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Post by Karen on Oct 5, 2005 12:01:42 GMT -5
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Oct 5, 2005 12:05:09 GMT -5
Just in case it really belongs here: Orson Scott Card's review of the BDM, here.
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Post by Karen on Oct 5, 2005 12:12:17 GMT -5
www.nationalreview.com/comment/preston200510050823.aspOctober 05, 2005, 8:23 a.m. When China Rules the Universe Serenity is what good sci-fi is all about By Bryan Preston I went into this film a blank slate. I never watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not once. I never watched Angel. And I never watched Firefly, the UPN cult series that more or less gave birth to Serenity. This is relevant because this movie was written and directed by Joss Whedon, the creative force behind all of those shows. His productions have earned him a loyal following on the Comicon circuit, as was evident by the high geek factor at the Serenity screening I attended. Even I felt undergeeked for the affair. So I went into Serenity only knowing what I had read in the synopsis and what I could see on the film’s web site. Based on the grungy post-industrial design, and the overly serious tone of the website, I expected a pretentious sci-fi film that would try to paper over the holes in its story with ponderous dialogue and clumsy character development, and make up for its lack of intelligence and soul with liberal doses of violence and digitally created set-piece battles. In other words, I expected quite a lot of what has become of the Star Wars franchise. But I went anyway. And I’ve never been more wrong. Serenity is nothing like my expectations. The film takes place 500 years from now, and judging from the art design, no, we still haven’t conquered rust. Though the film never spells it out explicitly, it’s clear from the kanji characters on viewscreens and in advertisements everywhere that at some point China surpassed the United States on the way to dominating the Alliance, a space-borne empire cobbled together from hundreds of worlds humans terraformed and colonized once Earth became a little too crowded. Though the Alliance claims to want nothing more than to create worlds without sin, its rule is ruthless. It is Mao’s dream realized among the stars. Billions choose not to live within its embrace, and instead inhabit worlds along the empire’s fringes. But that choice comes with its own perils — in the form of crime and raiding Reavers. Across this Red Chinese-dominated empire flies the Serenity, a funky chicken of a spacecraft that makes the Millennium Falcon look like a sleek and well-kept Ferrari. The flying deathtrap’s captain is Malcolm Reynolds (played well, for the most part, by Nathan Fillon), late of the losing side of a civil war that established the Alliance’s unchallenged rule. He and his crew have become outlaws living by their wits and their mutual loyalty, dodging Alliance police and cannibalistic Reavers while robbing banks to pay the bills. The Serenity’s crew encounter and harbor a pair of fugitives from the Alliance, which sends a deadly nameless operative (played with effective menace by Chiwetel Ejiofor) to hunt down and capture them. The operative’s writ includes a license to kill, and in exercising that license he makes the worst James Bond villain look like angelic. He is, as he describes himself midway through the film, “a monster.” One of the fugitives, a young psychic named River (Summer Glau), turns out to be the most dangerous seventeen-year-old girl in the universe. In emergencies, her lithe, lanky form becomes a weapon from the top of her stringy-haired head to the tips of her toes. The heart of this film is a tale of crime, punishment, and redemption worthy of Dostoyevsky. But where one might expect the heavy tones of Revenge of the Sith with its clumsy attempt at Shakespearean tragedy, you are instead treated to a interstellar spaghetti Western. Through humor mixed with danger and a dash of fright, the dross is melted away and the gold of the characters shines through. And lots of stuff blows up along the way. To describe the plot in much more detail would spoil it, but I will say that this film is at turns as dark as any horror film, as freewheeling as any Indiana Jones film, and as funny as any comedy. The latter came almost as a shock to me; having never watched any of Whedon’s other work I just didn’t see the pacing, timing, and deadpan humor coming at all. Serenity is everything good science fiction should be — swaggering, a little absurd, unpredictable, and wildly entertaining. In crafting the score, composer David Newman eschewed the usual blaring trumpets in favor of a mostly guitar and folk-based sound. It’s a brilliant if risky choice, lending the production a fittingly plucky, down-home sound. Serenity wraps its wild tale around a she-devil in a green cocktail dress with unstoppable ninja skills, a too-cute ship’s mechanic with an eye for a handsome (if frigid) doctor, a married couple that fights together against Reavers and their own captain, a jarhead fighting man named Jayne, a fetching if sarcastic “companion,” and the captain himself — along with his temperamental ship. Serenity is an unexpectedly quirky and entertaining film. It captures the camaraderie and energy of more famous sci-fi films while never falling into any of the usual traps inherent to the genre. If you like wit, thrills, heart, and space battles, you’ll just love Serenity.— Bryan Preston is a writer and television producer. He is also the author of Junkyardblog. * * *
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Post by Sue on Oct 5, 2005 13:03:54 GMT -5
Just in case it really belongs here: Orson Scott Card's review of the BDM, here. Anne, How could it not belong here? This is one of my most favorite reviews, ever. It makes me cry. And a great one to pass on to non(Joss)believers, since a lot of them (Allison for example) love both Ender's Game and anything by Charlie Kaufman. Thanks.
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Post by Karen on Oct 5, 2005 17:09:37 GMT -5
Just in case it really belongs here: Orson Scott Card's review of the BDM, here. Anne, How could it not belong here? This is one of my most favorite reviews, ever. It makes me cry. And a great one to pass on to non-believers, since a lot of them (Allison for example) love both Ender's Game and anything by Charlie Kaufman. Thanks. What a great review! Now I want to read "Ender's Game". Loved this: The key to this kind of movie is that you create a community that the audience wishes they belonged to, with a leader that even audience members who don't follow anybody would willingly follow. Oh, so true! Of Buffy and Angel, too. I'm so happy Joss is finally getting recognition from outside his homies.
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Post by Karen on Oct 6, 2005 11:34:52 GMT -5
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Oct 9, 2005 8:57:48 GMT -5
From today's Los Angeles Times Calendar section, an article about how Joss kept production of the BDM in LA, and why this is a great and noble thing. It also made Universal very happy because he managed to save money at the same time. If you haven't seen the movie yet, there are some spoilers.Article is here. The little picture of Joss directing Nathan Fillion is huge on the front page of Calendar, filling everything below the title and above the fold. It was a beautiful thing to find this morning. ;D Scroll down a bit, and there's a lovely picture of Joss, looking rather pleased with himself, with good reason.
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Post by iadorespike on Oct 9, 2005 9:41:54 GMT -5
From today's Los Angeles Times Calendar section, an article about how Joss kept production of the BDM in LA, and why this is a great and noble thing. It also made Universal very happy because he managed to save money at the same time. If you haven't seen the movie yet, there are some spoilers.Article is here. The little picture of Joss directing Nathan Fillion is huge on the front page of Calendar, filling everything below the title and above the fold. It was a beautiful thing to find this morning. ;D Scroll down a bit, and there's a lovely picture of Joss, looking rather pleased with himself, with good reason. Anne, Thank-you so much for posting this article. As if we needed one, here is One. More. Awesome. Reason. to love Joss. Anna
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Post by Karen on Oct 11, 2005 10:41:44 GMT -5
www.videosewer.com/Reviews/Serenity.htmSerenity Yo, up-front I must cop to being a recent convert to Firefly, the short-lived Fox TV series that earned a quick cancellation and fabulous martyrdom by being too good. So you should expect that I might not be the most objective reviewer. On the other hand, I guess I’ve seen a few movies over the years, and regular readers as well as those new to the Sewer can trust me when I say that Serenity works a hell of a lot better than Revenge of the Sith or even Star Wars Episode Four. It’s how sci-fi adventures should be done. A few serpentine twists in the first minutes bring non-Firefly-fans up to date while outlining the plot conflicts simply and concisely for everyone else. Not an easy task with nine principal characters - the rogue crew of the titular ship, but Writer-Director Joss Whedon does it with ease. As humbled-warrior and curmudgeon Mal Reynolds briefs his scrappy crew on the Robin Hood-style caper they’re about to pull, crap almost immediately starts to hit the fan. But inter-crew squabbles pale in comparison to an unforseen complication in the heist. After a smashmouth action sequence Serenity’s resident unstable ingenue River Tam goes all schizo for no apparant reason. Before you can curse in Chinese a galaxy-spanning adventure of social and political scale commences. Whedon gives it to us good as potentially mind-boggling intrigue is doled out in snappy, realistic dialogue: meanwhile every ten-minutes or so a rib-cracking fight or conflict with the speed-zombie-psycho Reavers breaks out. Serenity is a movie puzzle that fits together with deceptive ease. But above the machinations of a topical plot that puts to shame most Hollywood screenwriting, Serenity works so well because the archetypical characters and situations are sketched with a loving hand; armed with highly naturalistic dialog and placed in settings that are totally relatable to today’s culture.In fact Serenity is pretty damning social commentary for our times, sold by a Hollywood semi-outsider who’s had his biggest (certainly not immodest) success on The WB with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But all that is simply a transparent background for one of the most heart-felt, thrilling sci-fi action adventures of the last 20 years. All memories of smug Will Smiths, self-satisfied Harrison Fords or nasally-narcotised Tom Cruises are washed away in the graceful ion-trails of Serenity. Plus it kicks ass.
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Post by Sue on Oct 12, 2005 12:09:56 GMT -5
Not really an article or review. Karen is the Queen of Reviews (and articles), but what I construe as an extremely hopeful ratings sign. If you go to: www.the-numbers.com/charts/today.htmlyou can get daily box office figures. Now, I know all about the dropoff from first weekend to second weekend and I don't think we'll be able to draw any real conclusions until NEXT weekend. (Word of mouth takes time.) [Notice "The Greatest Game Ever Played at #10 marked "re-entry."] But, just comparing MOnday (Oct 3) to Monday (Oct 10): THAT dropoff is only 4.5% Now maybe the folk going on Mondays (and Tues, Wed, Thur) are really really hardcore Browncoats and it's them same 100,000 people or so; or, maybe word of mouth is picking up. Guess we'll have to wait until next weekend to see.
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Post by Squeemonster on Oct 12, 2005 13:50:52 GMT -5
Here's a link to something I found through Whedonesque-- Serenity in 2000 words or less. It's a funny spoof, but obviously written by someone who loves the show and the movie: www.swartzer.com/writing/serenity2000.phpETA: Very Spoilery!!!!
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Post by Karen on Oct 12, 2005 14:16:14 GMT -5
Not really an article or review. Karen is the Queen of Reviews (and articles), but what I construe as an extremely hopeful ratings sign. If you go to: www.the-numbers.com/charts/today.htmlyou can get daily box office figures. Now, I know all about the dropoff from first weekend to second weekend and I don't think we'll be able to draw any real conclusions until NEXT weekend. (Word of mouth takes time.) [Notice "The Greatest Game Ever Played at #10 marked "re-entry."] But, just comparing MOnday (Oct 3) to Monday (Oct 10): THAT dropoff is only 4.5% Now maybe the folk going on Mondays (and Tues, Wed, Thur) are really really hardcore Browncoats and it's them same 100,000 people or so; or, maybe word of mouth is picking up. Guess we'll have to wait until next weekend to see. Awesome site, Sue! Interesting numbers. It's lovely to see Serenity beating 2 for the Money (with high-powered stars - also Universal) and that 'Into the Blue' is nowhere to be seen. Just think what 1000 more theatres would have done for "Serenity's" numbers.
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Post by Anne, Old S'cubie Cat on Oct 12, 2005 14:17:55 GMT -5
Here's a link to something I found through Whedonesque-- Serenity in 2000 words or less. It's a funny spoof, but obviously written by someone who loves the show and the movie: www.swartzer.com/writing/serenity2000.php *Refrains, with great difficulty, from other spoilery comments.*
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Post by Karen on Oct 12, 2005 14:21:26 GMT -5
Here's a link to something I found through Whedonesque-- Serenity in 2000 words or less. It's a funny spoof, but obviously written by someone who loves the show and the movie: www.swartzer.com/writing/serenity2000.phpOooo, love the little details this brought out. Like a piece of the nose section falling off at the beginning/piece of the tail falling off at the end. JOSS WHEDON: *snicker*Not a bad synopsis really. Totally agree with: (OK, seriously, I loved this move, even though I've still been thinking "Whedon, you bastard!" at random intervals for a week now.)
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Post by Lola m on Oct 12, 2005 16:29:45 GMT -5
Here's a link to something I found through Whedonesque-- Serenity in 2000 words or less. It's a funny spoof, but obviously written by someone who loves the show and the movie: www.swartzer.com/writing/serenity2000.phpETA: Very Spoilery!!!! #chuckle#
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