Last night was the blogger preview for the new Joss Whedon masterpiece
Serenity. (I will go into a gushing, fanboy review of the film later, I promise!). Well, at least I'd heard it was the blogger preview but it appears that bloggers is defined as also "listeners of 102.9 the Buzz" and fellow Browncoats (the adopted name of the
Firefly faithful).
OK, so I admit I was a little psyched to see this movie...in a way I haven't been really excited about seeing a movie since
Spider-Man 2 came out last year. Because, yes, I'm a
Firefly snob. I watched it when it was on TV and had taped every episode because, well, I'm just that way. I was one of those fans who helped the first set of pre-order sets sell out on Amazon in less than a day. I really wanted to go to this year's DragonCon to meet Joss Whedon and the cast behind the movie, but then Joss cancelled and life got in the way, so I didn't end up going. Oh yeah, and I spent a good bit of time looking for the three-issue limited run comic book that leads up to the movie.
But I don't really have a problem. Seriously, I can quit anytime. No, really I can.
I arrived out at the theater early because, well, the instructions I got from the Universal marketing department said we had to be there early and just cause I got an e-mail didn't guarantee that I'd get in the show. So, I figured there must be this huge mass of fans just waiting to see the movie--or more likely a whole bunch of us bloggers who can't resist a free movie on a Wednesday night--and I made plans to get out there, eat dinner and then go to the theater early. Now, after reading about how I had to promote the movie on my blog and bring the e-mail printed out because if you don't you won't get in, I thought security to get passes would be a bit tighter than it was. I was fully expecting full body cavity searches to take place to ensure we weren't somehow going to pirate the film out to the Internet. Instead, it turned out to be rather anti-climatic when the guy handing out passes didn't even look at my e-mail or ask who I was but just handed me a ticket. In an ironic twist of events, my cousin who attended the movie with me, also got a free pass and she doesn't even have a blog. Of course, she is a female and the guy handing out the tickets is male, so you do the math. But seriously...all she had to do was hold out her hand and grab one..which we got to give to my good friend Sarah, who made the same mistake I did last week of trusting Yahoo Maps to give you good directions somewhere. Thankfully the waiter at Rafferty's was kind enough to give her directions on my cell phone.
Now, when we were standing in line, I had the first of my "wow, I'm sure glad I didn't bring someone who barely knows me" moments of the evening. See, when I heard I could get two passes (actually each pass was for two people) I thought--there are some lovely women I know who I'd enjoy spending time with and getting to know better, so maybe I could ask them. Then I thought--yeah, you're one of the biggest
Firefly goobers out there and if she made the mistake of, oh I don't know, speaking to me during the film, that might not bode well for a potential second-date. I mean, you want to make a good first impression and I didn't figure this would be the best way to do that. Standing in line, waiting for theater guy to get back with passes, there were some people in front of us who were very serious about the movie...as in more serious than I was. One of them had blue gloves that they were ready to pull out and threaten theater employees with if we didn't get our passes. Also, there were threats to "go all River on their asses" if we didn't get into the screening. (If you've seen the show or movie, you'll get both of those...well, except the blue hands who don't show up in the film.)
Of course, we have nothing on the
Star Wars fans....
After getting our passes, Rebecca (my cousin) and I went and into line to wait to get in. At this point, I joked that it'd be a shame if someone was driving up on a Wednesday night to catch a showing of
The Man and left thinking the lines were too long. Actually, standing there, I don't think we saw one person walk up and buy a ticket for any of the other shows at the Regal Hollywood 27.
Since I knew there would be fellow Nashville bloggers there, I decided to make it easy to find me and I wore an orange shirt. Well, that and coupled with my still deep well of pride that we came back to beat LSU Monday night. Right away, I met
Katherine from Just Another Pretty Farce, who went far more subtle with her prop to identify herself by bringing a book. I met her husband Tim and we chatted a bit in line until
Sarah and her friend Carrie Anne finally arrived at the theater. I also met
Pam from PKNail.We were finally allowed inside the theater and went on the Bataan death march to the farthest auditorium from the front of the theater. Which is OK, but I think I saw St Bernards with barrels around their necks running around out there in case anyone passed out from the long march. We found seats, got settled and then...well, it was time to wait some more. Cause they let us really early--I think we got seated by about 7 and the movie was scheduled to start at 7:30. The guys from the Buzz were there and attempted to entertain us by being funny (they weren't) and handing out free stuff such as t-shirts and passes to another movie next week. Of course, they handed out the passes by putting them down front and I was up close to the top so by the time I got there, the passes were all gone. Headed down to get a pass, Katherine asked me if I had no shame to which I responded, "You've read my blog..."
After my humilating defeat to get free passes, I stopped by to chat with a group of bloggers who'd come out. It was Pam, Katherine, Tim, and two new people I hadn't met yet--
Pink Kitty and
Elena. Katherine and I discussed last week's
BSG (which I swear to y'all I will do my commentary at some point this week!) and other SciFi topics (such as which
BSG set is the one to buy) I pointed out that I was once again mad at SciFi for screwing with us--last week they announced "Oh make sure you don't miss the last two minutes and we're gonna run over two minutes on
BSG on Friday!" If by run over, you mean end early and then make you wait to see a clips package telling you all the shows would return in January. First you cancel
Farscape, then you pass on the new
Dr Who and now this! I tell you, if not for BSG, I'd be rioting in the streets, SciFi.
We looked around for other bloggers who'd said they'd be there, but not everyone went the obvious distinguish yourself in public route I did so we don't know if they were there. I did look for
Dana from Ain't No Rodeo Queen but never saw her there before the movie started and we never did see
A.C. Maybe next time we should all agree to wear a button or something....
But, anyway, after all that build-up, it was finally about time to start the movie. I went back to my seat and got settled, announcing to Sarah, CarrieAnne and Rebeeca that my watch said it was 7:29 and 50 seconds, so the lights should go down in ten seconds cause it was all about me. The lights went down twenty seconds later...thus only reinforcing that assumption.
We got a preview for
Doom (dear heavens why?!?) and then...it was time for
Serenity.
I will have a long, gushing, I love Joss Whedon review later....but suffice it to say--I loved it. Best movie I've seen this year, hands down.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 9/29/2005 07:53:00 AM |
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