Stumbling into Will Ferrell in the Oscar Race

So, I am once again trying to see every movie that will be nominated for Oscars this year - a daunting task. I still have over 20 movies on my list of must sees before the big night. The biggest "must see" of all happens to be Alexander McQueen's "12 Years A Slave", which, despite a sizable amount of quality competition, is likely the frontrunner to win Best Picture. The problem is I still haven't seen it yet, and in my mind that is a minor catastrophe. I must remind myself I'm still way ahead of schedule: I didn't see Argo until last January, but I digress. The point is, I should have gone while I was still at school because I couldn't prepare myself for tonight.

I woke up Monday morning knowing I had to plan well to see all of these films, especially because I knew I needed to see most of them before school started up again. So, I woke up...and promptly finished season one of Homeland - I know sidetracked again, but man is that a good show. Im nervous for season two because I hear it doesn't stack up, but I will still watch! Anyway, after that crazy season finale I looked up showtimes for the week and identified four movies I needed to see before Friday because they were sure to close soon:

1. Don Jon
2. Philomena
3. Kill Your Darlings
4. 12 Years A Slave

After some thought, I decided I would wait for DVD to see Don Jon and I stumbled upon an independent, small movie theatre (The one showing Kill Your Darlings) and noticed that it was to begin showing Philomena on Friday as well, so I checked both of those off. I would've gone to see 12 Years on Monday, but my mom wanted to go with me so I waited...until today. Mind you, I did have a productive movie viewing day yesterday, catching Rush for $2 and finally checking out Much Ado About Nothing on Amazon Prime, but today I was going to see the big kahuna!

My mom, brother and I get to the theater pumped to see the film. We order our tickets - but there's a problem. "We aren't showing that anymore," they say. How could this be? I checked Monday and Tuesday times to guarantee they'd stay the same throughout the week. Then it hit me - Wednesday release. Anchorman had taken out my movie.

Just yesterday I had said to my brother, "I have no desire to see that movie" referring to - you guessed it - Anchorman 2. And really, "The Legend Continues" - is that supposed to be a good subtitle? What's legendary about the first one? The Name? Is Will Ferrell that legendary?? Will Ferrell has only ever been good in one movie - Elf - and it just so happens to be my all time favorite Christmas movie. But that is because Will Ferrell was on a leash. He couldn't just do whatever he wanted because it was a kids movie. When he can do anything he wants, he simply ISN'T FUNNY. And the really not funny thing is that his movie popping in uninvited on a Wednesday booted my date out.

So, what am I trying to say here? I suppose I'm trying to say that this isolated, seemingly meaningless incident is a small showcase for what is wrong with this country. Is Consumerism really so poisonous that a ludicrous sequel to a 9 year old movie can bump a socially conscious, star-studded, artistic feast of filmmaking out of my theater (which is one of 6 in my city and the only one showing the movie still BTW)? We aren't China. We don't have to select only 20 crowd pleasers to show every year while throwing all meaningful filmmaking aside. Keep good films playing. I don't care if it's one showing a day. Will Ferrell doesn't need 4 theaters in the megaplex to be not funny. I just needed 1 to moved.

Alas, "12 Years" I shall see you soon. And Will? I'm ignoring you. Good luck at the Razzies.