Apples, Oranges and Spaghetti [Review: Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs]

CGI and cinematic depiction of freak weather events go together like apples and oranges. Films such as Twister, The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact and The Perfect Storm have used computer generated tornados, tidal waves and other phenomena to great effect.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs may just be the CGI weather blockbuster to rule them all. It's a children's film with a witty script, a sharp message about junk food, greed and waste, and possibly the best simulation of a spaghetti twister I've seen all year. There are also some subtle-ish nods to Independence Day as well as many of the features above.

If you enjoyed the film, check out the concept art at io9.

Meteorites vs Comets

Two films so similar in plot there must surely have been at some point a defection from one studio to another. And yet the differences are so extreme as to make one film a sfg-only experience while the other has much to recommend it. Ten reasons why Deep Impact owns Armageddon:

1. Gravity
2. Gravity

3. Gravity

4. Gravity

5. Gravity

6. Gravity

7. Gravity

8. Gravity

9. Gravity gravity gravity

10. see 1 to 9 above.

Gravity refers to the universal gravitational force first described (almost correctly) by Newton. No! merely spinning up Mir (referred to here as The Russian Space Station) does not allow you to walk up the central axis and along a side coridoor. No! you can't walk from the back to the front of the Space Shuttle crew compartment just because the engines are running. No! sucking the AIR out of a VACUUM CHAMBER in an Earth-based training centre does not make you weightless! I'm sure many sci-fi fans share at least part of my phenomenal ability to suspend disbelief but this scene just took the piss.

Surprisingly Armageddon was filmed with extensive NASA cooperation - I'm not sure whether this was also true of Deep Impact, where much more of the focus was on the human experience of those caught up in the events whether on Earth or in space.