::@:: Reality of Dreams ::@::

“It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In LA, nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something. “

Last night I went to see Crash… it was quite simply fantastic, it was deep and heavy plot driven movie about a interconnecting web of connections between a small group of people and how in the space of about 48 hours their lives all crash together. It is also film which focuses of racism, of all types. To be honest I feel that the phrase “a film about racism” is perhaps too loaded a term for this movie. It looks deeply at various racial issues on all sides of the divide, how people continue to perpetrate the stereotype even whilst they complain about being stereotyped and lots of other race issues.

The acting is superb from everyone to the point where you can even feel some level of sympathy for a racist, not for who he is or what he says, but rather for the situation in his personal life which in many ways was the trigger for his racist beliefs. The direction of the film lends itself well to the mass of interwoven plot threads that pull closer and closer together. The plot twists were well placed and used sparingly and added to the drama that was unfolding rather than confusing matters.

Basically if you get a chance see this film. It is a solid piece of filmmaking and after watching it I had the mental satisfaction equivalent to having just eaten a top-notch meal. It has a lot of swearing and one nude scene but even with that I would recommend it for anyone who would like to use a movie to explore race issues within a group environment even if it is with teenagers. It is rated at a 15, although if you want to exercise caution I’d say for 18’s and above.

Ahem… Huzzah!!!! Yet another thing I have wanted to do in my life before I shuffle (or more likely, fall screaming) from this mortal coil can be ticked off… for I have now attended a World Premier of a motion picture.

What can I say, I am biased towards this film from the outset not only is by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy and Angel in case you did not know) but it comes from the best science fiction series (that I have seen) this side of Babylon 5, namely Firefly. A travesty of epic proportions was unleashed when Firefly was cancelled before its time. Firefly (and Serenity) revolves around a grouping of effectively smugglers/robbers/whatever-it-takes-to-live types in the frontier of a brave new series of teraformed worlds… oh basically it’s a western (think Deadwood) in space.

As for the premier we arrived an hour before the film was meant to start to see a queue already stretching most of the length of the building. It turned out people in this queue had been there since 4pm-5pm (the film was meant to start at 9.30pm), some had paid up to £150 per ticket (normal retail was nearly £8)… welcome to the sometimes frightening world of geek-fan-dom. Because we were queuing we didn’t see the stars arrive, although Adam Baldwin did make a brief visit just to marvel at the length of the queue (it would turn out that nearly 500 people attended the showing).

Eventually we got in; already it looked as if the film would start late… which it did. The compare for the show was one of the Film Festival’s director-types and was fantastic. I found him to be very funny and light hearted and there was also a real sense that he was just as excited as the rest of us (a fact later confirmed while we waited for the Q&A session to start). Anyway, at about 10pm Joss Whedon and the cast came in to thunderous applause and standing ovations, and the film got underway.

Now if you have ever seen Firefly and even just liked it then Serenity is an amazing film. It captures the feeling of the series on the big screen and manages to create a wealth of emotions, surprises and twists that to be honest I did not expect. One of the main one’s, for me anyway, had me thinking that it was going to be undone at any moment in dramatic fashion… but never was. The film was filled with scenes of the horrors in this world, the things people do and have done to them because of others. The main premise revolves around the mysterious River Tam, who from the series you know has been messed around with by the government and has some terrifying combat skills… well you ain’t seen nothing. I want to say more but at the same time I do not want to ruin anything for anyone who may go and see it when it is eventually released in the UK.

Needless to say the effects were superb and the space shots were fantastic. As usually for Firefly there was no sound in the space sequence (except music)… which is such a refreshing change. The acting was the same high calibre I have come to expect from the cast and the comedic elements were well placed and quite often subtly placed, well, perhaps not so subtle but still they were funny. Erm… not much else I can say without going too deep into the plot (which would ruin it).

If you’re a Firefly fan go and see this, support this, get your friends to see it. If you’re a science fiction fan go and see… in fact everyone, even if you don’t think that it’ll be your thing, go and see the film (mainly because if enough people do we may get a sequel - or prequel). Although if you get a chance watch the series before hand, I think it would help get a feel and increase the impact of the story line.

Anyway, the Q&A session afterwards (which didn’t start until nearly 1am) was fantastic, the Cast and Joss took a variety of questions, most of which were well thought out. There were the obligatory song/dance requests which resulted in us being treated to, according to Adam Baldwin, the last ever performance of the “Jayne Song”, a really badly out of tune rendition of the TV show theme song by the audience, the “Dance of Joy” performed by Nathan Fillon… basically the entire evening was blast.

I doubt Joss Whendon or the cast will ever see this but I doff my cap to them all for being such great fun and producing a fantastic film that I enjoyed immensely. It was an amazing evening and I hope the film does as well as it deserves.

EDIT: Woot!! I submitted a review to Bureau 42 and its got published - HERE