New Moon by the Numbers

I did not attend the midnight showing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon by choice. I went to support my bestie's burgeoning addiction. And to be amazed at the ridiculous crowd, of course.

As we've all figured out by now, Twilight midnight fans are not Harry Potter midnight fans. The latter are characterized by costumes (I may or may not have brought a wand to Half-Blood Prince), geekery, and an overall aura of joy. The former are rabid, shrieking banshees that tend to fall into the 11-17 and 34-49 age ranges.

(Yes, banshees can get rabies. Because I say so.)

It was actually quite fun to chuckle with Braids. The crowd (minus us, obviously) cheered for approximately 30 seconds when:

The screen started playing that AMC First Look thing.

The previews started.

The Summit logo appeared.

A moon appeared.

And when the title slowly appeared over said moon? They just completely lost their shit. This was not just applause, as you would hear at an HP screening. This was Beatles-level mania. As Braids pointed out: "What, were they surprised? 'Oh damn, you guys, I thought this was going to be 2012, what a crazy random happenstance!'"

And now, a few numbers I kept track of during the actual movie:

Number of times everyone screamed when Lautner appeared shirtless: FOUR. Okay, dude is ripped and totally hot (and also...17; I feel like a goddamn perv, since he's only a year older than my little brother), but after his torso appears once, do we really need to greet subsequent reappearances with a shriek-fest? We do? Fine.

Number of times I had to stifle a guffaw at an inappropriate moment: Six, I believe. Maybe it's because I never saw the first installment of The Sparkling in the theater, but I find the sparkle effect (which has its own theme music) to be just balls-out hilarious. I just cannot take any on-screen action seriously when it's happening. Of course, there wasn't really a whole lot of action (figuratively, in terms of plot), but still.

Number of people I saw asleep in the theater: One. Some woman sitting on the other side of Braids. See above re: general lack of plot which could lead to narcolepsy-inducing boredom, but I still find it faintly absurd that this woman went through all the trouble of going to see a rabid-fan-filled midnight screening and didn't think to drink some coffee beforehand.

Number of times Braids and I said "O I c wut u did thar": Two. Once at the Meadow of Death and...I can't remember the other one.

Number of times I "awwww"d at Billy Burke's sweet and funny Charlie Swan: Four. Charlie is now my favorite. Billy Burke, please do more things that I'll see.

Number of "AAAAH WHAT NOOOOO" screams at movie's end: Too many to count. Braids and I, on the other hand, laughed and high-fived, because how awesome was that?

Amount of money this motherfucker will make this weekend: I don't even want to know.