Serenity premiere and Scarface

Yesterday the premiere for Serenity was held in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh film festival. Serenity is a film based on Joss Weadon’s (Buffy creator) short lived television series “Firefly”. This series is without a doubt one of the best shows I have ever seen – better even than Buffy and Angel. It was a crying shame that it was cancelled, so I am understandably very excited at the prospect of a film of this series.

Unlike most premieres this was open to the general public and a few weeks ago the tickets went on sale. My wife and I spent several hours trying to get hold of the box office by phone or online, by the time we finally managed to get through the tickets had been sold out.

A report on the Serenity premiere can be found here: http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/features/festival/edinburgh2005/

Whilst I am disappointed that I could not make it to the premiere I am glad that the film is generating so much excitement. I just hope that people who are not familiar with Firefly give the film a chance. If Serenity turns out to be a success Joss Weadon has said that he would be happy to make further films (perhaps as a trilogy), although in my perfect little world the series would continue once again. Also, in the interim, Joss Weadon has a little film by the name of Wonder Woman to make.

I just hope that the Cinema here is Guernsey decides to show Serenity (although I’m not holding out much hope). If not I may be forced to go to Jersey to see it.

Films watched:
Scarface
I have not seen this film for several years, but managed to get the special edition dirt cheap on DVD from Amazon in their recent sale.

Whilst this is a gangster film it is by far the polar opposite of the Godfather films. Pacino’s character in Scarface Tommy Montana bears no resemblance whatsoever to the cool, calm, scheming Michel Corleon. This never comes close to the greatness of the Godfather films, but is still a very powerful film in its own right. The phrase “the world is yours” is used at several key times throughout the film and no other film that I can think off, aptly shows that owning and achieving everything you could ever want, simply isn’t enough.

I can now also see the huge influence this had on Grand Theft Auto : Vice City (together with of course Miami Vice), in both the setting, characters and also the soundtrack.

This film also has one of the most spectacular shootouts as an ending, together with one of my favourite quotes, namely “say hello to my little friend”.

7.5/10

Games playing:
Tales of Symphonia
I have decided to give up on this game.

It feels too much like a RPG which has been watered down and is catering for the type of audience that enjoy Smash Brothers. There is very little strategy involved in the battles and you can only control one character during fights, the rest are computer controlled. The animation and graphics really are quite stunning, it just isn’t the type of RPG that caters for my taste. I may have to return back to Disgaea for a good session of strategic roleplay.