Briefly, because there’s a lot going on and I haven’t started packing for Venice.
1. Sellout at the Nuart
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The 7:30 p.m. Q&A tonight with me and Melissa (and others) apparently sold out yesterday afternoon. But there’s also a 10 p.m. show that I’ll be introducing. I haven’t gotten an update about the NY screening at the Sunshine, which Ryan Reynolds and Bruce Cohen will be introducing. (That’s not a Q&A, btw. Ryan might play me in the movie, but he can’t really answer questions about what the hell was up with koalas in the movie.)
2. Hooray for reviews
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The two reviews we were banking on — the LA Times and the NY Times — were great. While local and regional reviews matter, the LAT and NYT are incredibly important for overseas buyers, who will be watching the movie in Venice, checkbooks in hand. So if you live in France, or Germany, or Italy your chances of seeing the movie in a theater just increased a lot.
These are also the reviews we’ll be pulling quotes from for future newspaper ads. So now we can say things like, “a philosophical mind teaser with satirical fangs,” ([Stephen Holden, NY Times](http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/08/31/movies/31nine.html)) or, “it dispenses about a minor epiphany a minute and hooks you like a flounder.” ([Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times](http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-nines31aug31,1,6968775.story)).
**UPDATE:** [MTV’s Kurt Loder](http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1568682/20070831/story.jhtml) made sweet, sweet love to the movie: “It’s a creative triumph — small in scale, but rich in ideas — for first-time feature director August (a writer best-known for scripting several Tim Burton movies). And it’s a quietly dazzling breakthrough for Ryan Reynolds, who has heretofore been indifferently utilized in movies like “Smokin’ Aces” or consigned to elevating such schlock as “The Amityville Horror.”
Meanwhile, the [Christian Science Monitor](http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0831/p14s02-almo.html) was, shall we say, less than effusive in its praise: “So unspeakably bad is screenwriter John August’s debut as director, so hilariously unaware is the film of its overweening pretensions that it’s tempting to want to deem it a Hollywood writer’s fever dream that can be cured with a little editing, a bit of rest and relaxation – or something, anything.”
3. I cheated on you again
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I wrote [one last blog post](http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/08/the-nines-guest.html) for EW.com.