Why Lost and Found In Cleveland Really Needed the Kelce Brothers

November 2025

 

Cleveland Sucks....

 

Or at least that’s the impression you are left with after watching Lost and Found In Cleveland...

 

With its shots of a postindustrial landscape filled with boarded-up buildings..

Sad museums celebrating men no one remembers...

With an occasional grand façade as a reminder of the city’s faded glory...

 

But which is now...

 

Like the Browns...

 

Something that was once great... but hasn’t been for a long time..

 

Cleveland is now just another footnote...

To a once prosperous time...

When the Upper Midwest mattered....

More than just on election day...

 

Now Lost and Found In Cleveland...

Is a series of intertwining stories..

Based on the PBS Antiques Roadshow...

 

Complete with actors playing preening PBS divas...

Who hate having to be in Cleveland....

 

But it is most notable for the rest of its cast...

 

Especially June Squibb...

 

And I want to know what that woman is drinking...

Because she is amazing...

 

And at 96...

 

She made Stacy Keach... who plays her husband

And is 12 years younger at 84....

Look older and more decrepit...

 

And Martin Sheen got five lovely minutes...

In which he gave a lecture on the history of art nouveau glassware...

That was actually kind of riveting...

 

Which proves you can give a good actor anything...

And he’ll make something worth watching out of it...

 

There is a fat kid who longs to establish his family’s connection to William McKinley...

Who few remember... except for the fact that he was assassinated...

Which gave us the far more famous Teddy Roosevelt...

 

But I guess there isn’t much else to be proud of if you live in Cleveland...

Even if McKinley wasn’t from... nor ever lived there ...

 

But Emma Goldman did give the speech in Cleveland ...

That may have motivated his assassin...

 

And there is a plot point about a clueless WW II vet....

In possession of some homoerotic Greek pottery..

That was gifted to him by a fellow soldier and “close friend” who died in the war...

 

Now this film had been in development since 2017...

 

And it shows...

 

And not just because the writers missed the opportunity to tap into Cleveland’s newfound fame...

 

As the home of the Kelce brothers....

 

And yes... I know they are from Cleveland Heights... which is a suburb...

But they speak frequently... and fondly of this city...

 

And I would have loved to have seen a walk-on by these two...

Because they are currently the city’s best ambassadors...

And can be pretty hilarious...as well as always entertaining...

 

But that was not to be...

 

Because I suspect Marisa Guterman doesn’t watch football...

 

And it’s clear from one scene in the movie...

She doesn’t think much of those who do...

 

And she certainly is not from Cleveland....

Because this film is full of the kind of stereotypes about people in the Midwest one would expect from someone living in LA...

 

But it also feels dated ...

 

Because no one told the director it’s not 2020 anymore....

 

So the wife reading White Fragility...

And the long lecture about racism from one of the judges...

Felt very five years ago...

 

But the real question was why was this little movie in my local theater?

 

Did they run out of mindless Marvel sequels and second-rate horror movies...

That few want to see anymore...

 

While Frankenstein made only a brief appearance ...

In order to be considered for the Oscars ...

And then moved on to streaming...

 

So Hollywood... you need to get your shit together...

 

Before your theaters end up like Cleveland...

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