WE don?t really get turned on by vampire movies, but we recently went out of our way to watch the ?Twilight? sequel,? ?New Moon,? to try to understand why it?s become such a huge hit, especially among young female viewers.

In the sequel, teen protagonist Bella (Kristen Stewart) is crushed when the love of her life, Edward (Robert Pattinson), decides to leave her, despite their great passion for each other. The film?s viewers know that he opted to be ?cruel? in order to be kind, since his being a vampire can bring her only pain, danger and even death.

Travails

But Bella wants only to be reunited with him?in death, if need be?so she agonizes through her senior year in school, cutting herself off from her friends to focus on her travails, and figure out what she can do about them.

Not surprisingly, her dalliance with the nether world has turned her into a major neurotic, so she eventually opts to get herself in harm?s way, because she realizes that Edward will step back into her world and life only if she?s in grave danger.

Later, her problems escalate because, after falling in love with a vampire, she gets involved with a pack of werewolves! The girl is a big magnet for weirdos and other guys with supernatural secrets to keep, that?s for sure.

Naturally, the time must come when Bella?s beastie beaus fight over her, and viewers are treated to a really unique duel between vampires and werewolves that?s one for the freaky film books.

After that, it?s denouement time, except that few plot and thematic issues are resolved, because it turns out that a third film is in the works.

Well, when a fledgling film franchise is as phenomenally successful as this, we really can?t blame producers for milking the resurgent vampire film fad for all it?s worth?even if it threatens to grow really long in the tooth in no time at all.

Actually, ?New Moon? already evinces signs of turgid tedium that make it less than an exciting viewing experience for non-faddists. Viewing the movie, in fact, is quite a soporific chore. The problem starts with Bella?s benumbed state after Edward?s abrupt departure?it?s stretched out so long that the enervated viewer gets zonked out, as well.

It doesn?t help that the film?s stars have been made to tone and slow down their portrayals, perhaps to give the movie an eerie, otherworldly feel. Pattinson, in particular, listlessly whispers so many of his lines that they?re barely audible.

Kristen Stewart speaks less phlegmatically, but she?s physically listless, as well?and that?s a bigger problem for the production, because, as the movie?s protagonist, her character is onscreen longer than Pattinson?s, who exits for a long spell to give the werewolf subplot time to develop and peak.

With a better and more charismatic actress playing Bella, the film might have engaged viewers? attention more empathetically. Stewart, however, acts her character down into a boring and unfocused sort of mush, and we?re all the worse for it.

Best of the lot

I?ve seen quite a number of ?Christmas Carol? productions in the past, but Robert Zemeckis? new film bids fair to be the best of the lot. Its key advantage is its being able to make brilliantly creative use of advanced digital animation technology, which enables it to tell its 150-year-old tale with renewed vigor, beauty and delight.

Shot with the help of motion-capture filmmaking techniques, Zemeckis? film makes full use of its lead star Jim Carrey?s celebrated comedic talent by casting him in multiple roles?the old Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge as a young man, and all of the three ghosts who haunt him with visions of his cruelty in the past, just in time for him to repent and atone before his miserly and miserable existence is finally over.

Truth to tell, however, the film sometimes lays its digital splendors on too thick, coming up with one dazzling scene after another so relentlessly that the viewer begs for surcease.

Thank goodness, the movie provides that as well, with sequences characterized by quiet but deep emotion, as Scrooge reacts in horror at the cruel travesty that he?s made of his pusillanimous life.

Sensitive storyteller

It is these quieter and starker scenes that pierce the heart and remind the viewer of the times in his own life that he, too, was cold and cruel and made life miserable for the people he professed to love.

It is in these scenes that Zemeckis shows that, aside from being a hit director and savvy entertainer, he also has it in him to be a sensitive and insightful storyteller.

True, he sometimes takes too long to make his movie?s points, as in the excessively extended scene in which Scrooge is pursued by devil-eyed horses through the labyrinthine streets of Victorian London, or the numerous flying sequences that take our antihero back to his old haunts and the scenes of his coldhearted ?crimes.?

But, other sequences in ?A Christmas Carol? are more focused and crisply rendered, thus adding force and unction to the thematic points they seek to make.

Over and above these factors is the emotive and persuasive force of Carrey?s portrayal of Scrooge. A less idiosyncratic actor would have gotten swamped by the film?s visual flourishes, but the star comedian?s performance sustains viewers? attention throughout the full-length feature.

Even better, Carrey proves in this film that he?s more than ?just? a funny actor. Famous for mugging his way through many a hit comedy, Carrey?s portrayal here doesn?t need to rely on physical comedy and caricature to score with viewers.

The production can be faulted for focusing too rigorously on its star performer, in a kind of tunnel vision that limits the movie?s range of resonance. But Carrey makes up for this lack with a veritable tour de force that eventually humanizes Scrooge and makes his transformation believable?and thus truly inspiring.

?Diary of a Wimpy Kid?

Bragging rights of a particularly proud sort have been bagged by the film ?Diary of a Wimpy Kid,? because its compilation of the most comical musings of a teenager has been declared winner of the 2009 Nickelodeon Kids? Choice Award for Best Book Series, trouncing even the ?Harry Potter? and ?Twilight? franchises. In the film adaptation, first year high school student Greg Heffley reveals the hazards of growing up through his unique drawings and writing.

?New York, I Love You?

Many movies have been made about New York City, but ?New York, I Love You? provides a fresh, unabashedly romantic view of the Big Apple?without the worm in it.

Seen entirely through the eyes of love in all its variety, the movie?s vision is a composite of the impressionistic takes of impassioned, young filmmakers like Mira Nair, Jiang Wen, Shunji Iwai, and even Natalie Portman. Their stories are woven together to form a colorful, lyrical collage, not just of the city, but of the deep yearning for love that sustains everyone in it.