For the record, I am not a ‘tween girl. In fact, I’m no kind of girl at all. Perhaps that’s why I just don’t get the whole Twilight phenomenon.

The books are not very well written, the story is cliche’ and the characters are drawn from the worst sort of tepid, melodramatic sources. Still, it is hugely successful as a book a movie series. Maybe ‘tween girls know more than I do? Who knows.

Whatever the reasons, Twilight is huge and the final filmic installment of the franchise is almost upon us. That means, of course, promotional material.

This time around said promotional material takes the form of a new teaser trailer for Breaking Dawn Part 2. This particular one shows us the trio and how things have changed for them, but in other ways, have stayed pretty much the same. Oh, and Bella needs a snack.

Check out the new teaser after the break. See what all the fuss is about when The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 hits theaters on November 19.

Silva Screen Music is a class outfit, they release really good music and great collections from some of the top composers and movies of today. In the past we looked at their collections of music from Hans Zimmer and James Horner, as well as a well put together a great best of album from the Transformers trilogy. Today we take a peak at their big end of the year release, ‘Film Music 2011’.

This collection, performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic and London Music Works, is a highlight reel from the most high profile film scores of the year. The music chosen for this set  isn’t necessarily the very best music of the year, but it is certainly a snap shot of what 2011 was for film and film music. We are in award season, so we will have plenty of lists and collections of the “best” music, but in this album you will find tracks that rank among many fan’s “favorites” of the year.

Interestingly enough, many of the movies represented on this album are scores I have previously reviewed, but only twice are one of my favorite tracks actually on this album. At first this caused me to roll my eyes and dread the listening experience. Not because I disliked the tracks, but because I felt they were passing over the better tracks for more obvious and less interesting choices.

It turns out even decades of laughter through the form of hundreds of felt puppets can’t beat the Kristen Stewart pregnancy movie. After having one of the most intense marketing campaigns that Disney has ever executed for The Muppets, Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 still managed to beat the film in the box office by over $10 million during the holiday weekend.

The vampy melodrama got the #1 spot for the second weekend in a row with $42 million this weekend, while Muppets (which made $42 in total since it opened on Wednesday) was only able to pull in an estimated $29 million. It looks like vampires really are more popular than singing frogs and pigs. Shame.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, Sony’s Arthur Christmas fell flat with an estimated $12.7 opening weekend. Speaking of falling flat, Scorsese’s Hugo had an even weaker opening, as it came in 5th place with just over $11 million.

These films could very well do better as we draw closer to the holidays, but don’t expect to see much in the form of sequels for these family classics. Those films may not have performed as well as they could have, but what did was the Weinstein’s My Week with Marilyn which pulled off just over $2 million for its first weekend.

As if it were a surprise. The penultimate film in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn: Part 1, opening in just over 4,000 screens across the nation, managed to pick up just under $140 Million in the domestic box office. It also got just over $280 Million worldwide.

With a production budget of $110 Million, and making $15 Million more than the opening weekend of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Summit is sitting pretty high and mighty at this point. Also opening this weekend, Warner’s Happy Feet Two, which came in at #2 with $22 Million.

As expected, the rest of the box office took a bit of a hit due to all the vampire-on-werewolf action. Last weekend’s #1 hit Immortals took more than a 60% drop and only grossed an estimated $12 Million. Adam Sandler’s unfortunate new flick Jack and Jill came in right behind with just under $12 Million.

We expect Breaking Dawn to continue its success throughout the week, and possibly next weekend. Disney’s Muppets opens wide on Thanksgiving Day, so don’t expect to see the Twilight kids walk away completely unscathed after Kermit has his way with them.

This week’s Film Score Friday is going to stretch the concept a bit. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn actually has an original soundtrack, not a full score release as of yet, but I did want to branch out a little bit. Plus there is a single track of original score on the album, hooray for loop holes!

The album is a collection of pop songs that either appeared in the film or were inspired by it. Soundtracks like this are a very interesting proposition, it is very possible to arrange a fantastic set of songs that both evoke the film and make for a great listening experience. In fact my first introduction to the world of film scores was through soundtracks like this one.

Now I am far from Twilight’s target audience, but I have seen all the films so I know what to expect going into this album. These are going to be a collection of songs that are harmless, sappy and most of them will probably sound the same, right?

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to me writing this, I actually started to really like some of these songs. Mayhaps I have grown soft in my young age, but some of these songs are actually damn catchy. Also, and much more importantly, the songs actually work really well in the context of the film.

Most of the fanboys and fangirls will get plenty of Kristen Stewart next week with the first half of Twilight: Breaking Dawn, but for those who want to see her in less of a”damsel in distress” capacity and more of a strong heroine type, you’ve got the upcoming film Snow White and the Huntsman.

The film is going to highlight a bit more of a mythical take on the classic Snow White fairytale, which will be nice, seeing as how this is one of three Snow White incarnations we’re getting now, including ABC’s Once Upon a Time series and Relativity Media’s Mirror Mirror.

So you’re caught up to speed on this prett-people-filled flick, here’s the synopsis.

In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron) out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) dispatched to kill her.

You can see this trailer embiggened this weekend as it’s attached to reels of Immortals, or just catch it after the jump. Snow White and the Huntsman is set to hit theaters June 1st.

In what will come as no surprise to anyone, except maybe my mom, the MTV Movie Award nominations have been released and the most popular and creatively vacant film franchise this side of middle earth leads the pack. That’s right,  The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is on top with eight nominations.

The news is not all bad though as both Inception and Harry Potter are also lead contenders. In fact, aside from the obvious Twilight nominations, most of the nominations are not so bad. Many of the better films from 2010 are represented, including Kick-Ass, which has gone mostly forgotten in the retrospective hoopla.

Aside from the traditional Best Movie and Best Kiss, this year also brings a brilliant new category to the world of cinematic awards: “Best Line From A Movie.” This is not only a genius category for the shallow festivities of MTV, but it is something that all award shows should consider in the future.

In the world of cinema fandom movie quotes are often a defining factor in the quality of a film. The more quotable the movie, the more likely it will find a home in the hearts of film geeks the world over.

The nominations for Twilight are to be expected from MTV, but the nominations for Harry Potter are a little more of a surprise. Up to this point in time the Harry Potter movies didn’t really make a dent in the target audience of MTV.

Of course the franchise remains popular the world over, but for MTV, known for immature, shallow drama and sex appeal, to acknowledge the penultimate Potter film in so many categories shows that the Potter is still relevant to pop culture in general.

Check out the full list of nominations after the jump.

Now that Henry Cavill has been selected to play Superman in Zack Snyder’s next film, we’re going to be seeing more and more of him. Case in point are these latest picks from the upcoming film Immortals.

In them, Cavill and Twilight alum Kellan Lutz take care of business and often do it without shirts. Yes ladies, this post is pretty much mostly for you.

In case you’re not familiar with Immortals, it concerns the ruthless King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) who “leads his bloodthirsty army on a murderous rampage across Greece to find a deadly weapon that will destroy humanity. A mortal chosen by Zeus named Theseus (Cavill) must lead the fight against Hyperion and his evil army with the fate of mankind and the Gods at stake.”

Check out all the pics after the jump. Look for Immortals, which is directed by Tarsem Singh and also features John Hurt, Isabel Lucas and Stephen Dorff, to hit theaters on November 11th (in 3D) and even more from Henry Cavill starting today and for the rest of our natural lives.

We live in a fast-paced world where nobody has any time for anything anymore. Even a 30-minute comedy takes up too much time and DVR’s are blowing through most of them. With that in mind, Syfy has broken down the crux of Being Human season one into two solid minutes.

Much like the network has done in the past for such shows as Battlestar Galactica or even sister shows like V or Lost, this is a race through everything you need to know about the upcoming series, breaking it down to literally the lowest common denominator.

Based on the BBC series of the same name, Being Human follows three friends that live together. The only difference here is that one is a vampire, one’s a werewolf, and one is the spirit of the girl who was killed in the apartment.

A little bit Twilight. a little bit Friends. Just the right combination to pull in a crowd from every demographic. Check out the two minute summary after the jump, and catch the premiere on Monday, January 17th at 9/8 central only on Syfy.

Animated films are having a pretty stellar summer. This weekend, Toy Story 3 just became the highest grossing Pixar film of all time (surpassing Finding Nemo.)   Illumination Entertainment just released their first film, Despicable Me, and cleaned up at the box office.  Despicable made over $60 Million during its opening weekend, earning the distinction of being the highest opening weekend for an animated film not made by Pixar or Dreamworks.  Just like that, we have some serious competition for the animation studios.   Not too bad for a movie with no built in audience.

Illumination spent about $69 Million for the animation in Despicable Me, which is well beneath the average for a Dreamworks or Pixar film.  The film enjoyed a healthy “A” cinemascore rating by exiting audience members, which typically indicates long legs and good word of mouth.  Despite the fact that the movie played in 3D, it was limited in its amount of theaters, because Toy Story and The Last Airbender are both still playing in quite a few 3D venues.  There is no doubt that Despicable take would have been higher had it been able to capitalize on more 3D screens.

Twilight: Eclipse was bumped down to the number two spot this week.  It had about a 48% drop from opening weekend, typical of the franchise that is historically heavily front-loaded.   It still managed to make about $33 Million, hardly a number to scoff at.  This brings the 12 day total to $237 Million, which is pretty astounding, and topped the total for New Moon in the same time period ($235 Million.)

Predators scared up a decent $25 Million over the weekend.  With a modest budget of $40 Million, this bodes well for the film. Toy Story 3 nabbed the fourth spot with $22 Million.  Its four week total is $340 Million.

*Note: this column was written on Sunday, so four-day totals that include Monday’s receipts will differ from these numbers.

It was no surprise that The Twilight Saga: Eclipse dominated the weekend box office. The film made $69 Million over the weekend.  Add in a record breaking $30M midnight take on Tuesday night,  and Wednesday and Thursday’s totals, and the movie has made $161 Million as of today.

It did fall short of breaking the all-time opening day record set by its  predecessor New Moon, which made $72 Million on its opening day. Eclipse came awfully close, making about $68.5 in the same time frame.  At any rate, Eclipse recouped its budget of $69 Million in one day.

We can expect the film to drop off quite a bit in upcoming weeks, as the series historically has been very front loaded, but this film does seem to be getting good word of mouth, so the drop off might not be as steep.

The Last Airbender did a lot better than I expected it to.  Obviously the built in fan base helped elevate the critically reviled film to an okay opening weekend.  Airbender made $40 Million over the weekend, but since it opened on Thursday, its total is now $56 Million.

That’s still a long way from its $150 Million budget, though, and word of mouth has been brutal, so the movie may fall off considerably after this weekend.  If so, it will be a disaster for Paramount, which has sunk about $280M into the film between the budget and marketing.  It also leaves the future of the franchise, and the career of director M. Night Shyamalan hanging in the balance.

Toy Story 3 is still going strong in its third week in release, making another $30 Million.  This brings its total to $289 Million.  Finding Nemo is Pixar’s highest grossing movie of all time, with $339 Million in ticket sales. It is looking highly likely that Toy Story 3 will exceed that during its theatrical run.

Fans will be relieved to know that Eclipse is a vast improvement over its two predecessors, Twilight and New Moon. Director David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) manages to elevate almost every aspect of the film.  There is a decidedly darker and edgier tone this time around, and it is a welcome change.  It’s not a great film, but it is a lot more enjoyable than the first two.

For the uninitiated, let me quickly bring you up to speed on what has previously happened in the story.  Bella (Kristen Stewart) is  in love with a Vampire, Edward (Robert Pattinson.)  He is part of a Vampire clan who will not feed on humans based on principle.  They are “good” Vampires, if you will.  In the same town there is a Quileute tribe who can shape-shift into wolves.

They have been sworn to protect their town from Vampires.  One of the wolves (Jacob, played by Taylor Lautner) is in love with Bella, thus setting up a love triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob. Got it?

Slade immediately establishes that this is not going to be the same teeny-bopper fare with a brutal opening sequence that is worthy of any horror movie. A teenage boy is walking by himself at night and is stalked, assaulted, and murdered. There has also been a rash of murders in Seattle that carry the markings of Vampire killings.