You may have heard that spoof veteran David Zucker's newest project, An American Carol, is a takedown of Michael Moore. You can now have a look at the trailer, online at Yahoo!. And then you can riddle me this: Does An American Carol look like a clever parody of Moore's documentaries, or just a partisan attack on the filmmaker? Or, put another way, is the clip of Bill O'Reilly slapping around Kevin Farley's "Michael Malone" a commentary on the rivalry between the two, or right-wing wish fulfillment? One thing to note before answering is that O'Reilly appears in the film himself, while Moore does not.

Moore is obviously fair game; I've enjoyed his films, and sympathize with (some of) his politics, but I'd eagerly watch a skillful spoof of the pudgy, faux-working-class provocateur. I think parts of the trailer are pretty funny ("Here I am on the island paradise Cuba!"). But if the point is just to pile on the guy, with a rah-rah patriotic, stop-hating-America message at the end, then I'm significantly less interested.

The thing is, the trailer really doesn't make clear what's going on. On one hand, prominent conservatives like O'Reilly and James Woods appear to deliver literal and figurative blows. On the other, "Michael Malone" gets accused of being a slaveowner, which sounds more like a parody of conservative attacks on Moore than of Moore himself. And is Trace Adkins poking fun at his image here, or is he for real?

We know that Zucker is himself conservative, and that the movie is political -- which is fine. But is it political in an incisive, worthwhile way, or in the brainless beatdown mode of Ann Coulter et al? What do you think?

When Warner Bros. announced last Thursday that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had been pushed back from Nov. 21 to next July, hardcore fans immediately entered the five stages of nerd grief. So far we've worked our way through denial, anger, semi-literate Internet ranting, and conspiracy-theorizing. All that's left is acceptance, where we go ahead and watch the movie when it comes out next summer and forget any of this ever happened.

In the meantime, several myths about the date change have popped up, and we'd like to help separate fact from fiction.

MYTH #1: Half-Blood Prince was moved because WB was scared of Twilight.
According to some people who are fans of the Twilight novel and pre-fans of the Twilight movie, WB got nervous about Harry Potter coming out just three weeks before the teen-vampire chick flick, fearing it would siphon off too much of Harry's audience.

Most observers believe Twilight will indeed be a hit, but come on. The Harry Potter franchise the most lucrative in film history, with a total worldwide box-office gross so far of $4.5 billion. There's no reason for WB to fear any competition, no matter how formidable. Also, most of Harry Potter's income is from overseas, where Twilight, still largely a U.S. phenomenon, cannot hope to compete.

Plus, if Half-Blood Prince came out Nov. 21 and followed the usual pattern, it would have already made most of its projected income by the time Twilight showed up on Dec. 12 anyway. Three weeks is a huge gap in our modern, front-loaded, it's-all-about-opening-weekend movie culture. If there had only been one week between them, then maybe you'd have something.

Things rarely go smoothly for costumed adventurers -- and the courtroom, it seems, is no exception. Nikke Finke reports that a federal judge has denied to dismiss 20th Century Fox's legal claim on Watchmen. You may remember that they filed a lawsuit back in February claiming that their rights to the DC property still held. They seek an injunction to prevent Warner Bros' adaptation of Watchmen from being released at all.
And at this point, that federal judge agrees with them.

Warner Bros, obviously, cries foul. They point out that several studios have tried to develop the property for years, with Fox saying nary a word, and passed up the chance to properly reacquire the rights some time back. Their view of the lawsuit is that it's just an opportunistic grab on a movie that has been gaining more and more buzz. You can read the whole legal chronology over on Deadline Hollywood (Finke's done a top-notch job of documenting the ins and outs) and see which side you come down on. It's exhausting -- isn't this what studios have lawyers for? To avoid this kind of last-minute litigation lunacy?

It's unlikely that the movie will really be delayed -- but it is possible that Warner Bros. will have to hand Fox a substantial chunk of change in order to release the film, as they had to do for Dukes of Hazzard some years back. As one of Finke's readers noted, suddenly the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince schedule shift makes a lot more sense. The studio's 2009 budget could be pretty tight.

Watchmen opens (hopefully) March 6th, 2009.

The silliness continues! Vic Holtreman at ScreenRant has passed along a post (sent to them by a poster who's been a steady presence in the comment field on every Punisher: War Zone story -- hi, Nomad) that cinematographer Steve Gainer made on The Raw Board. Gainer is pretty fed up with all the rumors circulating, and insists that Lexi Alexander is not off the film, she's very much involved in the editing process, the film will not be PG-13, and that she did get married. Gainer writes, "When I hear vicious unfounded troll rumors like the "film was unwatchable" or "a total mess" it makes my blood boil. I want to punish the corrupt. People sit on their fat asses trolling the internet, people that have never even looked through a motion picture camera, and make judgements [sic] on a work of art that they've never seen, it's like saying a baby will be ugly before it is born, I can't freaking wait for this film to come out and prove the nay-sayers wrong."

While it's nice to have a rebuttal from someone legitimately associated with the film, none of it makes any sense -- except that someone seems to be fueling, and believing, the "any publicity is good publicity" angle. I still don't understand why, if everything is hunky dory behind the scenes, Alexander scrubbed all mention of the film from her blog, and has been cryptic ever since. Why haven't we had an official statement from her or anyone at Lionsgate? It seems to me that claims that you dumped your director warrant a "No, that's absolutely unfounded!"

I'm still rooting for the film, but I won't be helping to fuel the rumor machine any longer. I won't write another word on Punisher until it comes directly from Lionsgate or Alexander.

[via Ain't It Cool News]

One of the privileges of being an adult is seeing R rated movies. Well, not me -- I was watching them before I was even in kindergarten, and I suspect most of the Cinematical staff was too. But in general, adulthood brings unrestricted viewing access to copious amounts of sex and violence. Of course, that was back before Hollywood decided that R ratings didn't make enough money, and everything vaguely dark should be slashed to allow a 12 year old a ticket.

The latest flick to be marched to the chopping block is the troubled Punisher: War Zone. Latino Review was told by an insider that the latest fight is over cutting it down to a PG-13 rating. I imagine that this is the battle that saw Lexi Alexander canned, and not a disagreement over the film's soundtrack. (It's much easier to sell her as petty and difficult with that story than one over a rating -- but who knows what's true or not at this point.)

Apparently, Lionsgate isn't even listening to their own buzz, since what had everyone talking was the impressive level of violence in the red band trailer. (I've embedded it below since we never got a chance to post it.) They're likely looking at The Dark Knight and how much money its PG-13 rating made and thinking they can copy its success, despite that their protagonist is known for his semi-automatics and bloody tactics, not his "I'll never kill or use guns" ethics.

Do you really want another PG-13 Punisher? I can't imagine you do. I know most of you are pretty lukewarm on the upcoming non-sequel, but if there was one thing that would get you to see it, wouldn't it have been the table leg through the eye? I've been honest about what was drawing me to the film, but if they neuter it, I'm not even sure Ray Stevenson can lure me. It's being released at Christmas, for heaven's sake. How am I supposed to relax from battling Christmas shopping crowds without gratuitous bloodshed? Come on, Lionsgate. Keep the R.

Both Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson leapt from the world of Henry VIII into city love with New York, I Love You, but that's not all they're working on:

• When Portman joined the Big Apple film, it was said to be her directorial debut, but it looks like another film is sliding in front of it. The CBC reports that a 17-minute film she directed, titled Eve, will debut at the Venice Film Festival this month. Organizers are describing her film as a "civilized comedy" and expect the budding filmmaker to be at the opening. Nothing else is being said about the plot, but I imagine it could be quite interesting -- the film stars Ben Gazzara and the one and only Lauren Bacall.
• We've seen the many faces of ScarJo's acting. We've heard her tackle Tom Waits songs, we're on our way to seeing her directorial debut in New York, I Love You, she's apparently looking for a threesome and now she wants more. Showbiz Spy reports that she's itching to develop a film she can direct, and after that, she'd "love to do another album," citing how much she loved living with music and working with musicians. Oh Scarlett, do you really want to take that path again?

As is usually the case when people and groups make a lot of noise over a film's perceived offensiveness, I suspect all the ruckus over a planned boycott of Tropic Thunder over its perceived treatment of people with mental disabilities has only served to give it additional publicity. Nonetheless, organizations such as The Arc are going ahead with plans to call for a boycott of the film. Slate has found the organization's instruction sheet for putting together protests of Tropic Thunder, a six-page bulletin suggesting techniques and talking points for mentally disabled self-advocates and supporters. Sample talking point: "Movies and media, like the movie Tropic Thunder, encourage disrespect of people with intellectual disabilities. We want that to stop!"

The whole thing is an interesting read. Ordinarily I'd say they haven't seen the film, but the organization claims that its leaders have had a chance to watch it and have concluded that "the film's depiction of people with intellectual disabilities is derogatory and demeaning." In that case, they've missed the point spectacularly. As others have argued, the film targets not the mentally disabled but Hollywood's infantile treatment of same. Simple Jack is a clever, incisive parody. And I say that as someone who thinks Tropic Thunder as a whole is pretty weak.

UPDATE: Cinematical has been given this brand new still from the film, which shows Cruise without the eye patch.

MGM seems to be trying to reverse the effects of the doomsaying that circulated about Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer's Hitler-assassination-attempt thriller Valkyrie in the spring, culminating in the announcement that the movie was moving from December 2008 to President's Day 2009. That was received as a surrender, a sure sign that the studio had no confidence in the film and was doing damage control by moving it out of harm's way. Now, following some successful test screenings, MGM has reversed itself and is moving Valkyrie back into the heart of Oscar season: December 26, 2008. Apparently, though, the studio still doesn't think it has awards potential, and is making the move because it thinks Valkyrie will do well in the Christmastime marketplace.

I'm sure positive test screenings did have a lot to do with MGM's decision, but I think it's a smart move because it's great spin control. The press loves to read the tea leaves of studio behavior, and will see this as a major vote of confidence. I suspect the buzz on Valkyrie will seriously improve now that it is no longer the subject of what was perceived as a February dump.

For my part, I don't care about Tom Cruise or his silly eyepatch, but I have a lot of trust in Bryan Singer. The man can make a good mainstream thriller, and I don't see why Valkyrie should be any exception. I think a lot of the "bad buzz" (such as Roger Friedman randomly attacking the film) is just Cruise-bashing, which may be justified but probably shouldn't extend to his movies.

As far as hustling movie producer archetypes go, I tend to prefer Joel Silver over Harvey Weinstein. Sure, Weinstein played a role in some of the great American independent films from the last decade of the twentieth century, but Silver's production credits have more spice to them -- The Matrix, Predator, 48 Hrs. -- hinting at the zany force behind their existence. The movies he has produced don't always please everyone (consider those last two Matrix movies), and sometimes his productions run into unforeseeable setbacks (Joss Whedon's troublesome Wonder Woman script). But now, Silver's trying a radical maneuver that reaffirms his maverick abilities: He's shopping around Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, which tells the story of a drama surrounding a stolen painting and stars Gerard Butler, to other studios despite the plan to release it through Warner Bros. in October.

According to Patrick Goldstein in The Los Angeles Times, Silver said he showed the movie to Lionsgate and Sony Pictures to get some advice on how to market the film. However, when Goldstein asked Warner Bros.' top executive Alan Horn about the situation, Horn called the movie "very English," not "broadly commercial," and said the studio "might not be willing to spend the marketing money he wants us to." So it follows that Silver probably wants to sell the movie to somebody else.

This kind of thing has happened before. Jonathan Levine's teen horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was set for a release through The Weinstein Company, but when it was determined that the distributor might not provide the best home for the film, it went to the more agreeable Senator Films (although Senator has yet to release it). What troubles me is Horn's assertion that RocknRolla is "very English." Yeah ... so?

In the vast wasteland of crappy movies Paris Hilton has popped up in is a little film called Pledge This! If you follow bad movies, you might recognize the title, and if you peruse IMDb's Bottom 100, you would see that it's resting at #15.

But it seems that the poor movie's bad luck is at least partially due to Paris' lackadaisical promotion of the film, not the fact that out of those who bothered to watch and rate the film (almost 5,000), it gets a 1.6/10. The AP reports that a lawsuit has been filed in Miami, claiming that she owes $75,000 for not making good on her promotional obligations. She was paid $1 million for her "acting services" as well as "reasonable promotion and publicity." So I guess she filled over 90% of her contractual obligations, but just slacked in that last 10. Bad worker Hilton.

This is an interesting scheme -- hire a rich celebrity with no cinematic discretion to star in a crappy film, and if the film tanks and she wasn't going wild publicizing it, blame her. Here's to hoping this keeps her from making another Hottie film, at the very least.