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Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

"Break me off a switch, son!" - Faith to Connor right before beating the crap out of him solidifying it as the best scene of the series (ironically in the worst season of the series)

Grenn wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

"Break me off a switch, son!" - Faith to Connor right before beating the crap out of him solidifying it as the best scene of the series (ironically in the worst season of the series)

I already said I wasn't counting her time on Angel, though!

Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

There was also the problem of waiting too long to get into the show's real plot.

But now I'm remembering Alan Tudyk played Alpha and I want to rewatch the series.

Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

After the ranking Spice Girls in the GOTY thread I was afraid to say these things but God bless you, Demyx.

God bless you.

Demyx wrote:
Grenn wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

"Break me off a switch, son!" - Faith to Connor right before beating the crap out of him solidifying it as the best scene of the series (ironically in the worst season of the series)

I already said I wasn't counting her time on Angel, though!

I'm defending Eliza Dushku. I have no solid ground to start from. Throw me a bone here!

Okay, she was fine on Angel, bone thrown

Quintin_Stone wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

There was also the problem of waiting too long to get into the show's real plot.

But now I'm remembering Alan Tudyk played Alpha and I want to rewatch the series.

Reasons to rewatch Dollhouse: Whiskey > Alpha.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Reasons to rewatch Dollhouse: Whiskey > Alpha.

I also agree with this.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Top Girl Scout Cookies*:

7. Thin Mints

Are you trying to start a war?

Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

Faith was crucial to BtVS's best season, and was the only watchable element of the final episodes. ED brought a full range of facial expressions to bear, conveying everything from her damaged self-aggrandizement, sensual joie de virve, puppy-ish yearning for acceptance, aggrieved fury, and cold malice, and wore that astounding outfit in her first episode that I still can't fully comprehend--she's like and extra in an anime adaptation of 2F2F, but somehow it works. Faith is the greatest. And Dollhouse sucked plenty on its own. It probably needed more Espensen and Noxon more than anything.

Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

You're wrong.

People don't understand subtle performances anymore. Acting more than frowning convincingly when someone says something sad. It's in the eyes, and the body language.

The real strength of her performance came through in the shifting from persona to persona. The way her whole body language changed when she shifted. Consider the episode where she imprinted as the safe cracker, but was blanked over the phone. That kind of thing is hard to pull off convincingly, and she did a phenomenal job. Indeed, she did a phenomenal job throughout the entire series considering that she convincingly played a different person every episode.

She didn't even have "one expression" when she was the blank Echo character, but it was the subtle touches that cued you in. Like the eyebrow raise and head-c*ck she did when she was clearly understanding something she shouldn't have understood in that state of mind.

I'll back you up on Faith. Couldn't stand that character. Dushku did a great job playing her, but every time she spoke I wanted to throw something at the TV.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

Faith was crucial to BtVS's best season, and was the only watchable element of the final episodes.

If you forget the Mayor, and Wes, and Willow had a ton of great moments then, and Oz...

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

The real strength of her performance came through in the shifting from persona to persona. The way her whole body language changed when she shifted. Consider the episode where she imprinted as the safe cracker, but was blanked over the phone. That kind of thing is hard to pull off convincingly, and she did a phenomenal job. Indeed, she did a phenomenal job throughout the entire series considering that she convincingly played a different person every episode.

Yeah, I didn't buy any of her performances. I thought Enver Gjokaj and Amy Acker did a great job "becoming" other people, but Dushku gave basically the same performance no matter what. She didn't do that great a job impersonating Buffy in the body-swap episode either. Maybe you're right and I can't see the nuance in her performance, but either way it didn't do it for me.

People don't understand subtle performances anymore.

We're talking about Eliza Dushku, whose performance can best be ranked as "Okay, for a LARPer".

I will grant that she improved from Buffy/Angel to Dollhouse, but the thing you call acting is... well, quite frankly, she never felt like she was any of those personas. She felt like she was acting the role of a persona. Put her next to Enver Gjokaj (a.k.a. Victor) or Amy Acker (a.k.a. Dr. Saunders) and she is quickly and easily outclassed. I wouldn't say Dichen Lachman was as good as the other two, but in that very same episode she pulls off a more convincing switch than Dushku herself manages as Sierra.

At her best Eliza Dushku's performance is of someone that is acting. They don't feel like the character, they feel like they are playing the character. She was the completely wrong person to lead a show about taking on a multitude of personas seeing as everyone else doing the same thing was far, far better at it.

As for Faith, when she was introduced in Buffy she was a generic bad girl that acted as a very simple comic book style foil to Buffy herself. The Mayor was a great villain, indeed, but the way Joss wrote the material Faith came off as a sad little girl with some daddy issues (not in the sexual manner, so there's that at least). She didn't start getting interesting until Angel, and even then she's being overshadowed by characters like Wesley, because Wesley > *.

Spoiler:

Well, better than everything but Spike walking in and saying "You're a bloody puppet!" That was f*cking amazing.

EDIT: Demyx can we be Best Whedon Buddies? Or at least Best Buffyverse + Dollhouse buddies?

When I was out of work for an extended period, I took a job-hunting workshop. They pointed out something that a nerd like me doesn't like to hear, but must nevertheless accept as truth. Talent alone doesn't actually matter that much. If you want the job you have to have the whole package. In engineering that means technical skills, people skills and executive processing skills (things like scheduling and the adaptability.) For an actor that means having the talent for the role and the right look for the role, among other intangibles.

Ed Harris is probably one of the best actors working today, but he'll never get the kinds of roles that, say, Bradley Cooper will get because he doesn't look like Bradley Cooper. I've heard Kevin Spacey described as a leading man trapped in a character actor's body, which is no Les true for being a little mean. Would Tom Cruise have been cast in Top Gun if he'd looked like, well, me?

Everyone in Dollhouse was very good. I never said Dushku was the best performer on the show (that would be Topher) but you're not going to convince me she's a terrible actress by telling me she's not as good as phenomenal ones. I think she was excellent in the role, and the fact is there's more to fronting a show than raw acting talent. Saying otherwise comes across as the people ten years out of high school glee club posting negative comments about American Idol because they know "ten people" with better voices than the last winner.

Demyx wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Demyx wrote:

Eliza Dushku has one facial expression and brought Dollhouse down, fight me

Faith was crucial to BtVS's best season, and was the only watchable element of the final episodes.

If you forget the Mayor, and Wes, and Willow had a ton of great moments then, and Oz...

I do not, and let's be real here, what are the Mayor or Wesley without Faith? Nothing! Hence, crucial.

See, now you're switching your argument. You went from saying she was an actress with nuance, and now you're saying she's the lead because she looks pretty. Or at least, that's what it seems to summarize as.

I would first actually say she's probably the lead because she has a Producer credit, which suggests a lot of things such as partially owning the idea or at least helping to get financial backing. Being a Whedon Alum is also probably the largest contributing factor. Which would fit in with the other intangibles you were trying to list. And sure, that's why she has the job, but it still doesn't make her the right choice.

And those intangibles don't change the fact that her performance was just not up to snuff. She's not all of a sudden perfect for the job or immune from criticism because of those intangibles.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I think she was excellent in the role, and the fact is there's more to fronting a show than raw acting talent. Saying otherwise comes across as the people ten years out of high school glee club posting negative comments about American Idol because they know "ten people" with better voices than the last winner.

Um... what? I didn't say anything about her having the right or wrong look or whatever, I just don't think she's very convincing in most roles. I understand that actors are cast for more reasons than "raw acting talent" (whatever that may be). It's also possible for a good actress to be hampered by poor direction or writing. Whatever happened on Dollhouse, she wasn't convincing to me in the role(s) she was playing.

ccesarano wrote:

See, now you're switching your argument. You went from saying she was an actress with nuance, and now you're saying she's the lead because she looks pretty. Or at least, that's what it seems to summarize as.

I would first actually say she's probably the lead because she has a Producer credit, which suggests a lot of things such as partially owning the idea or at least helping to get financial backing. Being a Whedon Alum is also probably the largest contributing factor. Which would fit in with the other intangibles you were trying to list. And sure, that's why she has the job, but it still doesn't make her the right choice.

And those intangibles don't change the fact that her performance was just not up to snuff. She's not all of a sudden perfect for the job or immune from criticism because of those intangibles.

She's the lead because she's an actress with nuance who happens to have the right look (I'd forgotten she coproduced, so that was probably a factor as well. But it doesn't negate my point). Right look /= pretty, and pretty /= untalented. As I said, she my not be the best actress on the show, but she is damn good and sometimes I wonder if people don't think so precisely because she's pretty.

Kind of like people who run down Anna Kournikova for being "terrible" at tennis because she was "only" the 67th best in the world.

I maintain that Dushku's performance in Dollhouse is amazing, intangibles or no, because she convinced me of what she needed to convince me of. She packs a lot into the way she uses her eyes to tell the story of what's going on internally, and not once did I watch her performance and think she looked like she was acting. I simply believed she was who she was portraying. Anything else is gravy.

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Best toilet paper orientation:

1. Over

Thirteenth wrote:

Best toilet paper orientation:

1. Over

As a corollary to this:

Best lifestyle practices due to the necessity of using toilet paper and how essential this orientation is:

1. Don't have pets.
2. Don't have kids.

1. This thread, where people tackle the truly important problems
2. All other threads

Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black >>>> Eliza Dushku in Dollhouse

Best Orphan Black characters played by Tatiana Maslany

1. Helena
2. Alison Hendrix
3. Cosima Niehaus
4. Rachel Duncan
5. Sarah Manning
6. Tony Sawicki
7. Elizabeth Childs
8. Krystal Goderitch

Best Orphan Black characters not played by Tatiana Mislay

1. Felix Dawkins
2. Donnie Hendrix
3. Siobhan Sadler
4. Arthur Bell
5. Victor Schmidt
6. Mark Rollins
7. Delphine Cormier
8. Rudy

Fight me.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

Best Orphan Black characters played by Tatiana Maslany

1. Helena
2. Alison Hendrix
3. Cosima Niehaus
4. Rachel Duncan
5. Sarah Manning
6. Tony Sawicki
7. Elizabeth Childs
8. Krystal Goderitch

Best Orphan Black characters not played by Tatiana Mislay

1. Felix Dawkins
2. Donnie Hendrix
3. Siobhan Sadler
4. Arthur Bell
5. Victor Schmidt
6. Mark Rollins
7. Delphine Cormier
8. Rudy

Fight me.

What's Orphan Black?
<_<
>_>

karmajay wrote:

What's Orphan Black?
<_<
>_>

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ClockworkHouse wrote:

1. This world
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Only cause you're in it, Dr. Clockenstein. *hugs*

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