Monday, June 27, 2011

Dawn Summers FAQ

I'm all cute and whiny. Exactly what Season 5 needs!

(Because I googled this and nothing came up. For EAS, and really anyone else who was wondering. Some spoilers, obvs. But mostly from the first half of Season 5.) 

*****

Q. So who is Dawn Summers?

A. Dawn is Buffy's little sister, dummy.

Q. ....

A. Oh, you've only watched seasons 1-4? Then Dawn doesn't exist yet.

Q. Okay.

A. Right.

Q. So where the hell does Dawn come from?

A. Now you're asking the right question. Dawn is a mystical ball of energy known as the Key, shaped into the body and brains of a thirteen year old girl. A bunch of mystic monks did this to protect her from Glory or Glorificus or the lamest big bad Buffy has ever seen and that's saying something (re: Adam).

I really miss Pushing Daisies right about now...

Q. A bunch of monks?

A. Yes. Czech monks. They decide to hide the Key in plain sight under the protection of the slayer.

Q. From Glory.

A. Yes, because if Glory had the key, she could open up a gateway to her home dimension.

Q. And this is bad because?

A. Come on, wiseacre, it's been four or five years since I watched Season 5. How am I supposed to remember? It's just bad. Because Joss says so.

Q. So why do Buffy, Joyce and the Scoobies suddenly think Dawn has been around for forever at the beginning of Season 5?

A. Magic!

Q. Really?

A. Yes, really. The monks are bad-ass at magic, and literally rewrite everyone's memories, including everyone on Angel, that other series, so that they all remember Dawn as being around as Buffy's kid sister forever and ever amen.

Don't worry, Joyce. It'll never make perfect sense. Just go with it.

Q. Why?

A. I don't understand the question.

Q. Why don't the monks just go to Buffy and say, hey, here's a thirteen year old girl who could unlock this other dimension that Glory's trying to get into, so do us a solid and keep her safe?

A. Good question.

Q. I know.

A. So....That would make sense, but then we wouldn't have a bunch of episodes to kick off Season 5 where every viewer is all like, what the hell is going on? Who is this whiny little brat? What the frak is happening to my vampire soap?!?!?

Q. So Joss did it to piss people off.

A. Well, that probably wasn't his intention....

Q. But it did piss people off.

A. Yeaaaah. It did. Joss must have thought it'd be a BIG MYSTERY that everyone and their auntie and TWoP would be buzzing about. Instead, people hated Dawn because she whined alot.

Would you like some cheese? For your whine?! Get it!?!?

Q. But she's thirteen.

A. You're absolutely right! She's thirteen, she has no friends, her sister the slayer ignores her, just like everyone else, so yeah, she whines. Alot. Like a teenager.

Q. And no one told Joss this was a bad idea?

A. To be fair, she plays the kid sister part but really well. But combine that with the whole mystery that gets annoying real fast and all the whinyness, and yeah, it was kind of a bad idea, I guess.

Q. But wait, also, if Buffy doesn't know Dawn's the Key, how's she supposed to know to protect her from Glory?

A. She doesn't. The monks really blew it there. Or Joss. Six of one, I suppose.

Q. And Glory is lame?

A. Oh, sweet Jesus, yes she's lame.

Q. But you like Dawn?

A. I do. Season 5 could have been soooo boring, like a terrible, terrible continuation of Season 4 boring. Dawn, for all her whinyness and stupid mysteriousness, kind of made the show fun again for a while. She's kind of like Angel. Except for the opposite of everything that was Angel. So not like Angel at all. But she serves a purpose like Angel.

Q. Which is?

A. Sort of the outsider. Sort of a motivator for Buffy that she lacked during Season 4. Sort of the reason for Buffy to do what she does during the Season 5 finale.

Q. SPOILERS!

A. Sorry, Sweetie.

If I could write a fan fic for you on LJ, I totes would. Sister besties!

Q. ...So Joss was right to add her?

A. In my opinion, absolutely yes. Although the gigantic plot holes with the stupid monks and the memory magic and the dumb, dumb Glory, who really didn't need the Key anyways because people on Buffy are ALWAYS opening portals to other dimensions all willy-nilly and why would they need THIS SPECIFIC KEY and what have you make it hard to realize it at the time. But yes. I like Dawnie.

Q. .....

A. Right.

Q. So does it work?

A. It works if you let it work. If you just accept it. Magic. All that jazz.

Q. Okay, I'm not totally convinced.

A. Trachtenberg turns out really hot, too.

This is my really hot look. BOOSH!
Q. Sold.

A. Magic!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Football Cops, starring the Manning Bros. [VIDEO]



I want this to be real so very, very bad. I'd actually rather see 16 good episodes of this than the full NFL season.

Don't hurt me, NFL fans who hate funny things.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Paranoid Android, by You [VIDEO]



I lost track of Radiohead six or seven years ago when I just stopped caring about listening to every pop album in existence. I do still like them, and this great, great video reminds me why. It's basically a recreation of Paranoid Android from fan covers posted to YouTube. The freak-out right before the 3 minute mark is still there and it is STILL awesome. Congrats internet, you done a good job today.

(via The Daily What)

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Saturday, June 18, 2011

E for Effort!



One of my favorites. Larry David and co. are brilliant.

(And coming back July 10th.)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

They don't make 'em like they used to



Thanks, YouTube gods. I can't believe I spent my first 25 years of life without this beautiful website.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

X-Men First Class....Actually Awesome

Original X-Men art by Josh Siegel
So a few months ago I mentioned how underwhelmed I was by this film. As a fanboy, I stand by that initial assessment -- some of the character selections by Matt Vaughan and co. are way too random. But about a month ago, the early reviews started rolling in, and they were almost all positive. Now after seeing it, I understand the randomness of the cast, which needed a couple of unknowns for a major plot point about halfway into the film. (Without getting too spoilery, you couldn't have, say, Bobby Drake and Warren Worthington perform the same functions as Darwin and Angel/Pixie and not piss off half your audience. So I get it now.) So while there are also some plot points and character backstories that don't jive with the previous films -- like Raven growing up with Charles -- it doesn't really matter, because as a standalone film, I couldn't have asked for a better X-Men story.

The film itself is fantastic. And I can only say that about four other previous Marvel/DC films. It doesn't make sense in the grander X-Men story, which is fine because the film franchise badly needed a reboot. Some of the characters weren't fleshed out well, but that's okay too because they weren't the focus. This was a story about Erik and Charles, and Fassbender and McAvoy are brilliant in their respective roles. The action scenes are mostly understated, in a way that wasn't in Brett Ratner's vocabulary, and that tend to focus on the characters and not on the CGI. You can tell that everyone on screen is having fun, because they're playing comic book characters AND acting in a film that doesn't suck, which is a rare thing these days. And the story-editing is very crisp, at little jarring at first, but once you get used to it moves the action right along. The training montage alone, straight out of a 70s film editing course, is worth the price of admission.

All in all, a fantastic action film, that only overreaches at the end. But still manages to pull it all together by the credits. It's gotten me and a whole bunch of others excited about this franchise again, I'm sure to the utter delight of Marvel and 20th Century Fox, who more than likely plan on using this cast for a second trilogy if at all possible.

My one big complaint -- no stinger after the credits. Hasn't Vaughan seen a Marvel movie before?

Friday, June 3, 2011

Joe Vaux and a bunch of monsters


Discovery, part of a series of monster works by Joe Vaux. More can be found on Copro's website, or Joe's page (which is a little noisy).

(Found via Super Punch)

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Eco Music Fest Poster


Not a big fan of the Disco Biscuits, but can't get over how ridiculous and awesome this poster is.

....And RJD2 seems kind of out of place, sonically speaking, at least.