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…

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!

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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(A message from Hillary Clinton.)

My fellow Americans, thank you for letting me take a few moments of your time to address the current situation.

There are some who would look at the comments posted about this week’s “Snide Remarks,” entitled “An Exclusive Interview with Indiana Jones,” and conclude that it’s unpopular. They would take all those negative comments to mean that a lot of regular readers simply did not enjoy this week’s installment.

I know that’s the conclusion the news media wants you to reach. They’ve been hammering it home over and over again. “Eric, forget it!” they say. “This column failed. You gave it a try, it didn’t work, and now it’s time to move on. You lost this one.”

Well, I say that’s a little premature. I don’t know about you, but where I’m from, we wait until ALL the votes have been cast before we reach a conclusion. I’d say Eric still has a very real chance of winning this one and declaring the Indiana Jones edition of “Snide Remarks” a success!

Has every “Snide Remarks” reader sounded off yet? No they have not. At the moment, only 34 comments have been submitted, and a full FIVE of those have been positive! How many regular “Snide Remarks” readers have not voted yet? Hundreds! Thousands, even! Who’s to say the vast majority of those won’t turn out in favor of the column? We don’t know until all the votes have been cast.

There were also some spam comments that showed up in the spam filter that Eric’s opponents are insisting should not be counted in his favor for the simple fact that they are spam and don’t have anything to do with the column. I say that’s undemocratic. Let ALL the votes be counted! The news media has already crowned the detractors as the victors here, so I know they don’t want the truth to come out. They’re afraid that if we count those spam votes, we’ll see what I already know: that most people LOVED the column and Eric has scored another success.

And consider this: Where people have liked the column, they have really, REALLY liked it. The victories, where they have occurred, have been by a substantial margin. That may be an important factor in the general election, when this column will go up against one of Dave Barry’s.

Frankly, I’m also disturbed by the sexist tone that a lot of the comments have taken. “Kinda lame.” “Not my thing.” “I didn’t laugh once.” Is nobody else appalled by this? Where’s the outrage here? If Eric were a woman and people had said these things, the news media would be hysterical with rage! As it is, since he’s a man, people can just say these hurtful things and nobody bats an eye. I thought we’d gotten past this kind of sexism in America, but I see it’s still alive and well.

In conclusion, let me summarize: Eric’s Indiana Jones edition of “Snide Remarks” is overwhelmingly popular and most people have loved it. In fact, it is the MOST POPULAR “SNIDE REMARKS” COLUMN EVER PUBLISHED! Thank you and goodnight!

Here are some articles I’ve written for Film.com that might interest or amuse you, all posted since the last time I did one of these roundups. Which was a while ago, so some of these are kinda old now. But still.

‘Untraceable’s’ European Facebook Campaign Was Tacky, Just Like the Movie - Remember the movie “Untraceable”? No? That’s OK.

Differences Between the ‘Prom Night’ Trailer and My Actual Prom Night - I loved this idea when my Film.com overlord pitched it to me, and I had fun writing it.

‘Fanboys’: When Directors Strike Back - All the background you need on this silly news item is in the story.

Good News! The New Indiana Jones Will NOT Be Non-Stop CGI - This development occurs over George Lucas’ dead body, one assumes.

Hey ‘Dark Knight’: Test Audiences Are Dumb, Don’t Listen to Them - In response to a rumor that certain elements of the new Batman film would be excised to appease certain stupid audience members who were too emotional over the months-ago death of an actor they never met whose demise affected them in no way whatsoever.

Are You Excited About ‘Speed Racer’? - Well, we know the answer now. Turns out my prophecies herein were correct.

Cell Phones Movies?? Nooooooooooooo! - In response to a news item about a Nokia-sponsored “filmmaking” contest.

Animals That Need to Have Horror Movies Made About Them - Self-explanatory.

If Teen Girls Have Anything to Say About It, ‘Twilight’ Will Soon Take Over the World - OMG LOL.