Month: May 2025

Remaining Native was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Saturday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film! You can also see my interview with the director, Paige Bethmann, here!

What if you could run away from all of your problems, and never look back in fear? Well for me, personally, I can barely sprint, so running that far seems like the main issue. Cross country running is not my passion.

But it is the passion for Ku Stevens, who at the start of this documentary is a high school student in Nevada, who has made long range running his deal since he was much younger. And basically he was the only one in his school who liked to run at that. And of course, he is a Native American. He stood out in many ways. No one cared about his running, but he was very good at it, and won many a competition, without having many to compete against to really prove himself.

Now Ku has lived in this area for a long time, including many generations of his families. Including his Great Grandfather. Who, like many around that time, were taken from their families and brought to boarding schools just for native kids, where they would be indoctrinated into “American Society” and values. And by that, we also mean abused, beaten, killed, and more if complete assimilation was not met. A tragic place, where many lost their lives, but not Ku’s great grandfather. No, he escaped when he couldn’t take it anymore. And he did it, by running, and hiding, almost 50 miles to get back to his home.

And this documentary is about Ku honoring that legacy, and setting up something called the Remembrance Run. A journey of 50 miles over two days, in the desert summer heat months, to explore his great grandfathers sacrifice, and push himself to his own challenges for his life.

Running doesn’t me escape my problems, but, that’s more because I cannot really run. There are quite a few documentaries lately about these Indian Boarding schools, in the US and Canada, especially due to the discovery years ago of the pit of bodies found outside of one. A mass, unmarked grave, making people couple with this past. I mean, non-natives learned about them in a quick sentence in a class once probably and never again, not knowing the full great and powerful impact. But those families always did, and it is time for the rest of the world to catch up.

I watch every single one of these documentaries I can, and I can say that Remaining Native is the first to tackle the subject in a very specific way. It talks about the tragedies, of course, but also on how to overcome them, how to learn from them, and how to grow from them. It offers a chance of hope. Sure, no one now can really experience and realize how these things were, and know it in their bones, but there are things we can do to make sure these experiences are never repeated, and things we can do to make sure that these forced sacrifices are not completely in vain.

Ku is a kid who was a lot more brave than I was at any point in my life, and wise beyond his years, to set up an event like this. I think he is a great role model, a guy in college right now, still with his whole life in front of him. And Remaining Native is a hard hitting documentary, taking on a hard hitting subject, while keeping it personal at the same time.

3 out of 4.

Fucktoys was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Friday, May 16th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film! You can see my interview with the director, Annapurna Sriram, here!

Trashtown is not the world you know, it is a sort of alternate universe, where the depraved and hidden aspects of society are allowed to flourish and everyone can live the life they want to live. Without getting judged and ridiculed in response. Sex, drugs, and a little rock and role. Prostitution, psychics, fetish life, showing off your body, all of this and more exist in Trashtown.

Which brings us to our hero on a new adventure, AP (Annapurna Sriram), who has felt down in her life. And according to her psychic, she has been CURSED. But it isn’t that big of a deal, a curse can be gotten rid of with a specific ritual, which would just cost her about $1,000. Hey, that’s a good deal to get rid of a curse. So AP, who already is a sex worker, decides to put her work into overtime to get the cash and get rid of the curse ASAP.

Along the way, she gets to meet Danni (Sadie Scott), an old friend, who is back in AP’s life, and they are going to help her get the money for the curse, and AP is going to help Danni get some work in the process.

Also featuring others like François Arnaud, Damian Young, Brandon Flynn, and Big Freedia.

When the drugs finally hit, your experiences may vary.

Fucktoys does a good amount right for what I would describe as a very experimental movie. First, it gives traditionally underused actors and actresses the ability to play roles they may have always wanted to play, but never an outlet to play them. It gives underrepresented groups more screen time, without making their underrepresented qualities their reason for the role. Everyone just plays a person! It is wonderful to see.

The film intentionally gives off a seedy 70’s indie exploitation film vibe, with the film used and the scenery. I honestly couldn’t tell you when it was set, as the technology use was not fore front. Did someone use a cell phone? Probably! I don’t remember. And it didn’t matter too much to the story, so the strange world created can also be independent of any time period. It can just be free love, man.

Despite the very unique vibes, and free spirited nature of the film, it does seem to still lack something else. No character fully stands out to me. Everyone just exists. The plot feels like a loose vehicle to show off the world, and that is it. For the main character it becomes a repeating loop of “let’s do this activity” and then something goes bad, so her attempts to get the $1000 keep faltering. So the story is light, and almost like a TV pilot just to introduce various concepts. I wish the story had some more intensity too it, but at the same time, the light hearted nature of Trashtown was also the point.

2 out of 4.

Drowned Land was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Friday, May 16th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film! You an see my interview with the director, Colleen Thurston, here!

A Civil Action. Dark Waters. Films about lawyers going after corporations who have poisoned the water in communities and refuse to take action to fix it. Films where the little guy has to stand up to Mr. Moneybags, and well, it doesn’t go well. Sure, there is some success, but when compared to the extreme damage done to these communities, it gives a strong Pyrrhic victory vibes behind it.

So, what is the problem can be stopped at its source?

In Drowned Land, we head to Kiamichi River, where many natives in Oklahoma live, after being moved during the Trail of Tears. Not just Native Americans either, plenty of other folk use the valley and the river. But we have, like in those movies, a company who wants to come up and turn it into a hydroelectric dam, flooding parts, affecting the wildlife, and the residents both up and downstream in different amounts.

And this documentary is about the local residents coming together to put a stop to this. They don’t want it to be touched. They want to save it, and so they go to the hearing, with personal narratives, facts, science on their side, to see if they can prevent future tragedy from befalling upon their community.

And its not just about protecting beautiful sights, but hey, its a bonus. You know the beginning of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where Earth apparently didn’t make the hearing to save itself, so it went kabloom? Well, apparently those meetings are useful. Splice with scenes of community members talking about the river, and museum visits and more, we get to see snippets of the two day hearing, where community members brought their voices and expertise to say why the dam should not be built.

And of course, the most surprising part about this, is they were successful.

For now.

Because this was not the first time it was attempted, and won’t be the last time, unless they can get legislature protecting the area forever. Which is the next goal. But holy shit, they won? Even if just a small step towards staying free from this construction, that is such a massive uplifting feeling. I have seen a lot of protest documentaries about constructions on native lands, and trying to stop corporation take over. I feel like the corporation always wins, and we see why everything is corrupt.

If anything, this documentary should be shown just to see that it can be done, it just takes a village working together.

But besides that, I am sad to say, the parts between the hearing just failed to keep my interest as much. I am a political and legal junkie, I would have loved it if the whole thing was just that one aspect myself. The human interest stuff, I get it, but it felt a little bit more like padding than anything else.

2 out of 4.

Four Mothers was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It was the opening night film of the festival, on Thursday, May 15, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film!

How many mothers is the right number of mothers to have? An average number has to be somewhere around 1 I imagine, but people sometimes have fewer, sometime they have more. But rarely do they have four. And thankfully, our lead doesn’t actually have four here either.

Edvard (James McArdle) is a romance novelist for the YA crowd. He is a gay man, and his books feature gay romance, but he thinks his writing is a bit better and more important than simple romance. Right now his book is set to come out in America, and it is getting strong buzz before it comes out. So he wants to really capitulate on the buzz and maybe earn him the success he always felt he deserved.

Unfortunately for Edvard, he also lives with his mother, Alma (Fionnula Flanagan), who doesn’t speak anymore and uses a tablet to speak instead. She is old, she is closed to death, and he is her caretaker. It does mean he has no social life and he is thinking about of leaving her in a home, just to give him some time to find that life success. But he is also a coward and doesn’t think he can do it.

Regardless, he is about to set up a US tour for his book when his two best friends, also gay and also caretaking their moms, decide to ditch their mothers on his door step so they can go to a big pride festival for a few days. And his therapist, older, in the same scenario, drops his mom off too. Oh look. Four moms! So now he has to juggle four older women, with different schedules and temperaments, while he is trying to do something great in his life at the same time. Hooray!

The other mothers are played by Dearbhla Molloy, Stella McCusker, and Paddy Glynn.

They are probably not watching porn here. I think we need more Irish films for sure. Such a small country, with a small population, but they got stories to say too, even if things get a little bit US centric with the plot line. (Damn United States, always butting in other countries stories…).

Anyways, I will say I liked this concept for a story. A struggling author of a niche topic, looking to get big, dealing with underrepresented groups could lead to a lot of things. And this is a caretaker story at the same time, and caretakers, despite being a pretty large group, are often underrepresented in media as well. Or, if they are represented it is usually more of a tragedy drama, than a comedy or uplifting drama. This falls into the latter category. And, because of that, I don’t think it is able to reach the lofty goals it aspires to be.

The stronger emotional moments I feel go away too quickly. For example, the father who is clearly not in the picture, and his story, is brought up and leads to conflict, but only in smaller amounts despite holding a lot of weight. The idea of a temporary home while he invoked on a 2-3 week US tour made a lot of sense, and the drama behind it felt…extra. It was a shame. The film didn’t seen to hint enough to find out why certain decisions were derisive, and I just felt bad for the main character most of the film.

The ending itself is exactly where someone would probably assume this movie landed. You know, knowing it is a comedy/drama instead of a tragedy/drama. So I wasn’t surprised when we arrived at the ending. But unfortunately the journey wasn’t fully worth it either.

All of that to say, I liked most of the main characters, including our main guy. I think the side stories of his life had a lot of heart behind them, and the acting from everyone was still top notch. But pleasant films aren’t always going to be the most exciting films.

2 out of 4.