Serenity Now!

On the next Movies on the Radio, we're talking gunslingers & saloons. Tweet us your pick for best Western! #sotmovie https://t.co/N4cIKgXFWt

— The State of Things (@state_of_things) February 17, 2017

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I got pretty nervous as soon as the producer said she was turning on her microphone, so I failed pretty hard at trying to make my point. What I wanted to say was I still love Serenity because it's energizing, hopeful escapism -- the kind we (I, at least) need more than ever these days. (By, "these days," I mean we got Trump making Nazis like Reavers set loose upon the 'verse and it's going to take all the little bands of principled folk working together to fix the broken pieces of society.)

All entertainment is political, whether we like it or not, even the escapist kind. The best westerns are about figuring out how to live together in a way that celebrates and protects people's freedoms. They show us people riding horses in the great wide open, sleeping under the stars, etc. but they also show how those cowboys and outlaws get bound together with the teachers, bartenders, sheriffs, and shopkeepers in a community that stands together against the cruel injustices of nature and greedy men. Serenity isn't merely sci-fi with Western trappings; it explores the themes that go along with the dusty long coats and holstered weapons as effectively as any John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or Kevin Costner sun-drenched epic. Better than most, I'd argue. Certainly with less white supremacist baggage than the typical Western.

What actually came out of my mouth though was more, "OMG if only it were really possible to get the hell out from under our current government and bring it down with the righteous truth and blasters instead of having to carry around protest signs in marches and constantly getting my elected officials' voicemail to leave pleading messages for sanity -- messages that are ignored."

Even I sometimes forget how much I enjoyed Angel

10 episodes of Angel that show how it was more than Buffy redux | TV Club 10 | The A.V. Club

But while the Buffy spinoff Angel never became as culturally relevant or as popular as its parent show, in a lot of ways it’s a more refined effort by Whedon and his collaborators—many of whom started on Buffy and then brought what they’d learned to the new series. The roster of Angel writers is a who’s-who of cult TV, including Tim Minear (currently on American Horror Story), David Fury (who’s worked on Lost, Fringe, and Hannibal), Steven S. De Knight (Spartacus and Daredevil), Shawn Ryan (The Shield and Terriers), Marti Noxon (Mad Men and UnREAL), Ben Edlund (Supernatural), and Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica and Once Upon A Time). Together they built out from a gimmicky initial premise—following a vampire who hunts demons and works as a private investigator in a soul-sick, hellish Los Angeles—and created something deeper and richer than perhaps even Whedon ever expected. 

Dubious Cocktails & Genre Movie Night™ | Cabin in the Woods and Monster-n-Cherry Vodka

I came to Goddard & Whedon's Cabin in the Woods with some trepidation. Horror movies just don't do it for me.  The exception that proves the rule has always been Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, a film I still think is one of his most entertaining. Oh, wait ...  that was true for years and years but there's also been Shaun of the Dead, Scream, and Attack the Block. Crap, I like the first couple Alien movies, too.  Are these considered horror? Do I actually like horror movies and just dislike the torture-porn & slasher sub-genres? It's my natural, susceptibility-enhanced aversion to nightmares (thanks, brain) that fuels my dislike; that aversion response has been on a hair-trigger since I saw the original Salem's Lot when I almost certainly to young to watch even tame, cheesy horror.

Anyways, my generalized distrust of the horror label did leave some wiggle room for the potential to enjoy a film that tweaks the tropes and gets all meta about the enterprise. It helped that it promised some humor and featured a strong cast with long-time faves Amy Acker and Bradley Whitford. Still, this wasn't going to be lowbrow easy laughs, like a Top Secret! sending up spy flicks and teen rock musicals because of course those are two genres we always link and it's natural they should be spoofed at one time. The trailers and everything I'd read about the movie indicated it would be using the tropes as much to practice them as for critique.

Cabin in the Woods

So, with the dubious cocktail of the evening, Cherry Smirnoff and Monster, poured and some popcorn handy, I settled in to see if Joss & Co. would capture my interest in the deconstruction of a genre I'd just as soon leave unconstructed.

At the film's conclusion, when [highlight to see the invisible text in case I'm not the last person for whom it could have been spoiled] the giant hand of ancient evil ripped up through the cabin to begin the end of the world, as far as humanity is concerned at least, and the return of the reign of ancient evil I was satisfied. I didn't feel like I'd wasted my time, I didn't feel insulted or like I'd been condescended to. That's what most horror I've seen has done to me. It's either too stupid, ill-constructed, cynical, and/or transparently misogynist to be entertained by at all. Or, it's just too brutal. (Just remembered another horror movie, I suppose, that didn't disappoint: Let the Right One In.) Cabin was certainly brutal, but it took a cue, I think, from Dead Alive and cranked the dial to 11 -- so over-the-top without being mean-spirited towards any character that had been humanized -- that we could chuckle at the wall-to-wall gore, the images of horror with multiple smaller horror vignettes playing in the background, and release the tension that had been accrued while the characters we did get invested were being ruthlessly hunted.

What helped me look past some of the elements that didn't work as well for me, was the dilemma Connolly's Dana and Kanz's Marty character, the Fool archetype (a Fool, but not foolish), found themselves in at the end. It called to mind a sentiment I expressed, and stand by, back during the Wikileaks saga. The tl;dr version of that link is we don't sacrifice the innocent to appease evil because, if we do, then we are the evil that has taken dominion of the world and we deserved to be destroyed in the first place. That Cabin basically brings us to that dilemma made it more than just a superior horror movie, it made it an important movie. I suspect many will argue that Dana, once the Director (Sigourney Weaver!), explained the situation, should have pulled the trigger and the fun of it is that while I feel like I've got the better argument, the argument for integrity, there is definitely an argument reasonable people can have about what the most virtuous action for each character would have been as all hell started breaking loose downstairs.

#Firefly Rewind "Objects in Space"

Firefly Rewind - Episode 14: Objects in Space: 

Eavesdroppers above (the bounty hunter) and below (River)

On Whedon's DVD commentary track for this episode - one of the few DVD commentaries I've ever listened to more than once, and one I recommend if you care about the show and somehow haven't heard it yet - he talks about how the episode's roots were born in his teenage crisis of faith and discovery of existentialism, and the idea of morality in a world without God, which he previously summed up in a line from "Angel": "If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

Hands of Blue (Firefly/Muppets mash-up)

relentlessly cheerful tumblr

Kermit as Mal is also good ...

The Cabin In The Woods may get an October, 2011 release.

Joss Whedon's The Cabin In The Woods may finally see release | Film | Newswire | The A.V. Club:

Looks like a nice enough cabin.

And as it turns out, the delay could actually end up being something of an asset: Although the film features plenty of fine actors—including Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, and Whedonverse alumni Amy Acker, Tom Lenk, and Fran Kranz—its biggest selling point may turn out to be Chris Hemsworth, who was cast long before he became Thor. In fact, it was his work on Cabin In The Woods that got him the part after Whedon recommended him—and now they’re reuniting on The Avengers. Wheels within wheels within Whedons.