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Happy Hour: Twilight

partysugar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:13:04 -0800

Well, folks, the moment everyone's been waiting for is here. The second movie in the Twilight series, New Moon, finally comes out today. Whether you're dying to see it or excited that the hype surrounding it will die down, there's only one way to celebrate - with a cocktail! Not just any boring old drink, but an aptly named concoction created by one of San Francisco's illustrious bar owners, Jon Gasparini. A couple of weeks ago when Jon (of one of my favorite bars, Rye) tweeted about a new cocktail called Twilight, I knew I needed the recipe.

Jon describes it as having a beautiful color and balance, and I couldn't agree more. The complex gin and Prosecco drink is easy to put together and elegant enough to serve at a Thanksgiving dinner or holiday soirée. To get his recipe, read more.

Twilight
From Jon Gasparini of Rye

Ingredients

3/4 ounce creme de violette
1 1/2 ounces gin
dash orange bitters
dash simple syrup or agave syrup
1 ounce Prosecco or other sparkling wine

Directions

Combine the violette, gin, bitters, and sweetener in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
Strain into a chilled Champagne coup and top with the Prosecco.

Makes 1 drink.

Print recipe with images | without images

PopSugarUK Meets The New Moon Cast Part Four: Taylor on Stunts, Hobbies, Fans and Playing a Female Part!

PopSugarUK — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:55:16 -0800

Taylor Lautner took a break from all those smart suits he's been wearing for premieres and TV appearances and benefit screenings, and wore a casual stripy top and jeans for dinner at BLT in New York City last night. I was lucky enough to meet Taylor when he was in London last week for the New Moon press conference and UK fan event and he revealed all about stunts, hobbies and taking on a female role! Check out all of the gossip from Taylor, Robert and Kristen in my series of interviews and read on to find out more from Jacob Black himself.

On doing his own stunt work for the film:
Taylor: "The stunt work was a lot of fun. I was really glad that I had the opportunity to do a lot more physical stuff. I'd never ridden a dirt bike before so that was kind of scary at first. I had to go through some training so I could make the five seconds of me on the dirt bike look cool. There was a lot of sequences and Chris was really open to some random ideas."
Director Chris Weitz: "I was scared! Taylor does everything he can to endanger his life physically while shooting a movie. Frankly I was just closing my eyes and praying."
Taylor: "He was very supportive." [laughs]
Chris: "The only thing that he didn't do was what the insurance company refused to allow him to do."

To find out what Taylor had to say about how he spends his downtime, how he feels about the fans, and his interest in playing a female character, just read more.

On whether martial arts is still his major hobby:
"It used to be. I haven't done it in a long time. I would definitely be rusty."
On what he does in his downtime now:
"It's hard to tell because we haven't had much of it in a while, but I do like playing football. And just spending time with the family and friends."
On whether the fan support still surprises him:
"I guess after Twilight we expect anything, but it's still a constant surprise to me. I'm always surprised by the fan reactions and the amount of fan support we have behind us, just because none of us expected it when we were filming Twilight. Coming into New Moon it was a little different feeling, but yeah it's great to know we have that kind of support behind us."
On which other character from the saga they would play:
Kristen: "I would love to play Alice. She has my favourite back story of all the Cullens and I would love to play around with her power. I would love to have the visions, I think it's really interesting."
Robert: [looks at Taylor] "I've always wanted your part, even when we're doing scenes together." [laughs]
Taylor: "Is Bella an option? [laughter] I would actually love to get inside Bella's... mind! There's a lot of weird things going on in there and I would love to experience that."

Taylor dressed as Bella is something I would love to see! He also told me all about how he got his hot body through exercise and an extreme eating regime, and chatted with Molly too. Remember to read all my cast interviews and check out my review of the film.

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What To Sky+: Thursday

PopSugarUK — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:00 -0800

BBC1 has Children in Need Rocks the Royal Albert Hall
BBC2 has Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, The Restaurant and Wonderland: Can we Get Married?
ITV1 has I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
ITV2 has I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Now
Ch4 has a new series of Alan Carr: Chatty Man
E4 has Scrubs and Misfits
Sky Premiere has Twilight
Sky Family has Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
Sky Indie has The Joy Luck Club

Talking New Moon With Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene

BuzzSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:15:50 -0800

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner may be dominating the promotional circuit right now, but they're not the only cast members with something to say about New Moon. I had the opportunity to chat with costars Kellan Lutz and Ashley Greene, aka Emmett and Alice Cullen, during their recent stopover in SF. They chatted about their characters, the vampire craze, and what it's like to be a "Twilight celebrity." Here are highlights:

On why so many people are crazy for the Twilight Saga:
Ashley: I think this film in particular is highly relatable. There are a lot of situations that people can relate to. The love story - everyone can relate to being in love or being in lust. You add the vampire, and it adds that next level fantasy. Vampires are mysterious and sensual and dangerous and unattainable. And everyone wants what they can't have. I think on another level that this came together at the perfect time. All the elements just fit, the casting was spot on, and we're in a difficult time right now with our economy. That's why you never have a drop in ticket sales because everyone wants an escape, and this movie is very much an escape from reality.
Kellan: It's a good escape but also it deals with so many situations, on so many positive notes. Just looking at it from the vampire coven to the wolf pack. It just deals with everyday issues just on bigger levels, in a way. And you have Bella as the keystone in many situations. You can just all relate from different countries to issues within the United States. It's easily relatable.

To read a lot more about working with three different directors and why they feel so lucky, just read more.

On how their portrayals of the Cullens are similar or different from the books:
Kellan: We got the jobs because we brought something new to it. You can interpret the characters each their own, but I think it's what we did alongside. Just like Kristen said - she's playing Bella but she's putting her Kristen spin on it, just like all of us are. And I think that's what's making it unique. We're still following the cheat sheets that Stephenie created by making the books, and there's Wikipedia. We have a lot of information to go off of. But I hope it's what I did in my audition that set it apart from the other guys trying out.

Ashley: I think it's mannerisms too. People do fall in love with this book, but I think part of it is that they always want more. You can't write out every human mannerism. You can imagine it, but seeing the emotion in someone's eyes and seeing them be affected it - it was kind of easy to give something to it, because we were just being people. We kinda just got lucky.
On how much more of the Cullens we can expect in the remaining movies:
Kellan: Realistically, we stick pretty close to the books. Obviously us Cullens would love to be in the books a lot more, which would mean we'd be in the movies a lot more. Talking New Moon, the scenes that the Cullens - except for Ashley, playing Alice who gets to go to Italy and be a main lead in the movie - us Cullens, we have to stick really close to the books, and the scenes that we're in are really crucial to the story, as you know - the birthday scene, the voting scene. I don't know, it was kind of a tease. Chris Weitz is such an amazing director, and for us, for myself - I only worked about a week on that movie. And it didn't even seem like I really got a taste for what it was.

Ashley: In the third film, you'll see a lot more of the Cullens because it's all of us collaborating and then getting ready to fight this war that's coming up. In the second one, my character got a much larger role because Alice is the Cullen, other than Edward, that really embraces Bella and they end up becoming best friends. In the beginning, you see her throw this huge party for Bella, and then Alice is the one who does, in fact, come back for Bella when everyone else decides to skip town. Alice is responsible for dragging Bella over to Italy, and she and I the whole time are fighting to save my brother's life. And then of course we get held up by the Volturi and stuff like that. My character got to grow a lot, which is really cool. You get to actually see the relationship develop between Bella and Alice, where in the first one you didn't. The first one was very much about the romance and showing the audience why these two people are willing to die for each other.
On working with a different director on each film:
Ashley: Each director is going to be very different. They're artists as well, and I don't think any of them are quite the same. The books, when you read them, all have very, very, different tones. So I think it's highly appropriate that we switch directors each go. The first one is very much a romance and is a very scenic, beautiful film. And Catherine's really, really great at capturing that. She's very high energy and works well in chaos and stuff like that. And it was fantastic because we didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into, and so it was nice to have her to guide us when we were freaking out a little bit. She was just so high energy, and it was really contagious. We were sad to lose her and move on to the second film, but then we got Chris Weitz and he's the complete opposite! But great as well. He's so giving and caring and collaborative and created this atmosphere that was kind of a safe haven for us. And it was really nice because we didn't know, switching directors, if they were gonna embrace us or if they had a completely different vision than what we created in the first one. It was nice that he was right there on the same page with us. And the second one is a warmer film, even from the color scheme. The first one is very blue tones, and the second one is much richer and warmer and I think he did a great job at capturing that. And we just finished shooting with David Slade, and I think he's highly appropriate as well. He just finished shooting 30 Days of Night and Hard Candy, and they're both very dark, edgy films. And Eclipse is very much that. It's all centered around the anticipation and us getting ready to fight this huge war. We just finished filming, we haven't gotten to see much of it, but I think it's gonna be fantastic. He is, technically, the most advanced director. The angles that he shot and how he knows that tweaking something can affect a whole scene and the lenses. He was really nice to work with.
On coping with the fan effect and being a "Twilight celebrity"
Kellan: That's what blows my mind, 'cause I feel like it's really unearned in a way. The fans are making our careers. Without them, we wouldn't be working and doing the saga. There's so many times that trilogy books become a movie and the first one bombs, and then that's it. And you're always hopeful that you get to do them all. Especially since we're all in love with our characters. I love Emmett Cullen to death, he's my favorite character I've ever played. It's just so cool to have made it this far, and I think we all hope that we get to finish this series and do Breaking Dawn. This is such a blessing, it's every actor's dream to be part of something like this. It's not terribly hard either. We don't shoot halfway around the world; we don't shoot for a year of our lives. I know a lot of us have homes, we have pets, we have family. And it's really nice to shoot on the West Coast, either Portland or Vancouver, and have the chance to fly down if we need to. But it's definitely amazing to be part of something like this. And I don't think any of us knew how crazy it would be and how exhilarating it would turn out to be. Going to the premiere, really just, wow. I don't even remember it because I was really just starstruck by how many fans and signs and cameras. It felt like I was just walking through a strobe light room. It's amazing.

Ashley: I still think we can't really wrap our heads around what's going on and what's happening. We're still in the midst of filming and kept very busy from one film until the next. It's only these brief moments where you sit back and are actually able to take a breath where you go "Whoa. Wow. This is crazy." I mean, the amount of tickets they've already sold for New Moon - I'm pretty sure I can't even get a ticket if I tried to see my film in Jacksonville and it's mind boggling. We're just very lucky. I went into this film thinking "Oh my gosh, I got a job" and the it turned into the biggest break of my life. I think we all feel very blessed to be a part of this.
On how it feels to be part of Twilight fan fiction:
Kellan: It's an escape, in a way. We do live in a trivial time period right now. There's so much depression that it's kinda cool to be a part of something where people use it to be an escape. In a way that's kinda what Stephenie did -she had a dream and just elaborated on it. It became a huge success and it's really encouraging that people are doing the same and just making up this journey.

Ashley: That's why people love it so much I think. You can take it and make what you want of it. Before the demographic was teenage girls, but now it's women of every age and guys are starting to get into it, too. It's because there is that element of fantasy. If you're 8 years old you look at it one way; if you're 80 years old you look at it another. I think it's fantastic that we can draw such a huge crowd. The other thing is - it blows my mind but people are making connections over this film and over this book. there are mothers and daughters and grandmas who can all sit and talk about the same story and all fantasize about it and I think that's a really cool thing. I think it's rare.

To see all of our Twilight and New Moon coverage, check out TwilightSugar!

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:30:00 -0800

There's a silver lining to TV shows going into reruns, and it's more time to watch movies! Happily, today there are a few highly-anticipated flicks, and I've gone through them to tell you What to Netflix. In addition to the three movies mentioned below, you can also catch Robert Pattinson's pre-Twilight dramedy How to Be.

Star Trek

This year's updated version of Star Trek turned the franchise on its head. With hot young things Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the beloved roles of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, the film completely changed the series' history so they could start over with a fresh new story.

It worked like gangbusters: the space-set action movie is clever, entertaining, and tons of fun. It manages to make a sex symbol out of a pointy-eared geek, whom I personally drooled over. The movie manages to pay respect to the original, so those fans are still happy, while pleasing folks who weren't fans of the first (like myself).

The DVD's got lots of extras, including deleted scenes, a special feature on casting and a gag reel.
95%

See two more movies releasing today when you read more.

Bruno

Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary follow up to 2006's wildly successful Borat, Bruno is more of the same: cringe-worthy setups that make for laughs. This time, though, the envelope that was pushed in the former is torn to pieces in the latter. It's not for the faint of heart or easily offended, but if you like Baron Cohen's humor, you'll appreciate the awkward-beyond-words situations.

I was torn - I wanted to laugh as hard as I did at Borat, but most of the time I was just wincing.

DVD extras include alternate and deleted scenes, as well as enhanced commentary.

67%

My Sister's Keeper

Need a good cry? Rent the tearjerker My Sister's Keeper. The drama stars Cameron Diaz as a mother presiding over her Leukemia-stricken daughter Kate, and the child they had in order to provide a kidney donor for Kate, Anna - who's played wonderfully by Abigail Breslin. When Anna sues her own parents for the rights to decide what to do with her own body, Diaz and her husband Jason Patric try to figure out what's really going with her.

I was definitely moved by the film, but you'd have to be made of stone not to, considering the subject matter. If you read the book, take heed: the ending in the film isn't exactly the same.

47%

Kristen Stewart, Oscar de la Renta Princess: Love It or Hate It?

FabSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:16:40 -0800

The New Moon countdown has begun! The second film in the Twilight series comes stateside Friday and the LA premiere sizzled tonight. Kristen opted for a princess-like beaded Oscar de la Renta that complements her sweet side. It looks lovely against her pale skin and a few bangles bring some fun to the mix. What do we think of this Kristen red carpet look?

Vote on all Kristen's New Moon looks!

What To Sky+: Sunday

PopSugarUK — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:00:00 -0800

BBC1 has Doctor Who
ITV1 has The X Factor and a new series of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here
ITV2 has The Xtra Factor and I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here Now!
Ch4 has Clueless and Come Dine With Me
E4 has Privileged
Sky1 has House and Fringe
MTV1 has The Hills and The City
E! has Perfect Catch
Sky Premiere has Twilight and Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Sky Modern Greats has Bad Boys

15 Funniest Twilight Sightings in Forks, WA!

Molly — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:00:00 -0800

While the Twilight saga movies aren't shot in Forks, WA, Bella and Edward's hometown is still brimming with excitement for the series that made them famous! From motels to key making shops, the Twi-touch is everywhere and we've found the funniest signs in town. The Washington town has become a hot spot for fans and it seems like everyone is in the spirit - check out our 15 funniest sightings from Forks and everything related on TwilightSugar.com!

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Buzz Gift Guide: Teen Girl Gifting

BuzzSugar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:30:00 -0800

Teen girls can be kinda picky when it comes to presents. Luckily, they're also pop culture nuts. I'm thinking Lauren Conrad's novel, LA Candy, should satisfy them nicely, along with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist on DVD and a Gossip Girl tee. Of course, Twilight seems to be every high school student's obsession du jour, but why not get them started on The Vampire Diaries book series? That Stefan is pretty hot. (Oh, but if they are crushing on Edward Cullen, check back later. There are plenty more holiday ideas as far as he's concerned.)

Don't have a younger sister or friend to buy for? Take a peek at all of the gift guides across the Sugar network!

Should the Twilight Series Start Sticking With One Director?

PopSugar — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:00:00 -0700

It was announced yesterday that 30 Days of Night director David Slade has been hired to helm the third film in the Twilight saga, Eclipse. He's following in the footsteps of the series' first director, Catherine Hardwicke, and New Moon's Chris Weitz. Having different people in charge of the films has the benefit of speeding up the production process, but we're wondering if their different perspectives might make the series feel a little inconsistent. So, tell us - do you think the series should just start sticking with one director?

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