“Trumbo” brings Hollywood history to Moscow community

Mitzi Trumbo and Niki Trumbo, Oct. 27, 2015, attending the U.S. premier of “Trumbo” in Beverly Hills, California. Photography by Patrick McMullan Co.

If survivors of the first week of the semester want to celebrate in some way other than a Netflix session, getting out to see The Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre’s opening of Trumbo could be the perfect chance to get away from the library.

Trumbo is “catnip for cinephiles” according to Joe Neumaier’s review in Life magazine, and follows the story of Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter, whose “acclaimed career comes to a crushing halt in the late 1940s when he and other Hollywood figures are blacklisted for their political beliefs,” according to Bleeker Street’s press release of the film.

Operations Director of Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, Jamie Hill, said events at the arts center are curated very deliberately.

“As a performing arts venue, we have a variety of events—often a different event every day of the week. Patrons have come to depend on finding quality programming at the theatre and look forward to meeting up with friends here,” Hill said.

The Kenworthy film committee chose Trumbo with its patrons in mind—a movie that may not have commercials play during a favorite program, but one that is inherently intellectual and compels the audience to think about the consequences of censorship in their own lives.

“Whenever the Kenworthy shows a film, we want the audience to have a great experience and this film is no exception. Trumbo didn’t get a lot of screen time at ‘big box theaters,’ so we’re hopeful that audiences will be excited to get to see the film on the big screen,” Jamie Hill said.

Despite this relative lack of notoriety, Trumbo was nominated for two Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Drama, acknowledging Bryan Cranston (of “Breaking Bad” and Argo) in the role of Dalton Trumbo, and Best Supporting Actress, Helen Mirren (of RED and The Queen) as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.

To see exactly how Dalton Trumbo’s story unfolds, check out Kenworthy Performing Arts Center this weekend for a star-studded cast and analysis of censorship in Hollywood during the Red Scare, when the fear of communism ruled life more than logic and reason.

The film is a snapshot of fairly recent American History. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, Dalton Trumbo’s daughters Mitzi Trumbo and Niki Trumbo played an active role in the creation of the film. They even attended the premiere in October 2015.

Watch Trumbo at 8 p.m. tonight, 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. tomorrow, and 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center in Moscow. Tickets are $6.