Buffy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The battle of the undead on the big screen has been under way for some time now, and after months of hearing that vampires are taking over pop culture, it seems like we shouldn't quite put our friends the zombies (no, not those ones) down for the count. Over at Newsweek, Sarah Ball put together a few reasons as to why zombies will never beat vampires in a pop-culture zeitgeist-off thanks to our long-standing love-affair with the pale tortured types. But just this weekend, audiences proved that when it comes to the walking dead, the zombies still have what it takes to bring in the crowds.

Everybody has their personal preferences (and man I love those bloodsuckers), so even though I've watched more vampire content than I care to remember (I even sat through the pilot of The Vampire Diaries), and I'll always be a dedicated 'fan of the fang', I think that sometimes those drooling bumbling walking corpses might be better suited (at least these days) to the world of horror. Here's why:

After the jump: my top 3 reasons Zombies (might) make better horror movies.

I'm about to make a very unpopular comparison, one that surely will have some fans trying to revoke my own Whedon fandom: Bella, Buffy, and the bloodsuckers from Twilight and Buffy aren't all that different.

I say this as someone who only left her house once during the seven seasons of Buffy night, who watched each episode countless times, and amassed a huge pile of memorabilia. I say this as someone who has read Stephenie Meyers' series and enjoyed it for the ways it reflected and improved on my own fluffy YA reading (The Vampire Diaries), and knocked it for the Mormon-esque message underneath.

I haven't ignored my fandom; I just can't help but see the myriad of similarities between the two characters, ones that make Buffy owning Edward seem quite hypocritical. The power behind the slayer comes from Joss Whedon and the themes explored throughout her story -- not from the character herself. Strip away the story arcs and implied messages, and you've got a troubled woman who is no better off than Bella.

We've all had a few days to let the news sink in that Buffy the Vampire Slayer is getting a feature film reboot, and is if that wasn't enough; that the creator, Joss Whedon, would not be a part of it. As to be expected, fans were ticked, and just for the record, I am one of those die-hard Buffy fans with DVD collections and Season 8 comics lining my wall. But, maybe it's because lately everything is up for grabs when it comes to remakes and reboots, because when I heard the news, I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. Now last week I asked fans if there was a chance they were being a little too hard on a certain time-traveling robot, but then I realized I should probably try and follow my own advice when it comes to something I love. So I ask myself: Is a 'Whedonless' Buffy necessarily a bad thing? Well, I have to tell you, there is a part of me that thinks that the Buffy reboot isn't doomed to fail, and here's why:

The original Buffy was a silly early '90s flick featuring Kristy Swanson, dreamy Luke Perry as her BF Pike, Rutger Hauer as the bad vamp about town Lothos, a post-Pee Wee Paul Reubens as one of his henchmen, and Donald Sutherland as a told-ya-so! dude named Merrick who warned her she was a predestined kicker of vampire ass. Blink-and-miss-it cameos include Hilary Swank, Ben Affleck, gossip columnist Liz Smith, David Arquette, and Ricki Lake. Really.

Now Buffy is getting a 21st century transfusion with help from the original director Fran Rubel Kuzui and producer Kaz Kuzui to create "what is being labeled a remake or relaunch, but not a sequel or prequel," according to Hollywood Reporter. So with that very oblique description in mind, it looks like this will be a sort of different incarnation of Buffy -- a different vampire "warrior" for a different generation. One with "franchise potential," of course. The Kuzuis are working with Vertigo Entertainment, aka Roy Lee and Doug Davison, which is responsible for many US remakes of Asian films like The Grudge, Dark Water, The Eye, and upcoming adaptations of Death Note, the Spielberg-Smith vehicle Oldboy, and Battle Royale. They're also remaking Creepshow.

Joss Whedon wrote the script for the original Buffy, although he's more famous for his feminist-y take on it in the long-running Sarah Michelle Gellar series. He will, however, not be involved with the new Buffy. Good luck to whomever they're bringing in to revamp this iconic chick because she or he has some big shoes to fill. Or it's entirely possible one of the many, many Buffy-philes might have a go at 'em with a big, pointy stake. Either way.

As far Joss? Well, Dr. Horrible's Twitter only says "Oy... http://bit.ly/gwmRt" If anyone would like to confirm if this is Joss's real Twitter account or not, we're all ears.

When Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended its run in 2003, it didn't just fade away. Sunnydale might have been obliterated, but the Joss Whedon universe was buzzing with the possibility of other spinoffs, television films, and big screen appearances. Over the last five years, that has become increasingly less likely, especially in the wake of the popular comic continuation. So I am sharing the following only in the interest of keeping up on rumors, not because I believe it.

According to Moviehole, the Herald-Sun Newspaper had a small blurb on Buffy, which said: "Rumours are circulating in Hollywood that Whedon has a feature-film script based on his hit TV series ready to roll as soon as a studio is prepared to commit." While it's entirely likely that he does have some Buffy scripts floating around, I'd be wonderfully surprised to hear that one is all ready. Besides his busyness with the new television show, there's the comics, and more specifically -- a storyline that has continued beyond the show.

Would Joss somehow pull Angel and LA out of hell and have Buffy round up the Scooby gang? The only scenario I can imagine would be Buffy bringing Angel and LA out of hell. It would be epic enough for the big screen, and be an endeavor that would bring back all of the cast (except Anya... boo hiss!). But that's just a dream, and while this rumor sounds swell and I could go for many more years of live-action Buffy, I ain't buyin' it. Are you?

Up there you have uber geeks Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith (who is now, believe it or not, a professor) trying to make the perfect woman in Weird Science. They give their perfect woman a handful of boob (because the rest would be a waste), and a mixture of Albert Einstein and Diamond Dave to fill her brain. (What could be more well-rounded?!) The result -- out pops Kelly LeBrock.

Now, in a podcast with SciFi Wire about artificial intelligence, geek hero Joss Whedon discusses his dislike for the film: "I hate Weird Science not a little. I find it offensive, the boy fantasy of building a girl. Obviously, we were doing the nasty version of it [in Buffy the Vampire Slayer], because I find it grotesque."

But what do you think?

An added bonus for Whedon fans: He's working on a film script with Drew Goddard -- that writer from Buffy who recently penned Cloverfield.

Talk about a guy who could use a hug (or three), Joss Whedon is doing his best to glue back together his broken heart following the severe beat-down his ego has received over the course of the past year. After opting not to replace Bryan Singer as director on X-Men 3 in order to dive head first into the shallow puddle that was Wonder Woman, Whedon now finds himself no longer attached to a comic adaptation, and content with moving forward on his next project -- an original flick called Goners, which he will write and direct.

In speaking with Wizard Universe, Whedon immediately addressed those rumors that pegged him as the leading contender to helm an X-Men 4. He says, "I haven't heard the rumor, but there is no rumor that is not swirling. I don't even know, are they even going to have an X4? I had been talking with [Marvel Studios] about X3, but the dates didn't line up. So I took on Wonder Woman, and that worked out great! Oh, no wait, I remember now, not so much." He goes on to admit that he "wouldn't say never," but seems more interested in telling his own stories right now, rather than "doing someone else's thing." After reading the interview (which, might I add, is quite good), you can't help but feel for the guy; prior to his work on Wonder Woman, Whedon had also pitched his own big-screen version of Batman, only to lose out to Christopher Nolan. He notes: "I still stay up late at night thinking how cool my Batman movie could have been, and I liked Batman Begins a lot. I thought it had some awesome stuff I would never have come up with, but I still think about what I could have done. That's the problem when you throw your heart into those things; it just stays there." [Cue Lisa Loeb's Stay -- Fade Out on lone tear sliding down Whedon's cheek.]

Even though I've never found myself attracted to his Firefly/Serenity/Buffy stuff, Whedon's original voice has landed him a pretty massive fanbase. You can sense he's passionate about the stories he wants to tell, if only someone, somewhere finally gives him the opportunity. For much more from Whedon on the Wonder Woman debacle and his new flick Goners, as well his thoughts on the big-screen Marvel vs. DC battle, check out the Wizard Universe interview here.

Probably best remembered as Faith the rogue Slayer and sultry kicker of many butts from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series (though Tru Calling was pretty good too), Eliza Dushku is set to star in Mamba alongside Mike Vogel of Poseidon and Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) fame. Joining them will be German actress Naike Rivelli and Spanish thespians Gary Piquer , Alex O'Dogherty, and Martxelo Rubio. The film will shoot for eight weeks in Northern Spain and will be helmed by first-time Spanish director Alvaro de Arminan, with a screenplay written by Roderick and Bruce Taylor (scripters of the upcoming Jodie Foster vehicle The Brave One) and Antonio Cuadri (writer and director of The Heart of The Earth). Juan Carlos Orihuela, Billy Dietrich, and Cuadri will produce.

Mamba is a teen thriller about a group of young surfers who discover an old satanic board game called Mamba, though I'm already tempted to call it Parcheesi of the Damned. Players who die in the game also die in real life.The story is said to be a cross between I Know What You Did Last Summer and Final Destination, though it sounds like there's a smattering of Jumanji and the dashiest dash of Stay Alive in there as well.

Via Coming Soon

• Date Movie - Nowhere in the formula "Comedy = Tragedy + Time" does "Cruelty" figure in, something that this caca-palooza -- "from 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie" -- sets out to correct from the very first scene. When they introduce us to morbidly obese Julia Jones (Alyson Hannigan), it is with ridicule as they paint her as a hideous beast that makes men vomit and turn gay. Of course, when we remember that 2 of the 6 writers of Scary Movie were Wayans Brothers, whose stock in trade is that kind of cruelty, it makes sense (even if these are another two writers.)

A parody of romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Hitch, this lame spoof goes for the easy laugh almost every time, beating to death with a golf club every gag with the subtlety of, well ... someone who beats someone else to death with a golf club. The "13" in the movie's "PG-13" rating would seem to be either a limit for either I.Q. or emotional age, as the movie's show pieces are either juvenile blue bits or have something to do with either poop, pee, puke or pus (the dreaded "4 P's"). Putting gifted comic actors like Fred Willard and Jennifer Coolidge in this stinky mess makes them both stinky by association, though as time goes by, the whole lot of them will only be guilty of contributing to a vast background of white noise that we will have learned to filter out when we grow up. Presently #64 on the IMDB's Bottom 100 of all time.
 

You'd think doing the whole writing-a-movie-script thing (in addition to planning for the film because you're also going to direct it) would keep a man and his pen pretty busy. Not so Joss Whedon, however -- one or six projects is not enough to occupy the ever-active mind of one of geekdom's favorite kings. While writing and prepping for the much discussed Wonder Woman film project, Joss Whedon has also made plans to return to his roots and reconnect with his fan base by going back to the still very popular Buffy The Vampire Slayer universe. Whedon is writing an all-new comic book mini-series for Dark Horse Comics with the first book due as early as October of this year.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: while I may not be a huge fan of Joss Whedon's body of work, I absolutely love the man for the way he treats his fans. The man is well aware of who is responsible for his success, and you'd be hard pressed to find a guy who works harder to give his fans what they want. He's also obviously desperately infatuated with the worlds he has created, and that's always fun to see. As long as Whedon continues to treat his fans like royalty he deserves every ounce of the rabid devotion they bestow upon him.