Girl With A Pearl Earring
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth
Directed by: Peter Webber

Rating: ZZZZZZZZZZZ

Okay, here's the deal...the only reason this review is going out is because I promised it to you.

Here's what happened:

I was doing a piece on this movie for Day Job. Since I missed the press screening for it, and the regular public advance screening was too late, it wasn't a review...it was more of a "preview". But, the wonderfully sweet Angie at Lion's Gate sent me a pass anyway, knowing that I wouldn't be reviewing it or, if I was, that I'd only be doing it for this dopey little column I write.

An aside: For the first time since I started this column, I'm PRAYING that the studio person doesn't read this. Angie, on the off chance you ARE reading this, I'm very, very sorry. And I don't apologize very often. Heck, Hayden Christensen's MOM read my "Shattered Glass" review, and I didn't apologize for calling him a "sniveling little tool". Now, to be fair, I didn't exactly say that...what I said was that other people thought...ah, forget it.

Now, what I usually get is what's known as an "Electronic Press Kit", or EPK for short. These tapes usually contain the trailer and commercials for the movie, interview segments with the stars, directors, and producers, behind-the-scenes footage, and scenes from the movie itself. We'll take that footage and use it in the segment for when it airs. There's an editor at Day Job who does this for me, and is an absolute WIZARD at it...she's phenomenal...

Okay, yes I know I'm getting off track...I'm trying to stave off the inevitable here.

So I got the press notes for the movie. It's based on a novel by Tracy Chevalier, and it's a fictionalized account of the story about one of the most mysterious paintings by Dutch master Johannes Vermeer (Colin Firth). The painting is called "Girl With a Pearl Earring," which you can see here.

The story is about the fictitious Griet (Johansson), a 17-year-old who goes to work for Vermeer as a maid after her father is blinded in a kiln accident. (Those kilns are death traps, I tell you. DEATH TRAPS!) There turns out to be a lot of sexual tension between Griet and the married Vermeer. She also attracts the eye of Vermeer's patron Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson) and a young butcher's assistant named Pieter (Cillian Murphy). But the tension is much greater with Vermeer, as Griet is able to understand the world of the painter and relate to him...

Ok, I thought, so this isn't MY type of movie. But the other critics love it, and it's got a great cast...we'll see what happens.

So I popped the EPK into the deck and prepared to watch the scenes, in order to better prepare myself for writing the piece. I should add, at this point, that it was about minus-one-thousand degrees out, but the boardroom I was in was nice and toasty warm. The tape started, and I put my feet up to get comfortable, and the warm air from the heater blew over me and made me feel all cozy...

...long story short, I fell asleep.

I fell asleep watching the 7 minutes of clips from the movie. That, my friends, does not bode well.

So, basically, I didn't go to the screening. I figured I had a choice...go half-way across the city - in the freezing cold - to see a movie that had already put me to sleep once, or I could go home and play Links 2004 on the Xbox.

So I can't really rate the movie...I didn't see it. But the selected scenes I DID see put me to sleep. I think that's all I need to say about that.

But I did score an impressive -19 in Links, beating the 3 guys I was playing against. So I've got that going for me, which is good.