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I've just wasted way too much time on http://actualteenadultteen.tumblr.com/ lol, they put together a picture of an actor playing 16 or 17 alongside a picture of what they actually looked like when they were were that age. It's so weird to see Hollywood's example of what passes for teenage in tv and film
I always thought Sarah and Alyson passed okay actually (well Sarah was only 2 or 3 years older than the part anyway), but Nicky and Charisma were ridiculously obvious when they were both close to 30 and still playing 16/17 wtf. And Joss did hire an actual teenager for the part of Kendra unusually, but Bianca Lawson is 31 in the second pic and still playing a teenager...
I always thought Sarah and Alyson passed okay actually (well Sarah was only 2 or 3 years older than the part anyway), but Nicky and Charisma were ridiculously obvious when they were both close to 30 and still playing 16/17 wtf. And Joss did hire an actual teenager for the part of Kendra unusually, but Bianca Lawson is 31 in the second pic and still playing a teenager...
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-19 11:47 pm (UTC)Oh, the Bargaining commentary annoyed me to pieces. I wanted to hear about the filming and stuff (I loved that ep) and all I got was Marti and Fury basically reciting a snarky TWoP recap. I thought it was totally unprofessional.
Was just never impressed with any of the Buffy commentaries... Maybe if they got some actors.
As an aside, I've always wondered why they rarely include promo pictures as extras.
Yeah, I was a bit surprised by X-Files getting a release, but it was much, much bigger than Buffy ever was.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-20 12:01 am (UTC)I've always wondered why they never include trailers either. As a non-American who never got to see the original trailers I loved that the X-Files included the trailer for every single episode, I wish more shows would do that :/
And I like Joss's commentaries, and I remember liking Jane's, but yeah generally a lot of them were pretty dire. The commentary for Hell's Bells was particularly awful with them sshing one another not to talk over their favourite scenes wtf, instead of having notes prepared to actually talk about those scenes
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 06:49 pm (UTC)Oh, the Bargaining commentary annoyed me to pieces.
I tend to dislike commentary tracks on principle. It's a bunch of people shooting the shit and almost nothing to do with what I, as a viewer, is actually interested in knowing. EIther the people who do the tracks don't know what people want, are talking off the cuff and are bad at it, or forget the viewer entirely so they can pal around.
I can think of three films (not tv shows) where I actually enjoyed the commentary track: The Hours, with Nicole Meryl and Julianne - not in the room with each other at the same time but that actually was better; they weren't talking to each other but to me, the viewer, and they didn't talk over the more important passages of dialogue. The others are American Splendor and Under the Tuscan Sun (I liked the director's commentary better than the film itself.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 07:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 08:14 pm (UTC)I bought a dvd of Thelma and Louise, one of my all-time favorite movies, and it had a new commentary track with Susan, Geena, and screenwriter Callie Khouri. It started out very high energy at first (Geena sounded like she'd just consumed a cup of espresso and a whole bag of chocolate bars beforehand) and then gradually petered out and became boring. They kept talking about how the movie was received at the time and people were offended by women doing violent things in a movie (when men did similar things as a matter of course in action films); etc. But they got stuck on that loop and ran out of things to say. Bored, now.
If you can't talk about your own movie for the whole period, then forget it. Give me trailers or featurettes or something else instead. (The deluxe package for Moulin Rouge is awesome in that regard - hours worth of features. But Baz is on both commentary tracks and lady of mercy does he like to listen to himself talk.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 09:05 pm (UTC)The Farscape commentaries with Ben and Claudia were amazing actually and really surprised me after sitting through some of the Bts ones, you could really tell that Ben Browder had done his research and had so much to say that there was literally no dead air. Him and Claudia were feeding questions to one another to keep things going, sometimes they had an occasional goofy moment, they have some of the most dynamic commentaries I've ever listened too and there's no comparison to most of the boring commentaries I've listened too for Bts. For Hell's Bell's they were literally describing the plot of the episode an sshing one another for certain moments because they didn't think the audience would want to miss them...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 04:23 pm (UTC)I think though it may well differ from instance to instance? I can't imagine Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman not getting paid but they are A-list actresses with powerful agents and can demand what they want.
FYI, Jodie Foster said that she was paid more to promote the movie The Inside Man than she was to actually appear in it. So doing commentaries may be something that's negotiated by the actors, covered under the rubric of promotional duties or - maybe sometimes it's just a labor of love?
Of course I'm just guessing.
Mostly I skip commentary tracks. Which means I prob miss some good ones but after too many dull ones, I'll survive.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 05:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 06:41 pm (UTC)I'm still pondering whether or not to find a btvs set on ebay at some point (hopefully reasonably priced. given my budget is minus zero) but then I don't know which set, or does it really matter?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 07:55 pm (UTC)http://www.amazon.com/Buffy-Vampire-Slayer-Michelle-Gellar/dp/B000ARSJVU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1375213739&sr=8-3&keywords=Buffy+complete
It has all of the usual seasons with special features, and then it also came with a bonus disk with some extra retrospective features, and Joss and some of the actors having a round table discussion. I think that the current complete set is a red box that doesn't have the bonus disk, but just groups all of the DVDs together?
If cost is the biggest issue then your best bet is probably to buy the seasons individually on eBay though. Each season has plenty of bonus features, and they usually go pretty cheaply once a series is over and a lot of people are selling their individual sets for the complete one
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 08:14 pm (UTC)BTW - a lot of your replies to me the last day or two end up being duplicated in my inbox 2-4 times. Weird. Are you editing your replies a lot?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 07:58 pm (UTC)They can be good. The Breaking Bad commentaries are worth the price of admission. I tend to like David Fincher's commentaries, too.
The Buffy ones... I liked Normal Again and that might be about it. The thing about Bargaining is I have the same problem I have with Joss's S6 and S7 comments. They have this "aw, we know it sucked, guys!" vibe to them and it pisses me off. They obviously didn't think they sucked when they were writing them.
Not to get off on a rant about it, but that's someone's work, you know? That's someone who got up at 4am and did the make-up, built the set, whatever on a miniscule WB/UPN budget. And you OK'd it. You OK'd the actress who played Veruca and you OK'd the edit so don't make fun of the vocals after the fact. It's just completely and utterly unprofessional and it makes me wonder if this is the kind of stuff they want memorialized on a DVD, just what it might have been like to work with them.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 08:07 pm (UTC)I've not heard Fincher's commentaries but I assume they would be interesting. Anthony Minghella's commentary for Cold Mountain is another example of one that might be better than the actual movie.
It's just completely and utterly unprofessional
Oh exactly so, He thinks he's being funny but he's not. People worked their ASSES off for that show.
but then again he was recently quoted blaming another writer on the comics for being responsible for the meta references, and another one for Mecha-Dawn, etc - dude, you put your name on the cover as executive producer? the buck stops with you. Period.
I assume that part of Joss' commentaries re: S6-7 is a response to a large portion of the mainstream audience who think those seasons suck and Bangel was the greatest thing and it's too bad the Scoobies had to change (wah wah wah)? I'm guessing of course.
But there's also that contradiction - he's said don't diss Marti, but by dissing those seasons isn't he doing just that on some level?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-29 10:25 pm (UTC)If you ever do get into Breaking Bad, those commentaries are gold. /pimp I need to make a 'cut to the fucking' icon but I can't find something of proper context.
but then again he was recently quoted blaming another writer on the comics for being responsible for the meta references, and another one for Mecha-Dawn, etc - dude, you put your name on the cover as executive producer? the buck stops with you. Period.
Well, he blamed Meltzer for turning it into fanfic, but to be fair I'm pretty sure that was tongue-in-cheek. Of course that's Joss's MO, to say something as a joke while meaning it, so it's out there, but he can't be blamed for it. If his latest quote regarding the abortion storyline doesn't clue people in to his hypocritical antics, nothing ever will.
he's said don't diss Marti, but by dissing those seasons isn't he doing just that on some level?
Yes, it's funny isn't it? Sueworld linked to a article that basically did the same thing awhile ago.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 02:28 pm (UTC)Maybe I was in a cranky mood when I read that transcript? (Transcripts of conversations are rarely readable anyway without hearing the voices.) because technical stuff and Sarah-love should be right up my alley.
I don't know how old you are but when we were kids, my brothers and I devoured a making-of magazine for a movie we weren't old enough to see yet: Blade Runner. It was really in-depth about casting, sets, costumes, etc; far better than most of today's making-of featurettes. (The best I've ever seen on DVD is the Lord of the Rings deluxe packages. We couldn't even begin to get through them all when we rented it. Holy shit.)
If his latest quote regarding the abortion storyline doesn't clue people in to his hypocritical antics, nothing ever will.
What quote is this?
Sueworld linked to a article that basically did the same thing awhile ago.
And that's sad because I read his comments defending Marti on
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 03:21 pm (UTC)I was becoming very frustrated with a lot of narratives where people either don't even say the word abortion or have a very facile reason for not going through with it
"We're gonna do this because it needs to be done." And we bought it in a sort of, you know, in a "Buffy" way -- "Oh no, I'm not pregnant, I'm a robot." But that wasn't to shy away from it.
So full of shit.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 03:43 pm (UTC)One of the main arguments re: abortion is the notion of a woman's right to autonomy over her own body (and note that she goes to two MEN, who get to voice the opposite sides of the issue. No woman gets a voice here.)
Joss solution? Violate Buffy's bodily autonomy re: the robot. Joss and DH once again demonstrate their discomfort with women's bodies at a really fundamental level.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 04:34 pm (UTC)Just the latest in a long line of stupid things he's said over the years. Of course when you're trying to legitimize an obvious publicity stunt (ditto Batsu) you're bound to look foolish.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-07-30 06:43 pm (UTC)You mean there's times when he doesn't?