Sitges Dispatch. 1.

We're not still recovered from the thrills and frights of last year's edition and here we are again - ready to crumble. 2005's Sitges looks great - the program should deliver the goods, with a rather competitive official section, heartfelt tributes to Jaws and the Jim Henson Company, and those always juicy parallel sections devoted to risky cinema, recent hits from Asia, critics' favorite unreleased flicks and classic works of European fantastic cinema. And the level of glamour is red-hot - for the third time, the festival will welcome Quentin Tarantino, who will come to the event as producer of Eli Roth's Hostel, and we also eagerly expect visits from the likes of David Cronenberg, Viggo Mortensen, Chiaki Kuriyama, Jodie Foster and Park Chan-wook. Local stardom will be represented by Elena Anaya, Laia Marull and Goya Toledo, among others.

It's not that we're looking out more for stars than for the films - it's just that the presence of big names means that Sitges is gaining respect and influence, and that's something to celebrate. Opening night saw the presence of director Joss Whedon and actors Nathan Fillion and Summer Glau, who may be some of the most sought-after personalities in US cinema right now. They presented, of course, Serenity, the film which some people firmly believe is the new Star Wars and the best sci-fi since The Matrix. It deeply hurts me to disagree - as a Whedon admirer, I wanted to love this film so much, but I did not - and I suppose some of the five-star reviews come from sheer blind fanaticism or, more simply, from some people's fear of not being in touch with flavor of the month.

Serenity is more Ice Pirates than Star Wars - a goofy, half-decent space western with a nice b-series flavour. Thinking this is going to change sci-fi history is just plain mad. The film is halfway there in terms of storytelling, action, dialogue and... well, just almost everything. It's like a TV pilot for some nice but forgettable sci-fi series blown up on a big screen. For someone who is not familiar with the Firefly series, the plot is almost incomprehensible and the relationships between characters are difficult to decipher. The action is effective in fight scenes but rather clunky when spaceships come in sight - the FX are not integrated in the movement of the characters very well (i.e., shots of our heroes' jostled cabin and clashes in space are totally separated from each other). And the dialogue is goofy when it should be serious and deeply unfunny when it's meant to be goofy. Am I alone in this? Possibly. Hopefully not. This film can be reasonably enjoyed, but please, let's save the "masterpiece" tag for films that actually deserve it.

Posted by dwhudson at October 11, 2005 4:06 AM