I’m one of those nerds who loves, loves, LURVES the country-fried Firefly theme song. Slap that baby over a nicely edited reel of Avengers footage, like some wonderful person did here, and you’ve got me wishing for Joss Whedon’s Avengers TV show (with Natty Fillion as Hank Pym, of course.)
The titular hero of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer battled demons (both real and metaphorical) every day on the Hellmouth that was Sunnydale, California. Lucky for Buffy, she always had a little help from her friends. And lucky for us, most of her friends were played by some of the hottest actresses to ever grace the small screen. Read my list, Whatever Happened to the Hot Girls of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, at GuySpeed.
Joss Whedon has pulled off a mini miracle — Marvel’s The Avengers is a fun, exciting and sometimes magical superhero flick packed to the gills with heart, humor and bad-assery.
I use the word “miracle” because that’s exactly what The Avengers is. There’s no way a two-and-a-half-hour-long action movie with this much baggage, starring four charismatic Hollywood leading men — plus five or six distinguished supporting players — should be this good. Or make this much sense. Or not feel like an uneven, drawn-out mess. Writer-director Whedon balances everything like a pro, giving each major character just enough depth, conflict and screen time to make us love them all and cheer for them in the end.
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The Cabin in the Woods isn’t your typical hack-and-slash horror flick, but you probably already know that by now. There are twists and turns, surprising reveals and shocking moments, and horror tropes are applauded, audited, and turned inside out. It’s pretty damn clever, and I’m happy to learn that a movie this good (and this strange) is doing reasonably well at the box office. But here’s the thing I loved best about Cabin in the Woods: It kept me engaged from start to finish. I was never bored, I was never able to guess what would happen next, and I genuinely cared about the characters and their connection to the strange goings on at the heart of the movie.
There aren’t many movies like Cabin in the Woods. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say there aren’t any movies like Cabin in the Woods. It’s a unique film with many layers and big, bold ideas, and it kept me intrigued right up to its shocking and hilarious conclusion. Not everything works, but most of it does. And even the few missteps are fun to watch. Director Drew Goddard and writer Joss Whedon (who collaborated on Whedon’s groundbreaking genre TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel) have made a fun, engrossing and suspenseful horror flick that dubs as a smart commentary and celebration of the horror genre (and the horror movie audience). The movie works on several levels, delivering almost everything you’d expect to see in a teen horror movie while subverting the expectations of both gore hounds and casual moviegoers.
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Angel & Faith, the new comic series from Dark Horse, follows the adventures of the vampire with a soul and the “dark slayer” months after the tragic events of the Buffy Season 8 finale. I haven’t bought a comic book in months, but the allure of an Angel/Faith teamup series proved too tempting to resist. I grabbed the first two issues of this new monthly title last week, and I’m glad I did. Angel & Faith starts out strong with a great tribute to a beloved fallen Whedonverse character and delivers a smart new spin on the Angel/Faith dynamic established in the Buffy and Angel TV series. (Look out, there be spoilers below!)
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The fifth season of Joss Whedon’s Angel is awesome. It’s one of best and most satisfying seasons of genre TV I’ve ever seen. Not every episode is a winner, and the show sometimes buckles under the burden of trying to reinvent itself yet again, but most of Season 5’s ideas, concepts, and character arcs are rewarding, challenging, and endless fun to watch. And there’s puppets! That’s my kind of TV.
There’s so much wonderful, crazy shit that happens this season — I’ve been looking forward to revisiting it for a long, long time. And now, thanks to the magic of the Internets, I get to rewatch it all on Netflix (and sometimes Hulu) and share my poorly articulated thoughts and opinions about Angel’s final season with you (All two of ya. Hi, Mom.)!
I’ll start digging into Angel when Fringe goes on break on March. I’m not gonna cover every Season 5 episode. I figure I’ll stick to the ones I really enjoy, like “A Whole in the World,” “Smile Time,” and “Why We Fight,” and I’m sure I’ll have a few things to say about the season premiere and the finale as well as fan favorites like “You’re Welcome” and “Lineage.” (Geez, so many good episodes this season.) I’ll cover my chosen episodes in chronological order. We’ll see how long it takes to get to the end (and the dragon). Until then, enjoy this:
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As I gleefully announced on Twitter recently, MRS. MOODY IS FINALLY WATCHING BUFFY! AND SHE DIGS IT! LIKE, A LOT! IT’S AWESOME!
Sorry for the shouting, but I’m sure most of you understand the reason for my joy (and for the shouting of the joy). If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you’ve probably known a friend or family member who dismissed the critically adored cult series as “silly” or “dumb” and unworthy of their love and attention without ever watching a single episode. This judgey person just couldn’t understand your obsession with this strange little show about a girl, some vampires, and the apocalypses (that’s plural for apocalypse, right?), and he or she wrote it off without ever giving it a chance. Now imagine convincing that friend or family member to sit through an entire episode of your choosing and, after it was over, she smiled and said, “Can we watch the next one?”
That’s what happened when I screened a season 2 episode for Mrs. Moody not too long ago. This was a big deal for me, a lover of all things Buffy and Whedony and Mr. Pointy-y.
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