(Mike Cheslik, 2022, USA, 109 minutes)

The Webster Film Series was the third exhibitor in the nation to book 2024 indie breakout smash Hundreds of Beavers for a regular run. This $150,000-budgeted, self-distributed movie is still going strong years later, now returning to our screen for the third time on its current “Back to School” tour. A party movie of the sort you’re always wanting to see but can very rarely find, the made-in-Wisconsin Hundreds of Beavers feels like if Guy Maddin took a stab at making a family movie and missed the mark a little. Our hero is a 19^th century applejack salesman who falls in love with a local furrier and is made to deliver, yes, hundreds of beavers (played by humans in mascot costumes) so as to impress her overbearing father. The black and white, mostly silent Hundreds of Beavers will remind you of a live-action Looney Tunes, or maybe Tom & Jerry, but with more than a whiff of the great silent comedians (the Chaplin of The Gold Rush and the Keaton of Seven Chances most especially), and/or maybe Scott Pilgrim and Fantastic Mr. Fox.