"Why don't you tell your dreams to me? Fantasy will set you free."

We watched Sahara again over the weekend and I took great delight in listening to one of my favourite scenes – the moment when Dirk and Al rebuild a wrecked airplane into a desert wind surfer. Why do I enjoy listening to this scene so much? Well it just happens to use one of my favourite songs, Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf.

When Shauna and I went on our honeymoon in Las Vegas we had a rather unfortunate experience, to say the least. I was woken up at about 4:00am on our second day there by the sound of Shauna screaming, laying on the bathroom floor. I immediately called 911 (there’s a story there, but I’ll let Shauna tell you about it) and we soon found ourselves in an ambulance on our way to the hospital. I ended up riding shotgun in the ambulance and as the driver peeled out onto the street he turned up the radio. I’m not sure if that was to drown out Shauna’s screams or if it was meant to calm me. Strangely, it had both effects, to some degree. While I was 90% terrified about what was happening to Shauna, I was 10% exhilarated to be riding fast in an ambulance with the radio turned up, blasting none other than Magic Carpet Ride – now immortalized as ‘our song’.

Star Trek: First Contact, Apollo 13 and Reservoir Dogs are just a few of the other terrific movies that have used this fantastic song. And every time I hear it, it brings a smile to face.

Every time Shauna hears it I think she grimaces in pain. Turns out she had a kidney stone. For which they gave her lots of nasty drugs, sending her on her own magic carpet ride.

"We're gonna explode? I don't wanna explode!"

With my roommate currently in South Africa, I’ve been taking the opportunity to steal movies from his DVD collection and replace them with VHS copies of Three’s Company re-runs. I hope he won’t notice. I recently had the opportunity to watch a couple of “my” new DVDs. One of them was surprisingly entertaining while the other made me miss that one Three’s Company re-run I replaced it with. You know, that episode where there’s a misunderstanding? Classic.

I’m not going to go into the background on the history of the Firefly television series and explain how it got cancelled, gained a cult following and eventually sold enough DVD copies to warrant a feature film. The main reason being that I never watched the original series. I was worried that watching Serenity without having seen the TV show would leave me confused and uninterested. I was just looking for something I hadn’t seen before and that might provide some mindless entertainment. Fortunately, Serenity managed to keep me in the loop and provided some very good entertainment. And not just mindless entertainment either.

Serenity follows the story of the crew of the title-named ship. A Firefly class ship, from what I understand (thus the TV series name). Think of it like a Star Trek movie. All the same actors and characters are here from the television series. Simon and his younger sister, River, have joined the crew after Simon risked all to rescue River from the evil government, known as the Alliance. River was the subject of numerous experiments aimed at turning her into a psychic super-weapon. I know, I know, just stay with me. The rest of the crew are your not-so-run-of-the-mill characters including a war-vet captain, a trigger happy strong man, an inventive mechanic and several others. Together they must fight against the Alliance, and other enemies, to discover the secret that River carries in her mind.

The story sounds a bit cheesy and the characters do seem somewhat cliché, but I was pleased to discover that the interactions between these characters are what make the film so enjoyable. The script has numerous moments of witty banter that could only stem from a cast that has worked together before. You really feel that these people know each other inside and out. The dialogue alone is almost enough to interest me in buying the Firefly series.

The plot has a lot of potential, and sometimes that potential is actually realized on screen, but for the most part this is your basic solve-the-mystery and save-the-universe type of deal. I won’t go into details but there’s enough here to keep you interested, though it certainly won’t blow your mind.

I’m not sure how fans of the series reacted to the film version, but from what little I’ve read on the internet, it appears most of the fans are very happy with it. I don’t know if that’s because the film accurately reflects what they saw on TV or if they’re just glad to see another ‘episode’ of Firefly since the disappointing cancellation.

Apparently the Firefly series is part of the Sci-Fi Western genre. It’s easy to see the Sci-Fi part of Serenity, and occasionally there are moments that hint of a Western. It’s an interesting combination and surprisingly, one that actually works. It was somewhat refreshing to listen to the characters speaking in a dialect that one wouldn’t expect to hear in space. And the lack of laser beams and blasters is also intriguing. It’s just six-shooters and machine guns here. Oh, and the occasional grenade.

Ultimately, I was fairly impressed with Serenity. I never got bored at any point and I don’t recall groaning at anything too cliché that took place. I did laugh out loud on more than one occasion and was definitely wowed by some of the fight sequences. The special effects are also top notch. It’s obvious that CG effects were used but this is one of those ‘smart’ films that manages to make the CG look real. Not like the Star Wars cartoons. I won’t go there right now.

If you’re a fan of Firefly, chances are you’ve already seen Serenity. If that’s the case I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film, so leave a comment. If, like me, you’ve never seen the television show, consider giving Serenity a chance. While the film as a whole may not rock your socks off you might be pleasantly surprised, like me, with what you find.

Serenity gets 7 ½ primary buffer panels (out of 10).

The other movie I watched was Stealth. I know Chris wanted it because it has planes. Well, it does have planes. I'm not sure what else to say about it. The plot revolves around a new jet fighter that operates on arificial intelligence. The plot also revolves around an ackward romantic relationship, a secret political agenda and several other monotonous cliches. Sadly, none of these plots provides much depth or continuity. Once again I was just looking for some mindless entertainment. Well Stealth is certainly mindless. I'm not sure if I was entertained at all. And if I'm not sure about that then I probably wasn't.

Stealth gets 4 1/2, er, planes (out of 10).

Fight the Alliance and click here for ‘Serenity’ trivia.
Click here for ‘Stealth’ trivia. Though I’m not sure why you’d want to.