Ed Wood (1994)

"Nobody cares! These movies are terrible!"

That Tim Burton would make a biopic of Ed Wood is delicious. That it should be so bloody good is even more so. Monochrome, stylised and deeply evocative of both 1950s Hollywood and the schlock genres, this is a well-structured, good-natured and fun look at one of Hollywood’s more eccentric “talents” with an extraordinary performance of Johnny Depp at the centre of it all.

The opening titles, with the parade of ‘50s genre tropes and the glorious theremins, are wonderful, and set the mood perfectly. Then we move to setting up who Ed is, his transvestism, and the story of Glen or Glenda, complete with lots of 1950s trans people including the aristocratic but delightfully camp “Bunny” Breckinridge, played to perfection by Bill Murray. We then follow Ed’s, er, career right through to Plan 9 from Outer Space and see him happily married to a fellow geek- and then we stop, before we get any hint of his decline, alcoholism and early death.

Instead we see the tragedy of the great Bela Lugosi’s final years, forgotten by Hollywood to the point of appearing in Ed’s films, alone, homesick for a Hungary to which he can never return, behind an Iron Curtain. Martin Landau plays him with skill and much pathos, but also not without humour (“Karloff does not deserve to smell my shit!”).

We also see Juliet Landau (nepotism; fun for all the family), bizarrely using her native accent, and a superb cameo by Vincent D’Onofrio as the great Orson Welles. But this film belongs to Depp, and to Burton, who has conjured up perhaps his finest cinematic world.

Angel: The Girl in Question

"How did she ever fall for a centuries-old guy with a dark past who may or may not be evil?"

This is the last ever fluffy episode of the entire Buffyverse and it’s utterly hilarious, as well as giving us what are probably last flashbacks of Darla and Drew- and also Andrew, and sort of Buffy. It may not get the praise that the serious episodes around it may do, but it’s equally brilliant in its own way.

There are three things going on here. One is the conceit that the Immortal, who is very big in Rome, is constantly seducing and, er, satisfying any woman he wants, frequently including Angel’s and Spike’s desired, both in the present and in flashback, and it’s all comedy gold. I especially loved Darla’s glowing little monologue. (“Oh, darling! It was just fornication. Really great fornication...”)

The second is the surprise arrival of Fred’s parents, and Illyria’s unexpected ability to impersonate Fred perfectly, something which freaks Wesley out deeply, and makes him tell her in no uncertain terms never to do it again- but we can tell, in spite of her defensive arrogance, that Illyria likes him.

But the third thing is essentially to transport the whole concept of the programme to an Italian (and to a limited sense European as a whole) context, complete with Vespas everywhere and an identical Wolfram & Hart office with Angel’s very Italian counterpart, Ilona, with her casual racism against gypsies prefiguring Italy’s current openly Fascist government. There’s a bit of social commentary here- Angel and Spike want to use violence to get the MacGuffin of the week, where their Italian counterparts resort immediately to bribery. “Oh, look,” says an Italian demon, “the Americans are relying on violence to solve their problems. What a surprise!”

There’s a lot going on here, I think. This is 2004, after all, the time of Afghanistan, Iraq, wars on abstract nouns and the re-election of an American president who we all thought at the time would be the worst ever. So there is, I think, an implied self-criticism of American war willingness, but also an implication that violence has integrity, that diplomacy is corrupt and appeasing. It’s not necessarily the self-effacing joke it may first seem.

The ending is perfect- a sulking Angel and Spike hearing words of wisdom from Andrew, who then reveals himself to have been changing into a fix and proceeds to go out with two gorgeous women. It’s a wonderful and fun episode. We shall never see its like again.

Angel: Destiny

"Try staking your mother when she's coming on to you!"

"Wow, that explains a lot...!

Well, this is certainly an arc episode; before we even get the titles Spike received a parcel that goes flash and suddenly returns him to corporeality. Enter eating, drinking, shagging Harmony and, as foreshadowed a couple of episodes ago, a sudden ambiguity over exactly who the Shanshu prophecy nw applies to.

This causes a certain amount of problems with reality in order to create some kind of external threat, and this is solved suddenly at the end by some deus ex machina from the Senior Partners. But that’s ok; none of that is the real focus. It’s the effect on both Angel and Spike on realising that the Shanshu prophecy could now apply to either of them, and the fact that Spike defeats Angel at the end on Sirk’s  Little wild goose chase; he wants it more. And, along with all the flashbacks from 1880 with the two of them, Dru, and the awkward absence of Darla, this is a kind of culmination of a very long running struggle between the two of them, and something which I suspect may go on to define the season.

Other characters are there too, of course, although Wes is on leave. Gunn is increasingly confident and motivated, and Angel instinctively puts him in charge when he nips off to Death Valley. Lorne as a character is now starting to seem worryingly underserved this season. And the White Room is gone, along with the link to the Senior Partners.

The ending is fantastic, though- after spending much of the episode trying to convince everyone that “I’m not the bad guy”, she returns home to reveal that she’s personally behind the wild goose chase and she has a partner. Lindsey...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Lies My Parents Told Me

"Darling, it's who you'll always be- a limp, sentimental fool."

Yet again, as we often see this season, an episode has a title that is dnably clever, the more so the more you think about it. Parents lying to their offspring, real or symbolic, is at the heart of everything.

Plot-wise, of course, this is the heavily-signposted episode where Robin finally attempts to get revenge on Spike for his mother Nikki’s death, enabled by Giles (whose attitude is again heavily signposted), who betrays Buffy in doing so. In doing so, of course, what Robin achieves is only to finally cure Spike of the First’s trigger.

But beyond these bare facts it’s all about parents lying to their children. In flashbacks from
The 1880s we see young William reading bad poetry to his doting mother, and then again we see him newly camped by good old Drusilla, eagerly giving everlasting undead existence to his beloved mother. But then, bereft of a soul, his now evil mother says deeply wounding things to him, so effective that the First is able to use her lullaby as a trigger even today.

And yet this is, of course, a lie. Those things were not said by his mother but by a demon. That’s fairly obvious. More subtle, as Spike says, is what Nikki says to Robin; like Buffy, she is in the final analysis alonevin the decision she makes and, as per the phrase that both she and Buffy use, “the mission is what matters.” I’m sure she loved her son, but he certainly didn’t come first, and that must hurt.

Finally there’s the symbolic father/daughter relationship between Buffy and Giles, who have been particularly close lately. It’s not the first time he’s betrayed her, of course, but this time he isn’t being forced to do so, which makes it worse. Yes, he has his reasons, but he goes behind Buffy’s back and lies to her. She clearly finds this hard to forgive, as the final symbolic closing of the door shows.

All very impressive, then, even if a lot of regular characters get rather little to do. But it’s worrying that a central relationship between two of the Scoobies is seriously damaged just before what looks like the biggest armageddon yet...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Crush

“I feel safe with you.”

“Take that back!!!”

I’m tempted to start this review by saying “ooooooooh! Is that the Bronze? It’s been ages”, but I don’t think that’s really what this episode is about. What we have here is Spike and his rather complicated relationships with Buffy, Drusilla, and Harmony. It’s not so much a love triangle as a love square. Life is complicated if you’re a vampire with a chip in your head.

Not that it seems as though Spike has any chance whatsoever with Buffy. Yes, he may be smoking and stalking a lot, and he may get on well with Buffy’s sister and, indeed, her mother, but she gives him about the biggest rejection in the entire history of humanity. Harmony does want him, but, well, she’s Harmony. Unsurprisingly, he dumps her as soon as Drusilla’s back on the scene.

Ah yes, Drusilla. I’ve always liked her, but I’ve been liking her all the more since she started appearing in Angel and, conveniently, she goes and explains the plot of Angel season two for the benefit of Spike and any viewers who haven’t been following the sister show! Drusilla seems to believe that Spike has not lost his killer instincts, chip or no chip. Indeed, it seems as though he does actually kill someone in that rather erotic killing scene in the Bronze with Drusilla’s help, of course. But the real fun comes when he ties up both his women and opens his heart to them, threatening to kill Drusilla for Buffy. This is both romantic and kinky. Of course, the best thing about the whole scene is Drusilla’s reactions.

The best thing about the whole episode, though, is that Xander is jealous of Spike for taking his place as Dawn’s crush! The whole thing is pretty cool. I’m enjoying this season. I can’t believe it’s nearly over.

Angel: Redefinition

“He’s got cow eyes, big and black…Moo…”

As the title suggests, this episode concerns the fact that everything has now changed. Everyone is lost, and they need to feel and grope for a place in a world that has changed around them. For Angel this simply means training and obsessing over Darla some more, to the exclusion of all else, including what was once his mission. His task is the easiest. For Darla and Drusilla, it simply means that they get to have fun recruiting henchmen and concocting evil plans. We get an interesting comment from Drusilla, however, at the end. She doesn’t know whether she’s looking at Angel or Angelus. This has very interesting implications.

For Lilah and Lindsey, things are more awkward and difficult. They are the only survivors of the massacre, and Wolfram and Hart are obviously going to treat one of them as a scape goat. Cue lots of amusing scenes in which they try to double cross each other. Unexpectedly, however, they are both promoted to active co-vice presidents, on probation, until one of them slips up. They’re going to be watched by the Senior Partners, who are, as ever, unseen and mysterious.

The heart of the episode, concerns Cordy, Wes and Gunn as they search for a role without Angel, with the aid of karaoke. Ultimately, they all realise that they have it within themselves to continue without Angel. It’s interesting to see, in our first actual glimpse of Wesley’s home life, that he is still with Virginia, and they seem to be very much in love. I’m sure that won’t last. This is a Joss Whedon show after all.

Angel: Reunion

“Spank us till Tuesday, we promise to be bad if you do!”

I had the same thought Gunn did. Drusilla is now her own grandmother’s mother. That’s a bit weird. And it gets weirder. Angel firing Cordy, Wes and Gunn is a shock, as much to us as to them. The bulk of the episode revolves, of course, around the wonderful Drusilla and Darla, who are great together. Is it me, or is Drusilla not far, far more entertaining here than she ever was in Buffy? I’m just loving her.

The main shocking event, of course, is the massacre in which Holland Manners and all of his underlings, seemingly, snuff it at the hands of our two vampirettes. This is, at the same time, a bit of a shock and predictable in hindsight. One can’t help thinking, of course, that this may have been part of Wolfram and Hart’s plans all along.

The most shocking fact about the massacre, though, is that Angel just stands by and lets it happen. He cynically spits Manners’ words back at him, saying that he “just can’t seem to care”. As Wesley says at the end, he’s in danger of “real darkness”. He’s very, very alone right now, and that does not seem a safe place for him to be.

Suddenly, all the certainties are gone. It feels as though anything could happen.

Angel: Darla

“Now it’s time for you to return the favour.

“Favour? Is that what you think?”

It’s clever: this episode, like the corresponding episode of Buffy, is extremely flashback-heavy, so the flashbacks for both shows were obviously filmed back to back. There are one or two scenes which are used in both shows, but the clever thing is how both shows, with their very different perspectives, provide a very different context to what we’re seeing. It’s a brilliant idea for a crossover.

Obviously, this episode gives us a thorough deconstruction of the relationship between Angel and Darla. We open with Angel sleeping loads while Darla is suddenly plagued by the massive dump of guilt that has caught up with her, now that she has a soul and that.

The episode is framed by the apparent reveal of what Wolfram and Hart have been up to all this time regarding Darla. It seems the idea was to get Angel to sire her, thus becoming his own mother’s farther, sort of, and giving Wolfram and Hart a shiny new evil vampire for their nefarious schemes. At least, I think that’s what’s going on. It’s deliciously evil of Holland Manners to manipulate Lindsay’s conscience so cynically, but that’s Wolfram and Hart for you.

The climax of the episode, Angel being such a goody goody, of course revolves around the fact that he refuses to sire Darla, cue much emoting. But the meat of the episode is all those juicy flashbacks.

We see Darla, waaaaay back in Virginia, 1609, getting sired by the Master, a real blast from the past, with your actual Mark Metcalfe.  After this, though, we see flashbacks which echo those we’ve just seen in the most recent episode of Buffy, although this time from the perspective of different characters, and it’s fascinating how the same scenes can appear so different in a different context. There are some interesting titbits, of course: we see yet again that Drusilla is so very, very kinky. And we get a juicy few scenes of the recently ensouled Angel facing an inevitable dumping by Darla, what with her being evil and all.

We end, though, with Darla running away, we know not where. What happens next?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Fool for Love

“The only reason you’ve lasted as long as you have is you’ve got ties to the world.”

This is, of course, one of the most acclaimed Buffy episodes out there, rightly renowned for its development of Buffy and Spike as characters and for some extremely clever use of structure and recurring motifs. And I can see why there is very real brilliance here, brilliance which I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs outlining. But here’s the thing: I don’t like this episode. However well-executed it is, I don’t agree with what it’s trying to do.

I have to admit, though, the treatment of Spike is genius, and adds depth and dimension to a character who, when he first appeared in School Hard, was little more than a punk-style reaction to all of the ritual-obsessed, identikit dullard vampire characters that had been appearing up to that point. His individuality and flair was a refreshing alternative and a deliberate contrast, as well as something of a metatextual commentary on the tropes. Beyond this, though, the character had little depth, beyond certain broad brush character traits such as being a good judge of character, something which has always been consistent; Spike’s summaries of people’s behaviour and psychologies are often cruel but always accurate.

Beyond that, though, he’s not had much depth as a fairly flat character. But, now that James Marsters is in the credits, that has to change. And this is the episode that completes the metamorphosis.

The episode doesn’t just give William a backstory, it injects a note of tragedy into the character’s past and establishes parallel in the present day; his rejection by Cecily as a shy, Victorian poet is paralleled by Buffy’s rejection of him as a bad-ass, but emasculated (by the chip in his head) vampire. It’s a big, big retcon which rewrites the character significantly and gives him a vulnerability which he never had before. This is dangerous: it threatens all the things which made Spike so cool and well-liked. But let’s reserve judgement until we see how the character gets developed from now on.

The Victorian scenes are cool, of course, mainly because of Drusilla’s delightful wackiness, as always. I never had Spike pegged as a Yorkshireman, mind: both his accent and his being a Man U supporter sort of imply that he’s a southerner. But there’s a nice contrast between Spike as unreliable narrator and the fixed, immutable voice of the narrator that we see in the flashbacks.

However much he may be in denial about his own past, though, Spike is dead right in his analysis of the Slayers he’s known (and killed!), including Buffy: all of them have a death wish, including Buffy. She’s just a little insulated from it because she has family and friends. And, incidentally, I love the way that Spike, while killing the 1977 slayer in New York, speaks to Buffy in the present.

There are several flashbacks: Yorkshire in 1880, China in 1900 (although why a bunch of vampires would go to China at that particular point in time is beyond me) and New York in 1977 are the main ones. It’s strange, and fantastic, to see David Boreanaz in Buffy again (although, as we’ll see in our next episode of Angel, there’s a rather clever little crossover thing going on with the flashbacks), and bizarre to see Darla for the first time since Season One. It’s great to see the interaction between Drusilla, Spike, Darla and Angelus during various times in history (one of which, of course, is post- Gypsy curse, as the next episode of Angel will explore!) and, yes, bizarre to see the break-up between Spike and Drusilla in 1998.

Thing is, though… this is what we Doctor Who fans call fanwank: an excessive and solipsistic obsession with a given show’s own mythology. The character development here is superb, but it doesn’t relate to anything beyond that. Buffy is a show which, at its best, comments on society (especially adolescence and young adulthood) through the use of magic and monsters as metaphor: the last episode before this one, Family, is a prime example. This episode, however well-written, well-made and genuinely beautiful, has nothing to say about the wider world beyond itself. It is, ultimately, just a very good example of navel-gazing.