Archive for April, 2007
Monday, April 30th, 2007
Goodbye Iowa (Marti Noxon)
Riley is confused and is going cold turkey: all he understood has been ripped up and scattered: he doesn’t know what to do.
Michty me, Adam was dull wasn’t he? I do believe I may have elided him from my memory along with season five’s knights.
Emma Caulfield is a joy to listen to: Buffy; “Maggie tried to kill me.” Anya: “It didn’t work but they’re all upset anyway.”
The scene in the basement as morning comes is classic ensemble BtVS: the Wile E. Coyote comments (“That would never happen.” “Well, no Buff. That’s why they call them cartoons, not documentaries.”), Giles and Anya bitching (“Well, look who’s cranky bear in the morning.” “Yes, I can’t imagine why I didn’t sleep well in my beach ball.” 
“Every time you moved it made squeaky noises. It was irritating.” “Really? I’m surprised you could hear it over your Wagnerian snoring.”), Anya’s possessiveness over Xander and Buffy’s “yummy sushi pajamas” speech.
Buffy’s bandana: why?
Andy was chortling over this: “No, you don’t have to explain. I don’t mind, really. I’ve been thinking about that last spell we did…all day.” Chortling: like Xander in Restless.
Xander’s military experience sure was handier than Buffy’s helpless lady but the scriptwriters via Anya at least make us realise it’s a smidgeon silly: “He’s the only one with military experience.” “It’s not like he was in the ‘Nam. He was G.I. Joe for one night.”
Tara does a daft and dangerous thing but I’ll discuss that and the second daft thing she does when I get to Family.
Sometimes the jokes are tasteless (and not very plausible, Xander the guy who reads comics wouldn’t know retinal?): “Sorry. I’m the only one that can pass the retinal scan.” “The… ewww. I don’t want to see that.” “Retinal scan, Xander.”
So that’s why she was wearing that bandana so Riley can wrap the grubby thing around his wounded hand in a military hospital.
Posted in Buffy Season 4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Television | 1 Comment »
Monday, April 30th, 2007
I’ve decided to change the name of my How am I different category to Female thinking because it’s a more accurate reflection of the contents. I don’t really know what the Aimee Mann song is about, plus, “Female thinking” is ironic because it’s what Bill Hickok says to Calamity Jane when she’s mooning over some stuffed shirt (the worst thing about CJ is the wooden (stuffed and wooden?) Philip Carey). I have loved and enjoyed Calamity Jane for many years but only recently has my attention been drawn to the entirely lesbian interpretation that can be brought to it. A Woman’s Touch indeed.
Howard Keel who made me swoon as Clayton Farlow in Dallas (I know, I know, but old Sean Connery is a handsome devil too) has been in three films with exceedingly questionable sexist attitudes : Calamity Jane, Kiss Me Kate and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (I reckon the latter set the ball rolling for feminism) but I forgive him because of that rumbling baritone and those tights in Kiss Me Kate.
I must mention a couple of blogs that have caught my attention. The first I came across today which is the wonderful riposte to the vile and abominable Observer Woman monthly magazine which is an insult to women everywhere. It’s called Observer Woman Makes Me Spit which says it all.
Secondly, I have to love anybody’s blog whose About Me says “I’m a misanthropic humanist. While I’m a do-gooder by training and profession, I sort of also loathe people.” but there’s more! The very funny Suzanne Reisman is the founder of CUSS which is not the most attractive of acronyms but I’m a CUSS supporter. As she says “Feline pussies with fur are nice to stroke. Hairless cats are freaky.” She also wrote this very good article on being Mrs. Husband: “It is strange to me that a woman would invest so much time in her education and work life, building a reputation and accruing respect for her achievements under one identity, and then suddenly become (sort of) someone else.”
Posted in Female thinking, Films | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007
The I in Team (David Fury)
I’m sorry but despite so much happening in this episode, the main thing I wonder about is whether Willow and Tara share their first kiss when irony goes all ironic.
Loads does happen in this episode: Buffy joins the Initiative and the late 20th century (by gaining a pager), she and Riley have sex for the first time (rather unpleasantly intercut with some demon fighting; just how different is Buffy from Faith?), we learn that Prof Walsh is a voyeur and then discover she’s really, really evil, we meet Adam and then we lose Professor Walsh.
Actually, too much happens, it’s all rushed and the episode leaves you feeling rather breathless and it has a terrible last line: “Mommy”.
“And I don’t want you crawling back here knocking on my door pleading for help the second Teen Witch’s magic goes all wonky or little Xander cuts a new tooth. We’re through. You got it?” Spike gets to eat those words.
“You don’t have to do this.” “I know.” “I mean, if you’d rather wait…” “I’m ready. I want to.” Oh please stop.
Buffy is forgetting her friends: while Willow tells lies because what is happening to her isn’t something you tell someone who isn’t paying you any attention because of the huge distractions and turmoil in her own life. “I mean, I could have invited somebody else if I knew it was an open free-for-all.” “I’m sorry. I had no idea. My total bad. So, who did you want to invite?” “What?” “You said you wanted to invite someone.” “No. Not– no one. I meant a hypothetical someone which is to say no one. What are we celebrating?”
“You mean the camo and stuff? I thought about it but, I mean, it’s gonna look all Private Benjamin. Don’t worry I’ve patrolled in this halter many times.”
“Remind me. Why should I help you?” “Because you do that. You’re the goody-good guys. You’re the bloody freaking cavalry.”
We’ll just say it’s the pain that makes Spike say Rocking the Casbah and not Rock the Casbah.
Re-watching pays dividends: Willow holds Tara’s doll’s eye crystal in her hand before the ionisation spell.
I’m disappointed that we were deprived of a real confrontation between Buffy and Professor Walsh but apparently Lindsay Crouse wanted to leave. I can’t say I felt her heart was in it. I first saw her in The Verdict (in the days when I went to the pictures weekly and often went to see films more than once) but I most remember her for House of Games when she is astoundingly wooden. Still, you have to have sympathy for anyone whose parents named her Lindsay Ann Crouse to pay homage to her father’s writing partner, Howard Lindsay. Obviously, the ideal way to give a child her own identity.
Posted in Buffy Season 4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Television | 2 Comments »
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
I’ve read up to #35 (the last part of Girl on Girl) and I admit it’s been a fascinating if uneven ride. It almost lost me in #3 when a bunch of squabbling female politicians are shown their place by a man but I’m glad I persisted. BVK is an excellent writer and he tells a story very cleanly. Pia Guerra’s artwork matches this but I look more Oriental than Dr Mann. #3 also has a blip when President Valentine’s blouse gains a collar and she gets a new hairdo over a couple of pages. I was mouthing wtf when I started reading Safeword but BVK excelled himself with its denouement.
However, some of the covers have been extraordinarily naff. There is no way I would have bought issues #2, #28, #29, #32 and #33 based on those covers. I’ll forgive #2 because she was a supermodel with I’m guessing at modified tits but the others (by Massimo Carnevale) are just maddingly sexist. #31 has Toyota with what I shall christen porn tongue while the depiction of Dr Mann and 355 on #33 is just pandering to anyone whose ears pricked up when they read the title Girl on Girl.
Posted in Comics, Female thinking | 3 Comments »
Friday, April 20th, 2007
A New Man (Jane Espenson)
A Giles episode (that’s one more than Xander gets this season) and a good one too. Anthony Stewart Head (I’m never really sure what to call him because he’s really Anthony Head but for some reason his name just feels odd – I blame the Head) embraces playing a demon with gusto. I don’t think there is a moment with him as a demon that isn’t interesting. He turns to Xander but Xander doesn’t (literally) understand him but look who does? Spike. His chasing after Professor Walsh after saying this: “I refuse to become a monster because I look like a monster. I have a soul. I have a conscience. I am a human being. Oh, stop the car!” is a hoot.
“Nice phone.” “Yes. Fabulous technology. See, if anyone has information I need to know, they can, uh, simply tell me about it. Through this ingenious speaking tube. I’m very excited.” I reckon if the Scoobies had had mobile phones (even Angel has one by now) then none of the estrangement and misunderstandings of the future would have happened (and wouldn’t that have that been exciting?). Oh, and Buffy can’t really have forgotten that she hadn’t told Giles about the Initiative and Riley because at her party she would have been reminded as she introduced Riley to Giles.
Ethan Rayne is such a good villain partly because of Robin Sachs’ fruity tones but also because the character is a satisfactory mix of evil, humour and self-preservation and gets to mutter off screen “You know you’re really very attractive.” as Giles says “”Oh, she’s awful. She said I was an absent male role model. Absent my ass. I’m twice the man she is.”
Giles feels bad about what Walsh says because it must be close to how he feels: that he is Buffy’s father figure and may have failed her. However, Buffy is an extraordinary individual who can’t be made to fit like a member of a military unit. Riley is partly wrong when he says “And you’re in charge. You’re like, make the plan, execute the plan. No one giving you orders.” Buffy never plans (not in a military way anyway).
Very early there are warning signs in Buffy and Riley’s relationship: “Buffy, I can’t take you with me.” “You’re not taking me with you. I am going and I am letting you come along.” “Buffy, it’s not really your call. This is a military operation now.” “Then call out the troops. Because nothing less than that is gonna stop me. This demon did something to Giles and I’m gonna kill it.”
I’d loved to have gone to USC so that I could’ve had a huge dorm room too. Tara’s is fantastic with the fairy lights and the arty posters. The spell Willow suggests is incredibly 
romantic: not floating and peeling an apple but floating and removing the petals of a red rose…and it takes Tara a long time to realise that she’s just holding Willow’s hands and not actually doing a spell at all.
As I write this I realise I should put up a warning now: if you are a Tara-phobe this blog is going to be hard work for you from now.
It can be viewed either as annoying or intriguing that so much of Willow and Tara’s relationship is not (ahem) out there. We don’t know the details of the beginning of their relationship but we can interpret looks, gestures and possible (well, probable) metaphors and, of course, guess such things as Willow’s coming out (to herself and Tara), their first kiss, their first confessions of love, the first time they had sex, etc. It is terrible double standards that we see so much heterosexual sex on the show but none of the above but, on the other hand, the imagination is a powerful thing.
Willow lies to Buffy when she says she was working late at the chem lab and, honestly, if people didn’t know something was up regarding Willow’s relationship with Tara then they really ought to watch something less complicated.
And I really love this dialogue: “Oh, no. I mean, she’s like forty. She’s got better things to do than hang out with a bunch of kids.” (No, really, I love hanging with the kids. Oh, you weren’t talking about me.)
Posted in Buffy Season 4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Television | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
Doomed (Marti Noxon, David Fury & Jane Espenson)
Since this episode is decidedly average maybe it was the reason why Jane E gives this advice in her blog.
This is the Spike in naff clothes episode and the best things about it involve Spike: his attempted suicide and Willow and Xander’s words of “comfort”, his fun in winding up Xander and Willow (“Or you’re just the same tenth grade losers you’ve always been, and she’s too much of a softy to cut you lose”), his delight at being able to hurt things (“That’s right. I’m back. And I’m a BLOODY ANIMAL! Yeah!”), his American accent, and 
his final desperation for action: “What, can’t go without your Buffy, is that it? Too chicken? Let’s find her! She is the Chosen One after all. Come on! Vampires! Grrr! Nasty! Let’s annihilate them. For justice, and for, the safety of puppies, and Christmas, right? Let’s fight that evil! Let’s kill something!…Oh come on!”) Adam loves Spike.
Okay, there’s lots of stuff about Riley and Buffy but romance isn’t my thing though I admit I like Riley calling Buffy on being self-involved. I think one of my problems with Riley (as well as the screenwriters inability to think of what to do with him in season 5) is that Marc Blucas is too tall and spends all of his time looking down at Buffy and holding her shoulders.
There are a lot of stupid things in this episode that do my head in in an Angel way e.g. Riley supporting Buffy in the crack of doomed without tearing his hands apart and the actual breaking of the laws of physics so that she caught up with the falling demon.
And Willow really needed to go a party with lots of mean straight people smooching.
The best lines belong to Giles and ASH’s impeccable delivery: “My contrition completely dwarfs the impending apocalypse” and “Oh, as usual, dear”.
Posted in Buffy Season 4, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Television | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
This made my day: the post is funny and Jodie is just so…
Posted in Music | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 17th, 2007
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home #2
I’m sure the title is also a reference to how long it’ll take to get through the comics. The dialogue is fab but the artwork is variable: giant Dawn is superbly drawn, the military guys less well, Giles was a bit weedy (not tweedy) looking and that was Amy? I have a problem with Andrew playing any sort of role in the training of the Slayers and Buffy as Sleeping Beauty is hard to stomach (I’d love to say I have faith in Joss Whedon but I didn’t have a clue what was going on in Astonishing X-Men: Torn).
Still, Willow is back and is looking like Kate Bush in an homage to Tara’s dress in Once More With Feeling.
Posted in Buffy Season 8, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Comics | No Comments »
Monday, April 16th, 2007
According her myspace blog, Paula Frazer’s European tour has been cancelled. I’m not joining myspace so I can express my disappointment so I will say it here instead. I would have gladly donated money to help out so remember that next time…
For the next best thing to seeing her live, take a look at the video for Always On My Mind on the Birdman site.
Posted in Music, Paula Frazer | No Comments »
