"The best outdoor film I've seen in a while"
Monday, November 22, 2010 at 12:04AM 
Kelly Cordes, Patagonia Alpine Climbing Ambassador and Senior Editor at the American Alpine Club, just caught Eastern Rises at the opening night of the Adventure Film Festival in Boulder.
It’s about fly fishing. Huh? I’ve never fly fished and, honestly, I never really “got it.” I know there must be something there, though, because even if it makes as much sense to me as drinking margaritas in Russia, people love it, obsess over it like I do with climbing, and friends do with skiing and surfing. Tons of people at Patagonia go nuts for it. Cool. But still, I didn’t really understand the allure. Until last night. [Photo: Felt Soul Media]
The rest of Kelly's review with bonus Marg recipe.
Some pretty serious props from a guy who does this for a living.
I forwarded the Cordes link on to Travis and Ben at Felt Soul and Travis replied saying he had gotten a similar response from one of The North Face climbing ambassadors. When a film can inspire a couple of non-angling uber outdoor athletes to publicly talk about how they never thought fishing could be cool, the industry might want to sit up and take notice. Maybe that Outdoor Retailer strategy some of us were pushing wasn't such a bad idea after all? Instead of patting ourselves on the back for stuffing Oprah and her friend Gayle into a pair of "wading jeans", what we should be doing is coming up with a media strategy to put the soul of our sport in front of outdoor enthusisats who never considered that fishing could be cool.
To quote another another non angling friend who is well connected in the adventure biz:
Watched the film over the weekend – loved it. I always find it interesting to see how the genetic coding of the adventure seeking soul is the same from sport to sport and passion to passion. The girl riding spines outside of Valdez, the guy picking the plumb line off of a peak in the Karakorum, or the fella hooking a 20lb rainbow in the end of the world are all pretty much feeding the same beast through different means.
Reader Comments (5)
AMEN to that!
It's got some good stuff but I wish these guys' movie were longer. I'm glad it was longer than 17 minutes this time but still feel like I'm getting ripped off. The only thing more absurd than paying $1 per minute for this movie was paying $2 per minute for Running Down the Man. Truth.
But climbers are hippy goobers. We don't want them in waders. Cause then there would be more goobers in our rivers. Great movie, mad props to felt soul, you nailed it. But seriously, I have some climber, skiier, 'extreme outdoors' hippy goober friends who have taken up FFing. The result is not cool.
Kelly nailed it. As a climber and a flyfisherman, what attracted me to this movie is how it plumbs the soul of the sport and the participants. I've watched it 5 times now (I was on the jury for the BAFF) and it keeps getting better. To the whiner above who wanted more minutes, just watch it again. It gets better. The disciplined editing, excellent soundtrack, self-deprecating attitude of the fisherman and narrator and the primo storytelling make the movie a classic.
If it's got choppers, it's gotta be good!