Film Reviews
Well the night came of the showing of Brandon Cahoon’s film debut, “Parade.”. I’ve talked about the movie for months and even years as I’ve heard about the writing, developing, production, filming, post-production, and film festival submissions. I’m excited to have had the opportunity to travel up to Washougal, WA to see this film. I was able to travel up with Brandon and we had a great Parade-like adventure. We laughed so hard we about wrecked our vehicle. We did take several wrong turns as we traveled through the central part of Oregon. We ran out of gas between Vale, OR and Burns, OR. How? We planned poorly for that leg of our journey. Thanks to State Farm coming to our aid and a wonderful family that drove me to Burns so I could get cell service to call State Farm. As part of our coverage the insurance was able to send out a serviceman to bring us gas.

We made it to Roseburg to pick up Marlene to take her to the screening of the film. My father-in-law wasn’t feeling well so Mar stayed back with the kids. Well we left and cruised up thru Portland to Washougal, WA.

We went to a couple of film segments prior to Brandon’s film playing at 10pm PST. Thursday night. The first night of the festival was a little slow for most films. We met up with Brandon’s parents Kevin and Jeri Cahoon. We had a good time watching the films and going to dinner. We went to a mexican joint in town. I enjoyed my enchilada, taco, and tostada combo. It was way too much food and I was thinking it was a small meal. I enjoyed it.

Film Review: 24 Frames
The first film we saw was a claymation short “24 Frames” about an ill-fated film crew in which most of the crew dies. It was funny but a little crude. I’d give it a 2 of 4 stars.

Film Review: Change
This second film was a feature length documentary. It was intriguing for a couple of reasons. It was informative about cancer but not in a boring, classroom or American Medical Association type film about cancer. He interviewed many individuals and went with them to appointments etc. It was personal; his mom was diagnosed with lung/breast cancer during the making of the documentary.

Some thoughts I wrote while watching the documentary.

What is cancer? He discussed several types of physical and emotional cancers in our lives and world.

This film did a nice job discussing the role of cancer and the potential benefit of proper diagnosis and prevention or early prevention.

I have had some emotional response because of dad’s death earlier this year to the film. I would like to be prepared to deal with cancer and possible prevention when it comes in to my own life.

Film Review: Parade
As the last film on opening night and our hopes and anxieties about the first screening of the film mounted, we arrived about an hour early and talked a little while in the parking lot. We then went in to use the restroom, etc and prepare for the start of the film. There were some 5 different screening rooms playing at movies one time. All the previous films we watched were in another part of town, near the downtown. Parade was played at the high school auditorium; by far the best location for this film festival. It could have seated 400 and had a nice projector and screen.

We were early so we watched part of the film that was just ending “Ex Morte.” It was a bizarre, fairly lame, low-production zombie flick. The audience seemed to like it and we hoped that some of the audience would remain to watch Parade with us. The director of that film was from Washougal area and had lots of supporters.

A handful of us, the group of supporters sat in the middle, the best seats in the house. We then proceeded to watch 2 short films in preparation for Parade to begin. The first was a little sad about unplanned pregnancy and the reaction of a girls father when he finds out she is pregnant. She had wanted to feel loved and accepted by her father but he had been cold and uninvolved with her prior as a parent. He was a busy politician and worried more about his success than her.

In the end, dad was pushing her to get an abortion done. Although the film was 14 or 15 minutes, I think the point was made prior in this short flick.

I do believe in woman’s rights and also parental rights but I believe strongly that every child has the opportunity to live, breath, and experience life. I believe that they are a child even before birth. I also feel that we need to provide the best home for these babies and kids. Thus, even if they decide not to keep the baby for themselves, there are options like LDS Family Services that help young, loving families adopt children just in this situation. The film Juno is an excellent example for adoption to happen for a birth mother to find the right person(s) to adopt these little precious babies. We just had some wonderful family friends receive a little baby in their lives through adoption. It is a beautiful story.

The second was a funny comedy short about a young man’s first job interview. It cursed excessively, but it was funny the main woman and man in as they interviewed fought like a conflictual married couple. It turns out they were in a relationship (marital status unknown) and they were experiencing some relationship difficulty. It was a funny comedy about love relationships within an office setting.

A third film was supposed to show but it was skipped for whatever reason.

Therefore, the feature-length film Parade began. The movie was indeed the portrayal of young adolescence in Millard County, Utah. We were young kids during this time of our lives. Anyway the cinematography and camera work were beautiful and well-done. The production of the film was beautiful; the scenes led one to another as a fast sequence of events played out in the lives of about 5 or 6 youth from Millard County. The film depicted primarily the author/director’s perspective of the events that occurred during our senior year of high school in 1996. The main characters of the film Dean Barrett (pseudo-name for the director Brandon Cahoon) and Nate Moore are the central figures of the film with the likes of Matt Pruitt, Brett Morris, Cody Rasch, and Phil Scoville as well. Additional characters were also involved in the film but had more tangential roles in the movies like Esther Scott and Megan Bettis.

This was a beautiful artistic piece of work trying to come out and show the world the beauty that lies within an adolescents soul as it struggles with the internal dilemmas they face during that at-times difficult time of life. I am grateful for the opportunity to see the director open up his heart and memories to the world through this film. The explicit character development was at times difficult to understand because the dialogue and story line were at times sporadic and contextualized in the memory of the author. Implicitly I knew many of the characters because I lived through this period of life with the director. I believe the author was trying to stay true to the actual occurrence of the story and not taking too much license to change it; but at times for a feature film the character development would help the audience and viewer to understand the many wonderful stories and historical treasure that this film is for the cities of Delta, Lynndyl, and Leamington, UT.

The soundtrack was amazing from Spoon, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, Toad the Wet Sprocket and many more. It helped the film flow, but at times felt as though I was wanting to hear dialogue and conversation that lead from scene to scene so that I could know how these characters grew and progressed throughout the film

This film is a story of adolescent love, unity, friendship, loyalty, wanting and adventure. I was happy to see this excellent filmmakers debut into the feature film genre. This is artistic and the casual viewer may have a hard time following the storyline. I saw his short film ‘fits’ back in 2004 and also felt compelled to want dialogue but then as I was able to think more about the film I could see his artistic attempt to have the viewer develop his/her own thoughts and perceptions of the film.

I give this film a 3 of 4 stars.

Check out the Washougal International Film Festival Official 2008 Film Selections and Official 2008 Schedule for more details on Parade and the selections debuting at the first year of this festival.