2 reviews
Kinmount Ontario is about halfway between Ontario and..... uh, Mississauga. There used to be a couple of mills there, but they went away a long time ago. Nowadays there are about 300 people living there. An aerial view shows about half a dozen commercial buildings downtown. There's also a five-screen movie theater, run by Keith Stata. It's open about five months a year. This movie is about Stata, the theater, the large but ever-increasing number of cats he takes care of (the latest count is 58), and how he dealt with the Covid-19 plague.
Like most of us, not very well. Efforts by the film makers to make of Stata an interesting figure, or perhaps an Everyman to to represent all of us don't really work. He remains, at the end, a fairly typical man in his 70s. Like most of us, he has some crotchets, one or two things that make him odd, and the usual assortment of aches and pains that don't go away like they did when we were fifty years younger. His neighbors and theater patrons say very nice things about him. They are Canadian. His employees do the typical things employees do when asked about their boss. They are also Canadian.
I suppose this movie is intended not just as a portrait of Stata, but of the state of the movie exhibition business. It's well made, but not terribly engrossing.
Like most of us, not very well. Efforts by the film makers to make of Stata an interesting figure, or perhaps an Everyman to to represent all of us don't really work. He remains, at the end, a fairly typical man in his 70s. Like most of us, he has some crotchets, one or two things that make him odd, and the usual assortment of aches and pains that don't go away like they did when we were fifty years younger. His neighbors and theater patrons say very nice things about him. They are Canadian. His employees do the typical things employees do when asked about their boss. They are also Canadian.
I suppose this movie is intended not just as a portrait of Stata, but of the state of the movie exhibition business. It's well made, but not terribly engrossing.
The Movie Man is one of those "looking over the shoulder to see what the main subject of the documentary is doing" films. In that sense it is not focused or disciplined. The personality is the owner of Kinmont Theater, Keith Stata - a congenial and likable person who has been running his theater for, some forty odd years. The theater is a one of a kind attraction in Ontario, Canada. You not only get a random tour of the six-plex, but also get introduced to his many cats with their feeding time. In a disjointed style the film shows his history, the towns history and the building of the cinema. The narration is all Stata. In this sense, you get a complete personal introduction to Stata's personality and the theater. The film provides for his legacy to those who may be interested - which may have been the point. In Stata's defense, he is not a documentarian and the film seems to cover all the salient points of his life and his theater.