Unfettered Brilliance

A Swing and a Miss!

2012-02-11T17:55:00.001-05:00

I like to start my film classes with a not-quiz called "20 Terms to Get You Started." This list includes technical terms such as "fade" and "jump cut," but also includes the wonderful phrase "Sturgeon's Law." Theodore Sturgeon is credited with promulgating the idea that "90% of everything is trash."* As I explain to my class, this is the reason we only study the remaining 10%. This being said, you sometimes can't steer clear of the shoals presented by the 90%.

This weekend, for example, my Wanna Cook? co-author and I excitedly attended an area production of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. This is a show that came to life on the Internet as a direct result of the writer's strike of 2007 - 2008. It's a hilarious, oddly touching science fiction/superhero musical - and that's a completely inadequate description. We were thrilled to be able to see it translated into a live performance. Sadly, we wound up doing something we never do - we left at the intermission.

Seriously - this was a blue plate special of awful, which I why I won't include the name of the production company or location in this post, as I'm sure they're all nice people. We got an inkling that things were not as they should be when the venue kept us outside in the cold because the sound check wasn't complete. Then the director (who was walking around with a welded wire horse's head strapped to his cranium making me think that some unholy melding of Bad Horse and Equus had taken place) announced that four (count 'em - FOUR) roles were being played by understudies. Then the projection tech didn't work, which had Spinal Tap moments of unintended comedy. And the final strike - the performers had been so badly miked that I suspected sabotage from the Fox network. Listen, I'm a kind critic. I know how much work goes into putting on a show, but I was in total agreement with my co-author when he said, "The way I look at it, I paid $10 to get in and $10 to get out. I don't begrudge a cent of it."

We then went to see The Descendants, a film which is getting heavy Oscar buzz. After seeing it, I have no idea why. It's not that it was an awful movie; it wasn't. It just wasn't particularly good, either. The film is getting extremely positive reviews, but I trust my taste. Alexander Payne, who directed here, also was at the helm of Sideways, which deals with some similar character types, and I'll admit to liking it more, although it also isn't among my "must haves." Maybe it was just an off night - happens.

COMING SOON: The film class tackles the "mad scientist" trope in James Whale's Bride of Frankenstein. Also - coming in about two weeks (on 2/22), I start adding "Walter White Wednesdays" on this blog to comment on and question the goings-on in Breaking Bad. Get your popcorn and join me!

*Actually, Sturgeon used a word that is a bit more colorful than "trash," but you get the idea.

Time to Start!

2012-02-04T13:43:00.002-05:00

While the class has been going for nearly two weeks now, so far it's all been about orientation "stuff" that is essential to the student's success in the class, but isn't nearly as much fun as actually watching and dissecting the films! But there's a lot to be said for a strong beginning, and I think it's a solid approach to give students time to get their online ducks in a row.

That's done now - or will be by Monday, when the first viewing assignment goes up. We're starting with the classic German Expressionism film Metropolis, which is also really the beginning of big screen science fiction. I've given them several links to supplement their viewing - I always think it's a good idea to have some background on the film, the filmmaker, and the time period in which the film was made. After all, science fiction is often about a view of the future and it's interesting to note how that changes. You didn't see atomic monster movies before WW2 showed us what the unleashed atom could do and looking at the tech on the old Star Trek seems quaint in the 21st century. Their first paper is a simple response to the film - not totally undirected, of course. I want the students to start looking critically at film, not just see it as background entertainment.

I'll post the material on Monday and we'll see how things go from there. I have high hopes. Metropolis may be an "old movie" (it was released in 1927, so it's not only black and white, it's a silent film - which for most of my students is a whole new ballgame), but many of my students in the past have discovered that the story is quite compelling.

In the meantime, my co-author in the Wanna Cook? project and I were talking about animals in space. Who knows why - these things just sort of happen. Did you know that cats have experienced zero gravity? It must have driven them nigh-crazy to not be able to land on their feet. Odd, to say the least. But not nearly as strange as this:

Onward to Metropolis!

Babylon 5 & Breaking Bad Update!

2012-01-29T11:59:00.002-05:00

The film class (which you can follow on Twitter using the hashtag #cccfilmclass) has launched, but the real work on the material doesn't start until tomorrow - it's orientation right now to make sure all the students can navigate around the course and give them time to set up Adobe reader, Flash player, get a Netflix account and so on. So while I expect to discuss the films and the students' reactions to them, that won't begin for a couple of weeks.

Which gives me time to discuss a couple of other things.

1. Recently, my husband and I began a re-watch (for him) and a watch (for me) of Straczynski's Babylon 5. We spend the week apart, due to work/school obligations, so we latched on to the Very Good Idea of picking a series to watch (last year it was Supernatural) so we have something other than work/school obligations to talk about. So far, we've picked good stuff that caught our interest.

Now, I'm a science fiction fan, but I'd missed this one. We're now finished with the first two seasons and I have to say that there's a lot to recommend this series. The effects are limited by mid-90s CGI technology, but even that can be forgiven, given the show's ambition and charm. Actions have consequences, characters grow and change and have to live with what they've done. In addition to all this, Babylon 5 deserves to be remembered for Straczynski's vision - this is the show that brought the "long arc" to television in a setting outside of soap operas. Broadcast over five full-length seasons, Straczynski had mapped out what he wanted to happen with themes and characters so small bits in Season 1 will come back much, much later. Like all really good science fiction, it asks the Big Questions, far more so than most so-called "reality television," which mostly consists of people doing snarky things to one another, but not really having consequences of their actions. Stick with Quality Television and avoid the dreck.

We're living in the midst of a resurgence of Quality Television right now, with television often taking on complex stories and three-dimensional characters with more success than film. For so very long, TV has been seen as film's slower, less attractive little brother and that is changing. Don't get me wrong; plenty of TV is dreck (as are many movies, which often fall back on star power, fart jokes, and formulaic plotlines), but try the too-soon gone Firefly or revel in the nigh-Shakespearean language of Deadwood, or just let your jaw drop at the first seven episodes of Breaking Bad. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

2. Speaking of Breaking Bad, the project proceeds. (And the Dude abides, for the Big Lebowski fans out there.) I've finished working my way through the first season and it truly is incredible how much happens in a "measly" seven episodes and it's downright astonishing how this show hit the ground running. There is none of the usual "finding its feet" that I expect with any new show (or new art in general - it usually takes time to find your voice). Aside - I really like the T-shirt my co-author is wearing here and if you say your an author, you have an obligation to meet that deadline!

I think we both have found our "grooves" - remember that we also both have full-time jobs and writing a book is not something you do in your "spare time;" you have to have a schedule and a plan (at least I do). My co-author is ahead of me in the viewing and adding of notes, but I've reached my January goal of watching and noting the first season and it's a give-and-take. One week I'll be ahead, one week he'll be ahead. Just depends on everything else going on at any given time. Check back in as Wanna Cook? comes into being. You can check here or at my co-author's blog (click here) or follow us on Twitter with the hashtag #wannacook.

Let me check in on my class - back soon!

On Your Mark!

2012-01-21T11:04:00.004-05:00

The online film class launches on Wednesday and I've been a busy li'l film bee getting ready for it. One of the major challenges has been figuring out just HOW the class was going to see the films that are the central text of the class, since we don't do "group viewings" in an online class. (There's also a textbook, but that's used more for vocabulary and extra examples.) I'm still working the details and I'm pleased with what's coming together - I'm hopeful that all the films will be digitally available through a digital service my college is testing and/or through some additional streaming services of the school (not all the films I intend to use are available through the digital service - copyright and contract issues there). Still, my advice to my students is to set up an outside account (I'm suggesting Netflix and not the video streaming service, as several of the films are not available in Netflix's streaming catalog, but all of them are available through their DVD service. Not everything is available through Amazon's instant rental service; I don't know about iTunes. And Netflix is free for the first month and you can cancel at any time). I've set up a list of "what films when" on both an embedded Google calendar and a separate Word document so the students can go ahead and get their queues set up. I'm hopeful that this will make things run smoothly, but in my experience, online classes can be great and they can go frustratingly wrong due to tech issues. If students don't read carefully (or at all), it gets worse quickly.

To wit: I've been struggling mightily to get some orientation material set up as short (10 - 15 minutes) videos that I then embed into the Blackboard platform used by my school. It's a multi-step process - set up the Powerpoints, save. Narrate over them, save. Convert to wmv, save. (This part literally takes hours. I'm always amazed at how impatient I get at this stage. The trick is to set it up to run overnight and just go to bed.) Take the resulting wmv file, import into Camtasia and save as an swf file. Now embed that into Blackboard and constantly remind your students that they have a free Shockwave download so yes, they can play it. (Now pray that they have a fast Internet connection and aren't dealing with *yike* dial-up.)

To repeat - Yike.

Hours it takes. HOURS - and that's if you know what you're doing! (I'm slowing getting into that camp, but I'm still a little bit in the woods. I have an appointment on Monday to find out if there's a reliable shortcut to all of this. But it seems that when tech needs to talk to other tech, sometimes there are limitations and roadblocks.) In a way, this is good. I need to know how students feel and I know how I feel when the tech doesn't work as advertised.

Still - I'm determined to make a solid go of it. But yeah, it'd be so much easier to just show the films in class and do a basic orientation lecture. Don't be fooled - distance learning works (and it can work very well), but don't confuse that with an online class being less work than a traditional class. It's not. Not if you're doing it right.

Onward!

Update from the Desert!

2012-01-14T08:12:00.000-05:00

. . . Otherwise known as how Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Guide to Breaking Bad is coming along.

My co-author and I have roughed out a schedule - let's see how that holds up. I've never written a book by collaboration before. Either it's been all on my shoulders (such as the Faith & Choice book) or I've been contributing chapters to a project, so I've submitted my work to the editors, who get back to me with notes that I need to consider for the next draft so the entire book flows in terms of style and theme (the Buffy in the Classroom book is an example of this). But this involves a nearly daily process of watching, noting, writing up the rough notes and making note of possible "sidebars," such as an aside on just how it is that hydrofluoric acid can eat through a ceramic bathtub, but not a plastic storage tub. We're using some tech tools to make this sharing of information easier and more efficient - have you tried Dropbox yet? If not, you should and it's free. Great Cloud storage, accessible from everywhere with Internet access, so no more flash drives (which I remember thinking were just cool as cool could be only a few years ago).

Just a few notes from the first half of Season 1. When things go bad at this point (and they quickly do), watch how Walt is so hesitant. He doesn't belong in this world that he's stepped into, but he's convinced that, so long as he has a plan and everyone else follows it, everything will be fine. There are problems with both parts of his approach - first, circumstances are such that he hasn't formulated a real plan for dealing with them and second, people, by their very natures, don't much like a newbie ordering them around and demanding that their actions fit a certain profile (or, as Jesse puts it so succinctly, "Well, heil Hitler, bitch!"). Always keep in mind that Walt chooses his actions at this point.

Also, pay attention to the camera work. Gilligan likes to surprise his viewer by using some unusual, not-at-eye-level camera placement. When that happens, ask yourself, "What is the camera showing me?" It'll be important, whether it's the camera focusing on a coin being flipped through the air above two people deciding who's going to do which "unpleasant chore" or focusing up through a floor covered in . . . well, watch the episode ". . . And the Bag's in the River" for that one.

Last, pay attention to locale. The desert has been called "a place with no memory" and that may or may not be true, but it's a place outside the civilized boundaries of town where the normal rules don't apply. I think of the city/woods division in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream in this aspect of Breaking Bad. The world of Athens (or ABQ) follows one set of rules and has one set of rulers; the wilds of the woods (or the desert) is ruled by another, completely different, set of rules and people. Very interesting things happen when these worlds collide, especially in the border spaces.

So much is going on in this show! I could write here about color in costuming and lighting, or about fear as a motivating force, or about the dialogue that sparkles like an amethyst, but that will all wait. Follow the progress either here or over on Twitter - use the hashtag #wannacook for best results.

And get that RV out of the driveway!

Breaking Bad Project!

2012-01-05T07:43:00.000-05:00

I can officially break the news! A project that Ensley F. Guffey and I have been working on for some time now is going to happen and we both couldn't be more excited! Breaking Bad, the AMC show that has been an Emmy darling since it began airing a few years ago, is a show that both of us enjoy watching (well, "enjoy" is probably not quite the right word) and we have both been blown away by the show's quality and willingness to explore some very dark material. I won't spoil here - much - but Breaking Bad can be summed up this way: A good man finds himself in desperate straits and is pushed to the edge by his circumstances. He then discovers that he likes the edge, even without the desperate straits. It's too simple a summary, but it's a start.

We had been kicking around the idea of co-authoring a project, but hadn't settled on a particular idea until we realized the Breaking Bad was an uncharted country. It's wildly successful critically and its viewership is both loyal and building. The show is also, undeniably, a fine example of Quality TV. So we talked and we wrote and we called and we tweaked (not that way - did I mention the show has meth-making as a central plot point?) and I am proud to report that we are now under contract with ECW Press to deliver the manuscript of Wanna Cook? The Unofficial Guide to Breaking Bad. The fourth season wrapped up a few months ago (short seasons, not the full 22-episode order that's business-as-usual for network TV) and it contained a finale that truly hit the "reset" button. Air dates for Season 5 (which showrunner Vince Gilligan has indicated will be the final season) aren't set quite yet, but the idea is that we'll submit the manuscript for Seasons 1 - 4 in June and Season 5 late next fall after that season has aired. Publication will probably happen early next year. We're going WAY beyond a simple episode recap - you can find those easily without our help. We'll include information on material as diverse as:

What does it mean to "break bad"?
Just how does the DEA operate?
What exactly is meth and why is it so dangerous to make?
Legal ethics
Recipes (but not for meth!)

Writing a book is a lengthy project and I anticipate many twists and turns along the way. You can follow our progress here and over on Ensley's blog, as well as on Twitter - use #wannacook.

See you in the RV!

What Are We Gonna Do Now?

2011-12-28T11:20:00.001-05:00

That's the question posed to Buffy as she stands by the deep smoking crater than once was Sunnydale - home of vampire nests galore, a library unsurpassed in the California school district system in terms of mystical knowledge, along with a conveniently-located UC campus, a deepwater port, and - oh yeah, Dracula's castle. Quite a town, that Sunnydale.

Yes, the year-long Great Buffy Rewatch has come to an end, as all good things must. On Tuesday (hereinafter to be known as "Buffy night"), Nikki Stafford's final post about the finale episode, "Chosen," went up and today is devoted to musings from fans and academics alike regarding what the show has meant to them. Posts are going up on the hour until 10 pm tonight, so this link will get you to the general "Great Buffy Rewatch" tag. This one will take you to the "Buffy Book Club," which features Nikki holding forth on some of the academic books written by some of the contributors to the Rewatch. It's good stuff and shows the breadth and the depth of scholarship that has gone in to the show featuring the little blonde cheerleader who fights the forces of Darkness. I know, it sounds silly. It's not, and you know that if you've been following the Rewatch even a little.

So what's next? Well, the film class is still on hiatus for a week or two as I get things ready behind the scenes to teach the class in an online format, which means I have time and space to talk about other films. Yesterday, I went to see Tintin, which I can highly recommend. But, I first have to be the curmudgeon yelling at kids cutting across the yard.

3D is a gimmick. When it's bad, it's Catwomen of the Moon bad. (Yes, I've seen it in 3D. Don't ask - it was a dark period in my life.) And when it's good (and in Tintin, it's very good), it calls attention to itself and pulls me out of the movie to remark, "Gee, that was good 3D!" Look - Tintin is excellent. The animation is gorgeous, the plot is that of a fast paced adventure yarn - heck, it's the best Indiana Jones movie Steven Spielberg has done in years!! (And maybe one day, Andy Serkis will get to have his body, voice, and face on the big screen simultaneously! I joke, but only a little.) In other words, go, but save yourself the cost of the Roy Orbison-style 3D glasses.

Oh - and the previews! Seriously - I'm ready for this 3D wave to crash and retreat to the sea. Re-releasing Titanic in 3D? Folks, the ship still sinks. See for yourself in April. And George Lucas needs to be tied up until he comes to his senses - he's known for re-releasing his Star Wars movies every time some new technology comes out to tweak his characterization (Han still shot first, Lucas! Accept it. We all have.) or squeeze a few more bucks out of that part of his fan base who doesn't yet shake their heads in exasperation of what once was. At any rate, look for The Phantom Menace to be re-released in 3D in February. Jar Jar Binks will improve not a whit in 3D.

It's all about the stories, not the gingerbreading.

And the popcorn.

Happy New Year to all!

Alone

2011-12-21T18:46:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it seems that's how we all end up, doesn't it? Alone. In the Great Buffy Rewatch (which only has one week to go - and you really don't want to miss "Chosen"), Buffy is having a lot of "alone time" and most of it is not by her choice. It's funny, in a non-funny way, how much "not choosing" goes into being the "Chosen One." Of course, that's a theme Whedon returns to again and again. Cynthea Masson is in charge of this next-to-last week of posting and she manages the difficult feat of bringing it all full circle. Scholar/fan, Slayer/Potential, blogger/commentator - there's something here for everyone.

Over at the film class, things have wrapped up. I had good papers on Surrogates (in fact, I was gratified at the comments on the use of color - something students said more than once they'd never consciously noticed before this class!), but even those were turned in alone. This was the only film that I strongly encouraged the students to watch on their own and, while it works, I miss the communal viewing experience. That's going to be the "new normal" for next semester, when I'll teach the class again, but that version will be online. Oh, don't worry, I'll keep posting here about what that's like, but I'm expecting a number of things to be different, due to the technology and the "alone watching."

I posted the following link for my film class in their last class announcement. While we all have holiday classics that we enjoy watching (maybe you're a Rankin-Bass Claymation fan or maybe for you the holidays aren't complete until you've seen one version or another of A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life), you may never have seen Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Thanks to Hulu, you can see it here for free! But be warned - this movie is so bone-deep awful that you probably want to hide all sharp objects and loaded firearms before you begin watching. And don't watch it alone - you'll need a friend to turn to and say, "Are we really watching this? Wouldn't it be less painful to just drink straight from a car radiator?"

Speaking of alone - Christmas is just around the corner and it's not a good time to be alone. Yet many, many people are. Keep them in your thoughts and help out the individuals and groups who try mightily to bring holiday cheer to the lost and lonely among us. Christmas miracles aren't that hard to come by, but God needs hands and feet on this earth, and as St. Theresa famously said, yours are the ones He's got. Go get used!

Heating Up and Winding Down

2011-12-14T10:29:00.001-05:00

In the film class, students are working on their final papers. Since those are due Friday, I'll discuss the exam film, Surrogates, next week once the exam papers are in and graded.

Which means more time and space for a few other items! It's hard to believe, but there are only two more postings to go in the year-long Great Buffy Rewatch. This week, two posters - David Lavery and Lorna Jowett - take on a few episodes that are rocketing toward a finale to remember. (OK, so it's only sort of a finale, since Buffy's narrative is continued in comic book form, but we didn't know that was going to happen when Season 7 aired, so . . . ) Really, it's a superb posting this week. Of course, I say anything that involves the Trio and a Technicolor field of flowers and a ditty strummed on lyres is worth your time (see top of post, as if you missed that!). But there's also heartbreak here. And more than one unreliable narrator. And some harsh, harsh truth. And a vicious ex-preacher makes his appearance in Sunnydale.

You don't want to miss it.

On the other hand, you might want to miss X-Men: First Class, which I watched with FryDaddy last night as a end-of-semester brain candy flick. OK, I get that it was a success at the box office and garnered mostly positive reviews. But I trust my own judgment and I thought this was simply a hot mess. First and foremost, it totally screws around with the origin stories, which I could easily forgive and/or overlook but people will assume that this is canon and boy howdy! are they in for a shock. (Also, never use a character's name for a different character. "Angel" is Warren Worthington, who has his own issues [it's actually more of a subscription], but being a mutant go-go dancer isn't one of them.) But far worse to me was the "wink-wink" Swinging 60s setting. It's one thing to make a homage to earlier times and films, but if you're not careful, you can easily wind up with an inadvertent spoof. First Class is trying to channel the smooth cool of early James Bond, but it comes off as too knowing and derivative - more Mike Myers than Sean Connery. For me, this film just didn't work, aside from providing ample snarking opportunities. (For an example, see any scene with the woefully miscast January Jones as Emma Frost. However, in the interest of fairness, I must point out that the all-too-brief scene of Wolverine rejecting the offer to join the band is so very worth it.)

Lastly - still looking for holiday gifts? Go here for an ever-evolving list of Whedon literary products being hawked by their authors/editors. Many thanks to Ensley Guffey for shamelessly ripping off John Scalzi's excellent idea!

Exclusion & Outsiders

2011-12-12T08:07:00.001-05:00

It's funny - this is a season characterized by "goodwill towards men," you know, a time of "let's be a little nicer; times are tough and we're all in this together." Only at both the film class and the Great Buffy Rewatch, the messages are a little - well, let's say mixed.

We saw the final class film last week. I selected District 9 to contrast with the previous week's Planet of the Apes to provide a platform for discussing fear, power, and things turned topsy-turvy. In District 9, humans are back to being top dog (unlike in Planet), but we're not exactly benevolent overlords. The aliens look especially alien and we never learned to share all that well. Also, the South Africa setting brings up many ways to discuss separatism and not only the simplistic binary of "humans good, aliens bad." Watch for the comments about Nigerians. And just to reinforce one of my main themes, science fiction is a fantastic genre for its willingness to take on these "big themes" such as exclusion, who decides where to draw the line of "insider" or "Other," and what happens on the borders of those circles (a theme explored imaginatively in District 9). Always watch those liminal spaces.

Students are working on their final exam paper right now - those are due by this Friday. They're digging into the film Surrogates for this one and I've already told them that they must limit their comments regarding Bruce Willis's hairpiece to no more than a single paragraph. Seriously, there's some good stuff in that film. While it's certainly not a classic in the mold of Metropolis or some of the other films on the syllabus, sometimes you are more willing to explore a middling-good film far more than you are to take on a classic - there's more room to maneuver.

Also, over at the Rewatch - wow! The conclusion of the final season (and the end of this year-long Rewatch) is looming and (at least for the moment) life in Slayerville is a mess. Elizabeth Rambo - she of Buffy Goes Dark, the book-length examination of Seasons 6 & 7 - is at the helm of this week's trio of episodes. Nothing will ever be the same as it once was, but that's always true for everyone, everywhere. And we find out where Spike picked up that leather duster he's so fond of. Let's just say Spike doesn't shop at Goodwill. We're only (gulp!) three weeks from concluding this project and there's a lot of (very bloody) ground yet to cover.

Join us, won't you, Gentle Reader?

Changes and a Triumph of Felt!

2011-12-04T08:43:00.001-05:00

I'm going to be making a few changes here over the holidays - already you'll notice that, over on the right, I've added a "Follow Me on Twitter" button. Yes, I'm there, too and I'd love to have you tag along on that journey. I'm going to be adding a "Now Playing" link as well that will link to whatever movie or TV series I think is worth spotlighting at that particular time. Sometimes it'll be a new release, sometimes it'll be an older gem that I've just discovered (or maybe re-discovered) . . . anyway, it'll always be something that I think is well worth your time. Check back for it a little later, but I have to say, I bet the first one will be . . .

The new Muppets movie.

Yep.

And I'm not alone in giving this one high praise - Rotten Tomatoes gives it a nigh-unprecedented 97% favorable rating (which is a percentage point higher than the artsy-gonna-sweep-the-Oscars flick The Artist). Mind you, critical reviews, whether from trained "they pay me to do this" critics or "I'm here for the popcorn" consumers, should never be viewed as the end all-be all of criticism, but when a veritable slew of critics and consumers share the similar opinions, it's worth looking at. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I'm a fan of the felt from Way Back. In fact, I'm probably exactly who some of the lovingly-composed shots are aimed at - I grew up with these guys. I learned to count with the Count on Sesame Street (and how to share - mostly. I have my Oscar the Grouch days, as do we all). But I was at the age that, when I "grew up" too much for Sesame Street (bye, Grover!) there was a theatre full of felt creations waiting to entertain me.

Oh, my.

How much I learned there! I learned that shows look great from the front of house, but are often full-on chaos backstage. I learned about backstage (and yes, went on to be a theatre major. Funny). I learned that heckling from the gallery is an art form, but artists persist in the face of criticism nevertheless. I learned about sketch comedy and sarcasm and sly subversion. I also learned about gentleness and tolerance and family. And drumming.

There is a very nicely done critical book on the Muppets - Kermit Culture, you can buy it here - and I am fortunate to know the editors. You don't have to take it with you to the theatre, but really - in the midst of dreck about sparkly vampires and Adam Sandler in drag still not being funny, go see this movie. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll want a Kermit the Frog watch.

Power & Fear

2011-11-30T14:13:00.001-05:00

Whoops! Time snuck upon me – the end of the semester will do that, as well as another project that I can't quite talk about just yet, but hope to soon! – and I’ve missed an entry here. Let’s get back on track.

In the film class, students have presented their individualprojects. Themes ranged from “life in apost-apocalyptic world” to “bodily transformations” with others to boot. Interesting, well-researched work waspresented and students seemed to actually have a good time showing what they’dlearned about how their theme was presented and developed in sciencefiction. (Great movie clips, too!)

Then this week, we started our final theme – POWER! Who has it, how did they get it, and whatlengths will they go to in order to keep it are a few of the angles the classwill examine by looking at our final two films. This week was the classic Planet of the Apes which I find to be a verygood starting point for this discussion, in part because humans are no longerat the top of the food chain. We’re notused to being the subjugated ones, so this film forces viewers to look atissues of racism and environmental degradation from another viewpoint. (And, c'mon - it just goes with my profile pic!)

Next week, we’ll compare it to a film in which humans are ontop, but maybe shouldn’t be there. District 9 takes a different look at racial superiority and, quitefrankly, humans don’t come out all that well. It also is a nice point to begin wrapping up the class, since itincludes so much that we’ve discussed – the documentary feel of the film, aforeign point of view, technical aspects in the creation of the “Prawns,”color, and setting are all important elements of the film.

Meanwhile, things have not been quiet over at theRewatch. I missed posting on last week’swrite-up, which is a shame. Let me makeup for it here. Crissy Calhoun took onthree episodes that can be viewed as the turning point for the final season of Buffy – the Big Bad is revealed andseriously – “Conversations with Dead People” is just a killer of anepisode. Read about it here. Power and fear are becoming very big issues in Sunnydale.

Then this week, Jennifer Stuller heads up the recap as Season 7 continues to heat up. Buffy has always been setapart from others by her identity as the Slayer and suddenly, she’s beset by ahouse full of Potentials. Read about ithere.

OK – I’m back on track! Season 7 is going to get better and better (and tearier and tearier) andDistrict 9 is going to (hopefully)both pull everything in the class together and blow expectations apart. All in one week!

Double Dose!

2011-11-16T07:51:00.001-05:00

This week, the film class viewed Joss Whedon's Serenity to set up a contrast to last week's viewing of Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop. There are (of course) sound pedagogical reasons for the film to be included on the syllabus, but I'll admit that it's no hardship for me to sit through this one. I've seen Serenity literally dozens of times and there are still moments that make me snort with half-concealed laughter, catch my breath at the beauty of the composition, and - yes - make me proud of what humans can accomplish. (River's determined "My turn" is one of those moments, incidentally.) I'll have to see what the students thought in their longer responses this week and in the final paper, but the viewing seems to have been a success; not only in "gee, I liked that one" but also in terms of "hmm, this science fiction stuff can have some heft to it." One of the best moments for any teacher, regardless of the age and skill level of the students, has to be those all-too-rare flashes when you actually see it coming together for the pupil.

Yay, team!

Meanwhile, over at the Rewatch, Season Seven continues. Nikki Stafford Her Own Bad Self is the poster this week and she gives some great backstory on the season itself, as well as discussing the three episodes up for analysis this week. I had forgotten how heartbreaking "Help" (7.4) was.

Up next week - the film students present their individual projects (topics range from robots to time travel to life in a post-apocalyptic world - then I think a little Firefly might be in order. (Or maybe, being the week before Thanksgiving, "Pangs" should be on the menu. Hmmm.)

Also - Slayage 5 proposals are due by December 1. I must finish that, along with making the corrections to the next draft of my contribution for The Joss Whedon Reader, in which I examine Whedon's Dollhouse in light of the cinematic theory of the male gaze and the myth of Echo and Narcissus. Fear not - it's easier to read than it may first appear!

Are You Living in the Real World?

2011-11-10T08:49:00.001-05:00

Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop would sign off each episode with a tagline in the lower right corner of the blackened screen at the end of the session credits. The most usual one was "See You Space Cowboy," but there were others. At the end of the movie, the tagline is a question - "Are You Living in the Real World?" A deceptively simple question - Bebop is a show that explores Big Questions such as honor, family, responsibility, identity, and, yes, reality. Do the shimmering golden butterflies mean that this world is the real one and that Beauty exists and matters or do they signify that the brain of the viewer has been compromised, that this world is merely a dream, and an awful one at that?

It's no secret that I like Bebop. I think it's complex, richly nuanced and the vocal talents are spot-on. (It also makes smoking look cool, but there it is.) I'm using Bebop in the class to set up a discussion of space opera vs. space Western by having the students examine both Bebop and (next week) Serenity. Common themes are woven throughout both but there are significant differences and departures as well, including the pacing. Japanese films tend to be slower paced and to take more time to build than most American films - we like quick cuts and action, action, action! (As an experiment, imagine Michael Bay being handed the script for Kurosawa's Ran, along with a budget of a hundred million dollars. Now go put your head between your knees and breathe deeply - it never happened. It'll all be okay.)

Over at the Rewatch, we've begun Season Seven. Buffy discovers that Spike has a soul - the scene at the end of "Beneath You" is simply heartbreaking. It was then and it remains so now. Elizabeth Rambo explains it all - Buffy is a rich text, and it's well worth paying attention to what's being said by whom. It's all connected. Really.

Next week - A double dose of Whedon as the film class takes on Serenity and the Rewatch continues with Season Seven. See you in the real world, Space Cowboy!

Is Anything On TV?

2011-11-02T07:14:00.000-04:00

This was a question I used to ask when the choices at my childhood home were very limited. We didn't have cable while I was growing up and there were only the "Big Three" networks. (I know, it sounds like I spent my childhood drawing pictures of a mastodon hunt on the walls of a cave. I didn't. The earth was still cooling and was too hot for organized hunting trips.) Nowadays, there are many more choices. More networks on "regular" broadcast television, plus "netlets" like the CW, plus basic and premium cable, plus DVR technology, as well as watching-on-demand streaming technology. But there's still that basic question -

Is anything on?

Well, yes.

Over at the Rewatch, Season Six of Buffy ends with Buffy digging her way out of a grave - her second that season. But the world she emerges into is one that has both radically changed and one she wants to actually live in. An excellent write up to conclude what is often a dark and unfairly derided season.

The film class took a break from watching feature-length films to look at what television can do. I wanted to mix things up, so I included a stand alone from a classic show ("The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" from Twilight Zone), an example of "what if we broadcast through the Internet instead of waiting for a green light from the suits?" (Whedon's Dr. Horrible which also sparks good discussions on role expectations and the use of sound, which is the focus for next week) and an episode from a longer narrative arc ("Ballad of Fallen Angels" from Cowboy Bebop). This is a hard week to winnow down the viewing - in its infancy, television was viewed as stage and film's not-quite-up-to-snuff little brother, but I'd argue (along with others, such as New York Magazine's Emily Nussbaum) that certainly isn't the case nowadays.

Wait, you say. There's a lot of trash out there. Indeed. And there always has been, whether the "out there" is TV facing your sofa or the widescreen at the local multiplex. Here's a simple plan to work around that - if it's trash, either don't watch it, or watch it KNOWING that it's trash. (I, myself, have occasionally gotten sucked into so-called "reality" TV featuring supremely starved and toned women who wear flip-flops that retail for more than my good china. A little bad can be good for you - just don't think it's real.)

And look for the good. I'm finally doing an organized watch of Straczynski's Babylon 5 which looks quite promising (despite the late 80s synth pop that will apparently come back in the future, along with shoulder pads) as it asks the Big Questions - "Who are you?" "What do you want?" Important questions to ask, and to answer, as you go along in life.

I'm also impressed with Ringer (although I'm behind in my watching of it) which I'm finding to be a fun show with some unexpected twists. But the one I'm really hopeful for is Grimm. The pilot episode sets up what seems to be a solid framework - there's at least one strong female character (who hopefully will pull through and be an ongoing force; fairy tales have too many passive women), some great comic relief, and a pervasive tone of darkness that really ought to be in fairy tales, which originally were (after all) cautionary tales for adults, not bedtime stories for sleepy children.

We'll see, but until then, don't leave the path!

Side Trip!

2011-10-26T07:05:00.000-04:00

Different focus this week, as Whedon has been a busy little bee. It's been a big week.

First up, have you seen the first trailer for The Avengers? Have you seen the fan-made shot-by-shot spoof of it? Labor of love, I'm telling you. (And thanks to Nikki Stafford for sending this our way)

The all-official trailer

Fans with too much time on their hands, but with some lovely dialogue: "Gentlemen - and that one hot chick over there."

Time will tell if the film is anything other than a summer popcorn flick with pretty explosions, but to hear Whedon dialogue being said by Robert Downey, Jr. gives me hope. And a happy.

Then this hit the world a couple of days ago - seems that when Whedon reached a break on Avengers, he gathered a few friends to put on a show in the barn. The difference is that these are vertigo-inducingly talented friends, he's got a big barn, and the source material is the frothy comedy Much Ado about Nothing.

Over at the Rewatch, Season Six hits a couple of episodes that sharply divided fans. Is anything we've been watching for nearly six years real? And "Seeing Red" - oh, my. I'm telling you, when things go bad on this show, they REALLY go bad. Let Alyson Buckman and Cynthea Masson explain it to you.

In class, we also were dealing with the question of "What is real?" with Alex Proyas' Dark City. How can you run out of time if you can control it? Who are you if your memories are switched around like so many
paper plates? And how does film noir mix with science fiction?

As I said, big week.

Who Are You?

2011-10-19T07:50:00.000-04:00

Reel One: In the film class, we continued our exploration of the ways aliens are depicted in film. Remember that last week was Ridley Scott's Alien, in which the alien is big, scary, ravenous, and pretty much only seen in bits and pieces until the very end. (It's brilliant to let the audience's imagination fill in the blanks - we always manage to scare ourselves better than anything we actually SEE!) This week was an overlooked gem of a film called Impostor. In this film, we've been at war with the Centauris for years now and we're not doing so well. We never actually see the enemy, for he has discovered a way to infiltrate our society. Walt Kelly's Pogo was right - the enemy is us. (Actually, the Pogo line is far sadder, for that enemy is us without an alien walking around in the skin.) At its heart, Impostor asks one of the biggest of questions - something that good science fiction does very, very well. Just what does it mean to be human? Impostor is based on a Philip K. Dick story, and Dick was nigh-obsessed with the idea of memory and its role in making us, well, us. Good discussion on this one and I look forward to my students proving to me that they are, in fact, human.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, we deal with some different sorts of identity crises as Willow tries to put away magic, Riley returns from the jungle all growed up, and Xander calls off his wedding with nearly perfect bad timing. Have you ever seen that car pile-up of a show Bridezilla? Imagine the situation with an ex-demon. Who are you? How do you know? Who do you want to be? How do you get there?

I've heard it said that Babylon 5 (a show I'm beginning to watch in the next few weeks in an organized way instead of my up-to-now scattershot approach) boils existence down to two questions: Who are you? What do you want? We change, so the answers change. And it's always wise to know the answers to those two questions.

Coming Soon: Hold on to your hats, viewers! The film class takes on the magnificent neo-noir that is Proyas' Dark City and the Rewatch tackles insanity, reality, and sexual assault. (You were warned that Season Six got dark! But how else can you see the coming of the light?)

Jazz and Thoughts

2011-10-15T08:45:00.000-04:00

Among the many highlights on this conference trip was meeting Jim the Tour Guide. Not only did he give us information on history, architecture, and ghosts, he also pointed out any number of restaurants (including Irene's, home of that fabulous creme brulee I told you about. That's not a dessert as much as it's something to note to include in confession!). It's always nice to get out of the hotel, even if it's a very nice hotel* and see more of the host city.

In this way, we wound up at The Court of the Two Sisters for a jazz brunch. There actually were two sisters (and currently the place is run by two brothers, although there's no longer a connection to the original family). The Camors sisters were born just around the the outbreak of the Civil War and survived that, built a notions business to cater to women of style who wanted Parisian laces and perfumes, then operated this "hidden courtyard" restaurant. You walk off the street and through the foyer/bar area into the buffet area (landing strips have been shorter) and through that into the walled courtyard. FryDaddy and I were seated under a wisteria-draped wrought-iron arbor at a table with a great view of both the jazz trio and the wishing well. A well-fed cat genteelly begged for any dropped shrimp. The waitstaff was dignified, dressed to the nines, and friendly. You know those all-too-elusive moments of "yeah, this is exactly where I want to be" that occur sometimes? Get thee to the Court on a warm October morning before the tour buses descend and you just may have one of those epiphanies. Better souvenir than cheap plastic beads, but be sure to pick up some of those, too. FryDaddy thinks the coffee is better here than at the Cafe du Monde; I'm think it was the tranquility and jazz. Either way, if you're in New Orleans, put this one at the tippy-top of your list.

Now it wasn't all beignets and chicory. I had my paper to deliver, as did FryDaddy (his was on Saturday) and there were both entire panels and individual papers we wanted to hear and people we wanted to talk with. I won't go into overmuch with the details, but I've added a number of movies to my queue based on papers I heard, I'm thinking about how writers have moved from having detectives who are "exceptionally smart" (the original Sherlock) to having them be flawed and somehow disabled (Bones' Brennan, who can't react appropriately in society without help - a trait that is apparently NOT found in the books!). Although I'm not sure I want to read Chuck Palahniuk's Snuff, the paper was extraordinary. My paper was well received to the point that I am planning on expanding the section on direct linkages between Bebop and Firefly for next year's Slayage conference in Vancouver. FryDaddy's paper was a hit - he has a wry delivery style and, face it, the man knows his topic. I caught up on work being done in fan studies and the use of hard-core statistics to categorize instances of whatever it is you study in filmed texts. Quite strong arguments were made that we're in the midst of a continuing "Golden Age" of Quality TV and yes, I came home with half a dozen new books and journals.

And zydeco rules!

Some much still - post-Katrina tours just seem well, unseemly. We saw a wedding party heading into a Voodoo Garden - who knows? The wrought-iron balconies are covered in lush window boxes and Bourbon Street on a Sunday morning is just sad. The Saints beat the Panthers and I had a good enough time in N'Awlins that I was generous about it. Go. To. New. Orleans.

*True fact. My hotel bill listed a charge for the hotel restaurant. Since we never ate there or had room service, I called about the charge - the cab was waiting to take us to the airport, so it slipped by me. Those who know me will chuckle when I tell you that the restaurant told me the charge was for "looks like a couple pitchers of Bloody Marys." In which case I know that's not mine, Drake! There were very nice about removing the charge, by the way.

Let's See the City!

2011-10-12T08:18:00.001-04:00

So on our very first night in town, FryDaddy and I wander the streets of the French Quarter, simultaneously taking in the local sights and sounds while trying to find a place to eat. We'd already laid in supplies for the room fridge and ~~attacked~~ I mean "gently examined" the cheese plate in the lobby (yes, it was the kind of hotel that has a wine and cheese reception in the lobby on Wednesdays). During our walkabout, we were entranced by an energetic Cuban man hawking for a hole-in-the-wall called "Country Flame" on Iberville that offers Spanish, Mexican, and Cuban food for rock-bottom prices - an academic's dream! We weren't the only ones who thought so - we ran into three of our "conference buddies" and chatted briefly (like many of us, they wanted to fine-tune their presentations before giving them "live" during the conference). Back at the hotel, FryDaddy settled in to the room and I took an exploratory turn around the pool - no one was there, so I had a lovely quiet moment sitting in the gathering dusk and listening to street jazz while looking at the garish neon beckoning me to come back to the tawdrier sections of the Quarter.

Thursday was the first day of the actual conference - let me tell you now that you won't be hearing much about specific panels and papers (a little bit, sure). I decided to do this as more of a travel review/journal, but don't worry - comments on the conference and the people are woven in. I must say, there were some oddities this time - individual papers were often quite good, but the panels lacked an overall through-line, which made for some challenging scheduling. "Well, I want to see Paper A here, but Paper B in this panel at the same time looks interesting, and Paper C here seems good . . ." so there was a certain amount of discreet ducking and slipping in to panels late. It's a good problem at a conference like this one - popular culture/American culture is such a broad field (c'mon, there are panels on film, teaching Shakespeare, Cajun culture, and the use of technology in the classroom all at the same time!) that you can't see everything you'd like to see. Therefore, you use the list of e-mails at the back of the program a lot to connect with those you missed.

Since the first panel wasn't until mid-morning, we struck out for some early sightseeing. FryDaddy and I had decided that we'd rather spend our time in the Quarter and amble a bit rather than doing a rushed tour of a larger area. We need to go back, definitely! We walked down to the world-famous Cafe du Monde for beignets and chicory-laced coffee. Now a beignet is not a pastry to be taken lightly. A French cousin to the doughnut, a proper beignet is a square of fried dough that is smothered in powdered sugar. As our tour guide Jim would tell us later, "There's no neat way to eat a beignet. You're going to look like you had breakfast with Charlie Sheen." He's right! The sweetness of the sugar cuts the slight bitterness of the chicory (I had mine as cafe au lait, so the bitterness was already cut.) The Cafe is one of those "you just have to go" places - it's crowded and noisy and I wonder what it's like at 3 a.m. (it's open 24 hours a day) but I didn't find out.

We explored Jackson Square to work off the sugar. Tow mounted cops were taking pictures of themselves in front of the statue of Andrew Jackson ("The Union Must and Shall Be Preserved" on the plinth was added after the 1864 Battle of New Orleans). By the way, it's the first statue to portray a hero astride a rearing horse. Beyond the statue is the St. Louis Cathedral, which has been designated as a "minor basilica" (the major ones are in Rome). The interior of the cathedral was somber, as the late Archbishop (who had been a paratrooper in WW2, thus earning the nickname of the "Jumping Padre") was laying in state. I'm all for taking unobtrusive photos in stunning churches, but I personally found walking up the nave to snap a pic of the Archbishop in his open casket tacky beyond the telling of it. But maybe that's just me.

Deciding that we needed assistance to cover the Quarter, we hired Jim and Crawdad (that's Crawdad at the top of the post) from the line of mule-drawn carriages. We paid extra, but we had Jim (who bore a disturbing resemblance to Sam Elliott) and Crawdad to ourselves, which turned out to be a wise choice. Jim was an excellent, excellent tour guide. Among the things we learned:

New Orleans was originally a city built of wood. Two major fires changed that. Only three buildings in the Quarter are now built of wood - most everything else is "brick and beam," a style that provides more stability in high winds and also doesn't burn easily.
"Romeo & Juliet" spikes - think huge barbed wire wrapped around balcony supports to discourage visitors to teenage daughters. You might go up a Romeo, but you're coming down a Juliet!
The country's first apartment buildings (still rented, going rate about $2800 a month) are at the edge of Jackson Square.
Those beautiful wrought iron balconies and fripperies were added much, much later. New Orleans is an old city and it began as a port city. The iron came later, say around 1830 or so.
Celebs have discovered the Quarter - Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their brood have a house there, Sandra Bullock is having one gutted, and Nic Cage owned (but did not live in) the Quarter's most haunted house, which was the scene of gruesome human experiments done on slaves. The horrors were discovered when a kitchen slave who was literally chained to the stove set herself on fire to summon the fire brigade during a dinner party.
New Orleans had slavery, but due to the French/Spanish ownership, the "peculiar institution" was different. (By the way, France owned New Orleans for six weeks in 1803 before they sold it to the USA as part of the Louisiana Purchase!) Slaves had the weekend off and were permitted to gather and sell their own goods (baked goods, leatherwork, etc.) and keep the money. Many slaves bought their freedom in this way. Slaves had legal standing to sue for mistreatment and, if they won their case, they were freed and a fine was paid to them by the master. It was also customary for a slave to be freed after a long period of service (very long, like 20 - 25 years).
Then there were the "Quadroon Balls." Prepare to be grossed out. These mockery of debutante balls were held so that young free women of color could meet wealthy planters in search of mistresses. Girls were trained from childhood for these parties. If a pretty young thing caught the eye of a rich man, negotiations began between the man and the girl's mother. (Pimp your daughter!) These were binding contracts that covered housing, allowance, the raising of the children, etc. While not legal marriages, these were common-law arrangements that gave the young "quadroon" a degree of autonomy and power, despite it being based on sexual attraction. Desperate times, desperate measures. The fact that it was considered genteel and legitimate just makes me shudder.

This is so long already . . . let me just add the first souvenirs we bought were high-end pet snacks for the critters, I had quite possibly the best creme brulee EVER that night at Irene's (our "big" night out) and street bands are everywhere!

Next: Conference report and more from our attempts to eat our way across the Quarter!

A Digression That Isn't

2011-10-11T21:57:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. You want more dirt on my Big Easy trip and fear not - it's coming. There's much to discuss there - post-Katrina tours, voodoo shops, mule carriage rides, learning about "Romeo & Juliet" spikes, the accepted horror of the "Quadroon Balls," and more besides!

But at the moment, a few other items bear mentioning. So please - enjoy this tonight and more on the fine city of New Orleans tomorrow. Let's go to the tape. Or DVD. Or DVR.

First, the film class reconvened today after Fall Break. We started our next unit of focus with Ridley Scott's Alien. Although 30+ years old, this is a film that holds up nicely. Scott melds science fiction with horror and also creates a scary, scary place by focusing our attention on what we don't see. Space is very, very large and air ducts are very, very small and fear comes in both sizes. Raw capitalism is alive and well beyond the frontiers. Technology can save us or set us up for the kill. And the magnificently human Ellen Ripley saves the day (and the cat!) instead of the more traditional male captain.

Second, the Rewatch continues to rocket through Season Six. Our fair moderator, Nikki Stafford, is still enjoying the charms of the Big Easy, but Stacey May Fowles, the poster this week, has things well in hand. "Dead Things" is a difficult episode to watch and her analysis explains that there are some darned good reasons for that. As Angel reminded Faith way back when, sometimes it's supposed to hurt and this is an episode that stings. And sings.

Last, did you see - I mean DID YOU SEE - the finale of Season 4 of Breaking Bad Sunday night? Holy. Cow. (Don't worry - the link is to a spoiler-free promo.) They need to make some extra Emmys for Best Supporting Actor. I'm not sure where the next season will go, but FryDaddy has a theory that I think is just delicious. I'll keep it under wraps for now, but if he's right, then the final season of Breaking Bad will blow the top off the television set.

Next: Back to N'Awlins. Having eaten the Godiva chocolates that we treated ourselves to during the layover in Memphis, it's time to find a beignet, explore a cathedral, and tour the Quarter.

N'Awlins!

2011-10-10T20:04:00.000-04:00

Good intentions, meet Road to Hell. Turns out that we got to the airport with everything we'd need for a several-day-long sojourn in the Big Easy except for the laptop! This actually turned out to be a blessing - not having it meant we didn't spend time hunched over the keyboard and instead spent more time visiting with friends, eating really, REALLY good food and exploring the French Quarter. So that's my sort-of apology for not posting during the trip itself. Let me just give you a taste tonight and I'll start more detailed postings once I dig out my notes (yes, I take notes when I travel).

First off - and being a Piedmont Airlines girl until the very day it merged into the cargo-carrying-mindset behemoth that is USAirways - go Delta! On the leg from Charlotte to Memphis, we had a FANTASTIC captain who reminded us all to "take a look at that safety brochure, won't you? Many people don't want to, but really - a picture's worth a thousand words." He also reminded us that we ought to pay attention because "when a gentleman's speaking to you, the polite thing to do is to pay attention." Add to that a crewmember who offered me peanuts, pretzels, or cookies and then gave me all three when I asked if I absolutely HAD to chose and perhaps you begin to see the appeal.

Next, the fine and venerable city of New Orleans is a treasure of the highest order. I thought I knew a thing or two about Southern hospitality (and I do), but this city is just made for tourists. Maps remind you that "if it's illegal when you're from, it's probably illegal in New Orleans, too" but they want you to have a really good time. More on this during my discussion of the French Quarter.

The hotel was the JW Marriott on Canal Street, which is a boundary of the French Quarter (or "Vieux Carre"), the oldest part of the city. (By the way, the Quarter is laid out in a grid, but it's not quite as north/south as the map indicates - the bend of the Mississippi isn't that linear.) The hotel was one of those luxury hotels that makes you feel as if you're truly on a vacation. A most excellent tour guide disguised as a bellman whisked our bags upstairs, showed us the view of the Quarter, and pointed out a few of the bigger sites, including making sure we knew where Bourbon Street was (hint - turn right at the Foot Locker). Two thick, lush robes hung in the closet for us and yes, we could even hear jazz music coming up from the streets. Streetcars ran up and down Canal Street and downright quaint mule-drawn wagons took tourists around to map out their visit.

We might not have had the laptop, but we were there!

NEXT: Beignets, Crawfish the mule, and a little history . . .

Off to the Big Easy!

2011-10-04T21:34:00.002-04:00

There's only one reel this week - my college is on fall break, so my film class has the week off to digest What We've Done So Far before we dive into the depiction of aliens in science fiction and the ways in which their changes reflect our changes.

I'm off to New Orleans tomorrow for the regional PCA/ACA conference, where I'm due to present on Cowboy Bebop's potential influences on Whedon's Firefly. It's only a short presentation, so I (as usual) wind up scratching the surface and asking more questions that perhaps actually get answered. Here's hoping it goes well - tune in later this week for an update following Friday's presentation.

Of course, it's not just about me - this is a large conference and there's also a "conference within a conference" centering on some little show called Lost or Misplaced or something like that. There will be much to see and hear and speculate upon, as there always is at a conference with such wide-ranging topics. (FryDaddy is scheduled to present on Saturday about Samuel Colt in real life, myth and on Supernatural, which promises to be a show-stopper.)

I plan to post often - maybe even once a day, but that may be a goal too lofty. Check in and see, won't you?

Also, over at the continuing Rewatch, that's me who's in the hot seat this week. I cover three "Willowcentric" episodes from Season Six and my interpretation is met with some resistance amongst part of the fan base. However, I stand by my assessment - Willow's an addict and she hits some form of bottom by the end of this week's trio of episodes. Read the post and the comments and see what you think!

Change It Up!

2011-09-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

Reel One: In film class, we're headed into the break and the students just turned in their first compare/contrast paper, so they needed a break. We watched the thinly-plotted-but-heavy-on-color-drenched-symbolism-and- slapstick-humor Luc Besson flick, The Fifth Element. There's much to love in this film, including Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod, Bruce Willis' dry wit, Jean-Paul Gaultier's futuristic costumes, and Milla Jovovich's "Divine Language" as the Perfect Supreme Being with a Multipass. And Gary Oldman's Zorg, who seems to be the comic "Ming the Merciless" version of this character Oldman played in The Professional three years earlier for Besson. Science fiction is often a very "white" genre and tends to the creepy rather than the comic, so Fifth Element can be a fun way to explore other ways of approaching the genre.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, we have our second "change it up" of the week. In Fifth Element, the Diva's aria is a key scene - that's her at the top of the post. Over at the Rewatch, music is the very heart of the episode this week, so it's a good pairing. Up this week for discussion and analysis is the musical episode, Season Six's "Once More with Feeling" and our Faithful Guide Nikki Stafford took this one to new heights. While Janet Halfyard provides the academic touch in discussing the use of music in Buffy as a whole, using "OMWF" as the springboard, a veritable dissertation of scholars literally "chime in" on this episode, singing the songs, mangling the lyrics, even doing a dance or two. Silliness prevails - what is with that cup, Matthew Pateman? - but it also successfully gets across the depth of the love these fine folk have for this show. (Seriously - I'm the one in the fuzzy pink bathrobe, something I would've sworn would never appear on the Internet. Ahhh, never say never, my friends!)

Coming Soon: Next week, my class is on fall break and I'm attending the PCA-South conference in New Orleans. The Bebop paper is drafted, although it needs a couple of hours' worth of attention to fine-tune a few points and then get cut down to presentation size. I'm hopeful that I'm managed to pull together the various threads of manga, anime, feng shui, science fiction, and the blending of genres, both cinematically and musically. There's a lot in that there 20 minutes, so I'll probably need to slash and burn something to allow sufficient time for the rest. Tomorrow is a "controlled burn" sort of day, so everything should be in good shape by the time FryDaddy and I get on the flight next Wednesday. Oh, and I'm the writer of the Rewatch next week as Willow spirals down, and down, and down . . .

Shakespeare in Space?

2011-09-21T06:25:00.002-04:00

Reel One: The film class made the leap to color this week. For our last "early classic," we took in Wilcox's Forbidden Planet, a film with one of the most misleading and pulp-lurid posters of the 1950s. I must admit to really enjoying watching my students watch this one. It's certainly a 1950s view of the future with a flying saucer just chock-full of slide-rule instrumentation (then again, science fiction commonly has views of the future that are dictated by the time in which the film was made - you don't seem atomic-ray altered monsters until after WW2 had shown us the destruction that slamming atoms together could create). It also has Robby the Robot, a mechanical man who can create ten tons of lead alloy or run up a (very short) dress with the skill of a pageant designer with an atomic BeDazzler. Toss in a good dose of Shakespeare's The Tempest and you've got a movie that can hold up over the years. Even a nice dollop of Freud - I've asked my students to consider what their own "monsters from the Id" might be like - that should be educational!

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, the dark tone of the first three episodes of the sometimes schizoid Season 6 gives way to some frothy comedic fun. (It won't last - seriously, Season Six goes darker than dark, which makes the comedy both a little jarring and quite, quite welcome when you get it.) Buffy has to pay bills, Dawn goes on a Halloween date and - oh, kitten poker! There's something ESPN should sink its broadcasting teeth into!

Coming Soon: I may not see much sunlight this weekend, but at the end of it, I hope I can report that my paper for the New Orleans conference is drafted. Next week, over at the Rewatch, a dissertation of scholars takes on "Once More with Feeling" and explores why Buffy wants something to sing about. The film class is slated to discover that broad comedy and science fiction can indeed mix by exploring the wildly colorful splendor that is Luc Besson's The Fifth Element.

Let the Dead Be Dead

2011-09-14T07:27:00.003-04:00

The woman namedTomorrow

sits with a hairpin inher teeth

and takes her time

and does her hair theway she wants it

and fastens at lastthe last braid and coil

and puts the hairpinwhere it belongs

and turns and drawls:Well, what of it?

My grandmother,Yesterday, is gone.

What of it? Let thedead be dead. (Carl Sandberg)

Reel One: In the film class, we explored the "mad scientist" trope with one of those rare sequels that comes off better than the original - James Whale's The Bride of Frankenstein. Drs. Frankenstein and Pretorius just can't let the dead be dead. Science is used to re-animate a bride for the monster, without bothering to consult the young woman on whether or not she'd like to come back from wherever she's been. (She also could use a hairpin or two.) About 70 years later, Buffy's friends will make the same choice, albeit for arguably less-selfish reasons, but with equally dire consequences.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, we've entered the dark country of Season 6. Buffy's dead. For real. There's even a headstone. Haunted by the idea that their friend sacrificed herself and was sent to some sort of hell dimension, Actions Are Taken and Buffy is brought back from the afterlife. This will have major, major consequences as this journey is supposed to only have a one-way ticket. Still, it's hard to let the dead be dead. It's a shocking, violent start to the UPN years and when you consider that Season 6 began broadcasting about a month after 9/11, it seems a shade darker. Elizabeth Rambo, who co-edited a book on these final two seasons, writes this week's post and it's good stuff! Check it out.

Project Countdown: I have a blog post to finish on part of Season 6 of Buffy. It's my solo contribution for the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011 that I've been posting links to all year. It won't go up for several weeks, but we're all asked to get ours in early. I've done my rewatch and have my notes, but still have to turn those into a post. Then my attention needs to get focused on my presentation for the conference in New Orleans in early October. More on that as it gets closer - the research is nearly done and I'm getting excited about the drafting part, as well as the prospect of seeing old friends, including Nikki Stafford of the Rewatch (she's a keynote speaker at the Lost conference that's being held as part of the larger conference) and a host of those who have written for the Rewatch this year.

Coming Soon: The Charlotte area Browncoats are holding their annual "Can't Stop the Serenity" shindig this Sunday. Free admission, plenty of food and auction items with all the funds going to support several good causes. C'mon - watching Serenity on the big screen while surrounded by like-minded folk? You know you want it! Details can be found here. And the film class dives into deep space and Freud with Forbidden Planet.

Head, Hands, Heart?

2011-09-07T07:32:00.002-04:00

Reel One: The film class got to its first full-length (and beyond!) movie this week with Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I firmly believe that a science fiction class needs to include this one - it's the granddaddy of most science fiction tropes and there's just so much going on there. I'm looking forward to hearing the extended commentary from my first-time viewers. Silent films can be a real challenge - you have to keep up with the intertitle cards, the acting style tends to be way over the top, and there's the whole notion of "no words," but once you can get past that and allow yourself to be sucked into the story, there's quite a payoff. Stirring music, whiz-bang effects, sensuality, a decadent society content to batten like ticks off the backs of slave workers, the eventual revolt of those workers, religion vs. technology, women as not-quite-fully-realized characters -- Metropolis has it all! Metropolis also contains a snazzy epigraph at the beginning that Madonna shamelessly ripped off for "Express Yourself." Watch and you can't miss it in either work.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, Season Five wraps up. Glory figures out the secret of the Key and Dawn'll have to bleed for it. Or will the blood of another Summers do? Saviors sacrifice and we learn this week that death is Buffy's gift. And the counter isn't accepting returns. It's a stunning trio of episodes that lead inevitably to a climax that still makes me tear up a bit. (Watch Spike. That's the secret.) And Giles, as we already know, is not a mild-mannered librarian. Read Nikki's comments on that part - great stuff!

Coming Soon: Next week, the Rewatch enters the divided territory of Season Six. Buffy has died, so has another Slayer been called? Or did that line end with her earlier death back in Season One? Either way, who's going to protect Sunnydale from vampires? Who's going to raise Dawn? And how much more loss can one group of friends take before someone snaps? In the film class, we leave Rotwang and his Evil Hand behind in 1920s Germany and explore the "mad scientist" trope further with the American classic Bride of Frankenstein. For my money, one of those rare films where the sequel surpasses the original.

Also: I have a stack of books on my desk to "research gut" for my upcoming presentation in October. It was very nice to take last weekend off and decompress from a variety of writing deadlines (including start of semester madness), but it's back in the saddle this weekend. What? You don't know how to "gut" a book? Let David Lavery teach you!

Angles, Shots and Set Ups

2011-09-01T06:53:00.005-04:00

Reel One: In class this week, we had the "vocabulary lecture" - not my favorite of lessons, but you have to know the language if you plan to speak clearly. In the case of film studies, that means knowing the difference between a two-shot and an extreme close-up. We had some fun going over the different angles by having a volunteer sit quietly as the subject while other students demonstrated how to set up the angle of the shot (we did the best we could with "bird's eye"!). We then watched a few clips to see what we had talked about in action - Vertigo, The Third Man, and North by Northwest (above) all gave us food for thought. Now we're ready to see everything in action - dissection is just ahead, but now we have the tools to peel back the surface and look underneath.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, Buffy and the Scoobies have to deal with the loss of Joyce. Last week focused on the immediate aftermath - this week looks at the days afterward. Buffy stays busy, Dawn feels ignored, everyone mourns in their own ways. (Angel even comes briefly back from L.A.) And Willow begins to do some things that are the result of terrible, terrible ideas. The fact that they come from a place of love and concern changes that not a whit. Cameras aren't the only thing being "set up" right now - seeds are being sown that will bear fruit (some of it poisonous) further down the road. (OK - here's your challenge for this post. Just how many metaphors did I mash in that last sentence?)

Coming Soon: It's time for Metropolis! Buckle up - class struggle, the depiction of women as Madonna/whore, technology as a benevolent force or an endless maw that must be fed, a dystopian society - it's all in there. And without dialogue.

Heartbreak and Beginnings

2011-08-24T06:23:00.003-04:00

Reel One: Over at the Rewatch, we're only covering a single episode this week. That's not Standard Operating Procedure, but the episode in question is "The Body" and it deserves to be seen and discussed as a solo. For my money, it's just an amazing hour of television. One of the truly remarkable things about this episode (and the remarkable things about this episode are legion) is how realistically it deals with the real-world issue of loss. Many people hear the name Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, based on the title alone, dismiss the show as teenage fluff. That's a shame, for at its absolute best, Buffy is amazing, outstanding, and in this case, gut-wrenching. I'm especially proud of this Rewatch week as my husband and I teamed up to write part of the post. Read and tell me what you thought of our approach.

Reel Two: The film class had its first meeting yesterday; an occasion that was marked by an (fortunately mild) earthquake. Seriously - I just hope we're not working our way through the plagues this semester. It takes more than a seismic event to stop my film class, so we just carried on. Aside from that, it was a pretty standard first day; nothing really - wait for it - earth-shaking. (Yuk, yuk.) The class is small, which should make for interesting discussions with plenty of time for everyone to chime in. We collected ideas on what exactly is science fiction, discussed rules&regs, went over a list of terms which ranged from "Han Solo" to "montage," with a few clips to illustrate. The students contributed and it looks like it's shaping up to be a good class!

[Full disclosure about the quake - I didn't even feel anything. Very strange - the students on the left hand side of the class felt it; those of us on the right hand side didn't. The class is also on the ground floor, which probably had something to do with it. We'd moved to a different classroom once I realized that the original room didn't have window blinds - not good for an afternoon film class!]

Coming Soon: So what happens next for the Scoobies? Everything has changed, yet life keeps spinning forward. Buffy and her friends must attempt to re-set their lives following this loss and the transitions will be hard. In class, we'll work with the core terms from the first chapter and see if we can't wrestle the terms to the ground and pin them there. There's a bit of early film history to cover and then we're off to the movies!

Back to School!

2011-08-19T10:33:00.004-04:00

Sorry that I missed a week - it's been a busy time, what with getting ready for the fall semester and having some badly-needed (and quite uncomfortable) sinus work done. While I've been dealing with syllabi, Blackboard links, and saline irrigation, things have been a-brewin' at the rewatch. Let's check in, shall we?

I'm two weeks behind there - shouldn't happen again. What that means is that you have two posts to catch up on for Buffy's Season Five and things are popping! First, Bryan Curry tells us about Riley's departure and the Big Reveal about Glory. Click here for that post. Then, in this week's post, two talented writers take on Dawn being the Key (knowledge that is most definitely not welcome!), ask us some questions about what it means to be human and show us what cruelties uncaring Fate can bring. Click here for that post.

Next week, the Rewatch takes on a flat-out masterpiece in an episode titled "The Body." That's all I'll say for now, other than to tell you that it's a heartbreaker, for it's not about death as much as it's about loss, which can be much, much worse. Next week, I'll resume the "Reel One/Reel Two" format as we get back to what's happening in the film class.

See you at the concession stand!

Body Language

2011-08-04T07:10:00.003-04:00

Reel One: Over at the Rewatch, things are heating up as Spike can't decide if he loves Buffy, wants to viciously murder Buffy, or (quite possibly) both. Joyce is sick and Buffy discovers that there are some things that Slayer strength just can't fix. This week's commentary is in the extremely capable hands of Rhonda Wilcox and is well worth a thoughtful read. She focuses on the nonverbal aspects of the episodes being discussed and she'll give you a few things to think about. Pour a cup of coffee and pull up a chair, won't you?

Reel Two: I'm (slowly) getting the syllabus together for the fall film class. I want to switch out a few films from last semester - I'm sticking with the same focus this semester, then I'll probably switch. The hard part is knowing that you only have a limited number of weeks and so much to choose from! Alas. It'll get done, but I'll still fret that something wonderful was left off. Part of my own body language these days is the protruding and bitten lip as I consider what stays and what just has to go.

Coming Soon! A project that I've had on the back burner is finally moving to the forefront. For those of you who are local, expect to see a new show on TV19 after Labor Day devoted to movies. While it will include reviews and comments about new releases, we accept that there are so many other outlets for that sort of information, so we're planning to use about half the time to discuss movies that have some sort of link to the new releases - as an example, we might talk about Cowboys & Aliens (warning: the link contains sound) for the first segment, then have a round robin of favorite Harrison Ford flicks after the break. That sort of thing. I'm looking forward to it and I hope to see you in the lobby!

New Directions

2011-07-28T07:03:00.003-04:00

Reel One: Over at the Rewatch, we're in Season Five now. I agree with Nikki, who's organizing this whole shindig - Season 5 is about using what you learned in Season 4 and moving ahead, often in unexpected directions. Be sure to read Nikki's intro and then settle in to enjoy Tanya Cochran's analysis of three early Season 5 episodes that really will set up large chunks of this season. A big question that gets raised in one of these episodes circles back to a theme that's been raised before in Buffy; namely, who's your family? It's a complicated question and I enjoy the answer Whedon comes up with.

Reel Two: The draft program has been released for the regional Popular Culture/American Culture in the South, which will be held in October. For the first time, a student of mine will be presenting - we're on the same Friday afternoon panel. My student will be presenting on Pushing Daisies; I'll be yammering on about possible links between Cowboy Bebop and Firefly. My Other Half will be presenting on Saturday. It also appears (it's a draft program; things change) that any number of friends will be gathering as well, including Nikki of the Rewatch, who is the keynote speaker for the Lost mini-conference-within-a-conference that will be going on at the same time. You can find out more about the conference here. Just think about it - beignets, jazz, abandoned refrigerators, voodoo, and Mardi Gras - all of these are are possible topics. New Orleans may never be the same!

COMING SOON! More on the conference, especially as I begin to put the presentation together. And it's time for us to contribute to the Rewatch - more on that soon!

Life Brings Changes

2011-07-20T07:03:00.003-04:00

I was going to make this all about the Rewatch and then realized that I should include a bit more, due to Recent Events. First, though, let's check in with the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011.

I missed a week here, due to being away last week and boy! was it a doozy! Matthew Pateman dissected the Season 4 coda "Restless" (which he had given the book-length treatment here), which is an episode that deserves rewatching, even after the rewatch. "Restless" is structured around the nighttime dreams of Our Heroes and is quite revealing. And funny. And full of cheddary goodness.

Then this week, we begin the amazing journey that is Season 5. This season will knock your socks off and (being a Whedon creation) will break your heart more than a little along the way. Your guides for the first trio of Season 5 episodes (that really WILL have you going, "Huh-what?" more than once) are Stacey Abbott and Cynthea Masson, who have written for the Rewatch previously. You can trust them. Now go read.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . I had a day yesterday that was just surreal. It was just too much for a single 24 hour period. (Yeah, yeah, one day at a time, but sometimes, several days gang up on you all at once and you just have to get through it peacefully. Ice cream helps, as does ripping off the pedometer and warning it sternly to quit glaring at you.) Long story short - some great things happened yesterday, which I can't talk about just yet, but rest assured they involve good news for people I truly care about.

But.

It's not that I believe that for every good, there has to be an equal bad. I don't believe that, as I don't believe that the universe is somehow conspiring and lurking to "get me." Sometimes lights turn red for everybody. Cosmic (and traffic) law.

But.

I have a friend who has just retired after 35+ years of teaching for the fine people of North Carolina. She was in fact part of the committee that hired me lo those years ago. She started at the community college back when it was held together with baling twine, spit, and maybe a little duct tape. Flimsy walls were put up in the morning and you had an office of sorts by afternoon; no need to involve the building code people. She also got paid a pittance since she was female and surely her husband took care of the finances. (This complete injustice was rectified when our current president came on board back in the early 1990s, but by then she'd been at the job for more than 15 years at a fraction of the pay she should have received.) She worked hard, cared about her students, and always put herself last on the list. She worked so her husband could finish his doctorate, she worked to support the kids, she worked through her own breast cancer treatment, she worked to pay for her husband's very expensive long-term care when he was hit with early onset Alzheimers. She finally went back to school to complete her own doctorate (paid for out of her own pocket, since the degree isn't required to teach at the community college without so much as a course release), defending the dissertation just in time to retire this May.

Now it was time. She had Big Plans. She was going to travel (had a trip to the Holy Land lined up that she was thrilled about), she was going to go to conferences (she went the Slayage 2 with me years back and loved it - I've got the pictures to prove it), she was going to finally "read for fun" . . . Big Plans.

God laughed.

I visited her in the hospital yesterday. She has suffered at least two strokes since late May, leaving her tired and with some impaired language skills. Imagine the special horror that holds for someone who teaches other people how to communicate. Far from defending tricksy points of the theories applied to her dissertation, she's struggling to color a picture of socks in a preschool coloring book.

Oh, and it gets worse. When the doctors did a scan, they discovered that cancer has latched on to her liver, her lungs, and her abdomen. Treatment is uncertain at best. I'll know more later this week, but things look very grim for this good woman.

I learned some things today and the lessons were in Technicolor. Don't put things off. Times are tight and sometimes it seems that work is what matters most. It's not. It's important, sure, and I want to do a good job for my students, my school, and yes, myself. But I'm not at all sure that putting off what you really want to do to grade a few more papers or teach an overload class for a few extra bucks is quite as important as it once seemed. Cliched as it may sound, it really is later than we think.

So please - at one point today and every day hereafter, just stop what you're doing and think for a moment - Do I want to be doing this? Does this really matter? If the answer to both is "no," do this. If at all possible (and trust me, it's possible), stop and walk away from it. Go outside and stroll for ten minutes, even if it's blazingly hot or bitingly cold. Pet a kitten. Surprise the ones you love with ice cream. Daydream about winning the lottery. Fire up your Harley and find a curvy road. Whatever works for you, but take time every day to nourish your own soul. No one's going to do it for you and you don't want to wait for some dream vacation to "cram lost years into five or six days," as a wise man once sang.

That son-of-a-bitch Death has a timetable that is absolutely non-negotiable, inexorable, and unknown to us all. And he's waiting in the wings for all of us.

Sum of the Parts

2011-07-07T08:01:00.002-04:00

Reel One: Over at the Rewatch, Season 4 is about to wrap up. Now, Season 4 isn't my favorite (I was never a real fan of the Initiative idea), but it has some GREAT episodes! Case in point are these three. "Primeval" shows how much stronger Buffy is for her ability to depend on others - Whedon doesn't like the whole "lone wolf" idea very much. And Spike shows that he doesn't need to be chip-free to cause heartache and trouble. Violence is a gown of many designs, my children.

Reel Two: My draft has been cut and chopped and bandaged and sent. Now we'll see. Also, cover art of the "Season 9" comic has emerged. I must say that I'm approaching this with caution. While Season 8 got off to a start I'd characterize as "great," it quickly went downhill into stories I didn't believe (and worse, didn't believe in) and had a hard time regaining its footing. The comics are canon, so that has to be dealt with. Harshly.

Coming Soon: Season 4 finishes with "Restless." Enough said - this is an episode that you need to wear flip-flops to watch - it'll knock your socks off!

When I Move . . .

2011-06-29T07:24:00.003-04:00

. . . that guy in the mirror moves just like me! Strange, but sometimes we have a hard time knowing who we are, which brings us to this week.

Reel One: My summer class has wrapped up and grades are in, meaning that I am, for a brief period of time, classless. I'm taking some time before diving into the material that needs to be hammered into shape for fall, which means I have some time to finish a few projects that have been simmering for a while. I spent most of yesterday cutting and slashing and hacking a draft down to an acceptable length for the editors. (Aside - I hate cutting. I know that, like pruning, it makes what is left stronger and better, but I have a hard time telling that to the paragraphs lying on the equivalent of the cutting room floor, which represent a lot of hard work.) I hope to finish the formatting and "citation stuff" today, then have it on its way by the end of the week. It's a piece I'm quite proud of and one that might cause a few ripples. Academics are also fans and people don't like it when you pick on Willow. But Willow did some Bad Things and deserves to be called on them. Or such is my belief. People we love and care about can almost be unrecognizable.

Reel Two: Speaking of "unrecognizable," over at the Rewatch, we have a few twisty things going on this week. Buffy isn't Buffy and Jonathan isn't meek and nerdy. Do read what the posters have posted this week, oh Gentle Readers. There's some excellent analysis there. And the Rewatch is now at the halfway point! 'Strue. 26 weeks down, 26 weeks to go.

Coming Soon: An end to one project and a beginning to another. And soon - vacation. A few days spent with my toes dug firmly into Carolina sand.

Costuming!

2011-06-22T20:43:00.002-04:00

Reel One: My summer class is wrapping up this week. Today was "costume presentation day." We worked extensively with Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream - you can't beat that play for a quick session. It's light, funny, and fun to work with. We "broke the back" of the language and then their eyes began to light up. So for this project, they had to choose to design one costume for either Titania or Nick Bottom. I provided them with a number of time period to choose from and then they were off to the races! They were to provide a sketch, fabric swatches, and a written report. I finished looking through them a little bit ago and I must say, they did a great job on this project! They thought about color symbolism, fabric weight, and how clothes can be a reflection of the inner life of the character, including personality traits. It's always a fun assignment - this class was no exception.

Reel Two: Costumes were always a lively part of Buffy so it's especially interesting that over at the Rewatch, we see (wait for it) Buffy's yummy sushi pajamas! It's a nice trio of episodes and Riley begins to get some depth. Great guest bloggers this week, too. Check it out.

Coming Soon: My summer class will wrap up tomorrow and, while I have hours to put in over the next five weeks, I'll finally have time to complete a draft for a project I've been trying to shoehorn in recently. It'll be wonderful to be able to sit down and work on the edits for chunks of time that are longer than 10 minutes at a go! I'll let you know what's happening with that - I hope to have it off to the editors in the next ten days or so.

Shhhhh!

2011-06-15T07:03:00.004-04:00

On Screen: This week at the Buffy Rewatch, things get very quiet. "Sort of too quiet?" you might ask. Yes. Definitely yes. "Hush" is on the marquee this week, which is an episode which is nothing short of brilliant in its clear depiction of the differences between "speaking" and "communicating." (Look especially hard at the simply-composed final shot.) Steve Halfyard details the structure of the music for us and the entire post is well worth reading.

That means don't skip the sections on "Doomed" and "A New Man," both of which move some major themes along.

On Stage: The class presented their live scenes from Midsummer yesterday and did quite a nice job! For this class, I'm more interested in seeing that the students have picked up on language and structure rather than professional polish. After all, you can't tell an effective joke if you don't know what the words mean. Alas, the camera was left on the kitchen counter. Today we move into the start of their final individual project by discussing design elements with Little Shop of Horrors. Not the best musical ever, but one that is both eye-catching and toe-tapping - with a Greek chorus as a bonus!

On My Desk: I've started making revisions for my last large-scale writing project of my Year of Too Much Yes. I try to work in the mornings, but with a 9 am class, that doesn't always work out. It's encouraging that I think the basic bones of the paper are strong, but switching from a script for a keynote speech to a more formal written paper requires some changes in structure and tone. (And footnotes!) I have an end-of-June deadline to create a solid draft and (today) I think I can meet that. Ask me tomorrow and you may get a different answer . . .

Next Week: A discussion of costume designs, I have much more work on my "desk project" done, and Buffy and Riley discuss (ahem) their relationship while Maggie Walsh's experiments take an even nastier turn for the worse.

Fairies and Vampires

2011-06-08T13:29:00.005-04:00

You know the problem with supernatural creatures? It's that they aren't natural. Not even a little bit. Therefore, they don't see any need to play by ordinary rules, like the so-called Laws of Nature, at which they merely smirk and then go off frolicking somewhere.

This rant was prompted by what I can only deem a fairy attack. I was all ready to come here and announce (rather pridefully; maybe this is my comeuppance) that I had finished the revisions to my contribution to the Essential Whedon Reader project. Now, this project is a very big deal to me and making those revisions was a task I had been sweating buckets over. In an edited collection such at this, my goal is to try to be clear and well-structured in my points, while retaining my own point of view and writing in my own distinct voice. (Yes, you can write in a voice. Don't be so literal.) Well, I had sent off the original draft just before FryDaddy and I left on our honeymoon last summer and it's safe to say that I was suffering from a classic case of "bride brain" - the mistakes and goofs that I sent my baby off with make me cringe. My readers were most kind and the resulting chapter will be (I think) quite strong.

If only it would send.

For some reason, my e-mail system was just NOT cooperating. I'm in the midst of teaching Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to my summer drama class (and they're tearing it up, let me tell you) and we've talked about the Elizabethan view of fairies as being dark, mischievous forces who were as likely to sour your milk and steal your child as they were to bring back misplaced items and shower your house with blessings. Stay on the good side of fairies - the alternative is just too much frelling trouble.

I'm apparently in the doghouse with the Winged Ones. After two tries to send the revised version (both of which came back as "undeliverable"), I switched to another e-mail address. Here's hoping it went where it belongs!

Meanwhile, over at the Rewatch, we learn the secret of the shadowy Initiative (those are probably some guys who know how to handle a troublesome Puck) and Buffy tries her hand at Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, and nearly marries Spike.

Big week in Sunnydale.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2011-06-01T06:47:00.003-04:00

Reel One: Now that school is chugging away for the summer, I can carve out time to complete a couple of projects that have been simmering. The focus this week is on a chapter I was asked to submit for a Whedon project that Syracuse University Press will be publishing. The draft has gone through its first pass with the editors and my task now is to revise. I'm always amazed at the things that my editors/readers pick up. This is a project that is close to my heart and one I'm very pleased to be associated with and when I started going through the corrected draft, I was shocked (let me say that again - shocked) at some of the errors. Sigh. To me, it's proof that far too much was on my plate when I constructed that draft. The corrected version will be the Bionic Man of chapters - stronger, faster, smarter. It's always a little hard to take that first look at the comments, but you just can't have too much of an ego if you want to be part of a collection.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, Buffy continues her first semester of college. This week has three outstanding episodes - a funny, a horrible, and a heartbreaker. It's a bit of a roller coaster. Do check it out (the "Battle Royale" between those who like the incredibly divisive episode "Beer Bad" and those who think it a travesty is especially interesting. Note that FryDaddy and I have a tongue-in-cheek back and forth about that. [Now THERE's a hashed metaphor for you!]). The picture at the top of the post is from "Beer Bad," which is a lot of fun to bash around, but don't overlook the commentary on the other two this week.

Coming Soon: Hopefully, a report that the revised draft of the Whedon chapter has been completed. Certainly there will be a reveal at UC-Sunnydale about those commando guys.

College Already?

2011-05-24T19:39:00.003-04:00

I know it seems hard to believe, but yes - it's time for college. For me, my summer school session has started. It'll be a five-week whirl through the dramatic arts, cafeteria style. You remember cafeteria style, don't you? A little of this, a dab of that, oooh - gotta try some of that . . . just make sure you leave room for chocolate pudding at the end.

On the Whedon front, I've submitted my proposal for the upcoming Southern regional popular culture conference. I'm planning to present on the influences Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop that can be seen in Whedon's creation of the Firefly 'Verse. Bebop was first chronologically and even the casual viewer can watch an episode of Watanabe's anime tour de force and then watch an episode of Firefly and see connections. Let me make it clear - in no way do I think Firefly is a simple copy of Bebop. But there are links and similarities and no one seems to have written much about it, beyond blogging. (Don't get me wrong - I like the blogging, but I want to take this to another audience.)

Meanwhile, over at the Re-Watch, you have two links this week. (I missed last week due to unavoidable vacation. Should you wish to, you can read about it over here.) The first link was put up a week ago and discusses the wonderful Season 3 two-part finale, "Graduation Day." These two episodes have an interesting history behind them, as the network delayed broadcast in the USA (Canada got them on time - darn syrup-lickers!) due to sensitivity about Columbine. While I understand that in light of the earlier Season 3 episode "Earshot" (which had as a central plot point a planned mass killing at a school) , this delay seems a bit more iffy to me. What? Did the network suits really worry that kids were going to carry weapons to their graduations to prevent the Ascension of a demon-worshiping commencement speaker? And, if so, just who do these school boards have on speed dial? Anyway, let the lovely and talented Jennifer Stuller explain it all for you. But first, read Steve Halfyard's discussion of the use of music in these episodes. Really. Read it.

Then this week's post sees the Scoobies take their first steps post high school. High school was scary, but life after high school comes with a whole new set of perils.

Nothing's ever easy.

Including summer school.

So What's Next?

2011-05-11T10:28:00.003-04:00

Reel One: The film class has concluded. I was inordinately proud of their final papers - I know, it doesn't have that much to do with me; they're the ones who wrote them. Still, it was nice to see students make strides toward developing their own voices and strengthening their writing. (PS - I know you still hate thesis statements/topic sentences/whatever. I don't care. Remember - writing is a road map. So tell me where you're planning on taking me before we start going turn-by-turn.) The final night was a "fun night." There may even have been candy involved, but due to our strict "no food" rule, I cannot speculate on that topic. We watched the Firefly episode "Jaynestown," followed by Dr. Horrible and then put the cherry on the sundae with the Cowboy Bebop session "Ballad of Fallen Angels." The through line was a tenuous one, but music does crop up significantly in all three, so I went with that. A fun class and one that I'm chalking up as successful.

Reel Two: Over at the Rewatch, Buffy and her friends are moving ever closer to graduation. But first - prom! This week features both "Choices" and "The Prom," which are two lovely episodes that both feature the Scoobies facing future beyond high school. A scary prospect, at best. (Sorry I'm not writing more about this week - it's an awfully good posting - but I'm prepping for my own school's graduation and there's a list of things to do. "Brush off puffy hat" is included on that list!)

Coming Soon: Now we go back to the title of this post. Really - what's next? An excellent question, Readers Mine. The film class has wrapped up for the semester and will be on hiatus until fall, when it resumes again. And the denizens of Sunnydale High are staring down the barrel of the uncertainty that is life post-graduation after next week's viewing. Here, I'll continue to post about the Rewatch to encourage you to check out that project. I'll also (finally!) be working on polishing a couple of writing projects that I'll update you on as things progress. These are major opportunities for me, involving people and projects that I'm humbled to be associated with. (No false "aw, shucks" here, folks - these are big.)

Stick around, won't you?

Everybody Hurts

2011-05-04T07:10:00.003-04:00

Reel One: In class, it was the second showing of District 9. You catch so much on the second showing that slipped by on the first. That's true of most films and this one has so much going on, especially with the documentary style. The pseudo-impromptu dialogue that the microphones just barely pick up and the jittery hand-held camera shots make a second viewing (at least) imperative. Papers are due in by midnight Friday and I'm looking forward to reading where my students decided to go with this one.

Reel Two: Over at the Re-Watch - oh, boy. One of the prevalent themes in District 9 is the idea that Others matter and that the pain of those unlike us has an effect - in short, that it matters. This is an idea that Buffy explores quite frequently and perhaps nowhere as poignantly as "Enemies" and "Earshot." In "Enemies," we see "the exterior become interior" as Faith's dark past surfaces. (The quote is Tanya Cochran's, who wrote the commentary for this part of the Re-Watch.) She had a lousy childhood and now she's got strength and power and she's definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy. More like furious and vengeful.

Back over at District 9, the Atticus Finch's proverb of never really understanding a person "until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it" gets a rather literal take as the protagonist is forcibly made to see the world the way a "Prawn" does. (A fate caused largely by his own arrogance and stupidity, but still.) Buffy works with this concept in "Earshot" as feelings that we strive mightily to keep buried are exposed by the suddenly telepathic Buffy. Sounds cool, right? Hearing what other people think? Well, (to use a Whedonism), not so much. It's not a gift. This episode has an interesting history, as its original airdate was delayed due to the horrific Columbine shootings a mere week prior - I understand the delay (a planned mass murder at a school is central to the plot), but the episode is about as far from exploitative as it's possible to get. Read the post, watch the episode and learn, please. We're all in pain. All of us, no matter how together we may appear to be. And that's especially true in high school. (It gets better, at least for most of us, after we get a few more years under our belts. Promise.) Plus, this week gives us the return of Evil Willow! Seriously - it's a good week to re-watch!

Coming Next Week: Wrap up of the film class. I'm considering a few shorts - maybe a little Firefly and Bebop, maybe a little 1950s silliness with wisecracking robots. And at the Re-Watch, we continue to rocket toward the Season 3 finale - will the gang graduate high school? Or will the ceremony be delayed by an apocalypse? And what color will the robes be?

Inside Out!

2011-04-26T21:47:00.003-04:00

Reel One:

The film class had its first viewing of Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 (warning - link contains sound!). I don’t want to say too much here; the students are free to choose their own focus for this final paper and I’d rather not blur that focus with my personal thoughts. Students have no obligation at all to follow my tastes - what would be the point of that? They are, however, expected to stake out their position and defend it using the terminology and theories that we’ve spent the semester discussing. And with District 9, you can go in a LOT of different directions! Who’s the Other? What role does technology play in our society and in how we interact with others (or Others)? Does the end justify the means? Is violence okay provided it’s directed outward at something alien and weird, or do we have an obligation to treat everyone with dignity? What ties people to each other? Heck, what’s a “person”? Hmm.

Reel Two:

Meanwhile, over at the Great Buffy Re-Watch of 2011, it’s a Triple Crown of Episodes That Matter. Michael Holland writes about some major developments in Faith the Slayer that will have long-ranging - pardon the pun – consequences. And Ensley Guffey writes about a fan favorite, the Xander-centric episode “The Zeppo” when we get to see what the battles look like from a foot soldier’s perspective. Xander is usually the "odd man out," so it's especially interesting to see things from his point of view. I’ve always loved these three episodes (I've used "Consequences" in class before to discuss morality and I've used "The Zeppo" to discuss the importance of secondary characters, as a matter of fact) and the writing this week might just show you why. (OK, in the interest of full disclosure, Ensley Guffey and I share more than a last name. But seriously – it’s good stuff.) All this and there are also some notes about the use of music by the incomparable Steve Halfyard.

Coming Next Week:

Season 3 continues with the return of “Evil Willow” (squeee!), among other delights.

Day Four!

2011-04-24T00:34:00.004-04:00

Today's post isn't so much about the conference proper as it is about the city of San Antonio. Having decided that (a) it's a downright shame to come to a city like this and never leave the hotels to actually see the city and (b) since we had convinced Texas-living friends to drive in, we should avail ourselves of their company, we had set aside today to be TOURIST SIGHTSEEING DAY!! So we got ourselves up and moving and met our Texas friends in the lobby for a day of tourist stuff. There's a lot to do in this city and we scarcely scratched the surface, but we managed to do a few things well, rather than many things not-so-well. Among those . . .

1. We hit the "fire sale" of the book room. We were restrained, but come on - when it's 50% off before you start your bargaining, you make room in the suitcase.

2. Yes, we saw the Alamo. I'd been told that it really isn't all that impressive and I guess that's true, sort of. It certainly is just a fraction of the original site, but the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, who hold the site for the people of the state, have really put effort into creating presentations that will knock your socks off. Even our Texan guides marveled, saying that they hadn't been to the site since they were schoolkids and wow! had the place changed. Across the street from the actual site is a museum devoted to a scale model of the actual site with narration about how the siege unfolded. Ready for the weirdness? It's narrated by the owner of the world's largest private collection of Alamo memorabilia, Phil Collins. Yes, that Phil Collins - the one from the second incarnation of Genesis. Turns out he's a huge Alamo buff. I get the whole romance of lost causes, fighting for honor, and so on (and the story about Col. Travis drawing the line in the sand is so good it ought to be true, if it isn't), and the defenders of the Alamo did manage to buy time for Sam Houston to build his forces (or so popular versions say; in fact, like much Alamo lore, it isn't exactly true), but it still seems like such a waste of human life. Then again, I learned that one North Carolina defender of the Alamo (NC had seven on the official roster of the dead) had the magnificent name of "Dolphin Floyd," so there's that.

3. We also visited the nearby Emily Morgan Hotel, where we learned a bit about the legend of the woman who (supposedly) is behind the "Yellow Rose of Texas" legend, which (like many legends) loses some shine when you look into it.

After quite a while tramping around the sacred ground of the Alamo, we took a break for Tex-Mex food (with the best guacamole I've ever had!) at The Original Mexican Restaurant.

4. Then we figured out the trolley system and tackled Historic Market Square. Mostly, it's a nearly overwhelming array of tiny storefronts selling kitsch ranging from brightly-colored tin ornaments to Dia de la Muertos figures. Lots of clothing, jewelry, and knick-knacks are also present. (As one of our party exclaimed, "Perfect for all your pinata needs!") My favorite were the displays of full-face lucha libre wrestler masks - you could even buy a model-sized ring and a sleeve of ten costumed wrestlers to stage your own matches! All that, plus a Mexican bakery that was out of this world made for a happy, albeit waddling, group.

5. Finally, it was back to the conference for the final wrap-up. We first stopped for sandwiches and gawked over a vast array of hot sauces. My favorite was "Salvation Sauce" which comes packaged with a tiny little (printed!) Bible. Available in three strengths - I didn't inquire if those were "venial, "mortal," and "you don't want to ask." On the way out, I dropped a dollar in the case of a young busker who had a sweet face, but still looked tired. It's a hard way to earn twenty dollars or so a day. We also saw San Antonio's version of punks, but I didn't stop to ask them to pose for a picture.

6. So the conference wrap-up is a movie followed by a gift raffle. Many of the gifts are donated by conference-goers or booksellers and nearly everyone leaves with something, even if it's something you don't really want (like a pair of "Team Jacob" flip-flops). The film was the 1981 cheese-fest Clash of the Titans and FryDaddy and I snarked our way through it. We fretted at first that other people would mind - but it really is a very bad movie and others were joining in. (In fact, two of our friends seated behind us said, "Next time, you've got to sit in front of us again! They should give you microphones!" Ahh, high praise indeed.)

So with light hearts, we said good-bye to friends we hadn't seen in far too long. And yes, we did snag a few raffle prizes. Tomorrow is a good bit of traveling, then it's back to the workaday world, but I know I'm returning with a lighter step and a sunnier outlook than I have had in many a week.

Day Three!

2011-04-22T23:23:00.003-04:00

Very brief tonight (and a little snarky). By the third day of the rush of a conference and bad and/or overpriced food usually eaten on the run, I get weary.

One of the true delights of a conference such as this one is the sheer breadth of topics represented. Every scholar has a story about how they first got into their particular field, I know, but that knowledge doesn't stop me from wondering just how do you decide to devote your research time to the works of H.P. Lovecraft? Or American car culture? Or the depiction of faith healing on the screen?

Always ask these questions. Be prepared to listen to the answers, for scholars are far from the chalk-dusted bores they are often portrayed as being.

FryDaddy and I split up today to hit different sessions. He learned about Jack London and H.P. Lovecraft (an especially interesting bit there on town as civilization vs. rural as the home of evil and darkness emerged there, along with his suggestion that the lack of peer-reviewed scholarship be answered with something akin to Slayage, which is celebrating its tenth year this year), while I took in a quite interesting panel on circuses. The best bit was during the Q&A session when one spectator asked in a (hopefully unintentionally) snarky tone if the panelists had seen the HBO show Carnivale and if so, how that show fit in with their analyses. The answer, "Well, first off, that show's about a carnival, not a circus. Different tribe." Indeed - check here and here to see. Basically, elephants and bareback riders = circus; Tilt-a-Whirl and win a goldfish games = carnival. It's fine to ask questions outside your area, but specify that you know you're outside your area, Jack! (And don't use the term "circus" to describe something as being out of control. A circus is actually very organized and disciplined. The misuse of the term is taken as a bit of an insult, actually.)

I also attended a Whedon panel today that included a lovely panel on the use of tai chi in Buffy and Dollhouse and (more subtly) in Firefly. Interesting, as Firefly is the show with the most obvious Chinese influences, so you'd expect to see more in that show. Rabb and Richardson explained how it was "hiding in plain sight" and got the audience to participate, to boot! Also a presentation on the use of hands to communicate - whether they are clasped, separated, or even removed from the body entirely. I hope to see more done with that work.

It was also the Dr. Horrible sing-along. As one participant put it, "I don't sing well, but I make up for my lack of technique with volume!" Great fun was had by all.

Which brings me to my only sore point from this conference. There's a bit (not much, but a touch) in infighting amongst different sections. Some attendees see some sections as being more elevated, more "true" than other sections. Whatever. Look, I'm sorry if my wearing a fan T-shirt somehow makes you think that my scholarship isn't sound and that I'm a simple fangirl who wouldn't know Bakhtin, Foucault, and Barfield if they rose from their respective graves and bit me. Then again, I know it is sound, so isn't that your problem and not mine? I enjoy my scholarship and it's a shame that you see my fun as an attack on your work, but really - in this day of Cafe Press, go make your own quotable, clever shirt and quit trying to elevate your area by running down the creativity of mine. Grumble, grumble - isn't this the battle popular culture folks have all fought with our more hide-bound colleagues who seem to insist that the canon is just fine without the inclusion of women, minorities, or technological advancements? Seems like the red-headed stepchildren arguing over who Dad can come closest to standing.

Sorry. I know that television studies today is basically where film studies was in the 1960s - still a bit suspect. But you can't stop the future (or the signal) and the field will continue to advance, in large part due to scholars who know their stuff, write well, and present their work in an engaging fashion. And I'm surrounded by them tonight, which makes me proud, even if I'm a little off-key.

Day Two!

2011-04-21T23:06:00.004-04:00

To begin with, let me say that the touristy area of San Antonio is just lovely. There's usually a nice breeze coming off the river that helps dissipate some of the heat that concentrates in the concrete valleys of downtown and the city knows that the Riverwalk is a huge tourist attraction, so it's inviting and friendly, with lots of helpful guides and police and plenty of restaurants and shops and dazzling lights. FryDaddy and I had Tex-Mex for dinner, followed by Blue Bell ice cream, which was eaten while sitting on an ironwork balcony overlooking the darkened river. All in all, quite a nice ending to a lovely day in Texas.

The conference was in full swing today. Since I presented on Day One, I could go a bit causal today and donned my "And then Buffy staked Edward. The End." T-shirt and I wore my long, dangling Scythe earrings that FryDaddy gifted me with for Christmas. Generally, people don't get that outfit, but here - well, people stopped me in the street between the two conference hotels to remark on it. Edward is, of course, the "glittery vampire" from the Twilight franchise, which is a bit of a lightning rod in the scholarly circles in which I move. I'm somewhere in the middle - I think just about anything that gets that many people to read is a good thing on some level and the author certainly knows her audience. That being said, I despise Bella and find many of the tropes that are reinforced in the books to border on dangerous. (Bella, honey, listen to me. Men don't change much and the ones who stalk you aren't loving; they're possessive and creepy. Go to college, get some learning in that pretty little head of yours and make a life for yourself. Oh, and one more thing. Vampires don't glitter! Thank you; I feel much better now.)

Among the papers I heard today - I attended an excellent panel on Civil War photographs (what? I can't have layers?) and learned about the "cult of generals' widows," facial hair (those 1860s whiskers were off the hook! The example at the top of the post is downright tame), and the depiction of medical treatment. I heard a beyond fantastic discussion of fan activism (not the "save our show" variety, but the "let's change the world" type) and a discussion of collecting and attending collectible conventions (such as the juggernaut Comic-Con) as a means of preserving place and time while exerting control over one's space. FryDaddy's paper on Breaking Bad and Athens' theory of "violentization" was quite well received and he was asked insightful and interesting follow-up questions. And a Whedon panel dealt with problems of translation (in the opening credits the final line of the voice-over is "She is the Slayer." In French, it is "Elle s'appelle Buffy" or "She is Buffy," which has a totally different feel), the motifs of death and sacrifice in Season 5 and using the lush episode "Hush" to teach aspects of visual rhetoric (some ideas that I certainly hope to incorporate). See - both broad and deep. You have to love this place.

Then I was simply bushed. That's the shame of it - there's so much more to see and hear than there is time to adequately take it all in. I haven't even hit the book room yet!

Well, Day Three is coming . . .

Day One!

2011-04-20T23:58:00.006-04:00

It would probably be more appropriate to call this "Day One Half," since the conference panels began late this morning, rather than the usual time of (gulp) 8 a.m. This allows people to get here, check in, find the proper location and so on before the conference proper gets going, which is a wise idea, because once it does get going, it's on full-tilt until Saturday night.

My goal here is to try to include at least a brief post each day, but it's late and I have an 8 a.m. panel I want to see tomorrow morning, so this will be very brief.

There's no reason to not love this conference. So many disciplines, so many ways of looking at texts and nearly everything is delivered by people who care passionately about their chosen subject matters. It goes back to what I always tell speech students - no, no, I'm not about to choose your topic; that's your job and therefore, if you choose something you don't care about, that's your fault that you're bored. Really, life would be so much more interesting if people spent large chunks of their time working on things that truly interested them, don't you think? Oh, sure - you hear a fair amount of jargon, but that's to be expected. The trick is to make sure you explain the jargon to your audience so you're not just speaking to a teensy, tiny little sliver of the folks out there. Case in point - my studies never took me into the circle of Mikhail Bakhtin's literary theories (I was a theatre major, then I studied law), but if you break it down for me, I can follow a discussion on heteroglossia just fine.

I also had my presentation today, which seems to have gone just fine. I was cutting even as I was presenting, but made my time limit and just may have given my audience a few things to think about. I spoke on the origins of the character of Buffy Summers in the Marvel X-Men character of Kitty Pryde and used a few examples to show the (to me) clear links between Whedon's work and earlier work on Marvel titles. I think Whedon deliberately acknowledged his debt to the earlier writers and artists. What do you think? The left hand image is the cover of Whedon/Jeanty Buffy #35 and the right is the Claremont/Bryne Uncanny X-Men #138. The texture of the background is made up of smaller versions of previous covers.

Enough. The presentations went well and it's done now. FryDaddy presents on Breaking Bad tomorrow afternoon and there's much more to do and see and hear.

Until then, True Believers!

Deep in the Heart of Texas!

2011-04-19T18:31:00.003-04:00

I don't think this really counts as "Day 1" of the conference just yet, as it was spent in traveling and dealing with all the myriad of details that go with getting ready to burst from the starting gate for this shindig. The National (makes it sound like a horse race, doesn't it?) is big on its own; paired as it is this year with the regional SW/Texas conference, the program itself is the size of a respectable doorstop. I need to go through and at least figure out my game plan for tomorrow; planning more than that much is just too darned intimidating. See, the academic study of popular culture is an offshoot of American studies - and that's an awfully big boat by itself. Interested in just why Americans have such a love affair with cars and the open road? This is the place for you. Interested in the Beat poets? We're your huckleberry. Fascinated by the sharp rise in the popularity of so-called reality television programming? Want to get some ideas on incorporating the "new media" in your classroom? Want to meet other scholars who focus on the American detective novel? Or the depiction of images of women in advertising? Trust me, hang out in the lobby of the hotels (the conference is so large that it's overtaken two major hotels in downtown San Antonio) and you'll find your people.

And I have to say that this was just one of those smooth days, which is especially nice after the sturm und drang associated with getting ready to be responsibly away from campus for this long this close to the end of the semester. No problem getting to the airport, the bags were duly tagged and whisked away, security was just fine - I even had time for a coffee and an overpriced airport pastry before the boarding call. The flight was fine and even got in a few minutes early. Our bags came down the baggage carousel promptly, we were advised how to cheaply get to the hotel (no free shuttles, alas!), where an alert bellman carried our bags and filled us in on the history of the city. We unpacked, sauntered around the immediate vicinity of the hotel and found the Riverwalk where we ate ice cream in the sunshine and watched other tourists watching us.

All in all, a lovely end to a twelve-hundred-mile journey. We finished up with a wonderful, artery-clogging Italian three-course dinner on the famed Riverwalk where we were entertained by the stylings of (no kidding) "Adean Fusion," who rendered amplified show tunes on the Peruvian pan flute and an assortment of other native instruments. You know I'm telling the truth; I couldn't make that up if I tried. The Eagles' "Hotel California" was also presented, which may qualify them for inclusion in the Sixth Circle of Hell. (That's where they kept heretics, according to Dante, and it seems to sort of qualify.)

Now to take a deep breath and begin highlighting that doorstop of a program . . .

And don't forget about the Re-Watch! We're into the really, really good stuff of Season 3 here, including the introduction of Mothers Opposed to the Occult, or MOO. Always watch for your acronyms, people. Always.

The "Beard of Evil"

2011-04-18T22:19:00.004-04:00

Note: This post is actually going to be a "one reel wonder," since I'm posting on Monday and the Re-Watch posting doesn't go up until Tuesday. Tomorrow, FryDaddy and I are making a twelve-hundred-mile trek to San Antonio to attend and present at the mack daddy of popcult conferences, the joint regional SW Texas and National PCA/ACA shindig. San Antonio is reputed to be a beautiful city and we're both looking forward to seeing some of its charms, including the Alamo. San Antonio is named for Saint Anthony of Padua, who is listed as (among other things) the patron saint of lost articles. So if I misplace my hotel key, I at least know who to ask for intercession. More will be posted from the conference itself.

Reel One: Tonight, the film class discussed the trope of the "alternate universe," especially the "mirror universe" in which people and settings are familiar, yet somehow "off" just a crucial little bit. It's a popular theme in fantasy and science fiction, with examples including Alice's trip to Wonderland and "The Wish" episode in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But for the purposes of our class discussion, we went back to the vaults and took in the Jerome Bixby scripted "Mirror, Mirror" episode of the first Star Trek series. This wonderful (and, in places, wonderfully cheesy) episode features an ruthlessly logical Mr. Spock, who can be distinguished from the "real" Mr. Spock by his pointy goatee, hence, "the Beard of Evil." Said Beard has also been parodied on other shows, including South Park. The class seemed to enjoy picking "Mirror, Mirror" apart and I've asked them to write on how the concept by telling me what their "mirror image" would be like and how I might be able to distinguish the "real" from the "false."

Should make for interesting reading!

Coming Soon: The exam film! Working title: "The Exam Film."

She Knows It's a Multipass

2011-04-12T21:03:00.003-04:00

Reel One: Over at the film class, it was time to see that not all science fiction takes itself so very, very seriously (Dark City) and/or goes for the scare factor (Alien). We needed something with color and pop and humor and - yeah, it'd be nice if the world gets saved! Luc Besson's The Fifth Element seemed to meet all the criteria. I'm eagerly awaiting the student responses on fashion in the film. So. Much. To Write. About. Chris Tucker's Ruby Rhod alone could be an entire response paper! And I think Gary Oldman's Zorg might just be the actual flip side of the villain Stansfield in Besson's Leon: The Professional which was filmed three years earlier. Fun stuff and a good way to begin our wrap-up leading to the final exam.

Reel Two: Over at the Re-Watch, oh - best buckle up, children, we're deep in the good stuff! This week features two guest bloggers, one a co-author of a Glee book (she blogs here) and the other the uncrowned Queen of Angel Studies (and if I have my way [which is a very good way], she'll soon get a crown. Something tasteful, but with a bit of dash and flair). Episodes this week deal with relationship breakdowns, the return of Spike, and the realization that love is a powerful force, and not always for good. You most definitely won't be "bored now!"

Next week: Probably a truncated post, then postings from the big ol' honking National and Regional popular culture conference deep in the heart of San Antonio, Texas. It'll be huge! Tell your friends.

Buffy's Just the Runner-up . . .

2011-04-06T06:48:00.005-04:00

Reel One: In class this week, we took a detour. Sherry Ginn, a neuropsychologist who has a yen for studying how women are depicted in science fiction, agreed to come talk to my class about sex and gender in television. Ginn currently serves as head for the Science Fiction and Fantasy section of the national Popular Culture/American Culture Associations in addition to her professional affiliations in the psychological field, so I considered having her come down to my school on a weeknight to be a downright coup. As a class, we watched an episode of Babylon 5 and discussed color, tribalism, and some of the uses of symbolism in the episode, then talked about evolutionary psychology's point of view toward sex (briefly, men want lots of offspring, so they mate with anything and everything while women want their offspring to benefit from the best genetic material out there, so they're pickier. Actual results may, of course, vary) and how science fiction either mirrors prevailing attitudes towards sex (Captain Kirk) or pushes those boundaries, particularly in the depiction of gay characters (Torchwood). My students seemed engaged and interested and a couple eagerly sought Ginn's e-mail to continue the conversation. As am I. (Just don't ask her about River Tam's amygdyla. She gets testy that so many things were just done so wrong. And yes, she would know about that.)

Reel Two: Over at the Re-Watch, Season 3 continues with a couple of personal favorites. The title of the post, for instance, comes from "Homecoming" and is said by a defiantly-non-superpowered Cordelia who frightens off a bloodthirsty killing machine of a vampire bent on revenge just by snarking at him. Ah, Cordelia. This week's post is written by Jennifer Knoch, editor by day and blogger by night. Her blog can be accessed here. Great stuff, both in the Re-Watch post and the blog (which focuses on book recommendations). And oh - watch how Sunnydale's teenagers fail to deal with their suddenly regressed adult population. I knew selling band candy could only lead to trouble!

Next week: Color, humor, and story come together in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element.

"Love Keeps Her in the Air"

2011-03-30T07:32:00.003-04:00

It's a double shot of Whedon this week! And it's also a double shot of Slayers as the Re-Watch rumbles into Season 3 and we see a Slayer-less Sunnydale that suddenly finds itself with an unexpected surfeit of Slayers. Over in the film class, we follow up our dip into anime by taking a swim in Serenity. Fortunately, violence did not ensue.

Reel One: Over at the Re-Watch, Buffy follows up the events of "Becoming" by following the advice of Brave Sir Robin of Monty Python fame and running away. Cynthia Burkhead explains the first three episodes of Season 3 for us, which gives her a lot of ground to cover, as Buffy tries to re-invent herself in the glittering sewer that is Los Angeles (that's her at the top of the post in her "Anne the Waitress" persona), returns home to discover how much home has changed (or maybe the changes are in her) and how much her absence has affected people she loves, and a new Slayer comes to town. Burkhead approaches these three episodes through the lens of examining Buffy's dreams, which can be prophetic for the Slayer but also very instructive for the audience.

Reel Two: Ah, Serenity. My introduction to the 'Verse of Firefly, as I (hangs head, adopts defensive tone) missed the "blink and you'll miss it" half-season when it first aired on the Network That Shall Not Be Named. So this is how I met Mal (who I only knew as Caleb from much, much later on Buffy. I'll let the Re-Watch handle him in due time) and his quirky crew. The class seemed to enjoy the film - those River fight sequences are jaw-dropping - but I'm not sure the True Grit-meets-Mandarin-Chinese dialogue scored points. Still - a fitting bookend for the world of Bebop.

Coming Next Week: Guest speaker! Dr. Sherry Ginn, neuropsychologist, author, and national science fiction section chair comes to talk to the class about sex, gender, and space. All kinds of space.

See you there!

"Take All That Away and What's Left?"

2011-03-23T06:42:00.004-04:00

"Me."

And with that exchange of lines, my conversion from casual fan to "this is something special and everyone should watch it" was cemented. Over at the Re-Watch this week, Steve Halfyard leads us through the musical feast that is the Season 2 finale "Becoming." If you're not going through this as a newbie, please also read the "spoiler forums" that follow the main posting. (On the other hand, if you ARE watching Buffy for the first time, take your time. You can only see it for the first time once and [trust me] it's worth savoring.) Confession - "Becoming, Part 2" is the first Buffy episode I ever saw and, while the above-referenced lines jumped me off the couch, a particular exchange between Giles and Xander* (characters whom, at the time, I did not know from Adam's house cat) made me want to stick around and see what happened.

Reel Two: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we began exploring the "space Western" in class with a showing of the movie version of Cowboy Bebop. This film has so much going on! Leaving aside the detailed characterizations and depth of backgrounds, Bebop is also a great place to discuss sound in films for three reasons. First, in terms of the use of music - many different styles are presented, some underscore the onscreen action while in other places, the music serves as a counterpoint. Second, some of the music is diegetic (the characters, as well as the viewer, can hear the music) while in other places it is not. Third, as a Japanese film, it can spark a good discussion of the "dubbed vs. subtitle" debate.

I'm also finding it interesting I can easily locate links between my class films and the Re-Watch. Central to "Becoming" are the ideas of what we become, how knowledge influences our self-concepts and (most importantly) what we do with that information. In Bebop, characters are faced with those same dilemmas and viewers see that the answers matter. "Who am I?" and "What's important to me?" and (maybe most important to both "reels" this week) "What's my responsibility in this?" In "Becoming," Buffy (at least for a moment) fully embraces her identity of the Slayer - it's not a job, it's who she is. She's got people to protect and what she personally wants must be put aside to deal with what's right in front of her. In Bebop, Spike** protests as much as Queen Gertrude that he doesn't care about the sheep of the worlds, yet he fights mightily to protect a world of innocents who will never know what they were saved from.

Great stuff that makes you proud to be human.

* - Xander is playing hero and goes to rescue Giles. Finding him weak from torture and confused by Drusilla's mind tricks, Xander begins untying him. Giles thinks Xander's appearance is just another illusion. Giles: They get inside my head, make me see things I want." Xander looks him straight in the eye and applies unshakable logic to the situation: "Then why would they make you see me?"

** - Don't give me any guff about Watanabe's use of the name "Spike." I think there are some particular reasons for the name in Bebop. Timeline wise, Whedon's Billy Idol-ish Spike first appeared in late 1997 and Bebop first came out in 1998. That said, Bebop is animated, so that Spike was on the literal drawing board for a while. Whedon doesn't have a monopoly on cool tough guys named Spike, even if they both smoke like chimneys. Do I think there are links between Bebop and Whedon? Yep, and they come out in packs in Firefly.

The Work, Which Becomes a New Genre Itself . . .

2011-03-16T12:49:00.004-04:00

Reel One: Actually, the only "reel" this week. My college is on spring break, so my film class didn't meet this week (I'll spoil you about what's going to happen when they come back later in the post). Not to fear, though - the Nik at Nite re-watch continues unabated! This week, Ian Klein dissects three episodes leading up to the jaw-dropping finale of Season 2. (Incidentally, those finale eps are where I first entered the Buffy boat lo those many years ago.) The twin "Becoming" episodes are so strong that these three can get lost in the shuffle, which is a shame. Klein does a lovely job of giving these episodes the credit they're (over)due. And Steve Halfyard explains the music to us - honestly, I love those bits. Musicology isn't my field (at all, despite my propensity for belting out lyrics at stoplights), and I enjoy learning more about how the music weaves themes together throughout a show that has such a special place for me.

Now - there is no "Reel 2" this week, due to the afore-mentioned break, a large chunk of which I'm spending drafting my paper on Whedon's circular take on Marvel's Kitty Pryde and his own Buffy Summers. The paper is due to be delivered at the end of April, so you'd think I had plenty of time. Then again, you've never seen me write. But I also had to do some prep work for my return to class next week, which meant re-watching the anime feast that is Watanabe's Cowboy Bebop. To borrow from Mal Reynolds, dear and fluffy lord, how I love this show! It's not without its flaws (Faye appears to be an amalgam of large, jiggly parts that are often posed provocatively for the camera and her heart is nearly as cold as outer space itself), but it also isn't afraid to ask the Big Questions. You know the type - "Must I always be my past?" and "Caring about people complicates matters - am I better off with people or without them?"

The music is stunningly good and is in many ways the heart of the show. The title of this post comes from a snippet on Bebop and is a reference itself to the free-wheeling nature of jazz: "The work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called . . . Cowboy Bebop." At its best, Bebop is a meditation on freedom and the price that comes with it. Lovely, truly lovely work, but I must warn you. Don't let the cartoon nature of Bebop fool you. It'll dazzle your eyes and then break your heart. Poor FryDaddy (who was a fan before I was) had to put up with my storming around when the series ended as it should, rather than how I wanted it. My students will be spared that, as they'll see the film, rather than the series. Still, I wouldn't give up the hurt that came with "Real Folk Blues."

Yet my pain is being mocked. Apparently, Keanu Reeves wants to be Spike. (Not that I blame him. Hell, some days I want to be Spike!) The difference is, especially after the bank that was The Matrix, Reeves has the box-office pull to make this an Appealing Idea to Fox. The live-action deal seems to be stalled in Development Hell due to cost.

Let us give thanks.

Genre in a Blender

2011-03-09T07:38:00.003-05:00

Reel One: After multiple examples of films using straight-ahead, easy to follow narratives, we left the safety of the path this week and dove into the magnificence of Dark City. As a general rule of thumb, when the protagonist of a film is suffering from amnesia, the plot is going to go down a few rabbit holes. It's actually one of the (many) things I enjoy with this movie - you need to actually watch it. I included it on the syllabus to discuss the concepts of mise en scene and I think it provides a brilliant springboard for that discussion. Proyas' view of a sort-of New York is dark and mystic and foreboding. Buildings rise and fall at the collective whims of a race running experiments on us in a complicated attempt to understand what allows us to also be individuals. Time is running out, yet day never comes. Coming out a year before The Matrix, this film deals with some of the same issues, including the idea of "am I my memories?" and "if I am, and I can't trust those memories to be true, then who am I?" Dark City is often classified as a neo-noir, which I think is fair, but it fits in nicely with my sci-fi-centric class as well. (Another point that will come back up when we return from break is that the canvas that is science fiction is large enough to encompass any number of genres. More on that in the "Coming Next Week" portion!)

Reel Two: Buffy breaks my heart. Over at the Re-Watch, three amazing scholars tackle some crucial Season 2 storytelling. Hold the phone, Agnes! you say. Buffy? That late 90s thing based on that fluffy movie with that guy from the first 90210? She's in high school but goes around killing - what was it? - yeah, vampires. That's what you're talking about breaking your heart?

None other, Skeptical Ones. For this week, the Re-Watch gallops headlong into the valley of love, loss, maturity, grief, and flaming baseball bats. "Phases" can be sweet as love begins to blossom and "Bewitched . . ." can be funny and tragic by turns in its depiction of boomerang magic (be very careful what you wish for, when you put revenge into the mix) and then. Then there is "Passion."

I'll say no more about it - this week's lineup will spell it out for you (and Steve Halfyard even breaks it down by notes for you!) and really - this is where many a casual viewer sat up on the couch and said, "Whoa. They did that?" Whedon mixes genres into a fine puree sometimes - teenage angst gives way to slapstick gives way to gothic romance gives way to horror gives way to "clutch a pillow and cry for the loss of what never was."

This is why Buffy has (rightfully) sparked book after book and blog after blog.

Coming Next Week: The school is on spring break, so there won't be a usual "reel" for our film. However, I'm taking the time to finish watching the amazing and incredible Cowboy Bebop series, so I daresay I'll yammer on about Spike and Faye and Jet and Ed and Ein and the wonders of anime. The class will be watching the movie; I'm working through the original series. What? you say. Japanese animation? Huge eyes and sharp features and jerky movements? Piffle. Bebop has more heart and loveliness and humor and despair and hope than anything I've seen consistently in quite a while. Pokemon it ain't. Join me, won't you?

"She Made Me Feel Like a Human Being . . ."

2011-03-02T07:05:00.004-05:00

"That's not the kind of thing you just forgive."

Reel One: Buffy's protective and broody boyfriend Angel gives in to his ongoing temptation. After nearly losing Buffy to the death and destruction promised by The Judge (and on her birthday, no less!), the two star-crossed lovers become - well, lovers. It's glorious for them both - each of them realizes the treasure that is the other and they take tremendous comfort in being with someone who knows all the secrets (and there are many) and still offers only love, acceptance, and tenderness.

Sweet, but this is Whedon. I won't get ahead of the Re-Watch in terms of the explanations, but Angel turns bad. Very, very bad. He's cruel to his bewildered lover, taunting her inexperience and trampling love and tenderness underfoot. So what'd Buffy get for her birthday?

Older.

The episodes this week (yes, even "Bad Eggs") set up some important Events To Come and are beautifully explained by this week's guest bloggers. Go on over there and take a look - and take your time reading the posts!

Reel Two: After a series of misadventures involving open windows, torrential thunderstorms, standing water, electrical cables and a recalcitrant DVD player, the film class managed to watch the original short film version of Impostor. (The plan was to watch the feature-length version, but Life Was Overtaken By Events and it became necessary to punt.) Interesting, and while the feature length version may drag a bit in the middle, this one felt almost breathless in its mad dash to the finish line. Still, some interesting points are made about what it means to be human - is it physical? The ability to remember events? The ability to feel pain and to bleed? Is it spiritual? In which case, how do you quantify that? Is it the ability to feel compassion for others, who may be unlike you? All good questions raised, but not necessarily answered here.

Angelus deeply resents being made to "feel like a human being," while the rest of us (at least those of us who aren't afflicted with some form of pathological condition) prize that quality.

Where will this go next week in Dark City? What happens when non-humans are running the show and we don't even realize there's a show being run? Tune in next week to find out!

PS - I'm working my way through the original "sessions" of Cowboy Bebop. That's sure to become an item of reference for the next little bit. I'm not quite a quarter of the way through and I think this series is an absolute gem. Freedom, down-on-your-luck-but-unwilling-to-give-up characters, spaceships, lost love, and reluctant do-gooding, all with an absolutely kickin' soundtrack! There's nothing here to not love. The opening was enough to grab me - see what you think!

Robots and Things That Want to Kill You

2011-02-23T06:49:00.002-05:00

Reel One: The Great Buffy Re-Watch continues! Originating in Canada, but with a crack team of critics, viewers, bloggers, and just all-around swell people from around the globe, this week's effort focuses on the two parter "What's My Line?" and the creepy stand-alone "Ted." In short, Buffy learns that her drowning at the hands of the Master caused another Slayer to be activated - one with a far greater dedication to the job (as well as a truly all-over-the-place accent. Oh, Kendra. How I miss you). "WML?" is set during one of those odd "Career Days" at Sunnydale High and Buffy and the Scoobies confront the eventual need for gainful employment. (It'll be interesting to see how some of this plays out throughout the series.) In "Ted," Buffy's divorced mom tries dating. She picks John Ritter and well, let's just say it goes somewhat less than well. Miniature golf can't solve all relationship problems and robots can go mad.

Reel Two: The film class met Buffy's action hero godmother, Ellen Ripley. (#8 on the AFI list and the only female in the top ten!) I was pleased at how well Alien holds up over the years. Still psychologically creepy (and a few moments that are, for me at least, truly jump-worthy), still gets you thinking about money as motivator, and still proves that while robots may obey Asimov's Laws of Robotics, they need to be programmed in. (Who knew? I thought the link was going to be Buffy/Ripley this week - turns out I'm going with the robot angle!) The post-film discussion went so well that several members of the class didn't want to leave - a problem I love to have! The first compare/contrast essay was due, so I have reading galore to go through. (Is it geeky that I'm excited about that? No - don't tell me.)

Next week, the class examines the paranoia that comes with not being able to tell the aliens from the humans and the amazingness that is "Surprise/Innocence." In both the film class and the Re-Watch, our Stalwart Protagonists are going to be changed forever.

They're Already Here! You're Next!

2011-02-16T06:56:00.004-05:00

Reel One: This week, the class examined that classic of Cold War fears, Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Mayberry (sorry - Santa Mira, California) gets taken over by "pod people" (no, not the Spinal Tap variety, nor the Lady Gaga genus) who have a drive to survive, but make do without any sort of messy emotion or personal connection. "Santa Mira" - I just love that name for a town in which everything is a mirror image and nothing is what it appears to be. Invasion is a film that holds up well (although at least one student was verbal in his desire to leave all this black & white stuff behind), especially in its strumming the lyre of "if the enemy looks like us, who can you trust?" Even sleep becomes an instrument of destruction in this film! Sure, a few things are definitely dated - "been to Reno" as code for "gotten divorced" and doctors who cheerfully interrupt their hot date to make a house call - but Invasion still plays a sonata of science fiction mixed with a good dose of psychological horror.

Reel Two: Over at the Great Buffy Re-Watch, similar themes are being explored. This week's showing features "Lie to Me" and "The Dark Age" in which viewers learn that Giles - steadfast, tweedy Giles - has a past he's not proud of and it's come to town. The enemy can look just like us and the people you expect to have the answers are, in fact, the source of the problem. But as the Zen Buddhists might remind us (if they had a hankering to fight the Undead), within every problem nestles its solution and the day will be saved, but the status quo will not be fully restored. Something has to be sacrificed in growing up and this week, that something is (for Buffy) a certain measure of childish innocence and (for Giles) thinking that a tweed coat can successfully disguise a dark past forever.

Next week - heroines discover that Real Life might not match the brochure. Buffy deals with the results of an vocational aptitude test (turns out "Slayer" isn't listed) and my class meets her fantastic Action Girl aunt, Ellen Ripley.

She's Alive! Alive!

2011-02-09T07:29:00.003-05:00

Reel One: The class discovers James Whale's classic (and one of the rare sequels that knocks the original out of the water) Bride of Frankenstein. Humor, pathos, villainy, the "Other" as more human than the humans, even a pitchfork-wielding mob - is there anything this movie doesn't have? We had a good discussion following the screening (helped, no doubt, by the fact that Bride is only 75 minutes long) and we marveled at the fact that this is one of the strange movies in which the title character isn't on screen all that much (under 10 minutes, actually). Bride may be about her, but it's not really her story. To round out the experience, we watched a brief clip (with the Gene Hackman hermit - check it out here) of the parody Young Frankenstein.

All in all, a good night. The class is beginning to click and is watching with more critical eyes than they may have had at the start of everything. Case in point - a very nice discussion about the prevalence of triangles in the film - both the physical shape (Gothic! Everything points up!) and character grouping, which is constantly shifting as the film's tension ratchets upward (see? More with the pointing).

Reel Two: Some Canadian continues to rally her friends to re-watch Buffy and write about the episodes. This week, things are getting good with the inclusion of "Halloween" as we learn that Giles isn't all tweed-and-tea and Buffy's fervent wish to "just be a normal girl" is granted (sort of) with results that edge towards the disastrous.

Next week - in class, we look at how film reflects fears by viewing Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Buffy's life gets more complicated by discovering that adults don't have all the answers and, in fact, raise plenty of the questions. And also raise demons.

Flying Cars and a Double Dose of the Slayer

2011-02-02T07:08:00.003-05:00

My film class started the actual "watching of the flickering pictures" this week. I chose Metropolis as the starting point for the class, which focuses on science fiction. I'm waiting to hear from the students - was silent film too much of a change for them? Did the "Delsarte Technique" acting style put them off? What did they think of the effects? Of the storyline? These are all questions I hope to have answered in a few days.

As for me, I was stunned by how the film holds up. So very many science fiction concepts can trace their first cinematic appearance to Metropolis - the dystopian city divided sharply into have/have not (one student commented, "So where's the middle?" Exactly), the "machine-man" (the term "Robot" had been coined a few years earlier in R.U.R. by Czech playwright Karel Capek, but it hadn't become widespread), an odd little house that's bigger inside and outside, even flying cars (and they were cars! OK, they look a lot like ultralights, but the idea is there). Women don't come off too well in the film - saint or whore; really no middle ground there - but you can't have everything in late 1920s Germany.

Over at the Great Buffy Re-Watch, I missed posting the second half of last week, which centers on the Season 1 finale "Prophecy Girl," an episode I simply adore. So I have two links there this week - end of Season 1 here, and beginning of Season 2 (Spike! Spike!) here.

And over in my class, we continue exploring created humans and mad scientists next week with Bride of Frankenstein. Neither corpses nor popcorn will be provided. And no, you may not bring your own.

So You're a Slayer - Just How Scary Are Your Nightmares?

2011-01-25T21:21:00.004-05:00

It's Week 4 of the Great Buffy Re-Watch and it's so big, it's split into two posts! (Actually, there are two writers for this week.)

Great stuff here! After all, if you're the Slayer and (as such) you're the thing that scary things are scared of, just exactly how bone-shakingly scary are the things you're scared of going to be? That's one of the issues that gets explored in "Nightmares" and we learn some very interesting things about our Scoobies. (Hint: Willow has rather severe stage fright!)

Also covered in this first half of this week's post is "Out of Sight, Out of Mind." Or something like that - it's one of those episodes that has different names depending on your source. Seems even the network couldn't make up its mind. Regardless of the title, most of us remember some times in our tour of hell known in polite society as high school during which we felt invisible. Sunnydale being situated on a Hellmouth means that's not just a metaphor.

This week's post is brought to you by David Kociemba, the editor of Watcher Junior, a peer-reviewed online journal for undergraduate scholarship on the Whedonverses. If that's an area of interest for you, they're currently accepting submissions. Click here for details.

We're nearly through Season 1 - it was only a half-season in length, after all. (Remember, BtVS began as a mid-season replacement, so the first season wasn't a full 22-episode run.) Coming up in a day or two is the finale of Season 1 - "Prophecy Girl." I won't spoil for anyone who's watching for the first time, but I can say this - "Prophecy Girl" is where I moved from liking this show to starting to love it just a little. You might feel the same way.

Watch and find out!

Buffy Re-Watch!

2011-01-19T06:46:00.003-05:00

As we continue working our way through Season 1 with "Angel," "I Robot, You Jane," and "The Puppet Show" (scary ventriloquist dummies - always a guaranteed crowd-pleaser!), we also get to enjoy the thoughtful commentary of the very observant, dryly funny and in no way reminiscent of Giles, Matthew Pateman. I've known him for a number of years now and his commentary never fails to make me go "hmmm." (He also has a tendency to make me metaphorically smack my forehead and say, "Of course! Why didn't I see that before?" Not a bad thing in a critic. That he also manages to be funny while doing all of this - there's your superplus. Click here and you'll see what I mean.) Anyway, this is his week.

Season 1 was a while back and Pateman points out that some of the references (especially to technology) don't hold up well in a contemporary context. Then again, texts need to be met on the ground on which they were created - Jane Eyre didn't have a cell phone, either.

In these three episodes, Jenny and Giles begin to circle their mutual attraction. Under duress, Xander, Willow, and Buffy perform at a school talent show (stay for the credits!). And - oh, yeah - the mysterious, brooding, somewhat-older-than-Buffy Angel (played by a very young David Boreanaz - that bit about vampires not aging is a total lie) turns out to be a vampire who has been around long enough to have read the first edition of Jude the Obscure when it was hot off the presses. Well, what relationship doesn't have its quirks?

Technological Wonders!

2011-01-15T11:21:00.005-05:00

My college wants very much to increase the level of proficiency amongst the faculty, so for the last two years, thanks to a grant that will last three more years, we've had a "FIT group." The cutesy acronym stands for something like "Faculty Instructional Technology" and being chosen for the group means a shower of tech goodies to incorporate into the classroom, including this year's prize, the iPad. I'm part of the current group and I must admit that, at first, I thought the iPad was a cool toy, but I didn't really see the application of it to the classroom.

I'll admit I was wrong.

I've been pointed toward (and discovered some on my own) some very useful, practical uses for the iPad, and here's one for my film class - the film study app. This will link you to literally hundreds of public domain movies - to be fair, many of them are what we would politely term "obscure" and more than a few seem to just be bad, but bad movies can be very good teaching tools! (And some of them are classics in the good way.)

Using this app, you can watch films in a variety of genres - cartoons, film noir, science fiction (our focus), Westerns, romance, etc. You can pause the film whenever you like and choose from a wide number of tags to mark examples of editing techniques, the use of sound, various shots and angles, and many others. All this and it's free!

What a country!

"I'm a Slayer - Ask Me How!"

2011-01-11T20:58:00.005-05:00

Week 2 of the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011! And it's a doozy. Remember, every week three more episodes will be critiqued. Now, Nikki Stafford is lovely and talented (still perkily Canadian, though), but she can't do it all. Besides, half the fun of watching is yakking about what you've seen with friends. So she roped in a couple dozen folks to pitch in. This week, critic extraordinaire David Lavery (seriously, the man has forgotten more about TV than I know) takes us by the hand to walk us through "Teacher's Pet," "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date," and "The Pack." (The title of this post comes from "Never Kill," by the way. And yes, I've seen lapel buttons with the slogan printed on them at conferences. Gotta get one of those!)

At this point in Season 1, Whedon has his major players (the "Scooby Gang") in place, and he starts to flesh out (a term with often gross overtones in a show like Buffy) some secondary characters, like Xander. We also start to see Buffy's conflict between her Slayer duties and her deep-seated desire to be "normal," which will run throughout the show.

Great stuff here!

"Into every generation a Slayer is born . . ."

2011-01-06T21:51:00.003-05:00

. . . you know the rest. "One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One born with the strength and skill to fight the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers.” Thus began the saga of Buffy Summers, who pretty much began my own journey into the in-depth investigation of the ways in which popular culture matters in the wider world. (A lot of that fire was really lit by Firefly, but Buffy can be said to have built the bonfire.)

It's an amazing show. Really. You must, of course, get past the deliberately silly-sounding title but once you do - ohhhh, your rewards will be vast and your interest will be compounded!

It's a show worthy of a rewatch, and the lovely and talented (albeit perkily Canadian) Nikki Stafford has begun the Great Buffy Rewatch of 2011. Gather around, children. It promises to be an epic tale, full of true love and high adventure. (OK, so I'm ripping off The Princess Bride with that line. Whatever advances the story.) She lined up a most impressive cast of rogues and sharp dealers to chime in with their thoughts and the plan is to post a new installment on Tuesday, which was always "Buffy night" when the show was airing. Each installment will usually cover three episodes (the writer might choose to focus on one of the three more than others - dealer's choice rules), although a couple will be "stand-alones."

I'll keep you posted.

Also, I'll be using this blog to comment on my soon-to-begin film course this semester. Yes, Gentle Readers, several years of hard work and much conferencing has borne fruit. (Hopefully not figs. I don't like those much. Especially the leaves.) I'm teaching an introductory film course this semester which focuses on science fiction films and I intend to use this blog to comment and (hopefully) get some comments in return. Please feel free to leave comments, but be warned that this is a moderated board. I don't censor, but I do refuse to post obvious links to selling sites or scams. It's my blog; I get to set the rules.

So come for the Slayer, stay for the rayguns!

Coming Soon!

2010-11-25T22:23:00.006-05:00

Nikki Stafford, she of many a TV guide (but not, you understand, TV Guide), has both risen to the challenge and thrown down a gauntlet. Hard to do both, but she's Canadian. And tricksy.

Nikki is probably best known as the writer of the immensely detailed and popular Lost guides, but she's also a Whedonian at heart, having written one of the first guides to give Buffy the Vampire Slayer more than a passing glance. Starting in 2011, she's devoting her blog - you can see it by clicking the link here - to a Buffy re-watch every Tuesday. (Makes sense - throughout the seven-year run of the show, Tuesday was always "Buffy night.") The show is a whopping 144 episodes in length, so Nikki's drafted help. A number of pop culture scholars, enthusiasts, Whedon scholars, podcasters and various other strays are going to be chiming in throughout the year-long run of the re-watch.

Should be interesting and I've staked out (yuk, yuk) my week.

You'll have to tune in to see what I have to say and decide if it's worth the electronic ink it takes to make it appear on the page!

By the way, the picture is from the Season Four Thanksgiving episode "Pangs." Gobble, gobble to you all and may you enjoy your ritual sacrifice. With pie.

Browncoat Ball

2010-10-23T09:00:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, I attended Day 1 of the 2010 Browncoat Ball. (The picture shows a Firefly soaring over the Charlotte skyline.) I'm a member of the Charlotte Browncoats (although not exactly in good standing in terms of attendance lately) and one of the organizers had approached me to ask if I could put together an author panel for the opening day of the shindig.

Turns out I could!

I have several "conference friends" within driving distance who write and publish on Whedon who agreed in a flash. We assembled like the Avengers and made plans to hawk our wares at the "space bazaar," then lead an hour-long panel on what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. When asked by a passerby what these books were about, I quipped that we write "fan non-fic." I think I like the term.

I'll admit that I didn't really know how this would turn out. The Browncoat Ball is definitely a fan event rather than a pointy-headed academic event (while popcult academic events are pretty much devoid of the snooty professor types, the stereotype lingers) and I'm there with a book that retails for $35. (The publisher's main audience is libraries, not individuals.) I offered the book for the discount I receive - actually, I had two prices; one for Browncoats and a jacked-up one for any of the Alliance faithful. So I went, lugging my box o' books, fully expecting to lug it home again.

Surprise!

I only have two copies left from my box, which I'll just hold on to rather than return. Just as gratifying to me, I have more than $40 in donations to Equality Now - a charity close to the heart of many a Browncoat. I offered to autograph any books I sold in return for a donation of any amount. ("Any amount?" one person asked, possibly working their way over to slyness. "Sure," I said, "Just think of how much it's worth to not have women stoned to death and put that in the jar." Plenty of singles, but at least there wasn't jingling change in the jar.)

The best part? The people. I hadn't done a fan event in quite a while and I think I forgot how much sheer joy is involved. Whedon once said that "the future is the past in a blender" and he used that approach in Firefly. In the bazaar, I sat behind my table and yakked to everyone passing by. I saw amazing henna tattoos, gorgeous Asian-inspired fabrics, very funny Hawaiian shirt fabric (my favorite was either the fortune cookie one or the dinosaur/spacefield one), and one terrifyin' space monkey in a Kaylee dress (complete with hair ribbon!).

While the crowd at our talk was small (let's face it, we were scheduled opposite the burlesque class!), they were dedicated, asking insightful questions and showing more than polite interest. Then it was back to my house on the Rim while the luau got rolling. I can only imagine the actual Ball tonight!

Fans in groups. They can move the world.

Fan-Scholars and Scholar-Fans

2010-10-11T07:48:00.003-04:00

I'm just back from the annual Popular & American Culture Associations in the South conference. This is a major regional academic conference devoted to the developments in the field, where I presented on Whedon's Dollhouse and cinematic theory. In two weeks, I'm presenting at the annual Browncoat Ball, which is a very "fan" event. Since I'm whipsawing from "scholar" to "fan" gathering, this seems like a perfect time to bring up this point.

There are scholars who devote their academic careers to the careful, thoughtful study of popular culture - the study of the works of Joss Whedon, let's say. There are also fans who throw themselves into these created fictional worlds in other ways, creating elaborate backstories, writing fan fiction and so on. See here for an example. When studying popular culture, is there a difference between a "fan-scholar" and a "scholar-fan"? If so, exactly what is the difference?

When recently asked this question, I mouthed off that yes, there is a difference and it's likely to be rooted in the degree of critical rigor one brings to the analysis and examination of the works being considered. However, I'm not sure I like my own definition - I know some hard-core fans whose attention to detail is worthy of immense respect and my flippant response seems to dismiss the fan who sews her own Kaylee hoopskirted dress.

So maybe it's not the "critical rigor" but the overall passion that is brought to bear on the project. Knowing how much time, effort, sweat, stress, and occasionally tears and (just once, I think) hissy fits go into every (well, every decent) paper, presentation, essay, chapter, or book - well, I can't imagine expending that much energy on something that I disliked. (Can't you imagine that? Working for two years on [let's say] a Marxist reading of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park through permanently gritted teeth while you mutter over and over, "I freaking hate this woman!" It's enough to drive one to gambling.)

And there's another problem with my definition - there are people who do expend tremendous amounts of energy on "anti-fan" Websites - consider the full-out hatred of Wesley Crusher in this site, for example. Or this blog posting (not a full site, I'll grant you, but I'm on my first cup of coffee) devoted to anti-Martha Stewart love.

So there goes another perfectly good, bunny-less theory. (It's a "Once More, With Feeling" reference - if you didn't get it, just let it go.) People are willing to devote huge amounts of time to things/people/shows that they in actuality dislike.

Weird.

Can't Stop the Serenity

2010-06-27T12:06:00.005-04:00

Fans of Joss Whedon's Firefly/Serenity adopted the name "Browncoats" for themselves. Under no circumstances known to God or man should this be confused with "Brownshirts" - seriously, don't even joke about that. The "Browncoats" were the rebels in the interplanetary war. The Alliance wanted a monolithic rule; the Browncoats preferred to keep to themselves, despite the medical and technological advances of the Alliance. Malcolm Reynolds, the captain of the Firefly-class ship Serenity, fought on the side of the Browncoats.

They lost. Mal fled for the Black, desperate to be left alone, but not to be alone, and television history was made.

Five years ago, Browncoats started a charity known as "Can't Stop the Serenity" which had the dual goals of getting the movie Serenity on the big screen and raising money and awareness for a Good Cause. The Browncoats adopted the charity Equality Now and every year right around June 23 (which happens to be Joss Whedon's birthday), groups of Browncoats hold events to raise money for Equality Now (which was co-founded by a former student of Whedon's late mother, Lee Stearns. See - everything's connected!). Events include movie showings, auctions, raffles, and so on.

It's a fun time and a truly great organization. Equality Now fights (and fights hard!) for the rights of women and girls throughout the world - one of their main goals is the eradication of the abomination known as female genital mutilation (FGM) which is widely practiced in countries such as Somalia on very young girls. It's not about culture, folks. This is horrific abuse and deserves to be brought into the glare of the public forum and roundly condemned.

So check out the links, go to a showing, write a check.

Doing good can be fun.

But more importantly, doing good needs to be done.

Going Away for a Little While!

2010-06-13T16:29:00.003-04:00

As you may know, Gentle Readers, I maintain two blogs. This one is devoted to more professional posts, centering around writing, presenting, and publishing material derived from my observations about Joss Whedon's work.

I'm about to dive into a couple of writing projects and, while I'll keep you posted here, I won't post on a particularly regular basis. However, I post over on Mockingbird's Nest - you can check out my more wide-ranging posts over that-a-way. Just click here and you'll be transported there.

Ah, technology!

See you over there - or back here!

Slayage - Last Day (sob!)

2010-06-06T21:36:00.002-04:00

And there was much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth . . .

Slayage 4 is over, folks. Put to bed, so to speak. Oh, there will be a Slayage 5 at a currently-undisclosed location for reasons of national security and the fact that we don’t know where it’ll be yet. But it’s nice that at least three universities are vying for our business, which has not always been the case. Moreover, it’s a distinct possibility that the next Slayage will be outside the American South – possibly north of the border. (Cue “O Canada.” Or possibly “Blame Canada.”) Two years is a long way off and who knows what may happen in that time span. Still, I’m sure that in 2012, there will be an enthusiastic gathering of Whedonians somewhere. They’ll come equipped with brilliant insights and nigh-encyclopedic knowledge of scenes, deleted scenes, shooting scripts, draft scripts, the contents of multiple interviews with Whedon, his actors, his writers, his shoe-shine boy and so on.

And I fervently hope to be right there in the very thick of it!

Two years ago in Arkadelphia, I spent a lot of time pacing around a hotel parking lot and talking on the phone to FryDaddy, who attended this Slayage at my side. (Oh, it was determined today that a “Slayage” is an exact unit of time. Three days followed by two years.) I stopped at one point in our conversation, sure that my gushing was boring him. Far from it. As he put it, “I like hearing you soar.” So today’s keynote. I had been unusually nervous about this one - not the content, which I thought was pretty solid (although I had to cut some stuff I really, really liked which is always the case). Rather, I was nervous about the reception from the audience. Whedonians can talk about gender studies and production details until the cows come home (and we will), but I was applying Twelve Step principles of recovery to the arc of several quite beloved characters, one of whom (Willow) doesn’t turn out too well. There was some definite pushback, but overall, I’d say the presentation went well and I may have started a new conversation in the field. Or I may have lobbed a hand grenade into the crowd; I’m not entirely sure.

But it was a whale of a ride!

I met some wonderful people here – some very talented writers and presenters and some people who are in the “scary smart” section of the intellectual spectrum. I learned a lot and thought so much I was exhausted by nine in the evening. I have ideas for half a dozen writing projects and a long list of people to e-mail and stay in touch with. And I hardly saw a bit of St. Augustine. I hear there’s some kind of fort here.

All the more reason to come back, but tomorrow, we head for home.

And I’m sad about that. But glad in a way, too. But sad.

A “Slayage” is a long time.

Slayage Day 3

2010-06-05T22:40:00.003-04:00

Let me be honest. By Day 3 of a conference like this, I’m having a great time, but I’m getting a little worn out. And with my keynote to go first thing tomorrow, I’m going to have to cut this short tonight.

So just an impression or two. I loves me some Whedonians! They are among the kindest of conference-goers. When one attendee took sick and was forbidden by her doctor to fly out here, one of the organizers kindly offered to present her paper for her. Isn’t e-mail great? I heard some GREAT stuff today! Among the highlights was a paper discussing the behavior of the residents of Sunnydale as viewed through the template of disaster studies. (Did you know that, statistically speaking, there is actually very little violence and looting in the wake of most disasters, such as Katrina and the Haiti earthquake? All media spin. Truly – if it bleeds, it leads. That says something very sad and very dark about the human mind.) Also, there was a wonderful presentation on Chaucer's Wife of Bath and the Dollhouse episode “Belle Chose” that gave me much to think about.

Enough for now. More later, when my keynote is done and things are wrapping up.

Think good thought my way, if you don't mind!

Slayage Day 2

2010-06-05T00:00:00.005-04:00

Consider this post as "under construction." Much happened today and it's late and tomorrow starts early. I'll catch up, I promise.

Until then, some things to consider:

Brilliant musicologists illuminating scores of particular episodes and discussing the themes that emerge from them.
A brave new point of view being heard for the first time. (OK - full disclosure. I'm married to him, so I'm likely to be biased on this point. But objective observers commented on the merit of the paper, so I'm pretty sure my judgment is sound.)
The irony of the award for excellence in Whedon research and writing (where feminist themes are so often in evidence) being so very, very phallic. (Then again, it's called the "Mr. Pointy," so one can hardly be surprised.)
Dozens of academics gamely warbling through the entire soundtrack of "Once More with Feeling." Followed by "Mandy."

A good day, capped off with a podcast interview of yours truly on Gobbledygeek.

Slayage Day 1

2010-06-03T22:33:00.006-04:00

The conference began with a kick-off reception tonight. These mix-and-mingle events can go in any number of directions, but Slayage is different from most academic conferences on a number of levels. First off, it really does have sort of a family reunion feel to it. Sure, so&so might be my German cousin and thatonethere might be my Israeli aunt, but what family doesn’t have its quirks? It’s good to see these folks again – Facebook and other such forms of communication are useful, but there’s nothing like actually seeing these people who share your passions and think deeply about the same things you spend your time pondering over.

We did a little exploring of St. Augustine earlier today, but it was too hot and humid to do as much as we had (over ambitiously) planned. However, we did take a tour of the main building of Flagler College, which was originally the Ponce de Leon Hotel built by Henry Flagler back in 1887. Talk about grand! Let’s see – since only the gentlemen could handle financial transactions, the genders were separated inside the lobby. The men went to the front desk to pay and the ladies were whisked away into the Grand Parlor – merely seeing business being transacted was thought to be a cause of blindness in the fairer sex. (Ah, the high Victorian age!) Ladies could not even go to the front desk to retrieve their jewels from the hotel safe; rather, they described what pieces they wanted in detail, then sent their husbands. Just imagine the squabbles – “You never listen to me! These are my day diamonds –how can I possibly wear these to dinner?”

Seriously, the hotel was the grandest of the grand hotels. It was the first building in Florida to be built from the ground up with electricity in mind, and was wired by Edison himself. Guests were “afeared” of the new-fangled notion, and servants were hired whose sole job it was to press the buttons to turn the lights on and off in the guests’ rooms. The hotel had hot and cold running water, but shared bathrooms. Yes, the Astors and Vanderbilts shared a sink. Louis Comfort Tiffany did the windows and the plasterwork in the Grand Parlor prominently features his distinctive “Tiffany blue.” The decorative details are just marvelous and feature nautical themes, mythology, and Spanish influence. It’s a bit overwhelming, to tell the truth. (And it’s telling that the four figures representing the Age of Spain are Adventure, Discovery, Conquest, and Civilization.)

The conference begins full-bore tomorrow morning and goes pretty much straight through until the banquet tomorrow night, which will be held in what had been the Grand Ballroom of the hotel. More on that later.

Safe in the "Land of Flowers"

2010-06-02T20:40:00.006-04:00

The adventure began today! After many adventures in the tying up of any number of loose ends FryDaddy and I left North Carolina for the humid sunshine of St. Augustine. Sort of like home, but with Spanish moss. The Slayage 4 conference officially begins tomorrow, but we wanted a day to nose around America's oldest city, so we arrived today. I don't know that we'll find Ponce de Leon's famed Fountain of Youth, but we've already discovered a killer gelato shop and there's an old Spanish fort to climb around on tomorrow before the conference kicks off.

You can see a bit of St. Augustine's history by clicking on this link. Who knows, we might even visit the alligator farm. (Does that mean they farm the alligators or that the alligators are pulling the plows or something else entirely? Hmmm.) Flagler College is our host and you can learn more about them by clicking this link. That's the main building in the picture at the top of the post. It began life as a grand hotel, then became Flagler College in 1968.

We've already run into a number of Whedonians who also arrived early for the conference. From the looks of things, this is going to be a very good time! Papers are due to be presented that range in topic from exploring the character of Cordelia to examining the role played by music in Whedon's shows to the theme of neurological tampering. The challenge here is deciding what you feel like you MUST see, since so many interesting papers are scheduled opposite each other.

Tough choices must be made. That's another lesson the Whedonverses teach us.

The Fourth Time's the Charm!

2010-05-22T07:43:00.002-04:00

Much has happened since I last posted upon the final episode of Dollhouse. Notably, Whedon was tapped to direct the film version of The Avengers (the Iron Man one, not the Emma Peel one. I adore Robert Downey, Jr., but I don't want to see him in a leather catsuit), which has fans buzzing about what he'll do with a big-budget movie. The casting is not yet complete, but I'll admit the possibilities are tantalizing.

Also, Slayage 4 draws near. In about ten days, I'll be leaving for the fourth biennial conference on the Whedonverses. I'm delivering one of the keynote speeches at this one - I'm the Sunday one, if you look at the draft schedule. It's an opportunity that has me both thrilled and a little cowed. The writing of the speech is going all right (I think) but there's still some work to do there and summer school starts next week, so I'm likely to be quite busy. But I love this conference! I've gone to the last three - missed the first one, drat! - and the energy of the participants is palpable. Such a wide range of subjects and approaches! Details on the conference have hit the local paper and I imagine there will be more press coverage; let's see if they paint us as whackos or as scholars (of course, "whacko scholar" is an option as well.)

More on that as it draws closer and I'll be posting from the conference itself.

The other big news is that I won't be going to this conference (held in St. Augustine, FL) alone. Long story, so let's just say that Adventuress has embarked on her most exciting adventure ever - I found someone whose quirks and oddities dovetailed nicely with my own and we married at the beginning of May! (Yay, throw rice, blow noisemakers!) There were no bridesmaids in apple-green taffeta as Anya wanted in "Hell's Bells" and it was quite a lovely (and very small) ceremony. St. Augustine will be somewhat of a delayed honeymoon for us.

And yes, he'll be presenting at the conference as well. Obsessions should be shared, I always think!

Broken Dolls & Empty Chairs

2010-01-31T16:23:00.005-05:00

The run of Dollhouse has concluded. Props and costumes are being auctioned off and the imprinting chair will never be used again. I stayed spoiler-free, but I've since read some of the reactions from critics and fans alike and I have to say that I fall firmly on the side of the "meh" crowd. I wasn't impressed, and that hurts to write. I've been so pro-Whedon for so long now that it's an onerous chore to be one of the ones saying that this one didn't work, it never felt like a labor of love, and no, it's not Fox's fault. Yes, it was a terrible time slot, but something has to go there. (And it's worth pointing out that The X-Files did just dandy in that slot way back when.)

I don't want to nitpick over minutiae and there's no need to. There were major problems here. The dialogue was clunky, the plot line felt rushed, and there were holes in the plot you could have driven that truck-taken-from-Mad Max through. (I actually have a theory that most of "Epitaph Two" had its origin in one too many late-night writing sessions fueled by cheap red wine and post-apocalypse movies.) Tech has ruined the world, unleashed Reaver-style madness upon the earth, yet the roads are clear? And ex-Dolls have volunteered to have yet more tech implanted into their very skin? Sure. I'll buy Adelle as the Earth Mother growing strawberries first. Oh, wait - that was in there.

Really, this just wasn't very good. I say it's Whedon abandoning his tried-and-true approach of "don't give them what they want, give them what they need." I didn't want this (nor for that matter, did I need this.) Further, I may be alone in thinking the Echo/Paul mindmeld was just beyond Hallmark schmaltz; plenty of other viewers put it as the Best. Ending. Ever., right up there with Angel's "Not Fade Away."

I, on the other hand, do not.

The problem, I think, started back with "Epitaph One," which I had problems with at the get-go. Once that existed, it either had to be regarded as canon, or it was off the cliff into "it was just a dream" land. So how do we get there? Well . . . not too well. Gamma radiation? A shiny-clean Dollhouse run by nice-guy Alpha? Character traits on thumb drives?

Sigh.

All that said, I'll still be at the front of the line to watch whatever comes next. Even the shiniest of brilliant minds misfire from time to time and I won't be a fair-weather fan.

But I'll remember this. Unlike a Doll, my mind can't be wiped.

One to Go!

2010-01-23T08:25:00.003-05:00

Dollhouse airs its final episode next week. This is a one-week delay, as the episode was pushed back a week due to the charity concert to raise desperately-needed funds for the Haitian earthquake relief effort, which aired last night. Far be it from me to complain about a television show being re-scheduled due to such a worthy cause, but I find it terribly interesting that the concert, which is a nigh-unprecedented coming together of people and technology, should so scramble the plans to broadcast the final episode of a show which takes as one of its main themes the potential for technology to wreck human lives.

I'm caught up on my viewing and note-taking and I have to say: Hmmm. Plenty of good going on and twists and flips worthy of an Olympic platform-diving competition, but I'm still not totally sold. Which is a shame, since I wanted to buy.

The show's connection to the play R.U.R. has been acknowledged in a quick little meta-nod and I'm glad I found that connection beforehand (see earlier posts from the fall of 2009). Further, I'm looking forward to writing in more detail about the connections and inverses (inverci?) between the original source material and what Whedon has done with it.

But.

I very much enjoyed playing detective with some of the literary references - Melville's adage of the horrible body count of "From hell's dark heart, I stab at thee" is evident in "Getting Closer" (then again, Star Trek 2 as well as The Simpsons have referenced that one) and Whedon twists Eliot around so Rossum certainly ends with a bang, not a whimper in "Hollow Man" - but I still think it's just too little, too late. The show wanted to wrestle with some of the Big Questions such as the role of memory in creating identity, human trafficking (I so wanted an episode in which a Doll rescued modern-day slaves and then toddled back to the House for a "treatment," which I think would have pointed up that particular theme, but maybe it would have been heavy-handed. Now I'll probably never know.), the use and misuse of technology, pure science vs. weaponized ideas (Topher as Robert Oppenheimer, the mastermind scientist behind the Manhattan Project who upon seeing the results of the Trinity test, referenced himself as Vishnu in a very blood-chilling way), and many more besides. I suspect the problem lies in Whedon not really knowing how to create a balanced meal from such a buffet. Too many refined carbs and too much chicken-fried steak; not enough veggie medley. And don't get me started on the dessert section! "Epitaph One" lingers over the final episodes; something I warned about way back when as it seems to box in where you can go.

Let's see what the final episode brings us and yes, I'll miss Dollhouse when it's gone. But I think it's time to move on to another project. And some breakout stars have been added to the Whedon family, Enver Gjokaj (Victor/Anthony/occasionally Topher) chief among them.

The House Is Closed

2009-11-12T07:08:00.006-05:00

It was a good run and a valiant effort. I "hmmed" a good bit when the news came out no episodes of Dollhouse would air in November - it's sweeps time, after all and that's when all-important advertising rates are set. But now it's official - Dollhouse will finish its run (the finale will most likely air in late January) but it's gone to the scrap heap of canceled shows.

Whedon has assured fans that we'll know about his next project by the time the final episode airs and we'll see what direction he'll be going in.

Many fans are understandably upset about this, but no one is particularly surprised. Friday night is the "death slot" for network television and Dollhouse never attained stellar ratings. As I've posted here, I found the show to have flashes of nigh-brilliance, but also some anvil-heavy storylines, characterizations, and direction.

Back in 2003, Whedon said in the New York Times interview that his "favorite fictions . . . are about the getting of strength and that's probably the most important theme in any of my work" and Dollhouse wanted very much to be going in that direction. Alas, the path through the woods has been barred by a Fox, but I can't much blame the Fox for acting according to his nature.

Maybe this frees Whedon up a little - they're in the process of filming Episode 11, meaning there are still two to film - plenty of time to jazz things up, especially now that there's no worry about Pleasing the Network Masters. Amazing how freeing that can be. Let's go out with a bang - or at least a loudly slamming door.

Then again, I've always been a sucker for the idea of toys (Dolls, if you will) becoming real - a concept Whedon must have a liking for as well, considering his writing credit for Toy Story and certainly one he's been working with here. So let's end with this from the classic for children of all ages, Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit:

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

Watching with Scholars

2009-10-03T08:17:00.004-04:00

The conference wraps up today - I'll post final thoughts later. Wilmington has been good to us - and it's been a good conference. One of the delights of a popular culture conference is how interdisciplinary it is. Rather than just going to media studies panels, I have choices from panels discussing Shakespeare, the material culture, technology, and so on. The hard part is choosing!

Of course, another key of conferences is having a chance to get feedback on your own work and see what's going on in the field. My panel (which was yesterday) was a very strong one. We had all worked independently, but had bridges for the other speakers, so it felt very organic and unified. Not all panels have that - especially when the speakers haven't met and are preparing in a vacuum, as it were. And (naturally) many presentations are of works in progress - mine changed a good bit from the proposal to the presentation, due to time. But I had one nugget of information that seems to be my shiny new unique contribution to the readings of Dollhouse and I've been asked to develop that further for publication, which is always a kick. There are some other bits of news, but I need to scurry to catch the final two panels today, so it'll have to wait.

Anyway, a gang of us (what's the collective noun for a group of academics? A dissertation? A theory? Hmm.) gathered after the closing reception and dinner (in the hotel - hardly ever anything to write home about, yet a substantial hit on the credit card. And you wonder why I cook at home most nights) to watch Friday's episode of Dollhouse.

Well.

I hate to say it, but it felt phoned in. There were cliches galore and they weren't being used as ironic commentary. (Lightning storm? Spilled milk? Shiny butcher knife? Really, was all of that necessary?) The core concept was interesting - the maternal instinct is just too strong to be "wiped," even if it was implanted in the first place - but it just didn't hang together for me.

I want to like this show; I really do. And there are glimmers, but so far, they seem more like foxfire luring me deeper into the swamp than glittering Truth. I'll stick with it, but I will continue to point out when the emperor appears to be nekkid.

The Coast with the Most!

2009-10-01T09:25:00.003-04:00

For the next few days, I'll be posting from Wilmington, NC where the annual Popular Culture/American Culture Associations in the South conference is being held. I've attended this conference before and it's always a lot of fun. Academics - full-time eggheads, eager grad students, and dewy-eyed undergrads - we're all here and we're all presenting on the subjects that get us fired up to go in front of yet another classroom of maybe-not-totally enthused students. I have a chance to hear papers on subjects ranging from religion & culture to the Age of Obama to television studies to teaching Shakespeare.

My particular paper is up tomorrow afternoon - it's the one I've been working on tying Whedon's Dollhouse back to its Roman roots in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It's been an interesting vein to mine and I'm hoping for some positive feedback on the angle I'm using. It's not a complete paper - reading time here (as at most conferences) is limited to only 20 minutes, so some very interesting material had to be cut. But I plan to put it back in for publication when I expand the work.

We - I'm traveling with FryDaddy, who you may know from my more general blog - arrived late, late, LATE last night - there's just no short way to get here from home, since we have yet to master wormhole technology. And since this trip is totally out of my pocket (the school has always been very generous in supporting my conference presentations, but the economic meltdown and budget logjam brought that lovely perk to a screeching halt last year), I'm not worrying about attending every single session.

Still, there are some very interesting presentations happening and I'll be telling you about them, as well as some tidbits about presenters, conference life and Wilmington in general.

For now, though, I go in search of fresh coffee. More later!

Dollhouse, Take Two!

2009-09-26T08:51:00.003-04:00

The Dollhouse is back. That creepy, hi-tech, Zen-like spa environment that exists to provide the super-rich with whatever their fantasy might be (Tempura Joe? That pushes the envelope on ewww!) returned last night on Fox.

We're entering a very important few weeks in Whedon-land. Ratings were less than stellar last year and the show had an uneven beginning that never really managed to widen the circle of viewership beyond the Already Converted. So here's the test - can Whedon make Dollhouse sing to those who aren't already in the choir loft? Well - let's see how we started.

Last night's episode was titled "Vows." The title referred to a number of vows taken by characters - we see Echo getting married as part of a convoluted engagement (Ha! "Engagement" has a whole new meaning here that I didn't see until I started writing that sentence!), Paul is cruel to be kind in keeping his vow to protect Echo, and so on. The episode (which you can view for free here) was sharply written ("What if she goes over your head?" "I'm very tall."), fast-paced and overall continued the upward trajectory of the end of last season.

By the way, the Whiskey/Topher dynamic was easily the most interesting aspect of the show last night and I want to see more there! One of Whedon's strengths is his ability to craft strong ensembles and this is the time to let his stars shine. Dollhouse has tremendous potential to ask hard questions about identity, freedom, and our ability to compromise our principles while telling ourselves that we haven't and I want to see him explore all of that.

So I really don't want it to turn into "Who's Echo this week?"

And welcome to the world, Charlotte Grace Prinze!

Finally!

2009-09-13T18:17:00.003-04:00

For those of you who are fans of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (and really, who isn't?), there is great joy in seeing the good Doctor and crew win the Emmy award for "Outstanding Special Class: Short-Form Live Action Entertainment Program." (Wow - even the title's quite a mouthful!) This being Whedon, there's irony in the win - Dr. Horrible won a television award despite the fact that it's never been shown on television; it was an Internet-driven sensation. Well, you take the win however you can get it, I suppose. And it's good to be able to post a picture like the one on the right. Not only because I'm a Nathan fan, but - let's face it - Captain Hammer would so totally smooch his Superhero of the Year Award, probably between choruses of a power ballad.

So there's that news. Aside from that, I'm trying to both gear up for the Sept. 25 Season 2 premier of Dollhouse and finish preparing my "classical Echo compared with Whedon's Echo" paper for its early October outing in Wilmington, NC. That's the location of the Popular & American Culture Associations in the South conference this year. It's always a fun time and I'm very much looking forward to going. Here's the conference link, if you're interested in the sorts of things you can see at such a thing. From that link, there's a link to the "almost final" conference schedule.

See you there!

Box Set!

2009-08-10T06:53:00.004-04:00

So I recently obtained the Dollhouse box set and sat down to watch the much-heralded "Epitaph One" as well as the unaired pilot "Echo." Spoilers, of course, follow - but I think I can manage to keep major plot details to myself.

Beginning with the end, "Epitaph One" had been regarded as the Holy Grail of Dollhouse and fans were hurt and angry at Fox's decision to not air the episode. That worked out this way - Fox saw it as an "extra" episode beyond the 13 they had paid for - 12 episodes aired; the unaired (but already shot) pilot "Echo" was counted as the 13th. I hate to side with Fox (really) but in my opinion, they were right to keep this one in the box set only.

That's not because "Epitaph One" is a sticky mess; it's not. In fact, it has some extremely intriguing developments and what may be my favorite scene involving Topher in the entire run. But setting an episode ten years in the future and counting it as canon leaves you only a little wiggle room - I know, I know; it's counterintuitive. Overall, the episode has the feel of "I'm not letting them pull another Firefly on me; I'm tying up loose ends in case we're not back in September."

But they are back in September (and yay! I'd like to say), so let's not assume that 2019 is how things will be, nor that the future is anything but mutable. Nothing in the show has indicated that time is less than linear, so don't tell me that what I saw is where things inevitably wind up. (As Fred once said on Angel, "Nothing is inevitable as long as you can look at it and say, 'You're evitable.'" I always enjoyed that line.)

On the other hand, "Echo" was a much stronger narrative opener than "Ghost" was. It had issues - it felt rushed and probably gave away too much in one episode, for example - but it had fast-paced humor (a Whedon trademark that was woefully missing from much of the first five or so episodes) and I cared far more about what was going on. I can understand why Fox wanted parts of it re-shot and you'll find "Echo" scattered throughout the first season, but of the two "missing episodes" on the box set - this is the one that should have hit the air.

Of course, I'm not a Fox executive, so it's easy to armchair quarterback. And we do get another season (beginning Sept. 25; mark your calendars!), so there's that. But Dollhouse has to deliver this year, which means pulling in viewers that aren't already Whedon fans. It's a delicate balance figuring out how to continue with a complicated story arc and not lose newbies. It can be done (24 springs to mind, although I must confess that I don't watch it), but the time slot of Dollhouse might be working against it.

Then again, things are never what they seem, are they? That's why we keep watching.

Season One Re-Visited

2009-06-06T13:14:00.003-04:00

OK - I'm caught up and back home for a little while, so I finally have time to comment. Overall, I think Dollhouse found its footing and I'm very glad Fox made a show of good faith in renewing the show. That said, I think the show has some problems to overcome in Season Two.

Let's see . . .

1. The show became far stronger once it moved away from the "who's Echo this week?" idea. That stands to reason; a common focus of Whedon's work is the formation of chosen families, which is a concept that lends itself to strong ensemble shows. Heck, even Season One of Buffy had to get past the "monster of the week" model. Once it did, the show blossomed, as Dollhouse did.
2. I like the murkiness of the show. Not all of the clients are nasty-bad people, which gave us some interesting explorations of what motivates the customers of the Dollhouses. (Sidebar: I recently saw the Liam Neeson thriller Taken as was repulsed by the subject matter, even as I enjoyed the action/adventure side. There, the bad guys were definitely one-dimensional bad guys. I not only didn't mind them being handed ugly death, I was rooting for it. I'm not exactly a sweetness-and-light sort with some topics, including human trafficking.) Whedon doesn't let me off so easily.
3. It's common for writer/directors to develop their own cadre of actors they work with over and over again. Whedon has done this so often that fans delight in naming the "hat tricks" who have appeared in multiple Whedon shows. Casting Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker in their respective roles was a stroke of brilliance. Just as Cary Grant was born to wear a well-tailored dark suit, Tudyk seems to have been placed on this earth to wear Hawaiian print. Then to make that quirky personality the Big Bad - wow! And Amy Acker had no trace of either Fred or Illyria, but instead brought something new to this role. Not to mention, the two of them together - well. That was something entirely else.

In short, Dollhouse has tremedous potential. Audiences have shown their willingness to enjoy (not just put up with) complex story lines with the success of shows such as The X Files and Lost, so it is not beyond possibility that Dollhouse will find an enthusiastic audience that goes beyond Whedon's fanatically loyal fanbase (and I'm including myself in there. In fact, I'm writing about Echo and the classical Greek Echo for an upcoming conference). But placement is everything and ratings are the sword that a show lives or dies by. It's not enough to be innovative and thought-provoking - eyes have to be glued to the screen on a regular basis.

So watch already!

In other news, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is available on DVD now from major retailers, such as Best Buy. If you don't have a copy of this, really - you should consider it. Not only is the story a lovely twist on the usual triangle of hero/girlfriend/villian, but it's a musical. With a musical commentary. For about ten bucks. Really.