Here, the titular character is no longer referred to as an item of clothing but has a name: It's Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), and she's all grown up, torn between Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), the working-class dude she loves, and Henry (Max Irons), the rich guy she's been betrothed to. But that's not her only problem. Her sister has just been killed by a wolf, whom the locals think is a regular ol' canine that they then kill.

But outsider Father Solomon (Gary Oldman, doing his best Anthony Hopkins) knows that the town is dealing with a werewolf and proceeds accordingly, suspecting every villager no matter how cherub-cheeked. (Seyfried and Irons — the latter a practical Robert Pattinson twin — certainly qualify. Fernandez, he's a bit more angular and shady.)

Hardwicke, working from a humorless script by David Johnson (Orphan), fashions a passable young-adult thriller here, with lovely medieval costumes and set pieces. (Though how those overhead forest shots recall Twilight!) The action, unfortunately, is largely of the cheap-scares and quick-edits-to-confuse style, and things get dicey when the werewolf speaks.

But the focus is mainly and more interestingly on Valerie and her dilemmas, not only having to decide which man to marry, but suspecting them at various times of wolfitude and discovering that she does indeed have pretty close ties to the chatty beast. And Seyfried's 'Hood is strong, smart, and admirable, unlike a certain vampire-lover whose name rhymes with Fella. Julie Christie also has a juicy turn as Valerie's kinda-strange grandmother.

The cape? It's just a thing, nicely setting off Seyfried's born-for-fairy-tales looks but otherwise inconsequential in this gothic whodunit.

Monica Hesse leads WaPo style today with some VERY IMPORTANT NEWS from London: Kate Middleton is the new Rachel Green. If you're a young British woman with spare time and cash, you too can look like the future queen consort. Hesse writes the following about Middleton's hair stylist: "He's young, stubbly and scruffy, a slouchy cool that makes one think that Kate must be cool and edgy, too." Gah.

Here's a pro tip for all the Kate-alikes out there. If you want to stay ahead of Ms. Middleton, you'd get an explosive, billion-dollar divorce or have your life adapted into a shitty movie that'll still manage to sweep the Oscars, because that's how 100 percent of royal marriages end.

But we play dress-up on Arts Desk too. Check out Megan Arellano's dispatch from last weekend's Katsucon, a get-together for people with spare time (and cash) who enjoy dressing as video game and anime characters.

Arena Stage is cashing in on Twilight (Finally!) with a sassy Team Edward (Albee) T-shirt on sale for the theater's upcoming productions of At Home at the Zoo and Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, Maura Judkis reports. Just be careful Arena Stage, sometimes the Twihards go batshit in defense of their sexless vampire.

Reports from the Wammies are in, and last weekend's ceremony was, as usual, skewed toward the familiar, ignorant of Afropop and metal, and maybe altogether boring.

The return of live music to DC9 was—smoking amp aside—incident-free, TBD's Ally Schweitzer writes.

Click Track reviews in a paragraph: Adele's sophomore LP 21 is even better than her debut 19, but the girl shouldn't attempt synth-pop. DevilDriver's Beast is a "thunder-bringing, knuckle-dragging, 10-car pileup of an album." And with Underneath the Pine, it might be time for Toro y Moi to move beyond chillwave, "an ideal starter genre but not something to make a career of."

A Larry King stand-up tour? Yes, please.

Producer Michael Bay's douchebag fingerprints are all over I Am Number Four, a Twilight-meets-Transformers mash-up that will leave you alternately bored and confused. John (Alex Pettyfer) is an "extraordinary teen," which means he's an alien who's trying to blend in on Earth by pouting a lot and talking in a monotone. (He can also throw a football really, really fast and has glowing Palms of Power, but that hardly matters.) He's also the titular numero quatro on some intergalactic execution list, sought after by other aliens called Mogadorians who we know are bad because they have face tattoos and sneer.

Why exactly the Mogadorians are after John and his "protector," Henri (Timothy Olyphant), is never really explained, but to evade them the pair move from city to city, doing their best to remain invisible. With zero personalities, you wouldn't think this would be a problem. But John's in Movie High School, which means that the coolest, loveliest girl (Dianna Agron) will fall for him. (She's a photographer, so naturally she's always in berets.) John's puppy love ensures that he exposes himself (figuratively!) more than he should, attracting the attention of the bad guys and leading to darkly lit, chaotic battles in which you can never really tell what's going on, especially when the film seems to detour into an offshoot of Jurassic Park. (Director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) borrowed from Bay's playbook liberally.)

Based on a young-adult novel co-written by James Frey, I Am Number Four is a bland mess full of narrative and visual cliches, down to a slo-mo walk in front of an explosion. With actioner trash this expertly thrown together, Number Four is, ironically, probably destined to become No. 1.

Last week, I wrote a post on local author John F. Ferrer, who had placed a Craigslist ad offering to pay people to review his vampire book The Immortal Ones. I was opposed to the idea of compensating people for such work, because that might impel them to offer false praise that could mislead consumers. There was some debate about my post both online and at the dinner table with my wife, so it got me wondering about what kind of a guy Ferrer is, and what he would have to say about the matter. After some back-and-forth e-mails, I ended up meeting with him to find out.

A self-admitted fan of Twilight, Anne Rice, and The Lost Boys. Ferrer doesn’t look the part of a vampire author. He wasn’t dressed in all black, none of his teeth were filed into fangs, and he didn’t have his keys on a casket-shaped keychain. Instead, he looks like your average office worker with a striped tie and dark slacks, which is not surprising: His day job is at the IRS on an assignment from Booz Allen Hamilton. The Immortal Ones was written late at night and during downtime at the office over the past year. He published the book this summer through CreateSpace, an online publishing service. This is his first book and the only writing he has done since taking a creative writing class in college, but he has says this project was on his bucket list, right next to skydiving and climbing a mountain.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about his work, his promotional methods, and the morality of his promotion approach. This is a portion of that interview.

What was the response to your Craigslist ad?

It helped, because a lot of people responded–30 or 40. It was pretty overwhelming actually, because I only had books and money for four people to review it. I gave everybody else who responded that I didn’t pick a free copy of my eBook as a gesture for contacting me. What I wanted to get out of it, I did. I got this interview. I got publicity. Not necessarily flattering publicity, but publicity.

How’d you hear about the blog post?

An acquaintance, who reads the WCP a lot, forwarded it to me with a note, “Hey, this guy is talking a lot of shit about you.” So I read it and you really did take some shots, but I’m pretty thick-skinned. What I did like is that you had links to my site and my sales page. I got more visitors to my website out of it, so thanks. I didn’t want to go there as far as that Craigslist ad, but what else can I do other than run into the street and scream, “Read my book! Read my book!”

There was recently a case where a firm in California, who paid people to write positive reviews about their client’s games on iTunes, was sued for unfair business practices. And they lost.

Then it’s a good thing I took the ad down (laughs). Your argument was sound, because when you put money in someone’s face, it entices them to write something nice. The people I did get to review my book did ask me, “What if I don’t like it?” and I told them to just say it.

But honestly, do you feel that if someone offered you money for a review that you would be more, less, or equally inclined to write them a good review?

Probably more inclined. That’s probably an avenue I won’t explore again. But my main goal was achieved: getting people to read it. Now I’m going to explore other avenues to get people to read it. Some people have self-published books and sold thousands of copies, so I just haven’t found the avenue that works best for me.

What are your next steps for the book?

I have a few people who are trying to organize a book-release party and I’m involved with that in terms of developing posters and getting people to come. Basically, just trying to arouse curiosity, especially here in D.C., because the book takes place here and I mention a lot of local places. I definitely want to establish a footing in this city. If it goes beyond that, that’s great, but I hope the residents can appreciate a vampire story set in D.C.

I read recently that vampire-related entertainment made $7 billion last year? Were you hoping to get a slice of that pie when you conceived this novel?

Was I hoping for that kind of cash payout? Sure, that would be great. But thinking realistically, I knew what I would be competing with. Plus, it’s a self-published novel and I know that self-publishing has that stigma. People think, “Oh, it’s self-published? It probably sucks.” Really, I just wanted to create the story, put it out there, and see what people say. If it goes anywhere, then that’s terrific. Maybe one day it will. I’m the kind of guy who likes to hope. Sometimes I’ll shoot for the stars and to a lot of people it might seem stupid–and sometimes I do stupid things to make it happen–but I’m the kind of guy who likes to follow the trail, maybe do stupid things along the way, but learn from it. I want to be able to be able to look back and say, “At least I tried it.”

In a new low for American jurisprudence, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to weigh on this week's most burning question. Amid a raft of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on matters like detainee rights, campaign finance regulation, financial oversight, civil rights, and abortion, the senior senator from Minnesota—herself a University of Chicago Law School graduate, two-term Minneapolis district attorney, and occasional shortlister for the Supreme Court—initiated a line of questioning that I can only imagine being read back by Nina Totenberg on this afternoon’s All Things Considered:

Senator Klobuchar: Solicitor General Kagan, you had an incredibly grueling day yesterday and did incredibly well but I guess it means you missed the midnight debut of the third Twilight movie last night. We did not miss it in our household and it culminated in three 15-year-old girls sleeping over at 3 a.m.

Solicitor General Kagan: I didn’t see that.

Senator Klobuchar: I just had a feeling. I keep wanting to ask you about the famous case of “Edward v. Jacob” or “The Vampire v. The Werewolf” —

Solicitor General Kagan: I wish you wouldn’t.

By deftly avoiding the question and saving over 200 years of the high court’s mostly austere reputation, Kagan continued the tradition of Supreme Court nominees not commenting on potential future cases. Klobuchar, meanwhile, likely won the endorsement of 15-year-old girls everywhere, which comes with millions of high-pitched screams but no votes. No word as to whether Judiciary Committee chairman and noted Batman fan Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., plans to ask if Kagan prefers Dick Grayson or Tim Drake as Robin.

Talking Points Memo has video of the Twilight litmus test:

*MGMT releases its "Flash Delirium" music video. There's old ladies playing wooden instruments, talking throat-slits filled with eels, and puppets. The usual.

*Diesel is releasing a special Iron Man 2 cologne in anticipation of the film's May 7 release. The bottle is shaped like a red fist, but nerds will notice one particular problem: the image on the box is of Iron Patriot, not Iron Man.

*Lady Gaga claims she suffers from insomnia because her music is always on her mind. She states, "My passion is so strong I can't sleep – I haven't slept for three days."

*The Jersey Shore cast is officially setting up camp in Miami, further proving that MTV doesn't know how to leave well enough alone. (Though, admittedly, as a fan of 16 and Pregnant, I thought Teen Mom would suck; it's awesome. Watching it out of morbid curiosity and/or being an actual fan? Same difference.)

*Rip Torn pleads not guilty to bank trespassing charges from January. I almost wish he was booked just so we could get another one of these gems.

*Stephenie Meyer announces she's putting out another Twilight themed book. This chick is like herpes. Just when you think it's gone...

*The New York Times reports research has shown that Oscar winners live four years longer than their fellow nominees. No word on how long their marriages last.

*L.A. Police are looking for Suge Knight, who stands accused of robbing a rapper named Yukmouth. It's hard to believe that the chief of Death Row Records could be a suspect in such a crime. After all, he has such a clean record with no accusations of dangling people over buildings, or, y'know, shooting 2Pac.

*NPR lists "Ten Things I Read In Jennifer Love Hewitt's Book That Are Not Hallucinations." Among them: Excessive punctuation (!!!), the use of "lol" in a nationally published book, and bedazzling your vagina. Color me surprised.

*The 1930 Swiss painting "Portrait in the Garden" by Paul Klee is recovered after more than 20 years after it was reported stolen from a gallery in New York in 1989.

*Robert Culp dies at the age of 79. The actor was best known for his roles in television shows I Spy and Everybody Loves Raymond.

*The Wrap reports that Noah Baumbach is set to direct the film adaptation of the best-selling novel The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud. Baumbach's newest film Greenberg (also known as Ben Stiller's dramedy vehicle whose trailer makes me a little teary), is set to open to limited release tomorrow, and already gathering good reviews.

*You know that creepy guy Fred from YouTube? Yeah, he's getting his own made-for-television movie on Nickelodeon. A whole new generation of children will be scarred.

*Lady Gaga becomes the first artist to garner one billion online video views. Gaga is closely followed by the Twilight saga and Soulja Boy, showing that the large majority of people on the Internet have plenty of time on their hands and not a lot of taste to accompany it.

Unfortunately, along with Oscar nominations comes the usual pretentiousness—"If you haven't seen An Education, then you're missing out on one of the best films of 2010," or "If you've seen and enjoyed Avatar, you're just going along with the masses." What most seem to forget is that even our favorite actors, in the most complex, artistic Oscar-nominated films, have had dark movie pasts. To get to the top, most have to start at the bottom.

Take Anna Kendrick, one of this year's nominees for best actress in a supporting role. Director Jason Reitman said that Kendrick was "so witty and smart and sharp, and I needed a girl who could go toe-to-toe with George Clooney, and she was the one." Another movie that Kendrick was the one for? The teen (and arguably, creepy mom) sensation Twilight, in the bit part of Jessica, one of Bella's best friends. Kendrick's few lines in the vampire series are arguably the most well-acted and memorable of the bunch, but most audiences and critics seem to claim that she got the role for Up in the Air in spite of the multimillion-dollar-grossing films. Even Kendrick herself seems conflicted about the Twilight saga: "I feel a certain affection for the films so if they ask me [to be in the fourth one], I would love to. I don't have my fingers crossed either way. I've been really lucky not to be defined completely by that series."

Already an Oscar winner for best original screenplay for the 1997 hit Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon is nominated this year for best actor in a supporting role for his turn in Invictus. Damon's had a stream of hits in the past few years, including the Bourne series, the Ocean's movies, and The Departed. Also included on his résumé are the decidedly less successful (and critically panned) Jersey Girl, Stuck on You, All the Pretty Horses, and The Legend of Bagger Vance—to name a few.

It's rare in this day and age to encounter a story like Gabourey Sidibe's, nominated for best actress in a leading role for her first and only film part, in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire. Most actors and actresses come with storied pasts, starring as leads (and extras) in films that have been both ignored or heavily criticized. Even Oscar favorites like Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep have doozies on their CVs. (Mirren was the titular character in the teen suspense movie Teaching Mrs. Tingle, while Streep still gets barbs for starring in She-Devil.)

When you watch the Oscars this year to see your favorites pick up their golden statuettes, remember that the big steps leading to the stage aren't the only ones they've taken—we all have a Twilight in our past.

For the last two weeks, you've read a lot about what we loved in 2009. But what about you? After the jump, you can get a sense of what our readers dug in 2009, or at least what they clicked on the most at Black Plastic Bag and the revamped Arts Desk—from John Waters and Twilight to Perez Hilton's dubious curatorship, an iPhone app that kills people, and the world's most expensive Minor Threat record. Check it out.

1. The John Waters Interview: Sheila Dixon, Teabagging, and Blowing up the Three Kings: "Well, that was the only time I had to actually think up a new sex act for a movie. Teabagging had been done before [Pecker]—but I didn’t think that up, I just spread it. The fact that, in this movie, if you bang your head together it’s the ultimate orgasm—I never tried it. So I don’t know if it works. Fictitiously, it works." —John Waters, on head-butting.
2. Clark Sabine 1975-2009: "[One time] he rappelled off the roof of the Galaxy Hut. The band went on and started playing and suddenly everyone saw feet in the window and he was rappelling down on bungee cables. Then he came in and totally ripped it like Iggy Pop 2.0. It was one of the most unforgettable things I’ve ever seen" —Former Q & Not U singer Chris Richards, on local indie-rock mainstay Clark Sabine's knack for grand entrances. Sabine died in June.
3. Reviewed: Paranormal Activity: "Holy shit." —Critic Tricia Olszewski, on first-time writer-director Oren Peli's low-budget hit.
4. Washington Post Confused 9/11 Truthers With Cop H8rs: "A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number."—A correction in the Washington Post.
5. His Tour Is Overpriced and Underattended. His Ideas Aren’t His Own. So Why Does Perez Hilton Have a Record Label?: "PopJustice—a British website that Perez has pretty regularly ‘been influenced by’–started chronicling the genesis of a new girlband, The Saturdays. Three months later, as the girlband gears up for their first single, Perez Hilton claims them as his latest discovery. It’s not just coincidence that he stumbles upon this particular act." —Pop culture writer Rohin Guha, on blogger and record imprint head Perez Hilton's "good ear" for new musical artists.
6. Blogging and Bleeding with Wale’s Back To The Feature: "Quoth the Wale: 'I was one of the first people to rap on stuff that wasn’t traditional hip hop music.' Fab Five Freddy might have something to say about that claim." —Andrew Noz on Wale's song "Sharp," from the D.C. rapper's Back to the Feature mixtape.
7. Minor Threat Drummer Sells Test Pressing for Nearly $6,000: "There is no other US band I would consider dropping so much money on." —Record collector Michelle, on buying an autographed test pressing of Minor Threat's Out of Step EP for $5,899.99 from the band's drummer, Jeff Nelson.
8. Ex-TV Executive Creates Way to Kill People for $1: "[I]t shows the user shooting Rush Limbaugh,Dick Cheney, and Nancy Pelosi. I got in some hot water with [YouTube commenters] and took out Pelosi and Cheney—but left in Rush. No one really cares about Rush." —programmer and former TV producer Paul Sherno, on the YouTube trailer for his iPhone app Assassin FPS, which allows users to shoot digital bullets at whoever is facing their iPhones' cameras.
9. Reviewed: The Twilight Saga: New Moon: "Growling, posturing, and awful-looking transformations ensue, though mostly Jacob and the rest of his pack just hang around with their shirts off. It’s probably safe to assume that [Taylor] Lautner’s role in future films is now secure, but it’s a good thing he’s cut—when the actor opens his mouth, well, let’s just say his award chances are MTV-level at best."—Critic Tricia Olszewski, on the Twilight sequel's big special effect: buff werewolf Jacob Black.
10. Q&A Animals as Leaders: "Nobody really knows about it. I mean, music doesn’t have much relevance in my social life. It was never important. Nobody I’m friends with is really into my kind of thing, so I never told them I used to tour for a living and have professional endorsements. It was kind of fun to never mention that part of myself. But now I’m playing music again. It’s back to the grind."—Musician Tosin Abasi, on telling his friends about his instrumental shred project, Animals as Leaders.
    Abasi: Well, nobody really knows about it. I mean, music doesn’t have much relevance in my social life. It was never important. Nobody I’m friends with is really into my kind of thing, so I never told them I used to tour for a living and have professional endorsements. It was kind of fun to never mention that part of myself. But now I’m playing music again. It’s back to the grind.Abasi: Well, nobody really knows about it. I mean, music doesn’t have much relevance in my social life. It was never important. Nobody I’m friends with is really into my kind of thing, so I never told them I used to tour for a living and have professional endorsements. It was kind of fun to never mention that part of myself. But now I’m playing music again. It’s back to the grind.

Directed by Chris Weitz

Twilight backlash has proved a force as fierce as Twilight love. Except unlike the adoration, with its Teams This vs. That, the hate has been more equal-opportunity: Bella's boring! Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer! Kristen Stewart acts with her hair, Taylor Lautner isn't tall or buff enough, and, for the love of Bram Stoker, the vampires sparkle!

In New Moon, however — the second film adaptation of Meyer's four-book series now dubbed The Twilight Saga — glitter is the least of the lead bloodsucker's problems. Because even the harshest critics of the tween-scream franchise have got to admit that being cast as Edward, the Hawtest Vampire of Them All, has, ironically, done star Robert Pattinson no favors. His main job in the first film was to brood, crush on, and brood some more, acting like he's the sexiest, most pretentious being un-alive.

In the follow-up, he's onscreen half as much but looks twice as ridiculous: The story has the sullen Cullen dumping his true-but-mortal love, Bella (Stewart), after she suffers a paper cut at a birthday party thrown by his family. Even though the Cullens are "vegetarian" vamps, the trickle of blood sends even the most well-intentioned of them into a feral tizzy. Edward, being the controlling 109-year-old ass that he is, decides that it's too dangerous for them to be together. He and the fam abruptly leave town, giving Bella no further explanation than "You're no good for me."

So Pattinson is not a huge presence in New Moon, but when he is — oof. The opportunity has obviously made him a megastar and boosted him onto that golden road out of obscurity, but director Chris Weitz (taking the reins from the first film's Catherine Hardwicke) and scripter Melissa Rosenberg make the actor look like a fool. He mumbles gag-me lines such as, "You give me everything just by breathing." (Hope that you get lucky and land in a theater with a good sound system, because his persistent monotone is kinda difficult to decipher.) He moves in slow-motion. (The better to emphasize his perfectness, since Meyer can't plaster the description onscreen like she does on every other page of her books.) And, worst, a relatively clever concept in the novel — Bella hears Edward's voice whenever she's in danger — is rendered by showing his disembodied head and/or torso floating around Bella. If Pattinson's got talent, New Moon has ensured that it's been shrouded, stomped, and snuffed.

Slightly less cheesy is the film's big special effect, courtesy of what keeps Bella from perpetually clutching her stomach in first-love heartbreak: Jacob Black (Lautner), a Native American who becomes her best friend, discovers he's a werewolf, and is therefore Edward's natural enemy. Growling, posturing, and awful-looking transformations ensue, though mostly Jacob and the rest of his pack just hang around with their shirts off. It's probably safe to assume that Lautner's role in future films is now secure, but it's a good thing he's cut — when the actor opens his mouth, well, let's just say his award chances are MTV-level at best.

Despite its weaknesses, however, New Moon is a slight improvement over the first Twilight, whose action was composed mostly of yearning and then dull requited love. Stewart's perfectly adequate as the introspective and insecure Bella; even when she petulantly spits out lines such as, "If this is my soul, take it, I don't want it!" you have to keep in mind that one can only do so much when the writing is trite to begin with. A pervasive indie soundtrack blaring at odd times is an occasional distraction, but it's still just a drop in a bucket of bad.

On the plus side: Dakota Fanning makes a compellingly vicious vampire in a tiny part, and it's interesting to see Michael Sheen, a werewolf in the Underworld films, play for the other team. Weitz's most triumphant moment, though, is his perfect ending — it's actually a smart snip of the book's final chapter, not just a celebratory moment because the credits are about to roll.