Down Time

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
The Bourne Ultimatum
Rescue Dawn
Talk to Me

It was a quiet week on the film front. Of course, I could have gone to screenings just about every night, if I’d wanted to. But, well, I didn’t. So sue me. I needed some time to catch up—and I’m almost there. If you don’t count the DVDs that I have piled up on my coffee table—the ones that I still need to watch—I’m only two more reviews away from being totally caught up. Just one book and one CD. And that, my friends, makes me happier than my morning cup of coffee.

So the only screening this week was on Tuesday night, for The Bourne Ultimatum. As I mentioned earlier, just about everyone went on Friday morning, so there weren’t many of us there—but just as we were pulling into our spot in the parking garage, Jason pulled up right next to us. He was just back from his Comic-Con adventure, so I couldn’t wait to hear the stories. He had some great stories about Christopher Walken and a birthday cake—not to mention the already infamous Kevin Smith roundtable discussion (which I’ve actually watched on YouTube since then). Mostly, though, Jason was just exhausted—which I totally understand, after spending four days at a film festival this spring.

For the screening on Tuesday night, we were at the theater with the balcony. For some reason, I keep going back to that balcony, despite the fact that I’ve had all kinds of horrible experiences with the other people who tend to sit in the balcony. All those times when people talked through the movie…or chatted on their phone…or repeatedly kicked the back of my seat—that was usually in the balcony. But still, for some reason, I still keep going back. Probably because I’m a glutton for punishment.

This week, the Balcony Bruisers were out in full force. Before the movie started, the radio station hosting the screening decided to do some sort of giveaway. In general, we film critics hate these giveaways—because taunting people who came out for a free movie with more free stuff is like giving a kid a nice big glass of Coke before bedtime. It’s just not a good idea. Personally, I would like people to calm down a bit before the movie starts. I would like them to sit down and shut up (and turn off their phones), so I can watch the movie without the extra soundtrack of excited conversations and ringing phones. Those giveaways, on the other hand, just get people up on their feet, yelling and screaming and jumping up and down (no, I’m not even kidding—it’s pretty sad, considering the people jumping up and down are usually grown men and women).

This time, they were giving away T-shirts and restaurant gift certificates. To win, you had to answer some sort of trivia question related to The Bourne Ultimatum. The girl doing the giveaway, however, was clearly new to this whole thing—and she didn’t realize that, as soon as she asked a question, everyone in the theater would be screaming out answers, and she’d have no way of knowing who got it right. So she changed the rules, telling people that they had to raise their hand and wait to be called upon before answering. But this, I’m afraid, was not second grade. This was a free movie. And there were people in the balcony.

After a couple of questions, the Balcony Brigade realized that they weren’t being called upon. They decided that that was because they just weren’t being loud enough. So they got louder. They yelled and screamed and hurled insults at the poor girl who was trying to maintain order and failing miserably. All she wanted to do was give away a few free T-shirts. Finally, she called on some loud, obnoxious kid in the balcony, who correctly answered her question. But when she told him to come on down to get his T-shirt, he said, “I’m not going down there. I’m eating popcorn.” So he made his friend go down and get it for him.

After that, however, it was wide open for the people in the balcony. They were actually called upon to answer questions (probably because they continued to get louder and more obnoxious, and the poor girl was afraid to ignore them). At one point, someone actually called out a cheer of “Let’s go, balcony!”

Yea! Go Team Balcony!

Fortunately, though, Team Balcony actually calmed down once the movie started. Or perhaps I was too distracted by my battle to keep dinner down to be distracted by the loud, obnoxious people around me. I don’t know why the heck Paul Greengrass feels the need to punish people for watching his movies, but he continues to do so. It was the same with The Bourne Supremacy, so I knew it was coming—but I’m pretty sure it took maybe five minutes until the shaky chase scenes had me squeezing my eyes closed in an attempt to calm my lurching stomach. About halfway through, my stomach actually went into convulsions. And by the end, when I had made it through the whole thing without throwing up even once, I felt like I deserved a medal of honor.

In my review, I pointed out that it seemed as though Greengrass put a cameraman on a child’s wagon and pulled him down a flight of stairs. But I believe I was incorrect in this statement. My friend pointed out that she saw a feature on the movie, and it was actually a wheelbarrow. I stand corrected.

So after making it through The Bourne Ultimatum (after which made my husband drive home—so I could keep my eyes shut—and then I turned in early, so I could sleep it off), I chose to skip Bratz: The Movie on Wednesday night. It’s not that I didn’t want to go, of course. I would have loved to see Bratz. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to it all summer. But I was still recovering.

Yeah, that’s it.

I was actually planning to catch one more screening this week—Thursday night’s screening of Superbad. Despite the fact that I’ve seen Hot Rod, and I know just how bad things can get (and don’t ever say “cool beans” to me—ever), I’m actually looking forward to it. But then, on Thursday afternoon, we got the call that our weekend camping trip (which was on the verge of cancellation) was, in fact, on. And that meant that we had to spend our whole night running to the store to buy lanterns and tarps and ropes and Doritos and steaks. You know. All the camping essentials. So Superbad will have to wait.

And now it’s time for me to get my stuff packed up. Though we’re tenting it, my brother and sister-in-law and the kids will be there in their air-conditioned motor home. So don’t feel too bad for me. I actually plan on spending the weekend watching my new Muppet Show DVD in air-conditioned comfort.

Another Week…a Little Less Behind

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
Sunshine
The Simpsons Movie
No Reservations

As is often the case during the busiest times of the year, last week flew by in a bit of a blur. I know I saw a lot of movies. I just don’t know a lot more than that.

Last week at this time, I was seven reviews behind. I was pretty much tearing my hair out. Seven reviews behind—and a bunch of movies on the grid for the week (not to mention the pile of DVDs on the coffee table in the living room, which I could swear had started growling at me whenever I walked in the room). Fortunately, though, I had the whole day on Tuesday to start catching up. We didn’t have a morning screening, so I could settle in and get to work. Write some reviews. And, fortunately, I did manage to get a couple done before I had to head off to see No Reservations that night. Although no one else seemed eager to see it (which I can probably attribute, for the most part, to pretty much everyone else being guys), I was looking forward to Tuesday night. I know I’m going to sound like a total snob when I say that I saw the original German version of the movie, but it’s the truth. Before you jump to any conclusions about what that says about me, let me explain further: I saw it on the shelf at the library in Massachusetts, and it looked interesting, so I picked it up. Perhaps all of the big blockbusters were checked out that day (or, more likely, I’d already seen them all). So I got this German movie. And I liked it. That’s it.

As I was walking in to the screening, I was reminded of the fact that the people who had passes for the screening had received them because, not long ago, they’d ended up sitting around at the theater for a couple of hours, only to hear that the License to Wed screening had been canceled. So they got passes to see No Reservations instead. I just hoped that everything would go according to plan this time—or else, I suspected, there would be a riot.

It turns out that I was lucky to have a seat. Bill had been fighting off the masses, who kept walking by to ask if it was available. But Bill was tough, and he didn’t take any bribes, either. And for that, I’m grateful.

After I sat down, though, people kept trying to find seats, asking people around us if empty seats were taken. Bill just laughed every time it happened. But the little old guy on the other side of me wasn’t quite so amused. He seemed rather angry by the fact that people, who were trying to find a seat in a packed theater, would ask other people, who happened to be sitting near unoccupied seats, if those seats happened to be available. In general, though, the old guy was pretty entertaining. Apparently, he wasn’t there with anyone else—or at least I’m pretty sure I was the only one who spoke to him before the movie. So he made up for it by talking to himself. And to the characters. And to nobody in particular. During the movie, he made frequent attempts to predict what the characters were going to say. When Catherine Zeta-Jones’s shrink asks her, after her mother died, who did the cooking, he said, in his huskiest, most dramatic Catherine Zeta-Jones voice, “I did.” (Though that’s not what she really said.) And when not incorrectly predicting lines, he’d incorrectly predict action. At one point, when CZJ is searching for her lost niece, he called out, “Look under the bed!” The most amusing thing about it, though, was that he was never right. He never predicted a single direction or line correctly. Not once. So perhaps he left a few minutes before the credits rolled because he was miffed that nobody wrote the movie that he wanted them to write.

I, however, would like to see his version of the movie. I’m sure it would have been quite dramatic. And wacky.

On Wednesday night, I was scheduled to check out Charlie Bartlett—but, on the previous Friday, I’d gotten an email saying that the release date had been moved…to sometime next year (despite the fact that I saw commercials for it that weekend, still claiming it was opening on August 3). So I figured it would be a waste of my time to go now, when I’m swamped—instead of going in February, when they’ll probably screen it again. And for real this time. And it’s a good thing I decided to skip it, too—since I got an email at 7:30 that night (though, to be fair, it apparently had been bouncing around in cyberspace for a while), saying that the screening was still on, but that any member of the press who showed up would be sent away.

Since my husband was in Texas on business that night, I was totally planning on grabbing McDonald’s and vegging in front of one of those DVDs on my coffee table, I made the mistake of stepping on the scale, after which I had a salad and watched the DVD while pedaling my little heart out on the recumbent bike downstairs instead. Then I ended up staying up much too late, waiting for my husband’s flight to get in—which totally sucked, since I had a full day ahead of me on Thursday.

Thursday morning was El Cantante, a movie that I’m trying really hard to forget. I didn’t even have a cookie before the screening, so there was nothing positive about the experience. I have no idea why they brought a security guard to the press screening of that one, other than to keep the press from throwing our drinks at the screen.

So let’s not talk about that anymore, shall we? After the screening, John and Clay took me out for a lovely lunch to celebrate the upcoming anniversary of my birth. It was good to have Clay back from vacation, since that meant that I wasn’t alone in indulging in crap while John got “just a salad.” The food was delicious (even if it was bad for me), and the company was even better.

After lunch, I had just a little while to scribble down an outline of a review before I had to get ready for the next screening. Thursday night’s screening was The Simpsons Movie. We rushed to get to the theater, and by the time we got there—about 45 minutes before the movie was supposed to begin—the place was a madhouse. Bill was outside, waiting for his dad to arrive, and he directed our attention to the line that had formed inside—the one that was curling around the entire lobby. Twice. From what I heard later, people had started showing up at 4 for a 7:30 screening. That. Is. Insane. I don’t care if it’s the Simpsons. The movie opens in another four and a half hours, people. Just buy a ticket, and you don’t even have to wait in line. Simple.

We had to fight off the crowd to get into the theater—and I must admit that I actually feared for my own safety. There were people there who wanted so badly to see this movie a few hours before the rest of the country that they waited in line all afternoon for it. And I was showing up 45 minutes early and walking right into the theater. Needless to say, people don’t take kindly to stuff like that. They also don’t take kindly to the fact that, if I really wanted to, I could show up 10 minutes early and still get a seat. But I’m not that mean. Fortunately, though, no one punched me on my way into the theater, so all was good.

A few minutes after I got in, though, they let in the masses—and it was mass hysteria. Somehow, though, the theater was large enough to hold them all. Or at least I didn’t hear anything smashing, nor did I hear anyone screaming, so I’m guessing that’s the case. It was, however, insane. And I did watch as a couple of people blatantly ripped off “Reserved for Press” signs and took those seats for their own. And if some of my colleagues had shown up at the last minute, looking for seats, I would have happily turned them in. Fortunately, though, that wasn’t necessary—because I doubt if I would have made it out in one piece.

On Friday morning, there was yet another screening—this time, The Bourne Ultimatum. But I ended up not going, for two reasons: (1) the evening screening is tomorrow. It’s my husband’s birthday, and, just like last year, we were going to spend it at the theater. So once the Friday morning screening popped up on the schedule, I checked with him and gave him the option of going to the movie or going out for dinner. He chose the movie. Go figure. And (2) I was still way behind, and I really wanted that one day to catch up. So I took it. And I’m glad I did—because I got enough finished that I didn’t feel too guilty about leaving for the weekend.

On Saturday morning, we got up early and drove to Cedar Point, where my husband’s company was springing for their employees and their families for the day. I don’t actually do roller coasters. I prefer not to wait in line for two hours in order to spend a minute and a half trying not to vomit on the guy ahead of me. What can I say? I have a weak stomach—and, like other people in the park (who frequently cause hose-down delays on certain rides), I don’t push it. But I did go on the Corkscrew and some other wimpy little roller coaster (even I thought it was wimpy) and a few fun spinny rides. And my husband went on all the things I wouldn’t—and while he waited in line for much of the day, I did some light reading. Then, when we left the park that night, we headed across to Cleveland, so we could hit the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame on Sunday. I’d wanted to go when I was in town for the film festival this spring, but we didn’t end up fitting it in—and, as it turns out, it’s a good thing I didn’t try. You can’t fit the Hall into a short break—especially not if you’re me. It requires several hours.

We showed up shortly after 1 (after a fine Denny’s breakfast), and the coolest thing happened. A girl walked up to me and asked if we were waiting to buy tickets. When I told her we were, she handed me a pair and said something about having more than they needed. So there they were—a free pair of tickets. If she hadn’t run off so quickly, I would have hugged her (so it’s probably best that she ran off before the shock and disbelief wore off). So if you’re out there, thanks.

Anyway…if you ever have the chance to go to the Hall of Fame, do it. But, as I said earlier, block off plenty of time. Personally, I could have spent several hours alone hanging out on the fifth-floor Clash exhibit. And how cool was it that I got to see the hand-written lyrics to U2’s “Bad”? My mom was thrilled to hear that I’d stopped to check out the Rick Nelson display. With all the videos and exhibits and stuff, I could have spent the whole weekend there—but, alas, we only had until 4. Then we hit the road. But I fully intend to go back again—when I have a whole day.

So this week, I get to play a little bit of catch-up. Since August officially begins on Wednesday, things begin to slow down now—a lot. We don’t have a single daytime screening scheduled for this week—and though we have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night screenings on the grid, I’m thinking I might pass on Bratz: The Movie. It’s not that I’m not dying to see it or anything. I’m just a little burnt out. And I’ve got catching up to do. Else, I’d be all over that one. I can’t wait until it comes out on DVD…