“American Mall” t-shirts @ Sears

I know I already told you about the Arrive Lounge website a billion times, but actually had the chance to check out some of “The American Mall” t-shirts in person the other day at Sears, and despite the fact that they didn’t have my size (or my brothers) they still seriously rocked!

As expected, the women’s clothing selections are much more varied than the men’s, but my only complaint with the girl clothes was they didn’t have cool “The American Mall” labels inside. I don’t remember who made their clothing, but half of the fun of buying this stuff is that is has the name of the movie inside it, right? So, why not buy the stuff with cool labels?

Anyway, the two styles of men’s t-shirts they had at our Sears were a white version of the Weinerland shirt than Ben rocks so memorably in the movie and a black t-shirt with red guitars and the words “Get Your Rock On” splashed all rockerishly across the front of it.

Luckily I already have a Weinerland t-shirt that I scored at the post-premiere party at the Cabana Club, so I’m covered. But if you’re interested in scoring some of this cool swag for yourselves, you best get on down to Sears soon, because this week’s circular was all bout “The American Mall”, and from what I could tell, that stuff was moving fast.

And if after maxing out your credit cards at Sears, you’re still in the market for more cool “The American Mall” merch, check out the Seen On MTV shop at: MTV.com. They have some different t-shirts, purses, military style caps, beanies, and even a kick-ass 2009 wall calendar! So, check it out!

And no, I don’t get a penny from any of this stuff, I’m just a nerdy fanboy trying to steer you in the right direction, mall-wise…so, enjoy!

“The American Mall” hits stores!

Sorry for not writing in a while, have been kind of crazy busy this week…working on the “American Mall” sequel, watching Olympics, and of course trolling around local stores looking for the best price on “American Mall” DVDs.

I know, I know, is there anything geekier than someone posing for pics behind a DVD display case at Sears? Probably not, but hey, how often am I gonna get a chance to do that?? I mean, come on!

Also hit up a gigantic Blockbuster Video on the Westside (see pic above) and to my delight, there was only one copy of “Mall” left on the shelf to rent…at noon! Wow…someone is renting my movie in Santa Monica!

Anyway, the DVD is for sale everywhere right now and though I recommend snapping up the Special Two Disc Edition at Sears — on sale for $12.99 through 8/16, and $19.99 after that — I did just find out that MTV.com has the standard Extended Edition DVD available for the low, low price of $2.79.

Yep, for the price of a corndog at the mall, you can own “The American Mall” on DVD. Somewhere the retail Gods are smiling…

“The American Mall” premiere party @ The Cabana Club!

Located just around the corner from the Cinerama Dome, the Cabana Club on Ivar has a really cool “old Hollywood” vibe that I kinda love. There’s a little swimming pool-like water running through the place, bridges to the bar, and crazy cool cabanas everywhere you look. I swear to God, this joint is so retro, you half expect to see Louis B. Mayer boozing it up Errol Flynn in the corner.

Christine and I had been here once before, for the WGA’s post-strike “Contract Celebration Party” in March, but obviously, this party was a lot more fun. And unlike the WGA bash where the bar was only halfway “open”, on Monday night, the free drinks were flowing freely, amigos!

And though most of the food was delicious, I’d have to say the highlights were the “American Mall” cookies and the Ben & Jerry’s booth — there is a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cart prominently featured in the movie — that came stocked with five yummy flavors of ice cream.

There was also a hugely popular Sears Arrive Lounge photo booth near the dance floor (we took two sets of pics) and an area where people could spread out and play MTV’s hit video game “Rock Band” — which is also featured kinda prominently in my movie. I know, I know…product placement much? But, hello, this movie is set in a mall…so, what better place to, um, place some products?

Ooo, speaking of branding. I know they probably do this at all the Hollywood premieres, but another thing I totally loved was the fact that they slapped “The American Mall” logo on EVERYTHING. Napkins, the food trays, cookies, a super cool neon sign over the bar, hell, even the wait staff and bartenders wore “American Mall” t-shirts. It was awesome!

But the highlight of the evening was really just chilling with the cast and crew from the movie. I had met all of the core cast members when I visited the set in Utah back in February, but Christine was meeting them all for the first time and had a blast. Everyone — and I mean everyone — both in front of and behind the camera was crazy nice! Seriously, it was like old home week…

I’m sure you’ll recognize some of the more famous guests at the party — Jai Rodriguez from “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy” told me he loved the movie as did the super cool African-American chick from “High School Musical”, Monique Coleman — but, mark my words, the rest of the “Mall” cast is gonna be huge. And they deserve it, because, in my totally unbiased opinion, they really rocked that mall hard, baby.

So with Christine’s feet ready to fall off — those heels were high, yo! — we stumbled back to our car just before midnight and hurried home to open our gift bags! Sadly, no “Rock Band”, but we did get some cool guitar string bracelets like the one the Ally character wears in the movie, “American Mall” t-shirts, stickers, a CD of the soundtrack and loads of Clean and Clear products…so, hey, not a bad way to end the night.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to rinse off my new deep-cleansing acne mask and go to bed. Que viva la Mall!

Movie premiere food…

OK, the big story here is…free popcorn and soda! Yay! Sure there were some awesome finger foods at the premiere after party at the Cabana Club — I’ll post some pics of those amazing “American Mall” cookies very soon, I promise! — but Christine and I were probably most impressed with the tables and tables of free popcorn at the Cinerama Dome.

And this is no ordinary movie popcorn folks, this is Arclight Cinema popcorn and it’s fantastic! I guess it should be considering how expensive movies are at the Arclight, but wow, this stuff was so good we didn’t even share it. Nope, it was his and her’s popcorn all the way, baby!

I don’t think they did anything fancy to the free sodas — or even to the popcorn for that matter, maybe it just tasted better because it was free! Ha! — but after working up a sweat walking that half-a-block long red carpet, trust me…Coke never tasted so good!

So after mingling around a bit in the lobby with some of the rocking cast and crew, Christine and I took our seats — which were perfect, thank you MTV! — and watched “The American Mall” for the first time on that big-ass Cinerama Dome screen. And, whoa…let me tell ya…it looked and sounded awesome!

Christine and I have already watched the movie several times on DVD, but it looked pretty freaking incredible on that gigantic movie screen. Everything was so damn big that I noticed tons of stuff I’d never caught before, and watching it with an audience that laughed, clapped and cheered at all the right places was pretty groovy too.

All in all, it was kind of a magical night…and best of all, after the movie ended, we still had the after party to look forward too! So, yay!

“American Mall” desktop wallpapers @ the Arrive Lounge!

Hoorah! Remember that Sears Arrive Lounge I told you about a couple posts back? Well, it is fully operational and though you can’t order clothes there yet, you can explore the newest clothing collections by LL Cool J and “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens! Wow…who knew they had clothing lines?

And even though “The American Mall” clothes don’t seem to be shown yet, you can download desktop wallpapers featuring four of the characters from the movie. You don’t have to use them as wallpapers on every computer in your house — like we did! — but they are still pretty fun, so, check them out on the Arrive Lounge downloads page.

Our favorites are the two Joey downloads, but I also really dig Penny and Ally’s as well. And of course, you gotta love nerdy old Ben kicking it old-school in that striped polo. In the movie Ben is mostly stuck wearing his bright yellow Weinerland food court uniform, so, I’m sure the change was a welcome one!

Anyway, even if back-to-school shopping is a thing from your distant…and I mean distant…past, the Arrive Lounge is still pretty cool. So, check it out!

Back-to-school shopping @ “The American Mall”

With a nifty new Clean & Clear “The American Mall” premiere party sweepstakes already in the works on the movie’s official website, MTV announced plans this week for a massive promotional tie-in with Sears. Yep, you heard me…Sears!

Being a long-time Sears shopper — when we were kids, it was the only place my Dad had a credit card at, so we wore a lot of Sears brand finery in our day — I was kinda thrilled to learn that Sears stores nationwide would be pushing “Mall” hard in the next few months. I mean, hey, what better place to promote my mall movie than the place where I learned to shop. Cool, huh?

Timed to coincide with the crazy-profitable back-to-school shopping season, Reuters is describing the Sears partnership as: ”A multi-layered integrated marketing campaign built around the movie target[ing] the core MTV audience on-air, online and in stores — in time for the back-to-school shopping season.” Wow…you said it Reuters!

And let me tell ya, Sears isn’t missing a beat with this one. The Associated Press is reporting — yes, clearly I’ve been kind of over-googling lately — that Sears even has a new tagline for the back-to-school push: ‘Don’t just go back. Arrive”.

And even though they also announced a special website for the promo called the “Sears Arrive Lounge”, I was not able to load it this afternoon, so…not sure if it’s up and running yet.

And the Sears “Mall” mania doesn’t end there, folks. The venerable retail institution will also be featuring “Mall” cast members in their TV, radio, and print ads, distribute special VIP access cards to teens nationwide and even incorporate something called “Sears in-store experience zones”, which will feature “Mall” character looks as created through consultation with the movie’s costume designer, Cynthia Summers. Rock on, Cynthia!

But perhaps the coolest element of the Sears tie-in is that they’ll be releasing scads of officially-licensed “The American Mall” merchandise and a special edition of the DVD (available only at Sears!) with an entire bonus disc of exclusive material. Whew…good thing I didn’t pre-order my DVD at Amazon yet!

Anyway, I know it’s totally lame to be geeking out about all this, but, I gotta admit that I am a little excited at the prospect of shopping for clothing inspired by my characters at my local Sears. I guess the biggest thing I have to worry about now is whether or not Joey’s super cool “janitor coveralls” come in a XXL…