Serenity

I went to see Serenity last night, with erykah101. I am a fan of Firefly; erykah101 has seen maybe one episode. I know all the character names and background; erykah101 knows her Joss meta. Really, between the two of us, we were pretty representative of Joss' fanbase.

( Slight spoilers, but hopefully nothing too bad if you've seen the trailers and/or watched the show )

Right, so the film itself was good, and I'm giving it 8.5 out of 10 and many thumbs up.

After the movie, Joss and Summer Glau turned up for questions. Let me say now - oh my dear god, Summer is tiny. Like, tiny tiny. And, being a dancer, she doesn't look skinny or unhealthy, just tiny.

She was also absolutely adorable. She had trouble sitting in the big chair set out for her. In had a gap at the back, and she couldn't arrange herself against it, then dropped her bag through it and had to go hunt for it, then nearly fell off - bless her. "You're not to laugh at me, I tried so hard to be grown up tonight!" She wailed at one point. She is so unbelievably adorable, I think I have a slight (or possibly not so slight) crush.

Apparently, anything that went wrong on the set is Summer's fault. So, when she dropped her bag etc., the entire auditorium called, "Suuuuum-mer!" And she turned bright red. I say again - adorable.

I can't remember much of the Q & A, to be honest, because I was very much drugged up to the eyeballs. However, I did manage to gather enough wits together to ask one question (I was 'lady in the blue hat', because my mummy told me to wrap up warm. Shaddup.). I asked Joss about Book's background (because it turned out all them spoilers I had thrown at me? Were wrong.). Do you know what he said? ( spoilery by omission, I guess. )

So I'm officially sulking. :)

Oh! And the Session 416 clips that have been surfacing? The doctor in them is played by Joss himself, 'cause he couldn't be bothered to cast anyone as they were done spur of the moment. And there will be more coming out, apparently. So it's all good.

There was much talk about the marketing and promotion of Serenity, as well, which mainly centred on TPTB showing the film to people. This undderstandably made Joss nervous. "But, if they're all going to see the movie before opening weekend, then, come opening weekend, won't they... all have seen the movie already?" *clutches head in pain* Hopefully, though, it'll work a treat, and all those people who've already seen it will encourage their non-fan friends etc to go see this really cool new movie.

And you should. Because it's the best damn sci-fi movie out in freaking ages. Plus? There's politics in it. And cultural imperialism. And, also, ass-kicking.

(no subject)

The Save the Children report on girl wives and child soldiers vis a vis the demobilisation process in the DRC is here and well worth a read. Warning: pdf file, Acrobat Reader required to view.

Heads-up from the african_studies community.

Meme fun

Icon pairings meme from penknife:

Make a list of all the characters in your icons. (Although you may have more than one icon of a single character, they only go on the list once.) Alphabetize it. Take the first two people on the list; that's your first pairing. Second two people; second pairing. Etc.

Right: I've removed any characters who didn't have names (e.g. comic book guy from The Simpsons), and also the one random one from Desolation Jones because I can't find the character's name. The rest – in alphabetical order by surname, unless they only have one name – are paired here:

( Read more... )