'Firefly'

Ever since Deep Space Nine descended into galactic warfare and The X-Files went crappy, I haven't had a good sci-fi show to watch. I never got into Voyager. Enterprise, despite ostensibly being set in the Star Trek universe, felt more like a bad syndicated wannabe. So how did I end up missing Firefly, Joss Whedon's shortlived series on Fox?

Firefly is a great hodge podge of genres -- science fiction, western, noir, screwball comedy. The show's world is cobbled together from Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Dune, and Blade Runner -- our hero, Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Han Solo) leads the crew of Serenity, a Firefly-class transport ship (Millenium Falcon). A veteran from the losing side of the Unification War (Rebel Alliance), Mal and his crew eke out a living on the outskirts of the known universe, where the worlds look suspiciously like the frontier of westerns (Tatooine and the like). Smuggling and robbery are their bread and butter, but they have to do it under the radar of the shiny Alliance (Federation) and its military branch (Starfleet). Corporatocracy rules the day (Alien) and the government, which is a union of the United States and China. This marriage of cultures is best represented through their everyday speech, where English is heavily punctuated with Chinese curses and phrases (Blade Runner's 'gutter speech').

Sci-fi nowadays is dominated by shallow homages to greater works (like, y'know, the recent Star Wars movies), but Firefly sets itself apart because it examines the genre's core stories that often get crowded with giant space battles and special effects -- what does it mean to be human? What is progress? Who is good and who is evil? The Alliance, although antagonists to the crew of Serenity, isn't necessarily evil. They believe wholeheartedly in their intent to civilize the known world. But what about those who don't want to be civilized? What if 'freedom' and 'progress' mean different things to the people of the outer rim? Mal robs for a living, but does stealing from the rich and corporate make it morally expedient? The lines are always blurry in the deep reaches of space, where sometimes survival supersedes morality.

While it may sound all very high handed, the show is very well grounded in its cast of characters. Despite only having fourteen episodes and one feature, Firefly managed to have wondrous, subtle growth in its characters. They're less archetypes than fully realized people, giving us nine faces to identify with. I was excited to see where Whedon was taking these people, but unfortunately Fox once again fucked with a great thing (see: Undeclared and Arrested Development). The two hour pilot, which only introduces all of the characters and establishes the Firefly universe, was scrapped in favor of a more 'action-packed' episode. Most of the show was aired out of order, and three of the last four episodes didn't even make it that far. But there is some glimmer of hope, as the feature Serenity was received well enough to perhaps merit a sequel or two. Here's to hoping.

*A couple of small gripes:
-In a solar system populated by an alliance of the US and China, how come there aren't any Chinese characters (people, not hanzi) on the show? Or at the very least tons of half-Asian people? Off the top of my head, I can only recall one Asian character with a speaking part, and she was (literally) a whore. Maybe they were going to build the TransGalactic Railroad in the next season.

-Sometimes Whedon takes the western part of the show a bit too far. I can't help but think that if you were flipping through the channels and happened upon Firefly without knowing what it was, you might think that you've stumbled into The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (another good cancelled Fox show). There's cattle rustling, six shooters, Stetson hats, and county sheriffs aplenty. A little too hokey for me.

Secession.

I was reading a Wikipedia article on various proposals for state secession in US history, and found this bit of info funny:

Kentucky

In the 1950s, Letcher County, Kentucky threatened to secede from the state, demanding better roads in the area.
The threats subsided when Governor A.B. Chandler indicated that he didn't care.

That's one way to end a squabble, I guess.

I love ya Netflix.

I signed up for Netflix a week ago and have been on a movie kick ever since. Some short reviews:

• 'Violent Cop'
  
  I'm a big fan of Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi), the Clint Eastwood/Lee Marvin of Japan. Known for his laconic tough guys from both sides of the law (cops and yakuza), 'Violent Cop' is his directorial debut. It showcases the Takeshi style: long, quiet takes, doses of absurd and silly humor, Japanese fatalism, and flashes of jarring violence. Not his best work (see 'Fireworks' and 'Sonatine'), but worth checking out.
  
  
• 'Chungking Express'
  
  It took me forever to finally see this movie. I'm ashamed that I didn't watch it sooner. A beautiful film about love and loneliness in a big city, Quentin Tarantino apparently cried through his first viewing. Not because it made him sad, but because he was "just so happy to love a movie this much." It's one of those rare films that successfully evokes emotion and mood through style and technique. Faye Wong just owns this movie.
  
  
• 'Memories of Murder'
  
  The film takes place in 1986, based on true events about South Korea's first serial killer. With so many criminal procedural shows on t.v. , most of us are familiar with modern forensic science. Well, these murders take place in a rural, backwoods town, where something like DNA testing is a distant luxury available only in the US. Clumsy and imprecise, the detectives rely instead on legwork, common sense, and beating the shit out of suspects. And for a flick about a serial rapist/murderer, there are a lot of laughs.
  This movie was a nice departure from the usual South Korean fare of silly romantic comedies, ridiculous melodrama, and hyper violence. Which leads us to...
  
  
• 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance'
  
  Park Chan-wook's first installment of his 'Vengeance' trilogy, 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' is a stylish and disturbing examination into two related stories of revenge. Song Kang-ho, also the star of 'Memories of Murder,' gives another fine performance as a father driven by, um, vengeance. Revenge. Revengeance?
  As the installments are only related in theme and not story, I would recommend the excellent second film, 'Oldboy,' over this one. Park goes for broke, ramping up the operatic tragedy to excruciating, grisly heights. Just like I ramped up the pomposity in that last sentence.
  
  
• 'Croupier'
  
  A good modern noir film. Watching this movie, you can see why everybody pegged Clive Owen as the next Bond -- Cool, confident, smart, has his way with three women, handily wins a streetfight, loves vodka, and he wears a tux throughout most of it. Then you watch 'King Arthur,' and you suddenly don't understand at all.
  
  
• 'Serenity'
  
  A Joss Whedon feature length sci-fi flick born out of the cancelled Fox show 'Firefly'. Essentially a sci-fi western, 'Serenity' throws in an EPIC plot to stir things up -- Summer, a waify, mentally troubled psychic, knows a secret that'll bring down the monolithic Alliance. But can the crew of the Serenity evade the peerless, nameless Alliance assassin and the cannibalistic, subhuman Reavers? And can our reluctant hero, Captain Mal, keep his dysfunctional family of a crew together for the long haul? What's up with these stupid questions? Ah, just watch the damn movie. It's really good.
  
  
• 'Hustle & Flow'
  
  It was okay. Rags to almost riches story, kind of like the first 'Rocky'. Terrence Howard, who seems to be in everything these days, kicks ass though.
  
  
• 'The Constant Gardener'
  
  A love story disguised as a socio-political thriller. Or is it the other way around? I liked it, but was pretty annoyed with some early, manipulative story contrivances. Like 'Syriana,' it tries to shed light on Western profiteering at the expense of the Third World. Oil is replaced with medicine, which makes it all the more nefarious. After all, free or cheap medicine is supposed to be beneficial, right? But there's always a catch with charity. Rachel Weisz is vibrant, as usual.
  
  

The dumbest thing I've seen today.

A beat up Toyoto Corolla with nice, shiny spinner rims in the rear, and no hubcaps in the front.

"There can be only one..."

Woohoo. I won the smoking contest. I am presently the only person among my group of friends who still smokes. Alex kicked the habit a year ago. Augie quit last month. Aaron and Jon are now done thanks to New Year's resolutions. That leaves me, the Connor Macleod of smokers. I now have the distinction of being the only asshole from our group to suffocate a room with the residuals from a quick smoke. Seriously though, I commend them all. It ain't easy.

Of course, I know smoking is very, very bad for me. I'm starting to feel the ill effects: super exhaustion in the morning, circulatory problems. I vowed last autumn to start scaling back from a pack a day to half that. I wanted to work my way down from twenty to ten to five and then maybe to just a couple when drinking. That plan lasted all of one week. But as the world becomes less smoker friendly and my friends hang up their Bics, I guess the writing's on the wall -- I have to move to Canada.