you know, like Thoreau

I watched this one again last night after many many years, thanks to the new DVD release.

It's a smart movie, especially for a family film. The main character, 13-year-old Sam Gribley, is unabashedly nerdy and into things like conducting algae experiments and reading the works of naturalist Henry David Thoreau. Wise beyond his years and saddled with parents who are too busy with their careers to even take him camping, he decides to run away to live in the mountains for a period of one year as a true naturalist. He vows to live off the land, catching or gathering his own food and making his own clothes using ancient methods of drying and tanning animal hides.

What follows is Sam's perilous adventure in the mountains, where he tries to have as little contact with his fellow humans as possible. When he does have run-ins with people, they are generally bad experiences; but his biggest adversary is nature itself. The harsh elements do a job on the boy, especially when winter comes.

Even though some of the dialogue is corny(like when Sam talks to his animal friends), this movie is way more interesting than any family film made these days. It really isn't a kid's movie at all, at least not by today's standards. Not to be a jerk, but I would guess most kids today are simply too stupid to appreciate a great family film like this one. Although this isn't a Disney film, that company serves as a prime example of how the art of making a good family movie has been lost. They can't even make a good cartoon anymore. These days, they have to "teen" everything up and try to make it "cool" and "hip".

Well, NEWSFLASH, nobody wants to see that shi+. People hate teens. They're annoying and obnoxious, and most the time you want to slap them across the face. They're the most insecure and selfish people in the world, and they think they know everything, which is a dangerous mindset considering they actually know nothing.

I wonder if they even carry the wonderful Newbery medal-winning book My Side of the Mountain in the public school libraries, or if it's been cast aside to make way for the latest craptacular Harry Potter adventure.


GQ