The next chapter began in November 2009 with the theatrical release of The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And now that it is out on DVD and Blu-ray, there is one question on the mind of all Twi-hards – which version should I buy?

The Film:

New Moon is the second installment of Stephenie Meyer’s saga. And it is significantly more serious than Twilight. If the first movie (and book) in the series is about the wonder, elation, tumult, giddiness and head-in-the-clouds feeling of first love, then New Moon brings it crashing back down to earth as that first love finds its basis in reality and figures out how to sustain itself when circumstances seem to want to tear it apart.

In New Moon, Bella Swan is injured at her birthday party, which leads her boyfriend, vampire Edward Cullen, to decide to leave her – for her own good. Bella goes into a deep depression but finds that things start to improve as her friendship with Jacob Black (who turns out to be a werewolf) deepens. Then, after a misunderstanding, Bella travels to Italy to stop Edward from making the ultimate sacrifice. While there, it is decided that she, too, must become one of “the cold ones.”

Overall, this film is fairly true to the book, which I appreciate. The deviations made from the text make sense when it is translated on screen. However, there are some important details left out – in particular, some pretty significant conversations between Edward and Bella as they return from Italy.

The performances reflect the emotional intensity of the novel. Kristen Stewart makes you feel Bella’s heartbreak. Robert Pattinson captures Edward’s anguish as he struggles to do what he thinks is the right thing. And Taylor Lautner literally warms the screen with a big smile as Bella’s best friend and would-be suitor.

The cinematography, too, is good. The warm earth tones are pleasant, and the transitions from shot to shot have a nice flow.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: The audio and video are comparable to the theatrical release. The colors and visuals are crisp and clear as is the sound.

Commentaries: An audio commentary with director Chris Weitz and editor Peter Lamber is included.

This is the one area where the DVD is truly lacking. One of the best parts of the Twilight DVD is the commentary with director Catherine Hardwicke as well as Stewart and Pattinson. It is both hilarious and insightful. Of course, Weitz and Lambert’s commentary on New Moon is just as insightful, but it’s missing the actors’ perspectives. Commentary with Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner would have added greatly to this DVD.

Special Features: This is where things get interesting. It seems there are approximately 927 different versions of the DVD and Blu-ray, all with their own special features. (OK, I exaggerate. There aren’t quite than many, but you get my point. There are several to choose from.) All versions include the commentary, a six-part behind-the-scenes documentary, band rehearsal footage with Muse and music videos from Death Cab for Cutie, Anya Marina and Mutemath. But here’s a look at what’s included with three other popular versions.

Target version: Here is the PSA where I mention that, for the sake of this study, this is the version I looked at. Target has a three-disc deluxe edition. On that third disc are exclusive deleted scenes (and some of them are quite good), “Interview with the Volturi”, a feature on the film’s music, feature on how the film was made from storyboards to screen, and a feature on the fans, aptly titled “Fandimonium”.

Wal-Mart version: The big draw here is a seven-minute look at Eclipse (coming June 30 to a theater near you). Other features include “Team Edward vs. Team Jacob: The Ultimate Love Triangle”, “Edward Fast Forward”, “Jacob Fast Forward”, “Becoming Jacob”, “Introducing the Wolfpack”, and a feature on shooting in Italy.

Borders version: Special features include a medallion necklace, unreleased extended scenes, interviews with Weitz and cast members (including Stewart, Pattinson and Lautner), red carpet footage from the movie’s premiere, and front row seats to The Twilight Saga: New Moon webcast.

Conclusion: Most Twilight fans are going to buy more than one version of this DVD based on the special features and packaging they want. But it’s a should-buy (or should-rent) for everyone else, too. Give this saga a try.

The Film: Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The DVD: Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

No details on extras have been released yet, but do not worry, we’ll keep you posted when they are. Twilight Saga: New Moon comes out on DVD and Blu-Ray either on March 19th or 20th. Check out the artwork below.:

Brothers managed to wrangle out a little bit of dough, despite the some what scary dramatic feel of the film, as it takes in $9.7 Million. Not much is to be said about the semi-mediocre heist film Armored only wrangles up $6.6 Million and the Robert De Niro starring picture Everybody’s Fine show’s that not everything is fine as it only brings in $4 Million. Here’s the rest of the weekend box office reported below thanks to Box Office Mojo:

Weekend Box Office (December 4-6)

1. The Blind Side  ($20.4 M)
2. Twilight Saga: New Moon  ($15.7 M)
3. Brothers  ($9.7 M)
4. A Christmas Carol  ($7.5 M)
5. Old Dogs  ($6.9 M)
6. 2012  ($6.6 M)
7. Armored  ($6.6 M)
8. Ninja Assassin  ($5 M)
9. Planet 51  ($4.3 M)
10. Everybody’s Fine  ($4 M)

The Oscar race is starting to heat up and this upcoming weekend is no exception. With limited releases of A Single Man, The Lovely Bones and the wide release of Invictus happening, the hopeful nominees are ready for battle.

Twilight Saga: New Moon is still on the constant rise, it’s domestic overall take being $230.9 so far. With its some what larger production budget and large fanbase, Summit will be able to continue the gravy train of Twilight a little bit more with the possible split. How they will approach the last piece of the series will be the most interesting part of this production.

Twilight Saga: New Moon takes over the box office once again as they reign supreme in first place over the course of a monstrous five day holiday weekend. Mainstream releases Ninja Assassin, Old Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox all were trumped by the supernatural teen eye candy film. The mammoth film wrangled in $42.5 Million, bringing in a whopping $230 Million domestic total, making their $50 Million budget reached several times over.

Old Dogs is doing decent, despite the huge slew of negative reviews it still manages to bring in the audience. With $16.8 Million under it’s belt, its off to a fine start with the Walt Disney Pictures feature making back it’s budget. The same goes with Ninja Assassin, making $13.1 Million within the five day weekend. The real test for these films will be the next week and weekend, whether or not they can withstand other upcoming features and hold their own. Here’s the rest of the chart for the weekend from Box Office Mojo:

Weekend Box Office (November 27-29)

1. Twilight Saga: New Moon  ($42.5 M)
2. The Blind Side  ($40.1 M)
3. 2012  ($18 M)
4. Old Dogs  ($16.8 M)
5. A Christmas Carol  ($16 M)
6. Ninja Assassin  ($13.1 M)
7. Planet 51  ($10.2 M)
8. Precious  ($7.09 M)
9. Fantastic Mr. Fox  ($7.02 M)
10. The Men Who Stare at Goats  ($1.5 M)

Bring in some dramas, because December is chock full of them right away for the most part. This coming Friday starts the very limited release of Up in the Air that will eventually expand to it’s official Christmas Day release date. The rest consist of Armored, Brothers, Everybody’s Fine and Transylmania.

Weitz is in the middle of negotiations to helm The Gardener with Eric Eason penning the script. The picture is about a hard-working immigrant who lives in Los Angeles and his efforts to protect his son (Variety). No word yet on who else will jump on board for this picture, but more information will surely come within the coming months.

With all of the hype and hate, negative reviews and big bucks made, for some reason The Vatican has stepped in and offered up what the Church feels about this phenomenon of a franchise:

“This theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that, as ever is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element…This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern.”

The Vatican has always stepped in and offered thoughts on various films from time to time, usually to condemn something, much like now. We can look at it two ways: One, the Vatican is stepping on Mormons toes here, since the film made serious Passion of the Christ numbers, because it is well-known that the book’s author and a fellow Mormon, Stephanie Meyers used these books to preach the themes of pro-abstinence. Two, religion is a business, and piggy-backing on a popular cultural phenom like Twilight is easy marketing.

Maybe I said too much, say what you will in our comments section below!

Source: Celeb Buzz

Let’s dive into the kid friendly section as we talk about the some what mediocre weekend performance of Planet 51. The TriStar Pictures feature made around $12.6 Million despite the very positive word of mouth floating about. That does not really help the family film’s cause since it’s production budget is $60 Million and it’s coming up to Thanksgiving weekend when such family friendly flicks like Old Dogs and The Fantastic Mr. Fox are rolling right in. Precious continues to prove that the power of Oprah is still strong, opening up in even more cities and making $11 Million which is quickly starting to add a little bit of profit to it’s $10 Million dollar budget. Here’s the rest of the top ten of the weekend below thanks to Box Office Mojo:

Weekend Box Office (November 20-22)

1. Twilight Saga: New Moon  ($140.7 M)
2. The Blindside  ($34.5 M)
3. 2012  ($26.5 M)
4. Planet 51  ($12.6 M)
5. A Christmas Carol  ($12.2 M)
6. Precious  ($11 M)
7. The Men Who Stare at Goats  ($2.2 M)
8. Couples Retreat  ($1.9 M)
9. The Fourth Kind  ($1.7 M)
10. Law Abiding Citizen  ($1.6 M)

Make sure you can wobble over to the movie theater after pounding away those turkey sandwiches, because there’s a feast full of flicks coming our way. First there is the limited release of The Road with New York and Los Angeles releases of Me and Orson Welles and The Princess and the Frog. The regular releases are The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Old Dogs and Ninja Assassin.

Twilight Saga: New Moon is practically on everybody’s lips this weekend, and for good reason. The teenage aimed supernatural love story of sorts has captured the hearts and minds of many teenage fangirls and mothers across the States. It definitely is true and erc BoxOffice has the proof for it. They state that the sequel not only has made an estimated $26.3 Million on it’s midnight screenings but made a whopping $71 Million on Friday alone. This easily takes out the first Friday numbers for The Dark Knight

The second installment in this series, written by Stephanie Meyer, only took an estimated $50 Million to make. So for this puppy to make the kind of buck that it’s already making I’m sure is making the folks at Summit Entertainment quite happy.

For those of you who have already seen the movie, do you think it was that good enough to warrant the kind of attention it’s clearly getting? For those who haven’t, are you going to see it sometime this weekend, and more so why or why not?

1. Twilight Saga: New Moon
2. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
4. The Dark Knight
5. Twilight

Since were on the topic of Twilight Saga: New Moon, here’s a list that Fandango compiled themselves on the ticket buyers:

• 98% say the action in New Moon looks better than the action in Twilight.
• 72% plan to see the movie with a group of three friends or more.
• 52% of survey respondents say they dream about vampires.
• 22% are mothers and daughters planning to see New Moon together.
• 10% of fans plan to show up at the theater on Thursday night in costume, dressed as characters from the saga.
• 51% say they will scream when they’re in the theater as the lights go down for the first time on Thursday at midnight (while 18% plan to put their fingers in their ears until the screaming stops).
• 61% are more excited to see Taylor Lautner taking off his shirt than Robert Pattinson doing the same in New Moon.
• 19% have read or seen a production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet since reading New Moon.

Twilight Saga: New Moon arrives in theaters this Friday, November 20th. If your more hardcore than that, it arrives at midnight Friday morning at 12:01 am whatever time zone your in.

The unfortunate part is for the surprisingly hilarious and light hearted comedy Pirate Radio, barely able to make $2.8 Million through it’s opening weekend. Precious continues to show what the power of Oprah’s voice can do with it’s wider release as it makes a cool $6 Million. Paranormal Activity proves that it’s not going anywhere as it passes the $100 Million mark, completely proving that a good idea can keep a movie afloat better than star power. Here’s the rest of the list, provided by Box Office Mojo, right below.:

Weekend Box Office (November 13-15)

1. 2012  ($65 M)
2. A Christmas Carol  ($22.3 M)
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats  ($6.2 M)
4. Precious  ($6 M)
5. Michael Jackson’s This Is It  ($5.1 M)
6. The Fourth Kind  ($4.7 M)
7. Couples Retreat  ($4.25 M)
8. Paranormal Activity  ($4.2 M)
9. Law Abiding Citizen  ($3.9 M)
10. The Box  ($3.1 M)

Turkey time is drawing near, and what better way to start stuffing your movie palate than with The Blind Side, Planet 51 or every other teenage girl’s most anticipated movie with Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Responding to the fans of THE TWILIGHT SAGA, Summit Entertainment announced today that it will re-release TWILIGHT, the first film in the franchise, at select theatres nationwide on November 19th, a day before the highly anticipated release of the movie’s sequel, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON. Despite the first film already being on DVD, fans across the nation have been calling out to see the film once again on the big screen and the studio is honoring their request.

Summit is working with exhibitors to screen TWILIGHT one night only with screenings in the evening just before THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON arrives in theatres. Select theatres will offer tickets at a reduced price.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON directed by Chris Weitz and starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner will be released November 20, 2009. In the film, the romance between mortal and vampire soars to a new level as Bella Swan (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 Edward Cullen’s (Pattinson) departure from Forks, Washington, Bella discovers his image comes to her whenever she puts herself in jeopardy. In time Bella’s frozen heart is gradually thawed by her budding relationship with Jacob Black (Lautner) who has a supernatural secret of his own.

“Twilight Saga: New Moon” is howling right into theaters very soon, and that means that tickets for the midnight screenings are already on sale. If you have not purchased your ticket, you can go right here on Fandango and grab them while you still can.

A brand new clip of the Volturi interacting/fighting with Bella (Kristen Stewart), Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Alice (Ashley Greene) can be seen here on Yahoo! movies. “Twilight Saga: New Moon” bolts out into theaters on November 20th, so if you want to catch a midnight showing go on Fandango because tickets are selling fast. Special thanks to Coming Soon for finding the video clips.