Two LOST thoughts...

1. If I had to make a list of people I did not want to see charging out of a jungle waving a machete at me, Adebisi would be at the very top of the list.

2. I want to see the scene where Charlie tells Claire, "It's not drugs if they come from the Virgin Mary!"

Serenity wow.

Last night She Who Must Be Obeyed and I attended the local preview screening of Serenity; I will not discuss whether my eagerness to attend this screening was informed partly by a desire to cut short the time during which I could not discuss the movie with her by three days. Without getting into the spoilers I so diligently avoided spilling in the three months since I saw an advance screening, I have to say that it's a terrific movie, even without the frisson of "I can't believe I'm seeing these people again!" that I had the first time I saw it, and I don't think people who have not seen the series will be lost. There's a rather large infodump at the beginning of the movie -- it starts with a dream sequence that turns out to be within a flashback that leads to the introduction of the film's villain, which I think is some sort of record. (She Who Must Be Obeyed found this harder to take than I did.)

What else can I say without giving anything away? It's a shame that so much this cast of incredibly talented people don't seem to have turned up in very much since the series ended, and I hope that their careers flourish in projects worthy of their skills. I believe that Gina Torres is not a human being, but a goddess of beauty sent from a higher plane to enlighten us all. Damn Fox for killing this show through sheer incompetence, and thanks to Joss and Universal for making this return happen. And despite the thrill that this movie is, I can't help but lament the fact that we were denied the chance to see these characters and their universe unfold slowly, over dozens of episodes and multiple seasons. Unfinished epics always hurt, but this one now hurts just a little bit less.

Serenity soon?

This could be interesting. I followed a link on Whedonesque to submit my name to get into Tuesday's press screening of Serenity as part of a "Serenity Blogger Bonanza" and just got confirmation of that -- although confirmation does not equal a guaranteed seat, so this is apparently a different kind of confirmation than one would normally associate with that word. Still, its great to see Universal trying new ideas to build the buzz for the movie, and (if we get in) it will be great to see if there have been any changes since the preview screening She Who Must Be Obeyed, AKA The Best Wife Ever, made me attend without her.

I'll post some spoiler-free thoughts after the screening (should we get in); and if you're wondering what the hell this "Serenity" thing I'm talking about is, here's the studio synopsis:

Joss Whedon, the Oscar® - and Emmy - nominated writer/director responsible for the worldwide television phenomena of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE, ANGEL and FIREFLY, now applies his trademark compassion and wit to a small band of galactic outcasts 500 years in the future in his feature film directorial debut, Serenity. The film centers around Captain Malcolm Reynolds, a hardened veteran (on the losing side) of a galactic civil war, who now ekes out a living pulling off small crimes and transport-for-hire aboard his ship, Serenity. He leads a small, eclectic crew who are the closest thing he has left to family – squabbling, insubordinate and undyingly loyal.

And if you're intrigued, why not visit the movie's official site?

Left hand, right hand...

One of these guys did not get the right set of talking points.

Senator Tom Coburn, R-Okla.:

"It is inexcusable for the White House and Congress to not even make the effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending...No one in America believes the federal government is operating at peak efficiency and can't tighten its belt."

Tom Delay:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R) said that "Republicans have done so well in cutting spending that he declared an 'ongoing victory,' and said there is simply no fat left to cut in the federal budget," the Washington Times reports.

Autographic D'Onofrio

Vincent D'Onofrio on giving autographs:

You just have to know that when you go outside you have to sign autographs. You just have to be ready to go around the corner to buy some milk and sign an autograph or two on the way and on the way back. You just have to prepare yourself for it. And I do it. It's OK with me. I've never, ever turned one down. Gregory Hines taught me to be graceful about it, that it's really important. When you do theater, people get to stand up and clap at the end. But when you do film and TV, they don't get to do that. So people come up to you on the street. That's all they're doing, applauding you.

As I said, I've never thought of it that way before, but reading it makes it seem thunderingly obvious.

Stunt casting

This is the season when we'll finally see Tom Wopat guest-star on Smallville as an old friend of Jonathan's, an overdue bit of stunt casting no doubt prompted by the summer's Dukes of Hazzard movie. Will it take a Jeeves & Wooster remake to get Stephen Fry on an episode or three of House as House's rival from medical school?

Powerful posting

Dave of Dave's Long Box presents what he calls The Best Post Ever.

Super preview

Focused Totality provides a glimpse at Frank Quitely's artwork for the upcoming All-Star Superman book from DC. It's nice to have a Superman comic book to actually look forward to, one in which Superman might actually resemble the world's greatest superhero for a change of pace.

A comment on the post notes that some fanboys are denouncing the project on the grounds of the exceedingly minor tweaks Quitely has made to Superman's "S" emblem. I suspect that the tweaks are nothing more than someone at DC thinking, "Hey, if we have an All-Star specific 'S' we can use it on action figures and t-shirts and posters and..."

I'm just sayin', is all.

And we're back. Again.

Since my last entry, I've a) turned 31, which is practically 40, which is practically dead, and b) passed my oral prelim exam and am now ABD in political science. Just a dissertation to write and I'm officially learned. Of course, Dick Cheney is also ABD in political science, and, well, that's really a bad example, isn't it? On a more interesting hand, David Duchovny is ABD in English at Yale. Hollywood, here I come!