on reaching out to EIP previous to the Movie Awards experience, and talked about making some spoofs together in the future.

Deering also shed some light for us on the Bruno/Eminem fiasco at the Movie Awards. “I personally think it was scripted because I went back and I watched it to hear everything and [Eminem] was miced the whole time” Deering said. “I wouldn’t know why they would mic someone if it wasn’t. It was very chaotic in the actual awards ceremony when it happened.”

Korbel and Latvys both thought the incident was unscripted, Deering said.

Deering not-so-subtly implied in his post-Movie Awards blog for MTV that he would be interested in participating in more MTV events. With attention from big shots like MTV and Disney, it looks like Evil Iguana is ready to dominate more than just YouTube and “Twilight.”

Fans can check the guys out when they are featured at Twi-Con in Dallas July 30 through August 4. Keep an eye on Blast for up-to-date news on Evil Iguana Productions.

If you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t have cable), then you probably didn’t know MTV was promising an exclusive first glimpse at “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” last night at the MTV Movie Awards. For those of you who missed it, here’s a look at the first “New Moon” trailer:

MTV Twilight blogger Larry Carroll stole the words right out of my mouth when he said the Jacob transformation looks a bit too “The Golden Compass” for my liking. “New Moon” will be a bit easier to adapt for director Chris Weitz than the religion-heavy “The Golden Compass,” but let’s just hope in the six months until “New Moon’s” release he remembers this is a teen movie, not a kids one, and werewolves don’t have to be cute and cuddly “" even if they are Taylor Lautner.

The trailer basically shows us the beginning of the film: Bella’s birthday party, the infamous paper cut, Edward’s departure and Laurent’s attack. But I’m afraid that might have given away too much. It’s been said Weitz added a lot more Edward Cullen into the movie than was in the book, but still, the fleshy portion of the novel is just a combination of Bella and Jacob growing closer and Bella feeling sorry for herself. Many “Twilight” fans admitted that during their first read of “New Moon” they rushed through the bulk of the novel so they could get to Edward’s return. I hope the film adaptation can find the right balance between making the viewers care about the Bella/Jacob development but also have them breathlessly anticipating Italy and the return of Edward.

Just please, please, no more corny flashbacks.

What do you think of the “New Moon” trailer? Do you think it will be better or worse than “Twilight” with a new director at the helm? Has anything you’ve seen so for got you worried? Tell us below!