Something 4 The Weekend by Paul Bullock

Telepathic fugitives, vampires, fetish-wear and miserable Swedes. No it's not the England dressing room, but this week's new releases...

Welcome ladies, gentlemen and film fans everywhere to entertainment manchester's weekly feature 'Something for the Weekend'. Every Friday, we deliver to you the best (and, in the interest of balance, worst) of this week's new cinematic releases. If, as Forrest Gump once might have said were he a film fan, cinema really is like a box of chocolates, then think of us as your mini-menu, steering you away from the coffee creams and towards the Turkish delights of the movie world.

The Big Picture

First up, Serenity. It's rarely promising when a TV show makes the jump from small to big screen - indeed, the only decent ones which spring to mind are Shaun of the Dead and Starskey and Hutch. When the TV show in question was a little seen sci-fi which sank without a trace after just one season, it's even more difficult to get excited about it.

But this isn‘t some two-bit goggle-box crap we're talking about here, this is Joss Whedon. After attracting critical success and the attention of rabid fans with the excellent-until-season-five Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which itself begun life as a terrible Luke Perry-starring movie), Whedon moved onto the genre he had so often alluded to in Buffy: sci-fi. Like the infuriating Lost, Firefly drew its inspiration from a broad canvas of genres: a little bit of sci-fi, mixed with a pinch of horror and a liberal dose of Western, creating Whedon’s trademark blend of respectful genre nostalgia and pop-culture sensibilities.

But disaster was looming just around the corner. Ever ones to wreck a promising show before it hit its prime (hello Futurama), Fox baffled its audience by firstly forcing Whedon to re-write the two-hour pilot over one weekend, then only aired eleven of the fifteen episodes which constituted that ill-fated first series. So, let's see, that's a false beginning, a muddled middle and no ending whatsoever - no wonder only hardened sci-fi nuts stuck with it.

Understandably disappointed, Whedon desperately tried to keep his dream project alive, shopping it around to other networks, all to no avail. But gradually, fans (affectionately known as Browncoats) began to spread the word, logging onto chat-rooms across the internet to voice their love of the show and hatred of Fox for cancelling it. Eventually, a batch of new followers had been ensnared and DVD sales skyrocketed. Seeing the all-mighty dollar shining in their eyes, Universal seized the opportunity and picked up the rights to a movie spin-off, affording Whedon a generous $40million budget and giving him free reign to take the story wherever he wanted.

Set in the not too distant future, his directorial debut follows the exploits of the good ship Serenity (hence the title). A motley crew of space rogues led by Han Solo-alike Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), they're on the run from an evil totalitarian alliance (booo! hiss!). About to pull off another felonious scheme, they eventually pick up telepathic fugitive River Tam (Summer Glau) who the Alliance believe holds the secrets which will eventually bring them down...

It all sounds interesting, promising a mix of action and adventure all wrapped in Whedon's trademark sharp wit and attention to character. But his movie exploits thus far have been mixed to say the least. Ever since he stepped into the world of celluloid with that ill-fated Buffy film in 1992, he has been dogged with bad-luck. His sterling work on the first X-Men movie was largely replaced, with the only memorable remnant being Storm's awful line "what happens to toads when hit by lightening? The same thing that happens to everything else!". What's more, he failed to receive a screenwriting credit for his work on Speed, despite writing much of the dialogue (let‘s face it, one of the film‘s few good points). Oh, and let's not forget, he did write the first (albeit radically changed in the end) draft of franchise mangling Alien: Resurrection. "I cried a single, manly tear," he said, after seeing the final result. Join the club...

So what has he created here? Thus far, the movie has been almost universally praised by both critics and fans alike. Despite a modest box-office in the States, the Firefly faithful have had their appetites sated with a plot which develops an area which was due to be explored in the second and third series of the TV show, while critics reckon they've found the new Star Wars. "Whedon's done it," Empire enthuses. "Frakensteining the smart-mouth of Buffy, the dust of Deadwood and all the best bits of Star Wars". Meanwhile, Hotdog declares "Serenity is by far the best sci-fi film of 2005, making even Revenge of the Sith look drearily two-dimensional by comparison". Will Serenity begin a space franchise to rival Lucas' all conquering Skywalker saga? Judge for yourself from today...

Also Playing...

Another burgeoning sci-fi franchise hoping to make it big also kicks off this weekend with intriguing Russian flick Night Watch. The first in a trilogy which is set to be completed in the coming years by Day Watch and Dusk Watch, Timur Bekmambetov's film follows a one-hundred year battle between the forces of light (defended by the titular Night Watch) and dark (defended by the Day Watch). However, when the prophecy of 'The Great One' comes into fruition all hell break loose (literally) and a war kicks off on the streets of modern day Moscow which threatens to envelop all civilisation.

Night-Watch looks intriguing, but it also looks highly derivative, riffing on not only The Matrix, but also the likes of Lord of the Rings, Buffy and every revisionist horror film you've ever seen. Indeed, Hotdog warn: "there's nothing original about Night Watch. Bekmambetov's ADD editing, slanted camera angles and special effects are both his film's curse and blessing; a wholesale absorption of cutting edge US sci-fi/fantasy/horror tropes".

Still Quentin Tarantino (who else) has raved about it and Bekmambetov insists that the best is still to come, telling Empire: "The first film is just a big commercial for the second one. And the last part will be the biggest of all". Best get on this bandwagon before it gets full.

From fresh blood to old hands now as Roman Polanski returns to the directorial fray with an intriguing take on Oliver Twist. Although the Pole has recently made the step up (or down depending on your point of view) into prestige pictures, winning the Best Director Oscar in 2002 for Holocaust drama The Pianist, he made his name with dangerous, edgy pictures like Rosemary's Baby and the stunning Repulsion. Such films were distinctly left-field, conveying a sense of fevered paranoia through tight angles and claustrophobic framing. Allegations of underage sex (not to mention the death of wife Sharon Tate at the hands of Charles Manson's posse) derailed his career at the end of the 60s, but the Polish auteur soon got back on track, turning film noir inside out with his masterful Chinatown and returning to psychological horror with The Tenant, in which he cast himself.

Quite how he will adapt to the respectable, much-loved world of Charles Dickins then is anyone's guess. Reviews have been mixed so far, with most forgoing Polanski’s direction and instead concentrating on the twin performances of Ben 'make sure you call me Sir' Kingsley (Fagin) and young Barney Clark as Master Twist himself. Sure to be plaguing GCSE students for years to come, time will only tell if it replaces David Lean's much-loved 1948 version in the hearts of cine-philes.

Back in good ol' Blighty and the same people who brought you naked-old-woman flick Calendar Girls, release Kinky Boots, a film about, well, kinky boots. Curiously based on an old episode of BBC docu-drama (reality TV in other words) Trouble at the Top, it's the story of Charlie who inherits his dying father's failing business. After meeting unconvincing transvestite Lola, he decides - rather strangely - the only way to turn his business's fortunes around is to turn it into a manufacturer of rubber fetish boots. Like you do. Opening to critical praise, expect this to be another Brit hit which tops the chart.

Finally, we end on a high-note, with that noted funny-man Ingmar Bergman. No, no wait come back. Don't leave. Woody Allen really likes him! Oh well, for the few of you who are still reading, the seminal Swedish director returns to the directorial fray for the first time since 1982's Fanny and Alexander (stop laughing at the back), with a film which is predictably getting critics hot under the collar. Saraband is a sequel (sell-out) to his 1973 film Scenes from a Marriage and features all the usual Bergmanesque traits: slow-pacing, static camera-work and lots and lots of misery. Be sure to chug a few beers and take your mates to see it from today.

We'll be back next week when Wallace and Gromit go in search of an evil rabbit, Nicolas Cage gets violent in Andrew Nicol's Lord of War and the original Godzilla stamps his way back into a cinema screen near you. Be there, or we'll schedule his next fight with Mothra at a town hall near you...