Friday Buzzkills: The adventures of Fall Out Boy and Paris vs. the sad reality of Buffy, Tori, and G.I. Joe
It's almost Easter, commemorating that time when Jesus turned his bodily sacraments into colored eggs and then hid them from his disciples, the Romans got pissed off and crucified some bunnies, and God banished all makers of chocolate filled with marshmallow to Hell. Or, uh, so we've heard; we're not very religious around here. Anyway, in the spirit of the season, allow us to roll back the stone of this week for you and reveal the emptiness inside. Yea, the Friday Buzzkills have risen.
– Sorry for anyone who got their hopes up by this week's Buffy The Vampire Slayer reunion at the William S. Paley Television Festival: Joss Whedon put the kibosh on any sort of big-screen continuation by moaning, "So many stars would have to align." And by align, we'll just assume he meant "realize that they're going to star in D-grade horror films for the rest of their lives" (in Sarah Michelle Gellar's case) and "stop deteriorating before our very eyes" (in James Marsters' case). Guess you'll just have to console yourself with the comic book–we hear Buffy's a lesbian now!
– In other news that should have them rending their garments at Comic-Con: Paramount Pictures released the first-ever photos from its upcoming G.I. Joe project, which continues to push forward with production in clear defiance of our wishes. Some folks have given us flak for our premature evaluations, hopeful that the film will be something more than a cheap cash-in rendered with the same style-over-substance disposability that has turned the modern action blockbuster into such a grating experience. Allow me to direct these doe-eyed optimists to this quote from director Stephen Sommers (lest we forget, the man responsible for Van Helsing) about Ray Park's character Snake Eyes: "He's the world's greatest ninja, but he's also next-generation. He's not afraid to use a sword one second, and a split-second later he's pulling out his Glock." Awesome! Does he also "enjoy listening to gangsta hip-hop" and "partying to the extreme"?
– If only G.I. Joe were real, they would probably already be mobilizing for action after this week's threat from Fall Out Boy, who announced a sinister plan to be the first band in the Guinness Book Of World Records to play all seven continents, launching a global reign of terror that begins next week in Antarctica. There the band will play at an unspecified research facility for penguins, elephant seals, and dozens of scientists who will instantly be reminded of why they opted to go live on an ice floe at the ass-edge of the world in the first place. If nothing else, though, this little jaunt is already giving Wentz a much-needed brushing up on remedial geography: About the plan's genesis, the guylined guru said, "I was just sitting around and wrote [FOB's manager] Bob [McLynn] an e-mail saying, 'Let's be the first band to go to all five continents' – only he wrote me back, 'There are seven.'"