A Steady Diet of Film

Firefly and the Failures

This weekend I had the nearly physical pleasure of seeing Joss Whedon and the cast of Firefly/Serenity speak at Wonder Con 2005 here in San Francisco. They showed a completed scene from the new film (out this Fall) and did some Q&A for an hour. The director and cast were adorable and charming and the clip was everything a fan girl dreams of. For those of you somehow managed to miss this brilliant television show that lasted about three minutes on Fox a couple of years ago allow me to reinact a conversation I've been having ever since: Firefly is a sci-fi western and... no really! It's good!

It was was cancelled for all the things that make it wonderful, a show with 9 main characters who are each delightful and dysfunctional and within each episode a sincere attempt to say something about the human condition. My stomach gets tied in knots each time I watch the show (dvd's of the 15 complete episodes are now available). More about the film at Zap2It, the official movie website, and WonderCon redux. And because we've got nothing but love: the theme song to Firefly.




And as part of the "California Independent Film Festival" (a festival entirely run and sponsored by the distribution company of the films shown, but okay) I recently saw The Failures. The only draw for me was that Baby Chrissie from Growing Pains was in it playing a nursemaid to her loser boyfriend. It's not even funny how bad the promo materials were:

Aromantic comedy about two messed-up, self-centered teenagers, each with their own hang-ups. The film stars "Chad Lindberg"(The Fast & The Furious), who plays William, a chronically-depressed, alcoholic, high school drop-out, wanna-be children's book writer, who wants to kill himself, but can't find the courage to go through it and actress "Ashley Johnson"(Growing Pains TV series) who plays Lilly an angry heavy-metal listening, all black wearing hellion who wants to help William. [Quotations not added for emphasis!]

So as you can imagine, I was one of only five people at the screening (two of which were involved with the production in some capacity I suspect). It's a damn shame because the film was well-made and managed to find some interesting things to say about teen suicide (a subject that is at best boring and at worst extremely loathesome). I saw it with a clinical psychologist who also was surprised by its wholesome goodness and intelligence. Apparently it screened at Cannes in the market screening and won some awards at Telluride, Austin, and of course, Best Picture at the imaginary Film festival run by marketers who cannot write enticing copy for their projects! Baby Chrissie, you're still golden to me.

posted by Erin @ Monday, February 21, 2005