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Top Film Events of the Week: Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, (The Original) 'Inglorious Bastards,'

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 21st 2011 9:00PM
Filed under: Columns, Cinematical

Sunday, March 20 marked the last day of the South by Southwest Film Festival, and you can look to Cinematical for boatloads of reviews, interviews and coverage in the days to come. Simultaneously, the rest of the film world looks to their local repertory houses to fill the void left empty by acclaimed titles that haven't yet reached their town, or God forbid, received distribution yet. Thankfully, there's not shortage of great movies being shown all across the country, offering cinephiles plenty of great chances to celebrate the art form.

Otherwise, we would like to remind you to please leave comments and send in emails with any suggestions you may have for events, screenings, or other opportunities film fans may have to share with others in their celebration of the medium. Also, when and if you attend any of the events listed below, please let us know about your experiences, and let the organizers know where you found out about it!
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'Paul' Director Greg Mottola on Making the Geekiest Alien Movie Ever

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 18th 2011 12:10PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Behind the Scenes, Hot Topic, SXSW Film Festival, New Releases, Sci-Fi, Cinematical, Festivals

Throughout almost all of his career as a filmmaker, Greg Mottola has told stories that celebrate the sweet, funny and sometimes hard process of coming of age. In his latest film, 'Paul,' he does the same, but for two decidedly different characters (or at least characters of different ages) than in his previous efforts 'Superbad' and 'Adventureland:' Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost), two pushing-40 British nerds whose pilgrimage to Comic-Con is hijacked when they encounter the title character (Seth Rogen), who happens to be an actual extraterrestrial. Although the project was written by stars Frost and Pegg, Mottola gives their alien tale human dimensions, dispensing life lessons and laughs in equal measures as the duo liberally references classic sci-fi texts like 'Star Wars' and 'E.T.' en route to their own rendezvous with otherworldly creatures.

Cinematical sat down with Mottola in Austin at the South by Southwest Film festival, where 'Paul' played like gangbusters to a crowd comfortable with celebrating nerd-dom. In addition to talking about the film's pastiche of references, Mottola explained the film's unusually... mature coming-of-age curve, and offered his thoughts about telling stories that connect with more than the Comic-Con crowd that is flatteringly depicted in the film.
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'Paul' SXSW Review: Funny and Sweet Fan Boy Pandering

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 14th 2011 8:00PM
Filed under: Reviews, SXSW Film Festival, Sci-Fi, Cinematical

It goes without question that Hollywood should cater to the appetites of their audiences, but the new film 'Paul' suggests that, at least commercially speaking, maybe they shouldn't always cater to the same one. Over the course of the past decade, the moviemaking industry has devoted increasing resources (both creativity and cash) to wooing fan boys and genre fans, but Greg Mottola's latest film actually feels too specifically engineered for them: overloaded (in a great way) with sci-fi, movie and pop-culture references, its niche specificity celebrates geek culture in a way that it seems like few mainstream viewers will identify with, unfortunately overshadowing what is an otherwise imperfect but funny and genuinely sweet story.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost star as Graeme and Clive, two British sci-fi fans who rent an RV and head to the United States for Comic-Con and, eventually, a tour of all of the prominent UFO-associated locations in the Midwest. While out on the open road, they witness an automobile accident, and subsequently discover that the driver is none other than an extraterrestrial being named Paul (Seth Rogen).
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Military Experts Weigh in on 'Battle: Los Angeles'

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 11th 2011 11:00PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Sci-Fi, Cinematical

Over the past 100-plus years of Hollywood moviemaking, audiences have seen countless depictions of what humankind might do in response to an extraterrestrial encounter -- greet visitors with gunfire, give them Reese's Pieces, upload a virus into their Mac-compatible mainframe, sneeze on them, etc. The industry's latest alien invasion movie, 'Battle: Los Angeles,' arrives in theaters this week, and director Jonathan Liebesman took the unusual approach of trying to show how civilians and military personnel might actually respond in the event of an attack.

At the Los Angeles press day for the film, Cinematical spoke to two military experts, Capt. Robert Salas, and Col. Charles Halt, both of whom experienced actual UFO encounters, and they offered their opinions about the film's authenticity. Additionally, the duo revealed a few details about how the government might respond should extraterrestrials descend upon the planet, and interestingly, what we might be able to learn from even fictional films about aliens should we encounter a real one in the future.
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Exclusive: Jonathan Liebesman On 'Battle: Los Angeles'

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 11th 2011 8:00PM
Filed under: Celebrity Interviews, Behind the Scenes, Sci-Fi, Cinematical


Jonathan Liebesman has been working in Hollywood for several years, albeit on films like 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Beginning' whose commercial prospects seemed to flourish at the expense of critical acclaim. On his latest film, 'Battle: Los Angeles,' Liebesman has set his sights on a project with a decidedly more respectable pedigree, crafting a 'Saving Private Ryan'-style epic about Marines caught up in an alien invasion.

Cinematical caught up with Liebesman at the Los Angeles press day for 'Battle: Los Angeles,' where the filmmaker discussed not only the logistical challenges of mounting a war movie with an otherworldly backdrop, but the progression his career has taken – and he wants it to take – as he movies on to bigger and better films.
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'Jane Eyre' Review: Much More Than Bodices and Betrothals

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 11th 2011 9:00AM
Filed under: Reviews, New Releases, Cinematical

It's not merely because much of the new version of 'Jane Eyre' is shrouded in shadows, but it seems like film adaptations of classic literary works are a little bit like (of all things) glow sticks: in their original form they already possess all of the materials needed to be interesting, or if you'll pardon the pun, brilliant, but they need to be sort of broken or cracked open in order to unlock the emotion that gives them resonance. Remarkably, in Cary Fukunaga's interpretation of the Charlotte Bronte classic, you can almost see the text exploding with energy as the actors bring it to life -- which is why even audiences disinclined to embrace period pictures or laborious literary adaptations will find themselves enchanted, even perhaps swooning in 'Jane Eyre.'

Mia Wasikowska plays Jane, a curious and fearless orphan who is sent off to a strict religious school to break her of the independence that was deliberately misdiagnosed as insolence by her adoptive mother, Mrs. Reed (Sally Hawkins). Suffering the loss of a friend during the early days of her matriculation, she grows up experiencing nothing but solitude and loss, but endures long enough to procure a job as governess to the French daughter of Mr. Rochester (Michael Fassbender), a handsome but restless landowner. Because of her own febrile intelligence, she soon captures Rochester's attention, and the two find themselves in a furtive but unspoken courtship. But when Rochester simultaneously begins to entertain the attention of a local girl, Miss Ingram (Imogen Poots), Jane is forced to decide whether her continued independence is worth the cost of losing the man she has grown to love.
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Which 'Star Wars' Film Will Work Best in 3D?

By Todd Gilchrist (Subscribe to Todd Gilchrist's posts), Posted Mar 10th 2011 12:00PM
Filed under: Best Movies Ever, Hot Topic, Coming Soon, Sci-Fi, Cinematical

Last week, Lucasfilm finally announced an official date for the release of 'Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace' in 3D: Feb. 10, 2012. Whether you love or hate the prequels, 'The Phantom Menace' is the first film in the series -- especially for fans who consider them, and not the original trilogy, generational benchmarks -- and it is natural for Lucas and 20th Century Fox to start at the beginning of the saga. But the question isn't whether the prequels should be the trilogy to initiate this cinematic re-release, it's whether they're the films that will truly make the best use of 3D; no matter which order you choose to see these six films, some of them feature scenes and sequences which will simply look better when converted into three dimensions.

So in descending order from worst to best, we've decided to put together a countdown of which 'Star Wars' films will make the best use of 3D overall, and which scenes in those films will (presumably) look the best once you're in the theater with your glasses on, ready to finally be truly immersed in the world George Lucas created such a long time ago.
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