You’d think with a tween daughter at home, Welsh actor Michael Sheen would have been declared a hero after landing a role in the super- hot “Twilight Saga.” But when Michael stopped by “The Bonnie Hunt Show” today to talk about the series, he revealed that his 10-year-old’s reaction wasn’t quite what he had expected.

“It’s a sort of double edged sword though,” Michael explained about his role as “New Moon” dastardly vamp Aro. “I remember when I was her age, things I was really into, the last thing I wanted was my dad being into it as well. when I first told her, we were eating some food and I said, ‘Look, I’m going to be in the next film. I’m going to play Aro.’ And she was lifting the food to her mouth and she froze, and I thought, ‘What is she doing?’ and a tear started rolling down her cheek. And I thought, ‘That’s nice. That’s exactly the reaction I want.’ And then she punched me.” of course his daughter’s reaction turned from distraught to elation once she realized she’d be attending the film’s big premiere.

When Bonnie asked Michael how many times he’s been questioned about Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson making out on set, the actor unsurprisingly played coy, changing the subject. “Everyone worked very hard,” he replied. “It was quite weird for me to be on a set where everyone is so young and beautiful. It made me feel every one of my 2,000 years.”

Like many of Hollywood’s talented actors, Michael has a long resume rife with odd jobs, including a stint as a paperboy and a fast food worker. “I was a terrible paperboy,” he said. “I didn’t like getting up in the morning. my mum would have to do the route.” He’s come a long way since, having even recently received an award from the Queen of England, whom he’s had much fictitious experience with playing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair several times. when he finally met the “real” Queen, he quickly learned about her brusque way of ending conversations. “The thing that the Queen does which you don’t realize until you meet her, because presumably when people meet the Queen they can get very flustered and sort of rabbit in the headlights, she puts her hand out and presumably people carry on talking or keep shaking her hand. so she does this thing where she takes your hand and shoves you away!” All hail the Queen, indeed!

Did you catch Michael Sheen’s appearance on “The Bonnie Hunt Show”? what was your favorite part?

Films like New Moon only come along once in a while – or as fast as Summit Entertainment can pump them out.

One or the other. But anyway, it doesn’t really matter, because New Moon is enjoying its second week on top of the weekend box office. and why shouldn’t it? after all, new Moon has got something for everyone – 14-year-old girls, 14-and-a-half-year-old girls, 14-and-three-quarters-year-old girls, everyone. It’s catch-all entertainment. Provided you’re a girl, around the age of 14 and a little bit slow.

And if you think New Moon is popular, just wait for the Twilight film where Edward chews through Bella’s uterus. Wow!

Thanksgiving weekend is an interesting one when it comes to the US weekend box office. On one hand, people should all be spending their weekend at home, eating good food and basking in the unconditional love of their families. But on the other hand, it’s also when people become so desperate to escape all the petty never-ending arguments and stultifying boredom of being around their families that they’ll go and watch any old crap at the movies just to get a few hours of peace.

And by ‘any old crap’ we mean New Moon, because that’s the weekend box office number one for the second week running. and here’s the US weekend box office top five…

1 - new Moon (How many times have you seen New Moon this week, huh? Huh? How many times? is it more than none? Then we hate you.) $42,700,000

2 - The Blind Side (Giving New Moon a surprisingly close run for its money. maybe dreary real-life stories of unerring human kindness are the new topless werewolves. God, let’s hope so) $40,600,000

3 - 2012 (A really terrifying film. Imagine a world largely descended from John Cusack. Doesn’t bear thinking about, really, does it?) $17,800,000

4 - Old Dogs (A film about a cold-hearted professional who suddenly has to raise kids? what an excellent idea for a film! why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?) $17,100,000

5 - A Christmas Carol (Surprisingly faithful to the book. we especially liked the bit from chapter four when Scrooge pulls a funny face, yelps like a monkey and runs around aimlessly for 15 minutes at a time) $16,300,000

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Kimberley French

Every time you kiss her, fake a seizure.

When I was a teenager, I devoted a lot of energy to trying to figure out what teenage girls wanted.

I paid close attention, so as to figure out what to say, how to act and what to buy — what kind of sneakers, jeans, jacket … I even contemplated belt width. one year belts were thick, the next year they were skinny, and if you wore the wrong kind, it meant you didn’t get the memo. you know, the Cool Memo, the one that every cool person gets telepathically and, apparently, simultaneously.

In fathoming such mysteries, teenage boys of my generation were left to fend for ourselves — not like the kids today. No, the boys today have it easy because they have The Twilight Saga: new Moon.

The other day, I sat in a theater full of preteen and teenage girls (some women, too), who screamed with rapture at every ridiculous thing two goofball teenage guys said. at first I thought, “This is cute.” then I realized this is the empirical data I could have really used when I was 15.

So hearken to me, young men. Study New Moon, and you will know truths that eluded Freud (sort of). you will know the rules. you will know what teenage girls want, and you won’t need the Cool Memo. Here are seven bits of wisdom you might glean:

Rule 1: Keep your compliments outlandish. “You have beautiful eyes” just isn’t going to cut it. but as New Moon shows, if you say, “You give me everything by breathing” and keep a straight face, you stand a chance of being perceived as sincere.

Rule 2: Compliment style is important. if you give compliments as though you hope to be complimented in return, you will get nowhere. but as New Moon illustrates, if you compliment the girl with the assumption that her amazing awesomeness is simply a law of the universe, your remarks will not only be well received, she will also admire your perception and discernment.

Rule 3: In developing your look, borrow from the classics. Edward could have been just another James Dean wannabe, but he jazzes up his look with a touch of whiteface: Brooding young man meets Marcel Marceau. Original.

Rule 4:Get in shape, today. There’s no getting around it. the respect that Jacob is getting these days is the result of getting seriously pumped up between movies. In New Moon, he comes close to doing the impossible — he almost takes Bella’s mind off Marcel Marceau. That’s right — he almost puts that mime in a box he can’t get out of. Jacob doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together, so it’s not his scintillating conversation. It’s the muscles.

Rule 5: Cultivate an aura of turbulence. When I was in high school, the boy who did best with girls was a guy who was a mix of tough and nutty, with a few phobias, including hypochondria. the one thing he wasn’t nervous about was girls. This kid was so preoccupied with phantom concerns that it never occurred to him to be nervous about the one thing every other guy was nervous about. This gave him an aura and made him into a problem to be solved … kind of like Edward. In New Moon, every other boy in the school is worried over how to ask out Bella. Edward is worried about death in life, a guarantee of damnation and the distinct possibility that at any moment he might rip open someone’s neck. This gives him an extra something, despite having a complexion slightly paler than Munch’s The Scream.

Rule 6: Keep saying, “I will protect you.” if you see New Moon, you will notice that everyone wants to protect Bella. you will also notice that every time someone announces that he will protect Bella, the girls in the audience scream and Bella looks pleased (in an introspective sort of way). So if you’re a teenage boy, you might want to throw “I will protect you” into conversations, apropos of nothing. just toss it into the mix and see how it goes over. Can’t hurt.

Rule 7: Every time you kiss her, fake a seizure. With most guys, when they kiss a girl for the first time, they want to seem as if they know what they’re doing. even if they feel as if they might have a seizure, they don’t show it … and that’s where they go wrong. Case in point: Edward in New Moon. Every time Edward kisses Bella, he starts moaning and fretting like James Cagney in White Heat. he looks as if he is about to go into an apoplectic shock — and instead of laughing at him, Bella thinks he’s great. who knew this could work?

Perhaps Edward knows this because he has tried it before. After all, he has been a teenager for approximately 96 years. his whole shtick might be a scam, the result of decades of intensive study, years of trial and error at high schools all over the world.

Most of us have just four years to get high school right. This guy has had a century.

mlasalle@sfchronicle.com

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – “The Twilight Saga: new Moon” took the no. 1 spot on the foreign circuit for a second consecutive weekend, grossing an estimated $85.1 million from 8,476 sites in 56 markets.

Offshore box office for the teen favourite based on Stephenie Meyer’s novel and co-starring Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart held up surprisingly well from its first-place opening round, dropping a relatively benign 31 percent. The film’s total offshore gross is $243 million.

Box-office action for director Roland Emmerich’s “2012″ dropped by more than 40 percent compared with the previous weekend, for a tally of $61.6 million from 12,090 screens in 107 markets. Since it opened offshore November 11, the disaster movie has grossed $455.8 million on the foreign circuit. “2012″ drew especially well in Asia, taking the no. 1 spots in such key markets as China, Japan and Korea.

Disney’s “A Christmas Carol” opened in seven markets, grossing $20.4 million from 5,328 sites in 48 territories. Holdover markets proved strong, providing $15.3 million of the weekend total, down a mild-mannered 28 percent from the previous frame. The motion-capture feature’s foreign total stands at $90.8 million.

“Paranormal Activity,” director Oren Peli’s super-low-budget horror thriller and domestic box-office phenomenon, opened in the U.K. (finishing no. 2 in the market with an estimated $4 million from 395 sites) as well as in Spain and South Korea. It tallied an overall weekend box office of $7 million from about 1,000 screens.

Disney unveiled the family comedy “Old Dogs” in Mexico and South Africa day-and-date with its domestic premiere. The opening tally from both markets was $1 million, with Mexico providing $816,000 from 321 screens.

Paramount opened the thriller “Law Abiding Citizen” in the U.K., where it finished no. 4 in the market with $2.4 million from 354 screens.

Disney’s “G-Force” opened in China ($1.5 million from 300 screens), and drew $2.3 million overall during the weekend. The overseas gross for the animation title from producer Jerry Bruckheimer is $161.8 million.

Stars of the Twilight sagas new Moon, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart say that they are proud of their work. Their movie grossed more millions during the Black Friday celebration.

Pattinson and Stewart keep being rumored to be dating, and their new movie raked in a total of $17.9 million on Friday, pushing The Blind side, movie of Sandra Bullock at $16.2 million, out of its number one spot on Thursday. The couples hype obviously continues.

The Britsh star Pattinson told his native British newspaper that his new film new Moon is sexy. The sequel of the popular movie adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s best selling book have a lot of half naked guys. OK Magazine is reporting that Robert thinks the simmering tension, coupled with other elements in the story, are enough to dub it sexy. Robert went on to say: “Twilight is a big metaphor for sexual abstinence, and yet it’s erotic underneath.”

To read more on this story go to sassyqarla.com. do you think the movie new Moon is sexy? let us know your thoughts.

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New Moon actress Ashley Greene was the guest of a November 24 Maxim magazine party — thrown by the magazine itself in light of the recent release of her movie.

Ashley Greene, latest Maxim cover girl, arrived at New York City’s club Avenue for a party hosted by the magazine. Greene discussed her cover garb – dressed for summer, with a low-cut shirt and high-riding shorts.

“The cover…I absolutely adore it, and I don’t think it could have come out any better for me,” she told E! Online. “I’m very much a Jacksonville beach girl. I love jean shorts, T-shirts, the beach.”

Greene is making a lot of appearances these days – not just on magazine covers but in most media, promoting New Moon and discussing its upcoming sequel Eclipse. She’s 22, and far as plastic surgery is concerned, only one rumor has followed the actress: rhinoplasty.

“From the photographs I can see, it appears that Ms. Greene has had a rhinoplasty and the tip has been over operated and is asymmetrical,” plastic surgeon Sherrell J. Aston told MakeMeHeal.com in September 2009. “She should be able to get an excellent improvement with a secondary rhinoplasty performed by with someone who has a great deal of experience with nasal surgery.”

This may be true, but Greene may not want another operation or need it. her public approval is based heavily on her current look, which seems to serve her fine.

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TUXEDO PARK — Tuxedo Park Library recently celebrated the release of the movie “New Moon,” the second installment in “The Twilight Saga.”

Diane Loomis, adult programming coordinator at the library, said their were several “New Moon” activities offered to young adults and the last was the party.

Starting in October, library patrons had the opportunity to take a knitting class and re-create the mittens Bella wore in the first “Twilight” movie. Then, in November, teens had the chance to win a large bin of “New Moon” merchandise in the library’s “New Moon” raffle.

At the most recent program, teens and adults discussed the “New Moon” book. Participants also played “New Moon” trivia, won “New Moon” merchandise, watched a clip from the new movie and posed for pictures with Jacob and Edward cutouts.

“It was great to see book lovers of all ages gather together to celebrate such a special event,” said Susan Babcock, Tuxedo Park children’s librarian. “Everyone was so excited and couldn’t wait to see the movie.”

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Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), stars of The Twilight Saga: new Moon. Photograph: Kimberley French

Biggest. Midnight opening. Ever. And on a school night! God, where were we before the Twilight saga stole all our neurons, with its hormone-detonating tales of supernatural events in the rain-sodden town of Forks, Washington?

Who knows, but there will likely be some of you who are still holding out against surrendering to the teen phenomenon, little realising that your principled resistance is in fact nothing more than the series’ clunking abstinence metaphor in microcosm, and that not giving in to it is basically as frustrating as not losing your virginity to Edward Cullen because it’ll turn you into a vampire. (Incidentally, can a Professor of new Moon Studies get in touch and clarify whether Bella can do it with Jacob Black without catching werewolf? Lost in Showbiz is a little hazy on the theoretical sexual perils of the Twilight universe.)

Yet whatever your objection, know this. every time you type the words “what is Twilight?” or “why is the Guardian writing about this?”, not only does a fairy die, but a little more definition finds its way to Taylor Lautner’s hairless lycan abs, and will continue do so until his rectus abdominis stands out in such shocking relief that the mere sight of it or any of its attendant muscles will prevent anything about war, pestilence, famine, death or the truth about 9/11 ever being covered again in this newspaper – and indeed any other. So at some point you need to decide whether you’re going to be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Once you’ve picked the right lane – welcome, age-inappropriate Twi-hards – you will realise that was merely the first step, and that you’re still quite the awkward stranger in your new domain. just like Bella! Fiddling really awkwardly with your hair should help, though you might care instead to attend your first over-18 new Moon prom – there’s one on in Newcastle tomorrow night – or perhaps to join the ineffably troubled community that is twilightmoms.com.

For the less damaged, there are other ways in. The Guardian’s legions of Wire fans who laughed knowingly into their martinis when the drug dealers called their packages names such as WMD, or Pandemic, may find something they can latch on to in this week’s news that Twilight-branded heroin baggies have been seized on Long Island. Fo’ real, and so on. There’s an idiosyncratically rendered likeness of Robert Pattinson on the wrap, so ask yourselves if there’s any face you’d rather see before you slump back into diamorphine-facilitated oblivion? Except the fashion-forward hoppers among you, who will of course be looking to tighten the ligature around your upper arms while gazing at the packaging for the as-yet unreleased Jacob Smack.

Needless to say, Twilight heroin is far from being the most disturbing unauthorised Twilight product. At present that would probably be a toss-up between the vibrating Edward doll and the babygrow reading “My Mommy is a Bella” – but we’ll deal with those once your stabilisers are off.

For now, it’s time for your primer on perhaps the defining quality of the new Moon juggernaut: the total and utter inability of any adult mortal to put a dent in it. “Charisma by Madame Tussaud”, fumes venerable film critic Roger Ebert, as the film prepares effortlessly to hold its position at the top of the box office on both sides of the Atlantic this weekend. “We struggled to see in new Moon a metaphor of teen conformity and longing but found only a muddle,” sniffs the Hollywood Reporter. “We tried to locate in it some comment on post-Aids, Christian rock-era abstinence and found nothing you couldn’t get in a church-group public service announcement.” A verdict that will merely have prompted a thousand Twi-hards to ask: “Can I get a supersize serving of Wolf Pack abs in a church-group public service announcement? in which case, sign my ass up for a silver ring now. It’s only one orifice that’s sinful, right?”

“Sorry girls,” sneers the Boston Globe, “the thrill is gone.” Um, sorry Boston Globe or whatever, but the thrill just got his chest waxed. Do you see, entry-level Twi-hards? never mind abstinence. It’s an impotence metaphor. every single thing any middle-aged man writes is useless – powerless! meaningless! – in the face of a gazillion teenage girls. Time for this week’s gratuitous literary analogy: it’s like that bit in A Passage to India when Mrs Moore visits the Marabar Caves and discovers that whatever is spoken into their dark recesses, it all comes back as the same terrifying echo of nullity. “Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all produce ‘boum’ . . . The echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life . . . it had murmured to her ‘Pathos, piety, courage – they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.’”

Boum, boum, boum . . . This is the Twilight industrial complex, my darlinks – and you’re living in it. You may as well offer it your neck today.

In theaters

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON, directed by Chris Weitz, written by Melissa Rosenberg, 130 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Chris Weitz movie, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” had the sold-out audience at my screening heaving and sighing so often — usually when a young man’s shirt came off, which was often — here’s a recommendation for those who haven’t seen it: Bring an oxygen tank. You’ll need it and a mask, particularly in the presence of so much heaving and sighing and busy shiftlessness.

I’m telling you, if the crowd is packed, the air will be sucked free from the room. Just saying.

This follow-up to “Twilight,” which also is based on a Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel, is custom-made for hormonal ‘tween girls just as the “Star Wars” movies were made for sci-fi loving young boys.

So let’s give it up to its creators because regardless of how drawn out and dumb this movie is, with $142 million in the bank last weekend alone, this movie knows what its audience wants — shirtless boys, chaste kisses, and a female character caught between the hotness of two hotties (a werewolf, a vampire) who apparently is willing to throw garlic cloves to the wind to give her soul to the latter.

About the young woman in question: her name is Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart); she’s slumming in Forks, Wash., with her single dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), and her hormones are boiling over as if lit by a satanic hellfire.

We don’t know this because Bella expresses her emotions easily. She’s nearly a mute, poor thing, parting her lips but saying as little as possible, but because when the vampire, Edward (Robert Pattinson), decides he must remove himself from her life in order to protect her from his kind, she literally writhes in pain, screams out in agony and has nightmares that suggests one hell of an epic yearning.

With Edward gone for most of the movie, there to pick up the pieces for Bella is Jacob (Taylor Lautner), her lifelong friend who wants more than a friendship with her. Together, they grow close over motorcycles, mutual sidelong glances and his bulging new muscles. But here’s the thing; turns out Jacob has a gene that allows him to morph into a werewolf.

Who knew? he didn’t. and here’s the real issue at hand. Just as with Edward, if the two take the risk of edging toward sexual intimacy, Jacob could potentially harm her if things got out of hand between them. after all, all one has to do is look at the shredded face of one of the wives of Jacob’s werewolf leaders to know how dire having sexy times with a werewolf can be. Just as it could with Edward, it might cost Bella her life, or at the very least, a disfigurement. and who wants that?

Bella does — of course, she does — though not with Jacob. She wants Edward, who appears to her in ghostly flashes during those moments when she nearly harms herself. These moments fuel her desire for him even more. after all, he wouldn’t appear to her if he didn’t love her! and so as the movie unfolds, she becomes more and more determined to have him back in her life so she can strip down and give him her, um, soul.

What unspools from this is another glum film about the perils of teen intimacy that still finds life hinging on abstinence and morality. While those are fine messages to send out to young audiences, the way it’s played here is so brooding, it’s nearly bloodless. that is, of course, until the film’s final moments, when real heat emerges in Italy.

Just what goes down there, we’ll leave for you, but it says a lot for the movie that the two most interesting characters come at the end — Dakota Fanning rules the screen as a dead vampire zealot with a mean stare, a tight golden bun and a hot clip; and Michael Sheen creates all kinds of chaos as the leader of all vampires. Each ooze menace to the point that you think, finally, characters who fill up a room, tear up the scenery and allow fear to creep into your heart. These two actors are so superior to the juiceless love otherwise served up in the movie, you can’t help wishing they had a movie of their own.

WeekinRewind.com is the site for Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s blog, DVD giveaways and movie reviews. Smith’s reviews appear Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. he may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

Renting a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases. those capped and in bold print are new to stores this week.

Angels & Demons — C-

Bruno — C

Drag Me to Hell — B+

Dragonball: Evolution — C

Fast & Furious — B-

Funny People — C+

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past — D

Hannah Montana: The Movie — C-

I love You, Man — B+

Land of the Lost — BOMB

My Bloody Valentine 3-D — B-

Observe and Report — C-

Race to Witch Mountain — C-

Sunshine Cleaning — B

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 — B

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen — D

X-Men Origins: Wolverine — B-

Offhand, it would be hard to think of a pop phenomenon as rapturously beloved as the Twilight saga that is also as vociferously hated. My God, the hate! If swoony-gauzy teen-bloodsucker romanticism with a golden-eyed indie-rock James Dean as love object isn’t your cup of passion, then fine — so be it. but why the frothing torrents of resentment? I was seriously shocked, for instance, reading some of the comments on Lisa’s recent post, to see that this much stone-pelting hostility could be directed at an actress as lovely and expressive as Kristen Stewart. What is her crime? having a personality moody and brainy and distinctive enough that it carries over, maybe a bit too much, from one role to the next? (That was true, as well, of the young Jane Fonda, whom Stewart often recalls.) It makes me wonder what, deep down, is getting the haters so flea-bitten scratchy under the collar.

Frankly, I think it’s this: The ascendance of the Twilight saga represents an essential paradigm shift in youth-gender control of the pop marketplace. For the better part of two decades, teenage boys, and overgrown teenage boys, have essentially held sway over Hollywood, dictating, to a gargantuan degree, the varieties of movies that get made. Explosive truck-smashing action and grisly machete-wielding horror, inflated superhero fantasy and knockabout road-trip comedy: It has been, at heart, a boys’ pig-out, a playpen of testosterone at the megaplex. sure, we have “chick flicks,” but that (demeaning) term implies that they’re an exception, a side course in the great popcorn smorgasboard.

No more. with New Moon, the Twilight series is now officially as sweeping a juggernaut on the big screen as it ever was between book covers. And that gives the core audience it represents — teenage girls — a new power and prevalence. Inevitably, such evolutions in clout are accompanied by a resentful counter-reaction. For if power is gained, then somewhere else (hello, young men!) it must be lost. yet such is the populist magic of Hollywood that these movies can’t simply be written off as some overblown high-school vampire version of a Miley Cyrus concert. or, more to the point, they can be (hello, haters!), but that completely misses what’s going on in them.

I went into New Moon having not read the book, and so I didn’t really experience the movie as an adaptation, or watch it as any sort of Twilight die-hard. Leaving aside a few leaping boy-to-wolf transformations (which could, at this point, have come out of any routine horror film), what I saw, in essence, was a moody romantic melodrama from the 1950s, a movie that told its story, more than anything else, with faces. For two hours, they loomed up there — Stewart, with her pale crystalline severity, her ability to communicate desire and distress at the same moment; Robert Pattinson, with his sweet-but-not-too-safe, hurtin’-eyed, chalky-skinned delinquent chivalry; and Taylor Lautner, with those naturally wolfy features, as the group’s Troy Donahue, a friendly, quick-grinned stud-muffin who’s just buff enough to divert the heroine without threatening to capsize her devotion to her true love.

The key to New Moon’s appeal, of course, is that a lack of consummation is built into the movie’s very premise, and so the sexiness, as it was in the ’50s, has to emerge almost entirely from the atmosphere, and from the interplay of those faces. And that, more than anything, is what makes this a picture dominated, in spirit, by a new kind of girl power. Mock me all you want (and from the haters, I expect nothing less), but the reason I believe that the big-screen success of the Twilight saga bodes well for the future of Hollywood movies is that the teenage girls who are lining up to see New Moon are asserting, in an almost innocent way, their allegiance to a much older form of pop moviemaking: the narcotic potency of mood, story, and romantic suggestion over the constant visual wham-pow! of action, effects, and packaged sensation. It’s not that New Moon has none of that stuff. It’s that the movie uses fantasy to liberate, rather than to steamroll, its emotions. That’s what makes it a new-style, feminine-driven brand of popcorn, one that’s more than welcome at a moment when the other kind — the boys’ kind — has grown more than a bit stale.