Firefly

We’ve lost one of the finest politicians we’ve had for a good long while, and the sad thing is we need him now more than ever. Rod Donald was the only politician I could vote for without feeling a twinge of regret. (Sure, I gave Helen my electoral vote, but it sure as hell wasn’t because of her winning smile or way with animals.) It’s fair to say I only voted Green because of him; he proved you could idealistic as well as pragmatic. He was also the only politician who seemed genuinely uninterested in scoring points or playing games. He, along with Jeanette Fitzsimons, were the only people in parliament who consistently sounded reasonable; he made such a contrast with the salivating Brownlee and Winston “Dapper Dan” Peters. Mr Donald understood that his job was to serve with the best interests of the country as his goal.

In his last interview with bFM he definitely came across as disappointed. He was absolutely right when he said that Clark should have called the bluff of Peters and Dunne. I still find amazing that a party with 2.6% of the vote could dick around the system and effectively block another party with the amount of votes. In the end I guess the Greens were hampered by the very parliamentary system Mr Donald helped to bring to life.

It’s a strange, pathetic little world where TV versions of films like Blade and The Terminator get green-lit, while truly original and genre-bending shows like Firefly are cancelled in the middle of a season. Deb’s already written her piece on Serenity, the big screen version of the show made as an unapologetic two handed high-five to the fans of the show, but I’ll add my two cents if I may.

The film’s basically what the first fifteen minutes of Episode III promised (fun, clever, dynamic, genuinely exciting and classy) yet never delivered. It’s the Han Solo spin off film everyone wanted, but never happened. It’s the genre space/western flick your kids want with the mature sensibility and humour you want as an adult. To steal a line from Whedon: it’s a film about the type of rouges those cock knockers on the Enterprise would have flown right past.

Yep, can’t recommend this flick enough. Word of warning though: if you like everything handed to you, you might try tracking down the DVD box set of Firefly (try Whitcolls or Trademe). The film makes no concessions for the uninitiated. If you’ve got half a brain in your head you’ll get who the bad guys are and what each characters about, but it might tick you off when characters pop up with little or no introduction. I mean, it didn’t bother me (I had yet to see Firefly when I caught the movie), but maybe you’re a little bit slow and can’t deal with it. Maybe you’ll get antsy because there’s no speed ramping in the film and there are scenes with people talking and why didn’t they get that Rock guy to star, he’s kick ass! Just thought you should know.

Aren’t those poor bastards on the international space station going through enough to be kicked out of bed by the audible equivalent of a nipple-gripple? The astronauts were roused from sleep in the weekend by none other than Paul McCartney who treated them to a live concert from earth. “Fuck this,” said spaceman Roy putting a gun to his head, “first they make us drink our own piss, now this!?”

Elsewhere: the prick award goes to Scot Andrew Stimpson who is at the moment refusing to take further tests after the HIV virus apparently disappeared from his body after fourteen months. Cock.