Tag Archives: retrospective

The Swinging Pendulum: Hannibal, Fannibals, and Bryan Fuller


Hannibal_2_13_13Hannibal Lecter is one of the most well-known fictional characters of all time. Thomas Harris will go down in history for changing crime novels, crime stories, and for creating the popular culture’s need for serial killers. Bryan Fuller will go down in history for creating some of the most beloved television series about death, the after life, and food. All of which were tragically cut short. Hannibal, however, has been renewed for a second season on NBC, something which Bryan Fuller was actually pretty sure about (x).

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Thoroughly Animated: A DC Animated Movies Retrospective-Part 2


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Alright, we are pretty much up to the years where I started legitimately watching and buying these films regularly. Boy, were these fun films, I loved most of them and even the ones I didn’t totally love, I still really liked. It was also around this time that DC started attaching animated short films to their DVD and Blu Ray releases. These were called DC Showcase, they ranged from really small relatively unknown characters like The Spectre to very well known characters like Catwoman. These shorts normally last for ten minutes and it is a really cool way to see an animated version of characters who otherwise would not have a shot at their own animated feature.  DC Showcase also came out with a short film called Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam.  This was significantly longer than the previous showcase shorts, with a running time of 25 minutes. The other things that appeared on this Blu Ray were the previous short films from the other movies, making at least the length of a normal release. The Superman/Shazam short is one of the best, it is essentially the origin story for the character Shazam and I think they pulled it off wonderfully. I did not know much about the character until I had seen this, and it made me a fan of the character. On some DVDs and Blu Rays they also put out two to four episodes of Batman the Animated Series, Superman the Animated Series or Justice League. The episode will normally parallel what is in the movie, or at least have a similar character in there. Continue reading

As It Ever Was: The Cabin in the Woods in Retrospection


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The Cabin in the Woods isn’t your typical horror film. Well…it is, but it also isn’t. I’m gonna put a spolier warning on this article – just in case. If you haven’t seen Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s groundbreaking entry into the ever growing genre of horror, then you should. It truly is a cross-genre masterpiece. Not since Scream has the horror genre been so utterly flipped on its head, and beautiful so.

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Signing a Contract to Be a Slave: Dollhouse in Retrospection


Dollhouse_(Fox_TV_Series),_2009,_Eliza_Dushku,_Harry_Lennix,_Fran_Kranz

Dollhouse. How do we even begin to talk about Dollhouse? It might be the most ambitious of all of Joss Whedon’s shows, and, while it is deeply flawed, it’s also one of the most interesting. 

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I Cannot Believe My Eyes: A Retrospective of the Quest to Dr. Horrible


The 2007-2008 television year was a dark time. Well, for some people. For fans it meant that there weren’t going to be new episodes, but for the writers it meant that the future of contracts would yield so much more. That being said, the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike hit like a storm that we, as fans, didn’t really predict. Or at least I didn’t because I was fourteen and I didn’t pay attention to the industry the way I do now.

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Had Joss Whedon had a show on television at the time, though, he would have had the same problem that 120 other “hyphenates” had. Joss is a showrunner – meaning he’s both head writer and executive producer. He, quite literally, runs his shows. The WGA strike causes a lot of conflicts because head writers were striking as writers, but they were still contractually obligated to work as executive producers. Whedon, however, wasn’t running a show.

While it’s always sad when Joss Whedon doesn’t have a show on air, we probably wouldn’t have Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog if there had been something on television. But let it never be said that Joss Whedon isn’t inspired, because he is and he delivers on those fantastic ideas.

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Sunnydale: Come for the food, stay for the dismemberment-Buffy the Series retro part two


Sorry, guys. I’ve been slammed by life the last week or so. Joss Whedon Month has suddenly turned into Joss Whedon Months. But back on track!

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I have to save the world. Again.–Buffy the Series


Okay, so now that we know the origin story of our beloved Buffy, we can dive into the series, where she became more…well, just more.imgres-2 Continue reading

I’m the Chosen One. And I choose to be shopping–The Beginnings of the VampireVerse


Joss Whedon is brilliant. There’s no denying that. And when we think “vampire”, we tend to think about the ones he created for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But most people tend to skip over the movie from 1992 completely. And I personally feel like that’s just tragic. Continue reading

Animating Joss: A Look at the Pre-Vampire films of a Master


There are two really fantastic animated films, not counting Toy Story, that Joss Whedon worked on. Like most of Whedon’s work, up until this past summer, the “mainstream” media either didn’t care, or didn’t like the films. Both films, though, have cult followings, and it’s worth noting that they’re quite in the vein of Whedon films – albeit in different ways than the vampire stories we’re more used to.

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A Brief Life Before Buffy: A Look at Pre-Vampire Joss Whedon


Hello friends! This particular article is going to be painfully short, and I’m sorry about that. It just so happens that Joss’s career before Buffy Summers came along was less “Joss Whedon” than we’d like to admit. It was filled with working on a TV staff, working as a script doctor, and writing animated films (or at least doing the stories).

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