If I were to rank the female TV heroines I value and adore the most, Veronica Mars would be somewhere between Mary Richards and Liz Lemon.   If Liz Lemon is the screen version of me and Mary Richards is who I dream of being, Veronica, the spunky teenage detective, played by Kristen Bell on the CW program Veronica Mars from 2004-2007, resides somewhere in between; an idealized version of myself, but something seemingly more attainable than the practically perfect in every way Mary.

So, when I heard that there was a chance my beloved Veronica Mars was going to potentially make a movie, I was thrilled, but not without a little trepidation.  Any time shows are resurrected years after their conclusion, I always worry the show will feel false and manufactured, with a goofy inciting incident that justifies why the gang is getting back together.  I will also add that, while I love all three seasons of Veronica Mars, I believe Season 1 has an argument as one of the single best seasons of TV ever produced.  The same argument can’t be made for Season 2 and Season 3 saw a drop off in quality from that.  So I am somewhat skeptical that the movie or Season 4 or the flurry of other rumored VM projects we’ve heard about over the years will be as good as the lightning in a bottle that was Season 1.

I went to Kickstarter and I watched this positively delightful trailer.  It erased so much of my wariness in one fell swoop.  As I saw the dollars for the project climb into the millions, I knew the show would hit their $2 million goal with ease, but I decided to pledge money anyway:

Some might ask why I would, especially those who do not feel entirely comfortable with contributing money to what they see as a giant conglomerate.  You see, Warner Brother TV is the rights holder of this show.  Not only do they need to okay the production, they also will be used to market and distribute the final digital product.

I saw several on Twitter complain that it isn’t right to give money to a massive conglomerate like Time Warner.  Others suggested that the contributors deserved a piece of potential profits.  Me though? I gladly handed over $100 with no expectation of getting anything back except my Veronica Mars movie.  There are a few reasons I am completely okay with this:

I am getting a fair amount of bang for my buck.

These discussions of the VM Kickstarter project frequently use the word “donate”, a word that I don’t think describes the relationship between producers and consumers in this particular scenario very well.  I am not donating, I am buying a product.  In fact, for my $100, I am buying several:

-Periodic email updates about the production with behind the scenes info

-A pdf of the script

-A t-shirt!

-A digital copy of the movie

-A movie poster

-A Blu-Ray/DVD combo of the film with special features (and there is nothing I love more than DVD special features)

I’ll be honest.  I am not normally spending $100 for this amount of stuff.  Those who know me well know that I live by the motto, “never pay standard retail price for anything.”  However, I do tend to spend a little more on indie films or small time shows that I know benefit more from my patronage than others.  Veronica Mars is one such project, so I am willing to pay a premium, and consider my $100 to be effectively a pre-order, kind of like buying season tickets for the theater in advance so they can use the money to put on the shows I am going to watch.

You are still effectively financing an independent film

Many of my friends have said if this were an indie film, not a WB product, they would feel better about the arrangement.  In actuality, the production model for this movie matches up pretty well with how independent films get made.  If you are a small scale movie like The Blair Witch Project, you raise capital to shoot your film.  In the age of YouTube and mass consumption of digital content, you can try to go about getting your film in front of people’s eyes on your own, but in order to be really successful, you tend to need a distributor.  Netflix makes these sorts of distribution film with all sorts of indie movies, documentaries in particular.

In this instance, Warner Brothers is allowing these folks to produce a film and not challenge the rights issue, but according to the Kickstarter page, they have very little to do with the production phase.  According to this Entertainment Weekly article, Warner Brothers Digital Distribution is really just agreeing to market, promote, and distribute the movie.  While I can’t say for certain, it seems like Mars creator Rob Thomas and his gang of misfits will shoot the movie and basically just deliver a final cut to WB. 

This is the part of the process where most indies travel the festival circuit trying to sell their film to distributors.   Most of the money for the filmmakers in these deals is up front.  In Hollywood, getting a percentage of the gross is an uncommon occurrence.  Moreover, you don’t really want a percentage unless your movie is Harry Potter.  Movie studios have very creative means of accounting and they can make something that cost $5 million to shoot and grossed $50 million look like a financial failure.  Since these percentage deals on grosses are done based on numbers after the cost is recouped, it is very, very difficult to see money post-release if you are a producer on one of these indie hits (Blair Witch and The Passion of the Christ being the real exceptions. Trust me, Mel made boatloads of money, then enough money to make Titanic-sized cruise liners out of more money with which to carry the boatloads of money back to his Malibu pad).

So, in my mind, the $2 million is kind of like the up front fee that Thomas would normally get from distributors buying his product.  Warner isn’t willing to pay it, but we, the fans, are.

Let’s face it: This movie isn’t getting made any other way

The list of shows the internet laments the premature death of is a mile long. Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development, Sports Night are just a handful.  If you are a broadcast network like CBS or ABC, it would be financially idiotic to keep producing them.  Simple fact of the matter is, not enough people watch the shows to make them viable commercial television products.

We’ve gotten extra seasons out of networks here and there, such as when Chuck fans went to Subway en masse to prove they were willing to put their ad dollars to work if NBC put their show on the air.

We even got a movie out of the short-lived Joss Whedon-helmed show “Firefly”.  This sounds like a success story, but it isn’t.  No one went to see the Firefly movie “Serenity”. It made $38 million globally in its theatrical run.  You know how much it cost to make before marketing, distribution, and exhibition costs? $39 million. 

Movies are expensive, even small ones.   A film with a $39 million budget is considered a low budget studio film these days.  The way the movie studio business models works is such that the amount of time and money that goes into development and production mean that they can’t waste their time spending $5 million on a movie that makes $10 million.  That is not to say the studio system is the smartest business model on Earth.  This is purely to let you know Warner Brothers simply doesn’t make movies on the scale of the Veronica Mars film. The beauty for us film fans is that there is a very healthy indie film business for just those types of pictures.

So that is why I gladly pulled out my credit card and pledged my money.  Not only because I miss Veronica oh so much, but because I think this a genuinely viable business model in which small groups of rabid fans can keep their favorite projects alive when they fail to succeed in the standard TV and movie channels.

Even if you’re not a fan of Veronica Mars (and you’re probably not a fan simply because you haven’t watched, so get on the stick and watch Season 1 ASAP y’all), this is a groundbreaking, paradigm shifting kind of moment for film and TV fans.  This is a new channel, a new chance for us to proactively determine exactly what kind of content we are willing to directly spend money on.  For those who complain about Downton Abbey being delayed in the States or Game of Thrones not being available on streaming services, this might just be our answer. So, Marshmallow devotee of Veronica Mars or not, this is something that should excite you, not have you worried that the corporate arms are extending their reach even further.

Note: If you are interested more in how the development, production, distribution, and exhibition  of movies work, most of my information in this post comes from a class I took at USC based heavily around The Movie Business Book by Jason Squire.  It is a touch old, but a very clear cut explanation of how movie studios work.

“Justified” has always been one of those shows I avoid because I know I’m going to get caught up in the reality of the setting so much that I can’t pay attention to the plot.

It is kind of like how I imagine a Hawaiian person feels about “Hawaii Five O”–while it is always nice to see your hometown as the centerpiece of a major television show, you can’t help but nitpick at the things that seem so patently incorrect about the locale.

I finally decided to give “Justified” a go, believing it was set in Harlan, a town in Southeastern Kentucky.  Now let me give you a quick rundown of how we Kentuckians identify: 

1. Northern Kentuckians – These are folks that are mostly just angry they can’t say they live in Cincinnati.

2. Central Kentucky – This is where my hometown of Lexington is located.  If you think of Kentucky as a state with a head and a tail, we are the middle of the head.

3. Western Kentuckians – This is Hilltopper region, not to mention home to some bad ass BBQ. Unlike Central Kentucky, this area is heavy on lakes and bodies of water. I’ll come back to this.

4. Louisville – This central-ish western-ish city just gets lumped by itself.  Probably for the best, as Rick Pitino needs to be in a confined area.

5. Eastern Kentucky – home of the hill people.  These are the coal miner’s daughters and banjo plucking good ole boys of the Commonwealth.

6. Southern Kentucky – is a place I know exists, but no one I know ever needs to have much need to go there.  I once went to Berea, which is a town with a college that rewards financial aid to students who do stuff like make wicker chairs and corn cob toys in the name of craftwork. (In all seriousness, the Berea College Crafts Program is pretty rad)

So Harlan is in the space I am least familiar with.  I have been to Eastern Kentucky a bit, but if you are a city girl like myself, you tend to think of Eastern Kentucky the way the rest of the country thinks of Kentucky, if you catch my drift.

Back to “Justified” though.  The opening shot had me super concerned they had gotten Kentucky very, very wrong.  Thankfully, this scene was set in Miami.  We meet US Marshal Raylan (Timothy Olyphant), our hero, in Florida after he fires a weapon on a man in a questionable use of force. His punishment?

Being sent to Kentucky.

Raylan is actually from Kentucky, and, as people tend to assume, would never want to go back there, having escaped.  I’ll let this slide, as I had that moment in my life where I never wanted to go back either.

He returns home and the dialogue informs me we are in Lexington.  I take them for their word, as so far I have seen no identifying markers of the city.  I have seen non-white people though, which is a step in the right and accurate direction.

Apparently simply by setting foot in the state, Raylan develops an accent he previously did not have.  Again, I’m trying to cut some slack, as I can have a few too many or stay up too late and it becomes real apparent real fast based on my speech exactly where I come from.

Raylan is informed of a pesky white supremacist, Boyd Crowder, wreaking havoc in Harlan and Lex-Vegas and, of course, he knows him from back in the days when Raylan grew up in Harlan.  You know how they knew each other?

They mined coal together.

Okay, I’m sorry, I’ve been lenient and am trying to go with the flow, but come on, coal?  If this were Wisconsin would they have met on a dairy farm? In Idaho out in a potato field?

Contrary to popular belief, even in Eastern Kentucky, these days there are plenty of people who did not work in the coal mines.  In fact, it is a population whose numbers have sufficiently dwindled over the years due to layoffs and modernization.

May as well have had them met racing horses in the Kentucky Derby.

I digress, so Raylan learns that someone, likely Boyd, has blown up a Black church in Lexington with, of all things, a rocket launcher.

At the crime scene, they appear to be on the outskirts of a small town.  They identify the scene of the crime with reference to Tates Creek Road, which is actually a real thoroughfare in Lexington, nice job Justified.  It is one of the biggest and busiest roads in town and looks a little like this:

If you can’t tell, this is a point where the road is, by my count, seven lanes wide.  It is far from a country road. I don’t have a screen shot of the scene in question, so let me describe it for you: Cars are parked basically wherever.  No one is driving by and there is a sign displaying the speed limit as 25 in the background.  The church parking lot is basically a gravel pit and there are more trees than buildings.

In other words, this is not even close to what Lexington looks like.  This is the Lexington skyline, by the way:

(Photo courtesy of Skyscraper Page Forum)

Perhaps you don’t know that the metro population of Lexington is almost half a million people.  It is the 62nd largest city in the United States and is the second largest city in the state behind Lousiville (which has a metro population of almost 1.5 million).  I’m not saying we’re New York City, I’m just saying this is metropolitan place.  There is nothing “country” about it.

One other minor nitpick? I tried to rewind and see for sure, but there appears to be a bridge near this church. Funny thing about Lexington: there is no water there.  There are some creeks and ponds, but the Kentucky River is outside of the city by several miles, so we are one of the larger truly landlocked cities in the country.

Raylan constantly driving over bridges on the trek between Harlan and Lexington makes a little more sense, as you do cross the Kentucky River on the trip.  It should bear mentioning that the two places are almost three hours apart from each other though, that if he has to drive out there as much each episode as he does in the pilot, I do not envy his job at all.

After this long list of frustrations, you might think I didn’t like the show at all, which isn’t the case.  It is certainly interesting and the cast of characters is fascinating.  The preacher of the burned down church was played by Doug E Doug of Cool Runnings fame. I will say, it may not be my Lexington, but I can’t be too hard on a Lexington that is the home to the “Kiss the Lucky Egg” guy from one of my favorite childhood films.

In other words, I understand this is supposed to be a fantastical depiction of the Gothic South, embellishing when need be for dramatic effect.  No one but me really cares if the Lexington in this show looks or feels anything like Lexington because not many people know what Lexington looks or feels like.

I will say though that, while this show is interesting and I intend to keep watching, I do lament that we can’t have a sitcom or a doctor show that just so happens to be set in Greenville or Nashville or Lexington and not have it be all about being Southern with a depiction of place that is rooted in the small, the kitschy, and the uncosmopolitan.  Yes, there is regional influence on the way these cities operate, but they are probably way more like the small cities you’ve visited in California, Ohio, Massachusetts, or Washington than you realize.

So Justified is, well, justified in taking some dramatic liberties, but just keep in mind that this fantastical space and my hometown are two very different things.

I saw the New York City Ballet at The Smith Center tonight. The staging of Jerome Robbins’ “In The Night” took me back to the days of being a seven year old watching the principles in the Lexington Ballet hoping that some day I could be as pretty and dance as effortlessly as they did. Stunning stuff.

You know what I find joyfully refreshing about Alfred Hitchcock movies? The male lead’s female best friend, who is typically smart and quippy and brunette, is almost always in love with her male pal and he never even comes close to reciprocating because there is some troubled blonde occupying his time instead.

These women, like Rear Window’s Stella or Marnie’s Lil, get nothing. Which isn’t even the short of the stick when you think about the fact that not only does Suzanne Pleshette lose out to Tippi Hedren in the contest for Rod Taylor’s heart, she gets eaten to death by birds while saving his little sister to boot.

A month ago Netflix released the 13 episodes of “House of Cards” in one fell swoop.  I eagerly carved out my Saturday afternoon in order to potentially wolf down all the episodes in a single weekend.

When I began, that was actually pretty much how it went at first.  While the thought of a Southern Kevin Spacey threw me and the breaking of the fourth wall felt more “Saved By the Bell” than Shakespeare, there was enough campy fun and intrigue to keep me interested.  The stellar performance of Robin Wright Penn didn’t hurt either.

As the episodes progressed, my patience began to wear thin with one particular character and storyline.  This is not a “House of Cards” review, but I have to reiterate my Tweets and Facebook posts voicing my distaste with Kate Mara as an actress.  This character is supposed to be a ruthless, cunning up and coming journalist. Think Tracy Flick from “Election” after college.  Instead, Mara presents a whiny somewhat stupid character who has a completely annoying tendency to pick at her fingers when approaching anyone to have a conversation with them (This is a very acting school approach btw: Think of a physical manifestation of your character’s feelings. Nervous? Yes, pick at your fingers. Never. Stop. Picking. At. Your. Fingers.)

Along about Episode 7, I put the marathon on hold to go have dinner with friends.  The following day, I found time for Episode 8, then had to stop again.

Four days later, I realized I had not returned to the show.  I watched Episode 9, then fell asleep halfway through Episode 10.

I have yet to finish.

As I suffered through the tedium Episode 9 offered, it dawned on me that, were “House of Cards” presented like a TV show and aired once a week, I probably would have given up before this point.

When “House of Cards” was released, the producers and Netflix executives encouraged people to binge watch their show.  Some found the decision to release all 13 episodes at once strange, but “House of Cards” producer Beau Willimon told the New York Times, the show, “might even dispense with episodes altogether. You might just get eight straight or 10 straight hours, and you decide when to press pause.”

For “House of Cards”, this approach works much better than episodes.  You end each episode with a cliffhanger of sorts that causes you to turn the page and keep going not because the entire hour was worthwhile, but because you need to know what happens.  It is a strategy that works for popular pulp fiction like “The Da Vinci Code” or “Twilight.”

Once you remove the instant gratification of turning on the next episode before the credits (which are LONG btw) of the last one are over, the flaws in this show become more apparent.  Though, I think the issue might be less that the show is flawed and more that I was thinking of “House of Cards” too much like a television show.

Look at Willimon’s comment and tell me if that sounds like TV to you.  Yes, I have binge watched a season or two of “Lost” in a ten-hour sitting, however, “Lost” is first and foremost a television show. There are act breaks for commercials.  Each show comes in between the very precise running times of 42 to 44 minutes.  Meanwhile, the structure and length of “House of Cards” varies wildly.  There are no act breaks, some shows are just over 50 minutes, while others are just over an hour.

Let’s put it another way: Most of us did not bother seeing “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” in theaters, however, it has developed quite a following since its DVD release thanks in part to its repeated airings on TNT and TBS.  I first saw the movie on TBS as a matter of fact.  That doesn’t make it a TV movie though.

When producers and creative teams make a product, they design it for a particular form.  In the instance of “Lost”, yes, the DVD viewers are taken into consideration, but the weekly episodes on ABC are of the utmost importance.  Big action moments come in November and February to take advantage of sweeps months and, coincidentally enough, the story presents some sort of major reveal or resolution every 22 episodes or so, known in the TV world as the season finale.

Sure, “Lost” translates especially well into the binge viewing model.  Serial television tends to do that thanks to its use of cliffhanger endings.  It also explains why people don’t binge watch comedies as much, as there aren’t the kind of dramatic stakes on the line.  Not often you hear someone say, “Man, I plowed through Season 4 of "Cheers” in like half a day.“

Returning to "House of Cards”, hopefully these examples illustrate why calling “House of Cards” a television show is a misnomer and frames the work in a way that is not fair to other television programs or “House of Cards” itself.  This first-ever Netflix-produced product isn’t the only work in this unnamed not televisual medium though.  Pretty much anything on HBO, Showtime, or other premium cable channels fits the bill too.  Hell, they say as much in their tagline, “It’s not TV. It’s HBO.”

That quip is more than just catchy, it is true.  Technically, artistically, and commercially, HBO and what it creates is fundamentally different than network or even basic cable programs.  Structurally they can write without act breaks, which most writers can tell you changes the feel of an episode tremendously.  They can bend the rules on running time if need be.  They can be naked, shouting “fuck”, and snorting coke all at the same time.  They are also strictly controlled by HBO, who limits the distribution channels for its work, in turn, limiting the types of engagement for these shows.

Many of my peers lament the lack of such freedoms on network TV.  I see this point, but I am not lobbying for this new classification because the poor little network shows can’t keep up.  In my mind, “Parenthood” was the best drama on television last fall, better than “Mad Men”, better than “The Walking Dead”, and likely better than a lot of stuff on HBO (have to admit I do not have HBO, so my knowledge of their current slate is relatively limited to just “Girls”, which is atrocious, and “The Newsroom”, also atrocious).  I have seen and enjoyed most of Season 1 of “Homeland”, but I enjoy episodes less when I watch them by themselves and not in a binge.  While I initially got into “Parenthood” by binge watching Seasons 1 and 2, it is a show I prefer a weekly dose of to lift my mood and keep me sane.

This is a knock on either show. “Parenthood” is playing a different game than “The Newsroom” or “Homeland.”  It is like comparing Go Fish to Gin Rummy.  They are both card games, yes, but beyond that there aren’t many similarities. So, as “House of Cards” develops its following, let’s think about what to call these types of shows that are designed for the binge viewing sessions and not for weekly consumption. While I know television is not the right word, I am open to suggestions as to what the right word is.

There are things in my life I am grateful happened to me.  I recognize they are somewhat absurd and out of the ordinary and, for that reason, I treasure them dearly.  One of those things is getting to be a seat filler at the 2003 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.

You see, I worked at the USC television station as one of the nightly producers of a live talk show.  The producer of the SAG Awards, Jeff Margolis, always came on as a guest during awards season since the Shrine Auditorium where the SAGs were held is literally across the street from the campus TV studio.  As a kind gesture, Margolis extended the invite for three of us to work as seat fillers that year and I was one of the lucky people that got to attend.

I put on my old homecoming dress, my roommate did my hair in a fun updo, I made myself up, and I reported for duty a couple of hours before the show began.  While the nominees and celebrities filed down the red carpet, I entered through a side door and got instructions on what the gig entailed.  We were instructed to line up on the two sides of the auditorium and we would be directed to empty seats during the commercial breaks.  You were not to get up from your seat or go to a seat while the show was on or else it disrupted the shots of the audience.  Once in your seat, you were not to strike up conversation with the actual guests unless spoken to.  The other rule was no eating or drinking, as the seating was banquet style and there was a place setting at every seat.

My friend and I waited impatiently to see where we would end up as the attendees milled into their seats.  Shortly before showtime, we were both told to report to “The West Wing” table.  My friend took the seat reserved for Martin Sheen, while I was placed in the one for Stockard Channing.

“Oh my lord, Rizzo,” I whispered under my breath.

I expected to sit there silently, but the cast was quick to engage us, especially Bradley Whitford who not only bothered to get our names, but complimented us on how we looked that night.  This would be my friends seat for the entire night, as Sheen did not attend.  I vacated after Channing showed up after the first award and thanked a clearly shell-shocked me for keeping the chair warm for her.

I returned to the back of seat filler line.  When I got to the front again, I was dispatched to the “Chicago” table.  Richard Gere’s girlfriend Carey Lowell was off chatting with other folks, so I occupied her empty seat.

I wasn’t there long before Lowell returned with a friend, leaving absolutely no free seats at the table.  The problem was we were in the middle of the show—this was not a commercial break.  I stood up, aiming to make a break for the line, when I looked on the large screens and realized the camera was panning the audience.  Considering “Chicago” was the movie to beat that year, I was effectively in SAG Awards No Man’s Land.

I panicked and ducked behind a chair.  I heard a chuckle and turned around to see who at the Chicago table was laughing and what they were laughing at.

It was Queen Latifah. And she was laughing at me, squatting on the floor in an old homecoming dress from Contempo Casuals in the middle of the Shrine Auditorium.

I scanned the room unsure of what to do when I saw somebody waving from a nearby table.  It was a fellow seat filler, who gestured there was an empty seat at their table.  I eyed the screen and, once I saw the camera was back on the presenter, I dashed to the chair and flung myself in it, letting out an exhale of relief.

Then I looked up.

Oh. Hello Jack Nicholson.

I was at a table that combined the casts of “About Schmidt” with some miscellaneous nominees, including Julianne Moore who was being honored for “Far From Heaven” and Daniel Day-Lewis, who was there for “Gangs of New York.”  It was a pretty primo table located right near the front of the stage.  In fact, should you hunt down a video of the night, you can see my face as I laugh at poor Megan Mullally when she fell on the way to stage accepting her award.

The people at the table were very nice, attempted to entice me to drink, and kindly offered me the remnants of the bread basket.  Kathy Bates and Nicholson didn’t talk much, as they were clearly chatting and catching up most of the evening.  A few visitors stopped by the table.  Being a Southern snoop, I couldn’t help myself but eavesdrop at what Nicholson was saying to one such visitor.  He had less than flattering things to say about one of the more powerful people in Hollywood at the time.

I clearly didn’t hide my interest in the conversation well, as what happened next was one of the five scariest moments of my life.  Nicholson turns his head and sees I am listening.  He then takes his index finger and points it at me, not saying a word.

He didn’t need to say anything. I knew this was my lone warning that I could not say a word to a soul ever without this man going all “The Shining” on me.  So, I gave him an exaggerated shrug with a slight shake of the head as if to say, “Why Jack, I have no idea what you have been talking about and I would never, ever dream of repeating it even if I was on my deathbed and you were 30 years in the grave.”

This was the extent of my interactions with one of the most talented actors in movie history.  There weren’t even words, just gestures.  I almost think I would cherish the memory less if there was small talk or polite chatter.  It was a frank, honest moment that stands out above all in a night filled with glitz, glamour, and the Hollywood dream.

I think everything that can be said about this year’s Oscars ceremony is going to be said tonight and tomorrow.  I can sleep well knowing Seth MacFarlane is going to be deservedly ripped apart for one of the worst hosting performances in recent Oscar memory.  I certainly thought he was terrible.

Hatred for the host aside though, this was supposed to be an Oscar ceremony I could get behind.  When I heard this awards show had a theme and that theme was an ode to music and movies, I thought this would be right up my alley.  I am about as fervent a musical fan as you’re going to find, so paying tribute to them during the biggest awards show of the year amounted to lobbing a giant softball straight through the front window of my wheelhouse.

And yet.

There was a period of time in my life where I kind of fell out of love with the movies.  I didn’t see anything in the theaters that inspired me, the movies that were in vogue were of the genres and ilks of movies I just couldn’t get into, and I felt like I was at a disadvantage not being a 16 year old dude who loves comic books.

I kind of felt that way again tonight.  The sophomoric host and his moronic jokes, the presenters fresh off Avengers rehearsal, and the montage devoted to Bond girls and retro-style editing wipes and splashes all felt tailor made to appeal to young guys.  

The treatment of the musical was worst of all though.  If there is one thing it is typically difficult to market to 16 year old boys, it is the musical.  This is an old Hollywood genre whose best pictures most certainly came four or five decades ago. So, to see the Academy parade around MacFarlane as a song and dance man instead of Bob Hope or Frank Sinatra or last year’s solid Oscar host, Billy Crystal, was a knife to my heart.  Treating the mediocre “Chicago” as our generation’s “West Side Story” was a series of painful twists of that knife. And Russell Crowe’s brief crooning on stage amounted to someone taking that knife and meticulously removing my aorta.

There were a few shining moments.  I don’t think anyone can argue with the presence of Shirley Bassey and Barbra Streisand.  I even thought the Channing Tatum/Charlize Theron tribute to Fred and Ginger and the Gordon-Levitt/Radcliffe ode to Kelly and O’Connor were charming.  But the rest of this tribute to a genre I hold so near and dear to my heart was the most out of key component of a ceremony that tonally missed the mark on just about everything.

Thankfully, the winners made up for what the production team lacked.  Christoph Waltz’s surprise victory kicked off the awards with a bang and there were surprises throughout the night.  When Ang Lee took Best Director, I had a real “Oh shit” moment because, for the first time in years, Best Picture was seriously in doubt.

Lately I watched the Oscars because I was intrigued by the show and not the movies.  If this year is really the year that I have fully given in to being a cinephile again, it is only fitting that this year the only good thing about the Oscars wasn’t the show–it was the films the show was honoring.

I guess I should thank Rick Reilly for making the Super Bowl interesting for me this year.  This time last week, I didn’t much care who won.  This year felt more boring than usual, though I might be a touch grumpier that my darling Bungles blew their playoff chances over a month ago.

Then the ESPN columnist Reilly put out this gem.  The op-ed suggested that the 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick needed to meet his birth mother.  Kaepernick was adopted when he was five weeks old.  Based on information in the Reilly piece, it appears to not be an entirely closed adoption.  Kaepernick’s mother would send the birth mother pictures and updates, but the woman declined to participate in young Kaepernick’s life.

A short while back, she changed her tune.  To avoid sounding like a supreme cynic, I will try to avoid the dubiousness of a situation where a woman who previously stayed away from the child she gave up magically reappeared out of the woodwork when Colin displayed a level of football acumen that would likely translate into a lucrative NFL contract.  I won’t bring it up beyond this point because it doesn’t really have anything to do with the fact that Rick Reilly’s piece is the most offensive piece of adoption-related tripe I’ve read in a decade.

Perhaps I should mention this key fact: I am adopted.  It is always a little funny when it comes up in conversation, as I will frequently have been friends with someone for several years before it gets mentioned in passing.  To me, it is nothing, but they will often be a little surprised. “You never told me.”  Some seem to feel like bad friends for not knowing. I think some may feel hurt they didn’t know sooner.  Honestly though, I have just never felt like it was something I needed to be up front about.  Moreover, it is difficult for it to come up in conversation. “See that woman in all these photos of me growing up over the years? I did not pop out of her birth canal.  Just thought you should know.”

Kaepernick is in a different boat than I am though.  As a mixed race person with white parents, it is pretty clear where he didn’t come from.  Reilly, who has an adopted daughter of Asian descent, is in a similar boat and he treated the situation differently than the Kaepernicks chose to handle it with Colin.  He encouraged his daughter to meet her birth parents when the opportunity arose.  He referred to the situation as “healing” for both her and him.  And this is why this poor misguided man decided to pen this op-ed and stick his nose where it does not belong.

I don’t doubt the Reilly family got a lot from his daughter meeting her biological mother, but here is the thing. Some of us don’t conceive of our adoption as something we need to “heal” from.  Perhaps it is the result of a remarkable ability to compartmentalize emotion or because we were simply raised in a household in which adoption was never considered a bad word or a big deal because we always knew where we came from, I actually don’t harbor any resentment towards my birth mother. In fact, I think of her giving me up as one of the more selfless acts of kindness a person has ever done for me.  Knowing she couldn’t provide the life she felt I deserved, she asked Catholic Services to find another Catholic family that could. And then I never heard from her again.

My sister is also adopted, from a different set of biological parents.   Unlike me, she has quite a bit of curiosity about her birth parents to the point of reaching out to Dr Phil or Oprah when casting calls come around.  My mother doesn’t take offense to this curiosity (though our terrifyingly introverted mom does take offense to the thought of being on TV and has repeatedly said if Debbie gets chosen for a show, she will be going it alone), she and my dad were told by social workers this curiosity was normal and to be expected.

Perhaps that is why Reilly is so shocked that Kaepernick does not have this curiosity, especially when he looks so visually different from his parents.  What Reilly missed in those meetings is that there is another perfectly normal reaction children in relatively closed adoptions have to their birth parents: complete indifference.

I am completely indifferent about my birth parents.   That is not to say I didn’t daydream about them a little in my youth.  I knew a few key pieces of information about them, most notably that my birth father is Swedish, as in likely still lives in Sweden.  With that information in mind, I became the most fervent six year old American fan of Patrik Sjöberg to ever live. 

In the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Sjöberg earned bronze in the high jump event after taking silver the previous Olympics.  To date, he still actually holds some high jumping records as he is one of the few in the sport to never test positive for PEDs (this wouldn’t be a Super Bowl post without a mention of PEDs, am I right?).  Watching this Swedish man with long blonde locks lithely sprint and leap on TV, young me became wholly convinced this was my biological father.  I was devastated when he didn’t win gold and it was about as personally connected as I’ve ever felt to the idea of my birth parents.

Since then, the idea of meeting them has just lost importance to me. I once considered pursuing a search for them for purely selfish reasons.  If I could ever identify my birth father, I would qualify for dual citizenship, something that would have been very beneficial in my career field at the time.  The reality of the situation kept me from pursuing it though.  More than likely, this man does not even know I exist.  My adoption was held up almost six weeks in courts trying to relinquish paternal rights. This sort of thing is normally only done when the biological father can’t be found and notified, leading us to believe I was very likely the byproduct of a one-night stand.

In this context, it might make more sense as to why I feel more attached to a Swedish high jumper than the idea of my actual birth father.  This is a person who doesn’t even know about me.  He doesn’t wonder what happened to me or what I am up to these days.  I am not even a part of his subconscious, let alone his actual life.  So, the thought of trying to falsely construct some sort of relationship with this person thirty years later sounds like more trouble than it is worth to me.

Reading about Kaepernick, it sounds like his birth was not the product of a loving relationship either.  I am purely speculating here, but his biological father did exit the picture very early on that it does seem somewhat possible he never knew about Colin either.  So, the more I read about this person, the more I grew to like him, because he seemed like the kind of role model for adopted kids I felt was missing in my life.

Then Kaepernick dropped this quotation in response to a probing question about why he doesn’t have any interest in meeting his birth mother:

“Is that how you feel?” I asked Kaepernick on Tuesday at Super Bowl media day. “That it would be disrespectful to meet with your birth mother?”

“No,” Kaepernick said. “It’s not really a respect thing. It’s just – that’s my family. That’s it.”

“But aren’t you curious?”

“No.”

It was at this very moment that I became a San Francisco 49ers fan and, more importantly, a Colin Kaepernick fan.  He dismantles all the crap Reilly tries to drum up over a couple thousand words in 15 words. Hell, he really gets at the meat at it with just three.

“That’s my family.”

I’m grateful for my birth mother taking responsibility and seeing that I got a chance at a good life. I’m grateful for the Swedish high jumper making my childhood imaginations a little more lively and have a lot more international flair. But the person I pick up the phone to call when good and bad things happen to me or when I just want someone who understands me to listen is my mom.  And the man I pine for every day and wish was here and a part of my life is not a random Scandi, he is the man who died 21 years ago after taking care of me for the first nine years of my life. These are my parents. There is no gray area here.

That woman and man who physically created me are great, I’m sure, and I would probably be willing to sit down with them if they came out of the woodwork someday.  However, they aren’t my parents and to label them with that word is disrespectful, but not in the way that Reilly thinks it is.  It is disrespectful to all parents who define their relationship with their children not by the fact they physically birthed them or share DNA, but by the days of teaching them to ride bikes, learn the alphabet, differentiate between right and wrong, and the process of raising them to be good, righteous people.  These are the accomplishments of parents, the rest is just the nine month preamble.

This project is starting to get tricky.  I am very quickly exhausting my list of easy to access flicks, meaning there is a certain amount of searching and spending to cross things off going forward.

Bright side? TCM’s 31 Days of Oscars began on Friday and 14 of the movies on my list will be airing this month.  South Point also shows classic movies every Wednesday and have been showing some of interest to me, that I am still not out of easy to find options just yet.  Plus, even if I was, with seven more movies ticked off the list this week, the original field of 116 is already down to 88.  Considering the goal is 50, I’m still well on pace and could even take a week or two off and still finish by the fall.

And with that, this week’s selections:

Red River

Okay, technically this was last week and I just forgot about it.  Not my favorite story I’ve seen, but the performances from John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, and Walter Brennan are uniformly quite good.  I will give that this Western does have an almost biblical or allegorical feel to it about the relationship between fathers and sons.  Perhaps because this is a relationship I don’t really have a lot of personal connection to, this movie didn’t leave a lasting impression with me–as indicated by the fact I couldn’t remember seven days later that I even watched it.

Twelve O’Clock High

I expected to like this war movie highlighting the brotherhood and camaraderie of American Air Force pilots in England during WW2, but this very long film was short on action and long on exposition.  Gregory Peck is wonderful as the inspirational commander of the squad, but it just felt like the movie tread over the same beats without advancing the plot or even raising the stakes that I found myself struggling to stay involved.

Lost Horizon

If there is an award for least Capra-esque Frank Capra film, I am pretty sure this movie about a magical place of eternal youth is it.  Felt decidedly different from your standard little man bucks the system films Capra made his name on, but I still found myself enjoying it for what it was.

Here is the other funny thing about this movie, which was made before Aldous Huxley’s dystopian Brave New World was published (be warned there are some minor spoilers coming): there is no downside to the utopian Shangri-La.  The characters are dubious and skeptical about the motives of this mountain paradise, but they all prove to be unfounded. This place is perfect and they are just looking for reasons to ruin it.  In fact, the characters who express the most doubt are punished by taking actions that lead to their death.  I kept waiting for them to be right, as I am so conditioned by the fleet of Brave New World-esque dystopias to always suspect things can’t be that great, that there is something wrong or somehow the utopia will get corrupted. This one doesn’t though and, in that way, it does inhibit the Capra-esque sense of optimism that perfection in the world is possible, so long as your cynicism doesn’t get in the way.

She Done Him Wrong

This makes me a bad film historian, but I will just admit this right here and now: I do not understand the Mae West thing. Was she just the first bawdy broad to market this kind of persona? Because she isn’t a particularly adept singer or actress, her presence seems much better suited for the stage than film (you can see her “cheating out” as the theater geeks call it, adopting a very presentational posture on camera), and I don’t buy for a minute that a woman like this would charm the dapper and darling Cary Grant.  Like Harold and Maude, I think She Done Him Wrong helps me appreciate what Mae West contributed to comedy, females in comedy, and broadening the scope of how women were depicted in movies, it just doesn’t make me appreciate the movie.

The Phantom of the Opera

The notion of a silent film centered around music struck me as a not so compelling idea, and, have to say, this movie was not so compelling.  Perhaps it is because I am so enamored with the musical, I found this film wanting. I also found myself saying “This is the part where Christine would sing ‘Think of Me’, that is, if there were sound.”

I will say the audio mix on this version was well done. When women sang on screen, someone sang on the soundtrack.  It made for an unusual but interesting viewing experience.  Lon Chaney’s make up as the disfigured Phantom was impressive, even more so when you consider he applied it himself. In the end though, this is one of the weaker silent flicks I’ve encountered in this project.

Touch of Evil

This is one of those movies you need to see in order to have “film school street cred.”  Instead of touting “Citizen Kane” as your Orson Welles film of choice, you’re supposed to say this one.  There are things about this film to love. The opening three-minute tracking shot is amazing.  The cinematography is captivating and so unlike the prevalent style of the error.  Janet Leigh gives a great performance.  But there are other not so admirable qualities of this movie.  Like Charlton Heston trying to credibly play a Mexican. I’m not a big noir fan.  I found the pulpy story to be relatively predictable and uninteresting, but the high marks for mis-en-scene made this movie worthwhile for me.  I am still going to be that person who cites “Citizen Kane” as my preferred Orson Welles flick (though I thoroughly enjoyed the lesser known The Stranger as well) though. But I didn’t have film school street cred to begin with, so this should surprise no one.

Cat Ballou

For the past two days, I have been quietly humming this everywhere I go:

In a device that childhood me always assumed was created by the animated Disney film “Robin Hood” and its oodelollying rooster, these two songsters narrate the film using music.  It is one of a number of quirky things about this comedy Western starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin.  Tonally I don’t know how to describe it, except as perhaps a precursor for Blazing Saddles and the movies of Mel Brooks, toying with genre to generate laughs.

My “Oh How Things Have Changed Moment” came in this movie when (SPOILER ALERT) Marvin’s character finally manages to clean himself up and sober up after years of slobbery drunkenness.  He puts himself together with the help of Cat and her team of bandits and starts to be a glimpse of his former glorious self.  Then, he unceremoniously falls off the wagon and his return to staggering intoxication is milked for laughs.  I admit I chuckled at his relapse, which suggested he would remain this drunken stooge forever, but it did get me thinking that the “affable fall down drunk sobering up only to immediately go back to an alcoholic haze cause, hey, what is really wrong with that?” storyline is not one you really see in contemporary film these days.

Cat Ballou was the real delight of the week for me.  A unique film that I can genuinely say I have never seen the likes of in my years of movie watching.