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Kristi Turnquist offers a handful of reasons to obsess about pop culture this week
moviesVAMPIRES INVADE OREGON!
It’s the same old story: teenage girl meets boy; falls for him; learns he’s a vampire. The forbidden love between mortal and immortal is at the core of “Twilight,” the young adult novel that’s become a publishing phenomenon. Stephenie Meyer’s original has been followed by two sequels, with the fourth and final book in the series, “Breaking Dawn,” due Aug. 2. “Twilight” fans are also agog over the movie version of the first book, which has been filming in Portland (at Madison High School, among other spots) and around the Northwest. On her Web site (www.stepheniemeyer.com), Meyer recalls how she came to set her story in Forks, Wash. She turned to Google to look “for the place with the most rainfall in the U.S. This turned out to be the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state. I pulled up maps of the area and studied them, looking for something small, out of the way, surrounded by forest. . . . And there, right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called ‘Forks.’ It couldn’t have been more perfect if I had named it myself.” Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson play the star-crossed lovers, and Catherine Hardwicke (”Thirteen” and “Lords of Dogtown”) directs. The movie’s due to open Dec. 12.
toysSPEAKING OF PHENOMS . . .
While I was minding my own business, something called Bakugan has apparently been driving boys into a purchasing frenzy. Baku-what, you say? Actually, that’s what I said. And a helpful press kit enlightened me: “From the Japanese words ‘baku,’ meaning ‘to explode,’ and ‘gan,’ meaning ’sphere,’ Bakugan are small spheres that pop open into powerful Bakugan monster action figures when skillfully rolled onto the game’s cards. Each player must strategically choose their Bakugan and cards to play, which affect the battle differently, and when two opposing Bakugan land on the same card, they do battle. Once the points are added up, the winner is determined.” Whew. As if the hot-selling Bakugan toys weren’t enough, there is — of course — an animated TV series, which debuted at No. 1 in its time slot on Cartoon Network in February. Parents — consider yourselves warned!

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