Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #7: “We Strangers”

October 20, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Kirby sitting alone at one end of a fancy table in front of a large, banal still-life fruit painting. She stares at unseen people on the opposite end, an untouched teacup beside her.

This scene near the end should tell you a lot about what she puts up with from the other characters.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

…and we come at last to the final theatrical recount in this very special MCC miniseries: We Strangers (not to be confused with last year’s All of Us Strangers), a dramedy that premiered at South by Southwest back in March and caught my eye in Heartland’s listings on the strength of its star Kirby Howell-Baptiste (whose recent roles, including this one, have been billed mononymously as just “Kirby”). Best known to geeks as Dream’s big sister Death in Netflix’s Sandman, I’ve also seen her in Veronica Mars season 4 (as a bartender who doesn’t appreciate being a murder suspect), the Apple TV+ series Sugar (as Colin Farrell’s handler), the Cruella prequel (as young Anita Darling), HBO’s Barry (blink and miss her as a recurring student in Gene Cousineau’s acting class), and so on and so on. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Suffice it to say she’s no stranger to me in that sense, though “stranger” can mean different things, and switch context at any moment without notice, even when you’re finally on the call sheet.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #6: “Sheepdog”

October 19, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A young white veteran and an old Black veteran, both in autumn outerwear, sitting and feeling chummy on a movie poster.

It’s extremely tough finding screen shots of films that don’t yet have a distributor, an official site with a gallery, or a trailer available for Fair Use purposes…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Nowadays films about veterans poorly adjusting to post-deployment civilian life (apart from five whole minutes of The Hurt Locker) tend to get made only if the afflicted veteran becomes a bad guy for the heroes to defeat or an antihero to put down like a rabid dog — twisted by their combat traumas into a serial killer, a terrorist, a super-villain, or a politician scheming himself an evil long game. We used to have a smattering of modestly budgeted adult dramas back in the day when Americans first began feeling ashamed of how Vietnam veterans were treated. (Anyone else remember Unnatural Causes, a 1986 TV-movie starring John Ritter and Alfre Woodard, about vets stricken by side effects of Agent Orange?) It’s not like society actually solved that problem and all our veterans feel great now — filmmakers just stopped attempting any serious explorations.

Sheepdog is the sort of movie the major studios believe isn’t worth their time or effort anymore. Its writer/director/producer/star Steven Grayhm (from a Canadian SF series called Between) spent over a decade putting it together anyway. It premiered at the Boston Film Festival last month (the event nearest to where it was filmed) and is currently traveling the circuit, including two showings at Heartland. (We missed its first showing last Friday, which concluded with a post-screening Q&A with Grayhm and two other producers, but that was the same night as ReEntry‘s World Premiere and Q&A.) I have aesthetic quibbles, which tend to be my thing, but Grayhm’s heart is absolutely in the right place.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #5: “Small Things Like These”

October 18, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Cillian Murphy glowering from within the darkness of a coal shed.

What evil lurks within the coal shed?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Academy Award Winner Cillian Murphy is back! The Irish historical drama Small Things Like These, his first film since Oppenheimer, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival back in February and will be rolled out to U.S. theaters in November. Its special exhibition as a Heartland “Centerpiece Screening” (read: highly promoted and tickets cost a tad more) represented its second-ever showing here in the States. Though it boasts a couple bigger names than some of the other festival films I’ve seen so far, its minimalist aesthetic and hushed ambiance make it feel smaller and more intimate than the rest — in many ways the opposite of Murphy’s last gig. It’s also a Christmas movie!

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #4: “Superboys of Malegaon”

October 17, 2024 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Young filmmaker holding a digital camera, watching forlornly as the woman he loves is driven away offscreen.

Movies will break your heart, kid.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Full disclosure: Superboys of Malegaon was a last-minute addition to my festival itinerary, made possibly by one of my patented “six degrees” rabbit-hole investigations of the seeming interconnectedness of all cinema. Follow:

After loving Andrew Garfield’s back-to-back performances in The Social Network and the first Amazing Spider-Man (disregarding this judge’s low score for the second), I followed him to his next project, 99 Homes, which was the first film I ever saw by director Ramin Bahrani, whose most recent feature film was Netflix’s The White Tiger, which shined thanks in large part to its young leading man, one Adarsh Gourav. Fast-forward to this past September, when I spent a good hour or more reviewing the descriptions and cast/crew listings for every single Narrative Feature on Heartland’s site to check for familiar connections. Eventually I got to Superboys, which also stars Gourav.

Between his name and its capsule summary’s strong resemblance to the warm-hearted Be Kind Rewind…well, here we are. It’s funny how many roads lead to and from superheroes. Little did I know the Rewind similarities would end after a time, while the final twenty minutes would reveal strong ties to another, much larger pop-cultural touchstone — one of the all-time greatest, at least according to my generation of geeks.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #3: “Jazzy”

October 16, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Two Lakota girls looking at the camera.

THEY FIGHT CRIME! THEY SOLVE MYSTERIES! THEY…wait, no, this isn’t that kind of film.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Last year one of my favorite Heartland entries was Fancy Dance, a Native-focused drama co-written and directed by Erica Tremblay, who’d worked on the most excellent TV series Reservation Dogs (11/10, among the best ever) and Dark Winds (whither season 3?). Its star Lily Gladstone had appeared in a few Rez Dogs episodes, but commanded wider attention as the Oscar-nominated costar of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, where she had to put up with being surrounded by powerfully attention-grabbing white men, and so did her character.

Once an artist emerges from such overshadowing as an independent force on their own terms, it’s absolutely cool seeing them use their newfound fame to encourage and enable other storytellers to come forward and take a shot at reaching a wider audience. Just as Taika Waititi “co-created” Rez Dogs and directed its pilot, thereby launching it with an extra little push (though the show was obviously, lovingly Sterlin Harjo’s baby), I braked while reading Heartland’s Narrative Feature roster when I spotted the listing for Executive Producer Lily Gladstone affixed to Jazzy, an adorable coming-of-age drama that premiered at Tribeca Festival last June and might’ve gotten overlooked among Heartland’s voluminous offerings if not for her name standing out to me.

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Yes, There’s a Scene After “The Wild Robot” End Credits

October 15, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Wild Robot nuzzling a gosling in its palm.

Concept art for my upcoming fanfic, “Atomic Robo Meets Henery Hawk”.

Today all animated films are guaranteed a release on popular streaming services pretty quickly after completion, whether the studios think they’re worth the effort of a few weeks’ theatrical run first or they’re quitters who send them direct-to-video, which isn’t quite as stigmatizing as it was in the Blockbuster Video era. In happier times my year-end movie-going lists used to be filled with animation, often ranking near or at the top. Nowadays, not so much — trailers and pro reviews aren’t dissuading my middle-ager’s skeptical inertia even when those films do become available for my streaming convenience. I haven’t bothered to add Strange World or Wish to my Disney+ queue, let alone watched them. Whether it’s rampant sequelitis or the innate mediocrity of jukebox musicals or a studio satisfied with selling half-hearted results, don’t hold your breath waiting for my opinions on Kung Fu Panda 4, the Trolls series, or anything containing a Minion after their debut.

Last time I paid full price for a DreamWorks Animated joint, it was in 2019 when the third How to Train Your Dragon proved the weakest of the trilogy. I largely ignored their subsequent, determinedly populist fare till I “had to” watch 2022’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as part of my annual Oscar Quest and was astonished at the results. I was therefore a little more receptive when DreamWorks announced their big 2024 release, The Wild Robot, would be directed by Chris Sanders, whose past works include Lilo & Stitch and the first How to Train Your Dragon — two all-ages spectacles he co-directed that I went into with low expectations only for my heart to grow three sizes too big by the end. With The Wild Robot, Sanders has now gone three-for-three with said enlarged heart.

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Yes, There Are Scenes During and After the “Transformers One” End Credits

October 14, 2024 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Young Optimus Prime and Megatron sitting on a couch and smiling.

Just hanging out after work, two buddies who have each other’s backs and will never, ever, ever lead separate sides in a planetary civil war. Friendship!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Seeing every Transformers film in theaters, no matter how much we’ve come to dread them, is among our few enduring father/son traditions. He grew up as they grew bigger and dumber. Nevertheless, the boy and I would suffer each canned serving of Cinema In Name Only and always spend the car ride home dissecting them together…

After Michael Bay ruined toy robots for several generations of kids to come, damage control efforts have varied. Some gave it a nice try; some made things worse. We nearly excused ourselves from seeing Transformers One because the first trailer’s so-so kiddie-comedy vibe felt aimed at complete newbies with no Transformers experience because their parents shielded them from such harmful matter. Then came the showier, more dramatic second trailer, along with the surprisingly positive buzz from early screenings. Those factors convinced us to give the Robots in Disguise yet another chance. To our shock, T1 may in fact be one of the best Transformers feature films of all time, if partly by forfeit.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #2: “Micro Budget”

October 14, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Four young actors looking really helpless

Imagine if Don’t Look Up were made with nearly no money and its only agenda were “make ALL the money!” Now imagine the behind-the-scenes featurettes about that.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry…

Next up on our to-do list is Micro Budget, an uproarious film-about-filmmaking, which of course means it’s legally guaranteed a Best Picture nomination. The uproarious satire’s skewering of indie movie production might seem offensive to other Heartland participants if they, like its witless fictional auteur, lacked any measurable integrity, artistry, or intent to at least watch a few “How to Make a Movie” YouTube tutorials, let alone see some actual movies while they’re at it.

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Heartland Film Festival 2024 Screening #1: “ReEntry”

October 13, 2024 By in Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tentative movie poster for "ReEntry with Emily Deschanel and Sam Trammell in profile separated by a science fiction suit in an arched doorway.

Yes, our first film up is sci-fi. I gotta be me. But not all of them will be!

It’s that time again! Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

After a few brief dalliances with the festival in the past, last year I dove in a bit deeper and caught six movies in all. The fates of those films have varied in the months since — The Promised Land went on to make the Oscar shortlist for Best International Feature; Fancy Dance is now on Apple+ and remains a must-see for fans of Reservation Dogs or Dark Winds; the even tinier Avenue of the Giants has yet to find a distributor and was still assiduously touring as of this past spring; and so on. I appreciated the chance to see new features before they’re released to the world-at-large, and without waiting for pro critics to weigh in first.

Heartland’s 33rd edition runs October 10-20, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least eight films in all (Lord willing). Longtime MCC readers know the rule: every film I see in theaters gets its own entry. We kick things off with one of this year’s science fiction contestants, which held its official World Premiere right here at Heartland: a small-scale science fiction drama called ReEntry.

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The Lincoln Birthday Weekend, Part 5: Generation X Belongs in a Museum

October 10, 2024 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Panasonic tape recorder from the '80s.

The first music-playing device I ever owned was a tape recorder like this one, but a cheaper brand.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our birthdays together on some new experience. On past trips we’d visited the graves, tombs, mausoleums and virtual posthumous palaces of 24 American Presidents in varying accommodations and budgets. One of the biggest names ever to grace the White House kept eluding us: Abraham Lincoln, planted a mere three hours away in Springfield, Illinois. In May 2023 I figured: let’s make his tomb a trip headliner of its very own, not a warm-up act on the road to Branson or whatever. History is technically more Anne’s fervent interest than mine, but we found plenty to do beyond reading wordy educational placards…

…and took occasional breaks from Lincolnmania. Our random walking tour of the Illinois State Capitol Complex led us to the Illinois State Museum, on the opposite end of the grounds from the State Capitol. As of the date of our visit, their centerpiece special exhibit was called “Growing Up X” — basically a nostalgia prompt-fest of Stuff Generation X Kids Had. We resented the implication that we now belong in a museum and our hobbies (past and present) are anthropological specimens to be wall-mounted for scrutiny by younger generations who don’t get us, in hopes maybe one day they will get us through museum education. We wouldn’t have to take this drastic step if they’d paid attention to our Throwback Thursday posts on the socials.

As members of the scrutinized class, we were curious to see which artifacts were deemed worthy and representative of the lived experience of us kids who dearly wish Baby Boomers had raised us better. I wasn’t surprised to see a few playthings I still have around the house or boxed up in the garage. Some erudite wall space was dedicated to contextualizing our childhoods and the escapist lifelines that let us suspend reality a few minutes at a time. Their vitrines were packed with collectibles that could’ve been culled from a single, shrewd Amazon Marketplace vendor. Nevertheless, some objects evoked deeper responses than others.

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