Day: May 16, 2024

The Ride Ahead was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film! You can see my interview with the codirectors, here! 

Documentaries that are slices of life feature can go so many ways. They can be dreadfully boring. They can be insightful. They can make you grow as a person. What happens with them really is more so up to the viewer. The documentary is saying here I am, this is me, take it or leave it. And then the viewer has to take it, or leave it.

Sometimes the slice of life has a greater message like. Hey. Be good to people. Or. Hey. Treat me like a person. Quite reasonable asks.

The Ride Ahead is about Samuel, who at the time of the documentary is 21, and adult, and he doesn’t feel like an adult. People treat him like a child, like someone who needs delicate gloves to handle. Sure, he is confined to a chair. He has cerebral palsy. He has epilepsy. A swallowing disorder. Talking is hard and he needs caretakers to function. But that is his life, and he is just trying to live his best life possible. Just because he has caretakers that are both paid by the state, and his parents, doesn’t mean he is less deserving of having a life, or deserves to be treated like a kid.

People suck, let an adult be an adult. That was my main take away from the documentary.

Reviewing a film about someone interviewing people? Okay, I guess there is a little bit more. One of the main reasons this documentary exists is that Sam, being patronized his entire life, feels like he isn’t sure what it means to really be an adult, especially as someone with his condition. He doesn’t feel like one, not just because of how he is treated. Adults are meant to have relationships, to find love, to have sex, to gain jobs, to live alone, and more.

And so Sam seeks out others who have been in his position before, who seem to have figured things out, and just straight up get their advice. He interviews a ton of people, including Maysoon Zayid, Ali Stroker, Keith Jones, and Judith Heumann, who did pass away last year. Sam doesn’t beat around the edge, he asks hard questions and gets some hard answers. And some awkward questions!

I love how realistic this thing keeps things. Sure there are some celebrities and famous people here, and it is probably hard to book them for documentaries, no matter the project. But they felt welcoming, and helpful to the task.

As a documentary, like I noted at the start, this is a slice of life thing. If you don’t want to see about his life, you won’t like the movie. If you know people like Sam, it might not do anything for you. But for a lot of people, it is a great look at people in our country, whom have difficulties with basic things that there shouldn’t need to be difficulties with. The chair does a lot of work, but it doesn’t help if there is no drivable land around the town or sidewalks. A general search for equity is how many people should want our world to grow and be shaped. And this documentary does a good job of making some great points.

3 out of 4.

We Can Be Heroes was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Tuesday, May 14th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

See, I could go straight into making a reference to the David Bowie song. That is what the movie is referencing, right? Right? But we also had a film just a few years ago come out with the same title. You know, the strange sequel to The Adventures of Lavagirl and Shark Boy? A bout a bunch of kids of heroes, having to save the day because all of their parent heroes get trapped.

And that is sort of what this documentary is about too! But presumably these kids in questions are just the offspring of regular normal people. Maybe nerds! Maybe not. (Probably nerds). And these kids, these outcasts, if you will (I wouldn’t that is mean), meet up at a camp in the state of New York over the summer, where they get to create characters that they would rather be, with their own rich backstory, costumes and moves. And work together to tell an overall giant story, where they are able to live action role play together. That is right. LARPing. This is a documentary about a LARPing camp for kids.

There are quite a few kids in this documentary that get to have a small focus on them, but really our focus is on three kids in particular. We have Cloud, who loves to sword fight and is excited for her first time to go to this camp, even though she is on the younger end of the age range. She wants to fight, make a name for herself, try out the dark side, and make sure she leaves her impact on the camp.

We have Dexter, who is every stereotype notable for a kid who might go to this camp, including a slower droll and neurodivergence, but who has a strong fantasy mindset. He also is afraid of getting ticks on him, and is hoping on his return to camp his crush from the previous year returns, so he might even get to exchange numbers with her.

And finally we have Abby who is on her final year at camp. She is about to age out, and go to college, and is excited about doing something special. Another thing that has happened to her recently is she was diagnosed with a disease (I forgot which one), and she has a feeding tube that she has to carry around with her and a backpack, almost all the time. And she has the fear of real actual death, and almost couldn’t go to camp, but they found a way to make it work.

These three, along with many others who are going to discover they have bigger talents than they once knew, with oration, creativity, and finding harmony with other kids.

The kid with the horns is really holding this whole thing together.

I want to go to a LARPing camp. I imagine anyone reading this wants to go to a LARPing camp. That sounds great. Is there an adult one, or do I just need to help organize LARPing events in my community. I hate organizing…

Anyways, this documentary is of course a documentary, but they also go out of their way to tell the fictional story that is created by these kids. The camera changes aspect ratio, gets very crisp, when all of the kids are in character running around. And you get to live their experience with them. It makes what they are doing seem very badass. Probably significantly more badass than it was in reality. And it was a cool nifty feature they added to the story, to make it a more fun experience.

For our three kids, I was immediately annoyed with Cloud (although my kids liked her), and did feel justified in that way based on events of the documentary, although all of them would be defended. That is *fine*. Dexter was especially nerdy and awkward, and I am glad that the documentary didn’t show his crush at all or try to shame her in anyway for not being swept off her feet over his awkwardness.

The real stars of the documentary was of course, Abby, and also secondly another girl(I think it was Miranda, who wanted to just be a princess for once). What can we say. Uplifting people with strong personalities make documentaries good. In fact, what I think this documentary really needed the most was just a stronger focus on MORE of the people at the camp. For a few people, we returned to them a few times throughout to see where they grew and what happened for them, but it was just snippets. We could have easily fit 4-6 stars in this documentary, and lessened the main three a tad bit, to give us a bigger range of kids.

Overall, hooray for LARP camps, and a documentary that decided to showcase them in a totally on point and creative way.

3 out of 4.