"Helpless" (Buffy 3.12): Your heart is showing in that outfit

So the parade of incompetent parenting continues! After the bad mommy witch-hunt of "Gingerbread," now we've got the "Helpless" bad daddy brigade. Poor Buffster. Coupled with that, it's Buffy's birthday, which always bodes ill for the Slayer. According to my intrepid co-watcher Jenn, B is an Aquarius. According to the random Internet site I found, that makes her:
Friendly and humanitarian
Honest and loyal
Original and inventive
Independent and intellectual

She's going to need all of those traits if she hopes to make it to nineteen! Let's take a look at the Whedonverse guide to surviving your eighteenth birthday on the Hellmouth.

DO sublimate.
We've got some lovely sexy sparring from Buffy and Angel to open the episode. Ah, it reminds me of the sensual Tai Chi that calmed the savage Angel beast way back in "Revelations."

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No, not technically a scene from this episode, but can you blame a girl for reminiscing?

You've got to put all that chi somewhere, amiright? Further channeling takes the form of Angel's birthday gift to Buffy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. Brit-lit expert Jenn could tell you more about this collection, I'm certain. My knowledge basically begins and ends with the facts that Elizabeth wrote them for/about her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning, and that I'm pretty sure they were allowed to do it without one of them losing their soul.

DON'T be afraid to be vulnerable.
To my mind, this episode is all about identifying and embracing vulnerability. Which is actually pretty genius. Giles, following Watcher protocol and submitting Buffy to the Council-mandated "Cruciamentum" challenge, administers an injection of Slayer Kryptonite (a troubled metaphor, as Oz [I love you, Oz!] explains) to impose physical vulnerability on B. This weakness translates into the latest (but not the last) in a series of existential crises for our Slayer. She tells Angel that without her superpowers, she doesn't know who she is and what she has to offer. He responds with a very heartfelt story about seeing Buffy in LA, before she was slayer-ized. Emphasis on HEARTfelt. He says he fell in love with her right then, because, and I'm paraphrasing, she held her heart in front of her for the world to see, and he wanted to protect and warm her heart with his own. Buffy responds with a hug, deeming his metaphor "beautiful . . . or, if taken literally, incredibly gross." Hee.

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Well, at least he didn't get a horribly literal tattoo like that moron from The Bachelorette.

The physical vulnerability points toward the episode's real interest--emotional vulnerability. Not only Buffy's but Giles's (his "father's love" for Buffy causes him to tell her about the challenge and lose his job) and even uber-psycho vamp Kralik has a weakness (his headaches, which I guess becoming a vampire didn't cure--I mean, can you think of another vampire who's bothered by something mundane and human like headaches? Picture Drusilla complaining about eczema. See? Weird.).

DO improvise.
And wouldn't you know it, those very headaches allow a sub-par Slayer to overcome the masochistic vampire who has escaped his Council-designed straitjacket and kidnapped her mother (AND snagged her best Little Red Riding hood).

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Subtlety, thy name is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Because Buffy can't rely on her strength, she employs her smarts. While watching the episode's early scenes featuring Council lackeys carefully allowing Kralik to sip from a glass of water, I said out loud to no one in particular, "What other vampire washes down his headache pills with water?" Well, thank God this one does.

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Yep, she slipped him Holy Water. And yep, that's the actor who plays Rack, a character who will be doing some world-class, havoc-wreaking enabling in season 6.

DO love your family no matter when or where you find them.
One of the crucial subplots of this episode is the full reveal of Buffy's dad's douchebaggery. Though he's been MIA since the early moments of season 2, it isn't until now that his absence evolves into full-on neglect. His failure to take Buffy to their traditional birthday ice show (where was this beloved family ritual in season 2's birthday episode "Surprise"? No matter.) leads her to position Giles as a father substitute. Though I have my reasons for mistrusting the impulse to jam their complicated relationship into this limiting father/daughter paradigm (presented a paper on it at Slayage 2010--won't bore you with the details), it does reinforce the common trope in the Whedonverse that the best families are the ones you choose, not necessarily the ones you're born with. Though Giles initially fails at protecting Buffy as a father should, he more than makes up for it by revealing the nature of the test to Buffy, saving her (and Joyce) by slaying the Kralik-sired Blair, and by tending to his wounded Slayer in the penultimate scene.

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Awww.

Another episode with Whedonverse-wide implications, as Giles's firing by the Council heralds the arrival of none other than Wesley. Wyndham. Price. Can't wait to re-watch you, Wes!

"Gingerbread" (Buffy 3.11): Fairy tales are real!

Well, duh. Of course they are! Since all the 'ships are fairly stable in this episode (Buffy loves Angel; Willow loves Oz; Cordelia hates all of them), this clever revisionist fairy tale has more to do with rules for living than rules for loving. So let's take a walk into the Whedonverse woods with some do's and don't's!

DO share with your friends and family if you're talking to people who are supposed to be dead.
The impetus for this ep comes from Joyce's discovery of two murdered kids in a playground while Buffy is busy slaying Mr. Sanderson from the bank. Her rational and righteous anger at the injustice of the two kids' deaths quickly devolves into quite the opposite right around the time that the little undead moppets show up at the house and tell her to "kill the bad girls" (ooh, foreshadowing alert!). Because in Sunnydale, the non-un-dead are never quite what they appear. Unfailingly, they're going to end up looking something like this:

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Angel learned this last episode, JOYCE.

DON'T trust anyone over 30.
Unless he happens to be a sexy librarian demi-god.

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You might know him as Giles, but he'll always be Ripper to me.

With the exception of the above, all the adults come out pretty bad in this one: Joyce, Sheila Rosenberg and the rest of the Sunnydale parents, Principal Snyder (though not out of character) and the Mayor (who is way over 30). It's like the inverse of "Band Candy" when all the adults are fun-loving sociopaths. Though I do have to say, valid complaints about benign neglect and anti-pagan zealotry aside, it seems kind of mean to bitch about incompetent parenting in front of Amy.

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Game, set, and match.

But DO trust Mom, not MOO.
To quote a wise man, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals." Yes, that wise man is Agent Kay from Men in Black, but he knows of what he speaks. Even though Buffy wavers when she sees the symbol found on the children's bodies in Willow's notebooks, she ultimately decides to put faith in her friend because she knows her, despite what the label "witch" might connote.

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Generic pagany looking symbol = sufficient justification for illegal search and seizure, kidnapping, and execution.

And a right-minded Joyce would never want to harm Buffy, but a little demonic persuasion coupled with mob-rule panic in the guise of MOO led her, along with many otherwise good people, to believe that burning the witches is the only way to avenge the dead children. Having typed that sentence, I feel I'd be remiss in not mentioning that it was literally that precise line of reasoning (and not much more evidence) that led to seventeen years of incarceration for the very real West Memphis Three. Okay, done with the politics, back to Buffy.

DON'T turn yourself into a rat until you're sure your friends aren't coming for you.
Once again, this show affirms the crucial importance of keeping your enemies close, but your friends closer. Even Cordy, who takes special care to insult Buffy earlier in the episode, is first in line with the fire hose to save her and Willow. Similarly, Xander and Oz put aside their tension-filled awkwardness to team up and save the day. Or they would have, if Buffy hadn't slayed the demon first.

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I love you, Oz! And you too, Xander. Most of the time.

A fun standalone monster-of-the week episode that none the less has big (bad) implications for the rest of the series. Oh Amy Rat, the trouble you will cause in season 6 . . . And, as my intrepid co-watcher Jenn notes, this episode also has ramifications for the developing relationship between Joyce and Buffy. All demon trickery aside, Joyce's observation that there are some things Buffy "can't make right" is a major stumbling block for the slayer throughout the rest of the series, not to mention Joyce's illness in season 5. Sniff.

Red Riding Hood or "Hey, we have Gary Oldman!"

I’m really challenging myself with this whole, ‘I can find something good about any movie’ thing.  Red Riding Hood had potential and really could have been what launched Amanda Seyfried into household namedom and the two younger dudes into being slightly recognizable.  Now it’s just something Gary Oldman has to explain away at dinner parties.

It was pretty.  Some of the shots were very pretty though I wonder if they were real or CGI.  And much of the cast was pretty.  Shiloh Fernandez (a mix between Joaquin Phoenix and Ed Westwick) was appealing but has a Robert Pattinson-lite aspect to him.  It probably didn’t help him that Hardwicke directed the first Twilight.  In fact the music in this reminded me of Twilight too.  Oops, getting off track.  Sticking with my positivity vibe, I am POSITIVE that Virginia Madsen was miscast as the mother of our heroine, Valerie (played by Amanda Seyfried).  I’m not talking looks either.  She just should not have been in this movie.  I was happy to see Michael Hogan, aka Col Tigh from Battlestar getting some big screen work.  Max Irons, son of Jeremy, was in this too.  He’s cute and uh, tall.  Apparently I’ve seen his work before but based on this I think maybe his career path should go in a different direction.  As mentioned, Gary Oldman was in the movie too.  This is one of those situations where you feel like he was doing the best he could.  Same kinda goes for Lucas Haas.

Aside from the cast I will say that there was dialog and the actors had it all memorized.  There was even a choreographed group dance(!) which I will excuse because of the time period and the fact that people just knew those kinds of dances back then.  What I will not excuse in that scene was the random girl-on-girl dancing to get a guy’s attention. I am positive that was not needed.

I did get two unintentional chuckles from this movie.  For one it seemed that a few of Gary Oldman’s crew got their helmets from the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  And secondly there was a very dramatic window opening that was worth my $1 at Redbox.

"The Beaver" is a very strange movie that takes depression very seriously

I don't know if I've ever seen a movie that makes depression its central concern the way The Beaver does. The Virginia Woolf portion of The Hours is certainly interested in what depression makes Virginia do, but I can't think of another film that is so utterly consumed with trying to express the way the condition manifests in an individual and family. That's not to say that The Beaver is *good*, really, but it is to say that the film is certainly provocative for people who have encountered and battled this slice of human experience.

I think it gets a lot right: the inheritance of depression (how much am I loving Anton Yelchin lately?); the way one hurting family member can alter and upset the lives of the entire household; how imagining a better version of yourself can actually produce that self into being. And I also think The Beaver really missed the mark in a lot of places, too: the lack of chemistry between Gibson and Foster; the resolution of the puppet plot; and the melodrama, my God, the melodrama.

I'm still feeling pretty conflicted about this one. I'm not ready to heartily recommend it, but I'm also not willing to write it off. It's one of those maddening movies that gets thisclose to relevance, and drops the ball.

Buffy 3.10: A righteous man, and a righteous episode

"Amends" is one of my top-five favorite Buffy episodes of all time. It's smart (of course), insanely romantic (naturally) and, oh, just SETS UP THE BIG BAD FOR SEASON 7. My favorite words in the English language are "written and directed by Joss Whedon," so let's see what this pivotal episode has to say about love.

DO remember that everyone went through an awkward phase.
We all have things we regret in our past, Angel's just happen to be a bit more colorful than most. Though I thought this was our first glimpse of magically delicious Irish Angel, my intrepid co-watcher Jenn reminded me that we got a glimpse of A's back story last season in "Becoming" parts 1 & 2. Because those episodes are so emotionally devastating, I must have repressed it. Anyway, "Amends" gives us a line-up of Angelus's past victims through the clever trope of their returning to haunt him, goading him towards a suicidal existential crisis. More on that later.

Suck it, True Blood and Being Human, Buffy totally did ridiculous historical vampire hair first.

DON'T forget that the holidays are hard on everyone.

Though avoiding the "very special episode" trap, this is a story that relies on the intensity and drama that we've all come to expect around Christmas/Hanukkah. Along with the ghosts of victims past that plague Angel (including Jenny Calendar--good to see you back, Robia!), we have Faith's loneliness, Giles's conflict over helping Angel despite his grief over Jenny, Willow's desperate attempts to prove her love for Oz, and Xander's annual escape the family dysfunction camp-out in his backyard.

FINE. I forgive him for the whole, "they should have knocked before barging in on us cheating" speech from "The Wish."

DO find your torso.
Oz (I love you, Oz!) decides to get back together with Willow because missing her was like missing part of his body. Specifically, his torso.

You had me at "Okay, the thing is."

I think this metaphor actually says a lot about the way love works on the show. It lives in the heart and the blood and the guts ("It's not brains, children, it's blood." I miss you, Spike! Can't wait to see you in season 4!) and you can't breathe without it. As we learn in the episode's closing scenes, Angel is driven to sacrifice himself to the sun not because of guilt over the blood he's spilt (though he does feel really bad about it now), but because he knows that he would willingly be that person all over again just for one more moment of true happiness with Buffy. It doesn't matter that she has (temporarily) vanquished the First Evil, because Angel can't bear to live with or without a soul if he can't have her.

DO make this speech. As often as possible.

"I want you so badly, I want to take comfort in you, and I know it'll cost me my soul and a part of me doesn't care. I'm weak. I've never been anything else. It's not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It's the man."

O. M. G. Known amongst my friends as the "I love you so much I have to die" speech, this scene delivers all of the raw Whedon brilliance that keeps me coming back for four (and counting) Buffy rewatches. Did I mention Angel looks like this while saying it?

Man, demon, whatever, I'm into it.

DO believe in signs.
Despite Angel's conviction that the world wants him dead, the Whedonverse is having none of it. Rather than the sun rising, snow starts falling, giving Buffy and Angel one more day (and roughly a dozen more episodes) to enjoy their why-god-why romance.

I love this episode so much I want to die.

Fright Night was frightfully awesome!

Fright Night

Director: Craig Gillespie
Stars: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Toni Collette,
         David Tennant, Imogen Poots, and McLovin
MPAA Rating: R (for language and violence)

I suspect that audiences are getting a bit vamp weary.  It's too bad because when something good like Fright Night comes out people may be hesitant.

There are so many good things I could say about this movie.  The story and writing were great thanks to one Marti Noxon, formerly of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the TV show).  The jokes were plenty but not too much.  The dialog was snappy but not obnoxious.  There was even a brief reference to a 'Scooby gang' which I giggled at.

Our high school hero didn't suddenly develop the skills needed to take out vamps or even really protect himself or his loved ones properly.  All too often characters suddenly possess the skills needed to vanquish whatever monster or demon they're up against. This is similar to choreographed group dances in movies where you never see anyone practicing any steps beforehand.  

The acting was solid on all counts. Yelchin, Collette and Poots (if she weren't so pretty her last name would be a problem) all did a fine job.  McLovin will always be McLovin.  His turn as Red Mist will probably be the one time he ventured further from his most notable role.  Sadly in this film he was back to McLovin again which is not necessarily a bad thing, just an expected thing.  These are positive reviews after all.  Which is a good lead in to Mr. Fright Night himself, David Tennant.  Most fans of this movie will point to the sheer awesomeness that is David Tennant and his camped-up aficionado of all things dark.  Don't get me wrong, he was absolutely great. Oh!  The chick that played his girlfriend, Ginger, was superb.  I just looked her up and as it turns out she's Sofia Vergara's sister, Sandra.  So funny and sexy runs deep in that family.  Anyway, Tennant was fantastic and I wish there were more adjectives to use for the guy.  However...

I really think the best thing in the entire movie was Colin Farrell.  I've always liked the guy and rooted for him during his period of bad choices.  Thankfully the guy is making some really good choices lately (see: In Bruges, Ondine, etc.).  Colin knows how to play a vampire.  He's sexy and predatory and his only interest in relationships is based solely on creating more vamps.  Speaking of, he does this thing right before he bites someone, it's hard to explain but it's like he's getting himself amped up for what must be pure pleasure. 

I do want to mention one thing that I spotted and I may be alone on this.  There are three levels of vamp that Farrell's character achieves.  There's teeth baring, a middle-level and full-on vamp (which you see towards the end).  It's the middle-level vamp that cracked me up.  There was something about his face that reminded me of John Travolta.  I'm gonna have to watch it again to see if I was imagining it but it cracked me up at the time.

For a review rooted in more reality, check out Tracy's article.

Rental - The Adjustment Bureau

The Adjustment Bureau
Director: George Nolfi (who also wrote the screenplay)
Stars: Matt Damon and Emily Blunt

I liked this movie.  I'm realizing that I think I'm more into Philip K. Dick's stuff than I realized so I should probably read his books and short stories.  Towards the middle I kind of felt like it was a Wim Wenders movie but mostly because of the set-up of the shots.  Is that too obscure a reference? 

Anyway I think the best thing about the movie was the chemistry between Damon and Blunt.  She's one of those actresses that I want to dislike (she stole my man!) but I just keep liking her in stuff.  If you enjoy her work as well then watch Wild Target.  It's a very quirky comedy but she's adorable in it.  Anyway it was easy to believe that these two really, truly liked each other even though large time periods would pass.

The story line worked and it made me curious as to what was left out from Dick's original story.  Early on I was struck with similarities to The Matrix, Fringe, Sliding Doors, etc..  The overlying theme was pre-determination vs. choice which gets hotly contested, even in my immediate family. 

Oh!  I really liked Anthony Mackie who some might remember as Papa Doc in 8 Mile. Yeah!  He is such a solid actor and I'm glad he's getting lots of good work.

Trailer Park

I thought I'd put some trailers up to see if it actually works.

Our Idiot Brother which opens next week

 

Machine Gun Preacher which opens in November

Battleship which opens May 2012 (this looks soooo dumb)

Contagion which opens next month.  I love the look on Gwynnie's face.  Not that I want her to suffer in real life, mind you, but this is oddly satisfying to me.

Buffy re-watch '11!

So, you're joining me and a dear and distant friend in medias res with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer re-watch. Though she's been a Sunnydale citizen for longer than I have, there are a couple of seasons she's only watched once. Me, this will be my, ahem, fourth time through. And since Angel is pretty much my ideal man (tall, dark, damaged, distant, undead), and Oz is the boy I always fall for (short, quirky, smart, way more articulate than I am), I decided to focus these posts on what the show can teach me about love, because, clearly, I'm crap at it. So, off to the Buffyverse with dating do's and don't's!

3.9 "The Wish"

DO remember that looking good is the best revenge.
This episode finds Cordy and Oz still smarting (Cordy, probably literally from that rebar through the torso) from Xander and Willow's make-out session in the factory. Cordelia's first day back at school post-Xander is all about rubbing his face in what he's been missing.

Nothing says I'm over you like burgundy leather.

DO get by with a little help from your friends.
Though Xander and Willow are, pretty clearly, totally in the wrong, they do legitimately feel bad about it. Well, Willow feels bad about it. Xander seems to feel bad about getting caught. But either way, they're able to sublimate their guilt and despair through some co-slaying.

If only the ugly memories of mutual betrayal could be vanquished as easily as this demon. Which is also ugly. Metaphor!

DON'T make it all about you.
As my co-watcher pointed out, Oz (I love you, Oz!) correctly and astutely identifies Willow's persistent overtures to get back together as being more about assuaging her guilt and less about giving him what he needs to process the cheating. Xander, with his "sixty or seventy" phone messages could also stand to listen to this bit of philOZophy. (Don't like the pun? Fair warning: I LOVE it and am going to use it until Oz leaves the show.) Give your person some space when he asks for it nicely. And looks like this:

FYI, the real Oz (Seth Green) is also into space in the NASA sense! For real! Check out his Twitter feed!

DO act DON'T wish.
Of course, this self-description of Cordy's coping strategy ends up being a little, shall we say, inaccurate? She makes one wish in particular, that Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, in the presence of a vengeance demon. (Hi, Anyanka! Welcome to the party!) The consequences of a Buffy-less Sunnydale are, pretty much, chaos. The Bronze is vampire central, the high school resembles a police state, and non-Watcher Giles is reduced to rescuing endangered humans with fellow "white hats" in a pretty creepy white van. The Master was never dusted, and is starting up a factory farming operation and treating Sunnydale like one massive feedlot. Oh, and Willow and Xander won't be needing any rescuing, because they look like this now:

Xander is never hotter than when he's being bad. Exhibit A: Vamp Xander


Exhibit B: Hyena Xander

So, long (awesome) story short, Giles destroys Anya's pendant, thereby sentencing her to human-ness and giving us four-and-a-half more seasons with this fun character. However, basically everyone we like on the show dies before he can do that. What I like about this story is that, unlike It's a Wonderful Life, *we* get to see what would happen if Buffy had never come to Sunnydale, but Cordelia doesn't. Instead, she moves on from her heartbreak solely through affirming her own awesomeness. Not a bad lesson at all. Plus, even though the alternate reality was by all accounts bleak, it did give us this:

Shall we call it a wash?

Late to the Party - Alisa's watching Mad Men

Mad Men
Director: various
Stars: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, and Connor from Angel

Watching on: Netflix streaming 

You should have seen my face the moment I found out that Mad Men was going to be streaming on Netflix. 

  

Yes, it was just like that.

Like most of the world I kept hearing what a great show it is.  It not only got nominated often but would win awards.  Jon Hamm, he of the ever present 5 o'clock shadow, is a talented actor and I've enjoyed him in everything I've seen of his.  I just never found myself making an effort.  This was probably due to my already busy TV dance card.  

So after getting through the first season I can now say that I see what all the fuss has been about.  The writing is very strong.  The acting (save for one actress I will never, ever like) is beyond solid.  The stories move along at a great pace.  The character development has been good.  I'd like to see more of the lives of some of the 2nd tier characters but I have a feeling that will be solved over the next few seasons.  We do get peeks now and then of those characters and they've just made me want more.

I'd also like to add how well they deal with the time period.  I want to believe they go overboard with the misogyny but I'm guessing it's pretty accurate.  I am getting a kick out of the costumes which don't look too costume-y.  I can't tell you how many outfits I've seen on the women in that show that look just like something my mom or aunts wore in the 60s. 

I can't wait to start season 2!