list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_Once_More_With_Feeling/226040/default.aspx Title: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling
Year: 2001
Director: Joss Whedon
Plot: Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and the gang find themselves singing out their feelings in this musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The weirdness begins when Buffy interrupts her patrol to sing about post-resurrection angst. The next day, she learns that all of Sunnydale has become a great big Broadway musical. She and her friends float out various theories, but it turns out a musical demon named Sweet (Hinton Battle) has cast a nefarious spell over the town. As the enchantment forces various unfortunates to sing and dance until they burst into flames, the main characters find themselves expressing their deepest emotions. Tara (Amber Benson) sings a tender love song to Willow (Alyson Hannigan). Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya (Emma Caulfield) share a comical duet about their marriage misgivings. Spike (James Marsters) belts out a heavy metal number about his love/hate relationship with Buffy. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) croons pensively about Buffy's need for independence. And Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) dances a ballet of loneliness. Dawn also accidentally reveals that Willow cast a spell of forgetfulness over Tara (see "All the Way"). Soon, Tara and Giles are harmonizing about the need to leave Willow and Buffy for their own good. Just when it seems that these tangled emotions will cause the Scoobies to combust, however, Sweet arrives to make Dawn his underworld bride. While rescuing her sister, Buffy reveals the truth she's been hiding from her friends -- when they brought her back to life, they wrenched her not from Hell, but from Heaven. The anguished Slayer then almost dances herself into fiery oblivion -- until Spike intercedes and begs her to live. Once Sweet is vanquished, the entire cast sings an uncertain song about what the future may hold. Then Spike and the Slayer sneak out and share an unexpected kiss. Originally broadcast November 6, 2001, on UPN, "Once More, With Feeling" marked episode 107 of the cult-favorite series. Several minutes longer than a typical hour-long Buffy episode, the musical had to be trimmed for subsequent airings and syndication. A cast album was also released. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 2
Number of blog posts: 1
SpoutRating: 4
]]>Tue, 27 Jan 2009 17:28:04 GMTBuffy the Vampire Slayer: Once More, With Feeling2001Joss WhedonBuffy (<a href="/players/P____26360/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Sarah Michelle Gellar</a>) and the gang find themselves singing out their feelings in this musical episode of <a href=/films/4709/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</a>. The weirdness begins when Buffy interrupts her patrol to sing about post-resurrection angst. The next day, she learns that all of Sunnydale has become a great big Broadway musical. She and her friends float out various theories, but it turns out a musical demon named Sweet (Hinton Battle) has cast a nefarious spell over the town. As the enchantment forces various unfortunates to sing and dance until they burst into flames, the main characters find themselves expressing their deepest emotions. Tara (Amber Benson) sings a tender love song to Willow (<a href="/players/P____30191/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Alyson Hannigan</a>). Xander (Nicholas Brendon) and Anya (<a href="/players/P___340440/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Emma Caulfield</a>) share a comical duet about their marriage misgivings. Spike (<a href="/players/P___298971/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>James Marsters</a>) belts out a heavy metal number about his love/hate relationship with Buffy. Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) croons pensively about Buffy's need for independence. And Dawn (<a href="/players/P___216282/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Michelle Trachtenberg</a>) dances a ballet of loneliness. Dawn also accidentally reveals that Willow cast a spell of forgetfulness over Tara (see "<a href=/films/232583/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>All the Way</a>"). Soon, Tara and Giles are harmonizing about the need to leave Willow and Buffy for their own good. Just when it seems that these tangled emotions will cause the Scoobies to combust, however, Sweet arrives to make Dawn his underworld bride. While rescuing her sister, Buffy reveals the truth she's been hiding from her friends -- when they brought her back to life, they wrenched her not from Hell, but from Heaven. The anguished Slayer then almost dances herself into fiery oblivion -- until Spike intercedes and begs her to live. Once Sweet is vanquished, the entire cast sings an uncertain song about what the future may hold. Then Spike and the Slayer sneak out and share an unexpected kiss. Originally broadcast November 6, 2001, on UPN, "Once More, With Feeling" marked episode 107 of the cult-favorite series. Several minutes longer than a typical hour-long Buffy episode, the musical had to be trimmed for subsequent airings and syndication. A cast album was also released. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide2Slightly Tagged (1-5)14http://www.spout.com/images/no_image.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_Once_More_With_Feeling/226040/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/rik_tod/archive/2008/9/10/34966.aspxPost By: rik_tod
Post To: The Cinema 4 Pylon: SpOutpost
Post Date: 9/10/2008 2:04:56 AM
Body: Director: Shawn KuUS, 22 minutes, colorCinema 4 Rating: 5Despite a title sure to be at least partially tempting to any horror nut, Pretty Dead Girl: A Musical Necromance turns out to be rather tame. And if you could get the subject of necrophilia past the initial tsk-tsking of your grandma, there is a good chance that she would end up at film’s end thinking the movie was rather sad and sweet, and would hardly take offense at all to what is being suggested by its potentially creepy premise.I first saw Pretty Dead Girl on some cable network sometime about a year ago. I am not sure if it was Sundance or IFC, but honestly, I mix those channels up so much that I am never able to check out any of their shows regularly. Of course, most of the shows I have seen on there are of the variety about which I don’t give a rat’s ass, except for the ones done by Henry Rollins and Jon Favreau, but honestly, even thinking really hard, I can’t remember which one of the channels, Sundance or IFC, either show was actually on. I keep wanting to check out Live from Abbey Road – which is also on one of them -- but every time I flick over to it because someone I like – Muse, for instance – is on there, I end up having to sit through someone deplorable, like Josh Groban, Big and Rich or some Idol failure, to get to the good stuff, all of which seems to be interspersed with the horrendous. Can’t they just concentrate on one artist for a show? And one of these channels shows a bunch of '70s horror flicks on Friday nights -- all of which I already own, but it's nice to have them at one's fingertips anyway -- and one of them shows a lot of Japanese samurai and gangster films from the ‘50s and ‘60s, so they have that going for them. Whichever channel they are.What does this have to do with Pretty Dead Girl? Well, nothing at all, but -– Hey! Maybe I saw this on one of the Showtime networks instead? All I know is that I had Pretty Dead Girl on my DVR queue for a good long while, meaning to show it to Jen, who has some measured interest in musical films, and musical theatre in general. I watched it and enjoyed it, whatever channel it was on, though I wasn’t blown away it by it. This possibly had something to do with the musical episode from Buffy, titled Once More With Feeling, and how it seems, in my head at least, that any attempt to music up the horror or sci-fi genres should actually run through Mr. Whedon first. (Oh, if only Firefly had made it to that style of episode…) We are now in an age where, every time one turns around, it seems that another classic horror or science fiction film is being adapted into a musical (or opera – big difference there…) onstage. (Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Evil Dead, Carrie, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly, etc.) Or, at least the notion gets raised that such-and-such (say, Chainsaw) would make a swell musical. I don’t know why things are trending this way – perhaps because the horror genre itself has gotten more and more trapped in its current torture porn rut – but outside of an almost rubbernecking interest I have towards these things, since I like both musicals and horror films, I actually start to despise the gimmick after a short while. And then it affects my attitude when confronted with mildly ambitious little films like Pretty Dead Girl.It’s not a fair comparison, though, because Pretty Dead Girl is not really in the horror genre; it merely teases the viewer with promises of sick glory via its title. Honestly, once I realized it was a musical, I started to imagine a remake of Return of the Living Dead 3 with that hot little zombie chick played to pierced goth glory by a smokin' Mindy Clarke. Now, that would be highly interesting (and also make RotLD3 a much better overall film.) Pretty Dead Girl doesn't even get near such possibilities, centering itself on all-out romantic tragedy instead. All told, it is no more offensive than any number of other Romeo and Juliet-style stories, where suicide is playfully dangled in the air due to the hopelessness of the romance. The title, though, implies so much more beyond a simple desperate love affair that it really is disappointing to see that all told, Pretty Dead Girl is nothing more than magic potion fluff, with a bottle of poison bringing on the appearance of suicide, but only if every single drop is gulped down the gullet (hence the magic part). Otherwise, it becomes a full-on suicide. That this storyline springs forth from the actions of a morgue techie (with a clearly misguided missile) who cavorts and dances about (always in a G-rated way) with the bodies of deceased hotties does make it seem potentially horrific at first, and one almost can’t wait for the film to go all Re-Animator on us and suddenly we shall find torrents of blood gushing from the stumps from where the limbs of unsuspecting doctors have been ripped, and there shall then commence a rising bout of rampant cannibalism in the halls of the hospital, syringes stuck through eyeballs of screaming nurses, zombie fetuses that devour their mothers from the inside out, and, perhaps worst of all, an Alaskan governor will then get dangerously close to the White House. And then only one of those things happens… and it’s not even in the movie.Unlike most of the examples listed two paragraphs above, the musical part in Pretty Dead Girl is not the gimmick. Instead, it is the false trappings of horror that are the actual gimmick, and it almost seems like a gimmick which has only been employed to get people to watch the film who are ultimately going to be disappointed once the film doesn’t follow through on its sick promise. It certainly tricked me into watching it the first time. And instead of where I thought it was going, I got a nice – just nice – little musical instead, with a couple of catchy tunes (I have had that “I have waited more than the better of my life” melody ear-worming me for the past couple of weeks since I started watching the film again), a lot of leggy dames hoofin’ it in a dream sequence, a trio of well-turned (and well cast) performances in the main roles and… well, that’s about it. It doesn’t go beyond that for me. It’s good, it's pleasant, and then I forget about it.When I first saved it on my DVR to show Jen, I never followed through. A couple of months later, as it sat there unwatched, I finally deleted it after convincing myself that she really wouldn’t think that much of it. And then I forgot about it until I received the Shorts! Volume 3 collection from Spout Mavens. Now, with DVD in hand, I have once more sidled up to the “should I show it to her?” stage, and already I am convincing myself to the negative impulse again of not even showing it to her. The problem here is one of too much familiarity with the genre. The more experience or expertise one has in a certain genre, the more lesser items in that genre start to give way almost immediately to feelings of ennui. At least, that’s the way it normally works. I know some people that are horror nuts – some even on this very website -- who unabashedly adore every single horror movie that comes out, practically carving little gory hearts with dripping arrows through them into the top of their computer desk while once more giving five stars to something like Saw IV. Sure, some are better than others, but still… horror is great! Isn’t it? Aren’t all horror movies, no matter how bad, instantly awesome and cool, just because they are horror movies? Well, no. Some just blankly suck outright, and some are just downright atrocious from every conceivable angle. The same with every genre.As I have said before, at least 75 percent of everything is garbage, no matter what form of media, no matter how much there is, and into this giant slice of pie, I heap mounds of the merely average. There is another slice of percentage, a chunk that perhaps appears as a normal slice of that pie, which accounts for the merely good. And finally, there is left a much thinner slice, the remainder, that denotes that which exists in the "very good to great" range. The continued and legendary greatness of certain entries in any genre make it increasingly harder, over time, to enjoy that category’s far more noxious efforts. It is towards a target sublime to which artists, even popular artists, should aim their talents. Back to the point, because my girlfriend has a good deal of experience, and therefore opinion, regarding the musical genre, and is well versed in those films which serve as the pinnacles of the form, I know instinctively that it is going to take far more to impress her in this genre than it would, say, me.And I already think that Pretty Dead Girl is merely a good short musical film. Not fantastic, not knock your socks off, but just good. And so, for someone with the more than average eye for musicals in general, having seen the excellence which can be achieved in the genre, watching this is like seeing a dance sequence pop up in Ally McBeal. Sure, the actors might be giving it their all, but they are miles from being in the real thing. And, further discounting it for the gimmick factor of its fake fantasy horror trappings, Pretty Dead Girl can seem pretty dead from the beginning. And, if not dead, then just merely playing possum. And nicely at that.And, speaking for myself, though I liked it well enough, nice is not what most people who would be intrigued by such a title as Pretty Dead Girl are going to be expecting.
]]>Wed, 10 Sep 2008 06:04:56 GMTrik_todThe Cinema 4 Pylon: SpOutpost9/10/2008 2:04:56 AMDirector: Shawn KuUS, 22 minutes, colorCinema 4 Rating: 5Despite a title sure to be at least partially tempting to any horror nut, Pretty Dead Girl: A Musical Necromance turns out to be rather tame. And if you could get the subject of necrophilia past the initial tsk-tsking of your grandma, there is a good chance that she would end up at film&rsquo;s end thinking the movie was rather sad and sweet, and would hardly take offense at all to what is being suggested by its potentially creepy premise.I first saw Pretty Dead Girl on some cable network sometime about a year ago. I am not sure if it was Sundance or IFC, but honestly, I mix those channels up so much that I am never able to check out any of their shows regularly. Of course, most of the shows I have seen on there are of the variety about which I don&rsquo;t give a rat&rsquo;s ass, except for the ones done by Henry Rollins and Jon Favreau, but honestly, even thinking really hard, I can&rsquo;t remember which one of the channels, Sundance or IFC, either show was actually on. I keep wanting to check out Live from Abbey Road &ndash; which is also on one of them -- but every time I flick over to it because someone I like &ndash; Muse, for instance &ndash; is on there, I end up having to sit through someone deplorable, like Josh Groban, Big and Rich or some Idol failure, to get to the good stuff, all of which seems to be interspersed with the horrendous. Can&rsquo;t they just concentrate on one artist for a show? And one of these channels shows a bunch of '70s horror flicks on Friday nights -- all of which I already own, but it's nice to have them at one's fingertips anyway -- and one of them shows a lot of Japanese samurai and gangster films from the &lsquo;50s and &lsquo;60s, so they have that going for them. Whichever channel they are.What does this have to do with Pretty Dead Girl? Well, nothing at all, but -&ndash; Hey! Maybe I saw this on one of the Showtime networks instead? All I know is that I had Pretty Dead Girl on my DVR queue for a good long while, meaning to show it to Jen, who has some measured interest in musical films, and musical theatre in general. I watched it and enjoyed it, whatever channel it was on, though I wasn&rsquo;t blown away it by it. This possibly had something to do with the musical episode from Buffy, titled Once More With Feeling, and how it seems, in my head at least, that any attempt to music up the horror or sci-fi genres should actually run through Mr. Whedon first. (Oh, if only Firefly had made it to that style of episode&hellip;) We are now in an age where, every time one turns around, it seems that another classic horror or science fiction film is being adapted into a musical (or opera &ndash; big difference there&hellip;) onstage. (Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Evil Dead, Carrie, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly, etc.) Or, at least the notion gets raised that such-and-such (say, Chainsaw) would make a swell musical. I don&rsquo;t know why things are trending this way &ndash; perhaps because the horror genre itself has gotten more and more trapped in its current torture porn rut &ndash; but outside of an almost rubbernecking interest I have towards these things, since I like both musicals and horror films, I actually start to despise the gimmick after a short while. And then it affects my attitude when confronted with mildly ambitious little films like Pretty Dead Girl.It&rsquo;s not a fair comparison, though, because Pretty Dead Girl is not really in the horror genre; it merely teases the viewer with promises of sick glory via its title. Honestly, once I realized it was a musical, I started to imagine a remake of Return of the Living Dead 3 with that hot little zombie chick played to pierced goth glory by a smokin' Mindy Clarke. Now, that would be highly interesting (and also make RotLD3 a much better overall film.) Pretty Dead Girl doesn't even get near such possibilities, centering itself on all-out romantic tragedy instead. All told, it is no more offensive than any number of other Romeo and Juliet-style stories, where suicide is playfully dangled in the air due to the hopelessness of the romance. The title, though, implies so much more beyond a simple desperate love affair that it really is disappointing to see that all told, Pretty Dead Girl is nothing more than magic potion fluff, with a bottle of poison bringing on the appearance of suicide, but only if every single drop is gulped down the gullet (hence the magic part). Otherwise, it becomes a full-on suicide. That this storyline springs forth from the actions of a morgue techie (with a clearly misguided missile) who cavorts and dances about (always in a G-rated way) with the bodies of deceased hotties does make it seem potentially horrific at first, and one almost can&rsquo;t wait for the film to go all Re-Animator on us and suddenly we shall find torrents of blood gushing from the stumps from where the limbs of unsuspecting doctors have been ripped, and there shall then commence a rising bout of rampant cannibalism in the halls of the hospital, syringes stuck through eyeballs of screaming nurses, zombie fetuses that devour their mothers from the inside out, and, perhaps worst of all, an Alaskan governor will then get dangerously close to the White House. And then only one of those things happens&hellip; and it&rsquo;s not even in the movie.Unlike most of the examples listed two paragraphs above, the musical part in Pretty Dead Girl is not the gimmick. Instead, it is the false trappings of horror that are the actual gimmick, and it almost seems like a gimmick which has only been employed to get people to watch the film who are ultimately going to be disappointed once the film doesn&rsquo;t follow through on its sick promise. It certainly tricked me into watching it the first time. And instead of where I thought it was going, I got a nice &ndash; just nice &ndash; little musical instead, with a couple of catchy tunes (I have had that &ldquo;I have waited more than the better of my life&rdquo; melody ear-worming me for the past couple of weeks since I started watching the film again), a lot of leggy dames hoofin&rsquo; it in a dream sequence, a trio of well-turned (and well cast) performances in the main roles and&hellip; well, that&rsquo;s about it. It doesn&rsquo;t go beyond that for me. It&rsquo;s good, it's pleasant, and then I forget about it.When I first saved it on my DVR to show Jen, I never followed through. A couple of months later, as it sat there unwatched, I finally deleted it after convincing myself that she really wouldn&rsquo;t think that much of it. And then I forgot about it until I received the Shorts! Volume 3 collection from Spout Mavens. Now, with DVD in hand, I have once more sidled up to the &ldquo;should I show it to her?&rdquo; stage, and already I am convincing myself to the negative impulse again of not even showing it to her. The problem here is one of too much familiarity with the genre. The more experience or expertise one has in a certain genre, the more lesser items in that genre start to give way almost immediately to feelings of ennui. At least, that&rsquo;s the way it normally works. I know some people that are horror nuts &ndash; some even on this very website -- who unabashedly adore every single horror movie that comes out, practically carving little gory hearts with dripping arrows through them into the top of their computer desk while once more giving five stars to something like Saw IV. Sure, some are better than others, but still&hellip; horror is great! Isn&rsquo;t it? Aren&rsquo;t all horror movies, no matter how bad, instantly awesome and cool, just because they are horror movies? Well, no. Some just blankly suck outright, and some are just downright atrocious from every conceivable angle. The same with every genre.As I have said before, at least 75 percent of everything is garbage, no matter what form of media, no matter how much there is, and into this giant slice of pie, I heap mounds of the merely average. There is another slice of percentage, a chunk that perhaps appears as a normal slice of that pie, which accounts for the merely good. And finally, there is left a much thinner slice, the remainder, that denotes that which exists in the "very good to great" range. The continued and legendary greatness of certain entries in any genre make it increasingly harder, over time, to enjoy that category&rsquo;s far more noxious efforts. It is towards a target sublime to which artists, even popular artists, should aim their talents. Back to the point, because my girlfriend has a good deal of experience, and therefore opinion, regarding the musical genre, and is well versed in those films which serve as the pinnacles of the form, I know instinctively that it is going to take far more to impress her in this genre than it would, say, me.And I already think that Pretty Dead Girl is merely a good short musical film. Not fantastic, not knock your socks off, but just good. And so, for someone with the more than average eye for musicals in general, having seen the excellence which can be achieved in the genre, watching this is like seeing a dance sequence pop up in Ally McBeal. Sure, the actors might be giving it their all, but they are miles from being in the real thing. And, further discounting it for the gimmick factor of its fake fantasy horror trappings, Pretty Dead Girl can seem pretty dead from the beginning. And, if not dead, then just merely playing possum. And nicely at that.And, speaking for myself, though I liked it well enough, nice is not what most people who would be intrigued by such a title as Pretty Dead Girl are going to be expecting. http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/musical/MemberTagFilms.aspxmusical
Number of films tagged: 174

Number of people who tagged: 109

Number of times used: 356

]]>Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:03:25 GMT174109356Tag http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/nice/MemberTagFilms.aspxnice
Number of films tagged: 16

Number of people who tagged: 15

Number of times used: 20

]]>Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:37:18 GMT161520Tag