August 2011 – Reel Nerds Podcast

Ryan’s top 10 most kick ass episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sarah Michelle Gellar makes a much wanted return to TV this fall in “Ringer”. It got me thinking about my favorite episodes of one of my favorite shows “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”. Yes Buffy is awesome and there are so many episodes to choose from this wasn’t easy. I have a feeling that if you’re a fan you will hopefully agree with me, and sound off in the comments if you think I missed one of your favorites.

10.Passion(season 2 episode 17) Spoiler, Angel becomes one bad dude. And this amazing episode is narrated by him with an eerie calm. As Angel taunts the Scoobies from a distant, drawing Buffy as she sleeps and watches them from a far, Angelus(his evil name) is told by Drusilla that Jenny Calender is in the process of restoring his soul. Angelus storms Sunnydale High and catches Jenny…and breaks her neck. After tormenting Giles with Jenny’s death, Buffy talks him out of seeking revenge, but she also realizes a terrible truth…she must kill Angelus.

9. Faith, Hope, Trick(season 3 episode 3)

The first appearance of Faith The Vampire Slayer is memorable. With Buffy’s death in season 1 a new slayer must take her place. But Buffy only died briefly and the first Slayer to emerge from her death was Kendra. But she too was killed so in step Faith. This episode is the catalyst for the Buffy, Faith rivalry. But they work together to take down an extremely powerful vampire named Kakistos. This episode also marks the return of Angel who…oh just keep reading I will tell you later. Yes there are some other amazing episodes featuring Faith but I like this one as it introduces us to this emotionally damaged girl.

8. Becoming Part 2 (season 2 episode 22)

When Buffy and Angel knock boots his curse is lifted. The curse being he was a Vampire with a soul which makes him basically remember all of the terrible things he’s done as Angelus. With his soul gone he returned to his murderous ways. After kidnapping Giles Buffy confronts Angelus at his mansion and they do battle. Knowing she must kill him to prevent the awaking of a demon called Acathla, Buffy sets out to do just that. But as she’s about to plunge a sword in Angelus, Willow has restored his soul. But the portal for Acathla had already been opened. Realizing that it was now Angel standing in front of her, Buffy embraces him and plunges her sword into his stomach, killing her one true love.

7. Prophecy Girl (season 1 episode 12)

After reading the prophecy that if Buffy fights The Master(the oldest known vampire) she will die, Buffy decides that she is going to quit being the slayer. But after thinking about it she decides that she will fight The Master no matter what. Giles tries to stop her and she knocks him out. When she goes to The Masters liar she is ambushed form behind and drank from by the Master. He drops her into a shallow pool, leaving her to drown. What the Master had not counted on was a rescue by Xander he performs CPR on Buffy. Buffy revives and stakes that vampire bastard right through his heart. No, not even death can stop Buffy.

6. Chosen (season 7 episode 22)

The final episode of Buffy is everything you wanted as a fan(except for maybe the death of Spike and Anya, sad). The destruction of the Hellmouth and Sunnydale, an epic vampire battle, and Nathan Fillion. Buffy realizes that she cannot beat Caleb and his minions by herself, so she has Willow perform a spell where all the potential slayers would all be given her power. The result, not one or two slayers, but hundreds. Buffy went out totally kicking ass and empowering women all over the world, hell yes!

5. Hush (season 4 episode 10)

Everyone loves Joss Whedon’s dialogue. So he decided to write an episode where there is hardly any dialogue. The result is one of the creepiest shows ever, not just on Buffy, but ever. The villains are The Gentlemen who place a spell over Sunnydale, making everyone lose their voice. And since no one can scream The Gentlemen take the hearts of their victims without anyone hearing their screams. It’s a twisted fairytale and extremely effective horror show making. Man, just the picture gives me the willies.

4 Innocence (season 2 episode 13)

Buffy and Angel’s relationship had been building to this moment every since he swooped into her life. It comes to a sexy crescendo in Surprise. They finally do the dirty deed, and it’s beautiful. But it doesn’t end there. After Buffy falls asleep Angel runs out in the rain in pain. He slowly rises to his feet and when a person helps him to his feet, he happily bites and kills her. Angel lost his soul when making love to Buffy, turning him into the dreaded vampire Angelus!

3. The Body (season 5 episode 16)

One of the most heart wrenching and powerful episodes on TV history The Body is hard to watch. After defeating vampires and demons the one thing Buffy could not defeat was the natural and shocking death of her mother. Joss Whedon wrote this episode to address a single shocking issue. In fact Joss’ mother died of the same thing cerebral aneurysm. There is no music in this episode and the performance of Sarah Michelle Gellar is absolutely amazing. This episode is hard to watch, but also one everyone must watch. Truly powerful stuff.

2. Once More With Feeling (season 6 episode 7)

This episode is a musical and totally amazing. After resurrecting Buffy the Scoobies have a new problem, they randomly break out in song. The songs range from classic musical stuff, to rock, and duets. They all advance the story in stunning ways and when it’s reveled that Buffy was at peace and possibly in Heaven after she died, the gang can’t help but think maybe bringing back Buffy was a mistake. This episode also sets up Willow’s growing power as a witch and her shocking turn as a villain.

1. The Gift (season 5 episode 22)

Buffy is the ultimate woman hero. She often times puts herself at risk for the safety of others. And this is no more evident then in The Gift, my most favorite episode of Buffy. Glory seemed to be an unbeatable god. When Glory opens a portal the only way to seal it is with the blood of Buffy’s sister Dawn. Buffy however realizes that Dawn and her actually share the same blood and instead of Dawn sacrificing herself, Buffy does. Throwing herself off a tower, through the portal and falling to her death. At the end of the episode Buffy’s gravestone says, “She saved the World-a lot” couldn’t have said it any better.

Ep. 13: Attack the Nerds

Attack the Block showed up in our city and we rushed out to find out what all the buzz was about!

FOR KIDS! (Mature Storytellers Only)

– James Hart

Recently I’ve found myself turning the TV to Nicktoons quite often. Now that isn’t a sentence I am comfortable with, mostly because of the grueling commercials for Hot Wheels and Cabbage Patch dolls that come with adoption papers, but unfortunately there is a show so great that I’m willing to endure this punishment… for nothing more than reruns of episodes I’ve seen… at least twice.

I wasn’t turned on to Avater: The Last Airbender until well into it’s second season. I lived alone at the time and I was in constant need of something to watch so I gave it a shot. What I found was—doing my best to ignore my nostalgia for the shows of my own childhood—the best cartoon show ever made.

It’s a kid’s show that has attracted a huge fanbase, including adult fans like I’ve never seen, and has even had an episode written by JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof. So what is it that makes this show different.

From here on out Avatar: The Last Airbender will be referred to simply as Avatarbecause it deserves the title far more than Jim Cameron’s flashy, derivative cash cow—seriously, look up the word, it’s a smart title for Avatar and a lazy one forAvatar.

Avatar is a concise, character-driven story, set is an imaginative world. Where other cartoon shows tell simple stories, usually in an episodic format, with lessons that are superficial, Avatar never takes the easy road. Sure some of its storytelling is not as subtle as other shows—a symptom of its target audience—the lessons themselves are not unlike the complex and classic lessons of the modern epics. Characters are multifaceted, even the side characters, and their relationships are never as simple as they would be in a lesser show.

Let me give an example. Uncle Iroh (voiced by the legendary actor Mako) is generally used as the comic relief in the show. Especially in season one when his nephew Zuko is trying to find and kill our hero, Iroh mostly just shows up to either make a joke or calm Zuko down. He is one of the most beloved characters in the show because of this lightheartedness, but his character is much deeper than should be necessary in a children’s show.

The episode titled “The Tales of Ba Sing Se” is a series of vignettes that focuses on character traits and relationships that mostly go unaddressed. The first story is a very short anecdote about the two girls in the show, Katara and Toph, spending an afternoon together. The two characters don’t interact much in the show and Toph is usually characterized as a tough fighter, but when Katara takes her out and girlies her up a bit Toph gets made fun of by the locals and we see a crack where their once was solid marble. It’s a beautiful and touching story that most cartoons would never take the time, nor have the balls to tell. But that doesn’t hold a candle to Iroh’s tale. Where the first story is touching, the second story is moving. The Tale of Iroh simply follows Iroh during a day when there’s nothing else going on. He goes to the shops and buys a picnic basket, he runs into a small boy who’s crying and sings him a little song called ‘Leaves from the Vine’ to cheer him up, he moves a flower from the sun into the shade to keep it from overheating, and when a young man tries to mug him he teaches the man a better fighting stance and sends him on his way. But then it takes a turn. This normally fun and wise character arrives at the grave of his son with the picnic basket and offers up a melencholy gem—“if only I could have helped you”—and then begins to sing ‘Leaves from the Vine’ as he cries. End of story. The episode goes on and some of the other stories are more fun and uplifting, but simply put, cartoons don’t do this. This is serious character drama directed at kids because it respects them.

‘The Tale of Iroh’ is dedicated to Mako, who unfortunately passed away not long after recording season two.

This might be a good time to point out how often I’ve talked about “cartoons” and “shows for children” like there’s really something horrid, and how many times I’ve implied that their audiences aren’t smart enough to enjoy anything better written. I want to make it clear that I don’t believe that. In fact, that’s a big part of why I think this show is so special, why I wish it had been around when I was little, and why I think that every kid from now till judgment day ought to have the opportunity to watch it because it refuses to condescend to them. Avatar tells beautiful and complex stories to kids in a mature way. It assumes that they know death and pain and betrayal as well as love and fun and hope, and it assumes that they understand them as more than just facile constants and rather as multidimensional, intangible, and subjective emotions. Perhaps the lesson Avatarteaches us adults is that children are just like any other human being, they crave stories and characters with real soul to them; people, imaginary as they may be, that they can love.

I had a whole paragraph here explaining how wonderful Zuko’s character arch is but if I haven’t convinced you by now I probably wont. However, let me say that Zuko’s redemption rivals that of Ben Linus and Darth Vader. There: hyperbole hyperbolized.

Now lets talk about the production quickly because that’s the other side of this well-crafted coin. The animators closely studied a number of different martial arts do give the fighting a grounded and accurate feel that makes the action in the show something like a realistic Samurai Jack. It not only calls back to the great martial arts films but also to some of the greatest animes in cinema history—note how much Appa looks like Cat Bus from My Neighbor Totoro. Avatar was created among a havoc of anime inspired American cartoons, but where all the others borrowed the visual style and the cheap animation in a way that felt prompted by a fad, Avatar embraces this fusion style as a form of art, and as such it is often breathtaking.

I feel like after all this trying to defend the show’s maturity I should reiterate just how kick-ass it is. The stakes here are high and our heroes are more than willing to do what it takes.

I unabashedly love this show and I think that anyone who can put away their expectations and their hiccups about it will love it too. Do whatever you have to do. Watch it alone, in the dark, with the sound very, very low if need be. No one ever has to know you’ve seen it but I’d bet that if you give it a shot you’ll find yourself slipping me notes and cornering me in empty rooms to talk about your newfound secret passions.

And if you’re reading this and you’ve got kids then do them a favor and buy them lots of legos because it teaches them problem solving and creativity. And then when you’ve done that show them Avatar.

Every episode of the complete three season Avatar Saga is on Netflix streaming and the sequel series Avatar: the Legend of Korra is expected to air next year. There is a live action adaptation but we’re better off pretending there isn’t.

Ep. 12: Fright Nerds

The Reel Nerds fans have spoken! Ryan and James sink their teeth into Fright Night!

Ten Movies: That you’ve probably never seen

These aren’t the Best ten movies you’ve probably never seen, these just are ten movies that you’ve probably never seen, but should.

Rodger Dodger

Roger Swanson (Campbell Scott) is a cynical man who believes he has the singles scene figured out and uses what he knows to manipulate women until his teenaged nephew Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) visits and asks Roger to take him under his wing for a night to help him solve the frustration of his virginity.

This 2002 film won a handful of independent awards and yet it seems to have sunk into obscurity. Eisenberg turns in a wonderful performance as a hopeless romantic who is seemingly alone in a world that doesn’t believe in love—I’ve often called Adventureland a spiritual successor to Roger Dodger. Out of everything on this list, this is the one you’re least likely to have seen, and yet, it may be one of those that deserves your attention most.

Primer

Two men build a box in their garage that allows them to travel backwards in time. As they circle through time, carefully scheduling their lives around what’s in the box and when, we begin to see that more is happening than seems physics-ly possible (Sorry).

Shane Carruth’s Primer is a masterpiece of science fiction. A quiet and thoughtful movie, Primer takes advantage of Carruth’s seemingly intricate knowledge of physics in a way that usually confuses audiences on the first viewing. It spawned a number of similar films including the popular french film Time Crimes. While Carruth still hasn’t followed up on Primer (his second film, A Topiary, is due out in 2013) he still has quite a name for himself on the independent film scene and was asked to lend his expertise to Rian Johnson’s Looper, due out next year. If you consider yourself a sci-fi fan this is a must see.

Cool Hand Luke

Arrested for taking the tops off of parking meters while drunk, Luke is the stand out prisoner in a southern chain gang trying his best not to cave in to the demands of the authorities.

This isn’t an unknown movie, but it’s one that most young people have probably never seen. In the list of great 60’s films that young movie fans feel are historically relevant enough to seek out, Cool Hand Luke doesn’t rank especially high, but it should. The source of a number of memorable quotes and strikingly unique sequences, Luke is one of my personal favorites and unlike some films from the time (Hang your heads in shame Vanishing Point and Five Easy Pieces) doesn’t suffer from age or an ere-specific vision.

Dark City

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakes into a world that may be more malleable than he could have believed, though he doesn’t remember who he is enough to be sure. As he investigates a string of prostitute murders he discovers a group of bald strangers who seem to know what’s going on around him.

This 1998 film by Alex Proyas made him instantly, however temporarily, a favorite director among sci-fi fans. Proyas co-wrote the screenplay with Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight). Inspired by the bizarre writings of one of Sigmund Freud’s patients, Dark City is an adventure through a completely unique world. There aren’t enough sci-fi movies like this one and if you don’t take the time to see it you’ll miss something special.

The Machinist

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) can’t sleep. He’s a man that seems to be wasting away and he doesn’t know why. When he catches a strange man watching him at work he realizes that someone out there may have unfortunate plans for him and he needs to find out why.

This is easily the most disturbing movie on the list, mostly because of the ridiculous amount of weight that Bale lost to play this role—only to put on so much muscle in the following months that when he interviewed for Batman they said he was too bulky. This is a thriller that will keep you guessing right up until you realize that the truth is made worse by its simplicity.

Brick

High school student Brendan doesn’t know where his ex-girlfriend Emily has disappeared to but he knows that it’s no where good. As he works to uncover the truth he stumbles upon a series of murders and a power struggle that could cause an extra-curricular civil war.

Writer-director Rian Johnson twists genres “like dead Russians write novels.” This is a noir detetive story that ranks among the best of the classics and yet the high school setting, played entirely straight, makes it feel fresh and fun. This movie is among my favorites and Johnson’s skillful writing is inspirational. There aren’t many movies like this one and Brick is done so well that it’ll be hard not to love.

Bubba Ho-tep

Sebastian Haff (Bruce Campbell), an old man confined in a nursing home, believes that he is the real Elvis Presley. He and his close friend Jack (Oasie Davis), who believes that he’s the real John F. Kennedy, discover that a mummy has moved into the neighborhood and is sucking the souls out of the nursing homes inhabitants through their butt-holes.

There really is nothing else like this movie, and maybe their shouldn’t be. I can’t say much about this other than that the only thing not perfect about this movie is the low-budget scarab effects. Bruce Campbell is amazing and so is the concept of this movie. This is a cult film that rewards multiple viewings.

City of God

City of God follows the lives of two young boys from the slums of Rio de Janeiro. As they make different choices in their lives and grow farther apart, they explore the underground world of Brazil from both sides.

This isn’t an unknown film—Roger Ebert considered it the second best film of 2002—but it isn’t one that most have seen, especially compared to its cousin Slumdog Millionaire. This isn’t a movie for everyone but it’s a powerful and emotionally resonant film that, for those inclined to this kind of film, will never forget.

Downfall

During the final days of the Third Reich, as Russian and American forces approach Berlin, Hitler and his generals hide in his Berlin bunker and attempt to build a strategy for the future of the Nazi regime.

The best performance by an actor playing Hitler. A realistic portrayal of Hitler during an under-examined period of WWII history. A quiet and angry character drama that feels like the closest thing to documentary as possible. Yes the entire movie is in German and it’s hard to watch without thinking about the popular meme it has spawned, but still, this is a great movie for anyone interested in the subject.

Duel

David Mann (Dennis Weaver), a business man driving across the desert to meet a client, passes an old tanker truck. The driver, seemingly offended, chases down Mann and threatens his life.

This was Steven Speilberg’s first feature film and it has more historical value than anything else. This movie is especially interesting once you’ve seen Jaws, because so much of the tricks and skills that he used to build suspense in Jaws were sharpened here. Even though this movie was a relatively unknown made-for-tv film, it still shows all the stylistic trappings of a Spielberg movie. While this may not end up being one of your new favorite movies, it is worth your time if you can get your hands on it.

-James Hart