Last night was my first viewing of any of the four screeners I have (thus far) received, and it was not an auspicious beginning. Up in the Air looks like it might be a pretty enjoyable movie. Might be, that is–I couldn’t say for sure, because the DVD I got is either a faulty reproduction or some kind of Special Jigsaw Puzzle/MadLibs/stoned Director’s Cut edition.

My DVD’s rendering began with a phone call scene between the George Clooney and Vera Farmiga characters, in which she reprimands him for having transgressed the boundaries of what apparently had been their rather casual relationship. Cut to George in the office of his boss Jason Bateman, who lets him know that someone named Natalie has quit. Cut to George receiving his 10-million-miler status card during a flight, complete with congratulatory announcement from the flight attendant and a special sit-down visit from the pilot (Sam Elliott). Cut to aforementioned Natalie character (Anna Kendrick) taking a picture of George holding a cardboard cutout of his sister and soon-to-be-brother-in-law in front of the St. Louis Airport terminal.

“Wow,” I thought, “they’re really going all-out with this whole non-linear narrative thing. But why are the edits so abrupt? Like, with some of them coming in mid-sentence?”

Soon enough, even my slow uptake had sussed out the situation. If nothing else, I knew things were fucked up when the end credits started rolling at the 50 minute mark. Two-thirds of the way through the movie I made it to the opening titles sequence. Following that, I came across a couple of scenes I’d already seen earlier; I kept watching them just to see if they added any layers of meaning the second time through. I was half hoping they’d pull some kind of Groundhog Day thing where the scene would take a left turn and end up somewhere different than it had the previous time, but no such luck.

And then, all of a sudden, it was over. I think. The last thing I saw was Kendrick giving an auto industry middle manager the axe via Skype, and the guy yelling, “What the fuck is this?!?” Not an entirely inappropriate button for the end of my viewing experience. For a second I thought the screener was going to tell me that all the answers I needed about my future SAG Awards voting options would be found in the glossy packet it was printing out for me. If it had done that, I might have had to vote for the movie in every category out of admiration for its ballsy marketing-fu. Missed opportunity, Paramount.

Now I’m left to contemplate whether to cast votes for Clooney (Best Actor), Farmiga or Kendrick (both nominated for Best Supporting Actress). Part of me wants to ignore them all as retribution for Paramount’s not bothering to send me a proper screener. This would of course be an entirely wasted gesture of principle, since I seriously doubt that the studio would ever find out I had done so, or even if it did, would give a shit. There’s also no sense in punishing my three fellow thespians for the situation, since I’m quite sure that awards-screener quality control was not among their contractual responsibilities (if it was, they need to fire their agents).

I guess I’ll have to re-assess after I’ve seen the other performances. I can only hope that none of my other screeners were recorded on “shuffle.”

Right now it’s Awards Season here in Tinseltown, which means that attention is focused on the better products (mostly, anyway) that Hollywood has turned out in recent months. Tuesday’s announcement of the Oscar nominees has prompted the studios to re-release or widen the release of films with prominent nominations, all of which means that I still have a brief window of opportunity to see movies like The Constant Gardener and Capote in the theatre.

I’m doing my best to enjoy it while it lasts… because once the statuettes have all been handed out, Roger Ebert has returned to his hotel to doff his once-yearly tux, and two large dark-suited men have assisted a drunkenly belligerent Russell Crowe into a limo as they collapse the tent on the Governor’s Ball, the multiplexes will be awash in third-rate crap until summer blockbuster time. Unless, that is, the summer blockbusters turn out to be third-rate crap as well, which is quite often the case. Come to think of it, with summer blockbusters my hope is usually that they are first-rate crap.