Movie: Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

Much Ado About Nothing
Comedy, Drama, Romance

There's a few reasons I watched this. One, it's Shakespeare and I'm an English major. Two, it's a Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly, The Avengers) film and I love him. And three, it has a brilliant Whedonesque cast. I also heard it was filmed entirely at Joss' house and who doesn't want to get an inside look at that? Beware, it is a Shakespeare play so the dialogue is archaic and you really must pay attention. It is also filmed entirely in black and white but I think it works better that way.

I spent a lot of time star spotting in this movie. The two verbally dueling leads are played by Amy Acker (Dollhouse, Person of Interest) and Alexis Denisof (Angel, The Avengers) and they are backed up by an amazing cast including Nathan Fillion (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Castle), Clark Gregg (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods, Donnie Darko), Sean Maher (Serenity) and Tom Lenk (Transformers, Argo). I spent more time pointing out actors to my husband than listening to the first half of the film.

I didn't mind it. Like I said, I didn't pay a lot of attention at first but then by the second half I was into it. Maybe it took a little while to get used to the Shakespearean. It was quite funny in places as well. I will probably rewatch it somewhere along the line as part of my study.

3 out of 5 Whedons...

TV: Agents of SHIELD SE1 EP6

Agents of SHIELD
Action, Drama, Sci Fi

I'm hearing along the grapevine (aka the internet) that I am not the only one disappointed in this show. They made this huge deal about it; this great new sci fi spin off of The Avengers. Sounds good on paper, what could go wrong? You would think with the combined genius of Joss Whedon (Buffy, The Cabin In The Woods) and his brother Jed Whedon (Dollhouse) together with the amazing world of Marvel with access to god knows how many actual superheroes would give us a freaking awesome show!... but no, not quite. The potential is there but it seems like they're falling short.

I was excited to see Cobie Smulders in the first ep, but not too excited because I had heard she wasn't a permanent fixture to the show. Maybe she will join after How I Met Your Mother finishes later this year? Then there was that two minute cameo by Samuel L Jackson (Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction) which was pretty cool. On the superhero side of things there was J. August Richards (Angel) with his climbing/jumping stuff (woo) and then Scorch (Louis Ozawa Changchien). Now we have Asgardian artifacts which has potential too...

Even with all this potential and the occasional minor super power, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his pretty stereotypical team seem to be just another glorified black ops group. Even though they keep mentioning the portal opening in New York and gods, aliens and people with powers, they just don't seem to play a major role in the show. I was kind of hoping for a Dark Angel or Dollhouse kind of thing. There is the mystery surrounding Coulson's death... 

I will give it a season and see how it plays out, but honestly, I expected more... is it just because I haven't read any of the comics?

2 out of 5 crappy superheroes...

Web Series: Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog (2008)

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Comedy, Musical, Sci-Fi

I run in the right circles on the interwebs to have heard about this before....many, many times and I know that the people who love this are nerdy fanatics...which I will admit I'm not far away from being...

This mini series is amazing! I love, love, love it and plan to make the hubby watch it. The full series is available to watch on Youtube (above) or buy from iTunes here. Honestly, I'd prefer the DVD available from Amazon here. It's really quite cheap so if you like it, support! There is also a range of merchandise available from the website here.

It's the story of the diabolical super villain Dr. Horrible - played by the legen... wait for it... dary Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Starship Troopers) - who's trying to desperately to gain renown so he can be inducted into the Evil League of Evil, while trying to win the heart of do-gooder Penny - played by my current obsession, Felicia Day (Buffy, The Guild). I loooooooove Felicia Day!! Of course, every super villain has to have an arch nemesis and Dr. Horrible is no different. Captain Hammer is played by the awesome Nathan Fillion (Serenity, Castle) with all the normal Fillion style humour and crack-up one liners.

How cool is that cast? It may be little but it's made up of lots of my favourite people as well as a few guest roles by writer and producer Joss Whedon (The Avengers, Buffy), his brother Jed Whedon (co-wrote this series and Dollhouse with Joss) and Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory).

This mini series released on the web in 2008 is freakin' hilarious! but beware, it actually is a sing-along... mostly suitable for kids but I'm pretty sure it was made with adults in mind... It's pretty B-Grade with the songs being recorded in Joss' converted basement but we've had confirmation from Felicia that it actually is them singing and not dubbed!

Give it a go!

4 out of 5 awesome sauce...

[Quote]

 Captain Hammer: "Penny's giving it up, she's giving it up hard 'cos she's with Capt'n Hammer and these *produces fists* are not the hammer." *walks away....comes back* "The hammer is my penis."

I got hired for #drhorrible 5 months later with one email from Joss: "can you sing? ~j"
— Felicia Day (@feliciaday) October 10, 2012

"The hammer is my penis." is a fantastic line. In context. Not yelled at me in the street or in polite company. #happensalot #DrHorrible
— Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) October 10, 2012

Movie: The Cabin In The Woods (2011)

The Cabin In The Woods (2011)
Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

I love a good horror movie and its been a while since any really good ones have been released in my opinion. Then someone told me about this one... At first I thought it was going to be another one of those piss-take horror films packed with cheesy one liners. Well, it is full of cheesy one-liners but it's actually a pretty good horror flick - I know, I'm surprised too!

I was surprised that is, until I saw Joss Whedon's name on it and now it all makes a little more sense. That man is a god and if you don't know who he is, we can't be friends...

It's a very Whedon-esk cast too with Amy Acker of Angel fame and Fran Kranz from Dollhouse, but the star was Kristen Connolly who's most well know for her appearances as iGirl on Youtube's iChannel, and Aussie Chris Hemsworth - Thor, Norse God of Thunder, duh! I also recognized one of the zombies as Jodelle Ferland (Twilight: Eclipse)- yes, zombies!

It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I hadn't seen any previews and the only thing I'd heard about it is that it wasn't what I would expect of a horror. From that I half expected it to turn into something like Tucker and Dale VS Evil, hehe, but that wasn't it. It's kind of like Big Brother's Haunted House... at least we know what happened to the Cube machine, ha!

It's a relatively short film at an hour and twenty-five minutes, but how long do you really expect people to survive in these situations? I love the idea of it, something really different and the ending is pretty awesome. Sigourney Weaver as The Director made me chuckle.

Will recommend to friends. Should have watched it in the dark...

4 out of 5 monster cubes...

[Quote] "Oh no, don't kill the gorgeous man, we're endangered!" - Hemsworth