By now you know the score. Joss Whedon, creator of the TV series Buffy, Angel and Firefly, has been in Australia the last three days promoting his debut movie Serenity.
Aside from the following commitments -
Rove Live - Network Ten - live-to-air on Tuesday, September 13
Sunrise - Network Seven - live-to-air on Tuesday, September 13
The Movie Show (SBS-TV)
Showtime (Foxtel/Austar)
Music Max - with Chit Chat
MTV
Radio National, Breakfast with Fran Kelly - Monday, September 12
Radio Triple J, Jay and the Doctor (breakfast show)
ABC 702 with Sarah McDonald - to air on Monday, September 12
Radio 774 with Richard Stubbs
Radio 3RRR with Rob Jan
Radio 92.9FM, Perth with Bernie, Luke & Sal (breakfast)
Radio Adelaide
Fresh-FM, Adelaide
Radio 4ZZZ Movie Show
Fbi 94.5FM
Radio 2SER-FM
… and a million print interviews
- he also made time for Q & A sessions at two preview screenings of the new movie.
My femme and I were at last night's Melbourne screening. We are lucky, lucky people. Yes, there's a lot of gushing over Joss woven through the fabric of the internet. Many of his fans insist he is god, which you'd normally assume is an exaggeration arising from their over-identification and under-achievement.
After spending almost ninety minutes in his presense, I'd say these people are on the right track. He is fucking ace.
To set the scene, our tickets had a start time of 8:30pm but at 8:30pm there was still a queue stretching a mile from the cinema. The film started about forty minutes late, once everyone's mobile phones and cameras were safely stashed by security - we knew the drill from the preview screening at the Jam Factory, so we travelled light. The crowd was diverse in culture and age, with clearly more women than men. It seemed to be a broader cross-section than the earlier preview, which was all kids, and there were significantly fewer blue hands.
Second time around the film was, I'm delighted to say, even better. Without wanting to unduly influence you, there's a richness and poetry to the dialogue that only increases with familiarity. It's thematically tight, visually rich and makes you laugh/cry in all the right places. I love the film. Except for tiny little bits that need tweaking, but that's a story for another day.
After the film, as tears were swept away and the full majesty of the moment descended upon us, the head of Universal International Pictures (Australia) came out and said a few words. Then, without significant ado, Joss strode down the aisle and into our hearts.
First item of business was the delivery of presents from our local Browncoats chapter - an akubra and a box of unseen goodies (hopefully not more Australiana ...please, dear god). He wore the hat graciously, but mercifully it didn't stay on his head long.
Then he took his seat, centre stage up the front, for a full hour of diverse questions and strange, insightful, hilarious, fascinating and perverse answers. I spent the whole time writing, and plan to share some of the exchanges with you all ... but not today. And as much of the discussion contains spoilers for the movie, some bits will remain upspoken until Sept 29. General Jossy bits may pop up in future posts here - they're happily up my sleeve for now. No, we didn't ask any questions. We've thought of some great ones this morning ... damn damn damn. I did yell out a few things, though, so I feel 'heard'.
At 12:05am, after the questions were done, the queue formed for the autograph session. Can you believe that this man, who was on Sunrise at 8:50am, was still going strong so many hours later? From his comments and itinery, it's clear he'd hardly slept in days. Despite the late hour and hundreds of people waiting their turn, he was all smiles. They obviously breed 'em tough in Hollywood.
Anyway, at this point we were lucky again. My femme snuck up the front before security locked us in our seats, and as part of the first row of signaturees, she got to him by 12:25am. He was, as you would expect by now, still witty, charming and enthusiastic.
Should I have left her alone with him? Depends if she flies off to LA without me in the next week or two.
Do I regret not waiting my turn and getting to shake his hand myself? I was sitting up the front, we made eye-contact from time to time, I'm happy. After my ordeal with Neil Gaiman, I'm thinking of censoring myself from the talent.
And so we left him there, in a near-full cinema swirling with love and admiration. We felt good. We FEEL good. This is the way we dream our inspibhff cc hjgh7, (thanks, little one) ... the way we dream our inspirational heroes will leave us feeling.
He's the manmjhhbgvvbvgbghy (that's my boy's word, I was just going to say he's the man).
We know how lucky we were.
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