Posts Tagged ‘Dollhouse’
Five-Sentence Review: ‘The Avengers’ as Lesser Whedona
Of course I deeply enjoyed The Avengers, but my sense is it’ll be up to The Avengers 2: Avengers Reveng’d! to salvage the series from the scrapheap of Lesser Whedona. Could there be any better confirmation of the kneejerk elitist sensibilities of Internet nerddom than to have this film be Joss’s first genuine mainstream success? Though certainly funny and engaging, and on occasion very clever, The Avengers is more or less superheroes completely by-the-numbers, almost entirely lacking in the deconstructive self-awareness that characterizes more artistically ambitious Whedon creations like Buffy, Firefly, and especially Cabin in the Woods and the too-neglected Dollhouse. The film has zero critical purchase on its genre, and precious little Whedonesque irony about itself.
In short, The Avengers is what Buffy would have been, if it were only fight scenes and quips.
‘Our Goal Is Nothing Less Than to Survive the Apocalypse to Come in Comfort and Luxury’
The headline reads, “LA Porn Studio Begins Construction On ‘Post-Apocalyptic’ Underground Bunker.” Via zunguzungu’s Sunday Reading. The Dollhouse is real.
Zombies, Reavers, Butchers, Actuals, and Joss Whedon
We’re traveling back east most of day, but I wanted to throw up a link to my contribution to PopMatters’s Joss Whedon Spotlight: “Zombies, Reavers, Butchers, and Actuals in Joss Whedon’s Work.” This is a sliver from my long zombie chapter with some new stuff about Joss, Buffy, and Angel added in. I saw there was a link to the piece this morning at Whedonesque, which was really fun for me; I’ve had that site in my RSS reader for years…
Back in Durham tonight.
And Some Links for Thursday
* The list of lists for 2010 is ready. You have two days left to mourn. Enjoy.
* Fantastic piece on Obama via @zunguzungu: I expected Obama to be a better loser, specifically to be better at losing. There were a lot of items on the table, a lot of them weren’t going to happen, but it was important for the new future of liberalism that the Obama team lost them well. And that hasn’t happened.
By losing well, I mean losing in a way that builds a coalition, demonstrates to your allies that you are serious, takes a pound of flesh from your opponents and leaves them with the blame, and convinces those on the fence that it is an important issue for which you have the answers. Lose for the long run; lose in a way that leaves liberal institutions and infrastructure stronger, able to be deployed again at a later date.
* At least court-watchers are scoring the Sotomayor pick as a long-term progressive win. Via Benen.
* Weird science: third triplet born twelve years after her sisters.
* Weird clemency: Barbour’s order stands on the condition that Gladys donates one of her kidneys to her ailing sister, “a procedure which should be scheduled with urgency.” I feel like this story pretty clearly demonstrates how useless decades-long incarceration is in most cases, as well as the basic arbitrariness of the criminal justice system.
* Alas, Cleveland: Dennis Kucinich may lose his district.
* Alas, Paul Simon: Kodachrome finally taken away.
* What has been seen can never be unseen: Muppets with People Eyes.
* In important telling-you-what-was-already-pretty-obvious news, Tim Minear says the third season of Dollhouse would essentially have been another season of Buffy.
* And of course you had me at original He-Man storyboards.
Friday Night in Arlington
* Travel the galaxy from the privacy of your couch with these retro Star Wars travel posters. (Thanks, Fiona!)
* Rally for Sanity Watch: Liberal and left activist groups will be out in force trying to swell their ranks. I wonder how they’ll feel after Stewart says they’re half the “problem.”
* Rally for Insanity Watch: 1, 2, 3.
* Here come the Dollhouse comics.
* Between a solid science fiction and crackpot that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the science fiction.
* Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach will co-produce “a screwball comedy about an escort, a theatre director and a private detective.” Something called Moonrise Kingdom is said to be Wes’s next directorial project. I’m already excited.
Epitaph Three
Perhaps io9 can remind you why you miss Dollhouse. Season 2 DVDs out today.
