Joss Whedon is brilliant.

If you have watched any of Whedon's projects in the past you probably know the above statement to be true. From co-writing (and winning an Academy Award) for Toy Story to creating Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Dollhouse, & Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, or his work on other's creations such as Marvel's Astonishing X-Men and Runaways, Whedon is always at the top of his game.

He's also the master of taking a failure in one medium and creating a cult classic in another. Witness the life of Buffy, it started out as a failed movie, was turned into a long running, cult classic television series that was a hit with critics, and now it's a several year long Comic book.

Now 2 of Whedon's projects are heading to your home. On October 12 Dollhouse Season 2 hits shelves on DVD and Blu-ray and on January 4th the 8th Season of Buffy does the same.
Dollhouse is Joss Whedon’s take on the ultimate identity theft and follows a cast of Actives, or Dolls, who serve as agents of Dollhouse, an illegal underground organization providing elite clientele with programmable human beings. Personality imprints allow Actives to temporarily become anyone or anything—the perfect burglar, lover, spy or assassin. When the mission is completed, memories are wiped clean. The all-star Dollhouse cast is led by Eliza Dushku as Echo (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tru Calling, Angel) and Tahmoh Penikett as Paul Ballard (Battlestar Galactica).

The second season comes with several special features including a retrospective with Joss Whedon and cast roundtable about the series. A gag reel and deleted scenes from top episodes. But probably the coolest, and most anticipated extra is the 28 page exclusive limited edition comic book by Dark Horse Comics.

In the comic, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen, joined by longtime Buffy the Vampire Slayer artist Cliff Richards, take us on an intricate trip through the precise moment when the Active technology went global, and how the protagonists from Epitaph One and Two narrowly avoided death, and worse. Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen wrote the Epitaph episodes of Dollhouse Seasons One and Two, and currently write for the Starz series Spartacus. This is their first work in comics. Artist Cliff Richards has drawn more Joss Whedon-related comics than any other artist, including issues of Buffy Season Eight.If you don't follow comics, you might be wondering what Buffy season 8 is, as the television series ended with Season 7. Well for the past several years Buffy, as mentioned above, has lived on in comic book form. This 8th season picks up after the destruction of the Hellmouth in the explosive finale of the television series, Buffy and her trusted friend Xander have relocated to a citadel in Scotland to oversee the thousands of newly activated slayers from across the globe. Using their new home as command-central in their fight against evil, Buffy and her allies lead these new slayers as they take on vamps, zombies and now the U.S. government who declare, in the wake of Sunnydale’s destruction, that slayers are nothing more than international terrorists.

Those comics have been turned into Motion Comics, in which the frames from the comic are animated and voice actors read the lines, instead of their being text bubbles. The very first episode of the motion comic series is available now on the iTunes Store (www.iTunes.com), with new episodes available every week from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. iTunes episodes are available for $.99/$1.99 HD each, or with a season pass for $14.99/$29.99 HD and can be found at www.iTunes.com/Buffy. All 19 episodes will make their official debut on DVD January 4, 2011 which will include limited edition Jo Chen packaging and a collectible reprint of Dark Horse Comic’s first book in the series.

And if that's not enough Jones Soda has created 6 custom themed “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” Motion Comic labels which can be purchased on their website. You can see them below:

As a big fan of Whedon I can honestly say I'm eagerly awaiting these releases.

Labels: AWESOMENESS, Buffy, Dollhouse, Joss Whedon

If you, like me were unable to attend the awesomeness that is ComicCon this year, you are in luck. NBC has released some videos with the Chuck Cast from their time at ComicCon. Enjoy!

Zachary Levi & Josh Gomes discuss ComicCon

I recently got a chance to see a rough cut of NBC's new fall series The Event, and for now all I'll say is it did what a good pilot should, it made me want to see the next episode immediately. Today NBC has released some interviews with the cast and director of The Event from this past weekend's Comic Con. And stay tuned here for more on The Event.

Sarah Roemer talks about Season 1:

After being on two hit shows in the 90s, popular cheerleader Kelly Kapowski on “Saved By the Bell” and the vixen villain Valerie Malone in “Beverly Hills 90210”, Tiffany Thiessen is back on USA’s “White Collar” as Elizabeth Burke. Thiessen took part in a Q&A Session with several bloggers, including our own Scotty C., to talk about the new season of “White Collar” among other things.

The new episodes of “White Collar” have Thiessen excited for what’s in store for her character Elizabeth.

“I would love to explore a little bit more of the history between Peter and Elizabeth and how they met,” Thiessen said. “And possibly maybe a little bit more, I think what they’re wanting to do, which I’m excited about is really starting to see me interact more with Matt’s character as well as Willie’s character.”

After being on “Saved By The Bell” and “Beverly Hills 90210”, it is still hard for Thiessen to get roles.

“When you have a successful show, and thankfully so far I’ve had two and going on my third, that people sometimes have a hard time taking you out of that once it’s over,” Thiessen said. “But I worked really hard to get it and luckily I won the job. I won them over.”

On “White Collar” she gets to play a strong female character and that is what hooked her.

“She really is a woman who takes her marriage, it’s very important to her and her relationship with her husband and her home life, but as well really balances her career,” Thiessen said. “I strive to do that every single day of my life, and now that I add the title ‘Mother’ to it it’s even more so. She’s very diplomatic, which I really like. She’s very reasonable. She seems to be a person that has a sense of knowing where to go down the middle when she’s helping the relationship between Peter and Neal, and I like that about her a lot.”

Thiessen thought she had a great audition for “White Collar” but waited and still hadn’t heard anything.

“I was supposedly on the short list,” Thiessen said. “And they said, ‘Oh, they actually wanted to go a different route. They thought you were too young.’ Then I started hearing some of the girls that were actually going in and auditioning with Tim and they were actually younger than I was. So I was like, wait a minute, that doesn’t sound right. So I actually thought I lost the job, but then supposedly they never found the girl, they were definitely trying to go younger and it didn’t work, and so they called me back again. I did a chemistry read with Tim and we totally hit it off, and I knew it was my job.”

“White Collar” has die-hard fans and Thiessen attributes that to the writers.

“It’s very character driven, which USA strives as a station to be,” Thiessen said. “I think the biggest reason of all is the writing. Our writers are so on top of it and they really make such great scripts that we just so enjoy portraying them live.”

Thiessen has embraced ways to interact with her fans like Twitter as a way to avoid the funnel of tabloid fodder.

“To me I think it’s a much more honest way to really connect with your fan base without it being the horrible magazines out there that might not get the truth right,” Thiessen said. “At least this gives a little bit of an honest glimpse into someone’s life without it being too overdone and too personal. You get to control it, which is what I like about it.

Thiessen collaborated with the writers of “White Collar” for what her Elizabeth’s profession would be.

“Once it got picked up we really tried to explore what exactly would be the best fit for her and for the show,” Thiessen said. “I came up with the event coordinator only because-many reasons. One was I always wanted to do that and personally if I never acted again that was what I wanted to do for a living.”

With “In Plain Sight” and “Covert Affairs”, USA is helping to pave the way for strong character roles.

“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten to work for a cable network, and they’ve been one of the most passionate networks for their shows that I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve been doing this for 26, 27 years,” Thiessen said. “They’re so extremely passionate and very connected to their actors and their writers and their shows. You can see it on screen.”

The writers of “White Collar” have taken a detour from standard television by writing a good marriage for their characters.

“They’ve made the relationship between Peter and Elizabeth a strong marriage, and I don’t think you see that on TV very often. I really admire them,” Thiessen said.

Thiessen’s career span is almost 30 years in the making and thinks roles for middle-aged women have improved.

“I think there’s definitely much more (opportunities for women) in 30s and 40s both,” Thiessen said. “From watching TV myself and watching film myself I see a lot more 30s and 40s on screen, which just makes me very, very, very happy. It’s what we should be watching.”

Between “90210” and “White Collar”, she was in “Fastlane” on Fox.

“Fastlane was totally adrenaline, really fun, it was great, very stylish,” Thiessen said. “Stylish in the sense like ‘White Collar’, but much more in the sense of just the drive of the stunts and things like that. It was a great show. I was actually very sad that it went off. I still to this day get a lot of people not understanding why Fox took it off the air.

Her biggest role remains Kelly Kapowski on “Saved By the Bell” and after all of these years, people are still clamoring for a reunion.

“I think it was really great to do that reunion last year with ‘People’ magazine and we got to see everyone,” Thiessen said. “I definitely still talk to Mark Paul and Elizabeth and Mario, but to have us all together for ‘People’ magazine last year was really fun and I think that was a reunion that we felt was enough. We’re all doing our own projects and doing other things, so I don’t think we’re going to see a reunion in what the public is thinking.”

White Collar air tonight at 9/8C on USA, scroll down for a peek at tonight's all new episode.

Labels: USA, White Collar

Scotty C. gives us his take on This Week's new release, Salt, starring Angelina Jolie. Be warned there may be spoilers. (I admit I haven't read it because I'm hoping to see Salt tonight and don't want to know anything.) I may or may not have my own review up sometime this weekend/early next week.

“Salt” begins with Evelyn Salt (Jolie) in a North Korea detainment center pleading with them that she is not a spy as they aggressively interrogate her. Later she is released, in part by her husband willing to go to the media and anyone else to make a big mess out of her imprisonment. Flash forward two years and the building Salt works in is a CIA office. She is looking at an online video for how to fold napkins. She is celebrating her anniversary and wants everything to be just right. Just as Salt and her CIA friend, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) are about to walk out of the office, an agent tells them a Russian defector walked in. Salt will talk to him but she has to leave in a half an hour. The defector tells Salt that a Russian spy will kill the Russian President and her name is Evelyn Salt. After hearing this, Winter and Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) working with a different agency detain Salt for questioning only for her to escape.

Supposedly she ran because she is worried about her husband because once an agent’s cover is blown, their whole family is killed. I don’t know if it’s the writing (most likely culprit) or Jolie’s performance but this motive never seems genuine, and not genuine as a psych either. It may have been better if they cut this out of the film in general but maybe they felt that women would want Salt to have a family motive. Why not have an adorable daughter she has to get home to? The fact that she is a potential Russian spy is more interesting than any family issues they have set up.

So now we’re on the run. There is lots of running, climbing and fast cars. None of this equals suspense. What is difficult about the spy genre is if someone is a superspy, you rarely fear for their life. They are trained for every scenario set forth on screen. The plot gets more intricate and layered. You don’t know who is good or who is bad? I’m fine with that. I’m sure the audience is fine with that. I would like the filmmakers to know where we are going though.

Director Phillip Noyce has directed a ton of films in this genre: “The Bone Collector” (another Jolie film that resembles this), “Clear and Present Danger” (I think the worst of the Jack Ryan films) and “Patriot Games”, a good entry into the Jack Ryan franchise with Harrison Ford. Noyce doesn’t direct films with much suspense or uptempo styles. His films run at a slower pace. Now I know why I was thinking about Harrison Ford half the movie. Take a look at “The Fugitive”. It is a simple storyline. There are no double agents, no moles in the government. It’s Richard Kimble and Samuel Gerard. The tagline from IMDB reads: “A murdered wife. A one-armed man. An obsessed detective. The chase begins.” That’s all the movie has and it is a much better film. You are invested in Kimble. You are invested in Gerard. You care about those characters.

Did I ever care about Evelyn Salt? When her husband is missing? No. When you find out about her childhood? Not really. Did I care about her? I don’t know what her motive is so I cannot get attached to her at all. There was a scene where she took her dog before her apartment got gassed by agents and paid a girl to take care of him. That was heartwarming.

How Salt is able to get away from almost every situation is predictable but interesting. This film does get good in the last twenty minutes or so. It finishes rather well. Can a movie be limping along for an hour and a half and wow you in the end and leave you with a good taste in your mouth. Unfortunately, it kinda does.

A movie like this can’t be successful anymore. “24” has done every type of mole inside the government with Jack Bauer saving the day for too many years. This whole genre will have to be reinvented to remain relevant.

I read that before Jolie took this film it was a script for a man. Tom Cruise was going to be in it. So they spend a day changing all the pronouns and the script is for a woman. As I watched it, I wondered if Tom Cruise would’ve been better for this. It was a great decision for Cruise to leave this project. I hope he left it because he saw the director and writer had no idea what they were doing. Obviously Jolie had no problem with it because she was directed by Noyce in “The Bone Collector”. Guess what? That movie is horrible. Much like this movie, it has a twist ending but in “Salt” the ending saves the movie.

The studio will probably be happy. More people were at my noon showing than when I saw “Knight and Day” or “Inception.” Keep your chin up Tom Cruise, ditching this movie means you still have some good judgment.

Labels: Review, Salt

Can't attend Comic Con this year, but still want to be able to know what's going on at the USA panels? You're in luck. USA Network will offer fans unable to attend this year's Comic Con a chance to follow a live social stream of highlights from each show panel. The live text feed will begin with Burn Notice at 1pm (all times pacific)followed by White Collar at 2:15 and conclude with Psych at 3:30. Fans will also have a chance to win exclusive Comic Con premiums from each show.

You can get the live feed below:

In recent months, you may have noticed that "The CineManiac" has kind of turned into "The TVManiac", so in an effort to get back to the Cinema aspect of the blog I am hoping to post more movie reviews. Because I am sometimes strapped for time between my family and my job, I have decided to bring in some colleagues to do reviews and other columns from time to time. This site will continue to cover television, but I'm hoping to cover both a bit more equally.

Having said that I'd like to introduce you to my newest reviewer/blogger Scotty C. Scotty is a teacher and has his own movie blog, FunkSoulBrother1980. This week Scotty, like $60 million worth of Americans, saw Christopher Nolan's newest film, Inception. You can read Scotty's thoughts on the film below.

WARNING: If you have not seen Inception I would advise you stop reading now! The following review contains spoilers.

NO SERIOUSLY: You want to know as little as possible about Inception before you see it.

I AM NOT KIDDING: This review contains spoilers and I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND you don't read it, unless you've seen the movie.

OK, IT'S YOUR LIFE, BUT DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!!

My jaw dropped. My eyes were opened with the jaws of life of “Inception.”

“I specialize in a very specific type of security. Subconscious security,” Cobb says.

“You’re talking about dreams,” Robert Fischer, Jr. says.

That is all you need to know about this film. It is about dreams, the latest from “The Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan, “Inception”.

Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) works with Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and others using extraction, way to enter someone’s subconscious through their dreams to steal information.

The opening of “The Dark Knight” rivals any opening scene in history with the reveal of the Joker. “Inception’s” opening is definitely the opening scene of the year that kicks the audience into this journey. Cobb washes up on the shore only to be taken by goons to an old man Saito (Ken Watanabe). Cobb begins talking to him and then we go back to where this started. Cobb, Arthur and Saito are all asleep, dreaming on a train. In the dream, Cobb is explaining their services to Saito. Then as Cobb is trying to break into a safe for some secret document, his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) shows up and wreaks havoc on the dream.

Cobb and Arthur wake up and are on the run because they didn’t succeed in their mission. Cobb can’t go home to his kids. Saito kidnaps one of their colleagues and asks about inception, planting an idea in someone’s subconscious. Arthur says it’s impossible. Cobb says it can be done. The job is to take the heir to an energy company (Murphy) and give him the idea to breakup his father’s empire. Cobb will need some help to reach their objective.

A kick is how they wake you up. The team dives deeper into dreams within the dreams. The deeper you go, the bigger the kick.

Cobb enlists one of his father’s best students Ariadne (Ellen Page) to be the architect, the builder of the dream world. Then he gets Eames (Tom Hardy), a forger. According to Cinematical.com, “This name has two meanings. In the real world he can forge identities using his contacts and his ability to fake documents. In the dream world, he can alter his appearance and take on the personality of someone else he's studied, probably using much the same methods used to construct buildings.”

To complete the team is Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist who formulates the drugs for the team to enter the dream world under heavy sedation.

The job isn’t an open and shut case because when the mind detects a foreigner in the subconscious, projections of the subconscious seek it out and attack. This leads Cobb’s team running from gunfire at every turn. Add in the fact that Cobb’s secretive past leads his wife to be obstructing him from his mission and you have some serious problems.

The cast looks super cool throughout the film. Did the costume designer from “Mad Men” get this gig? They are wearing some incredible suits but I don’t know why they would when they are running from gunfire? Why not wear some Nikes?

Every character has a purpose. The forger. Arthur is the point man. The Chemist stays in the first dream to install the kick from the van. Cillian Murphy was the target. Ariadne is the mother figure looking out for everyone including the audience with her lines meant to unfold exposition. Mal is seductive enough to make you want to stay in a dream for a lifetime.

The score by Hans Zimmer is not merely epic, it gives the pacing and tension a steroid shot.

This might become a philosopher’s favorite the way “The Matrix” is because in the end this isn’t about a foreign enemy like the machines. The enemy comes from within, Freud style.

Some critics have complained that the movie is too literal and Nolan didn’t take advantage of being in a dream world. Maybe David Lynch would have done something truly Dali with it but Nolan isn’t that type of filmmaker.

Only a handful of filmmakers could get the capital in this cash strapped era to make the film on this spectacular level. Peter Jackson and George Lucas couldn’t make this film let alone a better one. Speilberg’s take would have been interesting but I don’t know if he has the force to pull you in like Nolan at this moment. James Cameron could have done something good unless he already did. Maybe the Navi’ and the world of Pandora are all Cameron’s subconscious. In 2010, Nolan is at the top of his game and he pulled off the masterful.

Creativity and originality take a backseat to sequels and reboots especially in the summer. The last original property to blow past that line of thinking was “Avatar.” In “Inception’s” success is hope that filmmaking won’t be ruined by suits looking for the next “Pirates of the Caribbean.” On Sunday afternoon, I ran across four men talking about the film and what was happening, what the ending meant. What was the last summer movie that provoked discussion besides how much it sucked? “Inception” brought in $60 million in its first weekend. Maybe the subconscious of dollar signs will lead to more inventive films by visionaries like Nolan.