I went to the DeadCenter Film Festival Showing of ‘Oklahoma Breakdown: The Mike Hosty Story’ at Harkin’s Theater on Sunday June 12th, and was totally captivated by the film.

Directed, produced and edited by Christopher Fitzpatrick, you can immediately tell that this film was a labor of love inspired by the talent and passion that Mike Hosty has for his craft and his performances.

Of course, Hosty is a well-loved staple of the Oklahoma music scene, having been a fixture in it for the last couple of decades. But this film takes you deeper into the life and history of the quirky musician.

Any art, no matter the medium, can be judged on how much it can make you feel something; be it joy, sorrow, compassion, empathy or any number of the range of emotions we complicated human beings have. This film made you feel all of that and more, while also giving you an inside look at the life of one man who has made so many people laugh.

Photo taken from Gallery at www.oklahomabreakdown.com

It’s hard to sum up Hosty and what he does, it’s one of those things you just have to experience to truly understand it. Hosty and his one-man band can play multiple instruments at the same time while also singing and putting on a comedy skit simultaneously, no easy feat by any stretch of the imagination. His songs are laced with humor and wit, while also being catchy and fun to dance to. Hosty’s shows are much more than just a live music performance, they are an entire entertainment experience.

I don’t want to give too much of the film away, but it did an excellent job of pacing and storytelling. It begins just telling you who Hosty is, then digs into his background and how he fell into the music scene and the local bands that influenced and helped shape his experience. It brings you deep into his upbringing and how that shaped him and covered the entire length of his career. It showed you his family and his medical crises and how that changed his career for a time. It made me laugh more times than I can count, but it also gave me goosebumps and choked me up a time or two. It held my attention so well in such an interesting and engaging way that I was lost in it and the experience and didn’t notice time or anything else. That’s the true test of art, when you forget anything else exists except for what you are experiencing.

An amusing clip from the Jay Leno show is in there as well, when Jay Leno mispronounces Hosty’s name and doesn’t fully understand the context of an advertisement for a show with a musician playing with himself.

The film also features interviews with lots of well known and loved people in the music scene such as Cody Canada, Tyson Meade of Defenestration and Chainsaw Kittens, Kevin Russell of ShinyRibs, Jason Boland, Stoney LaRue, Erin O’Dowd and even well-known Okie music scene fans such as Ragan Parkerson, Dallas Morris and Hugh Foley. If you have spent much time in the local music scene, there will be lots of familiar faces and venues to see. There’s something a bit magical seeing the scene and people you love and hold dear featured on a big screen in a movie theater.

Oklahoma Breakdown, which took Fitzpatrick 5 years to complete, made its debut at the Phoenix Film Festival in April, as well as being featured in the DeadCenter Film Festival.

There was a Q&A with the director and people in the film after the showing. One of the questions asked was would this film be available to purchase.

“I’ve talked to a few distributors that are interested, but nothing has been set up or signed or anything. That’s what these film festivals are for. This is an early part of the process. But I hope someday to get it out to the masses, because the masses need to know about Mike Hosty. That was the goal when I started out with this, I was like why don’t more people know about this guy? You go see him live and you go, okay, the world needs to know. Because his whole thing is about making people feel good, and who doesn’t want to feel good? Who doesn’t want other people to feel good? That needs to get out there,” said Fitzpatrick.

Hosty of course was on hand to answer questions and make us laugh the whole time he did. He was asked several things, including how he felt about someone asking to do a documentary about him.

“It helped fill up the bar. When there’s someone with a camera walking around people are like ‘What’s going on? This guy’s got a camera, there must be something going on’. I was like. yeah ok, sure. I saw it for the first time in Phoenix, and one of the questions that was asked was ‘What did you think of the film?’ and I said first of all, there were no car chases, there was no karate, there were no lasers, so it was nothing like he told me it would be. Everyone there was dead silent when I said that. Like they were taking notes,” said Hosty, amongst lots of laughter.

Kellie Hosty, Mike’s wife, was also on hand to talk about the film, which was the first time she had gotten to see it.

“I was a little nervous about seeing it. Because Fitz has been coming by, he just pops in, he says hey I’m going to be coming by and talk and hang out. I would give him some old video tapes or something, but up until today I had not seen anything but the trailer. I think it turned out really well,” she said.

Hosty has such an incredible amount of talent that it’s hard to see how he’s not as well-known as he should be outside of our Oklahoma and little regional music bubble, but here he is an Oklahoman treasure and is a part of the fabric that makes our music scene so great. Sometimes it’s actually kind of nice to keep our treasures here, although that also feels a bit selfish.

“Having a gift to be able to do something and give something to somebody, the only skill I have is getting up there and being a goofball and making people laugh and making weird noises and making people smile. For me that’s always been the biggest attraction for me, is to be able to continue to do that. A lot of people are like, gotta get that record deal, gotta get those numbers on Spotify. Oh, you’re not on the BIG stage of Norman Music fest, you’re on the SMALL stage. It’s like a George Carlin skit, you aren’t on the main stage, you are on the side stage. To me, I don’t care what I’m on as long as there are people there. The only reason I have a career is because of all of you coming out to see it, and I’m blessed because I know all your names, I know who you are. I can point out you guys, and I don’t think a lot of people that play music can say they know all their fans. So, I guess there’s an advantage of not being well known,” said Hosty.

Although I can guarantee that’s not the only skill he has, by far.

Mike and Tonya (author) at the film viewing

Bravo to Christopher Fitzpatrick for a wonderful film that I hope will be enjoyed by all someday. While the subject matter obviously helps this film shine, it was definitely Fitzpatrick’s skills, dedication and passion to get this story out that resulted in such a great work of art.

You can find out more information about the film on the website at oklahomabreakdown.com as well as the Facebook page. You can also find out more information about Hosty on his website Hosty.com as well as his FaceBook page.

Oklahoma Breakdown: The Mike Hosty Story - Film Review