Here's the setting: You just arrived home after saving a country from an evil mastermind hell-bent on taking over their supply of chewing gum and using it to create mayhem. During that time, however, you missed your Cinematical and all the stuff that happened during the week. Well, you showed up at just the right time -- may we now present [drum roll please] ... Cinematical's Stuff That Happened This Week!

Fanboy Stuff
Kenneth Branagh is Directing Thor
Transformers 2 is Shooting in IMAX
Eagle Eye Writer Wants to Make a Blade Runner 2?
Zack Snyder Talks 300 Sequel
But Then Jon Favreau Talks Iron Man Sequel
Check Out Early Art for Pixar's The Incredibles
Star Wars Steampunk and Reservoir Dogs = Hella Cool!
Are They Rebooting Daredevil?

Exclusive Stuff
Bolt Poster Premiere
Pray the Devil Back to Hell Poster Premiere
Clip from Bill Maher's Religulous

Stuff to Talk About
Will Smith vs Will Smith
Five People Who Should Star in PG Porn
Who's More Uncomfortable with Onscreen Nudity?
Which Upcoming Marvel Film Shows the Most Promise?
How Saw V Could Actually Be Good
Is Roku's Netflix Player Tempting You Yet
When Talking Animals Attack
Horror Remakes That Don't Suck

Reviews and Stuff
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Religulous
Rachel Getting Married
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Flash of Genius
Appaloosa
An American Carol
Indie Spotlight: New Releases for Oct. 3

More stuff after the jump ...

In this weekend's well-meaning docudrama, Flash of Genius, Greg Kinnear portrays an inventor who struggled for years to sue car manufacturing behemoth Ford and get them to admit that they helped themselves to his patent on the intermittent windshield wiper. (Eugene reviewed it back at Telluride, and I basically agree with his assessment.)

Despite the real-life case being settled a couple of decades ago, Ford has taken this current opportunity to point out the factual inaccuracies in the movie that they've taken issue with, doing so in the form of this handy timeline, without causing any sort of formal stir, as covered in this accompanying text. Especially considering that the film's subject, Robert Kearns, passed away over three years ago, I doubt it would (and hope it won't) come to any sort of renewed head.

Maybe in thirty years or so, we'll get a movie about a blogger battling impossible odds to get all the facts straight on either side of a movie in which an inventor battled impossible odds to get just some facts straight. Now, to just work the word 'Genius' back into the title...

(We're re-posting our review of Flash of Genius from the Telluride Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend)

By: Eugene Novikov

Flash of Genius is a conventional crowdpleaser but not, I'm pleased to report, a shameless one. Chronicling the true story of a college professor's fight to reclaim his invention – the intermittent windshield wiper – from the car company that stole it, the film does many of the things you'd expect, but it may also surprise you. Don't let its Telluride placement fool you: this is a staunchly mainstream, unchallenging film, the sort of underdog-vs.-corporate-behemoth story you've seen time and again. But it's a decent rendition, hitting the right notes without insulting our intelligence.

Now, the intermittent windshield wiper is not exactly the light bulb. If you're not familiar with the term, the wiper is "intermittent" in the sense that it can pause between wipes – a problem that apparently puzzled engineers at all the major car companies until Kearns cracked it the late 60s. But part of what's nifty about the film is its ability to create suspense and curiosity around something so seemingly mundane. Kearns' first demo of his device to Ford is exciting in a very goofy way, but exciting nonetheless.

(We're re-posting our review of Rachel Getting Married from the Toronto International Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend)

By: James Rocchi

Rachel Getting Married is a terse, smart, funny and tough family drama about forgiveness and failure written by Jenny Lumet; it's also a loose, smart, broad and bright film about family and love directed by Jonathan Demme. When these two things are in sync, the end result is something truly impressive – a moving story that appeals to your heart and soul without insulting your intelligence, a film full of big scenes that never stoops to the most obvious possible iteration of those big scenes, a movie loaded with great and sincere performances from the top down. When the two parts of Rachel Getting Married fall out of synch – as they do, most notably, in the last third of the film during Demme's raucous, joyous post-wedding reception – it's less catastrophic than it is curious, and the final film is still very much worth watching.

In one corner, we have Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman (doesn't that sound good already?). The Hollywood Reporter posts that PSH has just signed his voice up to star opposite Collette in Mary and Max, a claymation project from Down Under. Sort of like a claymation version of Love Letters, the film focuses on two penpals who foster a friendship over 20 years while one lives in Australia and the other in the US. I don't know if this is a tale of classic pen to paper, or something a little more modern with late-night Internet session while one goes to bed and the other rises. To make things even more interesting -- it's the feature debut for Harvie Krumpet Oscar winners Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs.

In the other corner, there's one of the strangest couplings I've read in a while -- Helen Hunt and Liev Schreiber. Variety reports the pair are starring in a new drama called Every Day. What's weird -- they're playing a "couple whose marriage is strained to the breaking point." Nip/Tuck's Richard Levine will make his feature directorial debut with the film, which starts production in New York this month. I don't know why, but this pairing just seems really strange. They're not far off in age, so who knows?

Weigh in below: Which pair do you want to see more?

There's a new biopic finally gaining steam that hasn't been mentioned on Cinematical before -- HBO's Temple Grandin project. Back in August, Claire Danes signed on, and now The Hollywood Reporter posts that David Strathairn, Julia Ormond, and Catherine O'Hara have joined the cast.

Temple Grandin is a 61-year-old woman with autism known to be one of the leading voices in autism advocacy. As a child, she was derided by her classmates for being different -- nicknamed "tape recorder" because of her tendency to repeat things numerous times. But bursting out of that, Grandin went to college and eventually earned a PhD in animal science, ultimately becoming an advocate of humane slaughterhouses as well -- an ideal candidate to show both the struggles and successes that can come from autism.

A passion project that's been in the works for almost a decade, filming begins this month in Austin with Danes playing Grandin, while Strathairn plays her university science teacher, Ormond will play her mother, and O'Hara, her aunt. It's a great story to see come to fruition, and with this cast, I'm hoping for good things -- Danes breaking out of that older seductress habit, O'Hara getting a chance to be serious. Ormond is good and, well, Strathairn always ups the ante. Thoughts?

If you're one of those folks who protesting the film, this probably won't be of much interest, but to the rest, feel free to check out the first five minutes of Blindness above. I'm hooked. Now I realize that I'm a wee bit biased, being a huge Don McKellar fan -- he not only wrote the adaptation, but also gives the opening his classic wit in one of the first speaking roles in the film -- but this movie simply looks darned good.

At the same time, I'm betting that being allured by these first minutes isn't a good indicator of what's to come. This is, after all, not a tale of a dude who goes mysteriously blind and his new, chatty sidekick. It's about a strange pseudo-blind epidemic where a milky haze plagues an unknown city.

But if you need more reasons to see it -- both Kim and James dug the new cut screened in Toronto last month.

Did you hear there are like a million new films opening in wide release today? Well, there are. Some of them are pretty good, too. But just in case that's not enough to keep you occupied, here's the Indie Spotlight with several more titles that might interest you, most of them in limited release and a bit under the radar.

Now, "indie" can be a hard thing to pin down. Bill Maher's Religulous (opening today on 500 screens) might qualify, but you've probably already heard about it. Same goes for Blindness (1,700 screens). You don't need me for those. Instead, here are the five that we're shining the indie spotlight on: Allah Made Me Funny, An American Carol, Ballast, Kidnap, and Rachel Getting Married.

Rachel Getting Married
What it is: One of the big hits at the Toronto International Film Festival, it's a naturalistic drama about an addict (Anne Hathaway) who gets out of rehab just in time for her sister's wedding.
What they're saying: Cinematical's James Rocchi had almost nothing but good things to say about it in Toronto, particularly with regard to the screenplay and Hathaway's performance. (There's a bit of Oscar buzz around both.) At Rotten Tomatoes, the film stands at a solid 76%.
Where it's playing: New York City (Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, City Cinemas, Regal Union Square), Los Angeles (ArcLight Sherman Oaks, ArcLight Hollywood, Laemmle Playhouse in Pasadena, Edwards Westpark in Irvine, The Landmark), and International Falls, Minn. (Cinema 5).
More info: Sony Classics' official site.

Ballast
What it is: A bleak drama about life and death among the lower classes on the Mississippi Delta.
What they're saying: Cinematical's James Rocchi praised the film at Sundance (and interviewed the writer/director, Lance Hammer, here). At Rotten Tomatoes, 75% of the critics agree with The Rocch. It won prizes for its directing and cinematography at Sundance, too.
Where it's playing: New York City (Film Forum).
More info: The official site says it will expand to "select cities" in two weeks.

(Note: We're re-posting this review from the Toronto International Film Festival to coincide with the film's theatrical release this weekend)

By: James Rocchi

Starring Michael Cera and Kat Dennings, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a light, slight, fleet-footed teen comedy of romance and indie rock; there are logic holes in it, and lulls, and moments that seem devoid of sense, to be sure, but there are also moments in where Cera or Dennings will smile and your momentary doubts and disagreements are washed away and your head is filled with a sense of gladness, not despair, that you're watching our young, happy hipster heroes on screen. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist combines the shaggy-dog sprawl of an early John Hughes film with the blunt talk and softly-rounded feelings of the Apatow comedies, and if it did not have leads as charismatic and tonally correct as Cera and Dennings, it would be very close to dead in the water; however, since it does, it isn't.

Taking place in some movie version of Manhattan where parking is always immediately available and everyone over 25 has, apparently, been executed Logan's Run-style, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist begins as Nick (Cera) is trying, and failing, to get over his breakup with the tedious-yet-tempting, hot-yet-hateful Tris (Alexis Dzienia), leaving lengthy messages on her phone and exquisitely sequenced mix discs at her door. Tris laughingly discards Nick's most recent effort into the trash at school; sarcastic-but-sweet Norah (Kat Dennings) retrieves it, as she's done for several of Nick's discarded offerings: "He makes the best mixes ever." The fact that Nick's latest effort is labeled "The Road to Closure, Vol. 12" tells you that Nick has strong feelings, and, in this case, weak vocabulary skills.

The first time I came across a trailer for the Diane Lane/Thomas Jane/Mickey Rourke hitman thriller Killshot (only remaining on an AICN archive page and the errant DVD release), it was back in September of 2006. Since then, the Elmore Leonard adaptation has endured reshoots in January of 2007 and countless changes in release dates after that. Of course, there's also at least three test screening reviews that bring to light the entire removal of a character played by Johnny Knoxville from the film.

Now, not long after the Weinstein Company issued its latest round of supposed scheduling, Killshot's most recent date -- November 7, 2008 -- has been dashed away by this Los Angeles Times piece, and as pointed out, how does one struggle to release anything that John Madden, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack and Quentin Tarantino all had hands in at some point? How does one struggle to even sell off domestic distribution rights to a film with this cast and that crew? The obvious answer is, of course, that the film is a downright dud, though the general pedigree and harshest reviews seem to suggest that it's not a total turkey.

The best-case scenario at this point is that the film rides the awards buzz of Rourke's performance in December's The Wrestler as suggested and gets a theatrical release in the early winter dumping grounds (through the Weinsteins' Third Rail arm, I'd bet), while the worst-case scenario is the film being directly downgraded to the level of a Blockbuster-exclusive curio. We shall see...