Cinematical

A few months ago, I saw two new sci-fi movies at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and now both are in limited release: Duncan Jones's Moon (21 screens) and Aristomenis Tsirbas' Battle for Terra (2 screens). And it got me thinking. These two movies couldn't be more different, and the main distinction between them is this. Moon is sci-fi based on an actual sci-fi idea. That means that science actually figures into the fiction somewhere. And Battle for Terra is the perfect example of a war film decorated with sci-fi trimmings; its big "twist" is that the humans are the bad guys and the aliens are the good guys, but aside from that the story unfolds exactly like a regular war film. The aliens, spaceships and other gizmos don't really figure into the major themes or plot.

It got me thinking about how many science fiction movies are really just war movies in disguise. (The current Terminator Salvation is another one.) It's very easy to transform the combatants of a war to alien races and make the cause of the war something fictitious, like the "spice" in Dune (1984). It's much easier to explain why people are fighting over that powerful stuff than why they're fighting over differences in religions or beliefs. And it's much nicer to justify battling alien invaders than it is to justify humans fighting humans. Frankly, I'm all for this little bit of deception, provided the sci-fi movies have three things. Battle for Terra has none of them.

I now take back any defense I gave Katherine Heigl for her comments about Knocked Up. I was already on my way there when I heard about The Ugly Truth and its premise where a smart and successful woman turns to a chauvinist to learn about nabbing her beau. I hit the brink with the second trailer where she actually tries to deep throat a hot dog and stick out her chest to get the guy, while he says every pervish thing he can think of. And now ... now there's vibrating underwear.

In the clip after the jump, so appropriately coming to us from Coming Soon, Heigl's character gets a little vibrating gift as she gets ready for a date. She decides to put on the panty rocket and then gets whisked off on a half-date/half-business meeting. At no time does she decide to excuse herself to take off these things, and in fact, gets into some hot trouble when the remote falls into the hands of a kid at the next table. Heigl channels When Harry Met Sally, poorly I might add, and Gerard Butler watches in amusement.

Heigl... How any woman who notes chauvinism in a Judd Apatow movie can then take on this schlock is beyond my comprehension. Furthermore, take away Butler's charm and put ... hmm ... let's say Steve Buscemi into the role -- is it still all romantically funny, or does it get downright creepy? Actually, now that would be a movie -- The Ugly Truth, where a romcom tries to deliver this bull pucky to audiences without a dapper leading man to make it palatable.

Michael Mann's latest crime opus has already hit theaters, and like most of his devoted fans, I was there opening day. Granted, my desire to be first in line for Public Enemies mainly had to do with my preoccupation with pretty boys in nice suits, but trust me, there were some loftier ideals at work. One of the reasons I love Mann's films is that he finds new ways to tell relatively traditional stories...which brings me to Miami Vice. Vice definitely wasn't one of Mann's most popular films, but I always defend this flick, and here's why: growing up, I watched Miami Vice, and I might have loved it, but even at the tender age of 10 I knew it was kind of silly. I had always wondered what the series would have looked like if the show had a little less cheap humor about Crockett and his alligator and a little more 'dignity' -- fast forward to 2006, and that's exactly what Mann did.

Gone were the over the top white suits and wise cracks (I mean, thank god I didn't have to watch Colin Farrell yucking it up with 'Elvis'), and instead, Mann replaced them with a darker, meaner, and (dare I say it?) more realistic Miami Vice. But just because Mann brought Vice into the present, didn't mean that those traditional touches were gone, and the teaser was proof. That first trailer had it all -- the music perfectly timed with every shotgun pump, speedboats, helicopters, guns and hot girls...and you can't get more Miami Vice than that.

After the jump; the teaser and a reminder of Vice on the small screen..

So you wanna rake in the indie cred in Austin at next year's South by Southwest Festival? You have a skootch more than a week left to submit proposals for panels and/or rate the ones that have already been submitted for SXSW. But lucky for you, the SXSW Panel Picker is at your fingertips any time of the day or night. This cool new tool allows for everyone to have a say in what panels get okay'd for the festival.

According to the official site, "SXSW thrives on the creative intersection that takes place when great minds get together, and we feel the Panel Picker truly celebrates that. We believe that the real experts at SXSW are the people who bring the event to life - you, the thousands of people who attend every year. You know what you want to see, so this is your chance to help make that happen."

Previous panels include "The Incredible Shrinking (Expanding?) Film Critic Profession," which featured Cinematical's very own Scott Weinberg, "From Script to Screen," a Stanley Kubrick discussion, and much more. Get on your horse and head over 'cause the Panel Picker closes its doors on July 10th.

You can also stay up to date on all the latest SXSW-related film news and reviews over at the official blog. They gave Erik Davis' earlier post on the real girl behind SXSW's indie hit 500 Days of Summer a nice shout out, too. Even if you don't get your very own panel, you should do yourself a favor and hit up the festival since it's filled to the gills with enough media to burn your retinas and pop your eardrums. Plus, you can eat some BBQ with the peeps you Tweet at. Hey, just sayin'.

Dear... uh, well... Woody Allen, I suppose:

So here you are, with Whatever Works, which is something like your 44th feature at the age of 73. That's really something, but I'm sure you already know that. As if it wasn't enough that we can credit you with the likes of Annie Hall and The Purple Rose of Cairo... But I digress, although maybe that's the best strategy at the moment, because I can't exactly talk about Whatever Works just yet. It doesn't open in my neck of the woods until tomorrow today, and well, they refused to screen it for press.

Actually, they kinda did screen it, and, apparently, it's all kinda your fault.

Did you watch the New Moon trailer and wonder if wolfy Jacob would've been any more scary if he could morph into a little guinea pig?

You may have noticed that little hairy beasts are fighting their way to the big screen later this month with G-Force. To help kick off the film, which opens on July 24, Electric Spoofaloo has been holding a contest. Viewers pitch ideas for spoof trailers featuring the little hairy beasts, they're voted on, and then the site makes the pitches come to life.

There's a faux Harry Potter that isn't all that funny, but Spoofaloo really hits the nail on the head with their take on the New Moon trailer (which you can see after the jump). It works so well that it seems like Stephanie Meyer's world was just destined for guineadom. There's the dramatic kiss, and then Bella's cataclysmic paper cut that sends her whole life into upheaval. (Whoever knew that paper could be so destructive? Good thing no one ever got one at school during the few years Jasper went to Forks High.)

From beginning to end, it's all there, right down to a ridiculously beefy guy filling in for Taylor Lautner and exploding into a guinea pig -- one that looks just as frightening as that big, fluffy wolf. How sad is it when your menacing animal can be easily replaced by a hand-held pet? I mean, I have a tendency to think lots of scary animals look cute, but that's the least menacing movie wolf I've ever seen!

Seems like a small war is starting to brew between Michael Bay and Megan Fox, after the latter said some unflattering things about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, telling the Early Show recently that she still doesn't understand the movie and that it's apparently made for geniuses. Bay, of course, is not one to take criticism lightly -- especially from some girl who was nobody until he dropped her into the first Transformers movie.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal about the situation with Fox, he says, "Well, that's Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, "Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it." But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn't a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in "Armageddon." Shia LaBeouf wasn't a big movie star before he did "Transformers"-and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from "Bad Boys." Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in "Transformers." I like to think that I've had some luck in building actors' careers with my films."

We shouldn't worry whether this war of words will hurt either person's involvement in a third Transformers movie because according to Bay that's not happening anytime soon. On a third Transformers film, he says, "I just want to take some time off. It's been almost three years that I've devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough-and I literally carried this movie on my back. ... I don't know who [would] want to take on my shoes with this franchise. We might just take a year down."

Actor, singer and Broadway star Harve Presnell died July 1, 2009 at the age of 75. Born September 14, 1933, Presnell started his career on stage, playing prominent roles on Broadway in shows such as The Unsinkable Molly Brown, before moving into film work in the late 1960s. Perhaps best known as the domineering father-in-law to William H. Macy's sheepish wannabe kidnapper in Fargo, Presnell enjoyed a career resurgence in the 1990s and became one of the more recognizable character actors of the last two decades.

Presnell's performance in Fargo was one of those that made even cinephiles wonder, who is this guy? Playing Wade Gunderson, the gruff and obstinate father of the film's kidnap victim, he complemented the desperate ambition of Macy's Jerry Lundegaard and the smalltown sensibleness of Frances McDormand's Marge Gunderson. That same year, he appeared in several other movies, including The Whole Wide World, Larger Than Life and The Chamber, rekindling a film career that stagnated in 1976.