Posts Tagged ‘Joss Whedon’

The Avengers: An expanded reaction

May 6th, 2012 by Susie

 

I saw the Avengers  yesterday, and yep, I loved it!  It was everything I’ve come to expect of Joss.  There was action, witty dialogue, and one or more gut wrenching deaths.  I’ll go into detail under the jump.

Warning: Here be spoilers!

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I’ve seen the Avengers, now what do I watch?

May 4th, 2012 by Susie

 

Disclaimer:  If you reading this prior to Saturday afternoon, I haven’t seen the movie yet, but am expecting to love it.  I have great faith in Joss
It’s Avengers opening day!  Some of you may have already seen it, maybe even at a midnight showing.  And after months of anticipation you might feel like there’s nothing left to watch to get excited about.  Or you loved the movie so much you want other movies and shows that capture the same feeling.  Well lucky you, I’ve got a few suggestions!  Whether you’re craving more funny, more superheroes, or just more epic Jossness, no worries, I’ve got you covered.
1) the Cabin in the Woods.  It’s still in theaters so it’s a perfect fix if you’re craving more of that communal adrenaline rush.
Why will it appeal to Avengers fans?  Well it features Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor.  And it is a humorous take on horror movies while still delivering actual scares.  Much the way I predict the Avengers will deliver everything you want out of a super hero movie, while having fun with the genre (though I suspect it won’t be quite as meta as Cabin in the Woods).  And it was cowritten by some dude with a familiar sounding name, rhymes with bleedin’.  Even if you hate horror movies (I must raise my hand here) there is a lot to enjoy about this flick.
2) Firefly and Serenity.  Serenity is Joss’ big screen debut, and while it’s possible to enjoy Serenity, without having seen any episodes of Firefly, the television show that preceded it, once you see Serenity, you’ll want to see everything involving Mal and the crew.  You might as well do it in order.  It’s only twelve episodes, not too much of a time commitment.
Why will it appeal to Avengers fans? Once again we’ve got the Joss factor.  But it is also really exciting, with a twisty plot, and intriguing, quippy, sometimes mysterious, characters.  Plus you want to see River Tam kick butt.  Trust me on that.
3)The Incredibles. The movie that solidified Pixar as one of the best companies currently making films, not just the best making kid’s films. Why will it appeal to Avengers fans? Superheroes, of course.  But also it blends top notch action with compelling character arcs.  You’ve got a guy who feels trapped in his unsatisfying job.  A marriage under extreme pressure.  A teenager who wants to blend into the crowd.  And a sociopath who would destroy a city, just so he can be the one to save it.
3) Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog.  Another unconventional take on superheroes.  This time focussing on a wannabe super villain.  Plus musical numbers!
Why will it appeal to Avengers fans? Again it’s the brainchild of Joss, along with his talented brothers and sister in-law.  And Nathan Fillion’s Captain Hammer  is at least as arrogant as Robert Downey Jr’s Ironman (though not as endearing).
4) The Specials.  It might not have the production values of the Avengers, it’s a worthy entry into the super team oeuvre (which is pretty small at least in feature films).
Why will it appeal to Avengers fans? The Avengers are Earth’s mightiest heroes.  The Specials–not so much.  They are the superhero community’s version of the D list.  There isn’t much action in the movie, but anyone familiar with super teams will appreciate the humor.  Plus it features Rob Lowe in a comedy before the world at large realized how funny he is.
And a few things to look forward to. Joss’ next movie is Much Ado About Nothing.  It’s a modern set interpretation of the Shakespeare comedy (my favorite of the comedies).  It was filmed in a month and entirely in his house.  It features many actors he’s worked with in the past, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisoff, Fran Kranz, etc.  It’s unclear when it’s coming out, or if it will get a theatrical release, but I’m excited to see it.
And also coming soon is the Amazing Spider-man.  I’m not sure Spider-man was in need of a reboot so soon, but Spidey is a great character.  I’m interested to see what Andrew Garfield brings to the role.

Fantasy Casting Call: Director Edition

April 20th, 2012 by Susie

The Avengers is only a few weeks away!  I’m super excited (and already have tickets for opening weekend).  I think Joss Whedon was the perfect choice to direct.  He knows how to direct dynamic action sequences without losing sight of character arcs, and can handle a large ensemble without having one or two characters dominating while the rest get lost in the shuffle.  And he always brings the funny.  So in honor of this excellent director/comic pairing, I thought I’d try matching up comic books I want to see adapted with the directors that should do the adapting.

Maus as directed by Julie Taymor.  Maus is a masterpiece.  It’s the only comic to win the Pulitzer for literature.  And it’s probably unfilmable.  But if it ever is, Taumor is probably the only director who could pull it off.  I know her last comic adaptation, the Spider-man musical, didn’t work out so well, but Maus is far more in her wheelhouse.  Most of her work both on screen and stage has dealt with death and or tragedy.  She often uses masks and puppets to create moving and effective imagery, dealing with some of the darkest aspects of the human experience.  Maus is a holocaust survivor’s story as told by his son.  The Jews are depicted as anthropomorphized mice and the Nazis are cats.  Masks are a running motif throughout the comic.  Maus isn’t really a project I see movie producers clambering to make happen, but I’d be fascinated to see it.

Y the Last Man as directed by JJ Abrams.  In YLM a mysterious plague kills every male person and animal on Earth except for one man and his pet monkey.  The comic follows the last man on earth as he and a few companions travel through the ruins of society (the loss of half the world’s population overnight, caused some serious chaos) trying to figure out what happened.  This is complicated by the fact that he is the most valuable commodity on the planet, and is pursued by numerous governments and organizations.  JJ Abrams is one of the most successful television creators in recent memories.  He has a hand in such diverse projects as Lost, Felicity, Alias, and Fringe.  He’s recently had big screen success with Super 8 and the Star Trek reboot.  He’s got the chops when it comes to action, as well as suspenseful conspiracies (aside from pretty much all of the later seasons of Alias).  What he’s really good at is getting you really invested in characters in the midst of some crazy circumstances, and while the premise of YLM was great, what made it a must read were Yorick, Agent 355 and Dr. Mann.

Death as directed by Neil Gaiman.  Technically I’m cheating here.  At one time Neil was set to direct an adaptation of his comic Death the Time of Your Life.  But it seems to have fallen by the wayside.  I would love to see it revived.  Gaiman’s Death is one of the most original and compelling characters to come out of comics in the last twenty years.  And if anyone can get an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s work right, it’s Neil Gaiman.

Fables as directed by Peter Jackson.  Fables is a big story, it’s been running for over a decade and more than a hundred issues.  There are hundreds of major characters and thousands of secondary characters.  I actually don’t want to see a direct adaptation (although I think Jackson could handle it).  The Fables universe is expansive.  I’d like to see an original story set in the Fables universe, featuring some of the less used characters (like what creator Bill Willingham did in the Fables novel Peter and Max).  Jackson have proven that he can create fully realized fantasy worlds.  And he’s done darker stories.  I think he can balance humor, magical elements of the series, while not shying away from it’s creepy side.  I know he’d give us a fairy tale that didn’t reek of Disney.

Runaways as directed by Joss Whedon.  What?  You didn’t think I’d let Joss get away with directing only one comic book movie, did you?  Runaways is one of my all time favorite super hero comics (though the kids in Runaways aren’t traditional super heroes).  With a bunch of sarcastic, smart, angsty, pop culture reference making teenagers with superpowers at its center, Runaways felt like a spiritual successor to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Whedon was such a fan that he wrote an arc of the series after creator Brian K. Vaughan left.  Joss is the only choice to direct in my opinion.  It must happen.  But I’ll be generous and let Joss finish up promoting the Avengers, film  the next two films in the Big Damn Serenity Trilogy, and the Dr. Horrible sequel, and and Goners, and finally give us the long promised Ripper tv series, before he starts work on Runaways.  I’m nothing if not considerate.

The Avengers Assembled! Sort of

August 22nd, 2011 by Susie

 

Part of the cast was on hand at the Disney Expo thingy this weekend, where they showed four minutes of footage from the upcoming Avengers movie. I haven’t been able to find a video of it online, but here is a good description of it, as well as an article about the event.

I’m excited for the movie, mainly because it’s being written and directed by Joss Whedon. I don’t think it’s a secret that I love just about everything he’s done and it feels like there hasn’t been much output from other than a few issues of Buffy season eight, since Dollhouse went off the air. That would be because he’s been busy prepping a major tentpole motion picture. I think it has the potential to be fantastic. In his one previous big screen work Serenity, he delivered exciting action sequences that furthered the plot,while not losing sight of the characters, while also giving them strong emotional arcs and some really fun dialog. That is exactly what I want out of the Avengers.

I havent seen any of the movies introducing the individual team members, except the first Iron Man. Which I quite enjoyed. I think it’s a shame that the core of the team has been established and cast already, I would have liked some Whedon regulars in the cast. As it is the closest we’ve got to a Whedon connection is Cobie Smulders, whose How I Met Your Mother castmate Neil Patrick Harris starred in Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog. At least as far as we know. Maybe he’ll find places for Nathan Fillion, Amber Benson, James Marsters, Summer Glau, Alyson Hannigan, Adam Baldwin, and Felicia Day. Yeah, that’s a super team I would get behind.

 

(the poster is most definitely not an official poster, but it the best of the fan made ones I saw.  I could not find an artist to credit it to.  If anyone knows, leave it in the comments and I’ll include it.)

My longest post ever!: or My thoughts on Buffy Season Eight.

February 17th, 2011 by Susie

Buffy season 8 came to an end last month, with issue 40.  I have some thoughts on both the final issue, and the series as a whole.  I plan on going into detail about the plot, so anyone who has not read the whole thing, and is wary of spoilers, should not read beyond the jump.

Buffy the TV show meant a lot to me.  I connected to it from the moment it came on the air, and for the entire seven years it was on the air, I looked forward to every new episode.  I think I only missed seeing two episodes the night they aired, that whole time.  It is the reason I follow every project Joss Whedon works on with great interest.  Somewhere around season two, I became an unabashed fangirl, and haven’t looked back since.  And it’s fair to say my own writing has been heavily influenced by it.  In that I think a hero (or even more so, a heroine) should not be infallible, that they can make mistakes and fall down, and still remain a hero.

So when it was announced that Joss would be resuming the series as a comic, I was thrilled.  I could not wait for my friends to return, and find out what he had in store for them next.  The first twenty issues or so were pretty spectacular, beautiful art, and brilliantly written.  Having Joss write many, and oversee the rest, assured that the tone of the show carried over to the comics, and that the characters felt true to how they had been previously portrayed.  Those issues did a really good job bringing the audience up to speed with what the Scooby gang had been doing since the end of the series.  And also establishing new characters to root for, such as Renee and Satsu.

Spoilers from here on.  You have been warned, don’t whine to me if you read something you don’t want to.

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New Serenity Comic!

January 18th, 2011 by Susie

This November, Dark Horse put out a the graphic novel the Shepherd’s Tale.  It provided us Browncoats with the long awaited back story of Shepherd Book.  While it was interesting to finally find out what he was hiding, and it was a well written story, it didn’t really feel like an installment of Firefly, since most of the crew only appeared in a couple of pages.  When I think of Firefly, the first thing I think of is the fun of spending time with the nine, very distinct, people living aboard Serenity.  Well Shepherd’s Tale writer, Zack Whedon, has given us just, that in an online only, eight page comic called Serenity: Downtime.

Surprisingly it is available on USA Today’s website, along with a brief introductory article about Firefly/Serenity.  It is awesome!  It feels very much like an episode of Firefly.  It even has close ups of River’s feet!  Here is a little blurb about the comic.

Whedon has tried to create an atmosphere resembling a scene from Firefly. “I wanted to reward those fans by showing these characters like it was a part of the show,” he says.

Downtime follows crewmembers snowed in on a planet filled with, as Whedon puts it, “a bunch of people you don’t want to run into.” Though the whole crew is included, the focus is on the mysterious (and fan-favorite) character known as River.

Check it out here!  Serenity:Downtime

Dr. Horrible nominated for an Emmy!

July 16th, 2009 by Michael

DrHorribleSo, here’s some cool news: Joss Whedon’s brilliant Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is up for an emmy award for the ultra-obscure Outstanding Special Class Short-Format Live-Action Entertainment Programs category. Which, appropriately enough, sounds like it should come from a Whedon musical.

In related Emmy news, Dr. Horrible Star Neil Patrick Harris was nominated for his supporting role in How I Met Your Mother. He’s also hosting the show! Yay!

Is Neil Gaiman a Firefly Fan?

December 30th, 2008 by Susie

I was reading the Graveyard Book last night (and boy is it good), and I also noticed that the names of a pair of police men were Simon and Tam.  Which just happens to be the name of Firefly’s handsome and proper/desperate fugitive doctor.  So that got me wondering if it is an intentional reference.  And if it is, that is cool! Which got me to thinking if he is a fan of Firefly, perhaps he is a fan of Joss.  Since I can’t imagine anything making me happier than Neil Gaiman working on a Joss Whedon project.  So on the theory that if you shout something loudly enough into the Internet it will actually happen, and so this post can actually be about comics. I am hereby announcing NEIL GAIMAN WILL BE WRITING AN ARC OF BUFFY SEASON EIGHT!  Right, I hope that was loud enough.  Let the completely untrue rumors soar!  You can’t take the lie from me.

ReadComics Podcast #023 – Book Club #5 – Buffy Season 8

November 22nd, 2008 by Martin

Our book club met tonight to discuss Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight. We had Marty, Florence, Jason, Mike and Susie via Skype. This may be our longest podcast yet, weighing in at more than an hour and a half. As Mike put it at some point, “We have the weight of 7 seasons of episodes on our shoulders.”

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #023 (45 MB, 98 minutes)

Book Club – Buffy Season 8 #1-18

November 16th, 2008 by Martin

We’re finally getting around to posting a date for this Buffy Book Club. As usual we’ll be meeting at Marty & Florence’s place, this time on Saturday November 22nd, again around 7pm. Again, this is the latest series of Buffy comics, Season 8, issues #1 through #18. It looks like issue #19, the conclusion of the latest arc should actually come out the following Wednesday, November 26, so we’ll be doing a bunch of speculation about that issue.

BOOK CLUB
–THIS Saturday–
Marty & Florence’s Place
7 PM

Dr. Horrible panel at Comic-Con

July 31st, 2008 by Martin

As someone stuck up here in Minnesota rather than in California for San Diego’s Comic-Con, I basically just have to sit back and watch the news roll in from everybody else. But this report about the panel on Dr. Horrible is just too good not to share. Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, Simon Helberg and of course Joss Whedon himself were all present.

There was much banter — repartee even! — at the expense of scoopage. After an audience member playfully accused Whedon of liking to kill off his female characters, Harris deadpanned, “You do kill a lot of chicks.” Retorted Whedon, “I have two tricks. You’re either out, or your dead.” Fillion, meanwhile, cracked some choice phallic “Captain Hammer” jokes, then claimed that Harris, vis-a-vis Doogie Howser, invented the blog. And Harris? He claimed he didn’t recall said show, referring to that time in his life as his “heroin years.”

But there were a few revelations among the revelry. On the ever-enduring Buffy front, we learned:
• Joyce Summers had Whedon’s favorite death on Buffy. Said Whedon: It was “the most time I got to spend with something that close to me.” Awww.
• Oz will return to Dark Horse’s most-excellent Buffy comic(!).
• Willow was basically outed only because Oz left the show.
• And, no, Whedon was never going make Xander gay.

And in Dr. Horrible news:
• Harris did some of his own MTV Cribs-like choreography in the musical, including that beloved shoulder shimmy in the second act.
• While filming, Whedon sang as Hammer to Felicia’s character. And cowriter Maurissa Tancharoen has it on tape.
• They’re hosting a contest for “Evil League of Evil” video submissions that are no longer than three minutes. The top 10 will be on the Dr. Horrible DVD.
• The Dr. Horrible soundtrack will be available for download in a couple of weeks.
• Lastly, if you want to be an agent of doom, and rock an iPhone, you too can log onto the very same interface Doc Horrible used in the film at www.thesoftwire.com/horrible_remote.html.

Pretty cool, huh? Here is more coverage of the panel including a video, and confirmation that Whedon said there will be more Dr. Horrible.

More comic-con news: EW’s Popwatch, Wizard’s SDCC news central, and finally Newsarama’s coverage guide. There’s tons more where that came from, but who has time to read it all?

Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!

July 17th, 2008 by Martin

If you’re not already watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, then get your butt on over there, and check it out. Acts I and II are already available, and Act III is set to be released on Saturday. Susie posted about Dr. Horrible quite a while ago, but now it’s finally here, and by all reports it’s AWESOME.

It was so great, in fact, that the site went down due to high traffic the first night, and they had to switch servers to get it back up and running.

Anyway, Captain Hammer, who is Dr. Horrible’s arch nemesis, (played by Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame) has his own comic, which you can read on Dark Horse’s myspace page. It’s pretty awesome, and I actually really dig the art, drawn by Eric Canete, which is almost crayon-like at times.

You can also buy some Dr. Horrible swag, but the Captain Hammer shirts aren’t nearly as cool as the style he wears in the comic. (I’d totally buy a shirt if it looked more like the comic.)

ReadComics Podcast #006

May 21st, 2008 by Martin

Topics for this issue: Batman’s Death (we know nothing about this), Secret Invasion (similarities between Black Canary and Mockingbird), Gambit’s accent, Indiana Jones, Spider Man Loves Mary Jane, Joss Whedon, Southland Tales, sex in comics (Cherry Poptart), Iron Man, Starfox, and which superhero gets the most play.

For this podcast we had Martin, Florence, Jason, Mike and Susie.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #006 (32 MB, 70 min)

Get ready people, it’s going to be legend…wait for it…

May 17th, 2008 by Susie

…dary! Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has a website. So far all that is there is this glowing picture of Neil Patrick Harris all Dr. Horrible suited up. For those of you have no idea what the @#%$ I am talking about, here is what you need to know.

Joss Whedon announced today, special Internet Musical.

Whedon reports that during the WGA strike he started writing the musical which will be a limited internet series. Each of the three episodes will be approximately ten minute each.

Co-writers for the internet feature are Joss’ brothers Zack and Jed and Jed’s Fiancé Maurissa. The writing has been completed and shooting commenced today.

“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.” Says Whedon.

“Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will star Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, Felicia Day as Penny and a cast of dozens.

I know! Awsome! There has yet to be a premiere date set but, Joss has said it will be before Comicon, which I think is in August. And with the website up there is further proof that it is actually happening. I am giddy!

Bonus new Jossness this way:dollhouse trailer

I admit, I might be a little giddy about that too.

Absolute Sandman Vol. 2, Echo 1, Ookla the Mok, new issues

March 12th, 2008 by Susie

Lot’s of stuff to write about! 1)Last christmas Florence, and Marty got me the first volume of Absolute Sandman.  It was awesome, the second volume is even better.  The Absolute line (yes the name does make it sound like a promotion for Vodka) from DC is basically a repackaging of some of their most acclaimed series, in oversized, beutifully designed hard covered books.  Usually the art is recolored, and the back of the book is jammed with extra content.  I usually don’t think it is worth buying a second copy of something if the story has not changed, and other Sandman I don’t think I will (although Kingdom Come is tempting).  With Sandman they have reprinted three tpbs, per volume.  Volume 2 contains the Seasons of Mists, a Game of You arcs, and most of the short stories from the Fables and Reflections collection.  Though volume 1 had some really great issues, this is the period in Sandman in my opinion where it came into it’s stride both with the story and the art.  SoM, is an epic that feels like an ancient myth that no one had transcribed yet.  Lucifer decides to quit being the adversary, kicks everyone out of Hell, leaves locking the door behind him.  He gives the key to Dream, whom he had previously vowed to destroy but now just hopes it will make his life a little difficult.  Which it does, as figures from many different pantheons (religious as well as comic book) arrive in the Dreaming seeking the deed to Hell.  Reading it again now, it is amazing how a few small interactions in these early issues set in motion the conclusion of the whole series.   At one time Season of Mists was my favorite arc, but now I feel a Game of You surpasses it.  It is a much smaller scale story than most of the other large arcs, and though Morpheus id in it, he is mostly periphery.  The main character is Barbie, who was a periphery character in the Dollhouse (collected in volume 1).  She had at one time had a very vivid dream life, in which she was a princess in a magic world of talking animals called the Land.  She has however stopped dreaming, and no longer remembers the Land.  In her absence the Land has started to die and is under the thrall of a monster called the Cuckoo.  Barbie does eventually return to the land and the it causes serous damage to the waking world.   The story could just be another “magic land ” like Oz, or Wonderland, but the conclusion id entirely originally.  The supporting cast Barbie’s neighbors: sweet transvestite, Wanda, lesbians Hazel and Foxglove, and the witch Thessaly (the only one to have any importance to the bigger story of Sandman), as well as the Land’s animals, giant dog creature Martin Tenbones, and Wilkinson a cynical rat wearing a trench-coat, are some of the most memorable in the whole series.  These are the stories that where the art  finally moves away from the typical horror comic style (overly lined faces, and colored in sickly purples and greens) .  Despite having some of the most horrific  scenes in the whole series, a man chained to rock in Hell having his chest repeatedly torn open, a pile of decapitated heads singing, the face torn from corpse nailed to wall happily chatting away with it’s wagging tongue.  It was well worth spending seventy dollars for this excellent new printing. 2) I also read echo number 1.  It is Terry Moore’s new creator owned comic.  It appears to be his take on super heroes.  Of course the heroine is one of his beautiful girls.  the first issue is a simple origin story.  Girl taking pictures in the dessert, inadvertently finds herself in the path of a explosion, gain a super powered suit.  That is all that has happened so far.  Except that we know that the owners of the suit seriously nasty, killing the previous wearer of the suit (hence the explosion) just to test it’s durability.  I know in few issues this is going to have completely sucked me in, and the story will be any thing but simple.  This is from the creator of Strangers in Paradise after all. 3) I have totally fallen in Love the album Super Secret from the band Ookla the Mok.  They are by far the geekiest band I have every encountered.  Nearly every high energy song song is a packed with references to comic books, old school science fiction, or alien abductions.  A sample of one of there lyrics from the song Theme from Super Skrull “He can turn one leg invisible, which is not all that practical. Unless you are quite gullible, you won’t get fooled by Super Skrull!”  My favorite song on  the album is called Stop Talking About Comic Books or I will Kill You, but the one I can not stop humming is Guggenheim Love.  The songs are not only catchy, they are hilarious. 4)  In a couple of hours i will head over to my local comic shop and pick up a months a worht of issues.  Including issues of, Buffy, Angel, Runaways, Fables,  Astro City, and the first issue of Serenity: Better Days!  Woo hoo!That is all.