Two major releases this weekend, and the studios stubbornly screened them at the same time on the same night. Thanks, movie people. I reluctantly chose “Sex and the City” because it’s the higher-profile of the two, and also because I knew that if I didn’t see it for free at the press screening, I would never be able to motivate myself to see it after it opened.

I have already written about the travails of the screening. The movie itself is mediocre, though I say that as someone who never watched the TV show. I assume fans of the show will like the movie, assuming they like the idea of watching five episodes back to back. (Oh yeah: It’s 2 1/2 hours long.)

The other new wide release is “The Strangers,” a horror film that piques my interest because they don’t screen horror films for critics much anymore. Maybe it’s actually good? Or maybe screening it was a diversionary tactic to make us think it’s good? I’ll find out when I catch up with it this weekend.

There are three excellent films in limited release that you should seek out with all due speed. One is “Young @ Heart,” a terrific documentary about a chorus of senior citizens who sing rock ‘n’ roll songs. It’s as sweet and uplifting a doc as I’ve seen in a long time.

The other two are “The Visitor,” about a lonely man who becomes friends with some illegal immigrants in New York, and “Priceless,” a light French farce starring Audrey Tautou (aka Amelie).

They’re predicting big box office for “Sex and the City,” but is anyone other than fans of the show going to watch it? Are there enough fans to make it a giant hit? We’ll see, but color me skeptical.

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We got a lot of good feedback from our reader survey last month, and we’re gradually implementing some minor tweaks here and there to make EricDSnider.com a smoother, more refreshing experience. Today we have some small movie-related items.

First, a few respondents commented that they wished there were a way to sort the movie reviews by grade or release date. Well, there is a way, and there always has been. But maybe it wasn’t obvious enough. At the top of the main movie page is a link that now says “Complete Archives (sortable by title, grade, rating, and release date).” It used to just say “Click here to see an index of all of Eric’s movie reviews,” which doesn’t indicate that the index is sortable. So we’ve made that more clear.

Also, up in the navigation bar, under “Movies Reviews,” there was an option for “View Entire List” that now says “Archives.” That terminology is more in line with general Internet usage.

At the “Archives” page, the movies are automatically sorted alphabetically by title — but all you gotta do to rearrange them according to rating, grade, or date is click the word “Rating,” “Grade,” or “Date” at the top of the column. Click the word again and it will arrange them in reverse order (e.g., oldest to newest instead of newest to oldest).

Multiple sorts — for example, all the PG-rated movies together, and then arranged by letter grade — are not possible. That’s futuristic sci-fi territory there. It’s fun to think about, though, isn’t it?

Finally, we’ve added a new option under the “Movie Reviews” tab on the navigation bar. It says “Best/Worst Lists & Media Inventories,” and it’s an archive of my end-of-the-year top 10′s and stuff. I’ve done a “Best and Worst Movies” list every year since 1999, and a “Media Inventory” (basically a rundown of all the books I read and movies and TV shows I watched) since 2004. They weren’t archived anywhere convenient before, so we’ve rectified that.

So there you go. Hopefully the 5.5% of survey respondents who said they didn’t know I had a blog (???) will stumble upon these new developments on their own, since I guess they won’t read about them here.

As promised, this week’s edition of “Eric’s Bad Movies” at Film.com is “Speed 2: Cruise Control,” the strangely Keanu-free sequel to the 1994 blockbuster. Despite its title, it contains very little speed and no control. There is a cruise, though, and probably a 2 somewhere. Enjoy.

The “Sex and the City” screening last night was really annoying, in that it was preceded by 30 minutes of coverage of the red carpet premiere in New York, beamed to theaters all over the country where these press/promo screenings were being held. I have no interest in red carpet coverage of anything, and certainly not for the premiere of a movie I’m lukewarm about anyway.

So if the red carpet stuff was at 7:30, why not skip it and show up at 7:55, just in time for the movie? Because while they generally set aside seats for critics, they also release those seats to civilians when the theater fills up. Technically, we’re supposed to be there 40 minutes before showtime — and “showtime” in this case was 7:30, even though the movie wasn’t actually starting until 8. So I had to get there at 6:50 or so.

Oh, and don’t forget: Once the movie actually started, it was 2 1/2 hours long. From beginning to end, including the 10-minute drive each way, the entire experience occupied four hours of my life, 70 minutes of which was just to sit around doing nothing and/or watching the awful, awful red carpet coverage.

Continue reading…

I liked the ‘Sex and the City’ movie better the first time, when it was called ‘The Golden Girls.’

This has racked up a few million hits since being posted on Friday, so maybe you’ve already seen it. But if you haven’t, and if you’ve spent any time at all over the last few years looking at the various famous YouTube videos, you should take a look.

It’s the video for Weezer’s new single “Pork and Beans” (album hits stores next week), and it features cameos by an impressive number of YouTube celebrities: the “leave Britney alone” guy, the fat kid who lip-syncs the Romanian pop tune, the “Chocolate Rain” guy, Miss Teen South Carolina (“Some U.S. Americans don’t have maps”), and on and on. (There are several I’m not familiar with.) They’re the real folks, not impersonators, and they really interact with Weezer and with each other specially for this video. It’s cute, and it’s a terrific song about individuality from the always-terrific Weezer to boot.

For the holiday, in place of a regular-size “Snide Remarks” (or, more likely, in place of no “Snide Remarks” at all), we have a miniature one, entitled “The Signs of New York.” There’s no audio version because it’s really short and mostly pictures.

Happy Memorial Day!

‘Speed 2′ is not a very good movie. Not a very good movie at all.

Two discs from Netflix sat on my desk, “Staying Alive” and “Speed 2.” I had planned to do “Speed 2″ for this week’s Bad Movie and “Staying Alive” next week. Then it came time to watch one or the other, and I went with “Staying Alive.” Why? Because — and this was literally the reason — it was a half-hour shorter than “Speed 2.” So thank you, “Staying Alive,” for only being 96 minutes long.

Anyway, here it is at Film.com, my treatise on “Staying Alive.” (Spoiler: It’s not a very good movie.)

The Friday movie roundup — on a Thursday? What kind of deviltry is this?! It is the kind necessitated by the Thursday release of a little film called “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” which I quite enjoyed. It has the look and feel of an Indy film, and it fits right in with the collection. I’m pretty sure I like it more than “Temple of Doom,” which has that really annoying Kate Capshaw stinking up the place.

And … that’s it. There aren’t any other films opening this week. I hope to have reviews of a few indie flicks (not to be confused with an Indy flick) within the next several days, though, including “Young @ Heart” and “The Visitor.”

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