dsmWeekly - January 22, 2025

Jessica Calhoun, Kristen Meyers and Brittany Brooke Crow toasted the Oscars at the Varsity Cinema's watch party in 2023. (Photo: Des Moines Film)

ARTS & CULTURE

For the Oscars, the show must go on

By Michael Morain

This year’s Oscar nominations will be announced bright and early at 7:30 a.m. Thursday at Oscar.com, Oscars.org and the Academy’s platforms on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube — and TikTok, too, if it’s still a thing. It’s hard to guess from one day to the next.

Hollywood has other things on its mind these days, as fires continue to burn across Los Angeles. The Oscars voting deadline was extended twice in light of the disaster.

But the show must go on, one way or another.

“It’s been amazing. Everybody’s kept the wheels turning even when you know they’re going through really challenging times,” said Ben Godar, who leads Des Moines Film and the Varsity Cinema, which plans to host its annual Oscars ceremony watch party March 2.

Godar went to grad school in L.A. and keeps in touch with friends there, as well as movie distributors and other folks in the industry. He recalled how strange the virtual Oscars ceremony seemed in 2020, when the pandemic hit, and expects this year’s in-person event to be a “positive and healing” symbol of resilience.

Besides, “it’s one of the few awards ceremonies that creates a cultural conversation,” he said. “It’s like the Super Bowl. It’s one of the last things you can watch and then go to work the next day and know that most other people saw it, too.”

So, does he have any predictions? He does indeed. His favorite this year is “Nickel Boys,” about a pair of Black teenagers who are sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. “The way it uses the form to tell the story is something we haven’t seen before,” he said.

He also likes “The Brutalist,” about a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who escapes the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States. It’s long — 3 hours and 35 minutes with an intermission — but Godar said it’s worth it. He said it was the kind of “sweeping American epic” that was more common through the ’70s but is rare now.

Godar saw both of those movies last fall at the New York Film Festival. He encourages people to watch as many Oscar contenders as possible in an actual theater. For several years, he explained, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon made a run for the Oscars by producing their own highbrow movies for subscribers to watch at home. But “we’ve seen them migrate now, chasing the next ‘Tiger King,’” so the momentum around movies has shifted back to the big screen, Godar said. “It’s still the best place to see most nominees.”

Many of this year’s Best Picture nominees will be re-released to local theaters over the next few weeks. The Varsity also will screen this year’s Oscar-nominated short films, adopting a popular annual tradition that used to take place at the Des Moines Art Center.

Check out the Varsity’s website for tickets and details to its ceremony watch party, “A Red Carpet Affair,” with a live broadcast, games and contests during commercial breaks, and movie-themed snacks and cocktails.

Mike Nappi plays Peanut in the North American tour of “Shucked.” (Stalk photo: Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

BEST BET

'Shucked' has a field day with farming jokes

From the sounds of it, the musical “Shucked” has a high yield of corn puns — a bumper crop, a record haul, an overflowing cornucopia. It couldn’t be cornier if it had been developed in a Corteva lab.

Even so, audiences and critics have eaten it up since its Broadway premiere in 2022. They’ve found an ear-resistible kernel of truth in the story about a plucky small-town woman named Maizy who sets out to find someone who can explain why all the corn in Cob County keeps dying. She meets a big-city con artist posing as a podiatrist — a corn doctor — who tries to swindle the desperate farmers.

The show’s national tour pops up at the Des Moines Civic Center next week, Tuesday through Feb. 2, when you can seed it for yourself.

The Week Ahead

“The Gull,” 7:30 p.m. today, Thursday and Saturday, Des Moines Playhouse. After a two-year hiatus, TheatreMidwest returns with the world premiere of a one-woman riff on Chekhov’s classic “The Seagull,” in the Playhouse’s newly renovated studio theater.

Sal Vulcano, 7 p.m. Saturday, Des Moines Civic Center. The mastermind behind “Impractical Jokers,” one of the longest-running hidden-camera comedy shows on TV, swings through town during his current “Everything’s Fine” national tour.

Iowa Bike Expo, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Iowa Events Center. Pedal pushers gather for the annual extravaganza of bike gear, bike apparel, bike nonprofits and all the other bike stuff. Later that day, many will migrate out west for the RAGBRAI Route Announcement, held for the first time at Vibrant Music Hall in Waukee.

Favorite Poems, 3 p.m. Saturday, Des Moines Art Center. At the Poetry Palooza program, 11 community leaders will read and discuss their favorite poems. The lineup: Trevy Augustin, Kelly Baum, Lenny Bell, Connie Boesen, Tej Dhawan, Richard Deming, Deidre DeJear, Seso Marentes, Zach Mecham, Dawn Oropeza and dsm editor Michael Morain.

Botanical Blues: Heath Alan, 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Greater Des Moines Botanical Garden. The Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist takes a turn in the weekly concert series, where you can warm up and shake off the blues every Sunday through March.

Country music: Tim McGraw is heading to the Field of Dreams. The country star announced he’ll perform at the Dyersville site on Aug. 30, on what would have been the 81st birthday of his late father, Major League Baseball standout Tug McGraw. Tickets range from $70 to $500.

History lesson: The Des Moines Valley Friends, otherwise known as Quakers, are hosting a workshop called “Roots of Injustice, Seeds of Change” at 3 p.m. Saturday at their meeting house at 4211 Grand Ave. The two-hour program unpacks the Doctrine of Discovery, the historical justification for “European subjugation of non-Christian peoples,” and explores ways to restore rights for Indigenous peoples worldwide.

(Photo courtesy of Anna Mullen)

PEOPLE & COMMUNITY

Meet Anna Mullen, who helps fight hunger

By Jody Gifford

Anna Mullen has made the fight against food scarcity one of her life’s missions. She has supported Heifer International with her congregation at Grace United Methodist Church in Des Moines, initiated a food-salvaging program with the Catholic Social Workers House in Kansas City, interned with the World Food Prize and taught others how to garden and harvest their own food.

Today she serves as the senior manager of digital marketing at FoodCorps, a nonprofit organization that partners with schools and communities to “nourish kids’ health, education and sense of belonging” by providing meals, food education and experiences that contribute to their overall health and well-being.
Mullen is also a master gardener and certified yoga instructor.

“Food is a human right, and there’s enough food in the world that there’s no excuse for people to be hungry,” Mullen said. “We all need food to nourish and thrive, but food is essential to helping kids not only focus in school but to feel good and be supported. It helps them grow into young adults who have their passions and excitement and ways that they want to contribute and be part of their community and their world.”

Before coming to FoodCorps, Mullen worked at the National Farm to School Network, a nonprofit that connects schools and early education sites with fresh, farm-grown food.

During the pandemic, Mullen noticed that schools become a central hub for feeding people during a time of crisis. She saw firsthand how schools use their big kitchens to cook and serve hot meals and distribute boxes of food to folks who didn’t have easy access elsewhere.

“I thought it was a really beautiful example of community resources going to address food insecurity,” she said. “It painted a picture of the possibility of how communities can continue to use our current networks and infrastructure to address food insecurity. We proved to ourselves we actually can do it.”

Read about three other Iowans who are leading the fight against hunger in our latest edition of Iowa Stops Hunger, an ongoing series dsm and the Business Record publish to raise awareness about food insecurity and inspire action to combat it.