February 08, 2010

Oxford Film Festival: It's a Wrap!

This was my third year at the Oxford Film Festival, and I have to say this fest just gets better and better every year. Other small regional fests take note: If you want to grow your small-town-fest-that-could into a small town fest that can and does have a reputation as one of the go-to fests for your region, take some notes from the folks who make this fest happen. As at any fest, there are countless volunteers who make it happen, but I have to give a shout out to the fest co-directors, Michelle Emanuel, Molly Fergusson and Micah Ginn, and Assistant Director Melanie Addington.

My fellow fest circuit junkies -- not to mention all you indie filmmakers out there looking for a great fest to showcase your hard work -- should add Oxford to your list of fests to check out; If you're ever fortunate enough to be invited to attend as a filmmaker, juror or panelist, do not turn it down.

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Posted by kvoynar at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)

January 27, 2010

Best. Comic. Ever.

Someone posted this to Facebook, and it totally made my day. Maybe even my month.

Ethan Nicolle, a comic/graphic artist, had the idea to collaborate on a comic with his five-year-old brother Malachai after a holiday family visit culminated in the two of them playing a story/game Malachai came up with about Axe Cop and Flute Cop. Ethan was so entranced with Malachai's storytelling that he worked with him to develop the first four episodes of Axe Cop and put them online, and they are freaking brilliant.

Go check out Axe Man for yourself. You won't be sorry, I promise. Seriously, how often do I send you anywhere?

Quick, someone option this before Uwe Boll gets the idea to do something with it! Axe Man. Love it.

Update: I read Axe Man to Luka, my six-year-old, and he totally dug it. Luka makes his own comics, most of them about Luka-the-Box, and he sells them (mostly to me) for $2 a pop. He's clever already, that one. Neve (almost 13), who is really into comic and manga, is now pondering a collaborative effort with her brother, thanks to Axe Man.

So Luka wanted to send an email to Axe Man to say how much he likes it. I helped him send the email, and Ethan responded immediately. Which proves that either (1) Ethan is a very cool guy, or (2) that Ethan, like me and so many of my friends, spends way too much time on the computer and his therefore checking his email constantly, or (3) both. Anyhow, it was very cool of him to respond to Luka so quickly and to be encouraging of Luka's own ambitions as a comic writer/artist.

Luka also wants to be a pizza man and a mountain climber, dual ambitions that he decided to combine into being a pizza man who delivers pizzas to people who live on top of mountains. I guess he'll have to squeeze "comic book artist" in there somewhere. He makes movies too (and for the record, many of his movies are better than some of the dreck I've sat through at Sundance).

Posted by kvoynar at 08:08 PM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2010

1,000 Monkeys: Of Romance, Fairy Tales and Happily Ever After

There was a time, back when I was maybe twelve or so, when I thought I had the marriage thing all figured out: Just find the right guy, marry him, have kids together, don't fight over the small stuff, and work through the bigger stuff together. That's how it worked in books and movies, after all. And that's what I wanted, that happily ever after, the relationship with my soul mate that would last forever.

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Posted by kvoynar at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2010

Update on Darius Goes West

If you've read me for very long, you are probably aware that I am a huge fan of the documentary Darius Goes West. If you're not familiar with this film, it's about a group of 20-something guys who take their friend Darius, who's confined to a wheelchair by a devastating form of muscular dystrophy that has already taken his brother's life and will, eventually, take his, on a cross-country journey. The film charts the friends' journey as they take Darius on his first ever trip away from his hometown in a rented RV on a quest to make it to Los Angeles to try to persuade the folks at MTV to pimp Darius's "ride" -- a crappy wheelchair that's falling apart.

Darius Goes West isn't just a great movie because it's about a kid with a disease, though; it's a great movie because it tells a great story, and the story is about the friendship between Darius and these young men, and how that friendship lifts him up and makes something that would have been impossible for him, possible. There are many scenes in this film that are heartwarming, but my favorite by far is the first time Darius goes in the ocean. Suddenly, with his friends supporting him and keeping his head above water, Darius is free of the gravity that binds him. There is a joy on his face -- and on the faces of all his friends -- as he laughs out loud with a child's delight.

Now Darius and the team behind DGW are on another journey, this time to raise money for research for Darius's disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, in the Chase Community Giving Challenge. Out of 500,000 causes, the DGW team made it to the second and final round. Moreover, the Ginder family has agreed to match every vote cast for DGW in the Chase Community Giving Challenge with a $1 donation to muscular dystrophy research.

If you haven't seen Darius Goes West, you can watch the entire film for free right here (and if you like it, buy the DVD, eh?) and while you're there, you can cast your vote for this most worthy of causes. So go on, head on over there ... what're you waiting for? The DGW team needs YOUR vote to win.

Posted by kvoynar at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2010

1,000 Monkeys: And Now, for the Rest of the Story

As Tolstoy so wisely observes as he opens Anna Karenina, happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In other words, lives that are "normal," or "safe" are not lives that are telling great stories. For you to grow as a person, a character in your own story, you have to go through turmoil, conflicts, times of trial, even times of tragedy and sorrow.

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Posted by kvoynar at 07:27 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2009

Kim Voynar's Top Ten Films of 2009

Here's my Top Ten List for 2009. A brief disclaimer: I've been sick for several months and missed all but the first day of the Toronto International Film Festival this year; illness, medical appointments and surgery also made it very difficult for me to get to a lot of screenings. I did watch as many of the screeners I was sent as possible. I didn't, unfortunately, get screeners for a number of films I'd hoped to see, so there are numerous films that may very well have been contenders for the top spots that I was unable to consider at all.

That said, here's my 2009 Top Ten Films list ...

1. Up in the Air
2. The Hurt Locker
3. An Education
4. Goodbye Solo
5. In the Loop
6. A Serious Man
7. Where the Wild Things Are
8. Precious
9. Beaches of Agnes
10. District 9

Posted by kvoynar at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2009

1,000 Monkeys: O Christmas Tree

Every year the tree becomes our living family photo album through the holiday season, and every day our Christmas tree is up I admire the pictures, sifting through the memories of a life built around these kids, this family, for so many years, and I am thankful to overflowing that my life has been so blessed, so filled with people I love, whose smiles and hearts I depend on to keep my own heart light as surely as they depend on me to be their ballast in life's passing storms. 

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Posted by kvoynar at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2009

1,000 Monkeys: Home is Where My Heart Is

In time, my nestlings will grow older. They will eventually leave the cozy nest of home that I've painstakingly built for them, grown strong and independent and responsible enough to make their way into the big world on their own. Someday, my house will be mine alone, and empty and quiet as it is every other weekend now, all the time. And I will have to find a way to deal with that quiet, to fill those empty spaces, empty hours, with interests and pursuits that I don't have time for now.

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Posted by kvoynar at 04:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2009

1,000 Monkeys: Memory Lane

How many fine, crisp autumn days did I sit nursing a baby in the living room of our big house in Redmond, looking out the big picture windows at the trees dressing up in their fall finery, while the water of the lake shifted subtly from bright summer blue to moodier autumn grey? How many brilliantly colored leaves did I watch tumble gently down from trees, never pausing to consider that each one that fell marked a moment, a day of my life that could never come back?

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Posted by kvoynar at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)

I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night with KISS

Just got home from the KISS concert, and it was even more awesome than I'd anticipated. Seattle's Key Arena was pretty packed with rock fans (where but a KISS concert would I overhear in passing a conversation starting with, "So the old lady and me were on the way to the Tacoma Dome to see AC/DC, and then the cops pulled us over and we'd been working through a couple 12-packs of PBR on the way down ..."). When my daughter Neve and I arrived at the Key there was a long line waiting to get through security, and a stern recorded female voice was lecturing us about the Key's security rules (no cameras, no weapons, no outside food or drink, we might, perhaps, be cavity searched if we looked suspicious).

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Posted by kvoynar at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)