Last evening we watched our latest Netflix flick, "9". It was absolutely terrible. Visually pretty? Yes. Story wise? A waste of time. If I hadn't been crocheting during most of it, I would REALLY have felt that I had wasted my time. I won't give anything away in case anyone who reads this is still planning on seeing it. It didn't engage me at all. I didn't care about the tiny robots (the '9') which I was clearly supposed to. Ya know, I don't want to waste anymore time explaining my reasons for not liking it. Next...
The DVD we got before the aforementioned '9' was the pilot to 'Blade: The Series'. I watched all of the episodes when they aired on Spike, and I was extremely disappointed when they cancelled it. The movies with Wesley Snipes were good...not equally, but good nonetheless. Hip Hop artist Sticky Fingaz plays Blade in the TV version, and he's quite good in the role. The casting over all was great. British actor Neil Jackson played the main baddie, Marcus Van Sciver, and played him quite well. He played the vampire role with a nice mix of evil and pathos. When he's describing the vampire way of life to the newly turned Krista, he makes it sound pretty good. He sells the family honor and history card well. Krista, the main femme fatale (of sorts) is played by Jill Wagner, who you may know as one of the hosts of the crappy TV competition show 'Wipeout'. (That show is an extremely bad take off on 'Ninja Warrior' if you ask me, but that's another entry though.) When 'B:TS' went off the air, it was just another example of a decent show going bye-bye while the crap keeps getting picked up. I enjoyed seeing the pilot again, and look forward to seeing the rest. In the not too distant future, Glenn and I will have to get an XBox so we can watch Netflix stuff on demand instead of having to get the DVDs one at a time. Now that we've started watching more series, it's annoying to have to watch them in such a drawn out manner. I prefer the marathon method. We've got another series I really liked in the cue, 'Space Above & Beyond'. Can't decide if I want to wait until we've seen all of 'Blade' first, or if we should stagger the discs between the two. I know we can watch them on the computer, but that's a bit of a hassle. Decisions, decisions...
The Logo Channel has been showing mini-marathons of a show I was completely addicted to, and one that I greatly miss. "Buffy The Vampire Slayer". I'm not even going to mention the feature film starring Ms. Swanson...but then I guess I just did. I'm not going to talk further about it then. (hehehe) The series was far superior. I loved everything about it. The writing, the casting...everything. All of the seasons on DVD have been on my wishlist for some time.
I watched a couple of the episodes Logo was airing the other night, and it made me think of all of the noise about the 'Twilight' Franchise. I haven't read one of the books, nor have I seen any of the movies. I don't plan to either. It just looks like 'Dawson's Creek' meets '90210' with blood suckers. I am a huge Vampire fan, but 'Twilight' doesn't interest me. Sparkly vampires...sheesh...give me a break. Yes, a number of the characters in Buffy are young, and there is a bit of drama that goes on...and yes, there is mortal/vampire love going on...it's all in how it's handled. There is a comic booky/campy edge to things that is kind of balanced with a huge dark streak running through the middle of everything. I think Joss Whedon was trying to make up for the terrible movie...don't think the world created in the feature is how he envisioned things. Think I may have read that somewhere in an interview with Joss.
I have really been enjoying the episodes I've seen recently. I've missed the Sunnydale gang. Spike was my fave from his first appearance. Marsters played him wonderfully. Spike was an evil dude, but you couldn't help but like him. Giles is my second fave. However, he lost favor with me towards the end when he went in on a plan to kill Spike (Spike was being controlled by The First, and any time he would hear a song his mum used to sing to him he would vamp out and attack people). Running a very close third on my favorites list is Willow. Alyson Hannigan played her so well. The quirkyness and the 'Willow Speak'. Brilliant.
The last thing I want to mention on the Buffy front is something I have major mixed feelings about, and there is a part of me that hopes they don't "go there"...but they are, so I'll just have to be torked off. The last reports I got on a projected Buffy feature film were that Whedon and...well, anyone else associated with the original series or the original film will NOT be involved. The new screenwriter, A 29 year old chick, Whit Anderson, says that 'Buffy' was at the center of her TV viewing when it was originally airing. I'm just not feeling very optimistic about what she's going to do with the property. I read a few articles about the new project, one of them a kind of intro to Anderson. The growing impression I got as I continued to read was that those involved with the new feature went out of their way to not involve any of the old guard...behind or in front of the camera. To me it's just too soon to be doing this with the franchise WITHOUT the original cast or Whedon. Yes, the original cast members are a bit older, but they still look damn good. James Marsters, for example. I've seen him on several shows over the past bit, and he's looking really good. Geller and Hannigan look great, too. This is all a big mistake. In my opinion. Whedon has responded to things, and in his response there is one sentence that stands out.
"I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER…"
I agree. Too soon to be doing what they're doing. They're making a movie that I personally am planning to pass over on principle.
I love that Joss Whedon quote! We've watched everything he's had anything to do with, and we have all the seasons of Buffy on DVD. I think we've watched the whole series from beginning to end at least three times. The characters and the very clever writer really made it work. I actually watched Twilight out of curiosity, but it just didn't do anything that Buffy hadn't already done better.
ReplyDeleteThat's kind of what I figured about the 'Twilight' stuff...and it is unlike me to skip over watching anything related to vampires. I have always had a thing about them, and I've watched a lot of b-a-d BAD movies about them. 'Buffy' was just such a brilliant show. Great characters, and a great ensemble to portray them.
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