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

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

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 . . ."

"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

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!

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.