Ellen: Bet you didn't expect this much gynery today. Dr. Beckham: I do think this is a record number of mothers for one patient.

To the Bone (2017) dir. Marti Noxon

Women in Film Challenge 2024: [14/52] To the Bone, dir. Marti Noxon (USA, 2017)

This idea you have that there’s a way to be safe, it’s childish and cowardly. It stops you from experiencing anything, including everything good.

Buffy Season 2: Full Spoiler Review

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🔥+ Marti Noxon (as a BtVS writer/co-showrunner, not, like, as a person LMAO)

Whoa what a great question!

I think Marti Noxon is one of the best writers on Buffy. Actually, after Joss, I'd say she's the best. She's written some of my favorite episodes, and she has a very distinct style and voice. Not everything she's written is great, but even her weakest episodes are still decent and entertaining (with some exceptions....)

I think she was the right person to take over as showrunner. Like, if I were in Joss's position, I would have absolutely chosen her.

However, in retrospect, after knowing everything we know and viewing the show as a whole, I think she was in over her head. I think she needed help, and I'm not sure if she got it. I love the idea of having a woman take over as showrunner for such a feminist show (at the time), but Marti (and Jane Espenson, for that matter) are very toxic and have a lot of internalized misogyny they need(ed) to work through.

Season 6 really, really struggles with nuance. It loses its way in the middle, and although I think it has a satisfying ending, that middle slump just ruins the season for me. Marti had some great ideas, but she has very dark and twisted tendencies that needed to be reeled in a bit. No one seemed to do that. No one in the room stopped her from it. Or maybe they tried and she overruled them, but Joss isn't the type to say to her, "Hey, you're going too far. You're punishing Buffy too much."

I definitely understand what Marti and Joss were going for with season 6, but too much slipped between the cracks. I'd say like 7 or 8 of the episodes needed to be reworked completely. It almost felt rushed. Like, they suddenly stopped doing their due diligence in the writers' room.

It's really unfortunate because the intent and thesis statement for the season is so fascinating and daring and bold. But it's too bleak and overall, it's not entertaining. It's boring. And say what you will about Joss (he's the literal fucking worst lol) but he knows how to entertain people. Marti just.. got in her head I think. Things got lost in translation.

Having said that, Sharp Objects is EXCELLENT and she clearly honed her craft and learned a lot by being the showrunner for season 6.

Send Me a 🔥+ a Topic, and I’ll Tell You My Honest Opinion About It

To the Bone (2017)

To The Bone, Marti Noxon, 2017

"I started thinking about how to tie Buffy and Glee together and the best I could come up with was through Veronica Mars because Alyson Hannigan and Charisma Carpenter were both recurring on there and Jane Lynch and Dianna Agron guest starred. Boom!"

And Buffy creator Joss Whedon directed an episode of Glee in S1. But he's a terrible person, so I understand if you didn't want to mention him lol

oh, and Marti Noxon was a writer and producer on both Buffy and Glee. She was responsible for what's arguably the most controversial Buffy season. I wouldn't have known that she worked on Glee if she hadn't pointed out how misogynistic it was that only Lea and Naya's feud was given attention when there were male actors fighting onset too.

I can't really speak to his terrible-ness, only left him out because I was thinking only of cast members. But true! And to think I only just listened to Kevin and Jenna gush about his episode yesterday lol.

Part of me knew about Marti Noxon but part of me also forgot. I'm curious about Buffy s6 - assuming that's what you're referring to. I checked and her Glee eps are Extraordinary Merry Christmas and Choke so she's alright in my Glee book, if not, you know, extraordinary. Good on her for pointing out the double standard though.

I Am Number Four (2011)

I remember the first time I saw I Am Number Four. It was shortly after its home video release. At the time, I saw it as a piece of disposable, forgettable entertainment. Now that I’ve seen the entire Twilight saga, I'll rate it significantly lower. What does that say about this film?

When the Mogadorians destroyed the planet Lorien, its inhabitant's last hope - nine children - where sent to Earth where they could hide among us. With the help of his guardian (Timothy Olyphant as Henri), John Smith (Alex Pettyfer) has been blending into our society. Then, his alien powers begin manifesting and his cover is blown. Now those who have been hunting him have caught his scent.

If you’re 13-16 years old and you think Twilight is too girly, but the idea of a supernatural boy falling madly in love (true love that lasts forever) with an ordinary girl gets you excited, then I Am Number Four is for you. For the rest of us, it’s best avoided. The moment you realize this film is trying to syphon money from the same crowd that swooned over Edward Cullen, you readjust your expectations. You know the romance is going to be weak, that the drama is going to be forced, that the characters’ actions are being dictated not by logic, but by a conclusion that will only be fully realized several books later. That stuff you expect to be lame. What's surprising are the evil Mogadorians (whose appearance matches their silly-sounding “It feels like I’m making it up on the spot” name), the superpowers, and the shapeshifting monsters. They're equally lame.

I Am Number Four is an episode of Smallville that’s been abducted by saucer people and cross-bred with Twilight. It’s directed by D. J. Caruso, whose Disturbia I gave a pass to, but never felt any affection for. It practically makes fun of itself, with "really? are you sure?" developments and a star that’s largely devoid of charisma. It certainly doesn’t help that all the alien stuff – save for the climax that manages to jolt the audience awake – feels bargain bin. The Loriens have a device that allows them to track each other. What is it? A geode that’s split into two. John’s powers? His hands shine like flashlights and he can shoot beams out of them. Even the high school stuff is laughable. Callan McAuliffe plays a bully named Sam and he’s the most cartoonish bully you’ve ever seen. He practically walks up to our hero and introduces himself as a wedgy dispenser.

Even trying to enjoy I Am Number Four ironically is difficult, though it is made somewhat easier by the final scene. It wants a sequel so desperately but even in 2011, you could tell this franchise was dead on arrival. Thank goodness, that saves us from the inevitable and predictable love triangle drama we would’ve had to sit through in “I Am Number Four 2”. (On DVD, August 5, 2017)

Into the Bone (2017)

dean winchester is so buffy summers coded. they both have daddy issues, mommy issues, sibling issues, fighting monsters, being Chosen Ones, having the fate of the world on their shoulders but having nobody know about it, dying a few times, relationships with supernatural creatures, a death wish, self sacrificing instincts, clinical depression, fighting gods,

It's not even a problem that Joyce and the Scoobies are so overwhelmingly shitty to Buffy this episode. That's a valid story to tell. It's just that either you need to make Buffy less sympathetic, so you can tell a story about a group of people who are all hurting and lashing out at each other, or you need to have the Scoobies/Joyce realise their callousness and apologise. Not only does the episode fail to address that, but it actually ends by putting the fault on Buffy! Who is not blameless, but any assertion that she is only, or even primarily, the one at fault here, is proved ludicrous by the rest of the episode. The episode's sympathies end up lying with the people that are shown to be the least sympethic by the events of the episode!

God I hate David Fury so much, I hate how he claims to be advocating for women and then acts insanely condescending, patronizing, and slut-shaming towards us because we disagree with him about a fictional vampire. There’s a reason why Spikegirls are Jane Espenson’s strongest warriors.

Truly but society if Jane Espenson or Rebecca Rand Kirshner wrote Crush and Lies My Parents Told Me instead.

its called the “convincing someone to watch buffy, my all time favorite show, and swearing i’ll be normal about it” to “sending my dissertation on the strange duality of buffys feminism and misogny with fun facts about the shows production” pipeline and I am slipping down it like a waterslide with a questionable safety rating

genuinely what if i watched buffy season 6 rn and just cooked my brain completely