It’s All About the Kids

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
Lars and the Real Girl
Wristcutters: A Love Story
The Darjeeling Limited
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

This week was reserved for movies about kids: one about a kid from another planet and one about a dead little boy (As David said, “Are there any movies anymore that don’t have dead little kids in them?”). But first things first: let’s talk about Dane Cook.

The Stop Dane Cook campaign is well under way. Kevin recently published an article on FilmSchoolRejects.com to discuss the campaign—and he’s gotten some hilarious response. Personally, I’ve been highly amused by the angry responses from people who have absolutely no sense of humor. But that’s just me. People with no sense of humor totally crack me up. In the article, though, Kevin also explains how you, too, can get your very own Stop Dane Cook ribbon. So drop him a line and start supporting the campaign—and tell him I sent you.

So…back to the week’s screenings.

After a couple of frantic, screening-packed weeks, the studios slammed on the brakes this week. I kept waiting for more screenings to show up on the schedule, but none did. So we only had three screenings scheduled for this week. And the first one wasn’t until Wednesday night.

Having spent practically every day and night with the gang for a couple of weeks, I actually felt lost without them this week. Three whole days without seeing the COFCA gang… I felt like something was missing—like that ever-present feeling of panic. I had three whole days in which I didn’t have to rush out of the office to a screening…before rushing back to write up the review before racing out that night to see another one. My to-do list got much shorter, and I was able to do a bunch of things that I’d been putting off for weeks. But, as it turns out, I get a lot more done when I’m totally stressed out and under pressure. Go figure.

So I was thrilled to head out on Wednesday night to see Martian Child. For one thing, I hadn’t seen most of the guys in over a week. For another thing, I was sponsoring the screening—so a bunch of the people there were there because of me. So that was pretty cool.

I got there at the usual time, and Jennifer, our good and faithful rep, let Bill and me in to save our usual seats. John was already there, so I got to catch up with him. He’d been to see his son in LA, and, as always, he had plenty of stories to tell. Then I headed up to get caught up with the rest of the posse. I was still running around, talking to random people throughout the theater when the lights went down, sending me racing back to my seat.

The problem with family-friendly movies is that, well, people bring their families. In general, I tend to like kids. Heck, I hang out and knit with them every week. But I don’t particularly like them when they’re sitting behind me in a movie theater—especially not when they have a severe case of ADHD, as was the case with the kid behind me for Martian Child. It started out before the movie even started—with the noises. And the tap-dancing. It then continued through the movie with the constant tap-dancing on the back of my seat. And the occasional grabbing at the back of my seat, pulling me back, and then letting go, sending me flying forward. I came painfully close to turning around and strangling the child. But, for the sake of the family movie and its spirit of love and patience, I refrained. But it was close.

Fortunately, though, there was booze after the movie, and I was able to drink that obnoxious child away. I headed to the restaurant next door with John, Neil, Kevin, Chris, and Chris’s new girlfriend-type-person for some junk food and drinks. Neil and I ordered a ginormous platter of fried food, for which John berated me—and I responded by forcing him to watch me take a big, huge bite of fried something-or-other. A good time was had by all. We also had a good view of the Red Sox game, and I was sure to keep everyone updated as to how badly the Rockies were getting trounced. (Go Sox!) The next thing I knew, it was 11:00, and it was well past my curfew. But it was a wonderful night. We haven’t gone out for drinks in ages—not since Bill got his new job—and we were long overdue.

Despite the fact that I got home late and went straight back to my computer to get a few things done before turning in, I still had to get up on time on Thursday morning—because I had a newsletter to send out before heading off to another screening. Thursday morning’s screening was Reservation Road, the aforementioned dead-little-boy movie, which was sure to brighten all of our spirits.

Perhaps I’m just turning into a bitter, cynical film critic, but Reservation Road didn’t actually depress me—or at least not for the reasons it should have. I didn’t cry through the movie—though I do realize that dead little boys are very sad things indeed. Just not in this movie. I couldn’t help but snicker through parts of the movie—the parts that were just that bad. My personal favorite moment in the whole movie is when a 10-year-old boy (one who’s still alive) announces that he called one of his school friends “a no-good coward.” This, for the record, was supposed to have been said in 2004. Not 1954. Whoever wrote that apparently hasn’t talked to a 10-year-old boy since the ‘50s.

I was supposed to go to another screening on Thursday night, since I’d missed all the earlier screenings of Dan in Real Life (to which I was going to wear my Stop Dane Cook ribbon), but then something came up. My dear husband called on Wednesday afternoon to check if skipping Thursday night’s screening—since he’d just gotten his hands on a pair of box seats for the Blue Jackets game. Hmmmm…let me think a minute…. Box seats for the Blue Jackets game…or a screening of a Dane Cook movie? Box seats it is.

I think I made the right choice. The game was incredible—the fourth shut-out of the season. Nash scored an amazing goal from between his legs, and the third goal…we’re still not entirely sure what happened with that. I can’t believe this season—I’m not used to watching the Blue Jackets win. This 5-3-1 record is unbelievable. It was a great game—and we had an incredible time.

Today David really wanted me to go see Saw IV with him—just so he wouldn’t have to sit through it by himself. I was tempted, but (a) I haven’t seen the other three, (b) if I were to actually pay to see it, wouldn’t that just be encouraging them to make more?, and (c) considering how behind I am in general, the last thing I needed was another movie that I’d have to review. So I regretfully declined. Instead, David and I grabbed lunch before the movie and talked about how very weird are jobs are (though David’s pretty sure that it’s even weirder to be the people who actually write the screenplays for some of the movies we have to see). And then I returned to the office, where I continued to find anything to do besides writing music reviews. And that’s where I am right now.

In other news this week, we were all surprised and somewhat amused to get a visit from the FedEx guy this week—requiring our signature for our for-your-consideration award-screener copy of Knocked Up. Now, I liked Knocked Up and all—but Best Picture material? I’m not so sure.

Then again, with all the bad award hopefuls coming out this year, Knocked Up could just have a fighting chance…

Next week is another eerily slow week (which makes us start to worry that we’re going to be bombarded once again come December—we should probably get extra sleep now, while we can). At this point, we only have two screenings scheduled—Tuesday and Thursday (since, of course, you can’t schedule screenings on Halloween—or all the critics in town would get their houses egged). Unfortunately, the screenings for Bee Movie and American Gangster are being held at the same time—which means that David will probably be all by himself at the Bee Movie screening. Sorry Jerry, but Russell and Denzel win.

Cutting Out…And Catching Up

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising
Across the Universe
The Jane Austen Book Club

This week, I ended up skipping more screenings than I attended.

Of course, that wasn’t my intention. I fully intended to go to all kinds of screenings this week—especially since I’ll be out of town for a couple of days, and I need to keep my schedule nice and full. But, well, sometimes other things happen.

The first screening of the week (to continue our Morning Screening Marathon) was on Monday morning: Rocket Science. I fully intended to see it. Really. But it was Monday morning—and Mondays are always crazy-busy for me. And I really, really, really didn’t want to leave the office. So, at 10:00, as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, getting ready to leave, I talked myself out of going. You don’t need this to fill your schedule, I told myself. The rest of the week was filled with either award hopefuls or big weekend releases—and, I’m afraid, in the craziness of this week’s schedule, the little-known indie lost out. Usually, I’m a big fan of indies—and I do all I can to help promote them a bit—but I just didn’t have the time this week.

Instead, I stayed in the office and edited an entire week’s worth of book reviews. I also finished a couple of reviews. And as I worked, the emails kept pouring in, scheduling more screenings for the week. In fact, by the time the day was over, we had the entire week packed with morning screenings. So I didn’t feel too bad about skipping one.

And when I got an email from David, telling me that Jason had hated the movie so much that he refused to write a review, I was ecstatic. Ha! I could have been sitting in a theater for most of the day, wasting my time—but I stayed back and actually got stuff done instead. Yea for me!

Tuesday morning, I headed to campus to see The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. Despite the scoffing of the various fanboys in our midst, I actually kinda liked it. Or at least I liked it enough that I didn’t regret showing up.

Afterwards, John and I went across the street to our new favorite smoothie place. John got some random juice that involved celery and beets (this coming from the guy who, last time we were there, was so afraid of ordering orange/carrot juice, that he asked the girl behind the counter if anyone had ever thrown up). I, on the other hand, got the best smoothie ever—strawberry, orange, peach, and watermelon. My only mistake was the extra boost of ginseng that I had them add—which almost killed me later that afternoon. (Note to self: no more ginseng smoothies.)

Wednesday, however, was not such a good day. Wednesday was a bonehead day. On Wednesday, there was a morning screening of Into the Wild on the schedule—it was one that was scheduled on Monday afternoon. I was totally excited to see it—mostly because some of my favorite musicians used to perform a song about Christopher McCandless.

Despite it being another busy morning, I made my way across town. I got a parking spot (yea!), though I was a little worried to see that I didn’t recognize any other cars there. I got inside and found the door locked—and no one was hanging out in the café next door, either. Needless to say, that freaked me out just a little bit. After a while, I ran into another critic, who was just as confused as I was. We stood around for a while and finally left in a huff, thinking that the screening had been cancelled and no one had bothered to let us know.

But I had a bad feeling about it. I checked my planner again—as I had before I left the office—and it told me that I was where I was supposed to be. Of course, there was one other possibility—which turned out to be the case. Apparently, I’d been so flustered on Monday afternoon that I’d failed to write down the correct location of the screening. So while everyone else was sitting at the theater on campus, enjoying the movie (or not, as I later discovered from Jason—who ended up sending emails through most of the screening), I was driving around the city in a very foul mood.

In all of my crankiness, I returned to my office, determined to make up for the missed screening. And I cranked out a movie review and two book reviews that afternoon. And I felt a little bit better.

That night, there was another screening on the schedule. Actually, two—both for The Heartbreak Kid. One (the one that Bill and I had passes for) was downtown. The other was at our very favorite, much-closer-to-home theater. So Bill and I decided to get into our favorite theater by acting like we knew exactly what we were doing. And it worked. I got there as the crowd was still waiting, and the reps sent me right in. They told me that Bill was already there, but as I walked into the gigantic theater—which was still in full darkness—I couldn’t see anybody in the theater. But then I saw a head pop up from our usual part of the theater. Bill.

I took my seat, and we got caught up on all the latest critic gossip. I told him about my bonehead move of the morning, though he really didn’t feel too bad for me, since his day job keeps him from morning screenings. But he assured me that he’s not too worried about missing them—and I shouldn’t be, either—because with award season warming up, that means that the “For Your Consideration” screeners will start showing up any day now. Hopefully that means we’ll get to watch the screeners of all the stuff we’ve been missing.

After enduring Dane Cook’s Good Luck Chuck a couple of weeks ago, Bill and I were a little bit nervous about the Farrelly Brothers’ latest. But, actually, The Heartbreak Kid made me laugh. In fact, I laughed so much that I felt a little bit guilty. I actually stopped at one point and thought, Hold on…this is actually really funny! And that’s probably when I jinxed it. After that, Ben Stiller turned back into Crazy Ben Stiller, and the story completely drove off the rails. But, hey. It was nice while it lasted.

On Thursday morning, I actually showed up at the right place, at the right time, for the screening of Michael Clayton. In fact, I was just driving around the neighborhood, trying to find a parking space (since the lot was empty) when I got a call from David.

“I’m in the right place, right?” he asked. Apparently, my recent mental breakdown—and the fact that he got to the screening before John did—made him a little nervous. But I assured him that I was in the area—and as soon as I made the mile-long walk from my car, I’d be there.

As the usual gang gathered for the screening, the big topic of the morning was, “So…are you going to the screening tomorrow?” The Friday morning screening this week was Lust, Caution, Ang Lee’s porno-art film. Earlier in the week, I was totally planning to go—just out of curiosity. But then I found out that it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes long—and I changed my mind. But I wasn’t the only one. It turned out that only Neil was determined to show up. The rest of us were going with the old, “I’ll watch it when we get the screener” excuse.

After Thursday morning’s so-so movie, a bunch of us stood around and had the discussion that we critics tend to start having an awful lot around this time of the year: the year-end discussion. It started as we were all discussing how underwhelmed we were by Michael Clayton (I, for one, had to fight to stay awake—though it could have something to do with the fact that I hadn’t had any caffeine, since I was trying to detox, following the Ginseng Smoothie Debacle). That’s when David pointed out, “You know, I don’t even have enough to come up with a decent top 10 list for this year.”

“Well,” Jason pointed out, “your top 10 is your top 10.”

“Yeah, but there’s stuff on there that I don’t feel deserves to be on there,” David explained.

And with that, we all started discussing the movies of worth that have come out so far this year. The list was pretty slim. So far, we agreed on The King of Kong and Hot Fuzz. Jason mentioned The Kingdom, and our resident fanboy Neil mentioned Transformers, which made the rest of us laugh just a little bit. After that, it was pretty thin. Of course, we’ve still got almost three months until the end of the year, but it’s not looking good right now. None of the movies getting the biggest Oscar hype have really blown us away. There are 12 more Fridays to go before the end of the year. There could be something mind-blowing in there. I hope so.

I had another screening planned for Thursday night: Dan in Real Life. But, to be perfectly honest, despite the fact that I’d been skipping/missing screenings left and right all week, I had to agree with Jason. I was feeling burnt out. And as I scarfed down another dinner and rushed toward the door, my husband (who is brilliant) stopped me and said, “Are you sure you really want to go tonight? You look kinda frantic.”

And he was right. What I really needed was a night to sit on my butt and watch TV. I needed to go for a walk and enjoy Al Gore’s Global Warming. I needed to crack open a Woodchuck and drink to America’s Next Top Model. And that’s exactly what I did.

So far, next week is a quiet week. The only morning screening on the schedule is on Thursday—when I’ll be out of town. The only thing I’ll be in town for is on Tuesday night. But, then again, it’s only 2:00. That leaves plenty of time for the reps to schedule screenings for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning—and it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

Everybody Needs a Cause

New at NightsAndWeekends.com Since Last Week:
The Kingdom
Eastern Promises
Good Luck Chuck
In the Valley of Elah

It seems like there are a million causes out there to support—each with its own color-coordinated ribbon.

Well, now there’s one more.

Last week, after we all saw Good Luck Chuck, we all needed some serious recovery time. In fact, many of us skipped the Thursday night screening of Resident Evil just to stay home and try to drink away the memories of the things we saw on screen on Wednesday night. Kevin went so far as to call for an end to Dane Cook movies in his review: “Please Hollywood, do us a favor. No more Dane Cook! I think I’ll make a ribbon for this cause and start wearing it.”

After reading Kevin’s review, I decided that his anti-Dane Cook cause was one that I could definitely get behind, so I emailed him to tell him that I, too, would support his cause. Because nothing terrifies me more than the thought of having to sit through another Dane Cook movie. It’s almost as scary as the thought of having to sit through another M. Night Shyamalan movie.

So after a bit of discussion, we agreed that on a nice poop-brown color for the ribbons. Not only is poop-brown underused in cause ribbons, but we also figured it would be a nice color to represent our cause.

At Thursday’s screening of Gone Baby Gone, Kevin arrived with a fresh supply of poop-brown Stop Dane Cook ribbons to hand out. I immediately pinned mine to my sweatshirt. And I will wear it with pride.

Soon, you, too, will be able to get your very own poop-brown Stop Dane Cook ribbon. As soon as I find out how, I’ll be sure to let you know.

So anyway…on to the rest of the week’s adventures.

I only went to one evening screening this week—because we had so many morning screenings popping up. I had actually planned on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night screenings—but then we ended up with Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning screenings, and I changed my mind. Sadly, The Rock’s new movie was dropped from my plans because of it. I may have to catch that one on DVD.

Tuesday night was The Kingdom. There was a screening about a month ago, but that was in the middle of the whole fallen tree / site outage / in-laws coming for the weekend fiasco, so I skipped it. The general reaction from the critics in the area was pretty positive, though, so I was looking forward to it—despite the fact that it was yet another movie about the Middle East.

The screening of The Kingdom took place back at the theater with the balcony. We don’t really get there all that often (the last time was for The Bourne Ultimatum), but it’s probably best that way—since the Balcony Brigade can get pretty crazy. Of course, that never stops us from sitting in the balcony anyway. And really, why should it? The seats are nice and cushy in the balcony. They’re roomy, and they’re leather. How could you not love that? So we’re usually willing to deal with a few annoyances in exchange for big, cushy seats.

This time, we walked in just as the previous movie was ending. And guess what it was. If you guessed Good Luck Chuck, you’d be correct. And, since the last part of Good Luck Chuck is some of the worst stuff in the whole horrible movie, it started our evening out on a very bad, very sickening foot. It did, however, help to promote Kevin’s new Stop Dane Cook movement.

For some reason, whenever we’re in the theater with the balcony, there’s some sort of a giveaway. Of course, these happen often at evening screenings—but usually, the people doing the giveaway don’t have a balcony full of people to consider. If you don’t give cheap, ugly one-size-fits-none T-shirts to the people in the balcony, they’ll get very angry. And if you do try to accommodate the Balcony Brigade, it means either having a really good throwing arm or the patience for the winners to walk all the way down from the balcony to claim their prize. Unfortunately, the people who do these giveaways have neither—so it always makes for an interesting evening.

Pre-screening giveaways always make us a little nervous—because giving people free movie tickets and free crappy T-shirts before the movie starts is like giving a five-year-old a bag of jellybeans before bedtime. Not a good idea. But, surprisingly, the Balcony Brigade calmed down by the time the movie started.

Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that we had to sit through almost a half hour of trailers before the movie could begin. I guess those trailers are good for something after all—besides seeing which movies Meryl Streep is releasing this year. Really—from the trailers we saw, you’d think that Meryl Streep was in 40% of all movies made. The other 60% go to Dane Cook. [Please…make it stop!]

So anyway, after one evening screening this week, the endless procession of daytime screenings began. Now, this is a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand, I don’t have to worry about scarfing down dinner and spending a whole ten minutes with my husband before rushing out to screenings every night of the week. It also means that we can watch in the comfort of our very own theater, with a cup of coffee—and without all those people who make loud, stupid comments in the middle of the movie. And at least we all turn off our cell phones. On the other hand, it means that I have to get my butt in gear in the morning to get a few things done before leaving at 10:15ish. Then I get back to the office at 1:30ish. Now, it’s cool to be able to hang out with the rest of the COFCA crew, but that’s three hours of normal catching-up-on-reviews-and-stuff time that I spend driving to the other side of town and watching some movie. So I guess what it all comes down to is that I actually need to work 13-hour days just to get everything done.

On Wednesday, I arrived for The Jane Austen Book Club—the first screening in our Morning Screening Marathon. There weren’t many of us there for that one. Go figure. Perhaps because there aren’t a lot of chick film critics. But Lori was there, and Joyce was there, and Margaret was there, and I was there. And I, for one, liked it, thank you very much.

What I didn’t like, however, was the fact that they’d removed the booths at the theater. We knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it still didn’t make me happy. I loved pulling in each morning and sliding into my booth to chat and eat my cookie before the screening. I miss my booths.

On Thursday, we returned (and the crowd grew—and increased in testosterone levels) for Gone Baby Gone. There was a bit of confusion Thursday morning, though, since it was absolutely pouring on Thursday morning (to the point that people were driving 25 on the highway, which caused us all to reminisce about the time we all attended the Norbit screening despite the blizzard that had hit that day). And since the theater is pretty old, there was some leakage. Through the walls, actually. So we had to move from our regular theater—and not to the second largest theater, but to the teeniest, tiniest theater I’ve ever seen. There were—and I’m not even exaggerating here—six rows. And the screen was approximately the size of the screen that we had in our apartment, back when we used to have a projector for a TV. It was definitely the tiniest theater I’ve ever been in. But, well, it was just us, so I guess it didn’t really matter. It was just weird.

The crowd grew even larger for today’s screening of We Own the Night—which made for a fun Friday morning screening. We were even back into our old theater—which, I’m guessing, was cleared of its worst water damage.

The funny thing about today’s screening, though, was that there was a security guard. It always cracks me up when they have guards at press-only screenings. Do they honestly think that we’re going to be stupid enough to try to pirate movies at press screenings? But, hey, as today’s guard was quick to point out, we’re clearly used to the metal detectors. We know what he needs to check and what he needs to know. We know our cell phones have to be turned off.

After the screening, though, we still had one adventure left before calling it a week. This weekend is Oktoberfest here in C-town—and, according to tradition, if there’s a fest of some sort, John, Clay, and I head there for lunch on Friday. So today we walked to town to get ourselves German beer and some tasty cabbage and noodles (which, the surly German man assured us, was, in fact, German food). It was an absolutely gorgeous day for the walk—sunny and 70s. And I’ve gotta tell you—after a bowl of cabbage, half a cream puff, and a beer (all enjoyed at a nice sunny table in the middle of a beautiful, grassy park), it’s pretty tough to get back to work. But alas, I’ve gone to lots of screenings this week—so many, in fact, that I’ve barely had time to write about them. In fact, I still haven’t finished my review of yesterday’s movie. So it’s time to get to work.

It looks like next week will be more of the same. So far, we have daytime screenings on Monday and Tuesday (yes, that makes five in a row). And I just got an email that another one is in the works. And I’ve already got a couple of evening screenings planned. You’d think it was December or something….