Oscar Night with My Father

Our Night – Oscar Night

The first time my father cheated me, he did it with a smile and a sealed envelope.

He taught English and debate at the local high school in San Jose, California, but movies were his real classroom. He was a film critic, which meant he usually got to see movies before everyone else. Previews weren’t just early screenings; they were masterclasses.

Mom wasn’t interested, so I was his plus-one. Three or four movies a week at the Century Theaters. The BIG screen. I didn’t just watch movies with him. He taught me how to watch them.

Character arcs. Motive. Framing. Music cues. The moment a director plants a clue that tells you exactly what’s coming, if you’re paying attention. He showed me how storytelling works.

The Oscars were the natural extension of all of it. Our Super Bowl. When I turned 16, my dad, being my dad, turned it into a competition.

“If I guess the most correct major categories, you paint the entire house this summer. You win, you get the car whenever you want, beach trips, whatever.”

Done.

Every year, the same bet. Every year, I lost. And it was never close. He’d sweep Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and sometimes every major category. I painted the house and fences. I scraped eaves. I became intimately familiar with ladders.

I’d spend June with a brush in my hand, wondering how a man could be that good. I would wonder whether he had “insider information.”

Turns out, he did.

It wasn’t until I’d moved out that I finally got my answer.

I was watching the Oscars with my roommate when the announcer said, “For the first time in Oscar history, we are broadcasting live…” I turned, genuinely confused. “Yeah, dude, they used to tape them in the afternoon, and then air them on TV at night.”

I rushed to the phone to call my dad with my accusation.

He didn’t deny it. He laughed, that full, unapologetic laugh. He’d call the San Jose Mercury News, get the winners, then propose the wager. The sealed envelopes were theater. Performance art.

It was to ensure there wouldn’t be any “monkey business,” as he put it.

Do you have any idea how much free labor that man extracted from his own son?

After his stroke in 2000, when his short-term memory had been mostly taken from him, I’d have him over to watch in person. He couldn’t always remember what he’d eaten for breakfast. But ask him who won Best Actress in 1973, Glenda Jackson, A Touch of Class, and it came out without a pause.

Movies were still there for him. They were safe. Familiar. Ordered.

The films lived somewhere deeper than the brain damage could reach.

He loved movies. He loved what they could do to a person sitting in the dark.

He passed away in 2003. And I kept watching The Oscars. Every year, I’d sit down on Oscar night and talk to him like he was next to me on the couch, the way you do when someone has made something so much a part of you that their absence doesn’t quite make it stop. It was the one night a year that was still ours.

I’ve only missed the Oscars once, back in 2017. It was reported earlier in the day that Bill Paxton had died. He’s one of my favorite actors. I watched Aliens that night with friends, and I completely forgot about the Oscars.

I’m not missing another one.

I have Sunday completely set aside for us, Dad. I won’t forget. Promise.

The truth is, Dad, I never needed your movie wisdom or our little bets. I just needed Oscar night with you.

Our night.

Rock on.