As our first film nerd turns 15, we look back at the ride so far

Join us in wishing Toshi a happy birthday, won't you?

It’s Monday, July 6, 2020, and I have a fifteen-year-old son.

That’s mind-boggling to me. It feels like it was just a moment ago that I was driving my wife to the hospital in the middle of the night so we could get checked in for delivery. So many things were so different then and there’s been so much ground covered since. I am not the same person I was the day I first held him in my hands, but I clearly remember the feeling that washed over me and the feeling that a switch had been flipped and the person I had been was done and now I was a new person, one who had a responsibility to this other new person. It has been an honor and a joy to be Toshi’s father, and I am so proud of the person he seems to be so far.

That’s an ongoing process, of course. I am constantly pushing myself to try to do better, to be better, to learn from my own failures. I am marginally successful at it, moving forward in inches, but moving forward. I think both of my sons are way ahead of where I was at their ages, and that gives me hope. Part of the reason movies play a key role in our relationship is because movies foster conversation. They give you a way to discuss things, an opportunity to explore ideas safely. They have created so many moments where my kids and I have discussed ideas that we might have otherwise never easily broached, and I am thankful for that.

Last year was a big one for Toshi. He was in that moment between middle school and high school and he was feeling the anxiety of making that jump. The movies we ended up watching spoke to those feelings, including Good Fellas and Dazed & Confused, that idea that he was going to have to choose who he wants to be, and they ended up making a huge impression on him. This year’s line-up is even tougher, and we’re going to be talking about the way the world programs young men, and the way that programming can go haywire. When I put these line-ups together, part of me always wants to shy away from the challenging, but then I think of who I was at 15 and what kind of films I was interested in, and I have to treat them with respect as viewers. If you don’t, then your kids will feel like you’re treating them like kids, and that’s not a great way to help foster communication.

The year Toshi was born, Revenge of the Sith and War of the Worlds were the big movies in theaters. I was at Ain’t It Cool and working on various film projects, and in particular, I was neck-deep in Masters of Horror. Our first episode, “Cigarette Burns,” was set to start filming at the start of July, and our due date was right around that same time as well. The closer we got to both events, the more it looked like they were going to overlap. This was my first film, after fifteen years in LA, and it was being directed by one of my favorite directors, John Carpenter, but I never had a moment’s doubt as to where I would be when things happened. My wife and I were out and about right to the last minute, and I remember taking her to see the premiere of War of the Worlds at the Chinese Theater. We were given our assigned seats and when we went to find them, we realized we were in the front row, all the way to the right. Absolutely awful seats. Even worse, they had the sound cranked as loud as it would go, and we were right by the speakers that handled most of the bass. By the time the first tripod attack was over, our baby was positively spinning her belly, kicking and punching like he wanted a better view of the screen. That was June 29th, and from that point on, we were just waiting for the signs that labor was beginning.

My co-writer left for Vancouver, where they planned to watch every second of the production of the film, while I got our go-bag ready and kept the car fully gassed and waited. I spent most of July 5th on the phone with Swan, listening to detailed stories about the set and the crew and the last-minute pre-production details that were still being sorted out, and then in the late afternoon, it became clear that my wife’s discomfort wasn’t just general discomfort. We drove to Cedar-Sinai, where we got checked into our delivery suite. If you ever plan to have kids, I strongly urge you to have the insurance plan we were on at the time for the Writers Guild, because that plan ruled. We had the very best care possible, which was good because we had a long pre-labor. My wife wanted to deliver without any drugs in her system at all, but there came a certain point where it was clear that wasn’t an option, and by that time, we’d been there for a good ten hours or so.

Once we changed the plan for how the childbirth was going to go, things went quickly, and by the time the sun came up, I had a son. In Los Angeles, I was sitting in the hospital, holding this fragile brand-new little person in my hands, amazed at how much love you can feel for someone the moment you meet them, while in Vancouver, an entire cast and crew set to work bringing something else of mine to life. I can’t think of a day where I have felt more myself in every way, and while it’s easy to understand why having a film start production that day felt important, my feelings about my son being born were more complicated than simple joy.

I was adopted at birth by my parents. I have no idea who my birth parents were, and it doesn’t matter at this point. My parents were the people who raised me, absolutely, and I have never felt anything other than love and acceptance from them. Even so, there is a part of me that spent my whole life feeling like I was alone in the world. When Toshi was born, and when Allen was born three years later, I suddenly had a blood connection to someone. These boys are, by far, the biggest mark I’ve made on the world, and fifteen years down the road, I am amazed every day by who they are.

I feel incredibly lucky that the boys enjoy sharing media with me. There was no guarantee they would share any of my interests, and if they hadn’t, then we would have found some other way to connect. I’ve never felt like it’s important that they like the same things I like. I just want to make sure that they know what they like and why and that they are active consumers of media instead of passive absorbers. There are so many memories I have of Toshi’s joy as a film fan along the way. I remember watching Speed Racer land on him like a ton of bricks, and his near-chemical reaction to the film still makes me laugh. Same thing with 2009’s Star Trek. Those movies were major milestones for him, the moment where he got bitten by the bug, and he’s had a real hunger for it ever since. I remember when he insisted on showing 2001 at his eighth birthday party (“It’s rated G, daddy, so you can’t say no!”) despite no one else being interested. He’s always been so intense about it that it just seemed like a natural jump when he did something like the Star Wars event we attended together.

Raising my boys around junkets was definitely strange, but there were plenty of moments along the way that make those times worthwhile. Perhaps the greatest of those came in 2011, when Toshi sat down for his very first on-camera interview:

Those were his questions. He worked on them for a week, and he practiced asking them in front of the mirror. He was more fearless at age six than I am now, and he’s endlessly funny. I am often knocked flat by something he says, and I am confident he’s going to be able to handle himself in any job interview when the time comes, just as I’m confident that he’s going to sweep someone off their feet someday when he finds the right person. He has a strong sense of who he is, and even as he wrestles with the onset of teenage angst, he seems to be figuring it out.

When he’s standing here tonight, he’ll be eye-to-eye with me. My guess is he’ll be taller than me by next summer, and I’m 6’1”. He’s a baseball player now, and he’s starting to get comfortable in his skin. His voice has changed, and he’s growing a very light beard at this point. Even so, I’m going to have a hard time not seeing that sweet little kid sitting across from Kermit and Miss Piggy. I’m going to have a hard time not flashing on that tiny baby, so small he could fit in my hands. I’m amazed that fifteen years have passed, and I am eager to see what the next fifteen hold in store.

When we named him Toshiro, it was obviously in honor of the great Toshiro Mifune, one of my favorite complicated icons of masculinity. But when I think of the actual meaning of the name, “talented and intelligent,” he has so clearly come into ownership of it that it doesn’t matter who he was named after. There’s only one Toshi, and to any of you who have ever enjoyed or benefitted from Film Nerd 2.0, join me in wishing him many happy returns from wherever you’re currently staying safe and sane.

I’ll be back Wednesday with an oversized issue for you guys. Take care.

Today’s newsletter is free because I want everyone to know what a great kid he is.

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures
Image courtesy of Industry Entertainment
Image courtesy of Warner Bros