Categorization crisis: What is a "Television Movie"?

One of my favorite movies of 2024 so far has just been nominated for an Emmy, and it has knocked me for a loop.

You see, movies are not supposed to be nominated for Emmys. They are supposed to be nominated for Oscars. You're not new here. You know how it works.

But a Facebook friend had an Emmys reaction post that name-dropped Unfrosted, the Jerry Seinfeld-directed Netflix movie that has given me so much joy that I have already seen it twice, even though it was only released on May 3rd.

Investigating further, I discovered that Unfrosted has been nominated for best "Television Movie."

Uh oh.

Now I'm wondering whether Unfrosted is a proper part of my year-end list and all that. It's an existential threat, in a way. 

In a streaming era in which so much skips theatrical release that there must be literally hundreds of these movies that would qualify, Unfrosted has made the cut for the final five nominees. This despite the fact that many people I know think I am a fool for liking it as much as I do, or really for liking it at all. My sister and wife liked it when they watched it with me, but not nearly as much as I liked it. (And to be fair to myself, I did not like it the second time as much as I liked it the first time.) Everyone else I've spoken to about it was lukewarm at best.

Its nomination means one of two things:

1) It really is among the best of all the streaming movies that might also have qualified, which would presumably include any movie released straight to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, AppleTV+, Disney+ and what have you. 

2) It is not a proper movie in some essential sense of the word.

There was a time when a "Television Movie" had a clear definition that I understood. Although there were many other examples, the one I think of, when confronted with this question, is Recount, which starred Kevin Spacey and was about the 2000 presidential election. 

I saw Recount, but never entered it on one of my movie lists. The reasons were evident to me at the time. It debuted on HBO in 2008, and this was at a time when there was no such thing as Netflix, or if there was, it was only sending you DVDs through the mail. 

A movie that did not have a theatrical run -- or at least a straight-to-video release -- was not a movie, as I defined it. If it premiered on television, it was a TV Movie. 

The designation for Recount on IMDB states as much, as you can see here:

In addition to the scarlet letter T they give this movie -- or maybe the scarlet letter TV -- there is also the damning television rating of TV-MA.

Doing a comparison with what IMDB says for Unfrosted in that same area gives me some relief:

Okay no dreaded scarlet TV here, and that PG-13 is a bonafide movie rating.

But I'm still a bit unsure, still a bit knocked for a loop. Maybe I need to compare it to the other nominees, to see what I think of those "movies." 

The first is Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie.

Uh oh.

A movie associated with a TV show. The kiss of death. A "TV Movie" if ever there was one.

Then again, Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie is 97 minutes long and it is not described as a "TV Movie" on IMDB. It does have a TV rating though: TV-PG.

Let's check out the next one: Quiz Lady.

Okay, I recognize this as a movie I wanted to fit in in 2023 except it was released on Hulu so I didn't think I could see it, before I realized that most Hulu movies are released on Disney+ here.

The last two are Red, White & Royal Blue, an Amazon movie that slipped past me last year (though it interests me because of its subject matter: a love affair between the U.S. president's son and a prince!) and Scoop, another Netflix movie that I have already been including on this year's list.

Okay my fears are mostly assuaged, but I did think it would be interesting to see the films that have won this category in recent years, just to get a better idea of what they're going for. 

Last year's winner was Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which has never for a moment seemed to me like anything other than a bonafide movie. The Roku Channel's finest. One of my top ten movies of 2022, Prey, was also nominated (remember, this award straddles two years), giving me further comfort. Hocus Pocus 2 and Fire Island, both of which I ranked, were also nominated. The only sketchy sounding one, in terms of my categorization parameters, was Dolly Parton's Magic Mountain Christmas. I guess there's one in every bunch.  

Other recent winners have included Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers (movie), Bad Education (movie?) and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (um ... er ... see here for a discussion). That was the third of three straight Black Mirror "movies" to win. And then in 2021 (going non-chronologically within this paragraph) you have Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square. The Emmys like Dolly Parton. 

It is clear that this is the category where "movies" that don't quite conform to my definition are honored. However, it's also clear that movies that debut on streaming are presenting a bit of confusion for Emmy voters, and they have only really been a big thing for maybe five to seven years.

I think it would be hard to say that there is anything intrinsically "TV" about Unfrosted, though it's interesting that this was following a year after Weird, because both are effectively bogus biopics, only Unfrosted is a biopic of a breakfast treat. However, there's nothing intrinsically "TV" about a biopic, in fact, quite the opposite. Biopics are typically the domain of genuine movies.

If you were really stretching, you could say that the fact that it was directed by Jerry Seinfeld, and he's a TV personality, might have given it a nudge in that direction. But he's also made genuine theatrical releases, like Bee Movie.

All we can really say for sure is that these are eligible for Emmys, while some other Netflix and AppleTV+ movies aren't, because these movies debuted on TV and some of those movies didn't. Because Netflix probably also doesn't think much of the idea of winning an Emmy -- unless for its scripted television shows, of course -- the leading streamer is sure to debut most of its most prestigious content on the big screen, to make it Oscar eligible. We all know Oscars are where it's really at.

And if there happens to be an award for some of the movies that don't get that theatrical release, well, I'm certainly not opposed to more people getting exposed to a movie like Unfrosted, watching it, and potentially enjoying it as much as I did.

Jon Hamm-John Slattery reunion weekend

Important note to readers: Although I am describing the following two movies as a "reunion weekend," it should be noted that the viewings occurred on a Thursday night and a Friday night. But let's face it: On Thursday night we are allowing ourselves the luxury of entering the weekend mindset.

What are the odds that I would watch two movies on two consecutive days that both featured Jon Hamm and John Slattery?

They were also two movies that would either potentially entice my wife or potentially not entice my wife, as we shall see.

I was already 30 minutes into Confess, Fletch -- which has only just recently landed on Netflix -- on Thursday night, when my wife came into the room and said she would have liked to watch it with me. She says things like that when I'm 30 minutes into lots of movies, but the reality is, we watch about six movies a year together these days. Her choice, not mine. So I can't be blamed if I go ahead with my own viewing priorities rather than waiting for her to be ready to watch something on her schedule. (This one was actually a little worse than usual, as she turned an expression of mild disappointment into an expression of mild accusation: "When you saw this movie, didn't you think it was something that I would like to watch?" It's true, she likes crime shows and podcasts, especially if they are gentle, like Only Murders in the Building. I volunteered to stop watching and continue it another time with her, but she wasn't having any of it.)

Of course, Hamm stars in Confess, Fletch as Irwin M. Fletcher, the role originally made famous by Chevy Chase. I was never a huge fan of Fletch -- I think I've seen it only once -- but I did understand its charms and why people would quote it. I don't think I ever saw Fletch Lives. (My movie list tells me I have, but I could not tell you a single thing that happened in that movie, and if I am ranking it on Flickchart, I'm probably rating it based on how I assumed it must have been.)

As an Easter egg of sorts to their Mad Men fans, director Greg Mottola (actually casting director Ellen Chenoweth) throws in a bearded Slattery as a frenemy? friendly rival? of the former investigative reporter. (Most likely just friends who like to give each other shit.) The two have some good banter, though Slattery's role does not need to eclipse more than about five minutes of screen time and is essentially a cameo.

I enjoyed Confess, Fletch a lot more than I thought I would, considering that a love for this character is not baked into my DNA. Hamm does a credible facsimile of Chase's verbal dexterity and above-the-fray manner, and overall I found it a pretty delightful if ultimately pretty slight diversion. Yes, my wife would have enjoyed it. 

Knowing the way I'd missed on including her on Confess, Fletch, I tried to get my wife interested in Jerry Seinfeld's new movie, which he wrote, directed and stars in, on Friday night. Now, I do know enough about her not to hold her to watching something on the same night I first mention it (even though I did that for her on Tuesday night with a movie where her friend wrote the music. No, I'm not keeping score, why would you say that). So this was just to gauge her interest in seeing it at some point, though she probably knew, because she knows me too, that this weekend would be ideal, because it's the sort of thing I would like to review. Knowing the stakes this time, she ultimately passed.

Well, maybe we will get to watch it this weekend after all. I enjoyed it so much that I would probably watch it again tonight.

If you thought the now 70-year-old Seinfeld was past his comedic prime, you'll be surprised to note how he a) can still perform in a manner that recalls the groove he eventually found on Seinfeld, and b) he can direct! I was noting clever choices that a director would make throughout this movie. You won't be surprised that he can still write, as that was always least in doubt.

Anyway, I was laughing throughout and there was one bit that made me laugh harder than I've laughed at anything in a movie in a couple years. 

As you may have gleaned, this is an apocryphal retelling of the invention of the pop tart at Kellogg's, and it's a hilarious one -- similar in approach to something like Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, but funnier I thought.

At one point, the Kellogg's team, which includes Seinfeld's character as well as very funny turns by Jim Gaffigan and Melissa McCarthy -- yes, sometimes Melissa McCarthy just needs to be directed smartly -- calls in a pair of hot shot New York advertising execs to help get just the right ad campaign for their new product. You guessed it, because this is the 1960s, the ad executives are the actual Don Draper (Hamm) and Roger Sterling (Slattery), though they are credited as "Man #1" and "Man #2." (Would that be a "mad" Man #1 and #2?) I don't believe Man #2 ever calls Man #1 "Don," but I believe Man #1 does call Man #2 "Roger." 

This scene, like everything else in the movie, is funny. I won't spoil their proposed advertising campaign for the breakfast treat but it's a good one.

Sometimes coincidences are just too much for me to comprehend, though I suppose both of these movies recently coming to Netflix means that viewings on consecutive nights was slightly more likely to happen. However, in order for that to happen, it meant I had to have not seen Fletch when it came out two years ago, something I usually would have done in my attempts for completism in a given movie year, and also that my wife would not have held up the Unfrosted viewing for a night when it was convenient for her to watch it.

I had a coincidence this week with another Jon that adds further profundity to the whole concept of coincidences. It was either Wednesday or Thursday that my wife was talking about an Israeli she was working with named Shlomi, which put me in mind of Shlomo, the name of one of Hanukkah Harry's reindeer on Saturday Night Live. Hanukkah Harry was of course played by Jon Lovitz. Not an hour later, after finishing one YouTube video, I was fed another where Bill Burr was watching people do impersonations of him. One of those impersonations was by Jon Lovitz.

I might go a whole year without ever thinking of Jon Lovitz, and then twice in one day. (You could say that me having spoken the name Jon Lovitz earlier was picked up by my phone and led to a later YouTube video involving Lovitz. I don't think I'm quite paranoid enough to go there.)

Burr plays yet another John -- John F. Kennedy -- in Unfrosted, where he is also doing an impersonation, so it all comes full circle.