Now Playing 1997-2017

In March 1997 Paul Markoff and I produced, hosted, and recorded our first episode of NOW PLAYING. This movie review show was created to run on the public, educational, and governmental access channel WOCC TV3, which was funded by the city of Westerville and operated by the staff and students of Otterbein University.  On December 13, 2017 we recorded our 550th, and final, episode.

WOCC TV3 is ceasing operations at the end of this year, so as the cable channel shuts down, so has production of the TV show.  I think it’s fair to say that neither of us could have expected that for almost 21 full years we would be on TV, with complete editorial control, to discuss movies.  Much of the show was given to reviewing films playing on a few hundred or thousands of screens, but it's a point of pride that we were able to be a rare place on TV devoting a few minutes to show clips from and talk about less widely familiar titles such as HOLY MOTORS, ABOUT ELLY, and THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER.  We’ve been very fortunate to have the platform and privileged that anyone would take the time to watch.

Contrary to what some might think, making the bi-weekly, half-hour movie review show was not a full-time job for either of us. As an Otterbein employee helping with WOCC operations, I have been able to incorporate producing NOW PLAYING as a small part of my work day duties. Paul holds a full-time job elsewhere. It would have been understandable if changes in life circumstances and demands on time might have brought about this show’s end sooner, but both of us have remained committed to doing it because it’s something we enjoy.

Still, NOW PLAYING would not have been possible solely because of our dedication to making it.  The show also needed the colleagues who granted permission for it to go on the channel and provided other behind-the-scenes assistance, not to mention the students who have worked as crew members as part of their education. We’re thankful to them.

We’re also thankful for the viewers, some of whom we’ve met by chance around town. For various reasons NOW PLAYING was more of an old media program and had little internet presence, so we’ve neither had the positive nor negative interactions with our audience that we might have had if this show lived online.

While NOW PLAYING's final episode will run for a few more days, this is not the end of us talking about films for those who are interested in hearing what we have to say. We’re developing a podcast with a new, to-be-determined name and hope to start making it available in January.  More information about it will be published on this site as we figure out the future.

Whether you have agreed with our opinions or not, we hope you’ve been able to find some of your new favorite films through our discussions on NOW PLAYING. Thanks for watching.

Veronica Mars

VERONICA MARS (Rob Thomas, 2014)

Picking up nine years after the TV series ended, VERONICA MARS finds Kristen Bell’s titular character having left behind her sleuthing days in Neptune, California for an imminent legal career and stability with longtime boyfriend Piz (Chris Lowell) in New York City.  Her old flame, bad boy Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), is also well in her past until he becomes the primary suspect in the death of his girlfriend, their former classmate turned pop star Bonnie De Ville (Andrea Estella).  Although she knows trouble may await her by getting involved, Veronica can’t deny Logan her help when he asks her to assist him in picking a lawyer.  She returns to her old hometown intending to perform this favor, meet up with a couple old friends, and visit her private eye dad Keith (Enrico Colantoni).  Try as she might, Veronica can’t help but get dragged into investigating the case and, even more regrettably, attending her tenth high school class reunion.

Canceled in 2007 after three seasons, VERONICA MARS was revived with a Kickstarter campaign in which fans contributed more than $5.7 million to get a movie made.  (In the spirit of disclosure, I am one of the more than 91-thousand project backers.)  All the key players in front of the camera and behind the scenes, most notably series creator and the film’s writer-director Rob Thomas and co-writer Diane Ruggiero, are involved, although that doesn’t keep at bay the strange sense that this work is like the novelizations or comic books that have kept other properties alive after the films or TV series ended.  Simultaneously released in theaters and video on demand services, VERONICA MARS is being treated as a film although the rhythms and visual style make it more like two merged television episodes or an extended pilot for the relaunch of the show.

Thomas’ execution exhibits some rust in bringing back this corrupt southern California town.  The murder mystery isn’t all that compelling as a whodunit, and the plotting has the tidiness distinct to episodic TV procedurals.  The mystery’s perfunctory nature can be attributed in part to the need to carve out screen time for all of the fan favorite characters and to build on past storylines, creative decisions that are a direct result of the film’s crowdfunding origin.  VERONICA MARS was made because of the fans, and Thomas works hard to give them what he believes they want.  One can’t fault him for thinking catering to the diehards is merited even if it might leave newcomers to VERONICA MARS on the outside looking in at particular moments and jokes.

Much of the appeal of the TV series and the VERONICA MARS film resides in Bell’s dryly funny and vulnerable performance.  WIth the proper touch of ironic knowingness she dispenses the snappy dialogue mimicking hard-boiled exchanges from the 1940s. While Bell has fun slinging Veronica’s wit at her loved ones and enemies, she’s also good at showing the wounds that have required her to develop a tough shell.  The relationship between father and daughter was the show’s real heart, not her on-again, off-again romance with Logan, and in her few scenes with Colantoni she reveals what it means to love and be loved unconditionally.  Keith and Veronica disagree and tease without harming the fundamental warmth they feel for each other, especially because it’s what they each need more than anything else.

While the film can be rightly criticized for indulging in fan service, Thomas also has words of caution about chasing what used to be.  It’s not that he’s hedging on whether he can deliver with the VERONICA MARS revival but rather that he’s reminding the series’ biggest supporters that nostalgia is seductive but not always healthy.  The hard-bitten sentiment is very much in keeping with the film noir styling.  Veronica couches her renewed attraction to Logan and detective work in terms of addiction and suggests that returning to both may bring about her downfall like alcohol ruined her mother.  The film’s conclusion satisfies with the rush of fulfilling what seems like a natural progression for the gumshoe, but it’s murkier whether this realization of destiny is a positive development.  The character will live on in paperback novels, but if this is the end of VERONICA MARS in films or a television series, Thomas manages to send her out in a way that seems like both a happy and potentially bitter finish.

Grade: B-

On the occasion of 400 episodes

I’m not certain of the exact date, but I’m guessing it was March 18 or 19, 1997 (or 11th or 12th) when my co-producer and co-host Paul Markoff and I recorded our first episode of NOW PLAYING.  Improbably enough the show began with an hour-long edition mostly dedicated to Academy Awards discussion.  At the end we provided token Top 10 lists for 1996, although it’s safe to say that neither of us had seen anywhere close to the number of films we view now when taking a year’s best offerings into account.

Fifteen years later we’re still here and have shot more than 400 episodes.  (The milestone program was shot March 8th.  Episode #407 tapes Wednesday.)  Honestly, it’s hard to believe.  I didn’t have any formal training in film appreciation and evaluation when I started.  I still don’t, as far as that goes, although the thousands of movies I’ve seen in the course of doing this program should compensate for my lack of academic credentials regarding the art of the cinema.  I’d never produced an episode of television, let alone created a TV show from whole cloth.  The seed for NOW PLAYING began as a friendly discussion under football bleachers during pre-production down time before a high school game.  Look at what it is now:  more than 200 hours of recorded television.

After beginning with what amounted to a special edition episode, one that we since have split into two annual shows (an Academy Awards preview and the Best and Worst of the previous year), we settled into a format not terribly different from what you see now.  It goes without saying, although I’ll state it anyway, that the obvious template and influence is SISKEL & EBERT.  

On our first regular 30-minute show we discussed just four films: THE SAINT, DOUBLE TEAM, INVENTING THE ABBOTTS, and KOLYA (KOLJA).  I suspect I would no longer stand by some, if not all, of the grades I dropped on those films (THE SAINT: B; DOUBLE TEAM: D+; INVENTING THE ABBOTTS: C-; KOLYA: A+).  I had a lot to learn.

For instance, having already talked in length about the films before the taping, we discovered that we didn’t have as much to say as we might if we hadn’t already said our pieces off camera.  For a few years, we tried to go onto the set not having talked at all about our reactions to or grades for the films.  At some point we abandoned the idealistic but ultimately silly notion that talking about the to-be-reviewed movies prior to taping was detrimental to NOW PLAYING.

Through the years there have been tweaks to the biweekly program, such as the inclusion of short commentary pieces on film-related topics, endorsed video picks set aside at the local library, and the rare news package, like a report on Cinerama screenings at Dayton’s New Neon Movies, or interviews with filmmakers who visit Columbus.  What started as four films reviewed per show ballooned to eight (a crazy amount of content for a half-hour, now that I think about it) and currently stands at five most of the time.

I’ve been lucky enough to work on the show as part of my fulltime job.  (Contrary to what some may believe, the movie review show does not account for the primary portion of the job.)  I know how busy it keeps me, so I can only imagine how much time it must take out of Paul’s limited free time.  Still, despite seeing more bad films than I’d like to count and spending more hours than I care to calculate, doing the show continues to be worth it, even when I’m pressing near the deadline to finish writing what I must get into the script and TelePrompter.  I’m fortunate to have the freedom to do with NOW PLAYING as I please and get it into people’s homes through the cable system and, within the last year couple years, the internet.  While Paul and I are responsible for the show’s content, it couldn’t happen without the students and co-workers who have manned the crews the four hundred-plus times we’ve sat down to record another episode.

When we shot the first episode I couldn’t have expected NOW PLAYING would last this long.  Will it be in production another fifteen years?  Who knows?  Whether or not the show continues for whatever arbitrary amount of time you want to name, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to indulge my love for the movies.  

Thanks to those who let NOW PLAYING get on TV in the first place.  Thanks to those who have helped and continue to assist with recording new shows.  Thanks most of all to my co-host, a great friend who makes doing the show possible.  

The Caveman's Not Quite Valentine

CAVEMEN has been the target of derision since its inclusion on ABC's fall TV schedule was announced. A sitcom based on car insurance ad characters? Did no one learn the lesson of BABY BOB? Add in accusations of the show being racially insensitive (or worse), a poorly received pilot episode unseen by the general public, news of creative retooling, and cast changes--all before the program hit the air. If the show wasn't dead on arrival, surely it wouldn't last.

I don't slow down to look when passing accidents on the side of the road, but CAVEMEN was one disaster I couldn't wait to relish in its sure-to-be brief but spectacular ignominy. I set the cable company DVR to record the series and settled in to watch the first episode. Some of the GEICO Cavemen commercials were mildly amusing, so I was willing to give it a chance.

After all the advance fuss the show created and knives that were out, I was disappointed to encounter a mediocre single camera sitcom instead of the supernova of suckitude I'd been expecting and, to be honest, wanting. New episodes keep appearing on the DVR, so I've continued watching with the hope that it will get much, much worse. It hasn't.

Sure, CAVEMEN won't be mistaken for good television, and I can't imagine it will be long for this world. The caveman makeup isn't particularly good, and most of the characters are annoying more than anything. Nevertheless, I will concede that it has drawn a few laughs from me, mostly from the secondary character (and original ad caveman) Maurice, played by Jeff Daniel Phillips. Unlike the neurotic primaries, Maurice is more unrefined, uninhibited, and, well, caveman-like.

The show haphazardly walks the fine line between biting social commentary and bad taste, more often lapsing into the latter. The fourth episode had an inspired storyline about an offensive high school nickname ("Savages") and grossly caricatured mascot. Coming on the heels of a mini brouhaha over how some Cleveland Indians fans were outfitted, it even had some timeliness. CAVEMEN deals out way too many lame and potentially problematic jokes steeped in racial stereotypes to get sufficient credit for taking the high ground, although it has discovered one hate-worthy group that won't stir up letter-writing protesters: those scurrilous hipsters.

My DVR informs me that another episode awaits viewing tonight. I guess there's nothing to do but not enjoy it while it lasts.