Out of Focus

The MMXXI Birthday Post: Upon turning L

Why have Roman numerals endured, maintaining a hallowed (if not necessarily useful) place in Western culture?

Better: How many people read that sentence and either ignore it or answer, “No idea,” and don’t think twice about it; versus my predilection to flashback to a MCMXC’s Arsenio Hall-bit that infiltrated pop culture enough to inspire a C+C Music Factory hit single.

Like most of my curiosities, this question did not spontaneously emerge from a vacuum. Less commonly, I managed to stop my rabbit-hole deep-dive before my feet left the ground, though only after falling down the neighboring pit searching for why “L” equals “50.”

I won’t follow that tangent; suffice it to say, none of the numerals that seem to have developed intuitively due to Latin words like “centum” or “mille.”

Naturally, this curiosity resulted from the new ME year celebrated today by my personal Gregorian calendar: As of II:LVI am Pacific Daylight Time, I passed from XLIX to L.

How is this guy L years old‽
AND he hasn't stopped yawning‽

But back to the initial question, because the endurance of Roman numerals for over MM years, long beyond performing any practical, non-decorative function fascinates me. As I approached L, and as people have offered both well-wishes and congratulations, I began considering my own presence, perseverance, and fortitude (whatever they may be), and the representative nature of this blog’s staying power as opposed to simply fading away along with its activity level and relevancy.

I’ve always enjoyed Roman numerals. They’re little more than pretty to look at, but I suppose they provide a weightiness; a kind of numerical bolding, even? I remember II decades ago thinking one of the more monumental changeovers at the turn of the millennium and century was watching MCMXCIX in favor for the larger but more compact MM.

Super Bowls; copyright dates for films, TV, and books; clock faces; building cornerstones and historical plaques: What else regularly utilizes Roman numerals? And still, I’m pretty sure I learned the III most basic—I, V, X—along with, if not before, our standard (Arabic) number system.

For nearly a decade, these birthday posts were the only consistent element of this space, and I used them primarily to note the many interesting people who share(d) my birthday. That annual tradition became irregular and infrequent during the MMX's, even more so since I have II or III birthday posts that I drafted but never published.

My adherence to the birthday post has been its own thing-to-make-me-say-hmmmm. As I noted previously, I have not always enjoyed celebrating my birthday; sometimes, I don’t even want to acknowledge it. I get too self-conscious. I question the motivations of people who disappear from my life before reaching out on that single day with a brief kind (and generic?) word. I contemplate my relationships with those who forget (or don’t care enough to remember?) that it’s my birthday.

So why have I always called greater attention to it in this space? Once again, the contradictory nature of my every feeling reigns supreme. In other words:

I don’t want to be the center of attention; how dare you ignore me!

I would be remiss if I didn’t wish a happy Lth to my birthDATE buddies—Luke Wilson and Alfonso Ribeiro—but otherwise, this year I choose to focus on the some of the various media that entered and/or achieved some cultural significance on-or-around Sept. XXI, MCMLXXI.

For instance, we recently got a new car which came with a IV-month trial subscription to SiriusXM, and on our first long weekend drive, I discovered that the “LXXs on VII” channel reruns American Top XL with Casey Kasem, generally picking that Saturday’s or Sunday’s date from a corresponding year between MCMLXX-MCMLXXIX.

So when I started looking at what command the cultural conversations at the moment I began my true domination of my parents’ lives, I wondered what held the top spot on the Billboard Hot C was when I was born.

Facing 50: Deconstructing and re-editing my three-act structure

I was born in San Francisco 50 years ago tomorrow, and for the last several months when anyone has asked me that most terrible of conversation starters—“How are you?”—I have replied with some variable of the following:

“Hopefully, reaching the end of this 25-year midlife crisis.”

As my few most-recent attempts to resurrect this digital space demonstrate, much of my contemporary focus involves self-reflection. Because my constant curiosity seems to prefer the ever deepening meta-analysis best represented by Russian Nesting Dolls, I have also spent an inordinate amount of time considering the blurry purgatory separating healthy self-examination and narcissistic navel-gazing.

I wish my identifying a “mid-life crisis” was new, but no matter how little I have visited this space over the past decade, it appears that I left evidence of playtime in a similar mental sandbox just nine years ago:

Recently, more than usual, I have felt further away from myself, the things I enjoy, and the Aaron I know I am and have always been. A mid-life crisis. A journey of self-discovery. A bunch of blathering nonsense. Any and all of these. I’m hoping as I focus more on my writing – whether here, elsewhere or a combination of the two – that the answers will become more apparent to me.

“Hoping.” An ongoing story of inaction overshadowed by the busy-ness of any given moment; a trait that ever-present in my fear-center, but not one that resembles the “Aaron” I have always believed myself to be and often proven true to others as well. And yet, as nine years flew by, I too often neglected my aspirational child, allowing that that passive story to take roots and experience compound growth.

I wrote that 2012 birthday post and its excerpted passage less than six weeks after getting married; barely over 18 months before becoming a first-time parent; just four years shy of the three-month window during which I joyfully welcomed a second child before painfully saying goodbye to my dad.

And now, nine years later, on the eve of the conclusion of my first half-century, I ponder how much has changed, all that hasn’t, and where I am in life—personally, professionally, financially, socially, emotionally—as I turn older than either of my grandmothers were when I was born, and frequently, I feel more lost and confused than ever.

Of course, nine years ago, I looked ahead at a path that I have yet to follow in anything more than brief, occasional, irregular spurts.

More recently, I wondered how to edit or rewrite my story if I treat “midlife” literally; if I consider my truth-masked-as-humor answer to “How are you?” as descriptive, precisely where would I insert it within my three-act structure?

The “middle-of-my-life”? 25 years? The entire middle? Or just part of it? Have I reached the end of that second act mesa, preparing to begin the long descent, without brakes, traveling faster with each fleeting second.

OR, I could pursue a more optimistic storyline: Screenwriting gurus charlatans have different names for that central moment in the story where simple turns challenging or difficulties result in breakthroughs. “The Midpoint” is one common name for that crucial pivot point, placed in the middle of that second act, which actually contains the bulk of any story—half of it if not more, rather than just a proportional third.

That makes more sense for life too, right? During our first acts—infancy, childhood, adolescent, young adulthood—we develop and grow, hopefully determining the direction we want each of our stories to go. Then comes the long and most interesting (one hopes) second act, during which we establish ourselves in that story and the larger world, face challenges on the way to proficiency and expertise, develop relationships with others, and as time passes, hopefully determine the transition that leads to a satisfying conclusion in Act three.

For many of us, that might mean that Act 1 ends upon finishing school and beginning a career; Act 2 comprises successes and failures in that career as well as with our social and/or familial relationships, all represented with some major identifiable turning point somewhere in the middle; all leading into Act 3, with, if we’re lucky, some sort of relaxed and/or retired existence until the story ends.

At least, that’s a pretty clean, straightforward, and arguably sanguine possibility.

I guess it’s the one I’d like to model, even though my nature fights against it, because as I turn 50, very little resembles the path I foresaw or the story I believed I was writing when I was 25. I’d much prefer my 25-year midlife crisis conclude at a “midpoint” rather than a third-act transition, and the only feeling of certainty as I move through this moment in time, is that it will be one or the other.

In just over a month, I will mark another “birthday” of sorts: 25 years as a resident of New York City. I have and will always consider myself a San Franciscan, and yet, I will have lived in New York over half my life, and obviously longer than in either San Francisco (17 years) or Los Angeles (8 years). I believe I always saw my cross-country move as the start of my second act, and I know I anticipated a promising future. Still, I probably too often selected the less optimal next page in my “Choose Your Own Adventure” story.

Naturally, whether I push against or forcefully through the thin scrim between useful self-examination and counter-productive self-absorption, I inevitably start thinking about one of my all-time favorite films, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. I haven’t actually watched it in many years, and as this collection of words has coalesced, I have realized it’s about time I revisit it. It feels extra-relevant as I face 50.

Thinking about Synecdoche, New York prompted me to wonder what—aside from love and awe—I thought and felt about it after walking out of the screening room following my staggering first viewing 13 years ago. Luckily (and somewhat surprisingly), I actually wrote about it.

Rereading my open letter to Charlie Kaufman offered its own unanticipated and powerful experience beyond any I could have intended when I quickly (I’d bet) put those thoughts into words and onto this blog. I called it “A Reaction, Not Yet a Review,” and now reflecting upon my past reflection could also count as too self-indulgent—certainly the commenter who suggested that I, “”Get over yourself, and most importantly, get a hold of yourself,” because, “It’s only a movie,” thought so back then.

Considering how often my film-related experiences have induced both “Uh-huh” and “A-HA” moments, scrutinizing how the film spoke to me, the reaction it stimulated, and the self-realizations it proffered at that moment in time—roughly halfway between my move to New York and the present, I must note—seems appropriate, especially since my experience of and reaction to the Kaufman’s film—along with my serendipitous attendance at two other theatrical productions that weekend—feels like a more profound episode in my story than I ever realized.

I guess the barrier between self-reflection and self-indulgence reveals itself only after discovering the results of the process: Positive change thanks to lessons learned seems a better path than continuing (and likely never-ending) curiosity that does little else than uncover the next nesting doll.

I know that I have and continue to somewhat indiscriminately amble down both paths; I always liked rereading those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books and selecting different options. I love experiencing/watching/reading/studying different takes on the same story.

But as I face 50, I fear that my incessant curiosity and insatiable thirst for the new and the next are now luxuries because whether one considers 50 the new 40 (or even 30) or simply the age at which one officially becomes part of the AARP demographic, the likelihood is that most of my story is behind me, and if I have yet to find it satisfying enough, I really need to get to work.

The changing landscape of cable channels & their programming (thoughts spurred by a conversation with Sundance Channel)

In the second of my interviews with cable network programming heads for Indiewire, I spoke with President and General Manager of Sundance Channel, Sarah Barnett. Sundance Channel made noise earlier this year with the premiere of Jane Campion's limited series Top of the Lake and the six-episode first season of Rectify. Both received a great deal of critical love, and while to date Sundance has not been in the practice of releasing its ratings (something that will change as of Sept. 30 when they transition to a more traditional ad-supported model), Rectify obviously accomplished the necessary goals as it will be returning for a 10-episode second season next year.

I was most interested in Barnett's thoughts about Sundance Channel's identity, especially in relation to its name since it no longer has any direct relationship to Robert Redford, the Sundance Film Festival nor the Sundance Film Institute. The discussion also got me thinking about the larger cable landscape and the overall idea of niche programming. In the 1990s as the cable universe began expanding, almost every new channel served a very distinct purpose and targeted very specific demos. Certainly, many cable channels continue to do so. The various Scripps Networks (Food Network, DIY, HGTV) and several of the Discovery channels (Animal Planet, Discovery Fit & Health, Military Channel) are probably the best examples, but MTV is far from the only network that seems to have strayed for from its original, narrower mission.

Examining a few of the names of a number of channels across the cable landscape provides the simplest example at how many have rebranded in an attempt to distance themselves from their original niche programming.

• AMC originally stood for "American Movie Classics," which is precisely what they showed – uncut, unedited movie classics. Then they lost a huge chunk of their library licensing to Turner Classic Movies and were forced to change course. Now, they're a leader in the new form of series television and they rarely get truly "classic" in their movie selection.
• TLC (owned by Discovery) was "The Learning Channel," but I'm not sure what there is to learn from Toddlers and Tiaras or its even more popular offspring Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Their programming now focuses completely on manufactured "reality" shows with an emphasis on fashion, weddings, pregnancy and family stories.
• The History Channel never changed its name, and certainly its first steps towards scripted programming (their first series Vikings, which returns next year for a second season as well as the miniseries The Bible and Hatfields & McCoys) seem to have tried to stay within a historical focus. However, achieving the most success for the channel have been shows such as Pawn Stars, Ax Men, American Pickers and Ice Road Truckers.
• A&E always lived by those initials but originally they originally were shorthand for the "Arts & Entertainment Network." Originally, it's programming resembled what one might find on PBS – some British TV and performing arts specials – as well as reruns of some popular primetime series. Eventually, the "arts" part of A&E diminished significantly and its stable focused more on reality series like Dog the Bounty Hunter and crime documentary shows like The First 48. Their biggest hit now – and arguably the most successful show on all of television, not just cable – is Duck Dynasty, a reality series about a family from Louisiana that became millionaires due to their duck call for duck hunters.
• The TV Guide Channel has little to do with TV Guide anymore, and while E! Entertainment Television still contains an entertainment news posture, its bread and butter comes from celebrity-focused reality shows, especially those centering around the Khardashians,

And of course, there's IFC, which began its life as The Independent Film Channel. When it launched in 1994, independent film – unedited and uncut – was what they broadcast. By 1994, the indie film explosion was reaching its peak. The Sundance Film Festival and many of the films and filmmakers premiering there had received mainstream attention, especially among college-aged audiences: Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989; Reginald Hudlin's House Party, Whit Stillman's Metropolitan and Norman René's Longtime Companion in 1990;  Richard Linklater's Slacker and Todd Haynes's Poison in 1991; and arguably the breakout year of 1992 which featured Allison Anders's Gas, Food Lodging, Tom DiCillo's Johnny Suede (starring a now-famous from Thelma & Louise Brad Pitt), Neal Jimenez & Michael Sternberg's The Waterdance, and most notably, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs.

Is the "Third Golden Age of Television" the new '90s Indie Film phenomenon? Let's talk to some cable execs and find out!

 

Perry SImon of BBC America

What a great way to start a (Jewish) New Year: For some time now, I've been working on putting together a series of interviews with cable network programming heads for Indiewire. Today, they published the first of these: my chat with BBC America General Manager Perry Simon.

As I write in the intro to the Perry Simon interview, BBC America has made a huge splash in the original programming arena in just the past 18 months. They've gone two-for-two with Copper and Orphan Black, receiving plaudits from both critics and audiences. They seem to be at the tip of the iceberg with Orphan Black, which built a steady fanbase during its initial broadcast, but should see a major audience uptick when the second season hits in the spring due to all the notoriety it – and its phenomenal and talented star Tatiana Maslaney – has received in the months since its first run. Simon described BBC America's approach as "very auteur oriented," so it should be fascinating to see what kinds of series the channel presents next.

Eight years ago, I regularly conducted interviews for Gothamist, which always comprised several questions I asked everyone along with another set of questions tailored specifically for that subject. I've approached this series the same way. I have a few other interviews completed or scheduled; they should be published over the coming weeks, and I continue arranging more.

I raised this idea with Indiewire TV Editor Alison Willmore not long after she established the site's television coverage, but I didn't have the time to work on it then. Television has gone through such a shift over the past decade, and I thought it coincided with, and arguably benefited from, the end of the 1990s indie film explosion. At the 1989 Sundance Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh's first feature Sex, Lies, and Videotape became the Big Bang of a new era for independent film that peaked by the mid-1990s. But by the turn of the millennium, "independent film" described a perceived – often artificial – aesthetic much more than it did a form or method of production.

Context and Peter Bogdanovich's magnificent "Targets"

My transformation from casual movie enthusiast to full-blown cinema addict occurred during the summer of 1989, between my 1st and 2nd years of college. Clichés exist because of their inherent truths, so it should come as no surprise that my entry into this obsessive world occurred while working at a Blockbuster Video in San Francisco.

I was still primarily a theater snob at the time, but that changed that summer. The store had this huge catalog listing all the movies "in print" on video, and one section was organized by director. When I wasn't at work, I was watching movies, taking full advantage of the six VHS tapes I could have out for free at any one time. I worked my way down the lists and discovered Wilder and Sturges, Ford and Kazan, Lumet and Scorsese and so many more.

Before my Blockbuster tenure, my foreign-cinema exposure was mostly limited to lyrics from the song "Manchester, England" in the musical Hair: "Finds that it's groovy/to hide in a movie/Pretends he's Fellini/And Antonioni/And also his countryman Roman Polanski/All rolled into one." I knew those names, but I hadn't yet seen any of their films.

I enjoyed watching a filmmaker's work in chronological order, so I watched Boxcar Bertha and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before I ever got to Taxi Driver or On the Waterfront. And so about midway through that summer, I decided to embark on Peter Bogdnovich, and rather than start with The Last Picture Show, I took home Targets.

I don't remember much from that viewing nearly 25 years ago, and until The Dissolve picked Bogdanovich's debut feature as last week's "Movie of the Week," I'm not sure I had ever considered watching it again. Once I did, I was first struck by how well I actually remembered it; how so many scenes vividly stuck with me all these years later. I could not reconcile that whatever impact it had on me nearly 25 years before was an unconscious one, and now I felt floored by this young filmmaker's astounding love-letter to cinema and Hollywood; one of the best I've ever seen.

My appreciation for Targets is grounded in a reality that didn't exist when I was barely 18 years old -- for me or for the world. The contextual lens through which I now saw it made all the difference. Now I know much more about Boganovich and his career. Now I know much more about the history of American cinema and the important role of low-budget horror films to its development. Now, I see how a film that was shot as the Vietnam War was dominating the nation's consciousness and was released within four months of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy is such a representative document of its time. Enhance this context even further simply by paying attention to 2013 when the physical medium of film nears extinction, drive-in theaters are (mostly) long-gone and gun culture and terrorism are at the forefront of the national conversation, Targets becomes even more astounding in ways that couldn't have been anticipated when it was made, let alone in 1989.

"Casting By": An underappreciated job and the woman who changed it and Hollywood

Last week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences made history when it elected Cheryl Boone Isaacs as its new president, making her the third woman and first African-American to lead the organization. But another monumental shift also occurred last week that may not have seemed so important to casual observers: After decades of requesting representation and recognition, casting directors will finally have their own branch, just as cinematographers, production designers and costume designers do; just as hair & makeup artists do and musicians do. Just as public relations executives do. And it's about time.

In seemingly cosmic synchronicity, Tom Donahue's fantastic documentary Casting By premieres tonight on HBO at 9 pm. (It will then, of course, be available whenever you want via HBO Go.) The film focuses on the development of the role of the casting director in film and television from what was once a simple administrative department during the studio era to the important creative position it is today as the key collaborator ensuring that the best possible – and often unknown – talent fills every role. Donahue shows this evolution primarily through the story of Marion Dougherty, the woman most responsible for the progression of this role.

One of my first jobs after college was at a boutique talent and literary agency in Beverly Hills called Susan Smith & Associates, where I spent over two years as the senior assistant to the agency's eponymous owner. During that prehistoric era of the mid-1990s, I spent a great deal of time reading Breakdowns (i.e., character lists and descriptions for upcoming films and TV series), collecting physical headshots and resumes, typing submission letters and packaging everything together into envelopes to messenger or overnight to casting directors in L.A. and New York.

During this period, Dougherty was the head of casting for Warner Bros., and I talked to her office on a regular basis. My boss Susan had opened her agency in New York in the 1970s and remained fiercely independent her entire career, even as the era of the mega-agency exploded in the 1980s with CAA, ICM and William Morris. She always had a great eye for talent, and she was responsible for launching the careers of many extraordinary actors and actresses. She had great relationships with many casting directors, but Dougherty had also become one of her closest friends.

The 48th New York Film Festival arrives in magnificently Social fashion

When I decided to return to this blog and make a serious effort to regularly and consistently post primarily reviews and commentary about film, television and theater, I also told myself I would approach this endeavor with a new writing process. Too often during the original Out of Focus days, quantity and speed took precedence over quality. Watching primarily from the sidelines over the past couple years, nothing has become more apparent than the predilection—particularly in film circles—that "first" has become more important than "good" to a whole lotta people.

I don't refer only to "first" with coverage of actual news or information, even though I am amused by much of the "Breaking News" arriving from any number of outlets a full 24 hours after it "broke." I'm even more troubled, though, when I get the "Breaking News" reviews, especially from the major trades. I'm not sure that a "Breaking News" alert came from The Hollywood Reporter for their review of Marmaduke, but it might as well have. And it certainly isn't just major trades or news outlets. For some reason, someone's opinion in the form of criticism has taken on the role of "the scoop"! That seems silly to me, but apparently, for many writers and sites, being the first to dislike something is as important as being the first to like it. When a film has 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, apparently nothing is more important than being the first instigator of the backlash. Or, if there's some formal element or argument that nobody else seems to have noticed—valid or not—writers eagerly stake their claims. It also seems to me that almost universally in these cases, the discourse suffers, but not as much as the writing.

I'm not trying to change anyone else's purpose or methods, and obviously, sometimes rush deadlines exist and can't be helped; nor am I specifically calling-out other critics and writers, but I vowed to myself to use a different, slower, more contemplative process in an effort to improve myself and my own writing. I admire plenty of writers who certainly work faster with better results than do I. But for me, for now, at least in this space, I've chosen to generally make a different choice.

So with that longer-than-anticipated prologue in mind, this somewhat quickly dashed-off missive qualifies as an outlier. For one thing, I'm writing and posting on the same day. (One of my "new rules": Always sleep on a piece and edit with fresh eyes the next day.) Neither a full review nor adequate preview, I felt uncomfortable leaving the Walter Reade Theater today after one of the odder double-features in history without acknowledging that tonight marks the opening of the 48th New York Film Festival, and what a New York Film Festival it looks to be. Sadly, so far I haven't been able to attend as many press screenings as I had hoped, and I've missed several films that I truly looked forward to seeing, most notably, Olivier Assayas's Carlos, Hong Sang-soo's latest Oki's Movie and the special event selection Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.

But what I have seen so far has, for the most part, been excellent. The "Masterworks" sidebar of Fernando de Fuentes' Mexican Revolution Trilogy (which plays at the Walter Reade on Sept. 29-30) is both entertaining and fascinating due not only to the three stories told, but also because of how the three films illustrate the speedy development of Mexican cinema in the 1930s over just four years, mimicking certain Hollywood trends.

I'm also a sucker for Martin Scorsese's essay films A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies and (especially) Il Mio Viaggio in Italia, the latter being a wonderful survey focusing on the history Italian cinema, particularly the Neorealism movement. A Letter to Elia—a 60-minute paean to Elia Kazan—may be far shorter than either A Personal Journal or Il Mio Viaggio, but it's also quite possibly the most personal and emotional film Scorsese has ever made, and at least for me, both a wonderful educational experience and joy to watch. Seeing it back-to-back with Kazan's America, America (featured heavily in the documentary) on Monday should be an event well-worth attending.

I've also seen Apichatpong Weerasethakul's excellent Cannes winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (playing this weekend), and Abbas Kiarostami's stunning and brilliant Certified Copy (playing Oct. 1 and 3), a film I saw on Tuesday, can't stop thinking about and love more every day.

The only disappointment for me so far has been LENNONYC. "Lennon in America" would have been a better title for the resulting film, an unnecessarily-long, nearly-two-hour, meandering and unfocused documentary about John Lennon's post-Beatles years living with (and without) Yoko in the U.S. A great film hides underneath, because the pieces—archive footage, new interviews, fabulous stories—all are individually wonderful, but they come together into an unsatisfying whole.

And then we reach today, featuring NYFF's opening night selection of David Fincher's The Social Network—a/k/a "That Facebook Movie"—followed by the latest from Jean-Luc Godard, Film Socialisme. I'm nowhere near ready to say anything about the Godard, nor will I ever find myself vociferously arguing for or against it.

Fincher's film, on the other hand, definitely deserves many of the hosannas coming its way. I'm not actually sure what I had expected, nor had I read any reviews of the movie ahead of time; headlines and miscellaneous tweets comprised all the buzz to hit my ears (or eyes). If anything, my wariness of most-things-Aaron Sorkin gave me pause. (I have issues with how all his characters generally sound exactly alike.) But for me, the "Sorkinese" (as Fincher called it during one of the better post-screening press conferences I've attended) not only worked but generally disappeared, or at the very least, became overshadowed by the interpersonal dynamics between all these individual characters so well-played by this talented cast.

The Social Network both in its quality and relevance constitutes one of the better (if not the best?) NYFF opening night films in recent memory. I'll write more about The Social Network before its general release next week, but for now, congratulations to the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and here's wishing you a phenomenal opening night.

Miscellaneous Miscellany: Don't call it a comeback; but here's an abstract – Part 1

I'm still hedging my bets. This habit stuff is hard. (That's been my motto all year: THSIH. It rolls off the tongue.) As I mentioned yesterday, barely a day passes that I don't encounter at least one thing prompting my internal voices to say, "I'm going to write about that." In fact, I generally keep a running list—one that enjoys running without stopping much more than I do; it obviously just keeps going and going even as I ignore it.

Some ideas I deem too old to use now. Some are relatively evergreen, and sooner or later, I will certainly focus on them. Some are extremely timely; if I don't get to them soon, I will disappoint myself and leave them be, but then hopefully they will also drift away and and stop cluttering my brain.

When I began writing this post, I intended it to be a relatively brief, disorganized annotated table-of-likely-contents, describing subject matter that I hope to address in the coming days and weeks. Some may disappear, making an appearance here before fading away and not requiring another word. Others will demand my attention further. No promises either way, and the order that follows barely even signifies any preferences.

As I started writing, though, some things required more description than a a title and two-sentence summary, and the next thing I knew, this post was way too long. So I've broken it into parts—at least two, maybe three. We'll see where we end up.

For now, assuming the habit holds, the following offers a taste of what's clogging my brain:

Awards Weekend Wrap-up Part II: Partially previewing Oscar, so, not so much a wrap

The Oscars are just hours away, and as much as I look forward to watching while I participate in Greencine's Oscar Night Live Blog likely arguing with several other smart film folks as to why my opinions are more right than theirs (because that's what it comes down to for us all, no?), I currently sit here enraged by the current Cablevision/ABC Disney dispute (fodder for another post), hoping that something gets resolved so I can watch and chat sitting on my comfy couch in front of my nice TV. I also find myself reflecting further upon my will win/should win picks (published on indieWIRE the other day). It seems like this could be one of the most predictable Academy Awards in recent memory, although, the one constant almost every year also seems to be that each year many of us say that only to discover that the vast majority of the time we're right save for the one or two wins that are true surprises.

Roger Ebert's Oscar predictions post from a few week's back begins with the same claim: "I can't remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars." And yet today, I've read several tweets (including from Ebert) stating a feeling that there could be some huge surprises tonight, especially in the Best Picture category. I very well may regret these words as the credits begin to roll sometime during the 11 p.m. hour (at least, we should all hope it finishes before midnight!), but with the exception of a few categories, I still anticipate extreme predictability. Momentum is always a funny thing in Oscar campaigns, but the entire nature of the nominations and award voting process this year has taken on so many bizarre storylines -- for my money having less to do with actual filmmaking quality than usual (and that's saying something) – that variations from the conventional wisdom seem more impossible than ever.

Anyone who thinks the Spirit Awards sweep by Precious last night bodes well for its Oscar hopes be ignoring the fact that the overlap between voting blocs is relatively minimal, and history has shown that with the exception of acting awards, the winners rarely overlap. The films that are the small fish in the Oscar ocean get to be the barracudas in Spirits pond.

This is the year of The Hurt Locker, plain and simple. Some months ago on Twitter, before seeing Avatar, I said I thought Up in the Air would likely stop Precious from having a real chance at the big prize, thinking that The Hurt Locker had not been seen by enough people, did not actually tap in to the current zeitgeist as well, had not earned enough at the box office and, in my opinion, frankly was not as good a film. I still hold that last opinion, but I didn't count on a couple things: I didn't count on the surge to the top of critics' lists that far outstripped the reception the film had received even at its Toronto premiere. I didn't give enough credit to the idea that awarding the Best Director prize to a woman for the first time, especially coupled with all the press and conversation about how Bigelow makes antic-Nancy Meyers/Nora Ephron movies, would be so powerful. But most of all, I didn't think about how compelling the Bigelow vs. Cameron storyline would be, with one participant being the supremely arrogant "king of the world" who, in his own words, revolutionized all cinema with the pioneering female director who made a war movie. Personally, watching the trajectory of The Hurt Locker during this awards season, I think nothing has helped the film's chances more.

Awards Weekend Wrap-up Part I: Lamenting a lack of Spirit

This year’s Spirit Awards marked the first time in over a decade-and-a-half that my vote didn’t count. Considering how my “Will win” vs. “Should win” predictions panned out – I only missed the screenplay award; more on that later – it seems that my votes likely wouldn’t have made a huge difference in the massive, albeit completely anticipated, sweep of the evening’s prizes by Precious. I had been an IFP member for all that time, and for those who don't know, even after Film Independent took its larger budgets and events and split from the rest of the IFP community, they still allow their former sister chapters to vote.

I wondered if Steve Pond's "expose" on Spirit Award voting from a couple weeks ago was actually news to anyone who even pays attention to the Spirits. Granted, maybe there is an IFC audience out there not intimately involved with the film industry, but is that same audience reading The Wrap? Regardless, the main point of Pond's article was that lots (most?) voters don't have the opportunity to see most movies. That was certainly a much bigger problem 10-15 years ago before everyone had a computer, Netflix or a DVD player, and frankly, I think it's more due to the fact that people don't take the voting seriously. I mean, especially if you're a member of an audience that eschews awards shows – at least the Oscars – how much of an effort are you really going to make.

I used to go to the IFP awards screenings all the time in the late '90s at the Pioneer. I considered those screenings alone worthy of paying for my annual $100 membership. And unless the film was a "major" indie, the audiences were often pathetic, not coming close to filling the 99-seat house. Yet, schedule never managed to stop the popular titles from overflowing. People made time for those films.

Ridiculously or not, I always took my voting seriously, and even though I didn't vote this year, I still take it seriously; that if I'm planning on expressing my opinion on an indieWIRE ballot or here in my little corner of the Web, I'm going to do my best to have seen as many of the films (ideally, all!) as possible.