Based on past experience, conversations with friends, and suggestions via Twitter (follow my progress and post your comments with #milkshaketour2011), I have selected the following locations:*

• Ardmore Tea Room (6499 Quinpool Road)
• Armview Restaurant (7156 Chebucto Road)
• Darrell’s (5576 Fenwick Street)
• Freak Lunchbox (1723 Barrington Street)
• Susie’s Shortbread (1589 Dresden Row)
• Westcliff Diner (3089 Oxford Street)

In order to minimize variables, I have opted to sample the same flavour of milkshake at each location. I have chosen strawberry because it is my favourite and because it is a traditional flavour that should be widely available.

My motive is not to find the best milkshake in Halifax so much as it is to drink a bunch of milkshakes and assess the variety available. I have not developed a point system and will not be assigning grades to the milkshakes. Milkshake appreciation is subjective and I do not prefer any one style of milkshake, so I will simply note my observations.

The only guideline I have set down for myself is to not drink a milkshake on a too-full stomach. This guideline permits me to both purchase food with the milkshake should I feel inclined and sample another flavour of milkshake should one be ordered by a companion.

Stay tuned for the results!

* I am sticking with peninsular Halifax for the time being, but would like to note that I have had the milkshakes at The Chickenburger and the True North Diner in Bedford. You can read about my experience at True North earlier this year. The Chickenburger’s shakes are comparatively thinner, but suit the place; they’re very reasonably priced and go well with the signature burger.

Having spent my HRM years thus far living in South End Halifax and Downtown Dartmouth, Bedford is not a place I’ve spent much time, and having traveled the distance by bus, we made an afternoon out of the trip.  Wanting to be good and hungry upon arriving at the restaurant, we first made a stop by the Sunnyside Mall.  I was pleasantly surprised by the place, not having visited since I was a teenager.  At Sunnyside, you can get fresh, locally made Great Canadian Bagels, as well as your grocery order at Pete’s Frootique.  Plus, they have Stokes, Cucina Moderna, and Backyard & Veranda all under one roof!

After exploring the mall, we were hungry, so we made our way across the street to the True North Diner.  The restaurant is larger than I expected.  It’s size and high ceilings make it a little less cozy than the diners of my imagination, but the owners have done a great job replicating the look and feel of a 1950s diner with red upholstered booths and bar stools.  The highlight has to be the vintage jukebox stocked with old 45s.  I selected “And Then He Kissed Me” by the Crystals and Lesley Gore’s follow-up to “It’s My Party”, “Judy’s Turn To Cry”.  All the money collected by the jukebox goes to the IWK.  The downside of the jukebox is that it only plays two songs at a time, so unless someone has paid their quarter, there is no music in the joint.

I’m someone who appreciates a nice restroom, particularly in a restaurant (two of my favourites are in New York at Five Napkin Burger and Park Avenue Cafe).  As noted in Liz Feltham’s review for The Coast, the bathroom at True North leaves a lot to be desired.  It needs a renovation and if this is done, it should be made to match the theme of the restaurant.  As it stands, the 1950s experience is incomplete because when you go to wash your hands, your dragged back to roughly 1996.

The menu is large, especially for a place that prides itself on making things fresh.  I decided on the bacon cheeseburger and a strawberry milkshake while my friend ordered the meatloaf with mashed potatoes.  The burger is moist and tasty, as is the meatloaf.  Too few restaurants make their own French fries, which makes True North a real treat.  The milkshake is large and delicious with chunks of real strawberry that occasionally get stuck in the straw not in a frustrating way, but in a “this only happens if your milkshake has actual strawberries in it, so I’m fine with this minor inconvenience” way.

For dessert, we (rather unnecessarily) ordered the Brownie Sundae.  This must be split between at least two people if you’ve just eaten a meal.  Despite being quite full, I ate enough of the sundae to say it was delicious, but I could have done with about a quarter of it.  The brownies were warm and homemade and accompanied with a good helping of chocolate sauce and whipped cream.  I spotted some cans of whipped cream in the refrigerator, which is disappointing to see in a place that prides itself on using fresh local ingredients whenever possible.

Overall, the True North Diner was well worth the (surprisingly easy) trek from Dartmouth to Bedford.  I will definitely be back with extra quarters for the jukebox.

The Academy is known for occasionally awarding an actor with an Oscar on the understanding that while the award-winning performance may not be his or her best, the voters are acknowledging the performer’s body of work and the fact that they probably should have won an Oscar years ago, but didn’t, usually because it was a year of exceptional filmmaking.  My go-to example of this is Martin Scorcese’s win for The Departed in 2007.  The Departed was a fantastic film, but not necessarily Scorcese’s best work; he could have won for Taxi Driver in 1976, but wasn’t even nominated in the directing category and the film was up against Rocky, Network and All the President’s Men for Best Picture.  This year, overdue career acknowledgement Oscars could be awarded in the acting categories.

Academy voters will choose to ignore the All About Steve portion of Bullock's 2009 comeback

While The Blind Side was a surprise inclusion in the Best Picture category, Sandra Bullock’s nomination for Best Actress was a given.  She’s been in major comeback mode this year and setting records while she’s at it by becoming the first female actor to have a film with only her name above the title gross over $200 million domestically.  (She also starred in All About Steve, but I have a feeling that won’t hurt her chances the way Norbert did Eddie Murphy’s.)  Bullock has had a similar career trajectory to Julia Roberts.  Both have filmographies containing a mixture of dramas and romantic-comedies, but for many years received most of their attention for the lighter fare on their resumés.  Because Bullock’s best work has been her romantic-comedies, I never really thought of her as an eventual Oscar contender, but the Academy may be using this nomination as a way of acknowledging Bullock’s career without nominating a comedic role.  Frankly, I wish they’d get over this avoidance of comedy, especially in cases like this.  Sure, her performance in The Blind Side is great, but if the Academy is looking to reward Bullock for her body of work, why not nominate her for The Proposal, a film in which she is at her best in doing what she does best?

Gabourey Sidibe and Carey Mulligan have been mainstays in the Best Actress categories throughout the awards season.  They are both deserving, but are long shots.  I won’t be seeing The Last Station until just before the awards today, so I can’t speculate on Mirren’s chances first-hand, but everything I’m reading suggests this is a race between Bullock and Meryl Streep.  Streep has been nominated a total of sixteen times, but having won twice, she isn’t the Susan Lucci of the Oscars (that honour belongs to Peter O’Toole), so the “sorry it’s taken us so long” award isn’t in the cards for her.  That being said, Streep hasn’t won since Sophie’s Choice in 1983.  The time span between then and now is longer than Bullock’s entire career, so Streep is eventually going to claim career acknowledgment award, and this could be the year (just like last year could have been her year).  What works against Streep, I think, is that Academy voters see her name up against someone like Sandra Bullock and they think Streep will have another go at this in a year or two while Bullock may never find herself nominated again, so they hold off on voting for Streep and award the relatively unfamiliar face when given the chance.  Based on that, I think the odds are still in Bullock’s favour.

The Academy even overlooked Plummer as General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

Christopher Plummer, surprisingly, finds himself in a similar situation to Bullock.  Though he hasn’t had a career laden with romantic-comedies holding him back, Plummer’s nomination in the Supporting Actor category for his turn as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station is his first nod from the Academy.  There is some talk that he may be the recipient of one of these “sorry we’ve ignored you so long” Oscars though Christoph Waltz is the very heavy favourite going in.  The key difference between Plummer and Bullock is that Plummer is not the favourite in his category while a win by anyone but Bullock (even Streep) will be seen as an upset in the Best Actress category.  I’m inclined to think Waltz’s odds are even better than Bullock’s despite the fact that hardly a year has gone by since 1953 that Plummer hasn’t added something to his filmography (and he’s done a tonne of stage work along with it).  As for the others, Tucci would have been more deserving of a nomination for his role in Julie and Julia; in The Lovely Bones (which was pretty awful) he plays a stock child killer who could have been portrayed by any Law & Order/CSI/Criminal Minds guest star.  Damon and Harrelson simply don’t have the momentum.

I know it seems like Jeff Bridges is a sure thing for Best Actor, but Mickey Rourke proved last year that you can win every single award leading up to the big night and still not win the Oscar.  I think Rourke lost for two reasons: (1) he’s Mickey Rourke, and (2) the Academy’s gay panic kept them from giving Milk the Best Picture award, so they gave the film the “gay okay” by awarding Sean Penn for his performance.  Other than that, Rourke had everything going for him, most notably a phoenix-like comeback story of his own.  Bridges hasn’t won every single award up to this point thanks to Colin Firth’s win at the BAFTAs a few weeks back, but this is his fifth nomination since 1971, so he is another who is perhaps overdue for an award.  George Clooney could give Bridges a run for his money, but Clooney already has his Oscar, albeit for a supporting role in Syriana.  Colin Firth’s BAFTA win gives him a bit of an edge and he is another who has been ignored by the Academy up to this point.  It’s hard to believe, but Morgan Freeman is a long-shot along with Jeremy Renner.

The person closest to being a sure thing this year is Mo’Nique for her unsettling role as a neglectful and abusive mother in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire.  For me, what really sold her in that part is that even though you can’t understand the woman’s thought process, you know that she truly believes what she is saying.  I’d be hard-pressed to say who might beat the odds in this category.

I’ve focused on the results from the past twenty Academy Awards. I figure that’s enough to show any trends and the Academy membership (the voters) would have been fairly consistent in that time period.

For ease of reference, you can find full lists of the nominees and winners by year (a great procrastination tool for someone like myself) at IMDb.

A “general rule” is often tossed around that the film which wins Best Director goes on to win Best Picture moments later. Prior to 1999, a split hadn’t happened since 1989 (Oliver Stone won for Born on the Fourth of July while Driving Miss Daisy won Best Picture) and 1981 before that (Warren Beatty won for Reds when Chariots of Fire won Best Picture), which is probably why it has been seen as a general rule until recently.

There has been a divergence between the two awards at four of the past ten ceremonies, and the Best Picture winner in all of those cases, except 2006, had (sometimes significantly) more nominations than the picture for which the Best Director won:

Had Avatar tried to tackle homophobia rather than corporate America, its fate would be sealed.

2006: Lee won for Brokeback Mountain (3/8), but Crash (3/6) won Best Picture
2003: Polanski won for The Pianist (3/7), but Chicago (6/13) won Best Picture
2001: Soderberg won for Traffic (4/5), but Gladiator (5/12) won Best Picture
1999: Spielberg won for Saving Private Ryan (4/11), but Shakespeare in Love (7/13) won Best Picture

(Numbers in brackets are wins/nominations)

I think the explanation for the Brokeback-Crash situation is the same gay panic that kept Milk from winning last year.

Keeping this tally issue in mind, let’s assume Cameron will win Best Director, although he’s not a sure thing after Bigelow’s win at the Director’s Guild (the DGA and AMPAS have only diverged in their choices three times in the past twenty years – 1995, 2000, and 2002 – but she’s got an added statistical hurdle: no female director has ever won the award and she is only the fourth to have received a nomination). This year’s nomination tally for the Best Picture nominees is:

9 – Avatar
9 – The Hurt Locker
8 – Inglourious Basterds
6 – Precious
6 – Up
5 – Up in the Air
4 – District 9
3 – An Education
2 – The Blind Side
2 – A Serious Man

This Avatar-Hurt Locker tie is problematic, especially since we can’t rely on the Academy’s gay panic to keep them from voting for Avatar, and since Avatar and Hurt Locker share seven of the nine nominations, which means Avatar is likely to come out on top in the wins tally.

I don’t think Hurt Locker will win in the two categories where it isn’t up against Avatar (Bridges will get Best Actor, and Reitman & Turner or Tarantino will get Original Screenplay) while Avatar will dominate the tech awards (it will likely take Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Art Direction, and Score).

If Bigelow can't beat Cameron, perhaps Tarantino can

Basterds and Up in the Air will duke it out for Best Original Screenplay and are the next best contenders for Picture & Director wins. I think Basterds has a better chance than Hurt Locker of taking on Avatar in the categories where they’re competing, particularly Film Editing and Cinematography (I have two questions with regard to the latter: (1) How the hell does a movie that is 60% animated get nominated for cinematography?! (2) Why/how was A Single Man shut out of this category?)

One fact that I’ve been focusing on is that in the past twenty years, Titanic (also written by Cameron) is the only Best Picture winner not to have received a nomination for its screenplay, and fourteen of the nineteen that did receive nominations won the award.

While we’re looking at the “big awards”, remember that Avatar doesn’t feature any Oscar-nominated performances. With that in mind, consider that of the past twenty Best Picture winners, Slumdog Millionaire (in my opinion, one of the least deserving Best Picture winners of the group) and Braveheart are the only pictures that did not garner any acting nominations (okay, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King didn’t have any, but McKellan was nominated for Fellowship of the Ring, and if we consider LotR to be one film presented in three parts, that counts for me), but unlike Avatar they were recognized for their screenplays (Slumdog with a win and Braveheart with a nomination). Fourteen of the twenty received more than one acting nomination and twelve produced at least one winner. One thing separating Titanic from Avatar is that Titanic yielded acting nominations for Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart.

Have I managed to resolve anything with this exercise?  No, and in spite of all this data, the damn movie will probably win and I’ll be angry, but one thing is for sure: within six months I won’t be able to remember a single result from the ceremony.

Julie Powell (Amy Adams) suppresses the voice in her head yelling, "Lobster killer!"

There is a fairly obvious disparity between the two stories in terms of their subject.  Most people know who Julia Child is; her impact on the food world is undeniable and she was a unique person in many ways, such that people have a very clear picture of her in their minds. On the other hand, Julie Powell is, aside from her recent fame, a pretty average person; she works in a cubicle, fights and reconciles with her husband, and occasionally cries over a kitchen mishap (we’ve all been there – just ask me about the first time I tried to make Pad Thai).  Perhaps because the audience is more like Julie than they are like Julia, and because Julie’s life is thus less enviable or interesting, they did not enjoy her story as much.

In spite of the disparity, there are parallels established between the two women aside from the one created by Julie via her blog, The Julie/Julia Project.  In particular, at the beginning of the film, both women are current or former public servants searching for a purpose or some sort of creative outlet, and both turn to food.  They both learn to cook and also write about cooking (Julie simultaneously).

While the parallels justify telling these two stories side-by-side, the contrast between the two is quite interesting and, I think, speaks to the difference in how audiences received Julie and Julia as individuals. Recall that we encounter Julia in France post-WWII and Julie in New York City post-9/11. The world is a very different place at the end of a war than it is at the beginning of one, and the women are both affected by the time in which they live.  Julia’s story is full of overwhelming possibility–she can do anything, she just needs to find what she’s passionate about–while Julie spends her days on the phone at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation listening to people tell stories about how they’ve been affected by 9/11 and complain about insurance claims, which one can imagine would have an effect on a person’s outlook.

Yes, Julia comes off as a more interesting person; she is vibrant, funny, and, as she says herself, “fearless.”  To sum up, she’s Julia Child.  For that reason, it seems unfair to draw comparisons between Julie and Julia.  As Julie reminds the audience (and herself), she is not Julia Child.  It’s true that Julie is, at times, hard to take; she can be a bit whiney and self-absorbed, but she does have funny moments and I did find her a sympathetic character at times.  I actually found Julie to be more likeable in the film than in her own memoir, thanks in part to Amy Adams’ sheer adorableness and the delightful little Ephron-isms in her dialogue.

I will close on a side note: Jane Lynch is going to take over the world; I’ve been a fan of hers since Best in Show, am loving her on Glee, and was delighted to see her as Julia’s sister, Dorothy. Though she appears only briefly, her chemistry with Meryl Streep is spot-on. Between the two of them, Julie & Julia might be worth a second viewing.

Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) asks Neytiri (Zoe Saldana): "Do you wanna date my avatar?"

It has been suggested by Owen Gleiberman at EW.com that this year’s Oscar race for Best Picture may come down to Avatar vs. Up in the Air.  I have yet to see Up in the Air, but I’m still trying to forget that Slumdog Millionaire won last year, so if Avatar wins Best Picture at the Oscars, I think I may just give up on the Academy.

Just as Inglourious Basterds has all the hallmarks of a Tarantino picture, Avatar contains those of James Cameron: using cutting edge visuals in an attempt to cover up the fact that the film is full of canned lines, prototypical characters, and wasted talent.

Avatar will reel in technical awards, as it should (there is no denying it is pretty to look at), but it is a sad day if we’ve reached a point where the Academy will award Best Picture to a piece of eye candy. Titanic was borderline in this regard, but the fact that even Cameron can’t waste Kate Winslet’s talent must have saved it because it is one of the few Best Picture winners of recent years that won without a half-decent script.

It would be unfair to call Cameron “lazy” because a lazy person could not pull off what he does as far as visual effects go.  However, Cameron either needs to take a course in time-management or learn how to delegate because for all that Avatar possesses in technical innovation, it lacks in the fundamentals of original storytelling.  The film is full of stock characters whom Cameron doesn’t need to take the time to develop because we already know what prototype they fit from a facial expression and a couple of short lines (see, for example, Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy). We don’t need to learn about the character’s background or even see them for more than five minutes before they do something to affect the plot because we already know who they are; we’ve seen them in every action/sci-fi movie ever made.

Cameron is not exactly lauded as a screenwriter (of Titanic‘s 14 Oscar nominations, a notable omission was Best Original Screenplay).  Let’s be honest: he couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag, and Avatar is proof positive. The script is riddled with canned lines from action movies involving the military (“I didn’t sign up for this!”), colonization (“..a fresh start on a new world..”), skeptical smarty-pantses (“Just relax and let your mind go blank. That shouldn’t be hard for you.”), overcoming adversity when outgunned (“We will send them a message…”), and demolition deadlines (“You’ve got one hour.”) The crowning glory, though, is a Cameron original; the hard-to-get element that is the cause of so much trouble in the film is…get this… “Unobtanium”! The overarching metaphor are obvious in a “beat you over the head with it” sort of way; coupled with poor writing, this does a great job of distracting from the message of the film.

Considering Cameron’s ineffective script, it’s rather poetic that poor communication serves as an important plot device on a couple of occasions throughout the film. My parting words to Mr. Cameron: “Physician, heal thyself!”

Do yourself a favour, fair reader: If you can, do what I did, and see Precious almost immediately after you watch Avatar; it will help restore your faith in filmmaking as storytelling, and this could take a while, so best to get started right away.

Coraline did not make Time’s list, but it has made others, and with good reason. It offers up an element of the strange and surreal not portrayed enough in mainstream children’s entertainment.

The film is visually stunning, as one would expect from Henry Selick, the director of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. First off, is there anything cooler than stop-motion animation? No, there isn’t, and Selick is masterful. Every frame is worthy of a screen capture.

Coraline lives out my childhood fantasty

Upon moving to a new home with her parents, Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) discovers a tiny Being John Malkovich-style door in her living room. (What is more exciting to a child than the prospect of a secret passageway? I sure as heck always wanted to find one; still do, in fact.) The door leads to an alternate universe where things are better than in Coraline’s reality, except that everyone has buttons for eyes, which is easy to overlook when your other mother is serving up waffles instead of chard for dinner, and your other father plays the piano like Ben Folds.

Coraline and Harriet the Spy share an affinity for yellow rain jackets.

Things turn sour soon after and Coraline must escape her other mother and embrace the imperfections and eccentricities of the people in her real world. Some will say the film is too scary or too sophisticated for younger audiences, but to say that is to underestimate the intelligence of children. Sure, a five year old might be frightened by the film, but I like to think that by the time I was eight, I was a pretty smart kid, and I would have liked Coraline. (It might have helped me get over those unrealistic expectations about finding a secret passageway.) Children in films are rarely as realistically articulate and charmingly odd as Coraline.  This makes her relatable to book-wormy kids, such as I was, in much the same way as Matilda and Harriet the Spy.

Coraline is a well-told story and a great way to introduce a young audience to surreal imagery and stop-motion animation at its best.

Pegged as a war film due to its World War II setting, Inglourious Basterds isn’t really about World War II per se, because Tarantino drastically re-writes history. Opening the film with “Once upon a time…” sets us up for a fairy tale of revisionist history. More than being a war movie, it is a story of revenge.

Basterds contains many of the hallmarks we have come to expect from Tarantino: long dialogue-driven scenes, an abundance of film references, meticulous choice of music, and blood (and scalps).

Brad Pitt, as Tennessee-born Lt. Aldo Raine, is fine but forgettable. Though he was given some great lines to deliver, he does not deliver them in a terribly memorable way. I always find it odd watching Pitt on screen; he’s so famous at this point for just being Brad Pitt that I often forget he’s an actor, so when I see him in films, I have great difficulty separating the actor from the character, and watching him in this film was no different (Fight Club is a notable exception to this rule).

Mélanie Laurent as Shoshanna Dreyfus

Christoph Waltz has received a lot of attention for his performance as SS Col. Hans Landa, and rightly so – he is compelling (and terrifying), but French actress Mélanie Laurent also stands out as Shoshanna Dreyfus, a young French Jew who operates a cinema in Paris under an assumed identity following the massacre of her family in the film’s flawless opening chapter. In making a film which takes place in France, I guess Tarantino was faced with a problem: his muse, Uma Thurman, is neither French nor German.  Laurent is an apt substitute in a role I couldn’t help thinking was written with Thurman in mind (I seem to recall something about a blond woman seeking vengeance in another of Tarantino’s pictures). Shoshanna is relatively quiet and seemingly meek (unlike Thurman’s “The Bride” in Kill Bill, she does not possess samurai training, which, let’s face it, makes vengeance a bit harder to come by); it is her quiet, thoughtful demeanor which makes her an interesting character to watch.

Stylistically, Tarantino may be at his best. He makes interesting use of very large and very small spaces. The opening chapter juxtaposes shots of the sweeping French countryside with the cramped interior of the farmhouse; later, Churchill is dwarfed by an enormous empty room, followed shortly by a scene in a small basement tavern. He also makes good and consistent use of colour, particularly bright red, black, and brown-green tones. There is a beautifully executed tracking shot in the theatre foyer. The gore is fairly realistic and not excessive by Tarantino standards.

While I’m not prepared to go as far as some and call Basterds Tarantino’s masterpiece (he’s still relatively young, and Pulp Fiction is still a damn near perfect film), I did find myself watching it for a third time not 48 hours after my first viewing, so that’s got to mean something good.

There was a tendency in Season One for the writers to hit us over the head with the real world message they were trying to convey. Their technique, thankfully, grew more subtle as time went on, but these particular episodes differ from most others because they goes beyond mere metaphor. “Nightmares” is particularly after school special-esque and I must report that it is one of my least favourite episodes of the series. However, I am a fan of “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”.

I’m left wondering, “Why does “Out of Mind, Out of Sight” work for me while “Nightmares” does not?”

“Out of Mind” does get off to a bit of a lead given that Clea Duvall easily wins the award for “Best Guest Star” of the season, but there are other factors at play.

It’s a nightmare come true

Putting something as intangible as a dreamscape on film is a challenge. It’s something the folks at Buffy did a lot, particularly in earlier seasons when Buffy’s semi-prophetic dreams were more frequently used as a plot device. Sometimes the dreams were quite vivid (see “Surprise” and “Graduation Day”) while in earlier episodes they were more of a collection of images (see “Welcome to the Hellmouth”). It would be easy to say “Nightmares” doesn’t work because it welcomes comparisons to “Restless”, which is one of the best episodes of the entire series (if not one of the best episodes of television generally), but even without considering how amazing “Restless” is, the dreamscape in “Nightmares” is just poorly conveyed. What always stands out for me is the way in which the high school was decorated when Xander follows the chocolate bar trail and is attacked by the clown. To me it just looks like they hung up a bunch of white shower curtains (and perhaps they did), but for a show that was always used the resources they had to produce something of a certain standard, I found this and other aspects of “Nightmares” to come off as low-budget and rushed. In the same vein, I was never pleased with the Ugly Man’s make-up or the special effects in the episode, particularly the vortex-like effect when the cemetery appears in the parking lot at the high school.

A lack of exposition

In most supernatural/sci-fi stories there is inevitably a scene in which somebody (in Buffy‘s case, usually Giles) explains what is going on and how they’re going to fix it. The explanation of how Billy’s coma results in everyone else’s nightmares becoming real is incredibly vague while the explanation for Marcie turning invisible seems more feasible somehow. The appearance of the astral body of somebody who is in a coma is not a new concept, so I can accept that aspect of it, but that only explains why Buffy can see Billy around Sunnydale High when his earthly body is in the hospital. We are not provided with a satisfactory explanation as to why or how Billy was able to bring everyone’s nightmares to the waking world.

In conclusion

The endsings of these two episodes provide an interesting contrast. “Out of Mind” features another cheesy supernatural ending (see “Witch” and “I Robot, You Jane”). I’m not a fan of this sort of ending to Buffy episodes. What I do appreciate is that this is the first suggestion of the U.S. government’s awareness of paranormal activity and using it to their advantage. Season 4 and now Season 8 have extended this aspect of the Buffyverse.

Meanwhile, “Nightmares” has an after school special ending to go along with the rest of the episode (at least it’s internally consistent). “Remember kids, if somebody is hurting you, tell your parent or a Vampire Slayer you trust.”

Sunnydale High Faculty Death Count: 2 [1 attempted (Ms. Miller)]

The initial reaction among fans has been a fairly collective, “Do not want!” (There’s already a #buffyboycott hashtag on Twitter.) Keep in mind, though, it has been a matter of days since the announcement, and there are almost no details about the project. The announcement that J.J. Abrams would be directing the eleventh Star Trek feature and that it would be a prequel to the original series was met with skepticism from many Trekkies (perhaps primarily because Abrams was an outsider who admitted he had little knowledge of Trek lore), and look how that turned out.

In spite of this, I do find myself with the “Do not want” crowd. There are three main factors I’ve identified that have resulted in this negative reaction to something Buffy fans would normally be ecstatic about: (a) the Kuzuis and the original film, (b) the questionable timing and optics of a “reboot”, and (c) Joss Whedon’s non-involvement with the project. I will examine each of these in turn.

Shove your copyright up your Kuzui

Here’s the problem: the part of the Buffy franchise with which the Kuzui team were most heavily involved was the 1992 film and they blew it. Fran Rubel Kuzui directed the film after “discovering” Whedon’s original script. She and producer/husband Kaz took the story in their own direction and the result was an overly campy flick with mere traces of what would become the Buffyverse. They retain the rights to the original film and remained as executive producers on the TV series, but from what I’ve read, their involvement was nil to the point of having never been on the set.

I’ve read a lot online over the years from Buffy fans and nobody I know of has a soft spot for the Kuzuis. They’re not going to win anyone over by going forward without Joss. Fans very much have the sense that the film was swept out from under Joss. It was he who went on to develop the TV series. It’s highly unlikely the film was ever used as a selling point when looking for a network to air the TV series. If anything, the pitch would have been, “Remember that Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie from a few years ago? You do? Ok, so, forget about that movie…”

The Kuzuis are now saying they want to take the franchise in a direction that is darker than the TV series and have brought in producer Roy Lee, whose specialty is remaking (mostly) Asian films for American audiences (The Ring, The Grudge, The Eye, The Departed, The Strangers). What I glean from this is that (a) the film will likely be devoid of Buffy‘s characteristic wit and (b) the Kuzuis may have never watched an episode of the series if they believe the show was not dark (if it wasn’t in Season 1, it certainly was from Season 2 onward.)

A question of timing

Closely tied to the Kuzui dislike factor is the questionable timing of this announcement, which may have a lot to do with optics, but raises valid doubts if one considers when a “reboot” is necessary.

Let me explain what I mean by the problem of optics. Fran Rubel Kuzui, the not-so-acclaimed director of the 1992 Buffy movie, believes that now is the time for a new Buffy feature. However, regardless of her actual motives, many see this as a case of a money-grubbing exec producer with zero creative vision trying to cash in on the recent success of vampire stories (Twilight; True Blood) and reboots (Star Trek; Wolverine).

Where the line is drawn between remakes, reboots, relaunches, and re-imaginings, I don’t know. What I do know is that I am always skeptical of remakes and their ilk. I don’t reject them en masse on principle, but I don’t like the way in which Hollywood film has been increasingly devolving into the land of adaptation devoid of original content. Much of what gets produced these days are remakes, book-to-film adaptations, and “based on a true story” films and the original stories tend to be fluff (taken to the not so extreme, even crap like Observe and Report could be considered a “re-imagining” of Taxi Driver). Graeme McMillan at io9 points out that “our culture has become endlessly recyclable” and he’s right.

My second problem in this vein is the timing in terms of need for a reboot. Is this really, as the Kuzuis believe, the right time for a reboot? Consider when you reboot your computer – it’s frozen or slowed to a crawl. The same should go for an entertainment franchise. Generally, a film/TV franchise gets rebooted when significant time has passed and its formula has gone stale to the point where even die-hard fans are looking for a change (or they’re too old for producers to care what they think.) Admittedly, Star Trek needed a reboot, and for the most part J.J. Abrams delivered. Old fans aren’t up in arms and mainstream audiences are becoming one with their inner Trekkie.

Making a Buffy movie in the next couple of years is poor timing in at least two ways: (a) insufficient time has passed since the “conclusion” of the most recent large-scale (non-comic book) incarnation of the franchise (the TV series ended in 2005), and (b) the TV series is too fresh in the minds of the public to attract people who don’t already like Buffy. With the Scooby Gang having graduated from high school just ten years ago, Buffy’s original core audience is still within or just beyond the target audience of movie bosses.

In contrast, the original Star Trek TV series aired in the 1960s with the cast appearing in films through to Star Trek: Generations in 1994. The success of the film franchise was dwindling, but die hard fans can only go a few years before they demand something on the big screen. The solution was Abrams’ reboot in the form of an original series prequel film. The original Star Trek audience is not in the 16-25 demographic any longer, so a great shift in direction was able to draw a new audience to the franchise.

What I’m trying to say is that when Sarah Michelle Gellar is as old as William Shatner, then you can go and look for a shiny new Buffy.

Does Not Compute: Buffy – Joss = Grrr…Argh!

Finally, Whedon’s non-involvement with the development of the film has been, perhaps, the most influential factor leading to the overwhelmingly negative reaction from the fan base. Cast members from the series are now starting to weigh in on the matter. In an interview with Lorrie Lynch at USA Weekend, Anthony Stewart Head (Giles) said:

The Kuzuis didn’t do a great job on the movie the first time around. It was Joss’ script at the age of 19, but they changed a lot of it. They said, ‘Look, we know best and we know how to make this movie,’ and it became quite schlocky and high camp. [...] The bottom line is if a movie was ever to be made, it should be made with Joss Whedon, whether it’s a retrospective or not. But it would be madness to do it without him. [The Kuzuis] have the rights to because they have the rights to the original movie, but it should be interesting to see. It may be a bit like watching a car wreck.

Given the circumstances outlined above, I’m inclined to agree with Head. However, McMillan argues, “Just because Joss created Buffy and did the franchise proud for more than a decade doesn’t mean that someone else can’t come up with something equally as interesting, and almost as enjoyable.” I’m willing to accept that people other than Joss are capable of taking care of Buffy and telling great stories. Obviously, Joss did not write and direct every episode of the show, or write all the novels and comics. Heck, there are people out there who who write some pretty decent fanfic.

As is the case with the Star Trek franchise absent Gene Roddenberry, there is a group of people involved with Buffy who care about the franchise and about the fans (I’m looking at you Fury, Noxon, Espenson et al.) They care more than the Kuzuis and the fanbase trusts them as much as they trust Joss. If the franchise is to move forward without Joss at the helm, it should be them, not a pair of uninvolved executive producers who take the wheel.

Read More:

• Hollywood Reporter
• LA Times
• Television Without Pity
• Joblo.com
• FearNet