I’ve looked at it from every angle I could think of, put myself in the shoes of others and suspended all the disbelief I could afford and then some, but I’m finally prepared to admit defeat. I don’t get it.

I don’t understand “Twilight.”

I don’t understand the popularity. I don’t understand why it seems to have captured the imagination of a generation the way Harry Potter did. I especially don’t understand it because, from what I’ve seen, it’s just not very good.

I’m in no way a snob about the genre; I own all seven seasons of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and all five seasons of “Angel.” That’s 12 seasons of vampire-with-a-soul angst, female empowerment and doomed love, punctuated with scenes of ass kicking. I really enjoy HBO’s “True Blood,” which covers much the same ground (although it bugs me that when the vamps show their “game face,” the wrong teeth turn into fangs). So, if I’m familiar with (and not hostile to) this type of subject matter, why am I so perplexed with this one?

When we had a weeklong power outage last year, it was one of those rare occasions where I was between books. With a bunch of time suddenly on my hands, I picked up the first book in the series, which my wife had been reading. I got about 20 pages into it and decided that I’d rather watch the branches of the tree in our front yard sway in the breeze.

I didn’t see the first film in the theater. I heard pretty much the entire plot, and just stayed away. I braved it only when the RiffTrax version came out (which will be the topic of a future column), and my suspicions were confirmed. It was one of the worst movies I’d ever seen a major studio put out, bar none.

The logic problems alone are incredible. Given the power vs. drawback ratio, why wouldn’t you want to be a vampire in the world of “Twilight”? You get to live forever, you’re incredibly strong, there’s none of that nasty “soulless evil undead” vibe, and you could be all sparkly at the beach. The only downside would be dietary restrictions. Heck, I’d eat tofurky every Thanksgiving if I could bench press a car and never have to worry about losing my hair.

Honestly, I haven’t been this confused about an element of pop culture since “The Bridges of Madison County.” Back in 1995, that book took the world by storm so, even though it wasn’t my literary cup of tea, I read it to see what all the fuss was about. It was a quick read, and left me with one thought: Author Robert James Waller obviously sold his soul to the devil to get a best seller. It sold 50 million copies worldwide, and was one of the worst written pieces of twaddle that I had, and still have, ever read. It was so bad I just couldn’t put it down. One of the reviews on Amazon referred to it as a “blunt literary instrument,” and I can’t put it any better than that. I never could bring myself to see the film because I simply like Clint Eastwood too much.

But back to the sparkly vampires. My best friend and I made the tactical error of seeing a film a few hours before the second film in the franchise, “New Moon,” opened at midnight. Nearly six hours before its showing, an oddly age-diverse crowd of females (and four males who I dearly hope were there against their will with the promise of sweet angst-free lovin’ to come later), had formed one of the most rabid lines I had seen in a while. Now I know what people thought before the “Star Wars” films opened (and, no, I’ve never dressed like Boba Fett, no matter how tempting it is).

Now, I’ve been throwing out a lot of phrases, like “bad,” “worst” and “oh, dear God, did a chimp bang this out at a typewriter” (What, didn’t I use that one?), but I don’t really want to anger anyone. Honestly, some of these people are fruit-bat nuts. I’m not trying to have the snarky fanboy argument (I’m a veteran of “The Phantom Menace” wars, after all) that something sucks just because I don’t like it. People whose opinions I usually respect have become fans of this series; there must be something to it.

Is it because the protagonist is a plucky young woman in an age where there aren’t many role models for females of a certain age? Is it the allure of never-ending ageless love? The allegory of vampirism and the taboo of teenage sex? Is it all the cute pale boys with no shirts? Throw me a bone here!

One thing is for sure, though. If they film the final movie faithfully to the book “Breaking Dawn,” from what I’ve heard, I am so there. Problem is, that story is probably unfilmable. Concussion-level nookie? C-Sections via fang? Werewolf/infant love? It’s gonna take an extra-special director to deliver the goods (no pun intended).

All I know is that my soon-to-be 8-year-old nephew thinks that the natural order of things is that vampires sparkle in the sunlight instead of burst into flames, and that’s just wrong. Make vampires all smooth and sexy if you must, but they had better broil during the daylight hours.

And, just to give Buffy the final word, enjoy.

<old fart moment> The defining movies of my childhood were the “Star Wars” films, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Superman” (which was amazing on the screen, but doesn’t really hold up as well as some of the others, which isn’t to say I don’t still get the goose bumps during that opening credit sequence), “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” etc. I feel like it was a golden era for a small boy in an oversized seat, something that kids don’t have today. I feel bad that the summers of their childhood will be filled with disposable films like “G.I. Joe,” “Transformers,” and other pieces of cinematic crap “events” that no one will really remember a decade from now. By 2017, no one will really be going to rescreenings of “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” </old fart moment>

I love movies so much that, with the help of a very understanding wife, we remodeled the basement of the house we bought last year into a big-screen theater with surround-sound and décor that looks it was designed by a 12-year-old boy with a budget. Have I mentioned that I love my wife?

<old fart moment.2>The theater of my youth was Showcase Cinemas on Bardstown Road in Louisville. It was a multi-screen cinema, and sure, you could tell when screens were added later because of the space allotted — more screens means more butts in seats means more money, so theaters got smaller — but it still had some really, really big theaters. Screen one was massive, and screens four and five will always be the theaters that I had the perfect “Star Wars” screening experience. That Cinema is gone now (actually, it’s still there, just rotting away). Modern theaters have fallen prey to the “strip mall” mentality. No personality — just a box to watch a film in, and then get the hell out. </old fart moment.2>

Maybe as screens at home get bigger, the “event” feeling of being at a movie shrinks. This leads to a whole mass of people not knowing — or worse, not caring — how to behave at a theater. And it’s not just kids. Adults are losing the ability to watch a movie in public, and it’s not pretty. It’s not your living room, and no one wants to hear your personal commentary, and being irritated at people in front of me opening their phones (which in a darkened theater, looks like a little flashlight) who just can’t NOT TEXT for TWO FRACKIN’ HOURS ruins the experience a little.

But I digress.

One of the best things about films, as I discovered a bit later as my circle of friends and family grew to the point where being an only child didn’t matter, is discussing films afterwards. Sometimes, after a great film, you can talk about plot, subtext, nuance, history and on and on, with each person bringing something different. For a completely different way of looking at your favorite films, take a quick visit to postmodernbarney.com’s Uncomfortable Plot Summaries. All these are accurate,  from a certain point of view (to quote a certain lying-ass old Jedi Knight):

ALIEN: Ship fails to deliver cargo, crew don’t get bonus.

BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY: Deranged pedophile big-business industrialist tortures and mutilates young children.

FRANKENSTEIN: Scientific advancement proves unpopular with general public.

IRON MAN: Alcoholic rich white man with technology fetish goes vigilante.

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: American yahoo murders soldiers and desecrates religious artifacts for money.

TWILIGHT: Girl gives up college for stalker.

And on and on….

Even films that are inaruably classics can afford to have some holes drilled through them. On AMCTV.com’s SciFi Scanner, novelist and columnist John Scalzi offers his Guide to the Most Epic FAILs in Star Wars Design. “I’ll come right out and say it,” he writes. “Star Wars has a badly-designed universe.” And he makes good points. For instance:

“Stormtrooper Uniforms
They stand out like a sore thumb in every environment but snow, the helmets restrict view (“I can’t see a thing in this helmet!” — Luke Skywalker), and the armor is penetrable by single shots from blasters. Add it all up and you have to wonder why stormtroopers don’t just walk around naked, save for blinders and flip-flops.”

Movies will be a central feature in the coming months for Internet Siteseeing, because they’ve been such a big part of my life, and well, it’s my blog. What are some of your early movie memories? Share, won’t you?

I’ve got to stop watching movies based on Hasbro properties.

By the way, fans of Christopher Eccleston, of which I am one, will probably want to load up a Doctor Who DVD to get the bad taste out of your mouth. And, as a person proud of being from Scottish decent, I object to being the nationality of the bad guy – apparently Cobra rises because of a clan feud 400 or so years ago. (And how does someone just know the Celtic word for “Eject” off the top of her head? Is there even a Gaelic word for “eject?”)

Oh, and a note to the film’s producers – ice floats. No matter how much you bust it up, ice still floats. Just sayin’ you probably shouldn’t base a major plot point on an underwater ice avalanche.