All the ads for the new movie Horton Hears a Who (which I’m looking forward too, never mind the Grinches over at Dave’s) has reminded me of a minor problem I have with Horton’s behavior in the original book.

After the Wickersham brothers take the clover they give it to the black-bottomed eagle Vlad Vladikoff, who drops it in a field of clovers (of course I remember the whole book, I handle story time for a seven year old every night, so I’ve only read this book about once a week for the last five years). I’ve always felt that the story should have ended right there… at that point, what good does it do for Horton to search through three million flowers to find the one with the speck? If he’d just well enough alone the Whos would have remained hidden in that field for the rest of their short, tiny lives, never again to be threatened by killjoy kangaroos with beezlenut oil.

(Topic for another post: What the fuck is the kangaroo’s problem? Horton ain’t hurting nobody, but that jackass marsupial just can’t let it go. Is Dr. Seuss a libertarian? Cause everyone in the book but Horton and the Whos sure act like nanny statists engaged in a metaphor for the War on Drugs.)

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Colby Cosh trashes Joss Whedon and the Cult of Firefly for about a thousand words before admitting that he actually liked Serenity. His points about the creepiness of Firefly evangelists are well-articulated and correct (it is kinda creepy), but basically miss the point. Says Cosh:

The Browncoats want everyone to like “Firefly”. (Or, rather cynically, they want just enough people to like it so that studios will go on bankrolling it.) In the end it’s not clear that the show matters as much as being part of the group that watches the show.

The parenthetical, I think, is more true than the original assertion, and it’s a very different kind of evangelism (if it’s even evangelism at all).

I’m certainly not a Browncoat… I didn’t even know Firefly existed until it was off the air, so my views might not be typical. I don’t care if everyone likes my favorite shows, but if no one likes them, they’ll be cancelled. I don’t like stories to just end, with all sorts of loose threads and unanswered questions. I guess I’m just selfish that way. If I had $40 million to throw around I would have payed Whedon and company to make Serenity, even if they insisted that only I watch it. Sure, it’d be lonely not being able to discuss the movie with anyone, but I’d sacrifice that if it meant that I could find out what happened next.

But I don’t have Oprah money, so I just had to hope that there were enough fanboys out there to make the movie economically feasible. I have to believe that nearly all the Browncoats, even the proactive ones that used the Internet to cajole, feel the same way. So I don’t think that “being part of the group,” other than the economic power that comes with a crowd, is the most important element here. It really is about the story.

I’m glad that Cosh liked it, no matter how reluctanctly. After all, that’s another few bucks that the studio might put into a sequel. It also gives me another (ironic) opportunity to evangelize to an untapped market for Serenity: the Whedon-haters. If Colby Cosh, Whedon-hater, liked Serenity, you might too! Go see it tonight!

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According to this website Serenity made a good but still disappointing $3.9 million on opening day. Usually a movie makes 30% of it’s weekend take on Friday, so it will probably make less than $15 million this weekend. That’s still good enough for second place, behind Flightplan, so perhaps it’s only disappointing because I’ve been on the inside of a blogger-based echo chamber of hype.

What surely can’t be described as disappointing are the sales of the Firefly DVD set. As I write this post it’s number three at Amazon, behind only the DVD debut of Cinderella and some Family Guy thing. (That’s an interesting portent, because we all know what happened when Family Guy sold a ton of discs after being cancelled.) Obviously, the movie is driving a whole lot of those DVD sales. Hopefully a solid percentage of newbies are leaving the movie wanting to see more.

I don’t know anything about the licensing agreement between Fox and Universal, perhaps it makes it impossible for the series to return to teevee. But my hope for Serenity is that it does ok, makes a tidy profit, yet doesn’t become a blockbuster. Then, if the DVD sales are good for the next six months, Fox may decide to bring the series back rather than let Universal make a sequel.

Personally, I’d much prefer to see a new Whedon story weekly rather than deal with a movie franchise. It’s gonna suck to wait two or three years between movies to find out what happens.

Update: Well, the box office estimates have Serenity at $10 million for the weekend. Not good, but it’s beating Flightplan on a per-screen basis, so maybe with that and word-of-mouth there won’t be much fall-off this week.

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The review I wrote of Serenity was based on the free press screening that Universal invited bloggers to attend. I think this was the first time a major movie studio let bloggers into a screening, and I think it’s a great idea and (hopefully) the start of a trend. I love going to free movies before they’re released.

Since this was the first, there were definitely some kinks. This Blogcritics post outlines all of the issues that bloggers had with the event. Most of the problem was with the ambiguous wording of the email the PR firm sent to invited bloggers (well, most invited bloggers. I didn’t get the email, more on that later).

Congratulations! You are one of the lucky bloggers to be chosen and confirmed for the screening of SERENITY for the time, date and the number of guests that you have requested. Please note, this confirmation DOES NOT guarantee you a seat at the screening.

To significantly increase your chances of getting into the screening, you MUST do the following:

· You MUST include the film’s synopsis on your blog (synopsis below) and you MUST link your blog to the SERENITY website (which has the trailer and production notes) http://www.serenitymovie.com and featured artwork. After you have screened the film, please discuss it on your blog. Please provide us the links to all of your blog posts on SERENITY at serenity@gracehillmedia.com
· Print out and bring a copy of this confirmation.
· Arrive at the theater AT LEAST 45 minutes before the show begins.
· Upon arrival at the theater, please find a UNIVERSAL PICTURES representative and inform him or her that you are part of the SERENITY BLOGGER BONANZA. The Universal rep will then instruct you as to what to do next.
· DO NOT bring in a camera or a cellular phone that takes pictures. They WILL be confiscated, and you will NOT be allowed into the screening.
· Have a great time!

Like I said, I didn’t get this email. Perhaps my spam filters trashed it, it certainly reads like bad spam. If I’d known there was going to be an email, I would have looked for it in the junk folder, but the webpage I was sent to after signing up said, basically, you’re on the list: Just show up with ID and without recording devices, skip to the front of the line, and enjoy the show.

Several parts of this email are obviously poorly worded. But is it by design, or just stupidity? Certainly the sentence, “This confirmation DOES NOT guarantee you a seat at the screening,” makes no sense at all, but it could be intended to be nonsensical. Perhaps they were just poorly organized and didn’t know how many seats would be available, so they figured they’d use the word “confirmation” to get people to show and then add a bit of weasel language at the end. That way they’d have an excuse when everyone who didn’t get in got angry. It also makes no sense that they would confiscate your camera phone and kick you out of the screening. Doesn’t it seem like one or the other would be enough? I also seriously doubt that a private company is even allowed to confiscate my property.

It’s completely, totally ridiculous to expect a blogger to post their synopsis and artwork. Link to the website? Fine, I did that anyway, and you can follow that to read as much synopsis and look at as much artwork as you like. Plus, the synopsis was really lame and badly written. Check out a (slightly) edited version at dorkafork’s place. And when did they expect me to post the synopsis? I’d assume as part of my review after I’d seen the movie, but the email states that, “to significantly increase your chances of getting into the screening,” you must post the synopsis, artwork, and link. So did they want me to write about the movie before I saw it? I just don’t know.

Luckily, none of that mattered. It wouldn’t have anyway, I’m not principled enough to skip a free screening over little quibbles like this. I still wouldn’t have posted their synopsis, but I don’t think that changes anything. What are they going to do, not invite me to the sequel which might not even get made, anyway?

The “Blogger Bonanza” was a good idea, poorly executed (and poorly named. Bonanza?), but hopefully it helps word-of-mouth on the movie anyway. That way they’ll try again, and be less heavy-handed and better organized next time.

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Serenity is a very, very satisfying movie, and that was a tough trick to pull. A movie based on a beloved (yet short lived) teevee series and written and directed by a man frequently called a genius has to be great to satisfy. I really don’t think that this movie would be any good if it was merely good. If that makes any sense at all.

(On the way to the theater I expressed this fear to my wife, and she said, “Of course it will be great! It’s Joss Whedon, he’s a genius!” I replied, “Ever seen Alien: Resurrection?”)

What really stood out was the writing, of course. The characters are mostly drawn from action film archetypes (there’s the amoral tough guy, the spunky woman [well, several spunky women], the conflicted leader) and they could have been cardboard flat. Instead they were all very human, reacting to situations and each other unpredictably but always in ways that make sense. There were also lots of classic Whedon bits: extremely funny lines in the middle of intense action, emotionally crushing blows, and lifting moments of victory. Sometimes all three in the same shot.

Afterwards Zombyboy (he’s got a review with links to other reviews posted here) mentioned that he saw a strong anarcho-libertarian thread running through the picture. He’s absolutely right. Mal, the captain of the Serenity, fought on the losing side of a rebellion against the autocratic Alliance. Now he thinks only of himself. Well, only of himself and his crew. Well, only of himself and his crew until the good of the entire universe gets in the way. That might seem like a contradiction, how can one be an anarcho-libertarian while trying to better the whole of humanity? In fact, at one point Mal says, “The Alliance is trying to make us better, and I don’t hold to that.” But Mal isn’t trying to make anyone better, he just wants the freedom for everyone to be better (assuming that’s what they choose). And he’s using the most powerful weapon he’s got to fight government control.

That weapon is information. One important character is a kind of hacker whose tagline is, “You can’t stop the signal.” It’s a great summary of the power of information disseminating technology, whether it’s the printing press, teevee, or blogging. (It’s also the title of Steve Green’s review, not-so-incidentally.) The idea that a small band of individuals working together, even though they have different and sometimes conflicting motives and goals, can manage to do more for the cause of freedom than an armed rebellion is very powerful, and is the real theme of Serenity.

That sounds really heavy (and boring) but trust me, the movie isn’t. It’s hilarious, moving, intense, and just plain wonderful. Please see it this weekend so they’ll make another.

Update: Here’s a funny review from dorkafork. Contains light spoilers. Also, I figure I should say just one negative thing about the movie: the great theme song from the teevee show was (almost) entirely missing.

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The Gauntlet was pretty good, but I found the police violence to be unrealistic. Doesn’t shooting the house until it literally falls down because there might be three armed men inside seem over the top? Perhaps I’m just naive, or in the thrall of a Republikudnik conspiracy.*

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Now I’ve finally seen Walking Tall. Not a great movie, but I’ve decided I really like Joe Don Baker.*

I just started writing this series of posts, but I’ve been working through a Netflix queue of Goldstein movies for a few weeks now. So far I’ve watched Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, The French Connection, The French Connection II, The Laughing Policeman, The Conversation, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Marathon Man, and Straw Dogs. My favorites were The Laughing Policeman and The Conversation. I’ve realized that Gene Hackman is probably my favorite actor, and Walter Mathau is right on up there, which is kind of surprising.

Anyway, I think that’s pretty good progress, especially since my wife positively hates Jeff’s taste in movies, so I end up watching these after she’s gone to bed or on the rare nights she goes out without me. She’s out of town this week. Hopefully Netflix gets two or three movies to me before she gets back.

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I finished watching Charley Varrick tonight. Not as good as The Laughing Policeman, but pretty good anyway.*

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Million Dollar Baby (2004) Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Clint Eastwood, Hillary Swank, and Morgan Freeman.

Four words or less review: “The saddest movie ever?”*

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What happens when a movie with dialogue in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew makes $600 million? You get a movie that’s entirely subtitled Mayan. If y’all go to see this one his next project will be in some twinspeak that only Mel and his brother Marvin understand.

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