Monday Thoughts
May. 12th, 2003 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonte- First, news from Variety today about a certain vampire with a soul. (Cut-tagged due to information regarding next season.)Yes, there will indeed be a next season, according to Variety. What's more, James Marsters will be making the trip south from the Hellmouth to the City of Angels. Charisma Carpenter will likely not a be a regular. Other Buffy folk may make guest appearances. And Joss himself has plans to write and direct several episodes. Oh, and Angel is not moving again, but will get a new lead-in: Smallville.
I appove of all these things, except that if I am not home on Wednesday, I won't be able to tape Smallville since I will still want to archive Angel but not Smallville. (Thank you, WB, for the Sunday Smallville rerun.)
Otherwise, well, it's Spike in LA and Joss putting words in his mouth. Prediction: Angel never, ever opens those blinds in his office during the day. It wouldn't fit his broody personality, would be taking too much form W&H. But Spike will open them with gleeful abandon. The potential of having the two vamps with souls in one place is enough to make season five a big deal. (Can't wait till Angel finds out about Spike's fling with Buffy.)
- We saw Bukcaroo Banzai over the weekend. Batya had neve seen it, despite being urged to by both em and her brother for years. (Have I mentioned how freaky it is that her brother and I have very similar tastes in comedy films? I knew I was marrying into the right family when I learned he, as well as the rest of the family, could quote Fletch.) She enjoyed it greatly, knowing it was not going to be a night watching a classic of American film. I liked it, but was surprised to see just how cheesy it was. This was screwball adventure on a budget, with California a poor substitute for New Jersey and a sense that more moeny was spent on the Hong Kong Cavaliers' bus than on anything else.
Still, this is a fun movie that at some level has seeds of greatness. The cast - Peter Weller, John Lithogw, etc. - is first-rate, and plays it straight. There is also a remarkable sense of camaraderie amng our hero and his gang. I wanted to see more of thse guys in action, and when one Cavalier died, it was oddly moving. This is also a rare super-hero film where the hero is beloved by everyone. We don't see that too often. The X-Men, SPidey, Batman, Buffy, Mystery Men, all are either not even known to the public or feared by them. Buckaroo is everyone's guy, someone that has the ear of the president and the admiration of the man on the street. And yet he is merely a very remarkable man, without any powres beyond his brain and his sesne of avdenture. He doesn't even have sartorial sense, as he gives a news conference wezaring a bowtie!
It's a shame that the projected follow-up projects never happened, but given the limited skills of the director and writer, maybe it's for the best. But now I have to see if anyone did any good fanfic with the Cavaliers.
- Caught a rerun of "Lie to Me," the first seriously depressing episode of Buffy, early in season two. I had forgotten Joss wrote this one, but as it was both very funny and very tragic, sometimes in the same scene, it should be obvious to anyone who misses the credits.
It's also interesting to watch this and feel that much of what was around then is now missing. The season 7 witty banter is not as witty as it was in season two. The deft switching from slightly sad to funny to tragic and back is now clumsy and obvious shifting. And Buffy's righteous rage and moral compass? I miss that about her. She's still the hero, but the fire that raged in her at the start, her dedication to protecting the innocent and stopping evil, it seems long gone. Of course, people do change, and I know it's way too late to turn back, but it would be nice to see just a little of that in the finale.
Oh, and the actor who played Buffy's friend from LA? It was Jason Behr, who two years later would start on Roswell as the leader of the alien teens. I wonder if he got his job there by showing the Roswell staff a tape of "Lie to Me," as his performance was remarkable.
I appove of all these things, except that if I am not home on Wednesday, I won't be able to tape Smallville since I will still want to archive Angel but not Smallville. (Thank you, WB, for the Sunday Smallville rerun.)
Otherwise, well, it's Spike in LA and Joss putting words in his mouth. Prediction: Angel never, ever opens those blinds in his office during the day. It wouldn't fit his broody personality, would be taking too much form W&H. But Spike will open them with gleeful abandon. The potential of having the two vamps with souls in one place is enough to make season five a big deal. (Can't wait till Angel finds out about Spike's fling with Buffy.)
- We saw Bukcaroo Banzai over the weekend. Batya had neve seen it, despite being urged to by both em and her brother for years. (Have I mentioned how freaky it is that her brother and I have very similar tastes in comedy films? I knew I was marrying into the right family when I learned he, as well as the rest of the family, could quote Fletch.) She enjoyed it greatly, knowing it was not going to be a night watching a classic of American film. I liked it, but was surprised to see just how cheesy it was. This was screwball adventure on a budget, with California a poor substitute for New Jersey and a sense that more moeny was spent on the Hong Kong Cavaliers' bus than on anything else.
Still, this is a fun movie that at some level has seeds of greatness. The cast - Peter Weller, John Lithogw, etc. - is first-rate, and plays it straight. There is also a remarkable sense of camaraderie amng our hero and his gang. I wanted to see more of thse guys in action, and when one Cavalier died, it was oddly moving. This is also a rare super-hero film where the hero is beloved by everyone. We don't see that too often. The X-Men, SPidey, Batman, Buffy, Mystery Men, all are either not even known to the public or feared by them. Buckaroo is everyone's guy, someone that has the ear of the president and the admiration of the man on the street. And yet he is merely a very remarkable man, without any powres beyond his brain and his sesne of avdenture. He doesn't even have sartorial sense, as he gives a news conference wezaring a bowtie!
It's a shame that the projected follow-up projects never happened, but given the limited skills of the director and writer, maybe it's for the best. But now I have to see if anyone did any good fanfic with the Cavaliers.
- Caught a rerun of "Lie to Me," the first seriously depressing episode of Buffy, early in season two. I had forgotten Joss wrote this one, but as it was both very funny and very tragic, sometimes in the same scene, it should be obvious to anyone who misses the credits.
It's also interesting to watch this and feel that much of what was around then is now missing. The season 7 witty banter is not as witty as it was in season two. The deft switching from slightly sad to funny to tragic and back is now clumsy and obvious shifting. And Buffy's righteous rage and moral compass? I miss that about her. She's still the hero, but the fire that raged in her at the start, her dedication to protecting the innocent and stopping evil, it seems long gone. Of course, people do change, and I know it's way too late to turn back, but it would be nice to see just a little of that in the finale.
Oh, and the actor who played Buffy's friend from LA? It was Jason Behr, who two years later would start on Roswell as the leader of the alien teens. I wonder if he got his job there by showing the Roswell staff a tape of "Lie to Me," as his performance was remarkable.
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Date: May. 12th, 2003 08:08 am (UTC)