45365

MOVIE #1,907 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 08.19.24 This first film by the Ross Brothers is like a Wiseman doc without a specific focus of interest (the entire town is the topic). This approach is ramshackle but it works. I'm doing a week's worth of impromptu Director Focuses in conjunction with my Seven Days of Dante series. Basically, I needed a break from the monotony of my dogmatic film watching schedule, the rut I’d fallen into. The same weekend I saw Gremlins at the Mahoning Drive-in, I went down to Allentown and took in a double feature at their historic Civic Theatre of Allentown (it wasn't a real double feature — I paid for two admissions at 4:30 and 7 and got dinner in between). The second film I took in was the Ross Brothers’ most recent picture — their first non-documentary, Gasoline Rainbow — which I'll review tomorrow. But let's start at the beginning.

45365 is a really lovely film. Simple portraits, sometimes intertwined and/or threaded, and sometimes self-contained. We see different people at various points in their life, from cradle to grave, but it's all part of the same story. We see old folks having a conversation about buying frozen lobster on QVC, young kid skateboarding, middle-aged adults who look decades older get arrested, and everything in between. Take the local football team’s narrative, perhaps the most central focus: it isn’t about whether they win or lose. They don't even show the score. A wide shot of the only game action hard cuts to months later, Christmas time, and the field is vacant, blanketed in snow. Excellent first film.

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45365 is a 2009 American documentary film made by first-time directors the Ross brothers, Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross. The film is about the everyday life of the small town Sidney, Ohio, and the people living in it; the title comes from the town's ZIP Code. It was released on March 1, 2009.