January Throws a Curveball

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
Cloverfield

It was another slow January week in Critic Land. There were three screenings scheduled for this week—one was Mad Money, which I’d already seen (yech!), one was cancelled due to bad weather, and the other was Cloverfield.

For months, Cloverfield has been one of those movies that frequently popped up in pre-screening conversations (along with the most anticipated movie of the year, Midnight Meat Train). Ever since that brilliant teaser showed up before Transformers last summer, there’s been a steady stream of Cloverfield buzz. But the closer we got to the release date, the more skeptical we were.

First of all, we’re talking about a January release here. It’s just one of those unspoken rules that you don’t release anything of value in January (thus…Mad Money and First Sunday). As I’ve mentioned before, January is not a good month to be a film critic. Just to emphasize my point, at the beginning of this week, my average January grade was somewhere between a D and a D+.

Secondly, Cloverfield was filmed using hand-held cameras. Now, I realize that the quality of hand-held cameras has gone way up since I was a kid. That’s great and all. But until someone figures out how to use hand-held cameras in a way that doesn’t make me sick, I’m going to be a little skeptical here. I still haven’t gotten over the nausea I suffered while watching The Blair Witch Project—and just hearing the name “Paul Greengrass” makes my head start spinning.

Then there were the rumors. Some suggested that the whole thing was just some kind of a cheap ploy—that it would somehow tie into Lost (since the screenwriter, Drew Goddard, is also one of the writers of Lost). There were all kinds of ideas floating around—and none of them made me all that eager to see the movie. Mostly, I was just curious.

Since the screening was going to be on campus, the usual gang of misfits decided to meet for happy hour on Wednesday before the screening. It was a tough call, really: would drinking before a shaky movie make it better or worse? As it turned out, I was too drugged on Wednesday to drink anyway. I wasn’t quite sure of the dangers of mixing booze and DayQuil, so I chose to refrain.

Despite the fact that I already made it through my post-holiday illness, I somehow managed to pick up another one. I’m going to blame it on Neil, who was sick for about three weeks (which means that he missed seeing things like, oh, Mad Money). But we went to a hockey game over the weekend (Go Jackets!), and I think I might have caught his SARS in the midst of all the screaming and cheering and the plotting for total world domination. Fortunately, though, the SARS was kind to me, and it didn’t come out in full force until Monday night. That gave me Monday morning to head into the studio and record this year’s It’s Movie Time awards season special (which airs a week from today).

But anyway…back to Wednesday…. After dinner, we all headed over to the theater. They had already started letting the public in, but, fortunately, Matt was the rep of the evening, and Matt knew to save a whole bunch of seats for press. And that’s why we love Matt.

But enough about Matt. Let’s talk Cloverfield.

Now, I’m not going to lie to you. Cloverfield is a shaky movie. Even if you have a strong stomach, you will most likely feel dizzy—and perhaps a little bit sick. I, however, didn’t. Perhaps it has something to do with the mix of DayQuil and Pepsi that I consumed before the movie, but I’m thinking it was mostly because I was prepared. I knew it was coming. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew there was a chance I’d end up throwing up in my brand new COCFA Mafia stocking cap. So I planned ahead.

The beginning of Cloverfield is just about the characters. It tells their story and follows them around while they hang out together and throw a surprise going-away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who’s moving to Japan. The whole thing is shot like a home movie—shakes and all. But there isn’t really anything critical going on here—not much that you really need to see. So that’s when I closed my eyes. I watched every once in a while—so I could see who the characters were and what was going on—but I knew that I didn’t necessarily have to watch the guy with the camera wander around the apartment and film people’s limbs. I could hear what was going on, so I knew when to pay attention. If there was a conversation, I’d watch. But for the other stuff, I just closed my eyes. Had I not done that, I’m pretty sure I would have been sick before the really cool stuff started. Instead, I was free to watch those shaky monster shots—and I felt fine.

And, as it turns out, I was highly impressed by Cloverfield. Yeah, it’s shaky—and that’s definitely something I could do without. I’d much prefer to be able to watch the entire movie and know that I’m not going to get sick. But the idea is so good that I’ll let it go. It’s so creative and so clever that I couldn’t help but like it. In fact, the more I thought about it the next day, the more impressed I was. Cloverfield is, without a doubt, the best movie of the year so far. Gimmicky, yes. But still pretty cool.

Go figure—a January movie that’s actually pretty good. Huh.

Next week is another slow week. Looks like I’ll have another one-screening week—followed by our group outing on Friday morning to see Rambo, since it’s not going to be screened for press (Hmmm…a January release, and they’re not showing it to press? Can’t be a good sign.). Until things pick up a bit next month, I’ll be camped out on the couch, catching up on DVDs. Maybe I’ll even watch a few more of those screeners that I didn’t get to see in December….

January Continues: Nominations and Awards and Parties and Bad Movies

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
First Sunday
The Kite Runner

Last night was the annual COFCA awards dinner, which unofficially marks the end of the awards insanity for another 10 months or so. If you want to check out the results, I posted the press release below.

I tend to forget that my busy season doesn’t really end with the last screening before the holidays. Over the holidays, I try to catch up on screeners and start making my lists. That continues right up until COFCA nominations are due (this year, I got mine in a whole 25 hours early, sending them in at 11 p.m. last Friday). Then comes voting (which ended on Wednesday night), followed by the awards party.

It wasn’t over then, either. I’d been so busy agonizing over my picks for the best of everything that I procrastinated on my picks for the worst of everything. But GAG award nominations are due today—so I sat down this morning and flipped through my lists until my nomination ballot was filled in. I got my GAG nominations sent in a whole eight hours before the deadline. Voting for that starts next week—so I guess I’m not completely out of the awards season fog yet, after all.

I have, however, made my picks. It was another tough one this year—even tougher than last year. As I trudged through the lists, checking and rechecking my notes from the year, my despair led me to create these T-shirts—because, after a while, I felt like I was just a cranky critic, unsatisfied with everything. If you share my despair, order a shirt. If you’d like to check out my thoughts on the movies of 2007, check out this year’s movie recap: “Movies 2007: Did I Miss Something?”

Meanwhile, the January Blahs continue—and I’ve already begun creating a list of possible nominations for next year’s GAG awards.

On Tuesday, we gathered at the usual theater for a screening of 27 Dresses. Though it was supposed to be released this weekend, it was postponed a week, for some strange reason, putting it up against Mad Money and Cloverfield next weekend. But since I’m a week ahead of the release date, I can’t really say too much about the movie. The whole screening experience in general was pretty subdued, too—other than the post-screening re-hashing of our award nominations. At this time of year, critics tend to get a little feisty, taking sides and making bold statements. On Tuesday night, Bill remained solo in his I Hate Juno Club. Jason gave another “Why I Totally Hated Into the Wild” speech (which are always highly entertaining). And Bill and I are both proud members of the The Orphanage Scared the Crap Out of Me Club.

The real excitement of the week, however, came on Wednesday, when we headed to The Theater With the Balcony for a screening of First Sunday. It takes a very strong critic to tackle both an Ice Cube/Tracy Morgan movie and the Balcony Brigade—and only a few of us were up for the challenge.

As it turned out, getting there was part of the challenge. That night, the Dancing with the Stars tour was in town, and the worst drivers in the state were out in full force, making left turns from the right lane, making right turns from the left lane, and generally having no clue where they were going. But, fortunately, I did eventually make it. When I got there, the crowd was already lined up around the corner, and Bill and Kevin were waiting inside. We headed straight for the balcony, where a security guard did a very good job of trying to keep us out—until he found out that it really was okay. I was pretty proud of the security guard, though—sticking to his guns and all. Perhaps that would mean that he’d also throw people out for playing with their cell phones and blinding people during the movie.

Once we made it to the balcony, we chose the front row—where we figured that at least we wouldn’t have to deal with loud, obnoxious Balcony Brigade members in front of us. Shortly thereafter, the crowd started filling in. As usual, it was a crazy crowd—so crazy that we had to yell at each other in order to have a conversation. And when the giveaways began, it got even worse. Once again, Team Balcony backed one another up—and the demands for equal treatment/prizing eventually turned into personal attacks on the poor guy who was half-heartedly acting as host. There was much yelling. If there’s one thing that can be said for the Balcony Brigade, it’s that they’re loud. So loud, in fact, that nobody paid any attention to the poor security guy’s warnings. So loud that when the first trailer started—and it was totally blurry—the whole place erupted in shouts and boos. Really. It was crazy.

What’s crazier, though, is that the movie was even more obnoxious than the crowd. After listening to the crowd bickering for 45 minutes before the movie started, the last thing I wanted was an hour and a half of characters bickering on-screen. But that’s what I got.

As we walked out of the theater, Kevin just turned to us and said, “Well, welcome to January.”

Next week marks the release of the highly-anticipated, over-hyped geek-fest, Cloverfield. The closer it gets, the more concerned I get. But we’ll all be there to see it—and we’ll most likely be there early for a few preparatory happy hour drinks. Of course, the whole hand-held-camera thing mixed with alcohol probably isn’t the best idea, but I’m willing to give it a shot. I’ll have to remember to bring my barf bag.

Let the January Blahs Begin!

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
There Will Be Blood
The Water Horse
The Orphanage (El Orfanato)
The Great Debaters
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Charlie Wilson’s War

It’s a crazy day here at the office. I’m trying to put together my 2007 year in review—along with my COFCA nominations and my GAG Award ballot—but I had to take a few minutes out to wish you all a happy 2008.

After the annual Holiday Road Trip, which took us from Ohio to Toronto to West Michigan and back again, I returned home to a few Miramax screeners (hoorah!) and page after page of notes that needed to be turned into reviews. Then, on New Year’s morning, I awoke not with a hangover but with the flu instead. No surprise, really, since I always get sick after the holidays—but the flu was a bit of a change from the usual debilitating cold. Fortunately, though, it only lasted a couple of days—which meant that I was feeling a whole lot better by Thursday…just in time for the first screening of the year.

Last year, during my post-holiday illness, I missed stuff like Children of Men and Freedom Writers (as well as Code Name: The Cleaner, which sucked, since it meant that I missed out on a whole year of bad-movie jokes). This year, however, the first screening of the year was last night’s early screening of Mad Money. Since I hadn’t left the house in a few days—and since it was cold and snowy out—I almost skipped it. But everyone else was going, and I hadn’t seen the rest of the gang in a couple of weeks, so I figured it would do me some good to get out and see everybody again. And I was right. Jason and David and Kevin and John were there, and I was thrilled to see them all again. We were all eager to say our Happy New Year!s and share our holiday stories. And after I got home, I felt so much better that I actually sat down and ate, making up for the three days of soup and saltines. And today I was actually (somewhat) prepared to get up at my normal time and get to work. And to think that I have Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes to thank for it.

Since Mad Money doesn’t come out for a couple of weeks, I’m not supposed to say anything about it yet. So I won’t. I will, however, say that Kevin almost got in his first fight of the year with someone who may or may not have been kicking his seat through the movie. And there was also a guy a few seats down from David who laughed so loudly (and in such a horrifying manner) that we were rather worried that he’d have a stroke.

But enough about that—let’s talk about January. Now, I believe I’ve mentioned before that August is pretty much the armpit of the movie year. It’s the time when studios toss out their trash—their bad slacker comedies, as well as a few not-quite-blockbuster-worthy films. Why? I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps it’s because it’s just too hot and oppressive outside to go to a theater to watch a serious drama. Perhaps it’s supposed to be a palate-cleansing month between blockbuster season and early awards season. Perhaps people are too busy thinking about going back to school to think much about movies. Whatever.

But if August is the armpit of the movie year, January is—um…what’s worse than the armpit?—let’s say that January is the butt-crack of the movie year. Apparently, studios figure that they’ve given all they can in December—with all their holiday films and big-name award contenders and things—that they’ve got nothing left to give. So they give moviegoers things like Code Name: The Cleaner and a whole bunch of movies that they don’t even dare to screen for the press. Perhaps they just figure that people are too burned out from the holidays to care.

As for us critics, January is a mixed blessing. Sure, after the award season push, we critics do appreciate the down-time that January brings—but the fact that it comes filled with bad comedies and other crap that couldn’t cut it any other time of the year (not even in August!) is pretty disheartening. It does, however, give us a whole month to brush up on our scathing-review-writing techniques, as well as providing us with a whole year’s worth of bad movie jokes. January movies are, for the most part, really bad—so when we hear that a movie has a January release date, we’re instantly skeptical. Incidentally, that’s why we’re just a little bit worried about the new J.J. Abrams-produced top-secret monster movie, Cloverfield. Sure, it looked good when we saw the teaser trailer before Transformers—but if it’s any good, why are they releasing it in January? (Stay tuned for the answer to that one.)

For the time being, though, we’ll settle into our January rituals, drinking just a little bit more and preparing for the worst, all the while looking forward to the warmer temperatures—and better movies—of summer.

Pre-Vacation Panic

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Time:
Ratatouille
Live Free or Die Hard
A Mighty Heart

As a rule, the week before and the week after a vacation tend to be so hectic that it sometimes makes me wonder if it’s worth taking a vacation at all. The answer is yes—of course it’s worth it. But it doesn’t always feel that way at the time.

So next week, we’re taking some time off. Or at least we might be. Since my husband just started a new job this week, it’s still a little bit up-in-the-air. Fortunately, we were just planning on visiting family—it’s not like we had flights and hotels booked or anything. So who knows. We could decide this afternoon that we’re not going—and then we’ll just go later instead. But I’ve been trying to prepare for it anyway, just in case.

So maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to skip Monday morning’s screening—since I’m currently trying to figure out an extra week’s worth of reviews. But I had a perfectly good reason. I wasn’t the only one who skipped Sicko, though. There were a few who just couldn’t stomach Michael Moore on a Monday morning. And there were others who admitted that there wasn’t really a point—since they’d already watched the whole thing on YouTube anyway. So I wasn’t alone in my absence.

On Tuesday, however, it was back to the grind. Tuesday’s screening was the much-debated Live Free or Die Hard (rated PG-13, much to Bill’s dismay). Despite getting ourselves caught in the mother of all traffic jams on the way to the theater, we made it there just as they were letting press in. I, however, sent my husband to get seats while I made a quick pit stop.

The women’s bathroom at the theater was almost entirely empty when I got there. There were just two primping teenagers, who left right after I walked in. I chose a stall somewhere in the middle of the bathroom. A few seconds later, two women walked in together and chose the stalls on either side of me. Now, as a woman, it is perfectly acceptable to walk into a bathroom with a friend and talk through the whole process. But if that’s the case, and you want to chat-and-pee, it’s customary to take stalls next to each other. And if you take stalls on either side of the only other person in the entire bathroom, well, that’s just plain weird. And if you happen to be talking about movies—and the person in the stall between you just happens to be a film critic—you shouldn’t be shocked if that person joins in your conversation. I didn’t actually butt in on their conversation about Evening, but I sure was tempted. And, well, they would have deserved it.

So anyway, I got into the theater in time to join in on one last discussion about PG-13 movies before Die Hard started. At one point, David stopped and asked, “Have we discussed this before?”

“Um, yes,” I replied. “We’ve discussed this every day for the past two weeks.” And I wasn’t kidding. Bill’s mortification over the movie’s PG-13 rating has turned it into a permanent discussion topic—ever since the rumors started swirling around.

But you know what? I don’t really think it could have been better if it had been an R movie. Okay, so the language could have been stronger—but it didn’t really seem that unrealistic. And not once does Bruce Willis call someone a “Motor Scooter.” So, when it was all said and done, even Bill (who had promised to add a few f-bombs, anyway, in his head) was satisfied.

The movie was, however, really long. And it didn’t help that we had to sit through six trailers before the movie even started. And then, when we got out at about 10, we all had to rush back to our computers to start working on our reviews—because the movie was released on Wednesday, and we all needed to get our reviews up on opening day. But I liked it anyway.

On Wednesday, we had another great adventure. After Tuesday night’s traffic jam (due, in part, to construction and road closings on every other street that would get us to the theater), I decided that I needed to leave even earlier to get to the License to Wed screening on time. It was an early screening, and my husband wasn’t going, since he had a hockey game that night, so I ended up talking to him for about ten minutes while I stood in the kitchen and ate something before running out the door. All the way to the theater, I prayed that I wouldn’t run out of gas—because I was low, but I didn’t have time to stop. Fortunately, I made it—at about 6:20. I stood around for a few minutes and filled the rep in on Die Hard before the rumors started—the print was at a different theater altogether.

Now, this has happened before—though not at a screening that I was technically supposed to be attending. It was two days before another one of my vacations, and I’d decided to do a double-feature, since Mark and I had been told about another screening that press weren’t supposed to attend—but we were told that we could, as long as we didn’t post any early reviews. So after the first screening, we tried looking for the second one—only to discover that the second one was actually at a theater across town (the same theater, in fact, that License to Wed had settled). They ended up holding the screening a half hour (not just for us, mind you—for everyone who had shown up at the other theater), and we made it just in time.

This time, however, we were told to sit tight—that they’d get the print, and we’d just start a half hour later (which made me so glad that I’d rushed to get there on time). Then they let us in, and we settled down into our seats for the long wait.

At 7:29, Sir John left his seat to talk to the rest of us. “They’re about to make an announcement,” he told us. “And since I’m looking at the projection room, and there isn’t a single light on, I’m guessing it’s not good.”

Just seconds later, one of the reps walked up to our row. Quietly, she made her way down the row, saying, “Go…go…go…go…” while waving us toward the exit. I’m sure the rest of the audience got that uneasy feeling when they saw an entire row of us running for the door—but we were glad to get out before the angry mob was released.

Outside the door, barriers were set up, sending everyone right outside, instead of out into the theater lobby. One of the guys’ friends wondered if it was all a little melodramatic, but you’d be surprised what people will do for a free movie. And if you take that away from them, they get pretty pissed off. In the end, they were all offered passes to an upcoming screening—but I’m sure that only helped a little.

After we stood around for a while, avoiding the mob, some of the gang went out for drinks—but I headed home. I met my husband just as he was pulling out of the neighborhood and heading to hockey—just in time to get him to turn around and take me with him. And it was actually a pretty exciting game—so at least that was some consolation for sitting in a theater and waiting for a screening that never happened. But I still have no idea what I’m going to be able to publish next week instead.

Then came Thursday. Thursday was a big day—the Transformers screening. We were all skeptical until we saw the first trailer—and after that, we were sold. We couldn’t wait for the screening. And then came the Great Screening Dilemma—we had two screenings scheduled for the same night. The only screening of Transformers was scheduled for the same night as the only screening of Ratatouille. How were we supposed to choose between the two? Fortunately, we didn’t have to—because more Ratatouille screenings were added. And we were all relieved.

Speaking of Ratatouille, now that it’s officially in theaters, I can say how much we all loved it. Sure, the kids in the theater weren’t nearly as thrilled as we were, but the critics’ row was rolling. We especially loved Anton Ego, the evil food critic. I loved it so much, in fact, that I already have plans to see it again once we get back from our week off.

So anyway…back to Transformers. As a chick who probably still owns a few Transformers toys from the ‘80s (have I ever mentioned that I was a bit of a tomboy?), I was pretty psyched for this one—but not as much as some of the guys. Granted, we were all a little concerned that it was directed by Michael Bay—and that it was well over two hours long. But we’re talking robots here.

The plan was to meet up for drinks at the bar next to the theater before the movie started. There was some confusion over where we were meeting—resulting in our getting a table for 12 at a nearby sushi restaurant. But we all ended up at the sports bar next door, stuffing our faces with beer and spicy chicken parts, so everything turned out okay.

The problem, though, was that the screening was at 7—and that didn’t leave a lot of time for beer and chicken. One of the perks of being a critic, though, is that we get those reserved seats. Other people were already waiting in line when we checked in before heading to the bar.

We did our best to hurry, though, so we could get some good seats—because you never know which seats they’ll reserve for press, and we like to have our pick. As soon as were finished, we sent Colin, the youngest of the group, to get us seats. But, as the rest of us waited to pay up, we realized that there might be a problem. Or, as Kevin so eloquently put it, “If eight hot chicks show up, we’re all screwed.” So David ran off to find the friend who was attending with him. And, shortly thereafter, I ran off to save the rest of the seats. I was hoping that I’d still be early enough—that they hadn’t started letting people in. But when I ran into the theater, I was met with a horrible sight: an empty hallway. In other words, they’d already let people in. And, to make matters worse, for some reason, they didn’t think that there would be a ton of press in attendance for the only screening of Transformers. So, even though eight hot chicks didn’t show up to take our seats, we were screwed anyway. And we ended up sitting at the far side of the theater. It was a good thing I’d run over, though—because if we’d waited too much longer, we’d either have ended up in the nosebleeds (which, in this particular theater, was very, very high up there) or in the second row. And, fortunately, the seats didn’t end up being too bad—though there was some guy across the aisle who had a conversation with his wife through the whole thing (oh, how I wished I had that little hand-held device, with the button that I could push to electrocute him!).

Since it doesn’t come out until next week, I can’t really say much about the movie itself (though I will say I was totally underwhelmed). Instead, I’ll talk about the trailers—or one in particular—that struck up an email conversation that’s been going on all morning. The trailer appeared to be for some sort of monster movie. It was all very mysterious, though—not even a title. But it’s directed by J.J. Abrams, and it’s coming out in January. And it looked really cool. So David, being the genius that he is, went online last night to start searching for it. As it turns out, the project is so mysterious that it’s not even listed on IMDb. So David did more searching and passed his findings on to the rest of us. According to the source that David found, the movie is called Cloverfield. It’s a The Host kind of monster movie that’s told entirely through home videos—shot all on DV.

Neil, who had gotten on his fancy phone right away to text a rep at Paramount last night, confirmed David's findings. And though Kevin is a little concerned that it might make him throw up (like Blair Witch), and we’re all a little concerned for Neil’s well-being (since monster movies tend to make him a little jumpy), I say we’ll be fine as long as we pack the Dramamine for Kevin (and okay…for me, too) and some sedatives for Neil. Bring on the monsters!

Mostly, I’m just glad that we’ll have something to look forward to seeing next January.

So, anyway…now it’s time for all that last-minute stuff. It’s time to pack the DVDs and the books and the CDs before hitting the road. Since I won’t be around next week, I’ll be skipping next week’s entry. But I’ll be back at it again on the 13th. Until then, have a great holiday. And, to quote a wise man I know, “See you at the movies, folks.”