Tripped Out

Alas, my fellow junketeers were too distracted to ponder such questions. They were busy griping that their cover had been blown, via a recent Premiere article by Jewel Shepard. She had tagged along on an Erin Brockovich junket and comically related the alternate glad-handing and door-shutting in which film PR types indulge, as well as itemizing some of the goodies given out to the press. The crits I was with, many of whom were present at that junket and anonymously quoted, felt violated. "From now on," one older fellow intoned jokingly but ominously, "all strangers are suspect." I smiled nervously.

So add movie reviews to laws and sausages on the list of things you enjoy more when you haven't heard how they're made. Still, I took a certain pleasure in observing that the same hacks who complained of "low journalistic standards" in the Shepard piece would later fawningly ask Tracey Ullman which dress she most enjoyed wearing in Small Time Crooks. And at the Road Trip roundtable, these folks spent an equal amount of time schmoozing ("You're from Canada, Ivan? I'm from Canada!") and berating the cast for making a silly sex comedy ("Surely this movie is beneath just about everyone"). Jeez--talk about butt plugs.

Bringing up the rear: The tailgating crew of Road Trip

Related Content

• The Hangover, Part III: Funny, but not quite loveable
  May 22, 2013
• Here are the four DFL senators who voted to block the gay marriage bill yesterday [PHOTOS]
  March 14, 2013
• Twin Cities have country's smartest, cleanest, most attractive people, says Travel and Leisure
  November 30, 2012
• The Black Angels / Allah-Las / Elephant Stone
  April 17, 2013
• Gun safety instructor accidentally fired handgun inside Stillwater school just before class began
  April 16, 2013

More About

• Seann Michael Scott
• Rachel Blanchard
• Breckin Meyer
• Sexual and Reproductive Health
• Medicine

Road Trip starts Friday, May 19 at area theaters.