REEL Paddling Film Festival - Rock the Boat

    

    Last weekend, I went to check out one (of three) days of the REEL paddling film festival at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo.  It is a mix of different themed paddling films, the ones that won the competition, and many films are shortened for the film festival, some in a manner that made sense, others just looks like chunks had been taken out of the film haphazardly.  In any case, it is an enjoyable mix of different styles, contexts and themes to see.  In Waterloo, they spread the films out over three days, and i only wanted to attend one of the days so I only saw a potion of the films, but the ones that were there were quite good.  

     Out of the ones featured on the Saturday, I think Rock the Boat was one of my favorites.  It is about an environmentalist's journey down the L.A. river (you know that huge cement ditch that is featured in many movies, like Grease, Jackass, and Terminator?  In any case, the group's goal was to reclaim access to the LA River for the surrounding inhabitants to be able to use it as a recreational space instead of having it prohibited and on lockdown by the US Army Corps of Engineering.  It's a 53 mile long paddling trip and spoiler alert, they do succeed in changing the status of the river for people to be able to use it more freely in the end, this all happened several years ago.