Courtesy EmphatiCinema
Mine 9, a low-budget but high-octane film, does not advocate for or against America’s controversial legacy of coal mining. Instead, it lionizes the miners who do the heavy lifting in order to keep plants afire. To date, Mine 9 has had a limited theatrical release in America’s so-called coal belt, where the film has been embraced by audiences for its realism. But when Mine 9 opens Friday, July 19, at The Flicks in Boise, more than a few audience members will undoubtedly deconstruct Idaho’s own checkered past (and present) in mining. Lest anyone forget, 91 Idahoans died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the 1972 Sunshine Mine disaster in northern Idaho’s Silver Valley. In fact, the Gem State’s mining tragedies have extended far beyond the Panhandle. Records indicate that more than 600 Idahoans have been killed in explosions, cave-ins or other mining disasters in Ada, Adams, Bear Lake, Blaine, Boise, Bonner, Boundary, Butte, Caribou, Clearwater, Custer, Elmore, Gem, Idaho, Lemhi, Owyhee, Shoshone, Teton, Valley and Washington counties.
All that said, most Americans probably envision Appalachia when they think of mining; and Mine 9‘s backdrop is, quite appropriately, a small West Virginia mining town. Since the early 20th century, when 362 West Virginians were killed in a mine explosion in Monongah, the Mountain State’s portrait has been matte with coal dust. Most recently, 12 West Virginians were killed in the Sago Mine explosion of 2006, and 29 miners died in the Upper Big Branch explosion in 2010.
Mine 9 Director/Screenwriter Eddie Mensore, a native of Martinsville, West Virginia, pitched his screenplay for nearly a dozen years before finally getting permission to film some of his movie inside a real coal mine, thus giving the project intense authenticity. But a word of caution: The claustrophobic, you-are-there nature of Mine 9 is palpable. Suffice to say, theater owners might want to consider selling portable oxygen tanks at concession stands.
Official Trailer of Mine 9 – https://vimeo.com/294807332
https://m.boiseweekly.com/boise/hearts-and-mines/Content?oid=18914804
After US, Mine 9 gets a thumbs up in Canada as well
/in AMS Intel Page /by Allen Media StrategiesMINE 9: APPALACHIAN DISASTER INDIE DRAMA IS A HORRIBLY PLAUSIBLE HORROR, WITH DARKNESS AS ITS CHIEF SPECIAL EFFECT
Rating: B
Darkness is a great equalizer in the film business. A big-budget Game of Thrones battle and a low-budget mine cave-in survival story are both gripping when the mind’s eye does the heavy lifting.
And Mine 9, an indie film about a team of Appalachian coal miners trapped two miles down, trying to crawl their way up with an hour of oxygen, makes maximum use of the dark in all its frightening implications.
The kind of movie that comes off like a true story, but isn’t, Mine 9 seems utterly plausible in these days of coal’s decline. Writer/director/producer Eddie Mensore introduces us to our central characters with a jolt. While working deep, with heavy machinery crushing seams of coal, Zeke (Terry Serpico) and his crew discover that methane levels are spiking, with sparks ominously flying where machine hits rock. Following protocol, they take cover behind what is effectively a sheet.
The scene evokes the “duck and cover” films of the Cold War era for its obvious ineffectiveness in an explosion.
But this isn’t the movie’s big moment, merely a foreshadowing of what is to come. Back on the surface, Zeke is furious, demanding that deaf-eared management address the current lack of a supervisor and a rescue team on standby.
The rest of the team is aware they’re pushing safety limits even more than usual, but is also aware that any declaration of “their” mine as unsafe will lead to them losing their jobs. They vote to carry on regardless.
Time often being of the essence in an indie movie (Mine 9 clocks in at an efficient 83 minutes), there is a socially busy church picnic scene where all the main characters’ family connections and conflicts are neatly laid out. Zeke is uneasy that his teenage nephew Ryan (Drew Starkey) – who doesn’t know a water table from a picnic table – is about to go down in the mine for the first time. Ryan’s girlfriend (Annie Thrash) expresses her concern, and his response – that without a job in the mine he can’t even afford to put gas in his car – encapsulizes the prospects for young people in King Coal towns in a single sentence.
Ryan’s father Kenny (Mark Ashworth) sees putting Ryan into the same pit as him as part of the circle of life. He hits the bottle heavily, while the amiable, Bible-reading John (Clint James) is a recovered alcoholic – two characters on opposite sides of truth about where flirting with death for a living can lead you.
As an extra ingredient in the tragic soup, we meet Teresa (Erin Elizabeth Burns), the acting manager of the understaffed mine, in over her head, and already being given the skunk eye by the miners’ wives to let her know they’ll hold her to blame for anything that happens.
Cue the big event. Given the confluence of accidents, the survivors of the initial blast risk drowning, burning and suffocation, all under the shadow of darkness and the glow of helmet lights. Mensore keeps a taut rein over the sequence of events, the frustrations, losses and despair right to the end, with Zeke’s all-for-one leadership tested every other minute.
Mine 9’s verisimilitude is aided by its use of Appalachian folk tunes, both in the soundtrack and as sung by the miners and families. The credits are worth watching as well, for the reminiscences of several West Virginia miners, some of whom have spent up to 45 years of their lives underground for six or seven days a week.
Given the litigiousness of some of the biggest players in the coal industry, a “fictional” story about a believable cave-in is probably the best way to go. The movie offers no answers to the moribund state of states that rely on coal, or the hazards faced by its miners. Like the characters it portrays, Mine 9 simply does its job as best it can with the resources at hand.
Mine 9. Produced, written and directed by Eddie Mensore. Starring Terry Serpico, Drew Starkey, and Mark Ashworth. Opens Friday, August 16 in Toronto, with a later release in other Canadian cities.
Read the article here – https://www.original-cin.ca/posts/2019/8/13/mine-9-appalachian-disaster-indie-drama-is-a-horribly-plausible-horror-with-darkness-as-its-chief-special-effect
Homer Hickam’s Testimony before Congress
/in AMS Intel Page /by Allen Media StrategiesWatch our pal and client Homer Hickam’s incredible testimony before the Congress advocating a return to the Moon. He testified on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Keyboard wizard Bob Malone releases new single – “Good People”
/in AMS Intel Page /by Allen Media Strategies“When it seems like someone’s always, getting in your face, shooting up the place, making you lose your faith in the human race. Just remember…there are good people everywhere!” – Bob Malone
AMS client and Galleria Florist Alisa Rabinovich – WAMU
/in AMS Intel Page /by Allen Media StrategiesD.C. Florist Sends A Message Of Support To Congresswomen Targeted In Trump’s Tweets
Alisa Rabinovich, who owns and operates Nosegay Flowers in D.C. and Galleria Florist in Falls Church, Virginia, said she designed custom flower arrangements to send to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) to show the women support.
“It’s really not about politics for me,” Alisa Rabinovich said in a statement sent to WAMU. “I’m not a terribly political person. It’s about these women being bullied by the President of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, and standing up for themselves.”
She delivered the flowers on Thursday with a note thanking the Congresswomen.
The notes read: “Thanks for being a role model for women everywhere. You are the best part of America!”
Trump told the representatives to “go back” to “the crime-infested places from which they came” in a racist tweet.
The president’s intentions behind making the comments urging the women to go back to their countries of origin have been widely disputed by lawmakers and pundits throughout the week, some denying the hurtful usage of Trump’s “go back” comment and the context in which the statement has historically been used toward people of color.
Omar, a Somali refugee, is the only representative of the four women born outside of the U.S. She became a naturalized citizen as a teen.
Rabinovich immigrated to the U.S. with her family as a child from Russia. She said she identified with the four Congresswomen who received Trump’s taunts.
“I love America, and one of the things I love most about my home is that people here have been able to have civil disagreements, and also look for ways to come together for the common good,” she said. “That seems to be lost on the President sometimes.”
Link to article https://wamu.org/story/19/07/19/d-c-florist-sends-a-message-of-support-to-congresswomen-targeted-in-trumps-tweets/
Hearts and Mines – Review of Mine 9 in Boise Weekly
/in AMS Intel Page /by Allen Media StrategiesHearts and Mines
‘Mine 9’ opens Friday, July 19, at The Flicks
by George Prentice
Mine 9, a low-budget but high-octane film, does not advocate for or against America’s controversial legacy of coal mining. Instead, it lionizes the miners who do the heavy lifting in order to keep plants afire. To date, Mine 9 has had a limited theatrical release in America’s so-called coal belt, where the film has been embraced by audiences for its realism. But when Mine 9 opens Friday, July 19, at The Flicks in Boise, more than a few audience members will undoubtedly deconstruct Idaho’s own checkered past (and present) in mining. Lest anyone forget, 91 Idahoans died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the 1972 Sunshine Mine disaster in northern Idaho’s Silver Valley. In fact, the Gem State’s mining tragedies have extended far beyond the Panhandle. Records indicate that more than 600 Idahoans have been killed in explosions, cave-ins or other mining disasters in Ada, Adams, Bear Lake, Blaine, Boise, Bonner, Boundary, Butte, Caribou, Clearwater, Custer, Elmore, Gem, Idaho, Lemhi, Owyhee, Shoshone, Teton, Valley and Washington counties.
All that said, most Americans probably envision Appalachia when they think of mining; and Mine 9‘s backdrop is, quite appropriately, a small West Virginia mining town. Since the early 20th century, when 362 West Virginians were killed in a mine explosion in Monongah, the Mountain State’s portrait has been matte with coal dust. Most recently, 12 West Virginians were killed in the Sago Mine explosion of 2006, and 29 miners died in the Upper Big Branch explosion in 2010.
Mine 9 Director/Screenwriter Eddie Mensore, a native of Martinsville, West Virginia, pitched his screenplay for nearly a dozen years before finally getting permission to film some of his movie inside a real coal mine, thus giving the project intense authenticity. But a word of caution: The claustrophobic, you-are-there nature of Mine 9 is palpable. Suffice to say, theater owners might want to consider selling portable oxygen tanks at concession stands.
Official Trailer of Mine 9 – https://vimeo.com/294807332
https://m.boiseweekly.com/boise/hearts-and-mines/Content?oid=18914804