New Faces At Cinema Center!

Meet some of the new people who are helping us elevate the art of film in Ft. Wayne!

New Director of Theater Operations: Amanda Neumann

Amanda recently graduated from IPFW with BAs in English Communication and Women’s Studies and spends her time plotting how to change the world. She also enjoys spending time with her perfect cats (Bella, Couch, and Junebug), watching shows on Netflix, reading lots of YA fantasy and science fiction, making zines, eating pizza, and writing. Amanda has a passion for nonprofits--she’s worked as an intern with the Paul Clarke Nonprofit Resource Center and volunteers as the Fandom Forward Project Leader for The Harry Potter Alliance, which uses fan activism to engage people of all ages in philanthropy. Amanda has worked with Cinema Center for the past year and a half and is excited to continue to make Cinema Center one of the coolest places in Fort Wayne!

New Director of Office Administration/Bookkeeping: Tammara Cornett

Tammara enjoys spending time with family (husband, Marc, and two college-age daughters), small Papillon lapdog, reading sci-fi and historical fiction, puzzle games, baking, travel, experiencing local restaurants all over FW, rearranging furniture, organizing, and crossing things off her to-do list.  Her two favorite movies are The Village, and Planes, Trains & Autos.  She especially enjoys historical homes/buildings and then/now photos, and is excited to see growth and events in downtown Fort Wayne.  Having past experience with non-profit events/financials, she appreciates that the staff's positive, welcoming outlook contributes greatly to what Cinema Center offers the Fort Wayne community, and enjoys being able to help with organization and record-keeping in the office.

It's Over, Now What? By Ian Maxton

For my final post on Hobnobben, I would like first to say thank you. To anyone who attended, to everyone who worked on making the fest great, and to those of you who have stumbled across my musings here and taken the time to read or comment: thank you.

But this doesn’t have to end. If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you have a membership to Cinema Center (if not, rectify that: Cinema Center Memberships)

The good news is that their Summer Documentary Series kicks off today with Dark Horse, the closing night film at Hobnobben. And even if you don’t have a membership, come on out to these films. They will be showing Weiner, De Palma, Tickled, Music of Strangers, and even a one-time screening of another Hobnobben film: Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made.

You can find dates for all of that here: Cinema Center Upcoming Films.

Be sure to keep an eye on Cinema Center’s calendar all throughout the year. No one else in this city is bringing us such daring, interesting, and challenging films. If we want to keep that going (and we do; we do), we have to speak up with our dollars and our voices. Go see movies. Bring your friends. Buy some popcorn. Or a beer. I will probably see you there.

And if you like discussing and reading about films, check out the Three Shot Podcast.

It’s made locally and features some really great discussion week after week.

Another great podcast is The Next Picture Show.

This one is unique in the way it pairs an older film with a new release.

If podcasts aren’t your thing, I find myself reading all over the internet about movies, but especially stuff at Bright Wall/Dark Room, Indiewire, and The A.V. Club.

Don’t forget to follow Cinema Center and Hobnobben on their various social media channels for announcements and showtimes and more movie-related info. I am also on social media, if you wish to subject yourself to it. My Twitter handle is @attheimax, and I am on Medium at medium.com/@ianmaxton. I talk about movies, but also other stuff. Sorry in advance.

Keep watching movies and sharing them. It is my sincerest hope that we can all get together next year at this time and do it all again.

Favorite Films Pt. 2. "The Fits" by Ian Maxton

While a huge range of films screened at Hobnobben this past weekend – and I had the privilege of seeing many of them – instead of writing short pieces on each of the films I saw, I thought I would pick two favorites. These films were not only great on their own, but also emblematic of what made the festival as a whole so fantastic.

For starters, they both happen to be directed by women. This was not a conscious effort on my part – it just so happens these two were my favorites from the fest – but it was a conscious effort on the part of Hobnobben to include a diverse array of filmmakers. Needless to say, it paid off. So with no further fanfare, some thoughts on one of my favorite films from Hobnobben 2016. (This is the second of two reviews. Scroll down for the first.)

As we move through life, it becomes a matter of habit, of survival even, to categorize things, people, and experiences. In the swirling chaos of existence, we fix safe moorings, which tether us to the familiar, the understood. These tethers multiply and we begin to believe that we have a firm grasp on the universe. Of course, we are always being proven wrong. But instead of spinning off into space, most of us simply fasten more tethers – sometimes pretending to understand, other times reaching genuine understanding. With age, we tend to detach ourselves as much as possible from the baffling strangeness of life. Among the many reasons why I think it is great, one is that The Fits is a film that seeks to make the world strange to us again.

The film tells the story of a young girl named Toni. It takes place almost entirely in and around an urban recreation center. Toni visits the place daily with her brother, immersing herself in the masculine world of boxing. She trains alongside her older brother and his male cohorts. Across the hall from the boxing gym, the Lionesses train. They dance as intensely as the boxers train. Their world is exclusively feminine. Toni finds herself increasingly drawn to this feminine world, a world she can see herself belonging in. Shortly after she joins the Lionesses, the older girls on the team begin experiencing unexplained seizures. The rest of the film follows the consequences of these fits as they spread through the dance team.

The setup for the film is peculiar, but relatively simple. However, director Anna Rose Holmer’s cinematic choices imbue the world with a dark strangeness. Early in the film, she shoots dueling dancers in tight close up. She utilizes slow motion to make the smooth, kinetic dancing resemble the titular fits. Each muscle spasm and strand of whipping hair is given a life separate from the body. The focus on the component parts of human movement serves to make these undulating bodies alien. The dance moves and the athletic movement of the boxers are shot in this way and the resulting effect is one which makes these “normal” movements hardly dissimilar from the “abnormal” fits.

Holmer also utilizes static framing to establish the organized and regimented space of the rec center. The geometry of basketball gym floors and rows of fluorescent lighting is broken when Holmer’s camera tethers itself to young girls running with youthful abandon through the halls, or when it follows Toni up and down the steps of the pedestrian bridge outside the rec center.

As more girls succumb to the fits, Toni’s alienation from them is expressed through shots which focus on the physical space that grows between her and her teammates. This fear and alienation is further emphasized by the score of taut strings which crescendo menacingly in the soundtrack. At 72 minutes, no beat in the film overstays its purpose. Tension builds visually and aurally until it breaks in the ecstatic finale of the film. Here, the abstract, arrhythmic string section is replaced by the trip-hop inflected song “Aurora” by Kiah Victoria: https://vimeo.com/121740441

The dramatic tension of the film finds its source in Toni’s search for belonging. She tries to negotiate the troubling lines between male and female spaces while struggling through her own adolescence. While the fits are a perhaps too-obvious metaphor for the girls’ entry into womanhood, this is somewhat mitigated by their mysterious nature in the plot. Nameless, faceless adults scramble around trying to explain and cure them, but they come up empty.

In their search for rational explanations, the adults forget that the world is profoundly strange and often unexplainable. For the adolescents at the center of the story, the strangeness of the world is central to their reality – the world, and their selves, are mostly unknown. Toni spends the film trying to figure out who she is and where she fits (pun intended). The end of the film offers a bright glimmer of a beginning for the answers to these questions.

After the film, the audience was treated to a panel discussion on diversity in filmmaking. And while I won’t do a disservice to the gracious panelists by clumsily attempting to summarize their thoughtful sentiments, I will say that The Fits is proof (not that we should need it) that more diverse filmmakers leads directly to more interesting and varied modes of filmmaking. As some of the panelists after the film noted, a film like The Fits cannot exist within the nexus of Hollywood, not only because of its fierce strange-ness (both narratively and visually), but also because of its commitment to amplifying the voices of women and of women of color in particular. As more and more people begin to consider and discuss diversity in filmmaking (as well they should), it is important to remember that small films are always at the vanguard, more beholden to artistry than market interests. Taking a chance with your ticket dollars on daring films like this is often surprising and pleasurable. Not only that, it pushes back on the endless stream of hegemonic Hollywood films, opening up more space for brilliant, diverse, daring, and strange movies like The Fits.

Favorite Films Pt. 1 "Nuts!" by Ian Maxton

While a huge range of films screened at Hobnobben this past weekend – and I had the privilege of seeing many of them – instead of writing short pieces on each of the films I saw, I thought I would pick two favorites. These films were not only great on their own, but also emblematic of what made the festival as a whole so fantastic.

For starters, they both happen to be directed by women. This was not a conscious effort on my part – it just so happens these two were my favorites from the fest – but it was a conscious effort on the part of Hobnobben to include a diverse array of filmmakers. Needless to say, it paid off. So with no further fanfare, some thoughts on one of my favorite films from Hobnobben 2016. (I’ll be back here tomorrow talking about the other one)

In the early 1920s, a doctor by the name of John Romulus Brinkley pioneered an

impotence cure for men by transplanting goat testicles to, ahem, assist the ineffective organs which the men already possessed. Shockingly, this seemed to cure scores of men, who began to swear by Brinkley’s unorthodox medicine. And this is hardly the strangest part of this wonderfully strange film.

Directed by Penny Lane (Our Nixon), NUTS! uses archival footage and audio, animation, interviews with historians, and Brinkley’s authorized biography to tell the strange tale of his meteoric rise. After pioneering the goat testicle cure, Brinkley establishes a hospital where the procedures are performed, and sets up a radio station there to dish out medical advice to his thousands of devotees across the U.S. Along the way, he struggles against the medical establishment seeking to keep his cheap and simple cures quiet, gets elected Governor of Kansas on a write-in campaign, gets that same election stolen from him, and goes on to establish a million watt radio station in Mexico that would broadcast all across North America. His life is the very picture of American dreamy exceptionalism. Except it isn’t.

For its first half, the film tells Brinkley’s story using excerpt from the biography commissioned by the man himself. The book is presented in a Wes Anderson style – placed on a black background, turned by an anonymous hand. As the story unfolds, it becomes more and more obvious to the viewer that a great deal of what she is seeing has to be false. The film traffics in a certain weird-history-that-you-won’t-believe-you-didn’t-know-about, but there is weird history, and then there is fake history. Brinkley is exposed in a dramatized, animated courtroom sequence (for each chapter of the story, the animation style progresses from Fleischer-esque cartoonism, to grotesque realism, to surrealist nightmare) which unravels the elaborate fiction presented by Brinkley in both his biography and the first half of the film.

I would say that none of this constitutes a spoiler because the pleasure of the film is in how Brinkley is slowly revealed and then unraveled. The sheer magnitude of his con – which led to the invention of the infomercial and the sound truck among other things – is staggering, but somehow less enraging for how impressive his commitment to it was.

Lane tells the story with an empathic eye for both Brinkley and the people he conned. One sequence shows the animated Brinkley-ites fidgeting nervously in their courtroom seats as it becomes clear that, during the Depression no less, these people were fooled into lining the pockets of this man month after month in exchange for a bottle of blue water. But as we come to understand the plight of the conned – desperate, having exhausted traditional medicine in hopes of a cure for whatever ails them – we stop laughing at them and realize they aren’t stupid or backwards, but merely people looking for something to believe in, looking for a savior, in their darkest hour. And despite Brinkley’s depravity, the film acknowledges the many legitimate accomplishments of his life that helped shape the 20^th century, even as that were fueled and funded by his central lie. A card at the end of the film notes that his border radio station in Mexico became the home of pioneering rock and roll DJ Wolfman Jack after Brinkley’s passing. But the fallout of his exposure is reckoned with as well. Brinkley died at 56 and left his wife and son to sort through the mountains of debt and lawsuits Brinkley’s scheme incurred. This, coupled with the burden of their beloved J.R.’s dubious legacy, leads the film to darker places by the end.

NUTS! is interesting for both the story it tells and the unorthodox way in which it tells it, but it is also wildly entertaining. The completely absurd goat testicle cure is the source of a great many jokes, as is the wily way Brinkley defies his accusers time and time again – coming back bigger and stronger. And as I watched this film centered around a larger than life conman who captivated a large swath of the nation, I could not help but ruminate on modern-day parallels. Brinkley was, above all else, a consummate salesman in that he had nothing to sell – and he made a fortune off of it. He had a bizarre magnetism which pulled some in, and repulsed others. His intellectual and moral poverty was obvious to many in his field, but he was able to easily write them off as part of an oppressive establishment which sought to suppress his ideas. He was a phony in every sense of the word, wielding a fake medical degree from a fake school and offering a fake cure with a fake surgery and later a fake potion whose supposed qualities bordered on the magical. Yet for decades, people in homes across this country hung on his every word simply because they desired more than anything for it to be true. J.R. Brinkley knew the fastest way to sell a product or get elected was to tell people what they wanted to hear.

This film captivated me through the wit and ambition with which it told this lost chapter from the last century. I went into it not sure what I was in for. I did not expect a tragi-comedy of Shakespearian proportions, but that’s precisely what I ended up with. Not having the same gifts as John Brinkley, I’m not sure I could come up with a better summation of what makes Hobnobben so exciting and essential than that.

Highlights of Hobnobben by Ian Maxton

Life is often too much. In the midst of car trouble, job searching, birthday parties, family squabbles, missed alarms, appointments, joys, frustrations, surprises, and tragedies great and small, we often have little time left for finding where we fit. For taking small moments and letting them stretch out. For a quiet evening of reflection. For me, art, and the cinema in particular, has been the way that I find this time. It is a way of processing the world, and processing my place in it. Roger Ebert said that movies “are like a machine that generates empathy.” I’ve always felt that to be the truest and highest purpose of art – it helps us to gracefully know ourselves and others.

But film does not have to be a solitary experience. Part of the machinations of its empathic generation are bringing a bunch of strangers together in a dark room and moving them together in strange and unexpected ways like a body that has just come to life for the first time. It’s limbs are awkward. It’s eyes are wide. And the only way forward is to open up and feel, together, for the first time. If you let it, cinema will help you find your people.

This was the purpose of Hobnobben. Its name. Its motto: see and be seen. It’s about finding your people, not just in the dark theater, but outside of it too. Over beers maybe. Or hot dogs.

Hobnobben is a first for this community and I wasn’t sure what would happen. Would people come? Would they respond to the films? Would they “get it?”

I couldn’t have been more of an idiot.

The opening day of the festival gave us first The Fits, a brilliant film, followed by a panel on diversity and inclusion in filmmaking. Afterwards, the opening night gala was packed with cinephiles. Even while sitting quietly to the side and assessing my notes, I managed to meet several people and discuss the film and their excitement about the festival. We shared our thoughts on cinema, recommended books to each other, and raised glasses of free champagne before shuffling into the opening night film Other People. 

As I mentioned in my preview, Other People was a huge get for a first year festival and the crowd matched that – filling seats, laughing, crying. While there were other films at the festival that I preferred to this one, the screening served as an encouraging sign for Hobnobben.

Saturday offered a full slate of films, including the latest from GKids (April and the Extraordinary World), a new Hertzog (Lo and Behold), a program of short films, and the latest from Joel Potrykus (The Alchemist Cookbook), a filmmaker from Grand Rapids whose previous feature, Buzzard, is a weird ride worth checking out.

As evening fell, moviegoers streamed bleary-eyed out of the venues that made up Hobnobben and headed down to the block party. I was among them and have to say that, if there is a perfect argument proving how vital and wonderful and essential this festival is, it was this event. Aside from the great food and beer provided by Bravas, Shigs and Pit, and Mad Anthony, the party was the best place to meet people who love movies and engage with the community. After a few hours of mixing and laughing and realizing that we aren’t alone, we were given a great gift by the organizers of the festival: an outdoor screening of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. This is the kind of film that offers pure cinema pleasure. The soundtrack blared through the streets of Fort Wayne. I spotted more than a few people playing air drums. I’m not sure if they were drunk on beer or movies. It doesn’t matter. The crowd’s elation echoed off buildings and magnified as we witnessed early turns from Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, Parker Posey, and Ben Affleck.

If Hobnobben was about being together, then there was perhaps no better distillation of it than this screening.

But there were still two days (!) to go and Saturday’s slate was even more full than Friday. From Raiders! and Boy and the World, to Little Men and Danny Says, Hobnobben continued to offer up a huge variety of films. One of my favorites, NUTS!, had its second screening on Saturday. The screening of Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan was packed.

The night culminated in the awards ceremony. Viewers’ Choice went to Other People. Best Narrative Feature went to Dheepan. Best Documentary went to NUTS! Best Short went to The Rain Collector.

The festival also gave out more site-specific awards like the Philo Award, highlighting the best TV pilot entry at Philo Fest; the Hoosier Spirit Award, given to the best local film; and Best Student Work, presented to the best work from the Universty of St. Francis Student Showcase. These awards went to Mythplaced, Skate or Don’t, and The Roses, respectively.

 

Sunday felt like an after-after-after party for the festival. The crowds were great, especially for Hunt for the Wilderpeople. But if the awards ceremony was the peak of the party, these screenings felt like everyone getting together the day after the party to hang out and play cards or watch TV. No one wanted to let the party end because they wanted to be together. To be seen by each other one last time.

I hope to see you next year when we all gather again at Hobnobben. But until then, just remember that you, that we, are not alone. Keep watching movies.

I will have a few more wrap up posts for Hobnobben this week, culminating in a sequel of sorts to this one. Check back tomorrow for an in-depth dive into my two favorite films from the festival.

Interview with Jonah Crismore by Ian Maxton

The Hobnobben Festival begins today. As an introduction to the festival, I interviewed Jonah Crismore, the Executive Director at Cinema Center and one of the chief organizers of Hobnobben. Hopefully this will give you an idea of what film festivals, and Hobnobben in particular, are all about.

Ian Maxton: Hey Jonah, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me. How long have you been working on Hobnobben?

Jonah Crismore: The whole process began about 2 years ago. That’s when we first decided that a film festival would not only be a great way to celebrate Cinema Center’s 40^th anniversary, but would also say loudly and proudly that Cinema Center is here; that it is part of the cultural fabric of the city.

IM: Can you give everyone reading some idea of how much work – volunteer and otherwise – goes into an event of this size? How many people are involved?

JC: It started with just the board at Cinema Center and myself, and then a volunteer committee was formed just for Hobnobben. There are about 16 individuals in leadership roles for the festival comprised of Cinema Center employees, the board, and Hobnobben volunteers. For the past year they have been working very hard to organize the festival, especially the festival co-chairs Ryan Kruekeberg and Emily Wissel. In addition to their great leadership, Cinema Center director of operations Andy Helmkamp has been providing all logistics for the festival and it’s astounding how much that aspect comprises. But it’s also a family affair in some regards. My wife Amanda Knauer designed our website and my cousin Amanda DeLong is the special events chair.

IM: On a similar note, I don’t think most people know how much goes on behind the scenes in order to program such a great lineup of films. I know you are the one who has primarily handled that. Could you maybe lift the curtain for a moment and talk about why you chose the films that you did and how, along with sponsors and local arts patrons, you were able to bring those films to Hobnobben?

JC: The programming process was pretty intense. We received over 220 submissions from all over the world and it is amazing just how many were really, really good. We have a programming committee who just evaluated films. Each film was evaluated by two individuals and if there was a split yay/nay between them, a festival consultant came in to cast the deciding vote. From there, I would watch the films and decided if there was a specific program that would be good – if it made sense for our community and our audience. I also spent a lot of time working with festival coordinators, distributors, and filmmakers to get some of our “bigger” films to play. Luckily, being a theater in operation for the whole year, we have a great relationship with many of the companies who are letting us screen their films. We are really grateful to have so many well-seasoned films and filmmakers participating, most first year film festivals are not in that position.

IM: As Fort Wayne continues to grow and thrive, more and more events seem to pop up, especially in the summer, but I know you and I both agree that Hobnobben is something different and special: an event for every kind of film lover that brings some of the best contemporary cinema to a city that can sometime be limited on that front. But it isn’t just about the films. And for many people coming out over the weekend, Hobnobben will be their first experience with a film festival. Could you talk about the differences and advantages of a festival setting versus, say, programming these films for a normal run at Cinema Center? What can people get out of a festival that they can’t get out of the usual theatre experience?

JC: Well, for one thing, you are seeing these films before their Indiana play dates, which is really great. It truly is a big party, with film being the reason because of it. There are filmmakers at Hobnobben, and as an audience member, you can ask them questions about why they made the film the way they did and you get to learn about the filmmaking process. There are panel discussions about filmmaking in Indiana and a general filmmaking talk, and a block party on Friday at 6pm at the Arts United Plaza with a free screening of Dazed and Confused. It’s all going to be so much fun. What makes it really exciting is that we are taking the mission of Cinema Center – elevating the art of film – and taking it into the community, helping to build a more robust kinship between cinephiles.

IM: Lastly, I’ve already written at length about the specific films at Hobnobben that have me the most excited. So at the risk of asking you to play favorites, could you perhaps highlight one or two films you think our fellow cinephiles absolutely must see this weekend, perhaps some films that they, or I, might have overlooked?

JC: You didn’t overlook it, but The Fits. It’s our festival preview film. We are screening it on Thursday afternoon at 4pm with a diversity and inclusion panel afterward. This is an excellent film, with a mostly non-professional cast, but you would never know it. It deals with so many issues but it is told simply and beautifully.

IM: Well you know I’m not going to argue with that choice. The house will hopefully be packed for that film. Again, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And thank you for bringing such a great event to Fort Wayne.

JC: Thank you, I look forward to reading your festival reports!

That wraps up my pre-fest coverage for Hobnobben. As the weekend progresses, I will post periodic updates on how the festival is going over on Twitter (my handle is @attheimax). For more updates, you can follow @fwcinemacenter and @hobnobben. Also check out the Facebook pages for Cinema Center and Hobnobben.

Next week, I will go all in, posting full recaps, some film reviews, and other odds and ends right here throughout the week. So please come on out for opening night and keep coming back the rest of the weekend.

And if you aren’t sure what to see at the fest, consult our 3-part preview just below this post.

We hope to see you at Hobnobben!

The Great Hobnobben Festival Preview Pt. 3 by Ian Maxton

This is Pt. 3 (of 3) of my Hobnobben Festival Preview. You can view Pts. 1 and 2 below.

Hobnobben begins Thursday, and since I will be writing up the festival at the Cinema Center and Hobnobben blogs, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a preview of the festival.

The trouble with film festivals (and especially ones as stacked as Hobnobben) is that the average filmgoer will likely not have seen, or even heard of, many of the films being shown. And there are a ton of good films at Hobnobben. So where do you even begin?

Right here.

This is by no means the final word on what the festival has to offer. Like most of you, I have yet to see any of these films. So my excitement is based on three things: my previous experience with the filmmaker/cast, the distributor of the film, and word of mouth about the film. So feel free to follow or ignore my advice and, by all means, purchase a festival pass and see everything you can. But if you find yourself lost and wondering what the must-sees are, here is a completely subjective list of what I am most excited for this year.

I am going to do something a little different with this final festival preview. It’s no secret that Hobnobben is packed with great films, but I wanted to use this space to emphasize that Hobnobben is not just for adults, you should take your kids. So here are some great films to head out and see with the whole family this weekend.

FRIDAY

April and the Extraordinary World is a new film from distribution heavyweights GKids. If you’ve seen a Studio Ghibli film in the theater (like The Tale of Princess Kaguya, From Up on Poppy Hill, or Only Yesterday) these are the people you should thank. They have also brought us films like The Secret of Kells, A Cat in Paris, and Earnest and Celestine.

April and the Extraordinary World is based on the works of legendary French artist Jacques Tardi and takes place in an alternate version of the year 1941.

The plot (per IMDB): “1941. France asleep in the nineteenth century, governed by steam and Napoleon V, where scientists vanish mysteriously. April, a teenage girl, goes in search of her missing scientist parents.”

And the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC-9eya8Yso

Like all GKids films, this one looks to be an exciting visual feast fit for everyone.

April and the Extraordinary World screens at 6:30 at the University of St. Francis Performing Arts Center on Friday.

SATURDAY

GKids is also bringing their Oscar Nominated film Boy & the World to Hobnobben. Not only does this film have the backing of GKids perfect pedigree, but it was also nominated for Best Animated Feature at the most recent Oscar ceremony.

The plot (per IMDB): “A little boy goes on an adventurous quest in search of his father.”

And while that is vague on any details, the trailer will give you a good idea of what you are in for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqdrwu0NvY8

The film looks unlike any other animated film I have seen and will certainly be a highlight of the entire festival.

Boy & the World screens at 2:30 at the University of St. Francis Performing Arts Center on Saturday.

SUNDAY

Do not fear. If you have been absolutely exhausted by animated films lately, there is a perfect remedy. Dark Horse is, appropriately, a film that families might overlook at the festival, but nonetheless it fits in perfectly with these others despite being both live-action and a documentary.

But it is anything but boring. Here’s the plot (per IMDB): “An inspirational true story of a group of friends from a working men's club who decide to take on the elite 'sport of kings' and breed themselves a racehorse.”

Frankly, this doesn’t sell the movie well at all. The film follows a group of people (spearheaded by a woman who works two jobs, one at a pub, and another bagging groceries) from working class Wales who band together and purchase a racehorse, pay for its training, and infiltrate the highest levels of UK horse racing. If you don’t know how the story ends, I won’t spoil it here. One of the great things about sports documentaries is watching as the drama builds and rooting for the subjects to beat the odds.

Here is the film’s wonderful trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DulrxbnzF2U

Dark Horse screens at 7 at Cinema Center on Sunday.

That wraps up my Hobnobben preview. Come out and enjoy the festival this weekend!

And for more info on the festival, including a complete list of films and show times, head to hobnobben.org.

The Great Hobnobben Festival Preview Pt. 2 by Ian Maxton

This is Pt. 2 (of 3) of my Hobnobben Festival Preview. You can view Pt. 1 below.

Hobnobben begins Thursday, and since I will be writing up the festival at the Cinema Center and Hobnobben blogs, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a preview of the festival.

The trouble with film festivals (and especially ones as stacked as Hobnobben) is that the average filmgoer will likely not have seen, or even heard of, many of the films being shown. And there are a ton of good films at Hobnobben. So where do you even begin?

Right here.

This is by no means the final word on what the festival has to offer. Like most of you, I have yet to see any of these films. So my excitement is based on three things: my previous experience with the filmmaker/cast, the distributor of the film, and word of mouth about the film. So feel free to follow or ignore my advice and, by all means, purchase a festival pass and see everything you can. But if you find yourself lost and wondering what the must-sees are, here is a completely subjective list of what I am most excited for this year.

SATURDAY

Must-See:

The Cannes film festival is held every year in the south of France. At the end of the festival, they give out their major award: the Palme d’Or. It’s all very exciting and inevitably leads to a firestorm of debate about the film that receives the award. The only problem with this is that, because of the way film distribution works, most of these films do not make it to American shores for many months and if you live somewhere that isn’t New York or LA, it may take over a year, if you even get to see it in a cinema at all.

This is why Hobnobben is essential to the film community here, because of Dheepan.

Dheepan won the Palme d’Or over a year ago at Cannes and I’ve been reading about it ever since. As with most films that win the award, Dheepan has been polarizing. This only makes me more interested in it. On top of that, the film is written and directed by Jacques Audiard, who also made A Prophet and Rust and Bone.

The plot description (per IMDB): “Dheepan is a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.”

Dheepan is the very definition of a “must-see” at the festival.

Here is the film’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX-vi4RcuE8

Dheepan screens at 3:30 at Cinema Center.

Dark Horse:

When most people think of documentary films, it is likely that they think of a serious film, tackling important subjects. Perhaps they think of interviews with experts. Maybe reenactments.

I guess you could say that NUTS! has some of those things.

From director Penny Lane (Our Nixon) comes (per IMDB) “The mostly true story of Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius who built an empire with his goat-testicle impotence cure and a million-watt radio station.”

Read it again. Yes, it says what you think it says.

NUTS! is the most aptly titled film at the festival this year. Beyond the, ahem, nutty subject matter, the film blends standard documentary techniques like interviews and archival footage with animated reenactments, fictionalizations, and testimonies. It looks like if Max Fleischer made a sex comedy.

But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself in the film’s (sort of NSFW) trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5rMIjd1hBc

NUTS! screens twice over the weekend.

8:30 at the Parkview Physicians Artslab on Saturday.

And at 4 at Cinema Center on Friday.

SUNDAY

Must-See:

Taika Waititi may not be a name that is familiar to you, but he is about to become huge. The director broke through for most of us with his work on the TV series Flight of the Conchords. Since then he has delivered 2007’s Eagle vs Shark and last year’s What We Do in the Shadows. However, next year he will be helming Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok and hopefully bringing his comic, distinctive voice to the often same-y Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In the meantime however, he has brought us Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Besides my potent Sam Neill nostalgia (due entirely to his turn in Jurassic Park), the film looks incredible. Waititi consistently brings the laughs without sacrificing the visual beauty of film.

Here’s the plot (per IMDB): “A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.”

And the film’s joyous trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Xvsjy57X0

There won’t be another film like this at the festival. In fact, it’s unlikely you will see anything quite like for the rest of the year.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople screens at 4:30 at Cinema Center.

Dark Horse:

The Innocents has a ton going for it. It’s directed by Anne Fontaine (Coco Before Chanel) and co-stars Agata Kulesza. You will likely recognize her from 2014’s Ida, which was distributed by Music Box Films, the same folks bringing The Innocents to Hobnobben.

Much like Dheepan, this is a foreign film that people can’t stop talking about. And for good reason. Here is the plot (per IMDB): “In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor who is sent to assist the survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent.”

Like Ida, it seems that this film explores the moral fallout of WWII and the crisis of faith that many experienced in the aftermath.

Here is the beautiful and frightening trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go63ZVVwivI

The Innocents screens at 12 at Cinema Center.

Look for pt. 3 of the festival preview tomorrow, right here.

For more info on the festival, including a complete list of films and show times, head to hobnobben.org.

The Great Hobnobben Festival Preview Pt. 1 by Ian Maxton

Hobnobben begins Thursday, and since I will be writing up the festival here at the Cinema Center blog, I thought it might be a good idea to offer a preview of the festival.

The trouble with film festivals (and especially ones as stacked as Hobnobben) is that the average filmgoer will likely not have seen, or even heard of, many of the films being shown. And there are a ton of good films at Hobnobben. So where do you even begin?

Right here.

This is by no means the final word on what the festival has to offer. Like most of you, I have yet to see any of these films. So my excitement is based on three things: my previous experience with the filmmaker/cast, the distributor of the film, and word of mouth about the film. So feel free to follow or ignore my advice and, by all means, purchase a festival pass and see everything you can. But if you find yourself lost and wondering what the must-sees are, here is a completely subjective list of what I am most excited for this year.

THURSDAY

Must-See:

Other People is the opening night film for a reason. The film premiered at Sundance and has been picked up for distribution by Netflix. Writer/Director Chris Kelly has worked for SNL and The Onion. Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) is a producer. Jesse Plemons is fresh off his great performance in the most recent season of Fargo. Oh, and it co-stars living legend Molly Shannon.

Here is the plot synopsis (per IMDB): “A struggling comedy writer, fresh off a breakup and in the midst of the worst year of his life, returns to Sacramento to care for his dying mother.”

It’s rare for a first-year film festival to get something this big for its opening night. You will want to be a part of that.

There is not a trailer for this film yet, but here is a clip of the cast and the director discussing the film at Sundance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFF919bw9Yc

Other People screens at 7:30 at Cinema Center.

Dark Horse:

The Fits is one of the films at the festival I know the least about, but am most excited for. It has been getting a great deal of praise lately from nearly every film writer I know of. The film premiered at Venice, showed at Sundance, and was picked up by Oscilloscope, a distributor whose reliability is unwavering. The praise for the film has been duel focused. Newcomer Royalty Hightower has been getting heaps of praise for her magnetic lead performance in the film. Writer/Director Anna Rose Holmer has done some technical work around Hollywood, but has only one other directing credit to her name, the documentary Twelve Ways to Sunday. However, the film has been singled out for its visual beauty, and dream-like style.

The plot synopsis (per IMDB): “While training at the gym 11-year-old tomboy Toni becomes entranced with a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in she finds herself caught up in danger as the group begins to suffer from fainting spells and other violent fits.”

This film is tucked away earlier in the day on Thursday, which is a shame, as I have a suspicion it will be one of the best films to screen all weekend. Don’t miss this one.

Here is the beguiling and unnerving trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERCTZL7QPhc

Go ahead and watch it one thousand more times. I can wait.

The Fits screens at 4 at Cinema Center and will be followed by a panel on diversity and inclusion in filmmaking.

FRIDAY

Must-See:

Friday is packed with films that are worth your time, but since I must pick only one absolute must-see, I have to go with Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. This is entirely due to the fact that Werner Hertzog – the oft imitated, but never surpassed German filmmaker and iconoclast – is a giant of the cinema. Director of such films as Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Hertzog is the kind of director whose voice is unmistakable and his work, unmissable.

The “plot” (per IMDB): “Werner Herzog's exploration of the Internet and the connected world.”

Sign me up.

Here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeG6vwGTd4I

Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World screens at 6:30 at Cinema Center.

Dark Horse:

I know basically nothing about AWOL. The director, Deb Shoval, is relatively new on the scene. The film premiered at Tribeca back in April and word on the film has been sparse so far. What has me excited about this film is its lead actress, Lola Kirke. After a brilliant turn in Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America, and two (soon to be three) seasons of multi-faceted and funny work on the Amazon series Mozart in the Jungle, Kirke has become one of the few yet-to-be-established actors that can get me interested in any project she is involved in. She’s unlike any other actor working right now and I doubt it will be long before she breaks out of the mostly indie work she’s been doing and into the mainstream. So catching smaller stuff that she is in is a privilege that likely won’t last.

Here is the plot description (per IMDB): “A young woman Joey is in search of direction in her small town. A visit to an army recruiting office appears to provide a path, but when she meets and falls in love with Rayna that path diverges in ways that neither woman anticipates.”

There is not a trailer for AWOL, but here is a brief interview with the director that intersperses clips from the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhjmqqNLfxc

AWOL screens at 8 at the Parkview Physicians Artslab.

FRIDAY BONUS ROUND

I warned you that Friday was packed with good stuff.

On Friday, beginning at 6 on the Arts United Plaza, Hobnobben will be throwing a FREE block party. There will be live music provided by Secret Mezzanine. Rudy’s Wine Slushies and Bravas will be there along with a Custom Hobnobben Brew by Mad Anthony!

Pedal City will also have party bikes bringing folks down to the plaza.

And best of all, once the sun goes down, there will be a FREE showing of Richard Linklater’s classic film, Dazed and Confused. Do you love it when Matthew McConaughey says “alright, alright, alright?” Do you hate it? You have this movie to thank/blame.

This will be a great time and an easy, inexpensive, fun way to take part in Hobnobben.

Look for pt. 2 of the festival preview tomorrow, right here.

For more info on the festival, including a complete list of films and show times, head to hobnobben.org.

Jonah’s Top Films of 2015

If there is one thing 2015 taught cinephiles, it is taking chances with ideas and how you want to execute them can create huge results to the finished film. Whether it is utilizing the art of stop motion animation, reviving a meditative approach to a martial arts story, shooting a film completely on an iPhone, using real dogs, or foregoing digital special effects, there were many gambles that paid off for both the filmmaker and audiences.

There were too many great films in 2015, so I did not contain my list to a traditional top 10, instead you get a top 14, that’s one more than last year’s list.

Also, quite a few films came close to being on the list but just didn’t quite make the cut, all definitely worth seeing. They are: Animals, Buzzard, Diary of a Teenage Girl, Mistress America, and Sicario.

Now, to my list:

About Elly – This film is nearly perfect, not only in terms of its story, about the disappearance of woman during a beach getaway for a group of young, middle class Iranian families, but also because it gives humanity to a population most American-based media outlets do not show. Whenever any foreign policy is being discussed in terms of Iran, all stakeholders should sit down and watch About Elly. This film actually was released in 2009, but did not make it to US theaters until 2015.

Anomalisa – NOW PLAYING AT CINEMA CENTER - A small story with enormous ideas told in beautifully rendered stop motion animation, co-directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson are mostly concerned with the mundane, day-in-day-out routines that trap all of us, and the sweet escape an anomaly to these habits can provide.

The Assassin – There is a moment in this film when fog overcomes a character who stands silently and still on a mountain side. It is a rare occasion in film where as a member of the audience, I wish the long scene would have lasted longer, and just one more example of director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s power to make a wuxia film beautiful and brilliant.

Ex Machina – More stageplay than anything else, this talky sci-fi film goes delves into a Turing Test, which determines intelligence in a computer and whether a human can distinguish the machine from another human being. Oscar Isaac is the stand out performance, playing an eccentric internet billionaire, and Domhall Gleeson fills in for the audience, asking questions about what exactly is going on. However, it is Alicia Viklander as Eva, the next generation artificial intelligence machine that anchors the emotional core of the film.

Inside Out - Pixar is back in form with this entertaining lesson about the value of sadness, and how it is needed for any amount of joy to have resonance. It is an important lesson, and one that is easily forgotten.

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter – Kumiko lives in a where where she can mistake a scene from a fictional film as a documentary, and a calling to seek out buried treasure. It is a stressful ordeal to watch this woman give up her life in Japan on the chance she may succeed in her quest through a harsh winter in Minnesota and South Dakota, meeting characters along the way, many of whom want to help her, though the language barrier keeps them from being successful. Cervantes was definitely a literary godparent to this movie.

Mad Max: Fury Road – So much has been written about this film already, so this will be short: it is a perfect action movie from start to finish.

Phoenix – The devastating portraits of every character in this film are painted with broad brushstrokes of trauma that makes some plot holes and logic problems forgivable. Sometimes messy is fine, and there was nothing quite as messy, both in terms of physical debris and psychic turmoil as Europe after World War II. There is no denying the ending to Phoenix is perfection and impactful.

Room – You cried, I cried, we all cried when we saw this film. Having never read the book or really knowing anything about the film, I was surprised by the commitment of the actors, who basically perform a kidnapping chamber piece for the first half of the film. I am always happy when a film bucks conventions, as well as changes the rules that were established by the narrative in the first act.

Tangerine – Yes this film was shot on an iPhone 5. It is also the most perfect screwball comedy/Christmas movie about transgender prostitutes in Hollywood ever shot.

Victoria – The stunt of this film, being shot in one continuous take, almost seems unnecessary for the first hour of the film when we get to know Victoria and her new friends in Berlin. But when it all hits the fan, there is no way anything than a one-shot take would suffice.

What We Do in the Shadows – Funny and sweet, even with the buckets and buckets of blood. I would probably let Taika Waititi’s Viago live in my house as long as he promised to do light housework and not eat me. A mockumentary about centuries-old vampires all living together in New Zealand may not sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but the flatmates meeting at the beginning of the film makes you giggle and you will continue to do so everytime you think about it.

White God – They used real dogs! A fable about the treatment of animals, immigrants, and other marginalized groups, White God does not allow anyone to escape brutality, but there are also moments of triumph and grace. The dog that played Hagen, the leader of a dog uprising in Budapest, gave a better performance than most human actors receiving award season praise.

World of Tomorrow – “It is a sad life, Emily Prime.” In just 17 minutes, this animated short film - told in a sporadic, sketchy style – entertains, perplexes, horrifies, and makes you smile. I can’t even after seeing it, and you won’t be able to either.