Craig Robinson and I at "Winterfest '86", also known as "gongsha 2010".
Yup, that’s me with The Office‘s very own Craig Robinson. I was in Lake Tahoe, last weekend for the press junket of Hot Tub Time Machine. Apparently MGM has a lot of money, who knew!?
Anyhow, they invited media from all four corners of North America including some larger college newspapers, lots of radio stations and some of the more well-known online media. It was the strangest thing, I think I spent the same amount of time in airports on on airplanes as I did actually in Lake Tahoe.
This is the view from the hot tub. I went in this hot tub and ended up in the past. I can't explain it.
The film is set in the mountains of “Kodiak Valley” so from what I can gather they wanted to replicate that type of scenery for the setting of the press junket. I didn’t really know what to expect, and so I did what smart people do and just assumed the weather would be gorgeous, afterall, Lake Tahoe is on the California-Nevada border! I packed shorts, sandals, a toque, mittens and ski goggles “just in case” it was still cold enough in the mountains to ski. Well, as it turns out, the entire resort was in the mountains. I wasn’t really expecting full-blown winter, but that’s what I got!
Not too shabby eh?
We got off the airplane and the group of journalists (and radio “winners”) in beautiful Reno, and they told us there was a “snow storm” that was delaying our shuttle bus to the hotel, even though there was definitely no snow to be seen anywhere. So, instead of waiting for the bus, they just got us a limo. Halfway up the mountain a police officer stopped us and forced the driver to put snow chains on the tires. Half an hour later, we were on our way. This provided ample bonding time with the others in the limo, which included JJ, from Flow 93.5 in Toronto’s JJ and Melanie in the morning, a few radio show DJs from Ohio, and a guy named Thor with a flowery bag from the “dude site” heavy.com.
Rob Corddry really likes me I guess. We got to chat for a long time at the party. He's going to be even bigger than he is now. He is hillarious. Even though Cusack is the star on the poster, it's really Corddry who steals the show.
When we finally got to the hotel and a bellhop with both arms (you’ll think I’m funny when you see the movie), took our bags and threw us into a bar and told us to drink as much free beer and nachos as we could. So I did. We didn’t have a lot of time there, but apparently in Nevada “road beers” are completely Ok. They shuttled us down the street to the theatre and had us watch the film. I had already seen it when it was screened for the press the first time in Toronto, but I have to admit it’s a lot funnier when you watch it with a liquored-up crowd of people on vacation for free.
Jack and Coke. That's what Clark Duke drinks. He plays the funny, pudgy, nerd pretty well because that's not all that far off from what he's like in real life. He didn't really seem like he wanted to be there, which was odd because he's the least famous of all the actors. I'll let it slide though, because he's "bff's" with our Canadian boy Michael Cera.
The next day I got up, took in the beautiful scenery (I’m going to put up more of my photos the Photography section tomorrow), shot parts of my video and prepped for my group interviews with the cast (minus John Cusack and Chevy Chase).
The interviews went well. My only complaint is the fact that some of the other journalists in the room ask the dumbest questions in the world. I wish I could share with you the audio recording, because there are some real keepers in there.
Remember this guy? He's George McFly in the '80's classic "Back to the Future." Odd fellow, but super nice. You could tell he was there to get paid, but he was great for making conversation, even if he didn't laugh at my jokes!
The thing is that these guys have done interviews all day, so you really have to ask them something they haven’t heard before to get an answer worth writing down because mostly they’re just trying to entertain themselves. Being in the same room with, and sitting directly across from Craig Robinson was the highlight of the afternoon for sure. I had already interviewed Clark Duke and Collette Wolfe when they were in Toronto, but everyone else was new for me: Lizzy Caplan, Rob Cordrry and George McFly himself Crispin Glover! Glover gave the best answers by far. he’s a bit of an odd guy, after a bit of quick research you’ll find out that his passion is not acting with Michael J. Fox in time-travel flicks, but rather experimental film. His stuff is pretty out there. He essentially uses mainstream blockbusters to earn his pay cheques to fund his experimental films.
Collette Wolfe plays Clark Duke's '80's Mom in the film. She married the director of her last film Jody Hill. What a shame.
It was Saturday night and the fun hadn’t even begun yet. Sure enough, I hopped in my hot tub and went back to 1986 for “Winterfest”. This was where everyone at the press junket drank the free beer and got to take pictures and shoot the shit with the actors who attended.
Craig Robinson gives the crowd what they want, his very own rendition of the '80's hit "Jessie's Girl." (I stole this photo off of JJ's Facebook page)
Craig Robinson even got up and sang “Jessie’s Girl” with a Kiss wing on! They were all pretty open to talking to everyone. Robinson was clearly the star of the show, so I didn’t get a lot of face time with him, but most of the others were pretty cool. I had a really long talk with Rob Cordrry about dating in Hollywood, and something I don’t even remember with George McFly.
Steve Pink is the coolest guy ever. I'd go for beers with that guy any day. He made me take this picture twice, because he didn't like the first one.... this is the first one.
The coolest guy by far though (and probably because he’s the least famous) was the Director of the film Steve Pink. He sat beside me at the bar in the casino and just chilled. I feel like if I were about ten years older and a Hollywood director we’d be buddies for sure.
Anyhow, you can read my features on the film here. I can’t find the second one, but I will put it up when I put the video up! I wrote two separate pieces on two separate weeks.
I’ll put the video up as soon as it gets edited (not by me).
You can always tell the Canadians by how cool they are, and these ones are no exception. This is JJ (and Melanie in the Morning), with his contest winners Courtney Shranz and Racine Mdge.
