One Crazy Night

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
What Happens in Vegas

This week’s screening schedule was exactly as this week’s title suggests. We had just one evening screening, and it was pretty much insane.

Tuesday night was the Son of Rambow screening, which was held at The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up. And that always makes for an entertaining evening.

Since the theater is way on the other side of town, we decided to carpool—so Neil showed up at our place, and we drove down from here. We were planning to leave by 6:15ish for the 7:30 screening (both because it’s quite a hike down to that part of town and because the theater has absolutely no parking, so you have to show up early to get a spot that doesn’t require a two-mile hike). But Neil stopped at Kevin’s place before the screening and ended up playing with the baby for longer than expected. Fortunately, though, we’ve got backup. So while we waited for Neil to show up, I picked up the phone and called Jason, who was already on his way. So if we weren’t there before the doors opened, we’d still have a seat. It’s cool how that all works.

So anyway, we ended up parking on the street and still making it into the theater before the doors opened. But when we got there, we were greeted by one big, happy surprise: goody bags. Jamie, the lovely Paramount Vantage rep, had put together goody bags, filled with all kinds of fun, sugary ‘80s goodies. As soon as the bags were in our hands, we regressed about 20 years, and we were all like little kids on the playground, trading my Boston Baked Beans for Neil’s Snow White Pez dispenser. It was awesome. We had already been pretty excited to see the movie—and suddenly we were both excited and wired on Air Heads. Did I mention it was awesome?

So anyway, once the doors opened, we got ourselves some seats—right in the middle, right where we usually sit. We got to sit around and get caught up, since we hadn’t seen each other in a while week. It’s pretty strange, really, not seeing everyone several times a week. I actually kinda miss them. So it was nice to get caught up again.

Eventually, the theater started filling up, and, as is usually the case with The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up, we ended up surrounded by entertaining characters.

Behind us, for instance, there were two Pepper Pots in training. I believe they were rather young, but they were still very Pepper Pot-ish. By that, I mean that they were absolutely mortified by everything in the movie. There’s a mouse on-screen, there are two “EEW!”s behind me. The kid’s drawing is a bit violent, there are two “UUH!”s behind me. There was an “OOOH!” or an “UUUH!” or a “EEEW!” for everything. Even pinecones, apparently, mortified these women. And if they weren’t expressing some form of horror and outrage, they were chatting up a storm.

But that’s only the beginning.

Then there was the guy in front of us. Now, I know that the movie was about a couple of kids in the early ‘80s, but I didn’t think that the screening necessitated costumes. But this guy definitely had a great costume: long, scraggly brown hair, black leather vest. He looked like a cast-off roadie from an ‘80s metal band. He had clearly smoked an entire pack before entering the theater, and I’m pretty sure that isn’t all this guy’s been smoking—since, from the sound of it, something fried the guy’s brain cells years ago. Oh, and he sounded just like Sam Elliot.

Fortunately, though, Sam Elliot enjoyed every minute of the movie. He was laughing. And clapping. And talking to the screen. He was having a great time. And as we sat behind him, snickering, his girlfriend was hunched down in her seat, and his friends, who were sitting next to him, were chuckling in embarrassment and leaning the other way.

So, yeah. It was another night at The Theater Where Nobody Shuts Up. Fortunately, the movie was a whole lot of fun. Neil’s looking forward to seeing it again at the screening he’s hosting this week—mostly because it’ll be nice to see it once without Sam Elliot’s commentary.

But that was it for the week. Kevin actually made the drive to Cincinnati last night for the Prince Caspian screening, but at $4 a gallon for gas, the rest of us figured that, if we really wanted to see it, we could pay to see it here instead of driving 200 miles round trip to see it for free. We were actually planning to see it today over lunch at the Movie Tavern, but then Neil decided to take a nap instead and David realized that he had a scheduling conflict, so Jason and I scrapped that idea. Since my brother-in-law, Ed, is in town this weekend, I took him to Guitar Center instead—and we had lunch at the only Friendly’s in town, followed by a stop at the only Dunkin’ Donuts in town. And we might just head to Movie Tavern tonight instead.

So this weekend’s a busy one. On top of having Ed here—which means some shopping, some hanging out, and maybe a trip to the zoo—I’m also heading over to the WCBE yard sale tomorrow for a while. (If you’re in the area, it’s from 10-2, and there will be cool stuff. Be sure to stop in!) And Sunday is the Indiana Jones screening. And we still have to re-watch The Last Crusade sometime between now and then. So I’m sure that’ll make for one crazy weekend. After that, though, there’s nothing. Seriously. Nothing at all. There are two screenings on Tuesday night, but they’re both movies that I will have already seen. So there isn’t a single screening this week. It’s going to be a quiet, lonely week—but, on the bright side, that means that I’ll be able to catch up on DVDs and books and music and stuff. So I’m not going to complain…

Those Lazy Days of Summer

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
Speed Racer
Redbelt
Made of Honor

May seems to be a pretty sleepy month for movies. And by that, I don’t mean that the movies are boring. I just mean that there aren’t a lot of them. For instance, last week, two movies opened (in wide release, that is): Iron Man and Made of Honor. This week, it’s What Happens in Vegas and Speed Racer. Next week, it’s just Prince Caspian. The week after, it’s Indiana Jones. In other words, all kinds of big movies that no one wants to try to battle at the box office. So while each week brings an exciting new adventure for us critics, they’re few and far between.

This week, we had just two screenings—both on Tuesday. On Tuesday morning, we were scheduled to see What Happens in Vegas at The Other Theater (the one where we rarely have morning screenings—but where we totally prefer to have them). Since it’s much closer to home, that meant that I could leave at the same time and still make a stop at the nearby Tim Horton’s. It’s a good thing that I had plenty of time, though—because the poor kid working the counter clearly had no idea what he was doing. He greeted me when I walked in and asked what he could get me, and I said, “I’ll have a chocolate chip muffin…” and I paused to let him do whatever he needed to do. Instead, he just stared at me. So I went on. “…And a small hazelnut iced coffee with no cream and a little bit of sugar.”

His response: “A chocolate chip muffin.”

At that point, I knew I was in trouble. This one took a whole lot of explaining on my part—and when I walked out, I ended up with a regular iced coffee with no nothin’, but I wasn’t about to complain. The movie would be over by the time I got what I wanted.

But at least I had my muffin. And some sort of coffee.

When I got to the parking lot, David was already there, eating a breakfast burrito in his car. (I’ve mentioned that film critics have a glamorous life, right?) And Jason had just followed me from the Tim Horton’s drive-thru. So we gathered in the lobby to wait for the others.

Apparently, everyone was a bit burnt out after seeing Made of Honor last week—because very few people showed up for the screening. And when it began, I, too, was a little (okay…more than a little) worried. But, fortunately, it turned out to be much better than Made of Honor (not that the bar was set all that high).

After the screening, we all went our separate ways, heading back to our offices to try to write something up before racing back to the theater again that night for Speed Racer.

Since most of our evening screenings have been at the same time and same place lately, I didn’t even think to double-check the time of the screening—until we’d finished dinner. It was then that I realized that the screening was at 7—not 7:30—and we had to race to the theater. I called David to ask him to save us seats, and we headed out—dirty dishes all over the kitchen. It looked like a tornado had just gone through—but we had places to be.

Of course, we were still there plenty early. So no worries there. We were, however, displaced from our usual seats—this time, not by the usual rep, complete with entourage, but by one of our own. He had taken the center seats, leaving the rest of us either to split up (which sucks—but we do it if we have to) or to sit at the very side of the theater, right by the steps (which would mean that half of the movie would be blocked out by the constant parade of kids heading to and from the bathroom). Though Jason asked him politely if he could move down just a couple of seats, he refused—first stating that they were press seats (apparently assuming that the rest of us were just pushy fanboys) and then announcing, “No, I’m good here.”

It’s not like someone was asking him to sit up front—or way off on the side. They were just asking him to move a seat or two over. We do it all the time. No big deal. But apparently it would have meant the end of the world for this guy. Eventually, Jason got the rep to ask him to move over—which, I’m sure, made us look a little spoiled, but we didn’t really care. At least we didn’t have to deal with the parade of kids headed to the bathroom.

As it turned out, though, not only did the guy refuse to move over, but he also refused to let anyone sit next to him, preferring to save an extra seat for his coat. Now, in many cases, that’s okay. The theater doesn’t always fill up. But, in this case, there were more passes than seats—and there were all kinds of people who were turned away. The reps in charge asked (several times) if anyone had extra seats around them, but he never said a word. So someone was sent home that night because his coat needed a seat. Now, I understand that some critics like to have their “buffer seat”—but even John, who loves his buffer seat, will give it up when there’s a full house. So I’d say that this guy ranks right up there with the one who, upon showing up late for I Am Legend and demanding a seat, told the guy who showed up on time and still got thrown out, “Yeah, like you’d lose your job if you didn’t see this movie.”

So when people tell me that film critics are jerks (and yes, people have), I guess I can’t totally disagree. Some are. But I swear that most of us are totally cool. Really. So please don’t throw things at us or send death threats via email. We’re really not that bad.

But anyway…Speed Racer was, as expected, one crazy movie. Needlessly complex but totally crazy. When we walked out, Bill announced that he was going to go home and stare at a blank screen for a while, just to recover. A few guys complained of headaches. And I couldn’t actually see normal colors—everything was red and blue and swirly polka dots and stuff for hours after the movie ended. But, well, it was kinda fun anyway.

The kids, on the other hand, were barely effected—unless, of course, you count the fact that they came running out of the theater and ran around in circles and bumped into things. Other than that, though, they seemed happy.

After the screening, Kevin had to head back to greet his in-laws, who moved in for a few days to take care of Kevin’s two little guys while Kevin and his wife, Carolyn, brought the third little Kevin into the world. And on Wednesday afternoon, we got the news—along with the unauthorized photos—of the birth of the latest Carr, Nicholas Ronon. In a couple of years, he, too, will be wreaking havoc on movie theaters and running into things—and I look forward to it. Believe it or not, little Carr kids are really quite adorable. Why, just last week, at the Iron Man screening, the youngest walked up to Neil and, out of the blue, announced, “I love you, Neil.” Of course, this is the same child who, right after the Speed Racer screening, also exhibited is talent for farting on cue. So, yeah—cute…and entertaining.

But that’s it for this week—just one crazy day of screenings followed by a few days to recover. Next week will be even quieter. We just have one screening scheduled for next week—Son of Rambow (yeah!). Of course, there’s no Prince Caspian screening—so we’ll all be heading out on Friday to see it at the Movie Tavern (where there will be fried pickles). My brother-in-law, Ed, the coolest brother-in-law ever, will be showing up for a visit on Thursday night, so he’ll get thrown right into the craziness that is known as the COFCA Mafia (AKA “The Internet Mavericks,” AKA “The Rodents”). It’s sure to be quite an adventure for young Ed. Perhaps I’ll drag him away from the Wii long enough to guest blog for me on Monday, following his movie-filled weekend.

Hurray for Summer!

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
Iron Man
The Visitor
Deception
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
Anamorph
CJ7 (Cheung Gong 7 Hou)
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I know…I know…I didn’t post last week. I could give a big, detailed explanation as to why I neglected my Friday blog duties, but, really, the reason is pretty simple: I just ran out of time. If you would like, however, I could give you a list of the things that I did do last Friday. After all, it’s all still in my planner—even though it technically took place last month, and those pages should already have been removed from my planner. But, considering I just finally found the time to remove my March pages last week, they’ll probably be there for a while.

I will, however, give you a quick overview of last week—just so you won’t feel left out: I only went to three screenings last week. Two were morning screenings, and both were bad. I also went to an evening screening of Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, which was insane—as I’m sure you can imagine. There were some crazy guys sitting behind us, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were stoned. They were loud, and they climbed over seats as though they were in their own living room. But, really, what else can you expect from the sneak preview crowd for a stoner comedy? Not a whole heck of a lot, really.

Also, I made my third consecutive appearance on It’s Movie Time—this time, with both John and Clay. Clay and I had to share a microphone, so we were all very close and cuddly, but it was still great fun. In fact, I’d gotten so used to getting up and heading to the studio on Thursday morning that it felt weird not to go to the studio this week. I miss that crazy place.

In other WCBE news, though, if you happen to be in the Columbus area, be sure to mark your calendars for May 17th (that’s a Saturday)—the WCBE yard sale. The guys and I will be wandering around, schmoozing and trying to sell CDs and posters and things. Be sure to stop in—and bring cash! That day is also the annual Fort Fest, so there will be food and music and all kinds of fun, artsy stuff.

Okay…so now for this week.

This week was a very exciting week for all of us—because this week marks the beginning of the Summer Blockbuster Season. And, believe me, it comes not a moment too soon. After surviving four pretty crap-heavy months, we could use a couple of big popcorn movies to reward us just a little bit for making it through the dull winter months without having a complete nervous breakdown.

First, though, we had to see Patrick Dempsey in Made of Honor. My husband was once again out of town on Monday, so, after leaving my knitting group, I headed to Panera for dinner. I read and ate a very tasty chipotle chicken sandwich. Then I made my way to campus for the screening.

When I showed up, Neil was already there, talking to Jennifer, one of our favorite reps, about Wednesday’s Iron Man screening. According to Jen, Wednesday would be insane, so she advised us to show up early. No problem there. Neil was so psyched to see Iron Man that he, Kevin, and David were planning to drive up to Cleveland for their screening on Tuesday—after which Neil and Kevin (but not David, who was on baby duty on Wednesday) were seeing it again on Wednesday. Really, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Neil had just driven back from Cleveland on Tuesday night and headed straight to the theater here, so he wouldn’t be late to see it on Wednesday. He was that excited.

Anyway, though…I was talking about Made of Honor. The big surprise of the night was that Kevin arrived with his wife. Now, that in itself is not a big deal—but the fact that Kevin’s wife happens to be ready to give birth at any second is. Apparently, though, she once went into labor while watching a bad romantic comedy, so perhaps they were just trying to speed up the process a bit. They’re having a boy, so maybe they thought he’d want none of that, so he’d just decide to head out early.

But alas, there were no mid-movie births to add excitement to the evening. All we had was a really bad chick flick. Now, I didn’t expect this one to be the greatest movie ever, but I did go in with an open mind—but, boy, was it bad. And when it was all over, I had a very strong urge to go home and drink. So I did. I mixed myself a vodka tonic and got to work on my review.

Tuesday was a no-screening day for me, so I ended up diving into my pile of DVDs at home instead. Since my husband hadn’t gotten home yet, I figured I’d watch P. S. I Love You. And by the time he got home—at around 9—I was one big sniffly, teary mess. And then we went downstairs and played tennis on our Wii, and I felt much better.

And then came Wednesday. In the morning, we had a screening of the David Mamet movie, Redbelt. Every once in a while, I walk out of a movie, and I don’t have a clue what to say about it—and Redbelt was one of those movies. So I had to head back to the office and sort through my thoughts and figure it all out as I started my review.

At around 5, though, I had to give up—because Neil, Jason, Bill, and I had decided to meet up for dinner/drinks before the big Iron Man screening. A still very excited Neil and his friend, Brian, picked me up at 5-something, and we met up with Jason and his girlfriend, Milu, at our favorite pre/post-screening hangout, Champpppppps. We ordered up some Blue Moons and indulged in the happy hour menu (I got a cute little pizza) and celebrated the coming of summer. By Wednesday afternoon, Made of Honor was behind us—and we were ready for the first big blockbuster of the season.

Somewhere during the meal, we all got messages from Kevin, who was already at the theater with his kids. Since another movie was still playing in the designated Iron Man theater, they weren’t going to start letting us in until 7—so he told us to take our time (which we did). We did, however, end up heading over early anyway—just to be a part of all the insanity. By the time we got there, we could see that the line was all the way through the theater and curled up around the side. No surprise, really—and we were glad that we hadn’t waited until the last minute to show up. That way, we could be safely inside before the inevitable fist fights started breaking out.

The theater lobby was absolutely packed—which only added to the excitement of the night. For the most part, I don’t tend to get really excited about screenings. Yeah, I’ll look forward to some movies more than others, but I don’t really get excited. But I’ll admit that I was totally psyched for the first big screening of the summer. That’s allowed, right? Because the first big movie of the summer is an event. And what an event this one was!

The press were all corralled over to one section of the lobby. Though there are often quite a few of us, there were tons of us this time. This is one of those screenings when everyone shows up—even those people who never usually show up for screenings (those who, let’s face it, haven’t actually written a review in ages but are still on the list anyway). There were people there that I’d never seen before—and I heard names that were previously nothing more than a name I read on our weekly emails. But, hey. It’s Iron Man.

Finally, the press were allowed in, along with a bunch of other “special guests.” It all worked out quite well, really. Everyone waited their turn. We stood in line (which we never do) and slowly made our way into the theater. Of course, by the time we got in, the usual rep had already taken our seats and reserved them for her own entourage, leaving us to sit at the side of the theater. But, well, at least we got seats, I guess.

Though we were expecting all heck to break loose, everything went really smoothly. Matt, one of our other favorite reps, did an excellent job of wrangling the crowd. Unlike The Great I Am Legend Fiasco of 2007, no one had to fight for seats. No one ended up standing in the theater, begging for a place to sit. And even the two critics who couldn’t be bothered to show up on time had seats when they arrived.

A few minutes before the movie was supposed to start, I decided to head out to the bathroom one last time. Bill and I used the Buddy System, heading out of the theater together, slightly worried that one of those people who hadn’t gotten into the theater would see us with our bathroom passes and beat us down for them. But, much to my surprise, even the lobby, things were totally calm. I was highly impressed—and I was happy to make it back in one piece.

As for the movie, well, as Michael Bay would say, it was awesome. Unlike last year’s first blockbuster, Super-Man 3, which left me feeling rather let down, Iron Man was just what I hoped it would be. And, like Neil, I could easily see it again. In fact, I have a feeling that, by now, he’s already seen it three times.

So Wednesday night was a great way to usher in the summer. And though we don’t have a lot of screenings scheduled for this month, they should be fun. I mean, who knows if Speed Racer will be any good—but at least it should be crazy fun. And the same goes for Indiana Jones (the screening of which my brother-in-law is flying down from Toronto to attend). The one screening that’s missing? Prince Caspian. Much to our shock and dismay, Disney has decided to screen it in Cincinnati only. In fact, even when Kevin and Neil found a theater that was willing to screen the movie for us for free, Disney declined. Sure, we’ve been invited to attend the screening in Cincinnati, but it’s hardly worth it. They’re screening it the night before release, which means that not only would we have to deal with a four-hour round trip (which, with gas at $3.50 a gallon, isn’t a small thing) but then we’d get back at midnight or so, and we’d have to scramble to get our reviews written in time for Friday publication. So we’re going to forget about that and see it on Friday afternoon at the Movie Tavern instead. No long commute, and it comes with a side of fried pickles. No complaints here. Or at least not many. But Prince Caspian gets the infamous Preemptive Suck nonetheless.

Right now, I’ve only got two screenings on the schedule for next week. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of DVDs accumulating on my coffee table—so that should keep me plenty busy.

Rodent Drama

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
The Forbidden Kingdom
Married Life
Priceless (Hors de Prix)
Street Kings

It’s been quite a week here in Rodent Land. Before you read on, if you haven’t already read Monday’s post, now’s the time to get caught up on the week’s drama.

So after Monday’s drama, I think we were all supposed to feel a bit disheartened—like we’re all just a bunch of worthless hacks. But it’s actually been a really fun week. After the initial shock and outrage over the whole thing, this whole fiasco turned out to be one of those amusing little things that we can all sit around and laugh about. In fact, we’ve learned to embrace our status as rodents, and we’ve all bonded over it. The week has just been one rat joke after another.

Fortunately, we had all kinds of opportunities to discuss it—because we had five screenings this week. We had screenings on Monday and Tuesday morning—after which Clay and I had to scramble to write up our show, since we had to record on Wednesday morning. Fortunately, it all went off without much of a hitch. All of the writing was done (miraculously, really) by 5 or 6 on Tuesday. And we were sure that it was going to be a good show.

On Wednesday morning, I got up and raced out the door at 8—in time to fill up the tank and make it to the studio in time to meet Clay at 8:45ish. We rehearsed once, only to find that, unlike last week’s show (which started out way too short), this week’s show was way too long. So we sat down and started trimming things down. Then, at just after 9, we set up the studio and got ready to go.

Now, I’m not a morning person—and, similarly, my voice is not a morning voice. First thing in the morning, I’m a little bit phlegmy—and it’s even worse during allergy season. Clay happened to be having the same vocal issues, so we ended up getting off to a late start, since we’d had to spend so much time hacking up a lung. Then we had a few false starts, after realizing we’d written some pretty good tongue twisters for ourselves (try saying “filmmaker Morgan Spurlock” a few times). Then, however, things finally came together. Our sound levels were right, our time was good, and we didn’t trip over each other nearly as much as we did last week. So then we got the show edited and ready to go. By 10:30, we were out the door and on our way to the North Star Café to celebrate over coffee and the world’s best morning glory muffins. We finally got the hang of things—just in time for John to return from Greece.

I must say, though—this week’s show was one of my personal favorites of the 14 I’ve done. You can here it for yourself at WCBE.org.

On Wednesday night, I headed out to see The Forbidden Kingdom. When I got there, I met Jason and his girlfriend, Milu, at the door, and we wandered down the hall together. Even though it was still 45 minutes before the screening was scheduled to begin, they had already started letting the crowd in. That didn’t strike us as a problem until we got inside and made our way halfway up the stairs, only to discover that our usual seats had been taken. None of the others had gotten there before us—and the reps hadn’t saved our seats (either that, or those people who were sitting there had taken the “Reserved for Press” signs off and helped themselves). So we ended up sitting at the very end of the row, in seats that didn’t make us happy at all. And I ended up sitting next to some guy who somehow managed to get a cell phone into the theater (despite the fact that they’d apparently been very strict on the no-cell-phone thing), and it kept ringing throughout the entire movie. And if his phone weren’t ringing, he was having some very loud conversation with the guy next to him. I was tempted to hit him—or perhaps grab his phone off his hip and turn it off—but I didn’t.

So after Wednesday night’s screening, we were back at it on Thursday morning—for CJ7—and then again on Thursday night for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. At the Thursday morning screening, we got to hear all of Neil’s stories about his adventures at the 88 Minutes screening on Wednesday night. Apparently, some drunk guy ran into the theater, jumped down from the balcony, and sat down in the press seats. Neil politely told the guy that he might want to move—so he did. Not long after that, a whole bunch of security guys came in and dragged the guy out. I really feel bad that I missed that one—but from what I hear about the movie, I made the better choice for Wednesday night screenings.

I did, however, also miss out on the new rep accusing Neil of making up Film School Rejects on the way into the theater, just so he could claim to be press—because she’d never heard of him. Nice.

And that takes me to Thursday night’s adventure. My husband, Paul, joined me for the Sarah Marshall screening—and as we were making our way out of the parking garage, we ran into Jason…and then we met Kevin in the lobby. So we all made our way into the theater, where we found David, sitting in the middle of the back row of the bottom section of the theater. There was a whole bunch of confusion over the press seats, though, since one of the reps had put down “Reserved for Press” signs, but then she’d written names on them—because she was apparently bringing her whole family. So after we finally figured out the whole seating situation, we settled in to compare notes on the week. Just as we were chatting, some woman from a couple of seats down got up and climbed over us to get out. On the way out, she apparently made some comment to the rep’s mom, inquiring, in the nosiest way possible, who she was. When she came back from her bathroom break, she then took aim at us.

“So you’re the press,” she said in an accusatory tone. “And who are you with?”

We all just kinda looked at each other with that Is she for real? look.

David replied to her by explaining that we all wrote for various online publications. She huffed.

“And you?” she continued, focusing her gaze on Paul and me. At this point, I was pretty much done with the woman, and I just wanted her to finish climbing over me, so I could go back to sitting comfortably, instead of scrunching up so she could stand in front of me and accuse me of stealing press seats.

“Same,” I replied.

With another huff, she returned to her seat, just two seats down from Paul, and announced loudly, “They’re not press.”

I swear David was about to get up and punch her. In fact, he told me to go slap her—since I could get away with it, being a chick and all.

So, clearly, it was a big week for Internet writer discrimination. But it seems that rodents (while prolific), are also pretty tough. I’m pretty sure we’ll survive. And, really, what doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger.

This week was definitely an exhausting one, but I must admit that it was also a whole heck of a lot of fun. I can’t wait to see what new drama unfolds next week—and I look forward to seeing the movies, too.

Dreams and Nightmares

New on NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
Smart People

(Don’t forget: for ITCS and more entertainment stuff, check out the NightsAndWeekends.com blog.)

This week has been a strange week for my subconscious. Last night, for instance, I had a dream that I was in an ongoing feud with Sarah Jessica Parker. I suppose I am, really—but it’s not really one that she knows about. So I guess that doesn’t really make it a feud, does it? Maybe just a grudge.

Anyway, it was a quiet week for screenings this week—which isn’t a good thing, when I’ve got a radio show to do. John’s enjoying himself in Greece, leaving me to cover the show during a couple of weeks of late-week screenings—or no screenings at all. Fortunately, this week’s show wasn’t too difficult to cover. We saw Smart People a while ago, and I jumped in with a week-old movie—The Ruins. But that’s another story for later in the post.

The first screening of the week wasn’t until Wednesday night. Everyone was heading to see Street Kings, the new Keanu Reeves cop movie, when we got an email about that Zombie Strippers screening we’d all been so looking forward to. It was going to be an evening screening—not a morning screening—and it was going to be Thursday night. Now, that wouldn’t have been a problem if I didn’t already have tickets to see Avenue Q on Thursday night with David and Deb. David and I were, naturally, devastated. But the show must go on.

But anyway…back to Street Kings. When my husband and I arrived at the theater, our usual waiting area in the hallway was empty. It’s rare that we’re the first to arrive, but no one else was there—or so we thought. A few minutes later, some of the theater staff came out to tell the rep (in a not-so-pleasant tone of voice) that there were already a few members of the press inside. After lots of finger-pointing and discussing who allowed the press to just wander into theaters all willy-nilly, they let us in, too. And, as it turns out, two of those renegade press members were David and Jason—who already had our usual seats staked out. So we wandered over and settled in for the long haul. As we were doing so, the rep came along and complained that we’d taken her seats. And we were all pretty stunned. (And David, the only one who wasn’t stunned speechless, replied, “No, you always take our seats.”)

You see, the press is a pretty important part of these screenings. There’s a reason why we’re allowed in early, before the general public. There’s a reason why we have a few seats reserved, in case we show up a bit later. It’s because, in a small way, we’re supposed to be accommodated. Of course, that doesn’t mean that we get our own private boxes with reclining seats or anything. It doesn’t mean that we get free bottles of champagne—or even free sodas, for that matter. We just get to have our seats. For the most part, we work with the reps, and they work with us. We don’t ask for much, really. And we generally like the reps—some of them, we even adore. But we were pretty shocked by this one.

You see, this rep, who was accusing us of taking her seats is notorious for going in before we’re allowed into the theater to reserve the seats where she knows we usually sit for herself and her various friends and family members. She’s been known to save very few seats for press—which once resulted in us having to take random seats in the far corners of the theater for a summer blockbuster. If I recall correctly, she was also a part of The Great I Am Legend Fiasco. Now, she’s not the norm. Most reps are wonderful. Sure, they bring family and/or friends, but they don’t bring whole herds. And they tend to know where we like to sit, so they save seats accordingly—which is why the seats in the middle of the top row are typically reserved for Joyce and Rico, and the seats on the right, toward the front, are saved for John and Clay, and the seats at the front of the upper section, in the middle of the row, are generally reserved for the Internet Mavericks. There’s just this one rep who doesn’t seem to care. She also tends to get a bit snippy without really thinking. For instance, she once yelled at David for sitting in a press seat—even though, um, he’s press.

Now, it’s our job to see the movie. To take it all in. To see as much as we can and report back to our readers/listeners. We all have our ideas of where/how we like to watch movies. Some people like to sit up front; some people like to sit in the back; some people like to sit in the middle. I, for instance, tend to get sick if I sit too close. So all we ask, really, is to be able to sit where we feel we get the best experience. In fact, we even show up early so we can get those seats.

On the other hand, the rep’s job is to make sure that the screening goes smoothly—that the press get their seats, that the right number of people get into the screening, and that, generally, people are happy. Once the movie starts, the rep’s job is to keep track of the audience’s reactions to the movie. (And the rep in question, incidentally, keeps track of these reactions using the light of a cell phone or a bright, light-up pen, which inevitably blinds anyone who’s sitting nearby.)

Now, I really try not to let my general experience effect my review—but I will admit that being snapped at…and/or not getting a decent seat, even when I show up 45 minutes early…and/or being blinded by a rep’s cell phone every couple of minutes during the movie does tend to make me pretty cranky. Most of the time, I just try to suck it up and deal—but, sheesh…don’t complain when I sit in the seat that I’m completely entitled to sit in (and that I always sit in). That’s just not cool.

Incidentally, it wasn’t really because of the blinding light and the snippy rep that I didn’t like Street Kings. Mostly, it was because I was bored. And I think Neil said it best when he pointed out that it was just one soundtrack change away from the greatest comedy of the year.

But anyway…enough of my whining and complaining. I’ve gotten this week’s diva moment out of my system (I feel much better, thanks), and now I can move on.

When I got back from the screening on Wednesday night, I had a radio script waiting for me. Since I’m beyond this week’s diva moment, I’m not going to say a single thing about the fact that it didn’t show up until less than 12 hours before we were supposed to start recording. I will, however, point out that the whole thing made me very, very nervous.

You see, this week, with John on vacation and all, Clay and I were on our own. This was all very new to us—since (a) Clay and I had never done the show with just the two of us, and (b) John is usually the one who handles the technical side of the show. So this would be the first time that I was responsible for editing the show solo—and it would also be the first time that Clay and I did the show…um, duo. To further complicate things, we were on a pretty tight timeline. Our studio time started at 9, and we had a screening starting at 11. Yeah, two hours may seem like a whole lot of time to do a five-minute radio show, but that’s not always the case. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but remember the time that John and I didn’t leave the studio until after noon—and that was when John was handling all the technical stuff, as opposed to some relatively clueless newbie. Oh, and I also didn’t get the script until I got back from my screening, which didn’t give me a whole lot of time to feel settled into the show.

Thus, sleeping on Wednesday night required slight medicinal assistance. And I kept waking up, shaken by nightmares about the show. In one, we got into the studio, and it was covered in giant bugs—and they kept changing into new and equally horrifying bugs. Big, fuzzy caterpillars. Giant ladybugs. Huge spiders. Creepy-crawly beetles. And this all made it very difficult to calmly record and edit a show. In another dream, I discovered that Clay had decided to bring in two pretty young girls to appear on the show with us (for those of you who know Clay, this isn’t much of a stretch). Unfortunately, these girls couldn’t write, and they were impossible to work with. That, and they were pretty much brain-dead. And, well, there’s barely room for three on the show—so four is right out. So by the time we were supposed to leave for the screening, we hadn’t gotten anything yet, so we just packed up and left anyway.

Needless to say, I didn’t exactly wake up feeling calm and well-rested on Thursday morning. Mostly, I was tired and shaky. But I scarfed down my breakfast, gathered the necessary notes, and made my way into rush hour traffic to meet Clay at the station.

Fortunately, none of my nightmares came true. There weren’t any giant bugs or young bimbos in the studio. The editing actually went quite smoothly. And we were out of the studio in plenty of time to enjoy some coffee and a scone before the screening started at 11.

However, I think Clay’s dream may have come true that morning. Instead of the usual male-dominated crowd at the screening, it was all women…and Clay. I was there, along with Lori and Hope and our lovely rep, Brook. Even Joyce showed up sans Rico. Of course, as David pointed out to me later, we were all much too old for Clay. But it’s a start.

The movie of the day was The Counterfeiters. The guys didn’t show up because they weren’t in the mood for another Holocaust movie—but they missed out. It was a wonderful movie.

Then, on Thursday night, as the rest of the gang made their way to the bar for pre-movie libations, my husband and I picked up a pizza and headed to David and Deb’s for our pre-show meal. We were a bit bummed about missing Zombie Strippers, but, as it turns out, Avenue Q was well worth it. So I guess I don’t feel so bad anymore. There’s always DVD.

Today, I got to deal with one of the other issues that one faces in doing a scheduled radio show: release date changes. On the site, it’s not really a big deal if a movie gets bumped. Sure, I tend to create my schedule in advance, but I can just do a little switcheroo and move on. Sometimes it’s a bit inconvenient—but not often. All that changes, however, when you’ve got to plan for a radio show. For instance, I spent this morning trying to pull together my thoughts on The Counterfeiters. Then, this afternoon, I got an email to let me know that it had been bumped another week. Then there was this whole thing about having a screening on Tuesday morning—when we’d already had something else scheduled for Tuesday morning. So we settled on Monday morning instead and called it good. So, when the smoke had cleared, I called Clay and roused him from his nap to rework next week’s show for the second time this week.

Clearly, Clay and I have learned a lot about each other this week—much in the same way that newlyweds return from their honeymoon, only to discover that her new husband leaves his dirty underwear on the floor and his new wife puts the toilet paper roll on upside-down. This week, I’ve learned that Clay gets his scripts in at the last minute, and Clay has learned that I tend to be a detail-obsessed ball of stress. Fortunately, we still love each other anyway. At least for this week.

S…L…O…W…

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
The Ruins
Leatherheads
Nim’s Island
Flawless
21

For In the Cheap Seats and more, be sure to check out the NightsAndWeekends.com Blog.

Ever have one of those weeks when you feel like you haven’t accomplished a single thing? Yeah, that’s this week. You see, at some point this week (I think it was Monday afternoon), my Internet connection went down for about an hour and a half. Since then, it’s been pretty much working on hand-crank speed. To illustrate, at one point, I tried to load the N&W.com homepage. Now, that’s not a huge page to load. After a couple of minutes, though, I decided that I might as well take a break and eat my lunch. When I came back, maybe a half hour later, the page still had not loaded. Conveniently, the same happened when I attempted to load the page for my service provider.

Now, I realize that there was a time—not so long ago—when I lived without the Internet. Though I can barely imagine that world anymore, I do remember that time. But here’s the thing: those days are no more. We have the Internet. We have all these pages, just waiting for us to visit. And when they’re there but you can’t get to them, it’s even more frustrating than their not being there at all.

And, of course, to make matters worse, I run an online publication. It’s my job to be online. And when I can’t, well, that pretty much blows the whole week. It also makes me seriously cranky.

But anyway…let’s talk about the movies. This week’s craziness started on Tuesday morning, with our screening of Nim’s Island. This was all very exciting because (a) I was kinda looking forward to the movie and (b) we were having the screening at a different theater than usual. This meant no free coffee but it also meant that the screen would be clean, the sound would be good, and everything would pretty much go off without a hitch. And it did. Before I ran out the door, I brewed myself a big mug o’ coffee, and I gathered up some homemade cookies to share with the gang. When I got there, David was already there, eating some sort of fast-food breakfast in his car (oh, the glamorous life of a film critic). We chatted for a while as he finished, and then we made our way to the theater. And here was the first (and only) hitch of the screening: the doors were locked. Now, there are a whole bunch of doors at this theater, and we checked every last one of them. They were all locked. Fortunately, though, it was a pretty nice day (hooray for the gradual approach of spring!), so we didn’t mind standing around outside. Eventually, though, Brook, our friendly rep and theater employee, showed up with her keys and let us in, and all was good. We then wandered into the theater, took our seats, and settled in.

The talk of the day was an article that had been published in the New York Times that morning—about the gradual extinction of newspaper film critics. It’s pretty sad, but I have to admit that I’m a part of the problem—as well as a part of the solution. On one hand, it’s Internet Mavericks like me who have destroyed the newspaper industry. After all, why would you want to dig out Friday’s paper for the movie reviews when you can check online (where you can find every single review we’ve written, neatly archived online, at any time of the day or night, from wherever you happen to be)? At the same time, with the disappearance of your friendly neighborhood film critic, now’s the time to find your friendly Internet film critic—someone who’s interesting and entertaining and insightful and there when you need her/him. If you’re looking for someone like that, I have someone I could recommend…

Anyway, the article discusses how the disappearance of newspaper critics is especially bad for smaller filmmakers—who rely on the critics to spread the word about their movies. But don’t worry, filmmakers—there are some of us out here who are still watching, and who still appreciate all your hard work. The reviews are still out there. People just have to get used to finding the information in a different way.

After our scholarly and insightful discussion, the movie began. At first, I found that I wasn’t really thrilled by it—but I really wanted to like it, and I was willing to accept that the film was just made in a different, rather child-like, style. And I was okay with that. For a while. But then Jodie Foster turned all crazy and spastic, and the lizard squawked like a bird, and it got worse and worse and worse. Afterwards, we stood outside the theater and laughed at (not with) it. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I really wanted to like that movie, darnit, but they made me hate it. And on Tuesday night, when I arrived back at the very same theater for our screening of Leatherheads, when someone asked me what I’d thought of Nim’s Island, my response was to huff and say, “Poop sandwich.” (What can I say? A stupid movie called for a stupid response.)

That night, we ended up seated by The Obnoxious People who seem to follow us around. They always sit right by us (sometimes defiantly settling into reserved press seats) for (I’m pretty sure) the sole purpose of driving us completely out of our minds. These people are loud. They’re obnoxious. And the talk (loudly) through the entire movie. And they’re always there.

But even more obnoxious than The Obnoxious People was the woman from the radio station that was hosting the screening. She started with her whole spiel a full half-hour before the screening started—and we were forced to listen to her crack jokes that only she found funny for the entire time. And that’s when Kevin came up with the whole KickThePuppies.org scam—but that’s another discussion for another day (or maybe not).

After seeing Nim’s in the morning, I found myself being much kinder to Leatherheads that night. That’s not to say that it was a brilliant movie, but it was much better than Nim’s (which is currently sitting in Jason’s bottom five for the year). So I guess Leatherheads just lucked out. If Nim’s had been any good, perhaps I would have hated it. Then again, probably not. How can anyone hate Clooney and Zellweger? I’m pretty sure it’s not physically possible.

On Wednesday, we had a day off. So, with my husband out of town on business, I chose to spend the evening watching bad reality TV. And it felt so good.

But we were back at it again on Thursday. In the morning, we were back to the free coffee (which, just for the record, almost made me gag in the middle of the movie) for our screening of Smart People. Before the movie, we gathered around to dis on Nim’s and generally compare notes. Then Neil showed up wearing his very stylish “My Mom Loves Gerard Butler” shirt and began singing the praises of the movie we were about to see. He’d actually seen it at Sundance and had loved it so much (in much the same way that his mother loves Mr. Butler) that he couldn’t wait to see it again. He’s crazy like that. But, hey—it’s a good movie.

Once again, Thursday was another two-screening day—but we had a lot of time between the two, since the second one was a late, late screening. At 10 p.m. No kidding. But, well, it was The Ruins, and we’d all been looking forward to seeing it. And since this was the only chance we’d have to see it, we decided to suck it up and drink a little extra coffee. We also decided to meet up for drinks before the screening—and Jason and I split a giant dessert, which we figured would keep us wired through the screening.

When we got settled into our seats, I realized that (a) it was late at night, (b) I was watching a scary movie, and (c) I was going to end up going home to an eerily empty house. That, my friends, is what I call dedication to my job.

When it was all over (thanks to an endless number of pre-movie trailers), it was almost midnight, so we all went our separate ways—Jason and I headed to our homes to crash, while Neil and Kevin went to start recording Fat Guys.

Normally, this is where I’d wrap up the week’s report. But since my Internet connection was ridiculously slow on Friday (the cable company says it’s either a bad line or a bad modem—and they claim that they’ll be by to check it out on Tuesday night), I didn’t get my weekly post up then, so I’ll add a little more to the week’s report.

On Friday night, I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Clay had some tickets to head to OSU to attend a screening with Oscar-winning director Milos Forman. You might know him from such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flint, Hair, or Man on the Moon. The movie we were seeing, however, was called Taking Off. It was Forman’s first American movie—made in the early ‘70s, after he left Czechoslovakia. Though the studios were big on tiny-budgets at the time, most of those tiny-budget films (including Taking Off) ended up flopping. For that reason, no one’s really seen Taking Off. In fact, Forman himself admitted that he hadn’t seen it in 30 years. It’s not on DVD, and it’s not on VHS—and Forman was impressed that someone managed to get their hands on a print.

The whole evening was fascinating. First of all, how often do you have the chance to be in the presence of an Oscar-winning director? And, then, how often do you get to watch a rarely-seen movie with that Oscar-winning director? Though it wasn’t very well received at the time (most likely because it hit a bit too close to home for most viewers), it was a smart and entertaining little film. And the short Q&A after the film was absolutely fascinating. Forman talked about filmmaking in a totalitarian regime vs. filmmaking in Hollywood. He talked about his influences. And he talked about working with a young Jack Nicholson (on-set, he’s incredibly professional—though, off-set, Forman says he’s still not sure whether or not Nicholson is sane). And, when all was said and done, it was one pretty cool evening—especially for geeks like me.

But now it’s time to settle in and start another week. It’s going to be a slow week for screenings—just one Wednesday night and maybe one on Thursday morning (if my very first engineering of the show goes smoothly enough to make it to the screening on time). We did, however, just get an email saying that they might be screening Zombie Strippers for us this week—so that might make for an interesting adventure.

All in One Go

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
Run Fat Boy Run

(For my weekly Cheap Seats report, as well as other entertainment-related stuff, check out the new N&W.com Blog)

This week, we got all of our screenings done in one go—or at least I did.

This week, I only had two screenings—and they were both on Tuesday. We started Tuesday morning, with a screening of 21. I got to the theater at the usual 10:45 and made myself at home. I grabbed myself a cookie and filled my coffee mug, and I mingled. Lately, our screenings have been rather few and far between—and it was only the fourth morning screening of the month—so it was nice to have the time to catch up.

And, as it turned out, we had plenty of time to do our catching up. After we’d been standing around for a while, we found out that the print had shown up at the last minute—actually, just before I got there. It also showed up all in the wrong order. So they were scrambling to get everything set up for us. Ten minutes, we were told. Maybe 15. Actually, how about 30? But, for once, we didn’t really mind. We just kept on chatting and drinking our coffee.

Once we finally got into the theater and the movie started, things were still a bit…off. There were some blinky things over on one side, and the image seemed a bit messed up. I was a bit worried that we’d get a few minutes in and find that we needed to stop again and wait for them to try again. But, fortunately, that didn’t happen. And it was lucky for us, too—since the movie was a whole lot longer than we’d expected.

The best thing about 21: the “rewind” scene—when Laurence Fishburne goes into the casino security room and has the security guy rewind the recording from the casino floor. That means that our Year of the Rewind count is now up to three:
21
Funny Games
Vantage Point
(Honorable Mention: Be Kind, Rewind)

In fact, our favorite quote of the year is now, “STOP! Rewind that!”

By the time we got out of the screening, it was nearly 2. John and I had planned to have lunch at our favorite little place down the street—and by the time we got there, we pretty much had the place all to ourselves.

After lunch, I headed back to the office. I got settled back in at about 3:30—which meant that I had a whole three hours to finish some work before I had to leave again for the evening screening. Fortunately, I managed to get a few things done—including most of my 21 review—before hitting the road once again.

At about 6:45, I arrived at the theater for our Run Fat Boy Run screening. Since most of us absolutely adore Simon Pegg, Fat Boy was one of those movies that we’d been eagerly anticipating for ages. So you can imagine our anger and frustration last fall when we were so close to seeing it and then the studio decided to bump the release date back a bit. But at least they screened it for us. Despite the fact that David Schwimmer (who, let’s face it, hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to movies) had directed it, we were having a hard time pretending not to be excited. And, fortunately, we weren’t disappointed. Thank you, Mr. Pegg.

So there you have it—one big, long, crazy day of screenings, and I was done for the week. Of course, that’s not to say that I couldn’t have done more. There was actually a screening of Stop-Loss on Wednesday night, but there was just no dragging me to another war movie. Seriously, people, can’t you think of anything else? Haven’t we seen enough war movies already? The fact that it starred Ryan Phillippe didn’t help. Even Joseph Gordon-Levitt couldn’t talk me into it. Instead, I stayed home and caught up on my pile of DVDs.

Next week, however, won’t be so easy. Next week, we’ve got screenings on Tuesday morning and evening, Thursday morning and night (by night, I mean 10 p.m.—blech!), and Friday morning. Only time will tell if I manage to get up for that Friday morning screening—but, right now, my guess is no.